Juno's birthday and Jekyll & Hyde outings for Kaline

Juno's (made-up) sixth birthday was on Dec. 26, so of course she got the traditional bagel-burger. I started that with Angel, my first dog, who also had a made-up birthday. Fry up a ground beef patty, put it on a bagel, then hang on while she goes to town! I also gave her tons of little goodies throughout the day—Gouda cheese, bagel & cream cheese, pieces of sugar cookies, extra bait, etc.

Here we have a ground beef patty on a pumpkin bagel, mmmmmm.

Yes, best dog in the world, this is for you.

OM NOM NOM.

Kaline then had two different outings. One went awfully, and the other was fantastic.

We got invited with Sonja and Chief to go to Hidden Villa, a dog-friendly farm where we'd never been. Since it was dog-friendly and Mom didn't seem real thrilled to be on Juno duty for the afternoon, I decided to take Juno with Kaline. First mistake. Second mistake, taking Juno on her martingale instead of her prong.

If Kaline had been by himself, he would probably have done at least a little better. As it was, he pulled constantly against his Halti, so much that my hands were burning the whole rest of the night and he rubbed the fur down on part of his nose. Sonja, saint that she is, took Juno because I couldn't, it turned out, handle both her and Kaline around the very interesting creatures (sheep, goats, kitties, fake horses). Chief got to roam about dragging his leash most of the time. Juno took Sonja seriously about being on vacation now that I wasn't holding her leash. Kaline was just frustrating as hell.

Meeting the Hidden Villa sheeps. Not a typo, I like saying sheeps.

The one really good thing he got the hang of was going up to see something interesting, like a sheep, and then turning away from it when I asked him. It was hard for him at first, understandably, but by the end he would come away pretty easily.

So yeah, mostly that one sucked. Kaline and I were not very team-like.

Then yesterday we went with Sonja and Chief (and not Juno) to IKEA. And both boys were freaking awesome. I did this a lot:

Because Kay had rubbed his nose, we switched back to the prong. Even if it has rubbed his neck hair some, and at points given him bumps, no training collar irritates him less or is more effective. So I guess we're back on the prong. Some lady in IKEA was apparently talking bad about Kaline's prong (in German). Whatever. It works, and Kaline's happy in it. I'm done, for at least a while, messing with his equipment. The little rubbed spot on his nose is driving me all kinds of crazy. Poor baby.

Anyhow. We did a ton of distraction work with Chief and Kaline and had ourselves a fantastic time. Hendrik also came along and I was incredibly impressed with his ability to entertain himself while Sonja and I worked with the dogs.

Right as we entered, there was this big bin of stuffie footballs. We tossed them around the boys, toward the boys, then piled them around the boys' feet and had them do stays among the balls. We also dumped in a big stuffed seal. It was precious.

Sit stay.

Kaline wonders why he didn't get to settle ...

Down stay.

Next, we put the boys in down-stays across an aisle from us and let all the crowds walk between us and the boys. No one would actually walk between Kaline and Chief, but Sonja got Hendrik to do it. Kaline popped up the second time Hendrik stepped over him, so I went out to reinforce his stay with people stepping over him.

Kaline and Chief during a lull.

We chilled on a couch and the boys got to schmooze a little bit.

We haven't been able to get the videos to load yet, but both Kaline and Chief got to work on open and close in one of the model kitchens. It took a little bit for Kaline to realize I wanted him to use Chief's leash as a tug, but once he got it he was pretty good. Chief was freaking adorable, I love how he has to put his whole body into opening a cabinet. He would open the cabinet, find a teddy bear and then bring that to Sonja. Kaline just did open-wait-close. The wait is important, cause if you don't tell him, he will open the door and immediately slam it shut!

We did recalls through a busy area.

Kaline got to practice a little bit on his new "legs" task.

When we found the cheap clearance toy bins, we did more distraction work. We waved toys around, then had the boys walk through a labyrinth of toys, then do recalls through it. We even did retrieving exercises.

And then we made the boys wear silly hats.

 

By then they were both pretty tired, so we took a break in the food court.

 

On the way out, tired Chief got to be carried sometimes, which was insanely cute. That's not an option for Kaline, who now weighs in at 65 pounds, so he got to practice his blocking again. When he blocked at the food court, Sonja even nudged him a little with her knee and he didn't move out of position. Yay! We have to do that more, now that he's pretty solid.

Melt.

You are a good boy.

Service dog training, luckily, can be like baseball instead of American football. If you have a bad day, you can just get right back out there and (hopefully) erase that memory with a better day. I'd much rather do that than stew for a week over a bad outing!