Kaline's first "title"

Yeah, I know, CGC is not exactly a real obedience title (although apparently it will be after January 1). But Kaline has it now!

Yesterday was way better than expected, and today was way worse. We were supposed to go to a ballgame yesterday and due to various kinds of drama one of the dogs would have had to be left home all day. More drama; and then I ended up staying home with both pups while the parents went to the game. Much nicer. We had lots of walks, met some lovely children who handled Kaline's paws with no problems, had naps, did a little open-close work.

That was actually pretty funny. I had Juno open a cupboard and then asked Kaline to close it. He did it with perfect Juno-style technique: A good nudge with the nose to start, and a careful nudge with the paw to finish up. Of course, once the door was closed Juno immediately tugged it open again! And then when Kaline went to close it, she went on the other side and gleefully nudged it a little to thwart him. Then she let him finish.

The game would have probably been a good experience for Kaline, but I didn't need the stress. And we had a lovely day at home.

Then today there was tons of drama with the car. More specifically, the loan. The credit union people called me back and said they couldn't approve me not because I had bad credit, but because I had no credit score. Which is preposterous, because I have had a credit card under my name and SSN for a good eight years—which is always paid off on time. Of course, that led to a massive meltdown, but luckily I have a fantastic aunt who takes no shit from anyone and really wants me to get a proper car. Within five minutes of getting my SSN she had my credit score, which does in fact exist. So we're working on it.

The upside of the meltdown was Kaline did an excellent job tag-teaming me with Juno. Between walks he sat on me in the car, leaning into my chest and licking my neck and face. (He likes my neck. Who knows.) Juno kept checking in on me visually while we were out with the packs; once when I was really zoning out, Kaline grabbed my fingers in his mouth and "carried" them for a while, munching but not too hard, just hard enough to be like, "HEY, pay attention!" Well, I gotta admit, he did get a little carried away after a while with the munching and then I had to stop him.

Anyway, the meltdown kind of colored most of the day, but in the evening, Dad, Kaline and I headed to Mountain View for the Canine Good Citizen test put on by Deep Peninsula Dog Training Club. Then the nerves and adrenaline just took over! Kaline was thrilled as well—Labs everywhere! At first, he wanted to go play with all of them, but he settled down pretty quick.

Kaline ended up wearing a choke chain with his regular BLD leash for the test (no prong collars allowed). I don't like using choke chains because they can just tighten indefinitely, but you don't have much of a choice with AKC events. I'd never use a chain for actual training. My other option was his combo slip collar and leash, but the fabric it's made of hurts my hands if he pulls at all.

We got registered and then walked around to warm up and get Kaline's yayas out. He was pulling a bit at first, but then when I did sudden turns and rewarded him for spontaneous attention, he started working nicely for me. I was super proud of him when we were waiting in line, and a little surprised at some of the other dogs. Kaline, who is not even five months old yet, curled up by my feet and just chilled out while we were waiting. One of the Labs kept pulling hard to get to Kay (in a mostly friendly way), plus there was a German Shepherd and another Lab they were keeping away from everyone, and trying to strategize about when to run them through the tests. I was kinda like, if your dog can't be around other dogs, how does he qualify as a good citizen?

Anyway. One of the test organizers is a total Dobe person, loved Kaline, used to have what Freddie nicknamed The Doberman Drill Team. We had a good time hanging out with her. We were the fourth team through.

CGC Test

Item 1: Friendly stranger (no petting)—The evaluator shook my hand and introduced herself. Kaline sat politely next to me.

Item 2: Friendly stranger (petting)—Kaline sat, then got up, licked her arm and was politely friendly (no jumping) ... and then he almost did a crotch-burrow. Ehhh, still passed!

Item 3: Grooming—The evaluator brushed Kaline with the brush I'd brought; as usual, he really wanted to eat it. Thankfully, she understood that for what it was, a mouthy pup, not a puppy who was scared of the brush or of her grooming him. He didn't care at all when she flipped back his ears and picked up his front feet.

Item 4: Loose leash walking—We had to go out, turn left, right, and do an about turn. Even though Kaline tugged on me some between test items, he walked wonderfully for this and we had no problems.

Item 5: Walking through a crowd—I walked Kaline through a crowd of about seven people milling around. He was a little interested but not much. All good!

Item 6: Sit, down, stay—Kaline immediately sat and lay down when I asked. You can choose to leave the dog in a sit or down for their stay, but most people leave their dogs in downs because it's more stable. That's what I did, cause Kaline was definitely hyped up. He stayed while I walked 20 feet away and came back.

Item 7: Coming when called—Kaline was all of a sudden interested in the trees ... I walked in, got his attention back, then went 10 feet out and called him. He came like someone had goosed him! Heehee. He was so cute.

Item 8: Reaction to another dog—Our other dog was this adorable Clumber Spaniel (I think). We walked up, I shook hands with his owner, Kaline looked at him and took a big whiff, and then we walked on.

Item 9: Reaction to distraction—Someone dropped an enormous book. Kaline jumped a tiny bit and turned toward it at the noise. When the book didn't move again or make any more noise, he decided it was something he wanted to eat. (Don't worry, I didn't let him.)

Item 10: Supervised separation—I left Kaline with a lovely older gentleman who was actually the judge at Juno's very first obedience fun match. I went out of sight and waited for my three minutes to be up. That was the worst part at Juno's CGC test, because I was so worried she'd whine/yowl excessively and fail on the last item. Kaline did fine, so yay, he passed! How exciting! Everyone thought he was super cute with his insanely adorable face and big floppy silky ears.

When we got home, Juno (and eventually Kaline)'s new Cozy Horse Winter Warrior coat had arrived; I put it on Juno and she looked fabulous. I noticed Kaline licking his hock even more than normal (he enjoys mouthing his legs) and he looked like he had a breakout there of little itchy bumps. Heading to the vet tomorrow, of course. 

Sorry I didn't get video ... my real camera is out of batteries and we have no Double-As in the whole house at this point. Once I get batteries again I'll post a couple coat pictures, at least!

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.