First trip to Costco!

The pups had a nice full day today. We had a long walk in the morning with Dad. Our first stop was Borrone's—if you're not familiar with it, it is a delicious cafe which is almost constantly packed. You can go by at 10 on a Saturday night and the place is hopping. It's very dog-friendly outside, so it's a great place to take the baby for socializing.

We practiced "under," Kaline's newest command, today. Basically, when I give him that cue I want him to lie quietly behind my legs. He did fairly well with it, much better than I did! Since he's a puppy, I always get nervous if I can't see his head. Most of the time when I couldn't see his head, it was because he had curled up completely and was using his flank as a pillow. Chill out, Mom.

Tons of different dogs went by, and Kaline either ignored them or was politely interested. Juno, of course, was crashed out under the table. Only one owner actually let his dog come up to Kaline, yay. We spotted another service dog, a Border Collie, several tables away, which was pretty cool. The dogs also got to meet a little boy, maybe five years old, who had very nice dog manners. Kaline quite liked him; Junebug suffered his attentions with good grace but when he left, she was not disappointed. She is a snobby girl sometimes, but it works to my advantage. Someday Kaline too will be a snobby boy. A little bit, anyway.

After breakfast at Borrone's, we walked all the way down to Fremont Park, then turned around and came home. I want to expose Kaline to downtown Menlo Park and Palo Alto as much as possible, so a bit of bustle is just normal for him. Soon, I want to take the pups on a San Francisco day! That'll be great fun but probably really tiring. Sometime in the next month or two.

When we came home, each dog got bathed. Kaline still is not a fan, but he's not catatonic about it or anything. Once he is tall enough to get in and out by himself, we're going to work on jumping into the tub a couple times a day so he gets cooler about it. He got adorable bath zoomies afterward. Both dogs smell awesome.

We also worked on Juno's reactions to Kaline. In addition to the removal when there's unnecessary barking, I'm starting to try rewarding Juno for not reacting with a bark or growl when Kaline passes her, or licks her face, or runs around, etc. This is going to be an ongoing thing, though everyone assures me they will be better friends once Kaline gets older.

In the late afternoon, we did some errands with Dad—Pet Food Express, the car wash, and the big finale, Costco! Kaline settled super nicely with Junebug while we were waiting at the car wash; I'm a huge fan, unsurprisingly, of the automatic settle.

Settled at the car wash.

He also did shockingly well at Costco. It can be a scary place for a small guy, with the huge carts rattling about, the forklifts, clattering dollies, crowds of people. I think it helped that Juno was on his left and I was on his right, so he was buffered. But his attention was fantastic, and he really didn't startle at anything. The most he did was show intense interest, but not so intense that he didn't immediately respond to the "watch" cue. Anytime I asked him to watch, even while walking, he immediately did. It was so awesome. He did just fine standing in line; his stand-stay may not be anywhere near Juno's yet, but he sure knows how to "wait" in a stand. Thank goodness.

After we'd checked out, we sat at a table to have hot dogs and pop. Juno went all the way under on her "hide" command and sacked out; Kaline got to practice "under" again. There was a lot of clattering going on again, but Kaline wasn't bothered, just wanted to look. Hurrah, the pups did great!

Sometimes I wish Kaline was being filmed 24/7

Last night, Kaline had a big milestone! And damn, I wish I had video of it. Juno had just opened the fridge for me—there is actually a rope toy looped onto the door handle for this purpose. As always, Kaline had watched intently. Sometimes he'll mouth the toy, but that's as far as it's gone.

But last night, once the door had closed, Kaline took the knot in his jaws and just started tugging away! The whole family were in the kitchen, so all of us were just cheering him on. He had a hard time, because he is wee and also because he was pulling from a bad angle, but he kept on going, and eventually he got the door open! We all made a huge fuss over him.

I was really impressed not just with the physical aspect of it—I didn't think he was strong enough to open the door—but with the fact that Kaline learned all of this just from watching Juno. I never did any work with him on opening the fridge. Sometimes I'd verbally praise him for mouthing the rope, but nothing more. No treats, no focused attention, nothing!

Juno is a very good teacher, and Kaline is one smart, observant little boy!


Some notes ...

Operation Peace & Quiet Update: Kaline went on a lot more timeouts than Juno last night—they swapped. I didn't really keep count, although at one point Kaline was in and out three times in about three minutes. It really seems to be working—the barking has decreased markedly, even when Kaline doesn't have his pressed rawhide or a bully stick.

Training in the Park: Juno did bar jump, instead of flyball jumping, and did her usual 26 inches, woohoo. She also did fabulously on heeling figure eights. Usually this is a problem for us, as Juno is a chronic lagger on the outside turns. We watched Kristin and Ben go first (a very tough act to follow), and when it was our turn, I tried to position my free hand (left) and the hand holding the shark line (right) just like Kristin had. And Juno did much better than normal! It was very exciting to have her actually watching while she was heeling and staying exactly where she was supposed to be.

Kaline also got to work on some heeling, though not figure eights, more up and back along a line of dogs doing down-stays. We did lots of left turns and left-about turns. Kaline actually does okay at left-about turns because he doesn't really have the automatic sit yet. Most dogs have issues learning that because they sit right in the middle of it, but not Kaline. Yay.

Kaline's Neck: Freddie agrees that the flat collar is probably the culprit. The head collar was only a so-so solution for pack walking, unfortunately. So Kaline may just end up going collar-less as much as possible, and wearing the prong collar for walks and training only. For walks he'll have to wear the super-soft flat as well, just in case. No prong when he's tethered, either. (Obviously he'd never be tethered using the prong, but usually we leave those collars on just for convenience. Dogs are always tethered on their flats.) Hopefully that will help. I remember having tons of issues getting Angel's hair to grow and stay nice on the front of her neck too ... sigh.

Pet Peeve: Between yesterday and today, I had to explain to people that there is no such thing as a Miniature Doberman Pinscher, and neither is there such a thing as a King (sometimes called Warlock) Doberman. Miniature Pinschers (note the absence of "Doberman"!) may look similar, but they are an unrelated breed. The woman who believed they were actually miniature Dobes had MinPins. I guess I have unrealistic expectations that if something is your breed of choice, you actually know something about it. Silly me. Oh yeah, she doublechecked with me if Kaline was in fact a miniature Doberman. Did ya look at his feet?

King or Warlock Dobermans are simply irresponsibly bred Dobermans, bred to be oversize on purpose. Anyone who breeds for large size (i.e. above the breed standard) is not a reputable breeder. Dobermans should be medium sized, athletic, graceful, elegant dogs, not lumbering hulks. In case anyone is reading this and thinking about looking for a puppy: When researching, if a breeder's site says they breed King, Warlock, or extra-large Dobermans, or they brag about how big their dogs are, run away.

Ending on a Positive Note: Kaline's being cuddly on the couch right now. Excellent. He's also started a new habit of being very chilled out in his crate in the morning. He usually wakes up when I do, but stays all curled up. So instead of rushing him outside in my pajamas, I can shower and actually get dressed, and then he's ready to go out for his first potty break of the day. Fantastic development from my point of view.

Also super cute—when my mom went to put Kaline to bed last night (I was out with Juno on her last potty break), he jumped up, put his paws on top of his crate, got his new rope-dog that I'd left there, then trotted right inside. Awwwww.

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!