Muir Woods

Oh, we had a fun weekend. Saturday was class and such; I ended up getting to work mostly Kaline but Juno for a little while. Kaline was really good except for whining during Circle of Chaos recalls. His heeling was really nice, and he did well on the meet and greets. He was awesome for the supervised separation, couldn't have cared less that I left. After class, Dad stayed with Kay while he romped with Lupo, and I took Juno off to the side and let her have fun bumpers. She's so damn cute.

Later in the day, Kaline and I did clicker training, trying to work on basics of starting the retrieve (yep, that again), opening cabinets, and rear-end awareness. I tried filling a tiny treat bag with treats to help Kaline with the whole getting-something-I-point-at. He went to it all right—and promptly plumped down to try and open it! Oh puppy. So we worked on hold and out, which went really well. He's doing hold with only gentle stroking fingers under his jaw, no hand on the back of his head. And as soon as you say out, he lets go and backs away from the object (in this case his tennis ball dumbbell, since Juno's obedience dumbbell is MIA).

We made some progress on open. It took forever to teach Juno this task, so I anticipate a similar quest with Kaline. About halfway through, I finally came up with the brilliant idea of not having the door clicked shut, but technically open, so I could reward Kaline for any pull that made the door move. Of course, we just started with rewarding for mouthing the tug, then tugging it enough to get it off my hand, and then tugging enough to make the door move, however slightly. That's about as far as we've gotten, haha.

Last we did rear-end awareness, which, like Juno, Kaline really seems to enjoy. Well, at least he likes the part where he gets treats for putting his front paws up on the stool. He's still at the point where I'm rewarding for each single step of his back feet to either side. Also where he falls off the stool a lot, because he's puppy clumsy! It's freaking adorable when he falls off and then rushes to get his front paws up again, looking expectantly for his treat.

This training took at most thirty minutes, with breaks included ... Kaline passed out for the rest of the evening. It was glorious.

Dead to the world.

Dad found out that there were no fees to go to Muir Woods on Sunday (Armistice Day), so we planned to do that. I still ended up going to the Farmer's Market with Kaline. He did really well, meeting four people dressed up as mice (with scary mice heads) and realizing they weren't going to eat him, and calmly not reacting to an enormous dog who charged us out of nowhere. Yes, the market is technically a no-pets area. I smacked the dog's face away from Kaline's—once my SD is getting charged, I don't mess around with being nice. Then I grabbed his collar and yelled, "Does this dog belong to someone?" After what seemed like forever, someone came to fetch him. Gaaah.

Kaline was unfazed, even if I was having figurative heart palpitations. He did absolutely rock-solid blocking for me at every stall. I still have to show him where to be, which I expect to have to do for many, many more months, but once he is in place, he stays there, sometimes leaning a little bit into the backs of my legs. Such a good boy.

In the afternoon, we headed to the woods. The woods are also a no-pet area, so both dogs needed to be on duty. My aunt, who lives up in Marin near(ish) the woods, told us there was horrific traffic, no parking, etc. We went anyhow, of course, and though at points the traffic was bad, it never stayed bad, and right as we pulled into the parking lot, someone else pulled out! It was very good luck.

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.

Kaline began shivering the instant he jumped out of the car, so into the Cozy Horse coat he went. Juno wore her big harness-vest and did most excellent momentum pulling all through the forest. She had a ton of distractions to ignore, clusters of people, screaming, running kids, strollers, not to mention all the fascinating smells of the beautiful forest. She was a star.

Juno, for pulling, went on my left, so Kaline walked on my right. He really didn't seem to mind walking over there, even though he basically never does it. He did a pretty good job ignoring all the kids too (he has a lot more trouble resisting them), but did have some totally understandable trouble resisting smelling all the forest stuff. With a dog on either side, I felt like I was in my own little parade or had really adorable bodyguards. We definitely got some looks, but mostly had no issues. I was surprised we didn't get any problem at the gate, with two dogs and Kaline "dressed" the way he was. It was a very pleasant surprise. And thanks to Juno, when I came out of the woods, I wasn't worn out and I wasn't in a ton of pain.

Me and the pups!

Between two trees.

Looking up between those two trees.

Tamalpais Valley on the way home.

I attempted to get cute pictures of the dogs with paws up on the rail of a bridge. Juno apparently decided she needed to be an overachiever. Instead of doing paws-up, which is a command she knows, she put her paws up and then attempted to vault over the freaking rail and into the creek! I practically died (thankfully she was on a very short leash and her little vault got aborted real fast). Kaline is basically Juno's size now (seven pounds to go!) but he acts shorter, so when he did paws up he didn't try to do ... more. Yeesh, Junebug!

The one picture I got of Juno, before she decided "paws up" meant "please jump over this railing."

Kaline, my little ham.

Oooh, water!

After our "hike" we went to meet my aunt and cousin for a bite to eat. Normally I don't really like working both dogs in a restaurant, but I didn't really have a choice. We went to California Pizza Kitchen and once Kaline settled, everything went incredibly well. They both passed out, hurrah, except for a couple times when Kaline decided that my anxiety levels were getting a little high and did a lap-up. He's very proactive about lap-ups, which I quite like.

In less lovely news, Kaline had to go to the vet today. For the past week-plus, about every other day, in the wee hours of the morning, I wake up to Kaline making awful vomiting noises. Then all that comes out is a white foam. I know, I know, TMI. Anyway, Saturday night he barfed up his whole dinner plus a squeaker. We have no clue where he got it, because he is no longer allowed stuffies of any kind, and the one we keep in Mom's room for Juno is in mint condition. Then he vomited that foam again this morning, so I took him in in the afternoon.

I was really proud of how calm and quiet he was during Dr. Harish's exam. Dr. Harish was looking in his eyes, ears and mouth, prodding and poking his belly, etc. I wasn't holding Kaline at all and he just stood there and took it. Apparently he was not as good when he had to go off with a tech for an X-ray, but that's cause they had to hold him on his back. Thankfully, all the X-ray showed in his innards was food. So the current theory is the squeaker was in there for a while, irritating his stomach and causing the nothing-vomiting. Hopefully we're done with that for now!