Kaline gets back to work

Let's just say I wish I were still on vacation. Now that that's out of the way ...

Kaline was a bit depressed his first day back from Party Central. Then he mostly got back to normal and my faith in him as a baby service dog was fully restored. Our first outing was to Walgreens, and he was superb.

I have mostly gotten his “new” vest (Juno's Petjoy harness vest) to fit right, and he looks really good in it. We practiced the usual things in the store: pressing the buttons for the door, not sniffing things, lots of loose-leash walking around. He only swatted Mom's little pull-cart once, so that's progress, right? At the end we randomly bought some vitamins that are supposed to help you sleep, and I had Kaline carry them all the way from the back of the store up to the checkout line. I even got a terrible video! You can't see the part where I held it out and told him “take it” and he did, but trust me, that also happened.

So that was really fun and uplifting.

Walks this week have been wearing me out for some reason. Soon they're going to tail off for the summer, and while that will be good for my body, it is not good for my anxiety (over income) or, obviously, my income itself. Hopefully we'll get some new pack members soon. In a couple weeks we are adding a new wee Labrador, so that will be lots of fun.

Juno had a nice outing to Red Robin with me and Dad last night, and of course she was perfect. I think she is getting the hang of her new harness (when I talk about her getting the hang of it, I mean that she is positioning herself right and pulling when asked without someone she likes in front of her). Despite the fact that our table really had no under to speak of, the girls one table over had no clue Juno was there until our waiter started to coo at her. (He was having a harried night, and Juno won't respond to that stuff from a stranger, so I just let him do it.) Pretty fun. I love it when people don't realize my dog is there—that's how it should be!

Today at training they were both good. Kaline is finally learning to do a recall without crashing into me or doing a drive by (to avoid the crashing) at the end. Hurrah! He also did really, really nice off leash heeling through this insane pattern Freddie had made up with many weave poles. They both were rock-solid on the recall with distraction—I found a tennis ball, hehe. Oddly, given that Juno is the only one of the two with actual (well, probable) retriever genes, Kaline is the one who really likes balls. So it wasn't surprising that Juno ignored the ball being tossed all along the line of waiting dogs, but I was really pleased that Kaline just looked at it and then looked back at me! Woohoo! When we were working the Labs and Goldens, a little different story, haha. Although with the gun dogs, all you have to say is No Bird and they're like, “Okay, must not chase moving object.”

Hopefully this weekend I'll get to do a lot of work with Kaline—there's a carnival at a local elementary school, we may go to the city, and we'll probably do our usual Sunday morning routine. We also need to focus on his learning positions around me and trying to develop his body awareness ... yeah, I know. Lots of luck on that last one!

Our new favorite place

Kaline needs to run on a semi-regular basis. He loves it and boy, does it tire him out! Problem is, there are not a lot of off-leash places I know of which are not also dog parks. (I will never take either of my dogs to a dog park, unless it's empty. Too many stupid people.)

Well, I had a training session with one of my clients, and she introduced me to this beautiful little grove quite close to me (right next to Stanford Shopping Center) where you can just let your dog run. I think we've been back almost every day since then. I take Kaline on his e-collar, as a precaution, and just let him loose. He's been having such a blast! He's met several other dogs who played with him, and we've had a fantastic time practicing recalls and emergency sits and downs at distance. My mom went with us one day and was quite impressed with how good my little guy was!

Retrieving! and other stuff

Well, I am a little tentative to say this In Public, but it appears that Kaline now retrieves things on command! I don't know how many things, because we've been focusing on things he already thinks would be great to put in his mouth, but things!

I've been trying to capture the behavior of retrieving and not do anything at all else with it, because every time we set aside time to work on it in a formal way, he ends up totally confused and uninterested. Kaline can always be counted on to steal random things, most especially bras, socks, underwear, leather shoes, and stockings. He also enjoys paper.

I already keep a little bowl of small, crunchy cookies on top of the microwave, because I like to reward the dogs whenever they open the fridge. (I know, I should be doing more intermittent reinforcement ... but doing the fridge is a big job!) So whenever Kaline steals something, I'm likely as not in the family room, just steps away from said treaty microwave. I'll call him, get him to bring whatever it is all the way in to me (thus inadvertently practicing "get it") and then reward him.

The only part of the retrieve we formally practice is hold, and he got randomly good at that all of a sudden. One week after obedience class, I put Juno's dumbbell in his mouth, told him to hold it, and he carried it all the way back to the car. He has trouble hanging onto it while doing position changes, but not while moving around. Yay for that.

Anyway, the other night I was doing some laundry and on a whim, I called Kaline over to pick up the various socks that had dropped. On command, he did it! I was so thrilled I set him up and took a video. We are still doing a multiple command sequence (get it-bring it-out), while with Juno it's just get it, but man, am I thrilled. Retrieving! And I thought it might never happen.

We had another outing to the Horse Park, this time with Juno and without Anne's three dogs (or Anne for that matter. She did a hunt test with Xena over the weekend). Juno only needed nicking once, for naughty body posture toward a group of retrievers who were also running around. Kaline also had one situation where he needed a serious correction, for blowing me off to go run after said retrievers (he had made friends with them). I got him through it though and he came back. And later, without any correction, I told him "come" as he was racing toward them. He turned on a dime and came lolloping back to me, grinning and eager for his treat. Marvelous.

Juno, Rio, and Kaline at the Horse Park.

Juno got to go to the city twice for dinner at Delancey St., one of our favorite places. She was a very good girl! On Valentine's Day she got to wear this super cute V-Day bandanna one of our friends gave her. She would not hold the rose in her mouth though, sad face. Normally she'll hold anything but I guess the rose felt weird.

Juno and Kaline in festive Valentine's bandannas.

Juno at Delancey St.

Scoots also re-earned her first Rally Novice leg! I don't remember if I mentioned this, but we got a letter from the AKC saying that our leg we earned a month ago got taken back because we shouldn't have been in Novice A, having already earned a CD. (A CD, or Companion Dog, title, is earned in regular, not rally, Novice obedience.) So this past weekend we went to a Rally trial at the same place, were the very last ones to compete again, and got the leg back!

Not without a little crazy from me though. I was trying to do everything right. We got there very early, and were able to see all three levels of Rally competition, as well as make several new friends. I periodically took Juno outside to keep her up and to practice the various exercises on the Novice course. Right before we went in the ring, I had her outside getting pumped up and it was going great.

And of course I walked into the ring wearing my bait bag.

We got to the second exercise (a recall, finish right) and I looked down and saw it. I reacted like I'd discovered a leech attached to me. I recoiled in horror, ripped the bag off my belt, and just threw it right out of the ring. It took us a couple exercises to get back in sync again, unsurprisingly. But thankfully the judge didn't NQ us, we got an 86, and yay, we've got our leg back! Next competition is a two-fer on March 24. Gonna be a long day. Hopefully with better food available than at this one!

Juno and her green qualifying ribbon. Note awesome new leash for competition, heehee.

This is a slow-ish week dog-wise because of Ski Week. This may be a California thing, taking a week off in February to go skiing. I don't know. But probably half my dogs have cancelled. Plus there's rain today, so training got shifted about. Ah well. A rest will probably be good for me, but I miss the Boxers.

And here is a video of Kaline which I find hilarious. He does this several times a week.

Our week

Another slow week, especially because I gave myself a bit of an ankle sprain on Wednesday night. That flared up massively overnight cause the fibro gnome got aroused, so I was having a flareup all over for the next couple days.

So Juno got to come with me to the doctor's office on Friday. I toyed with the idea of taking Kaline but ended up bringing Juno, which was the right idea. The building has these tiny, narrow door buttons which were a little confusing for her, but she figured it out. I need to figure out a time to work Kaline on those. Weirdness is good!

We ordered a new little vest ... Still hasn't arrived. Dammit.

In the exam room, Juno helped me off with my sweatshirt jacket, once the nurse was gone. I don't know why but I always feel bizarrely shy about asking her to tug off my jacket in front of people. Then she crashed on the floor till we were done. My doctor wasn't overly worried, just a bit pissed at me for hobbling about on all my dog walks Thursday and Friday. So I wasn't allowed to go to SF and walk around all day Saturday with Sonja. (We did go to obedience class though.) By Sunday, today, I felt all better with my foot.

Yesterday we did obedience class, and Kaline was excellent except for whinging a bit while waiting for his recall. His heeling was very nice, plus we had like three people tell us how tall Kaline is getting. That always puffs me up, like I've accomplished something (ha!). During Kay's stays, I worked on proofing—nudging his butt, staring challengingly into his face and having others do the same, stomping around him, straddling him, stepping over him. Pretty solid. After class he blissfully let his buddy Lupo chew on his snout and ears and front legs.

Today, Kaline did his usual public access work in the morning: Farmer's Market, bagel place, Trader Joe's, and Walgreen's. He settled faster this week in the bagel place, even though he was on the tile instead of the carpet. He was fantastic in Trader Joe's and had an excellent time doing the buttons at Walgreen's. One was right at nose level, and wonder of wonders, Kaline pressed it with his nose! (He likes to use his enormous feet whenever possible.)

At the bagel place.

And then this afternoon, we went with Freddie, Anne, and their four collective dogs to the Horse Park at Woodside! Only Kaline was invited—he needs to run, plus we were going to work on his off-leash recall with the e-collar. I ordered a pair of collars for him and Juno for this purpose, but they haven't arrived yet.

Before anyone leaps on me for using an e-collar: Freddie has used them for decades, as has Anne, so with them they get used properly. They are never used to teach a dog a behavior. They are used to communicate with the dog over distance to enforce a behavior the dog has already been taught: here, the recall. We had already done some short-distance conditioning with Kaline. Call him, and if he ignores, he gets nicked. To turn the electricity off, he has to touch the hand of whoever calls him. None of the dogs do more than twitch their heads when they get nicked; no screaming, no flipping out. And the recalls are unbelievable.

We had to nick Kaline maybe once or twice at the start, and that was it. It was amazing to be out in this huge grassy area, with Kaline able to run and play and gambol to his heart's content, and know that I'd be able to get him back. He ran and attempted to get everyone to play with him (no one was really having it, unfortunately!). He even splashed into a little pond once! He clambered up and down the jumps, did beautiful joyous recalls, just ran himself totally ragged. He isn't too coordinated yet, but it was still so pretty to watch him.

We were there for about an hour. Rio, Freddie's black Lab, got to do some retrieving, and Mudd, Anne's 12-year-old chocolate Lab, sometimes joined in. Lucky, Anne's little rescue who looks like a Dachshund with long legs, ran around on his own schedule, and Dealer, her Norfolk terrier, kept everyone in line. Kaline got in his face one too many times and Dealer laid down the law with him. If only Juno could channel that a little bit sometimes! Kaline squawked in surprise and then left Dealer alone.

We are now home, and Kaline, having woken from his nap, is watching the broadcast of Westminster 2012 with highly amusing, deep interest! When a little Staffordshire bull terrier started bouncing around on screen, he was enthralled. Marvelous.

Juno's birthday and Jekyll & Hyde outings for Kaline

Juno's (made-up) sixth birthday was on Dec. 26, so of course she got the traditional bagel-burger. I started that with Angel, my first dog, who also had a made-up birthday. Fry up a ground beef patty, put it on a bagel, then hang on while she goes to town! I also gave her tons of little goodies throughout the day—Gouda cheese, bagel & cream cheese, pieces of sugar cookies, extra bait, etc.

Here we have a ground beef patty on a pumpkin bagel, mmmmmm.

Yes, best dog in the world, this is for you.

OM NOM NOM.

Kaline then had two different outings. One went awfully, and the other was fantastic.

We got invited with Sonja and Chief to go to Hidden Villa, a dog-friendly farm where we'd never been. Since it was dog-friendly and Mom didn't seem real thrilled to be on Juno duty for the afternoon, I decided to take Juno with Kaline. First mistake. Second mistake, taking Juno on her martingale instead of her prong.

If Kaline had been by himself, he would probably have done at least a little better. As it was, he pulled constantly against his Halti, so much that my hands were burning the whole rest of the night and he rubbed the fur down on part of his nose. Sonja, saint that she is, took Juno because I couldn't, it turned out, handle both her and Kaline around the very interesting creatures (sheep, goats, kitties, fake horses). Chief got to roam about dragging his leash most of the time. Juno took Sonja seriously about being on vacation now that I wasn't holding her leash. Kaline was just frustrating as hell.

Meeting the Hidden Villa sheeps. Not a typo, I like saying sheeps.

The one really good thing he got the hang of was going up to see something interesting, like a sheep, and then turning away from it when I asked him. It was hard for him at first, understandably, but by the end he would come away pretty easily.

So yeah, mostly that one sucked. Kaline and I were not very team-like.

Then yesterday we went with Sonja and Chief (and not Juno) to IKEA. And both boys were freaking awesome. I did this a lot:

Because Kay had rubbed his nose, we switched back to the prong. Even if it has rubbed his neck hair some, and at points given him bumps, no training collar irritates him less or is more effective. So I guess we're back on the prong. Some lady in IKEA was apparently talking bad about Kaline's prong (in German). Whatever. It works, and Kaline's happy in it. I'm done, for at least a while, messing with his equipment. The little rubbed spot on his nose is driving me all kinds of crazy. Poor baby.

Anyhow. We did a ton of distraction work with Chief and Kaline and had ourselves a fantastic time. Hendrik also came along and I was incredibly impressed with his ability to entertain himself while Sonja and I worked with the dogs.

Right as we entered, there was this big bin of stuffie footballs. We tossed them around the boys, toward the boys, then piled them around the boys' feet and had them do stays among the balls. We also dumped in a big stuffed seal. It was precious.

Sit stay.

Kaline wonders why he didn't get to settle ...

Down stay.

Next, we put the boys in down-stays across an aisle from us and let all the crowds walk between us and the boys. No one would actually walk between Kaline and Chief, but Sonja got Hendrik to do it. Kaline popped up the second time Hendrik stepped over him, so I went out to reinforce his stay with people stepping over him.

Kaline and Chief during a lull.

We chilled on a couch and the boys got to schmooze a little bit.

We haven't been able to get the videos to load yet, but both Kaline and Chief got to work on open and close in one of the model kitchens. It took a little bit for Kaline to realize I wanted him to use Chief's leash as a tug, but once he got it he was pretty good. Chief was freaking adorable, I love how he has to put his whole body into opening a cabinet. He would open the cabinet, find a teddy bear and then bring that to Sonja. Kaline just did open-wait-close. The wait is important, cause if you don't tell him, he will open the door and immediately slam it shut!

We did recalls through a busy area.

Kaline got to practice a little bit on his new "legs" task.

When we found the cheap clearance toy bins, we did more distraction work. We waved toys around, then had the boys walk through a labyrinth of toys, then do recalls through it. We even did retrieving exercises.

And then we made the boys wear silly hats.

 

By then they were both pretty tired, so we took a break in the food court.

 

On the way out, tired Chief got to be carried sometimes, which was insanely cute. That's not an option for Kaline, who now weighs in at 65 pounds, so he got to practice his blocking again. When he blocked at the food court, Sonja even nudged him a little with her knee and he didn't move out of position. Yay! We have to do that more, now that he's pretty solid.

Melt.

You are a good boy.

Service dog training, luckily, can be like baseball instead of American football. If you have a bad day, you can just get right back out there and (hopefully) erase that memory with a better day. I'd much rather do that than stew for a week over a bad outing!

Kaline opened the fridge!

I have been trumpeting this news all day. Last night, Kaline finally figured out how to open the fridge by himself! It was very exciting.

We worked on it again tonight, and he was a bit rusty. So this will be an ongoing thing. The first time is always the hardest though, and it'll only get easier from here on out.

Kaline is also still having nothing-vomit every morning. Thus, we headed to the vet today, skipping out on training in the park for about 45 minutes. Unfortunately, it was not tremendously helpful. Dr. Harish just recommended feeding Kaline the main part of his dinner later (he ate around 8:00 tonight) and also feeding him a snack even later. That way, we hope, he will not have a completely empty stomach in the morning and won't have his acid reflux going on.

They also said he's small (he's 59 pounds today; big brother Montgomery is 73). Of course, I had a mini-freakout over this, since one of the reasons I got a boy was so he'd be taller than Juno. Kaline hasn't quite caught up to her yet. But Maura, despite having two litters on the ground, quickly allayed my fears by assuring me he might not be finished growing vertically until he is 18 months old. So he has, possibly, 11 months to gain those three to four inches! Go Kaline go! This is one of the many reasons you go with a great breeder. So when you freak out over things that are not a big deal, you can ask her about it, and she can tell you everything will be okay.

At training, Kaline got to roughhouse with Lucky the Golden Achiever, and Juno did most of the work between the two of them. Kaline got a chance at being out with the big dogs on a down-stay, but couldn't handle it after a while. Ah well.

I am planning to really ramp up Juno's formal obedience training, because I just got the entry form for a trial (actually three trials in one weekend held at the same venue) at the end of January. I got all excited about entering both dogs, but it turns out Kaline can't compete until he's neutered. And I'm waiting till the last second to do that.

Anyway, Juno and I worked on about-turns and left-about-turns when heeling off leash, as well as straight recalls and drops on recall. Drop on recall is our major homework, since we can't work on the broad jump (the area in which she has almost no experience) except at training. Freddie said she'll bring her jumps next week so I can practice with Juno on the broad jump and the retrieve over the high jump. She's done retrieves over a jump before, but she has to learn to do it at 26 inches. I doubt we'll get a qualifying score at any of the three trials, but it'll be good experience for her. (She will undoubtedly break on either or both of the out-of-sight stays.)

If she's really not ready for Open by January, we'll just go do Rally. That should be fun and pretty easy for her, since I'll be allowed to chatter to her all I want!

Muir Woods

Oh, we had a fun weekend. Saturday was class and such; I ended up getting to work mostly Kaline but Juno for a little while. Kaline was really good except for whining during Circle of Chaos recalls. His heeling was really nice, and he did well on the meet and greets. He was awesome for the supervised separation, couldn't have cared less that I left. After class, Dad stayed with Kay while he romped with Lupo, and I took Juno off to the side and let her have fun bumpers. She's so damn cute.

Later in the day, Kaline and I did clicker training, trying to work on basics of starting the retrieve (yep, that again), opening cabinets, and rear-end awareness. I tried filling a tiny treat bag with treats to help Kaline with the whole getting-something-I-point-at. He went to it all right—and promptly plumped down to try and open it! Oh puppy. So we worked on hold and out, which went really well. He's doing hold with only gentle stroking fingers under his jaw, no hand on the back of his head. And as soon as you say out, he lets go and backs away from the object (in this case his tennis ball dumbbell, since Juno's obedience dumbbell is MIA).

We made some progress on open. It took forever to teach Juno this task, so I anticipate a similar quest with Kaline. About halfway through, I finally came up with the brilliant idea of not having the door clicked shut, but technically open, so I could reward Kaline for any pull that made the door move. Of course, we just started with rewarding for mouthing the tug, then tugging it enough to get it off my hand, and then tugging enough to make the door move, however slightly. That's about as far as we've gotten, haha.

Last we did rear-end awareness, which, like Juno, Kaline really seems to enjoy. Well, at least he likes the part where he gets treats for putting his front paws up on the stool. He's still at the point where I'm rewarding for each single step of his back feet to either side. Also where he falls off the stool a lot, because he's puppy clumsy! It's freaking adorable when he falls off and then rushes to get his front paws up again, looking expectantly for his treat.

This training took at most thirty minutes, with breaks included ... Kaline passed out for the rest of the evening. It was glorious.

Dead to the world.

Dad found out that there were no fees to go to Muir Woods on Sunday (Armistice Day), so we planned to do that. I still ended up going to the Farmer's Market with Kaline. He did really well, meeting four people dressed up as mice (with scary mice heads) and realizing they weren't going to eat him, and calmly not reacting to an enormous dog who charged us out of nowhere. Yes, the market is technically a no-pets area. I smacked the dog's face away from Kaline's—once my SD is getting charged, I don't mess around with being nice. Then I grabbed his collar and yelled, "Does this dog belong to someone?" After what seemed like forever, someone came to fetch him. Gaaah.

Kaline was unfazed, even if I was having figurative heart palpitations. He did absolutely rock-solid blocking for me at every stall. I still have to show him where to be, which I expect to have to do for many, many more months, but once he is in place, he stays there, sometimes leaning a little bit into the backs of my legs. Such a good boy.

In the afternoon, we headed to the woods. The woods are also a no-pet area, so both dogs needed to be on duty. My aunt, who lives up in Marin near(ish) the woods, told us there was horrific traffic, no parking, etc. We went anyhow, of course, and though at points the traffic was bad, it never stayed bad, and right as we pulled into the parking lot, someone else pulled out! It was very good luck.

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.

Kaline began shivering the instant he jumped out of the car, so into the Cozy Horse coat he went. Juno wore her big harness-vest and did most excellent momentum pulling all through the forest. She had a ton of distractions to ignore, clusters of people, screaming, running kids, strollers, not to mention all the fascinating smells of the beautiful forest. She was a star.

Juno, for pulling, went on my left, so Kaline walked on my right. He really didn't seem to mind walking over there, even though he basically never does it. He did a pretty good job ignoring all the kids too (he has a lot more trouble resisting them), but did have some totally understandable trouble resisting smelling all the forest stuff. With a dog on either side, I felt like I was in my own little parade or had really adorable bodyguards. We definitely got some looks, but mostly had no issues. I was surprised we didn't get any problem at the gate, with two dogs and Kaline "dressed" the way he was. It was a very pleasant surprise. And thanks to Juno, when I came out of the woods, I wasn't worn out and I wasn't in a ton of pain.

Me and the pups!

Between two trees.

Looking up between those two trees.

Tamalpais Valley on the way home.

I attempted to get cute pictures of the dogs with paws up on the rail of a bridge. Juno apparently decided she needed to be an overachiever. Instead of doing paws-up, which is a command she knows, she put her paws up and then attempted to vault over the freaking rail and into the creek! I practically died (thankfully she was on a very short leash and her little vault got aborted real fast). Kaline is basically Juno's size now (seven pounds to go!) but he acts shorter, so when he did paws up he didn't try to do ... more. Yeesh, Junebug!

The one picture I got of Juno, before she decided "paws up" meant "please jump over this railing."

Kaline, my little ham.

Oooh, water!

After our "hike" we went to meet my aunt and cousin for a bite to eat. Normally I don't really like working both dogs in a restaurant, but I didn't really have a choice. We went to California Pizza Kitchen and once Kaline settled, everything went incredibly well. They both passed out, hurrah, except for a couple times when Kaline decided that my anxiety levels were getting a little high and did a lap-up. He's very proactive about lap-ups, which I quite like.

In less lovely news, Kaline had to go to the vet today. For the past week-plus, about every other day, in the wee hours of the morning, I wake up to Kaline making awful vomiting noises. Then all that comes out is a white foam. I know, I know, TMI. Anyway, Saturday night he barfed up his whole dinner plus a squeaker. We have no clue where he got it, because he is no longer allowed stuffies of any kind, and the one we keep in Mom's room for Juno is in mint condition. Then he vomited that foam again this morning, so I took him in in the afternoon.

I was really proud of how calm and quiet he was during Dr. Harish's exam. Dr. Harish was looking in his eyes, ears and mouth, prodding and poking his belly, etc. I wasn't holding Kaline at all and he just stood there and took it. Apparently he was not as good when he had to go off with a tech for an X-ray, but that's cause they had to hold him on his back. Thankfully, all the X-ray showed in his innards was food. So the current theory is the squeaker was in there for a while, irritating his stomach and causing the nothing-vomiting. Hopefully we're done with that for now!

Rain is my least favorite weather

We had training in the rain today. It was not the most fun ever.

Kaline was (undeservedly, it turns out) in the proverbial doghouse from the time we got to training. After being good for a while, he started wrestling with the other puppy, who is much younger, in the back of the car. That crap drives me nuts, and I've been trying so hard to teach him that it's more rewarding to lie quietly right behind my seat and get fed little bits of bait. This other puppy though, will not take no for an answer. Hence, I was pissed at Kaline when I should've been pissed at the other pup. Ah well.

Sometimes it was just overcast, and sometimes we got poured on. Eventually Kaline needed the big coat. I was cold and wet and grumpy. Nonetheless, both my dogs did pretty well when I worked them. Kaline, understandably, did not want to do anything but stand in the wet grass, but when asked, he grudgingly did sit and lie down. Then when he realized we were going to play "up-down" he got more and more into it. Heeling went quite well. Recalls were interesting. He came nicely enough, but he kept looking away when I'd back up. Freddie had me pop him toward me and call him if he looked away when given the watch cue, and lo and behold, much better attention pre-recall!

Juno was my training dessert. She didn't care that it was wet and rainy and cold and shitty. She was stoked to work. We did finding heel exercises, which she is really good at and loves. I really need to do the rear-end exercises with Kaline that I did with her—it really helps, I think, with pivoting into position in many situations. I'd earlier been doing the same finding heel stuff with less experienced dogs, and trying to teach them where to be; with Juno, she sticks to you like ... something really sticky. (I can't stand the cliches that are popping into my head right now.)

We did long recalls, where she'd get going super fast and then put on the brakes so she could slide to a sit right in front of me. And then we did fun retrieving with a bumper. It's really neat to see how much her retrieving drive has increased. I just have to keep reminding myself that this didn't happen at all quickly, it took a long time.

But now, you whirl that bumper and she's amped. You chuck it and she goes for it like it's a steak or something, and then best of all, she comes lolloping back with it in her mouth and sits right in front of you, all proud of herself.

Everyone was much better on the drive from training, except of course our little troublemaker in the back who was chewing on Juno's good leash. (Looks like BLD will be getting some more of my money soon.) This time, Kaline ignored him and stuck right to his spot, gleefully gobbling up his tidbits. And once the puppy was gone, everyone else—Juno, Kaline and Lucky the Golden Achiever—crashed.

When the three of us finally got home, we had a hot shower. Yes, I know, hot water is not ideal for bathing dogs. But I don't think any of us were really up for adding more cold. So far, dandruff hasn't appeared, so I'm going to cross my fingers and just hope that we've escaped this time. Afterward, there was much group cuddling with blankets and such. Also, I apologized for Kaline for being pissed at him: little tastes of mashed potatoes and a piece of cheese.

I can't wait till he's grown up enough to have his own Cozy Horse coat. He and Juno are going to look so awesome when they match!

Other news from today: We started a new walking dog, a female yellow Lab who is the littermate of one of my absolute favorite dogs, who I unfortunately don't walk anymore. She accomplished in about two seconds what Juno still can't do: she made Kaline give her a respectful amount of space in the car. All she had to do was curl her lip a little, and he was like, "Ack! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

It was pretty hilarious to see how the dogs grouped themselves on the walk. Our new Lab and Juno walked on the outside, with plenty of space. The three boys mashed themselves together next to me—Kaline did an excellent job shouldering the other two away so no one was mashed against me. The doodle was constantly getting his head smushed between the other boys. Maybe it's the blondes! The whole squishing business doesn't happen with the Black Dogs.

Really though, it probably comes down to girls just being smarter than boys. Hehe.

Saturday Class No. 7 and our new car

Pretty long day, but we now have a proper car! There are still a few more formalities to be finished up, but I am no longer in possession of Faithful Little Tygs On Top (sniffle), and I am in possession of newly named Trumbull, the 2007 Lexus. (Lots of Internet points if you get the reference in the name!) Love this car.

First order of business today was Saturday class. Kaline did nicely again at heeling without the treat in his mouth. He didn't stay 100% watching me, but I don't want him to—he has to look where he's going at least a bit! He was awesome at slowing down to my pace when we worked on that, and at keeping focused as we walked through the middle of the circle with all the other dogs. We worked on the moving down; he does better when I swoop out in front of him (windmill down) rather than giving him the signal from the side. Kaline also did well in the figure eights; totally focused when he was working, and when the little yellow terrier mix was working, yet super fascinated by Percy, the colored bull terrier, when he was working. I have no idea.

Recalls were interesting. My brain is starting to scramble during those, because I'm both trying to get Kaline to watch and stay focused while really concentrating on my technique—my hand signal, how my hands are supposed to move as I draw him in, do I need to bring my knee up to thwart the crotch-bashing, how fast I'm supposed to straighten up, etc. Kaline did fine when we did recalls on the big circle; then we brought all the dogs in to the center of the circle and left them all in a tight little knot with all their butts together.

I don't know what Kaline's objective was, but every time I would move away from him, his head would just start sinking, like a giraffe carefully leaning down to drink water. Only once did he actually sink into a down; mostly his head was the only part of his body that moved. My dad and Teddy's owner were just cracking up. It was pretty hilarious. We worked through it, and he did fine. The anxiety level among the humans, though, just goes through the roof the longer Anne and Freddie make us wait to call the dogs. That's pretty funny too, I'm not going to lie. With Kaline, I figured there was no point getting anxious about it, just move in if I have to to get his attention back. I ended up only about two feet from him, but who cares, he's a baby.

Last thing was long sits and downs, with the handlers and dogs in pairs. For the long sit, I left Kaline with my very unfamiliar partner and his dog: Dad and Juno. (It felt like cheating, but it was also fun.) Kaline did fine, though when I came back Anne informed me she'd had to correct him back into a sit because he was going down, and my partner wasn't doing the correction himself. Haha! Then Dad left and I had both my pups for the long down. That definitely was cheating, and after a little while Anne had me leave too. They were chilled out, like size 20 and size 16 font in their cute little relaxed downs.

After class we came home with instructions to play a lot more of the recall game in the house, and to work on leave it for Tuesday. Kaline hung out with Dad while Juno and I had a nap; then I took both dogs out individually to do grooming. Tomorrow, they get baths. At least, this is my plan.

Around 3:00, Mike the Car Guy showed up with the car. We signed some more paperwork, then began the long process of cleaning out my little Honda of all its gear. Fitting it into the Lexus was interesting as well—it has all that space for the dogs, but obviously that means there's no trunk. Mom found this secret compartment in the floor of the official cargo area, so I used that for all my obedience gear (stuff I don't necessarily use constantly throughout the day; and when I do need it, I tend not to have extra dogs in the car). Most of my other stuff went in the backseat footspace; the console up front now contains like fifty rolls of poo bags and two spare prong collars; and the glove compartment has my three spare leashes, sunglasses, and other normal glove compartment things. I even was able to transfer a couple of my window clings.

Kaline and Juno chilled in the driveway while all this was going on. Juno was pretty amusing—she hopped into the new car when the back hatch was open, and then when she got hot and I happened to open the door to Dad's car (in the shade), she just slid in there and went to sleep. Kaline and I discovered he can hop into the new car on his own, he just needs a running start!

Dad and Mike took my car to get washed, and then Mike drove away with it. Sniffle sniffle. We took my car, loaded up a little, to the storage unit with both dogs. I just chilled with the dogs in the car when we got there, because to go into the actual building they have to wear their vests. Kaline got some crate time while the rest of us went to dinner. We had to ride a really crowded elevator and Juno did a fantastic job blocking people out of my space. Phew.

Kaline is apparently developing a bad new habit, although I can't trick him into doing it while I'm present to save my life: pulling things off the counter. Since I can't catch him in the act (yet!) I've just been doing things that might entice him to get up there—squeaking toys and setting them up on the counter, deliberately leaving treats there—and when he doesn't, I praise him. We'll see how it goes.

The dogs have also been having actual play sessions. It's still way loud, but instead of Juno barking, she's making her raaaah! sounds that mean she's having an excellent wrestling session. For now, being smaller, Kaline is getting the worst of it, but he never even yelps, just rushes back for more every time she lets him up, batting her with his enormous feet.

Hopefully I should get a lot of time to work on Kaline by himself tomorrow. Should be a fun day!

Bad day, the sequel

The car drama continues, and the dogs continue to have to work on me. Feeling positive, I called the credit union once the dogs and I got out on our walk. I told the woman what my aunt had found with only five minutes' actual work. She said she had not received any emails from or about me (possible lie) but she was going to "head me off at the pass." Because the credit union only uses information from one credit score reporting company, and she had doublechecked whatever she'd done, she would not even look at the credit score I actually possess. The disapproval for the loan still stood, and if I wanted to do anything about it, I'd have to call Experian and fight with them.

Then I got some gobbledegook about how all the different credit score companies can have different information (how this is possible, I don't know). I told her that sounded incredibly stupid. She talked about having a contract with Experian, yadda yadda. Did I understand now? No, in fact, none of it made a jot of sense whatsoever. "Am I not speaking clearly?" she retorted. About to cry, I hung up, then had the meltdown.

I called my aunt, who had me call her friend who'd done the credit check on me yesterday. He agreed that given my credit card (MasterCard, nothing obscure) and the places I'd made purchases (again, not obscure) the idea that none of it would show up on a credit report was completely preposterous. So he called the credit union; the woman said she is not in the business of trusting people but making good loans. He got the same treatment: rude and stonewalled. So we're going to try somewhere else ... trying online at Chase, my parents' bank, led to a rejection within seconds, though. Gotta go in person, I suppose.

Again with the completely hopeless feelings. Not fun. Even less fun: I was giving my mom an update on the situation on my phone and walking the dogs. A grown bloody man stepped in front of Juno, didn't even make eye contact with me, and started freaking GROPING her. I snapped his head off: "You're supposed to ask before you manhandle other people's dogs!" He snapped something back but I wasn't listening. Sometimes, I wish Juno was a less tolerant dog toward strangers ...

Thankfully, training in the afternoon was lovely and made me feel a little better. Kaline did pretty well, participating in big dog heeling with the moving sit, moving down, and moving stand. If none of that makes sense: "moving" means that your dog does the command, while the person continues moving out to the end of the leash or some other point. Moving stand, naturally, was hardest for Kaline, but not terribly difficult. I got him stacked really nicely at one point! Then of course he moved. Ah well.

Juno was a freaking star. She did lovely off leash heeling, then worked on doing sits and downs while not moving out of the heel position (harder than it sounds!). Once she got the hang of it, she was gleeful—"up-down" is one of her absolute favorite games. Then we went in a big field with the other advanced dogs and did really long recalls. The best one was where I left Juno at one end and headed for the other, probably 75-100 yards (but I am not good at guesstimating measurements, so don't quote me!). Periodically I looked back to reinforce the stay; about three quarters of the way to my destination, I looked back and Juno was standing up.

"Sit!" I called. And her butt plopped down. I actually did a little fist pump of glee. Woohoo!

I made it to the end of the field, called her, and she came like a bat out of hell. Such a good dog. She got many treats and a good long belly rub.

After a long nap and cuddle, Kaline and I accompanied Mom to Stanford Shopping Center for a quick training outing. We worked on attention, as always, as well as not pulling (gaaaaah). He settled nicely behind me while we were at counters, if I asked; he also did pretty decent blocking if I asked for that. I had a good time exposing him to the escalators. His reaction was very Kaline—not scared, but utterly fascinated. We hung out there for a while; I gave him treats for looking calmly at the escalators, and for looking at me.

Kaline and the escalator.

We also did a quick stop in at Trader Joe's and went up and down some aisles. Kaline did a lovely sit-stay with great attention while I got cream cheese off a high shelf. I had him do a down-stay and rolled one of these TJ bags on wheels all around him; he was fine until someone rang one of the big brass bells, and then Kaline had pretty much had enough. Ah well, he did fine!

Vet update: Kaline had a pretty big breakout, all of a sudden, of those little bumps last night after the CGC test. They were clustered on his left hock, and definitely itchy. So off we went to the vet; she called them "pyometra" and put Kaline on antibiotics and antihistamines. Woohoo for antihistamines and their knockout properties, hehe. Hopefully this will take care of those. I also started him on Frontline, and Oct. 1 he'll start getting a Heartgard with Juno.

Last couple days

Funk continues, plus I have been using up way too many spoons. Hence the infrequent writing.

Wednesday we had three pack walks; dropped Kaline off at home and then it was just me and Juno. We went to lunch at Johnny Rocket's with the parents and then went with Dad to the Honda place. I was pretty sure at that point that I was going with the Lexus, but we gave the CRVs and a 2009 Rav4 their shot. Turns out, any CRV older than a 2012 doesn't have the levers for the seats, but has instead these bizarre straps. Which I physically can't work. Not that I have lots of trouble working, but I actually can't do it. Plus the used CRVs we looked at, a 2011 and a 2007, were both more expensive than the Lexus.

Juno at Johnny Rocket's.

The 2009 Rav4 was actually pretty sweet. Junebug certainly enjoyed it, chilling in the back while I gave it a test drive. But again, it was more expensive than the Lexus, and not nearly as awesome. So the Lexus wins!

Juno in the Rav4, checking out the extra cupholders. Very important.

Thursday was a little easier to handle—one pack walk and then training. We had a ton of client dogs, so Juno and Kaline didn't get a ton of work. Kaline at least got to do some good heeling and weaving, and then the Gauntlet—recalls between two lines of dogs facing each other on down-stays. Juno practiced formal retrieves. After training, he got crated and Juno and I went to my parents' anniversary dinner.

Happy Anniversary, Mom & Dad!

They've been married 42 years, hurrah! So we went to this really nice restaurant that we go to maybe once a year if we're lucky. Juno was of course the perfect lady; just thinking about taking Kaline in such a place at this age gives me the shudders! At the end they give you a rose—I'd been practicing take it and hold with Juno in hopes of getting her to clench the rose in her teeth, but she spat it out. Ah well.

Today was the third-to-last day of this stupid week. (Weekend's not gonna be good.) We had three walks, culminating with our last walk with the Portola Valley dogs. Thank goodness we're done with the hellish hills. No chance to eat or take a nap afterward; we had to drive to San Mateo to a credit union to start the process of trying to get a loan so I can get the car. We walked in, and when I sat down, Kaline for the first time automatically lay down at my feet. Yay, progress. From there, we had to go straight to our tdoc appointment, where both of them mostly slept. Again with the yay.

Kaline's been having what I refer to as Puppy Witching Hour, where around 9:00 or so he'll just go insane and be a complete brat for what seems like forever, until he all of a sudden conks out. To combat that, tonight after we had recharged a little, I took the dogs out for about an hour. It's now 9:22. Kaline has been asleep since about 8:45. Oh the bliss of peace and quiet.

Juno's teeth and a new new-car candidate

Yesterday Juno got her teeth cleaned. It turned out there was no major infection, no rotten teeth needing to be extracted—bloody well better not be, considering she gets her teeth brushed every night—nothing stuck up there. Just the inflammation around her gum in the back, maybe a touch of gingivitis. So they got that all cleaned up, and $458 later, I was able to take her woozy self home.

That meant that all day, it was just me and Kaline. First we walked Teddy and Bentley, and Teddy served ably as the outside dog. Then we had Ellis, Jett, Max and Xena, and thank goodness Max is a fantastic outside dog. You need a good one when you're walking in downtown Palo Alto. Kaline did just fine, although he seemed slightly disconcerted not having his big sister around.

After the dogs got dropped off and Kaline had lunch, I walked with him to McDonald's for me to get some lunch. It was a great training ground for me and Juno, when she was first starting her training. Restaurant experience, but not too much pressure. Nonetheless, I was really nervous going in; I get so uptight that Kaline is going to make a mistake and people will see and judge. Getting uptight, obviously, is not good for Kaline.

Kaline under the table at McDonald's.

Anyway, he did just fine, pretty much. He blocked all right in line, just got distracted when someone came over wanting to pet him. I was able to redirect him and get his focus back very quickly. He sat very politely while I ordered, and again sat nicely behind me while I got pop, then later when I got the food and ketchup. Once we settled down at the booth, though, he was a bit resistant about lying down. Eventually I got him settled—faster, actually, than he is usually able to settle in restaurant settings currently—and he slept nicely while I ate. And then we walked home again.

Now having had about three hours worth of walks, Kaline went to sleep pretty fast when we got home. For a while he was curled up in the bend of my knees, which was lovely. Then at 4:30 he went in his crate and off I went to pick up my girl. I cuddled with her for a while, leaving Kaline upstairs; she was whining pitifully, as dogs do when coming out of anaesthesia, and even though I knew it wasn't because she was in pain, I still felt awful. She was all stoned and stuff too.

Cuddling woozy Juno on the couch.

Once both the parents were home, Dad stayed with Juno while Mom, Kaline and I went to Staples for her to get a multi-port for her computer. Kaline did super well in the store; since it was just a quick trip, we did some basic obedience (sit and down stays, recalls, informal heeling) and had Mom step over him a couple times while he did a down-stay in the middle of the store. No problem.

Then we got home and he turned into devil puppy. He must have had ten different toys out, and all he wanted to chew on was his and Juno's beds, my feet/shoes, Juno's feet, papers, etc. I kept trying to redirect him onto proper chewies, but he'd flit from one to the other and just couldn't hold still. The one thing that held his interest was a frozen carrot, but he finished it in about ten minutes and it was the last one I had. I took the dogs out for a walk, hoping that'd take the edge off Kaline, but again, no luck. It was a very tiring night. Finally they both fell asleep around 10:30. Sigh of relief.

A brief spell of good behavior from Kaline in the evening ... Oh puppyhood.

Today we had our pack walk with the Lab siblings, Baxter and Gracie, and Jett, then training in the park with the various blondes. Kaline got to do a ton of heeling work and did really well, hurrah! Freddie and Dianne worked Juno. Kaline also did nice recalls—you should've seen his face when Freddie handed me a palm-size squeakie to use. We only had one or two semi-drive bys. And then we did retrieves with the squeakie, and he was awesome, not only getting it, but returning, sitting with it still held in his mouth, and walking around with it. Woohoo!

Kaline playing bitey-face with Lucky the Golden Achiever.

When I got home, Dad's friend was here with a 2007 Lexus RX 350. Dad knows him through a business group; he is The Car Guy Who Does the Finding and Haggling For You. I never thought a Lexus was in any way a possibility, but this one actually could be, given the asking price. It is a car that is nice to me. Getting the seats down and up is a little harder than in the CRV or Rav4, but I shouldn't have to do that often, and likely when I need to, I will be able to get help. The back hatch, the important part, is beautifully easy: you give it a little push and it opens the rest of the way by itself, and then to close it you just press a button and step back! It closes on its own! I practically did a dance. Juno had no problem leaping inside; Kaline of course needs help but won't for very much longer.

It's gorgeous inside, gets better mileage than my car (kind of the same as saying someone is smarter than George W. Bush—you're not setting the bar real high), is very nice to drive, has all auto windows, lots of cupholders, buttons to adjust the seats rather than pull-levers or push-bars (YAY), and it's a lovely pale blue. We're checking out a 2011 CRV tomorrow and after that I really have to decide one way or the other on the Lexus, because once the weekend hits he'll start advertising it to people in general, and at a higher price. We'll see how this goes, but I really liked driving it. Mmm. Buttons.

Sneaky puppy

It's been kind of a long day, so here's a funny from yesterday. We did our hopefully-to-become-routine walk with Dad to Borrone's for Sunday breakfast. I worked on not pulling with Kaline there and back. He was a ton better today, but we'll have to see if it really sticks.

Anyway, Kaline was under my chair, Juno under the table outside at Borrone's. Kaline kept popping up, because there were Dachshunds under the next table. I kept replacing him in the down. This happened enough that by the time we were almost done, he had no illusions about me wanting him to hold the down.

But now he was cold. I think Lizard (shortened from Lizard Sounds) will be an excellent nickname for Kaline. With his very shiny but not very warm Doberman coat, he's like some cold-blooded reptile. It's August, for crying out loud, and he's shivering in the shade.

I wanna go in the sun. But Mommy told me not to break my down. But I'm cooooolllld! 

Ahhh, warmth.

So my clever little man compromised. I watched the whole process and for some reason it did not occur to me to take video. He'd push his little but up very close to his front legs (not up enough to be considered breaking the down), then crawl forward on the front legs, then repeat. Finally, he was completely in the sun. Also completely in the aisle that servers were using to bring food to people, and people were using to get to their tables. He'd worked so hard though that I let him stay there for a bit while I giggled and marveled at him. Then we worked out a compromise where he got to lie in the sun but was right behind my chair, where there was less chance of him getting stepped on.

Today, Kaline's been on four freaking walks and still had energy up to about ten minutes ago. One walk was just with Juno, and we did some training in the park, like double-dog recall drills. (One dog has to hold a sit stay while the other dog does a recall past him/her; then the positions are reversed.) Kaline seems to have lifted his limit on recalls and is doing more than three, hooray! Sometimes he gets up speed though and chooses to do a drive-by rather than crash into my legs ... While I appreciate the consideration, it's definitely not a habit I want him to get into!

Juno, Teddy and Kaline after pack walk No. 2 (Bentley not pictured).

He then did two pack walks with the different groups, had crate time, snuggle time, more crate time while Juno got her snuggle time, then went on a training walk all by himself back to the park. We worked on "here" aka the informal recall—he doesn't have to sit in front of me, he just has to come back and put his nose in my right hand, and then he can go play again. We did a couple formal recalls too. Remote sits and downs, leave its, walking nicely next to me. In the right situation (i.e. low to medium distraction), he has such fabulous eye contact while walking next to me! We just have to work on him remembering to look out as well, so he doesn't faceplant.


The 'rents babysat Kaline while Juno and I met my buddy Danny for dinner at the Goose. I had briefly considered taking both, because Danny hadn't met Kaline, but I wanted to talk to Danny and find out what's been going on with him, not spend half the time under the table keeping Kaline in a down and peace between the babies. It was a good choice. Got a smart-ass in line who was like, "Didn't I just see you drive into the parking lot?" (As in, how can you be blind and need a guide dog if you can drive?) Other than that, it was great. Juno even managed to resist the peanut shells under the table. (That is one of the charms of the Goose, you can toss your peanut shells on the floor. But Juno really likes to eat peanut shells.)

Danny got to meet Kaline after dinner and my little man was kind of a pest. Okay, he was REALLY a pest. Sigh. But now both dogs are asleep. And I still have to take Kaline's 17-week picture. Oops.

ETA: Here is the 17-week picture!

Oh yeah! Milestone of the Day: It has now been THREE WHOLE WEEKS since Kaline had an accident in the house. Rejoice. And Juno's new pretty dog tag came!