Merry Christmas!

We had a lovely low-key Christmas, as usual. (Well, except for one thing.) Kaline, being a wee rambunctious man, didn't get invited to Auntie Jen's, so it was rather a Juno-centric day.

The night before, Juno, as predicted, was a very good girl at Christmas Eve dinner. She was in total work mode too—at the end of dinner but before we had left the restaurant, Auntie Jen asked to pet her and I said sure. Juno wasn't having it though! She kept politely touching her nose to Auntie Jen's hand and then backing up, like, “Yes, I like you, but I'm working right now so maybe we'll say hi later.” It was precious.

Juno in her ruff at the restaurant.

Mom and I stayed up late watching a movie and having doggie cuddles. Kaline was curled up in my lap/on my chest like a baby. Juno was on Mom, so there was no way to take a decent picture of both me and Kaline. So this will have to do:

Christmas morning dawned rainy and yucky, so I scooted each dog out individually to do his or her business (put them together, and they will take exponentially longer to get anything done), and then they had treadmill time. We headed down for them to have breakfast, and just as Juno finished inhaling her kibble, I noticed a bunch of red dots on the kitchen floor, like someone had been making some kind of jelly dessert and dripped everywhere.

And then I saw the wall in the family room, which had a huge red smear on it. Yes, Juno had whacked her lethal tail hard into the wall one too many times, and now she was bleeding everywhere.

I should probably mention that this has happened before, just not recently. When we first adopted her, her tail tip was totally raw from wagging in her narrow kennel run and constantly bashing it into the concrete walls. She kept busting it open and the vet was worried we'd eventually have to dock her tail. But we were careful for a while, she healed, and all was well. A few months later she bashed it open again following a bath, but again, she healed, and that was about the last time she did that. If you look at her tail now you can see the evidence, two little oval hairless patches.

I commenced a futile search for styptic powder and once that failed, stopped the bleeding with paper towels. I protected her tail successfully through her whole Christmas bath, only to have her thwack it against the doorjamb on her way out of the bathroom. Blood everywhere again.

Mom devised a bandage with non-stick gauze and medical tape. Most dogs probably would have nibbled it off, but once it was on (Juno did not enjoy that process) she completely left it alone. It stayed on the entire day, we had no more bleeding, and it would've stayed on probably through the night, if I hadn't cut it off to let her little wound breathe overnight.

So that was our Christmas drama.

Kaline stayed home in his crate while Juno, suitably spiffy in her Christmas ruff, came along to Auntie Jen's. She was great, following me closely almost the whole time (during dinner she left a few times to go beg and had to be called back). I got some excellent dog related presents, including a new Dremel (one that runs off a charger, instead of batteries—my current Dremel burns through four Double-A's every time I do Juno and Kaline's nails) and a lovely bone-shaped necklace charm. On once side it says JUNO in even, neat capital letters, and on the other side it says Kaline in letters that change in size, capitalization, and location. Pretty much sums them up, no?

Juno got to partake of many different Christmas foods, thanks to Mom, who was bubbling with glee due in no small part to the wine. (Usually one glass is enough to make her fall asleep ...) She got honeybaked ham, non-chocolatey bits of cookie, sourdough bread, baby carrots and who knows what else when I wasn't looking and going, “MOM! Whyyyyyy?!” But hey, she has an iron stomach and she deserves her treats, since she's the best dog ever.

Juno in front of the tree and all the presents. She's the best present!!!

Juno supervises present opening, using the table as a chin rest.

Me and Juno in front of the tree.

Juno and the mini-tree.

Settling and the airport

We continue to work on Kaline's retrieving foundation, but lately I have found myself focusing on his long down/settling. Once he settles, he's good, but it takes him quite a while to actually do that sometimes. So with that being an unintentionally emphasized skill the past week or so, he's definitely improved.

In the mornings when I'm getting the dogs ready to go out on our pack walks, it's pretty common for me to forget something. So lately, instead of letting Juno and Kaline follow me around while I try to remember where I left what I forgot, I've been leaving them on sit or down stays and going to get it. Not exactly settling, but it's definitely stay practice and I go out of sight for either a brief time, or a longer time. They've both been holding their stays really well, and it's hard for both of them. Kaline because he's a baby, and Juno because she's always had some separation anxiety. I adopted her at 18 months and she'd basically been neglected outside up to that point, so I can understand her not wanting to let me out of her sight if she can help it.

Then at training, Kaline's been coming out with the big dogs to do long downs. He's being holding his long downs better than Juno! He still whines, and sometimes will do his patented slo-mo commando crawl, but mostly he just stays there! It's very exciting. The slo-mo commando crawl is hilarious also. He pops his little butt in the air, oonches his front feet forward, plunks his butt down. Lather rinse repeat, until he gets where he wants to be.

Kaline and Juno in front of the Rin Tin Tin poster at SFO.

Night before last, Dad and I had to pick up Mom at the airport. I took both dogs in (Mom would never forgive me if I brought just Kaline and not Juno to pick her up) and worked with them a bit in the accessible areas (i.e. areas where you didn't have to go through security). We stood around by security a while, and to my delight, when I told the dogs to down, they both did and Kaline laid his head on his paws! Sometimes he rolled on a hip without being asked! He hardly ever rolls on a hip by himself—perhaps it's a Doberman thing?

Kaline settles; Juno gives me the "I can't believe you're working me with him" look.

I took them walking up and down the largely empty area by the check-in desks, and it was pretty interesting to see the difference in Juno and Kaline's demeanors. Juno is, as one client calls her, "dogged." She is all business, head level with her back, ears relaxed and back, eyes mostly ahead except for quick occasional checks behind and to the sides. Automatically, she matches her pace to mine or walks slightly behind me.

Kaline, on the other hand, does not yet possess a Serious Work Face. His ears are up, his head's up, he's looking all around, he bounces, he speeds up, he slows down, all that good puppy stuff. Also, he seemed taller than Juno! I was super excited about that, let me tell you.

We came back to security to meet Mom; Juno thumped her tail but held her down when she appeared, and Kaline just stayed in his comfy little ball. Good puppies. They were great down at baggage claim too. I was waiting around a while, so I had Kay practice an "across," a deep pressure task where he lies across my lap while I sit cross-legged. Then once we had all Mom's stuff and the crowd had cleared, I made a circuit around the now-empty but still moving carousel so Kaline could see there was nothing scary about it. Nice, short and sweet outing.

I'm hoping to go out for some more work with the not-so-wee man tonight, and then tomorrow we have our Christmas obedience class.