Training Kaline cheers me up

So, I've been sick and grumpy. Nobody wants to read other people's vents about being sick and grumpy.

Chilly little Kaline in Juno's Hallowe'en t-shirt. Dad's getting him pajamas for Xmas, hehe.

But today I've been doing a bunch of short training sessions with Kaline, and it definitely put me in a better mood.

First, though, an update on his neck. After a few months of being naked as much as possible but using the prong collar when a collar was required looking like the solution to the problem, it turns out it's not. Kaline had a tiny spot of very short hair on the back of his neck for a while, with an irritated follicle in the middle of it. Since it wasn't growing, I didn't really worry. Well, now it's growing. It's where the chain rests on the back of his neck. The hair on the front is still fine, grown in nicely, but he's got a couple irritated follicles there too. Cue despair.

Just kidding. I worked Kaline in the Infinity collar and his flat Tigers collar on Monday, and he worked pretty well in it, though he was pretty spastic in Trader Joe's. Thank goodness we were only there for about 10 minutes. He was trying to smell stuff, swinging his butt around randomly, etc. Then in line he did a perfect block, even leaning gently into the backs of my knees. He's a dog, not a robot, he's a dog, not a robot ...

Mom found a hidden stash of Christmas collars, yay!

Anyway. Tuesday I made a call to Paco Collars, based in Berkeley. I told them Kaline's issues, and they seem confident that one of their collars will do the trick. (Kay will end up working in the Infinity plus Paco Collar, until he progresses to the point where he can just work in the flat, like Juno.) I believe the word used to describe the lining of the collar was "buttery." Sounds delicious. So we are going to head up there on Saturday and hope they have a ready-made black Deluxe collar that will fit the wee man. I think they will. Not cheap, but if it finally solves the neck issue, I'll be happy. I know a ton of Dobermans wear Paco Collars, so it should work. Fingers and paws crossed.

Back to the training. Since the weekend, Kaline has gotten way better at doing the treadmill. He has now had seven total fifteen-minute sessions on the treadmill. On the first and second ones, he threw a fit and needed a lot of help to stay on. Three and four, he threw a fit but was able to stay on by himself. Five, he only put up a token fuss and walked nicely after that. Six, he got on by himself. And the rest is history.

It's really nice to know that that is now an option when Kaline needs to burn off some energy, because at least for now, roughhousing with big sis is no longer an option. He's got two little hairless tooth-marks on his neck. And I think we all know how insane I am about his neck (see above). He loves to have Juno chew on his neck, and she loves to oblige, so ...

We also worked a bunch on the fridge, because he was backsliding a little. Today, our new maize-and-blue tug came from Alex, a friend who is raising money for her future SD from Laughing Eyes Kennels. Both dogs love it, and Kaline is already starting to pull on the long middle part of the tug (on the rope toy, he refused to use anything but the little fringey strings at the bottom, which obviously led to the thing slipping abruptly out of his mouth a lot).

His take it is getting pretty good—he'll go for the blue bone on the floor—and he did very nice hold and out today. He walked around the kitchen with the bone in his mouth (I held my hand really close to his mouth in case he decided to drop it) and even did a sit-down-sit sequence with it in his mouth.

While Juno gets her turns on the treadmill, Kaline gets to practice his down-stay and settle, which is going nicely. I really want to just take a day and go to several different places with him and a book, and just work on settling under chairs/tables for extended periods of time. Super exciting, I know.

Juno did such a cute hold yesterday at training. Anne had left her bait bag way far away and was packing up her car. When I went to go grab Juno's leash (she'd been working off-leash), I saw the bag and told Juno to take it. She did, and she carried it all the way from that little area of the park over to Anne's car—where she sat and politely gave the bag to Anne. Yay.

I think the only other thing Kaline has really been focusing on is finding heel and finding front. Finding front is a lot harder for him, but we'll get there!

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!