Thanksgiving etc.

Happy belated Thanksgiving! Guess it's pretty obvious what I'm thankful for: my amazing pups!

Juno helps with Thanksgiving prep by pre-washing the sweet potato bowl.

Kaline models one of Angel's many coats. I never realized just how many coats we had for her. She'd get so cold in the winter that her teeth would chatter inside the house.

Juno came along to Thanksgiving while Kaline stayed home. She was very good and quite sneaky (in an amusing way). Last year I vested her so she'd go into serious-work-mode, but this year she actually got an invitation, so I didn't. Thus, she was a little more ... lax ... about manners.

Juno supervises dinner prep. A task she is never lax about!

During dinner, I sat across from my mom, who is always Juno's target. She (Mom) is a total softie and all Juno really has to do is look at her sadly and the food starts flowing. I put Juno in a down-stay next to my chair. She'd been there about 10 minutes without moving, so I pretty much stopped paying attention. Well, just before everyone was done eating, Mom was answering some question I'd asked when she suddenly just stopped talking. I figured she'd gotten the hiccups. Nope, my Junebug had stealthily and ever so slowly crawled beneath the table and had finally reached the promised land: Mom's lap. Just plopped her head right there. Everyone laughed.

Juno all smiles after getting a ton of leftover turkey.

Kaline has been working hard on refining his fridge skills. I'm trying to get him to grab the tug on the knot or the rope, but he insists on only grabbing the stringy end in his mouth and using that to get the door open. Whatever floats your boat, little man.

He also did a fun little outing with me and Mom to Stanford Shopping Center. We worked on off-leash down-stays all over Macy's, which he did really well at, hurrah! He whined when he got bored standing around though, and also when we did some "under" practice. At the end we went to dinner at Amici's and he settled after about five minutes and just went to sleep, nicely curled up under the table.

Off-leash down-stay at Macy's.

Whinging away while practicing "under."

Being a good boy at Amici's.

Today of course was our usual Saturday class. Before and after class, I worked with Kaline on "take it" which we started on a couple days ago. He doesn't hold whatever object it is for any great length of time, but we have progressed to me changing where I hold the object out, and having him reach for it. He was almost taking it from ground level after class. Freddie loaned me an adorably teeny obedience dumbbell (cause Juno's is MIA) for Kaline to practice with. We've also practiced with his indestructible blue bone.

The pups sunbathing after class at Borrone's ... I was evil and blocked Juno's sun for the photo. Oops!

OH. Speaking of indestructible. My puppy freaking destroys toys. With shocking speed. He hasn't been allowed squeakies/stuffies of any sort for quite a while. A few weeks ago, he chewed chunks off his tire & rope toy he's had since babyhood, so that had to get chucked. Recently he mangled his baby rope & plastic toy—I chalked that up to the toy being designed for baby pups with baby teeth. No "tuff" toys have survived him, because he knows that the seams are the weak points and shreds the black trimming.

So I bought him a fire hose toy. He was very excited to have it. Fifteen minutes later, he had gnawed off the corner so I had to take it away.

Just enough to put the new toy out of commission.

Then I got him a new, bigger, tougher version of the tire & rope toy, only the tire part was a solid bone shaped piece instead of a ring. He actually helped pick it out at the store. Fifteen minutes after I gave it to him, he was gleefully masticating a chunk of rubber that I had to pry out of his mouth. He's down to a Bento ball that he has an on-off affection for, regardless of whether a cookie is in it, his blue rubbery bone, his antler, and a Nylabone I can't find. Juno is still grumpy that all her stuffies are hidden away for safety. (Except her spider, which lives closed off in Mom's room.) Kaline doesn't understand why his new toys disappear so quickly.

Kaline stares at me across Mom: "PLEASE give me back my fire hose toy!"

If only I could get him to really like Nylabones! You'd think they'd be perfect for him, a powerful chewer, but he will hardly ever choose to work on one. If you hold it for him, he'll humor you. I may get him a new one, simply because nothing else is surviving. I wonder if the stores will take back the not-so-freaking-tough toys he's destroyed ... Poor Kay. He loves soft toys that he can really squash in his mouth, but he just pulverizes them!

Latest "news"

Well, we've had our first bit of rain the past few days, and thankfully, Kaline does not seem to be fazed by it. He heard his first thunder the other night—he boofed once, as if to say, "Go away!" and then decided he didn't really care anymore. Juno doesn't care either. Yay. Their predecessor, Angel, would attempt to dig through the floor to China whenever it thundered, or if fireworks were set off anywhere in the county.

Since the game, we've had a quiet week, just walks and training as usual. Kaline's gotten in a lot of leave it work—showed up a Golden Achiever a little bit at the park. It must be noted that the Golden Achiever hasn't had nearly as much practice, though.

Dad and I took the pups to the Tony LaRussa event at Kepler's, which was pretty fun. Juno was off-duty, Kaline was on-duty, as you can see from the picture. Kaline did well, although he started to lose it toward the end. He'd been working on holding a quiet down-stay for a really long time (for him), so it was understandable that he got restless. He whined a little; also tried to snuggle up to Juno, who objected a little loudly. "Is there a dog here?" asked Mr. LaRussa, sounding a little eager—he has an excellent organization, Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF). "Two!" I replied. Eventually I took Kaline in the back of the crowd and let him stretch his legs a bit. There were three pet dogs there as well (Kepler's is extremely and delightfully pet-friendly) so Kaline was definitely a bit distracted. He had a good time though, and was a good boy.

Because of the cold, we've been doing even more snuggling than normal. Can't complain about that! Today, Juno was on my chest and Kaline was between my feet, a nice little reversal of the usual order of things. Juno is still pissed off if Kaline "screws around" in the kitchen/family room (I have mocking quotes because her definition of screwing around encompasses such innocent acts as walking near her, or sniffing in a way she deems inappropriate, or touching her ever). However, whenever I unleash them from a walk, she'll wait for him at the top of the stairs and pounce, then gambol off invitingly so he'll come wrestle with her. The couches are all out of whack down there because they will bodyslam each other into them. Kaline always ends up with his ears and neck covered in Juno slobber, haha.

They do well in the car together when it's just them. Kaline is still having issues being settled when friends jump into the car. Friends who are not Max, that is; my beloved puppy wrangler enforces order most effectively. Today I found them snuggling adorably.

Isn't Kaline's Hallowe'en sweater cute?

I guess there's not too much news lately. Funk seems to have lifted, at least, and we've got a couple fun things planned for the weekend. Juno gets to see her bestest friend in the whole world, my former coworker Alex, tomorrow. Should be hilarious. Maybe I'll take video!

Randoms

We're having a more lazy day ... not a ton going on. So here's some random stuff.

Kaline's fur on the front of his neck is really thin, like Angel's was. (Juno has a very furry neck.) I'm fairly sure it's not from his prong collar, because it was like that when he hadn't been introduced to it. I think it's mostly from the flat collar, which I'm trying not to put on him except for walks. Nonetheless, he's got a couple little bumps there now and I'm a little concerned.

So today I dug out my old Infinity head collar I got for Juno (she hated it, so we stopped) and tried it on Kaline, just to have a backup/alternative. He got pretty used to it pretty fast. He pawed at it a bit but not obsessively, and had no problem walking with me or doing basic obedience practice with it on. I may try using that on walks now ... but that still doesn't solve the problem of the flat collar, which you kinda have to have on with the head collar as a safety measure. Argh. Vet appointment in about a week and a half, so we'll see how it's going then.

Mom's rule about no dogs on the furniture has now been pretty much demolished. See, when we got Juno, everyone had rule changes they wanted implemented. My changes were: Unless the dog is sick, she gets only dry kibble (Angel got so picky that for the last few years of her life, Mom basically cooked for her and hand-fed her) and no feeding dogs from the table. Mom started feeding Juno from the table within a week. Now she begs like crazy (from Mom, not really from me or Dad). Mom's rule was no dogs on the furniture, which I mostly respected unless I needed Juno on the couch for deep pressure tasks.

Pwecious.

Well, Kaline is not into the whole "You may only get on the couch if invited" business. He just jumps up, over and over, no matter how many times you push him off. The thing is, if you let him stay up there, instead of running around the family room making a huge pest of himself, Kaline will just curl up and go to sleep. Mom seems quite willing to trade the couches for extra quiet time.

I never liked keeping dogs off the couches anyway. It's much easier to snuggle them when they're up here!

Operation Peace and Quiet is going fairly well. In total, Juno ended up with about 7 timeouts last night, Kaline 3. And overall we had far less barking. It also helps that Kaline just got a new pressed rawhide bone and is very enthused about it, when he's allowed to chew on it.

We tired him out pretty well with two five-packs this morning (Teddy, Wilson and Gracie, then Jett, Max and Xena). Our stint with Wilson finishes up on Friday, which will kind of be a relief. He and Kaline are not, shall we say, calming influences on each other. Kaline does much better when he's the only newbie in the pack, and the same goes for Wilson. Once Kaline's older I think he'll be a good influence though!

Odd little behavior starting, that I am planning to nip in the bud: Kaline sees other dogs coming when we're out at night, and gives a little rumble. Oh hell no.

And isn't this crazy?

On June 23 ...

Yesterday!

Saturday Obedience Class No. 2

Kaline did a lot better this week, I thought! Enough better that I could glance over and see what Juno and Dad were doing sometimes (but we, um, won't talk about that). It was kind of funny—Juno, when I first got her at 18 months old, could only handle 45 minutes of the hour-long obedience class. Today, when Kaline all of a sudden started losing focus and being like, “Oh, treats ... maybe later,” I checked my phone, and what do you know? It was 10:45.

But yeah, he largely was good. We started off with heeling, as usual. Kaline kept up nicely, and mostly stayed with me on turns. Freddie had everyone come through the middle of the circle multiple times, which Kaline had never done. It can be difficult, because you have all 10-15 dogs going through at the same time from different directions, so you not only have to keep your dog's attention with intensified distraction, you have to make sure he modifies his pace to stay with you, so you don't crash into anyone. Kaline did quite well. He air-scented, definitely, which is a no-no, but at this point I'm not all that freaked out about it. (With Junebug back in the day, you saw air-scenting, and two seconds later you'd have stink eye and probably some ugly growling.)

We also worked on the moving down, and again Kaline did fine. He was a tad rough at times, but I've never asked him to down suddenly by my side while we were walking. By rough, I mean he was slow to get all the way down; but as soon as I stopped and gave the cue, he stopped and started to fold himself. So yay.

Kaline did freaking awesome on remote sits and downs. Most of the time, I only have to give the cue—no stepping into him. And he didn't creep forward either! Wheeeeee, I always feel so accomplished on remote sits and downs. Not so accomplished when we're heeling and we halt and Kaline wanders around for a while and then sits way out and cockeyed.

We did individual recalls, and Kaline did all right. At this point, he'll give you three recalls or so, and then he's pretty much done. He didn't break at all when the other dogs were racing to their owners (or when his sister broke to run to Dad like five times). Of course, I didn't back too far away from him. Just trying to set the puppy up to succeed! Gotta know what he's capable of doing right now, and what is just too much to expect.

We did three meet-and-greets, and by the third one Kaline was able to stay in his sit while he was patted and given a treat by our partner. On the third one as well, we had to leave our dogs in down-stays and move around them—harder because the dogs were inches from each other and basically face-to-face.

Kaline was paired up with Max the beagle, and Kaline currently has a thing for beagles (they're about his size), so that was a challenge for him. And after the stay exercise, I had to leave him with my partner and go out of sight for three minutes or so. Thank goodness, Kaline has absolutely no problem with this. When Juno and I went for her CGC, the time when I had to leave her and go out of sight was the longest couple of minutes of my life! That was the one exercise where I thought she might fail (she didn't).

When I came back, my partner left, so I had to keep Kaline and Max both in their downs, which was definitely hard at first! They were like Whack-A-Moles, whenever one would go down, the other one would pop up. (Obviously there was no whacking.)

We went for a little snack at Paris Baguette in downtown Palo Alto after class. Kaline had some trouble holding his down by the table at the beginning, but eventually he settled down. I think once he has his own travel mat he'll do better. He reminds me so much of Angel! We couldn't figure out for the longest time why she'd never down outside, no matter how much we worked on it. Then the instructor told us to bring a towel for her to lie on, and voila! Successful downs all over the place. Gotta appease the Dobie comfort-seeking genes.

After napping in the afternoon, Juno and I did another double feature at the Stanford Theatre (Meet Me In St. Louis and The Secret Garden). We had a lovely time. Junebug unfortunately got some popcorn spilled on her at the concessions stand, but she didn't try to eat any of it, my fabulous girl.

At home, I was eating dinner on the couch, which Kaline has never seen. He was in full pest mode. Nose next to my plate, demand barking, etc. I just kept correcting him and then putting him into a down, and eventually he settled and lay down very nicely by my feet, not even looking at my plate. For this he was handsomely rewarded with random kibbles. Maybe I should eat on the couch more often.

Clicker training fun

Tonight the pups and I had a great clicker training session. Juno's part may have looked like not very much—lying calmly on her blanket on the couch while I actively worked with Kaline—but for her, it's actually a big deal. Juno is an amazing dog to work with, obviously, but she still has problems "honoring the working dog." As far as I know, it's mostly a field-dog term, describing the part of a test where the dog must sit calmly by as another dog works in the field. It's tough to learn it's not all about you!

Anyway, Juno's general M.O. when I'm working another dog is to whine and yodel in the most pitiful manner. So this is something we have to work on. She got periodically rewarded with the same treats I was using for Kaline—Just Chicken!—for holding a nice quiet down-stay. She was awesome, even when I was migrating around with Kaline, doing recalls and downs in different locations.

With Kaline, my main focus was down. My end goal is for his feeding ritual to be like Juno's, which is exactly like Angel's before her. No mugging the human around the food bin or during food preparation; just lie down next to your food bowl and wait for your release cue. Since Kaline's a baby, I've been having him just sit and wait for his food. He's excellent at sitting—he sees me go to the food, sits about three to four feet away, and then when it's ready he races out to his bowls and sits again with great expectation.

I wanted him to choose to lie down, eventually, but for the first two times, I lured him with the chicken, c/t-ing when he was down. Then I released him to reset him. At first he'd just sit and stare at me plaintively, maybe whining a little. Eventually he'd get bored and lie down, leading to much praise and chicken. He also got c/t-ed for remaining in the down and giving me nice eye contact. Soon, anytime I reset him, he'd sit, then when that only got verbal praise, immediately lie down. Yay! He's getting the concept!

So we started doing it in other places, with me in different spots in relation to Kaline. I did beat the clock, then circles around him. We went out of the family room to the kitchen, then to the dining room where his bowls are. There, we not only worked on down, but going into a sit from a down. If you've ever taught a dog to do this, you know it's hard to teach them that sit is a position, not a movement! Another thing to work on.

Last we went to the living room where we worked both on down and on stand. We have a low coffee table down there, which is actually where I taught Juno the stand cue. She's got an incredibly solid stand now, but when I first started working on it, she thought I had gone completely insane and why the hell was I touching her flank, etc. Being elevated, even less than a foot, changed everything.

Kaline, of course, does not have anything but good associations with stand because of the great work Maura did with him. Once on the table, he caught on real fast that I wanted him to just hold the position, and he stood so nicely as I moved around him and touched him all over. Nice eye contact too. I felt all accomplished.

Then he peed in the brown bed. No swelled heads with a puppy around!

How is he still awake?

I don't comprehend how Kaline is still bouncing around after the day he had. (Okay, maybe it had something to do with the 2+ hour nap he had ...) Right now he is writhing around on his back in the kiddie-pool bed adorably, growling to himself. Sometimes this can be an indication that a nap is in the offing. And sometimes it means he's just getting started.

Today Kaline got to meet Baxter, one of my favorite pups. I've known him since he was about five weeks old, and I've always thought of him as very small—until today! Next to Kaline, he looked enormous. He was a little overly rambunctious for Kaline, but the little guy kept going back for more. Baxter was constantly leaping into the pool, which is insanely cute. Any excuse and splash! Kaline was not real into the water (big shock), but I did get him on the first step, and supported him under his already-substantial chest as he did paddles in the water. When Kaline got tired, I held him on my lap a while as Juno and Baxter ran like crazy people all over the backyard, barking gleefully. Baxter could play really rough with her, and they had a blast.

After the playdate, we went to training in the park. My play yard for the puppy came last Friday, so today was the first time I got to use it. I thought it'd be a lot bigger, but it'll do. It's super spiffy, and Kaline took to it pretty quickly. Inside, he had his lunch, a little water bowl, his soft mat, his beehive and his chewy from Anne. A little puppy palace.

Juno next to the new playpen, with Kaline inside.

We had three client dogs today, and six trainer dogs, haha. Juno got to do a lot. She did fantastic recalls, never broke once and came in nice and straight. She did retrieves over the bar jump and retrieves on the flat. We did moving downs and moving sits, flip finishes, the "get around" for the first time (I like flip finishes much better), and sequences of sits and downs in the heel position. That's kind of hard for her, because when she does a down, she knows I expect her to roll on a hip and get comfy immediately. But when you're doing quick sits and downs, it helps if she stays in more of a sphinx position. Stuff to work on!

Juno just gets so stressed out at training ...

Kaline got to come out a little later and we worked on his basics some more, just in a much more interesting and distracting environment. He did pretty well at focusing on me, at least for the length of his baby puppy attention span. At the end, he got to play off leash with everyone. He really took to Shadow, Kristin's beagle, probably because they're about the same size (Shadow is not really into him). He also really liked her Sheltie, Phi, who has never met a boy dog she didn't adore. They played excellent games of chase. And of course Kaline had to go play with his big hero, Rio, Freddie's big black Lab. It was precious.

I'm so glad Kaline is so social! I know it's normal for puppies to be that way, but with Juno and her predecessor, Angel, they were both rescues who lacked a lot of dog social skills. Juno was so dog-reactive on leash when we first got her that the vet told me to get her evaluated immediately before I got attached and left her with my parents after going back to school. They each had to be taught, and you still kinda had to be vigilant about them and whoever they were playing with. With Kaline, I can just be so much more relaxed. It's not like I don't watch him and his playmates carefully, but I don't worry in the same way.

After training, I brought the pups home. Kaline said hi to Mom and Dad, then promptly trotted to his big crate and conked out. Gawd, he's just so freaking cute! Big day for him tomorrow—we're going to a 4th of July party, where he'll get to meet at least one dog-friendly kid, multiple tall men, and a dog almost his size to play with! Poor Juno has to stay on-leash and out of the play because no one wants to listen to fifteen minutes solid of non-stop barking.