Awesome dogs

My future car's current license plate. WTF! It almost makes me want to keep those ... but I won't. TGSONTP is here to stay.

In dog terms, it has been an amazing day. I'm not even just talking about Juno and Kaline, I mean both my packs as well.

Didn't get a ton of sleep last night, because I kept waking up to check on Kaline and see if he was awake and in need of a potty break. Starting at 4:00 a.m., I was up every twenty minutes! Talk about a helicopter mother. Finally, at 7:00, I just woke up the bleary-eyed little pup and took him outside. Then I could finish up sleeping with confidence that his little bladder wouldn't be bursting in his crate.

Empty, Kaline snoozed away the morning placidly as I got ready for the walks and took care of some paperwork (including sending away for his CGC certificate). Our first pack was Ellis and Teddy, and we got to do the beautiful Oak Knoll walk. Hardly anyone pulled, we passed all kinds of semi-unruly pups without incident, and just in general had a lovely time. Then we took Jett and Max to downtown Palo Alto and everyone was brilliant.

Jett ceased (at least for today) his annoying habit of walking behind everyone else and walked with the pack. Everyone behaved wonderfully at the flower store, where they gave their favorite friend, Molly, some much-needed TLC. This being the release date for the iPhone 5, there was a huge crowd of people with no lives outside the Apple store. (I mean it—they started camping out two days ago, as if Apple will somehow run out of phones.) Training opportunity!

We waded into the crowd and, to my glee, no one sniffed anyone inappropriately, or failed to slow to a crawl, or anything remotely bad! Jett kind of wanted to sniff, but I had him on the inside so he got thwarted. On our second pass through the crowd, he was exemplary. Juno and Max did a great job parting the way for us, and Kaline, as he had all morning, did constant visual check-ins with me even though there were tons of interesting people to smell. And then on the next corner, two girls from Peet's Coffee offered me a shot-sized sample of their pumpkin freddo. Yes, please. I view pumpkin much like other people view chocolate: it makes nearly everything taste better! The dogs got tons of compliments and no groping. That's how I like it.

We came home briefly and Kaline got his antihistamines, which have totally knocked him out. We had to meet Mike the Car Guy at the gas station, where we were getting the Lexus checked out. Kaline and Juno snoozed in the car until we headed to Borrone's to wait for the car to be finished. At Borrone's, possibly because of the meds, but I'd like to think because he's learning things, Kaline settled under the table just as fast as Juno. He didn't move as people walked by and over him, although right at the end I think someone tripped over him and he got up real fast. He's fine though, don't worry. They both did great. I thought it was hilarious when an elderly retriever—a retriever!!—came up and gave Kaline a great big sniff in the face, and Kay just stayed there. Normally he'd be like, "Oh boy, oh boy, a retriever! I love you already! May I chew on your ears?!"

We came back to the gas station, got the report on the car, then came home for me to make a round of calls—my aunt, car insurance, credit union, etc. I found out that Farmers, our insurance, is indeed the one insurance company that is breed-blind when it comes to home insurance. They don't care what breed your dog is, only if it has a bite history. Judge the deed, not the breed, in action! I was super glad to hear that.

Normally Kaline will kind of take advantage of me being on the phone and start screwing around. Today, Juno curled up by my feet (wherever those happened to be—whenever I change location, she changes location, even if it's not that big a move), and Kaline contented himself with quietly chewing his pressed rawhide. Then he clambered up on the couch and fell asleep. He is so damn cute when he's being a good boy!

Of course the car drama continued in the afternoon, but mostly with little annoying things and not with big You Don't Exist problems. We'll get it figured out. Kaline slept on my chest and then curled up behind my computer chair while I tried to get my iPhone photos backed up. It's all Kaline's fault too, I never had your-phone-is-too-full problems before he came along! Heehee.

We had a beautiful walk in the Oak Knoll neighborhood with Dad, and now are contemplating what to do for dinner.

Oak Knoll sunset.

Oak Knoll sunset.

IKEA!

Let's begin with a disclaimer: I dislike IKEA. You might even say I loathe IKEA. So easy to get lost (getting there, in there, getting out of there ... ), clogged with people, too many tempting smells of cinnamon buns ... I avoid the place.

But there is one thing that must be said for IKEA. If you are looking for a training ground for future service dogs, there is absolutely no better place. (All photos courtesy of Sonja)

Chief and Kaline playing in the car ... shhhh.

This afternoon Sonja and I took Chief and Kaline to IKEA for the first time. Well, it was Kaline's first time anyway. I think both Kaline's and my brains were on fire by the end! We both worked hard. Sonja is an amazing person to do outings with. (I know, should be "with whom to do outings," but it sounds so stilted!) She is incredibly creative about training and creating opportunities for training. Unlike me, she has no qualms about asking strangers to participate in our training. Kaline and I really got a workout being with her and Chief! And it was lots of fun to use the clicker so much, though I ended up having to mooch treats off Sonja after I ran out. (Oops!)

Right as we got in, Sonja noticed a pair of people checking out some furniture. She asked them to call to each of our puppies in turn, after telling them their names; then we rewarded our boys for maintaining their focus on us, not the strangers. I kind of wait for real life situations to happen and then respond; Sonja creates them on her own terms so Chief can always be practicing. Awesome. She also helped me with getting and rewarding Kaline's attention: Instead of immediately trying to get his focus back when he looks at something, I should let him look, and then reward when he looks back to me on his own. Clearly it's a method that works, because Chief is constantly looking to Sonja for direction. I think I got the hang of it as we moved through the store.

Pups in IKEA!

More things we did with strangers: Multiple times, we got people to pet the dogs in vest and rewarded the boys for maintaining their focus (yeah, that's gonna be a theme). We set up the dogs about one stride apart, in downs, and after we stepped over them repeatedly, we had a stranger do it. (They were great.) When we came across three little boys with their parents, Sonja got the boys to come up near the dogs and wave their stuffed animals. Other times we had kids run past and make noises.

Sonja also worked on other scenarios that might happen. She and I made weird noises at the dogs, trying to be a little scary, waved our hands around their faces, pretended to scold them, all kinds of things that grouchy and/or drunk people might do when they see them. We stomped, we jumped around, we made sudden movements. Chief and Kaline mostly just sat there and looked at us like we were crazy, utterly nonplussed. The whole time, amusingly, Kaline kept slithering into downs, both because he was tired from the morning (three pack walks, running around with Juno, short outing to Jan's Deli) and because he had little to no traction on the floor. Poor guy, those cat feet are freaking cute but the lack of hair doesn't help him much.

This happened a lot.

Another thing we did, which sounds bad when you type it, was knock stuff off shelves onto the floor to "surprise" the boys. Obviously, we never did it with anything breakable or that would get scratched up. We're talking mousepads, wicker baskets, plastic baskets, plastic-wrapped whisks. We also banged some metal canisters together. If the pups did startle, it was pretty minimal, and they were quickly able to focus again.

We did "under" at different tables, let the dogs explore the multitudinous surfaces and objects all over IKEA. In various places, we had them practice their actual tasks. Chief retrieved a pouch and returned to settle on Sonja's chest as she lay on the floor; Kaline did lap-ups and even an on-me when I found a long chair just perfect for stretching out on. He worked on touch and leave it as well.

"under"

"lap up"

"on me"

My only gripe with the little man, who did a fantastic job today, was the pulling. Obviously in IKEA, when you are searching out training opps, you don't walk at the nice brisk pack-walking pace. Plus Chief was usually ahead of Kaline. Just for shits and giggles, I might review the Kikopup videos on no pulling and try to do a couple training sessions like that. I have to take my own advice—if what I'm doing (corrections on the prong and rewards for slowing down and giving me attention) isn't accomplishing what I want, and I have given it a good chance, it's time to try another tactic.

In the middle of our outing, Sonja found a secluded corner and we took the boys' vests off so they could have a little wrestle. Sonja thinks it's really important that SDs be able to play and then return to working mode quickly, and I couldn't agree more. They did pretty well, although Kaline can never pass up a chance to take a swipe at Chief with one of his massive paws. I figure when they can finally work side-by-side without losing their focus on their humans, they'll be able to work through any situation! It's so cute how much they like each other though.

The outing was wonderful and we need to do it more ... but oh man, was it a pleasure to put Kaline down for a nap in his crate and grab Juno so we could go to dinner with the parents. I'm sure this will come as a huge amazing revelation to everyone in the world, but puppies are a LOT of work! My brain could kind of turn off once I was with Juno—she knows her job and we just know how to work together. I know someday it will be like that with Kaline but I am so glad that Juno didn't have to retire, and will be here to get me through Kaline's training! Fabulous girl. She looked so pretty in her wide collar with its brand new DogTagArt ID tag.

Retrieving and other adventures

The pups had a good day of training yesterday, and are now zonked from three successive pack walks today. The first thing we did at training was try to start all the dogs on retrieving: getting them excited about one of a variety of toys, then throwing it for them and calling them back. Didn't matter if they brought the toy back, but the recall was paramount.

Before working Juno (who knows the retrieve already), I worked Kaline, two Labs, a Golden Retriever-poodle mix and I think one other dog. One of the Labs had already had a bunch of retrieving work—her dad eventually wants her to be able to go hunting with him. So, I was pretty stoked about Kaline when he showed absolutely the strongest retrieving drive of the dogs who really don't have retriever training. My little Doberman retriever! He was on that stuffed lobster every time I tossed it; the coming back was questionable, but that's why everyone was on leash, haha. Juno was the most fun, of course, because she knows her stuff, but I was very encouraged about Kaline.

Big props to Maura, Kaline's breeder—one of the most important tests to see if a puppy will end up being a good service prospect is the retrieving test. If you throw a ball of paper and the puppy goes for it, then at least makes the attempt to bring it back, that's a great sign. She picked me a great one!

Later, Juno got to work in the "big dog" group, as usual. At training, "big dog" refers to our personal dogs. We did lots of heeling, with moving stands and moving downs. I worked Juno on either her shark line or completely off leash, and she did pretty well! Gotta love those moving stands; we had so much fun working on those when she was first learning how to do it. Then we did remote sits and downs, and Juno was held up as the example of how to go properly from a down to a sit (push up, no picking up the butt and creeping forward). Woohoo!

Kaline got to do a bit of heeling and weaving through the advanced dogs on down-stays. He was a bit ADD—Look! There's Chief! Oh, hi Mom, yes, I'm watching. CHIEF! Hi! Oooh, leaves. Right, right, I'm watching ... We have been working a lot though on him responding to his name with eye contact while we're walking, so I think eventually that'll pay off. He's been doing great at that on pack walks, even when he's in the middle of the pack.

We had a bunch of training opportunities on our walks today—seriously, everything feels totally manageable when I'm wearing a bait bag! Multiple times, we either had to pass or got passed by dogs who were growling and/or showing other reactive behaviors. Every time, I was like, "Oooh, yay! Time to reinforce proper behaviors!"

In my first pack, I have a lovely but somewhat reactive dog—he won't start crap, but he will definitely respond if the other dog keeps on long enough. At one point, we got passed by a pack of four dogs, way out in front of the woman walking them, growling and straining toward my guys. Well, my guys were all sitting and staring at me, getting little yummy morsels popped into their mouths. Definitely the message I want to get across: See a reactive dog, look at human, get food—nothing bad will happen and the human will handle it.

On the second pack walk, the one that goes to downtown Palo Alto, we got passed by lots of loud buses and trucks; Kaline's reaction to them is getting more and more muted. We didn't even run into any idiots on that route today, it was fantastic!

We did get an idiot, I think, on the third walk, which was the most relaxing one: just Juno, her boyfriend Ellis, and wee Kaline. Some guy kept asking me which dog was the MGM Lion, and when I was confused, he assumed I didn't know what MGM was, or that a roaring lion is their symbol. Let me assure you that that's untrue, I don't live under a rock! If anyone reading this happens to know what three dogs have to do with the MGM Lion, please tell me so I can retract my statement that this guy was an idiot. (One other idiot: Saw me passing with three dogs trotting at my heels—they were all tired—and said, "Who's walking who?" Um, I think that should be pretty clear.)

Training opportunities

Kaline at 16 weeks!

 First things first: Sixteen-week-old Kaline finally got his last set of shots! I am super stoked about this for reasons I don't think I should put on a blog ... If inquiring minds want to know, PM me. He did fine at the vet—was fairly stoic for his DHPP shot, and then wriggled a little about the rabies vaccination. He also (sort of) met Dr. Ulla's beautiful big black and rust Doberman, Anchor. Anchor has some leash reactivity, so they didn't actually get to sniff or anything. Anchor barked, and Kaline got treats for not barking back, and for watching me and ignoring Anchor, and for coming toward me and away from Anchor.

Which leads ever so nicely into what I wanted to write about, training opportunities! I try (unfortunately I don't always succeed!) to view pretty much everything that happens as a training opportunity. It's a lot easier to do when I am carrying my bait bag, so I've been putting that on pretty much every time we go outside. It really helps to see the world in general in a more positive way.

I actually got excited today when I was out with a four-pack in Palo Alto, and saw a woman coming along the sidewalk with what looked like two Chow mixes (or full Chows, I don't know). Clearly they were walking her, and they were staring daggers at my dogs. She saw my dogs and took an extra few wraps of leash around each of her hands.

Practically grinning with delight, I sidled my four off the main part of the sidewalk and right up next to a store's front window. I was ready with the bait bag, all four were maintaining excellent eye contact, and I was just thinking, YES! We are going to have a great reinforcement of how we don't interact with this kind of energy!

Then I realized I'd been standing there for much longer than it should've taken for the dogs to pass us. They'd crossed the street. Drat.

It's so confidence-building to see everything as an opportunity to reinforce what you want from your dog(s). I get happy when we come across barking dogs in cars or behind fences, skateboards on the sidewalk, hissing garbage trucks, creaking buses (or is it busses?), or people using various potentially scary (to dogs) mobility aids. Instead of seeing these things as things to avoid and protect the dogs from, I can see them as a chance to show them how I want them to react—and to show them that when such scary things happen, they're not actually scary, because they mean cookies.

A side note: You may remember that Juno and I won a super-awesome tag from Jen and Elka! Well, I finally got around to doing a wee photoshoot with Juno today. If you like one of the photos more than the others, let me know! I'll probably choose one for the custom tag by Wednesday or Thursday. And yes, the tag will be going on the wide 2HoundsDesigns collar Juno is wearing in the photos.

Some of the photoshoot contenders:

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