One of my resolutions for the new year is to blog at least once a week, hopefully more. I slacked off, obviously, but hopefully I will start writing again with new dedication in 2014. Here are all my dog-related goals for 2014.
1. Be a more patient and methodical trainer. Sometimes I get frustrated too easily, and that does not help my dogs learn. I also sometimes do things haphazardly, and though they can generally figure it out anyway, I'd like to be more “scientific” about it. Think up my various criteria beforehand and stick to them, that kind of thing.
2. Graduate Kaline at the end of June/early July. He will be 24 months old at the end of April, at which time I plan to have an orthopedist evaluate his elbows and hips for mobility work. Assuming (fingers crossed!) that he is cleared, that gives us about two months to train and polish his bracing and counterbalance. Obviously, this is not a hard and fast deadline. If he needs more time for me to be comfortable calling him a full-fledged service dog, then he shall have it.
3. Earn Juno's Rally Excellent title, get more than one leg toward her RAE title. She is only one leg away from RE, so that's doable. For RAE, she has to qualify in both Excellent and Advanced in the same trial to get a leg. Not sure how many trials we'll be able to afford this year, hence the vague number of RAE legs.
4. Earn Kaline's Rally Novice title, start on Rally Advanced.
The first trial for the three of us is in a few weeks, the Mission Bell Cluster trial. Three trials in two days. It could be a little bit exhausting. I'm hoping against hope for eight qualifying runs (pause for guffaws) ... But what I really need is Juno to get her RE in the first trial. Cause we entered Advanced and Excellent for the second and third. Eek.
So, things that have been happening. Juno is no longer doing any mobility work, because it makes her too sore. Kaline just started working in the BLD harness and is doing pretty great in it. Today we worked a lot on going up stairs (he's pretty good except for swinging his head) and going down (where he tries to go way too fast). The movie theatre people seemed rather perplexed by us, but we went up and down the enormous set of stairs somewhere around five or six times. And he got way more careful and attentive about going down!
The biggest recent breakthrough came courtesy of Sonja. Kaline clearly understood the concept of retrieving, but generally was not excited to do it with any object that he wasn't already interested in. In fifteen minutes, Sonja had him gleefully retrieving practically everything. The key? A pink retrieving dummy filled with treats, and making the objects, all of them, super super fun. Kaline now retrieves almost anything I ask him to (we're still working on being comfortable with metal). I got a key fob from K9 Lifeline Designs, a fantastic SD gear company—it's made of paracord, so Kaline loves the feel of it in his mouth. I'm working on adding weight to it, and eventually I'll attach my keys to it so he can retrieve them using his fob.
Showing posts with label retrieving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retrieving. Show all posts
01 January 2014
22 August 2013
Michigan Trip, Day 1
14 August 2013
What a long day our first one was. I got up quite early to make sure Kaline had a long walk before heading to the airport. I've never been quite so glad to have him do No. 1 and No. 2 with great efficiency! I basically let him pee on anything he wanted—I just wanted him empty.
By design, we did not get to the airport terribly early. It worked out perfectly. We had just enough time to check our bags, for me to whisk Kaline for one last pee at the far-away animal relief area, get through security, and board early.
On the way to the relief area, I had Kaline practice his momentum pull. He is still sometimes pulling too hard, but he did great in the few little crowds he had to navigate.
Security went okay, except for the shoe retrieve got botched. I will know for the future not to get caught up talking to the person behind me—while I was doing that, Kaline lost focus a bit and when I asked him to get the shoes, he looked at me like, “Ehhhh, you get 'em.” Dad got them. He did great getting both my jacket and hoodie off though. He held a nice down stay before his recall through the metal detector. A burly bearded guy did the pat down, and before starting he knelt in front of Kaline to get kisses and hugs. Kaline was thrilled.
In the short wait before we boarded the plane, Kaline, as I expected, had a nothing-vomit. Luckily, this was literally nothing (sometimes there is a tiny amount of yellow bile). He gave me so much warning with the heaving that I had time to search through my backpack, find the collapsible bowl, and position it in front of his mouth. Everyone was staring, it was a little embarrassing, but not too big a deal.
Kaline settled into his spot on the plane between my feet pretty well, but then got very scared by the takeoff. I was feeding his treats the whole time but it wasn't enough (then again, he never got so scared he wouldn't eat them!). For a while after we got in the air, he was trembling on and off, popping up, yawning, licking his lips, panting. Finally he settled down again and took a series of cat naps, mostly with his head on my knee. For his first flight, not too bad. He did pretty well on landing, just opened his eyes very wide.
In the Detroit airport, he was fantastic, just a bit overzealous with his momentum pull. We got our bags, then got the Hertz bus. Kay was very good on there. Getting the car took forever—I gave Kaline a long potty break, reapplied liquid bandaid to his ear, etc.—and Dad ended up getting a hulking Escalade (we exchanged it the next day because it was so monstrous).
We drove to TownePlace Suites, a hotel by the mall, which is not only pet friendly (so no hassle at the front desk about paperwork, ID, certification, or anything else) but also gave us an accessible room which had a separate bedroom, yay! We got dinner at nearby Red Robin and Kaline slept under the table.
In a kind way at dinner, the parents asked if I felt I would ever not need to use a SD, if I could “conquer” the psych stuff. I explained that since a SD works for me, that would be a reason to keep going, not stop. If I were on medication that treated my conditions, I would continue to take it, because it's doing what it's supposed to. I wouldn't see the fact that meds were working as a reason to discontinue them. Since medications don't work for me, I treat myself using a service dog. But it's the same basic idea. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I dressed Kaline in his Tiger pajamas when we got back to the hotel and he looked unspeakably adorable. He also tried to take over both the regular bed and the fold-out bed. Attaboy.
What a long day our first one was. I got up quite early to make sure Kaline had a long walk before heading to the airport. I've never been quite so glad to have him do No. 1 and No. 2 with great efficiency! I basically let him pee on anything he wanted—I just wanted him empty.
By design, we did not get to the airport terribly early. It worked out perfectly. We had just enough time to check our bags, for me to whisk Kaline for one last pee at the far-away animal relief area, get through security, and board early.
On the way to the relief area, I had Kaline practice his momentum pull. He is still sometimes pulling too hard, but he did great in the few little crowds he had to navigate.
Security went okay, except for the shoe retrieve got botched. I will know for the future not to get caught up talking to the person behind me—while I was doing that, Kaline lost focus a bit and when I asked him to get the shoes, he looked at me like, “Ehhhh, you get 'em.” Dad got them. He did great getting both my jacket and hoodie off though. He held a nice down stay before his recall through the metal detector. A burly bearded guy did the pat down, and before starting he knelt in front of Kaline to get kisses and hugs. Kaline was thrilled.
In the short wait before we boarded the plane, Kaline, as I expected, had a nothing-vomit. Luckily, this was literally nothing (sometimes there is a tiny amount of yellow bile). He gave me so much warning with the heaving that I had time to search through my backpack, find the collapsible bowl, and position it in front of his mouth. Everyone was staring, it was a little embarrassing, but not too big a deal.
 |
| Kaline in the airport, post-nothing-vomit. |
Kaline settled into his spot on the plane between my feet pretty well, but then got very scared by the takeoff. I was feeding his treats the whole time but it wasn't enough (then again, he never got so scared he wouldn't eat them!). For a while after we got in the air, he was trembling on and off, popping up, yawning, licking his lips, panting. Finally he settled down again and took a series of cat naps, mostly with his head on my knee. For his first flight, not too bad. He did pretty well on landing, just opened his eyes very wide.
 |
| On the plane, pre-takeoff. |
 |
| Settled for a catnap. |
 |
| My knee made an excellent chin rest. |
 |
| Kaline on the Hertz bus. |
In a kind way at dinner, the parents asked if I felt I would ever not need to use a SD, if I could “conquer” the psych stuff. I explained that since a SD works for me, that would be a reason to keep going, not stop. If I were on medication that treated my conditions, I would continue to take it, because it's doing what it's supposed to. I wouldn't see the fact that meds were working as a reason to discontinue them. Since medications don't work for me, I treat myself using a service dog. But it's the same basic idea. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I dressed Kaline in his Tiger pajamas when we got back to the hotel and he looked unspeakably adorable. He also tried to take over both the regular bed and the fold-out bed. Attaboy.
 |
| Kaline's bed. |
 |
| Tigers jammies! |
12 August 2013
Practicing airport security
This Saturday, in preparation for our upcoming trip to Michigan, Kaline and I met Sonja and Chief at San Francisco International Airport to practice going through airport security. Handily for me, Sonja already had to be there to meet Hendrik, so I got to tag along. We not only got to do security, we explored the international terminal and got to take the Air Train (like an easier version of BART) over to the domestic terminal, where we did Delta security.
I dressed Kaline in the big vest with saddlebags (which contained barely anything, but tend to cut down on drive-by pets) for realism, and wore a jacket he'd have to get off me. We'd been practicing his retrieves a lot around the house, as well as his tugging.
First we visited the Delta Special Services desk. The first lady we talked to was exceedingly nice and wanted to help us get a pass for security. The supervisor didn't want to, but she did say they'd issue the pass if TSA approved it. So our new friend took us over to security while she chatted with TSA. I know we don't normally think of TSA folks as pleasant, but boy, were they. It was slow at the airport, and you must admit, two adorable SDITs go a long way in making people nicer. The TSA supervisor had no problem approving a pass for me, so our Delta friend printed it at her desk and off I went with Kaline.
We went in the express line to get the pass and ID (mine, not one for him) checked, then got in the actual security line. I quickly discovered that several of the surrounding people were Michiganders, who were delighted to meet a cute boy named Kaline. I took off my shoes; Kaline played with them a little, but eventually delivered them to hand. When we got closer to the bins, I asked him to help me take off my jacket, and he did that flawlessly. He blocked pretty nicely in line. We had a little issue with his saddlebags—one guy wanted me to take them off, which is rather hard for me, and we compromised by emptying them into one of those little dishes and sending them through the X-ray. Otherwise, the TSA folks continued to be super nice.
For the metal detector, I left Kaline in a sit-stay originally while I headed through. He started to slide almost immediately, either because of the way the harness fits or because of the carpet, so I told him to down. Lesson learned for Wednesday, leave him in a down to start with. Once I went through, I called him through—perfect. A female TSA agent came to pat him down (I am not sure why “female assist” was required when my male dog was getting the pat down, and I was getting no pat down at all). Kaline stood nicely for her but did want to kiss her; she assured me that he could and that she loved dogs, so I didn't mess with him too much about it. Kaline plopped under the table while I got all my stuff back on and in my pockets, and then we made an about turn and headed out to Sonja and Chief!
Part of my anxiety involves constructing elaborate catastrophe scenarios in my head about future events. That's why I really, really, REALLY, like to do dry runs! This one definitely increased my confidence, although obviously we still have the plane ride itself to get through. On my own, I am pretty confident in Kaline's ability to handle it, but then I get the doubters and they make me doubt him. Which is stupid, but anyway.
Sunday Kaline did his usual public access work, which was generally very good. He got some looks for doing spontaneous DPT in the bagel store, but he was right—I needed it. He did pretty well in the market, which was freaking full of pets on flexis who aren't supposed to be there. He gets a little distracted by them, but I get huge spikes in anxiety, because generally the people who use flexis and bring their dogs to markets where they don't belong are the people with really badly behaved dogs, and I constantly fear some random dog attacking Kaline and ruining him. (See? Catastrophe.) But it's happened to a lot of people with SDs and SDITs, so it's not an unreasonable fear.
We did Trader Joe's at the end and Kay did really nice blocking there as well. Carts can come within inches of him, and he doesn't even turn his head. He did get surprised by the pop of a guy breaking down cardboard boxes, so we turned around and stood there watching the box breakdown and having cookies. No big.
Oh man, this is a big test coming up. I am excited but nervous to see how Kaline does in Michigan.
I dressed Kaline in the big vest with saddlebags (which contained barely anything, but tend to cut down on drive-by pets) for realism, and wore a jacket he'd have to get off me. We'd been practicing his retrieves a lot around the house, as well as his tugging.
First we visited the Delta Special Services desk. The first lady we talked to was exceedingly nice and wanted to help us get a pass for security. The supervisor didn't want to, but she did say they'd issue the pass if TSA approved it. So our new friend took us over to security while she chatted with TSA. I know we don't normally think of TSA folks as pleasant, but boy, were they. It was slow at the airport, and you must admit, two adorable SDITs go a long way in making people nicer. The TSA supervisor had no problem approving a pass for me, so our Delta friend printed it at her desk and off I went with Kaline.
We went in the express line to get the pass and ID (mine, not one for him) checked, then got in the actual security line. I quickly discovered that several of the surrounding people were Michiganders, who were delighted to meet a cute boy named Kaline. I took off my shoes; Kaline played with them a little, but eventually delivered them to hand. When we got closer to the bins, I asked him to help me take off my jacket, and he did that flawlessly. He blocked pretty nicely in line. We had a little issue with his saddlebags—one guy wanted me to take them off, which is rather hard for me, and we compromised by emptying them into one of those little dishes and sending them through the X-ray. Otherwise, the TSA folks continued to be super nice.
For the metal detector, I left Kaline in a sit-stay originally while I headed through. He started to slide almost immediately, either because of the way the harness fits or because of the carpet, so I told him to down. Lesson learned for Wednesday, leave him in a down to start with. Once I went through, I called him through—perfect. A female TSA agent came to pat him down (I am not sure why “female assist” was required when my male dog was getting the pat down, and I was getting no pat down at all). Kaline stood nicely for her but did want to kiss her; she assured me that he could and that she loved dogs, so I didn't mess with him too much about it. Kaline plopped under the table while I got all my stuff back on and in my pockets, and then we made an about turn and headed out to Sonja and Chief!
Part of my anxiety involves constructing elaborate catastrophe scenarios in my head about future events. That's why I really, really, REALLY, like to do dry runs! This one definitely increased my confidence, although obviously we still have the plane ride itself to get through. On my own, I am pretty confident in Kaline's ability to handle it, but then I get the doubters and they make me doubt him. Which is stupid, but anyway.
Sunday Kaline did his usual public access work, which was generally very good. He got some looks for doing spontaneous DPT in the bagel store, but he was right—I needed it. He did pretty well in the market, which was freaking full of pets on flexis who aren't supposed to be there. He gets a little distracted by them, but I get huge spikes in anxiety, because generally the people who use flexis and bring their dogs to markets where they don't belong are the people with really badly behaved dogs, and I constantly fear some random dog attacking Kaline and ruining him. (See? Catastrophe.) But it's happened to a lot of people with SDs and SDITs, so it's not an unreasonable fear.
We did Trader Joe's at the end and Kay did really nice blocking there as well. Carts can come within inches of him, and he doesn't even turn his head. He did get surprised by the pop of a guy breaking down cardboard boxes, so we turned around and stood there watching the box breakdown and having cookies. No big.
Oh man, this is a big test coming up. I am excited but nervous to see how Kaline does in Michigan.
24 June 2013
Another leg for Juno, and Kaline's first trip to a trial
Yesterday was Kaline's first Gotcha Day—I've had him a whole year, which is pretty unbelievable—and we went to a Rally trial for Juno with friends Mary, Marissa, and Kristin. I brought the big purple pop-up crate for Kaline to chill in, along with his breakfast and a Bento ball with an actual cookie in it. (Usually Kaline finds the Bento ball so fascinating on its own that I don't bother with the cookie.)
As you might have guessed, Kaline was absolutely not interested in the diversionary things and whined a lot in the crate. Juno was her usual excellent self. It was fantastic getting to meet Mary in real life, and both the dogs quite liked her also. Juno even favored her with a kiss, which is big coming from her. It was really nice to have a friend there that one dog could stay with while I did things with the other. And Mary took a bunch of fantastic photos of both dogs, but mostly the gorgeous Juno.
I tried to do things better than last time, given it was the same venue. We got a much better course, full of things that Juno is fairly good at, and sans broad jump. (YAY!) It was overcast, so I could warm Juno up in a figurative sense without really doing it in a literal sense. And for actual SD work, I had Kaline there, so Juno didn't have to worry about that.
Well, we again had jump issues, since on the first pass Juno decided to cut around the jump rather than go over it. Not knowing that you're not supposed to repeat a jump (I learn new things at every Rally trial, and always because I've done something incorrectly, haha), I got her back and had her take it properly. We lost ten points right there, but only one point on the entire rest of the course! So I was really happy with that. All four of the dogs who got ribbons for Advanced B got scores of 100, how insane! First through fourth was decided based on speed. An awesome toy poodle got second. All of us sitting together were commenting on how nice it is to see a little dog that's treated like an actual dog. All of us with dogs competing in Advanced (me, Kristin and Marissa) got legs! WOOHOO!!!
Once Juno was finished, I left her to hang out with Mary, got Kaline vested, and decided to do a circuit of the trial. I had had him out a few times already, just in our area, and had no issues from anyone regarding his prong collar. (Prong collars may not be worn at AKC trials—unless your dog is a SD and it's part of his working gear.) That changed toward the end of our circuit, the rest of which went pretty well. Kaline apparently has more trouble ignoring single dogs than ignoring an entire area full of dogs.
Anyway, we had just spotted our Doberman friend, Sue Korp, and her lovely bitch who has All The Obedience Titles. As we went to say hi and chat a bit, a woman with an Airedale came up to yell at me about Kaline's prong collar. I didn't even let her finish her little diatribe, continually cutting her off with, “He is a service dog. He is not competing. The prong collar is part of his normal working gear.” (I wasn't going to get into the nuances of SD vs. SDIT with her, considering that in California, it doesn't really matter.) I was getting pretty worked up but not too badly, because I had expected someone, at some point, to do exactly what she was doing and had prepared for it. Kaline was doing really well, standing in a block in front of me, between me and the yelling woman.
So I reached down to stroke him reassuringly and tell him he was a good boy. The Airedale woman gave him a disdainful look and said, “Can't be much of a good dog if he's in a prong.” That hurt, big time. I'm proud that I didn't cuss her out, or say something stupid, instead responding that my tools are my business, not hers. But you don't hear from a stranger that basically you have a terrible puppy and not feel totally like crap.
We immediately came back to the area with our friends, where Kaline parked himself on my lap/against my chest for most of the next half hour or so. He'd get off momentarily but then he'd be right back up. Such a good boy. And later, Sue came over to chat and say that the Airedale woman was over the top. She said that nationals for Rally are in Pomona this year—bad half of California, but still, West Coast! Maybe we'll figure out a way to go. It's in October, so we have time, and it'd be fun to see Sue's wonderful bitch strut her stuff (somehow at Rally I never end up finding time to go watch regular obedience).
During Rally Novice, a nice woman and her elderly mom came over to us to talk SDs—the mother is training her next mobility dog, a pretty smooth collie. She asked about Kaline's Petjoy harness vest, probably my favorite piece of gear besides our BLD, and I got to evangelize about all its wonderful qualities and how nice the company is to work with in general. It was such a nice, friendly, happy note to end on, rather than Airedale woman.
After crashing away the whole afternoon with the pups, Kaline and I accompanied Mom to Stanford for a quick outing (Nordstrom and Macy's near closing time). Kaline's fear of elevators is all gone and he's blocking properly again in them. He was really accurate with all the buttons, and is mostly using his nose now instead of his feet because he is SO DELIGHTFULLY TALL. TALL, I TELL YOU. He (mostly) ignored three other dogs at the outdoor cafe where I got some tea, and was just a lovely boy all around. Everyone upstairs at Macy's gathered around him to fawn over him and his beautiful silky ears. They were super nice and asked all the un-intrusive, fun questions.
Let's see, other highlights from my undocumented week. At our last session with the tdoc, Kaline was fast asleep until I started to talk about the access challenge we had in Pennsylvania. Then he woke up and laid his head in my lap for a while. Win. We've been practicing retrieves, and he's done pretty well with different materials including metal.
Last Thursday, Juno and I got to go with Sonja and Chief to the JCC in Palo Alto to talk to a class of preschoolers about service dogs. That was super fun!! Normally I'm very afraid of small children, but the teachers had prepared them extensively for the visit, and of course Sonja took the lead in talking to them and doing demos. They were really well behaved and just fascinated by the dogs. Chief demonstrated opening a cabinet and retrieving Sonja's medicine pouch, as well as going to a target with people around it (foundation for going to get help). Both dogs did regular retrieves, and then we showed the kids how the dogs can “undress” us. Then we let each kid put one of our gloves on their hand (their tiny hands were swimming in our gloves!) and one or the other of the dogs would come and tug it off! They were totally enchanted. I hope we get to do something like that again soon! I can't wait to take Kaline and see how he does. He will definitely have fun—Juno tolerates and is very quiet with children, but Kaline just loves them.
Juno's other big outing was going to the Giants game against the Padres (extra innings, of course) with me and Dad for Dad's birthday/Father's Day. Mom and I chipped in for really good tickets on the club level. Junebug was excellent, natch. Our usher was so proactive in looking out for her—anytime someone wandered near our row, she'd jump in and go, “Find another way in, there's a dog here.” We were right below the broadcast booths (TV and radio) and got to wave to the broadcasters during the seventh inning stretch. Lots of fun. Unfortunately we had to leave before the game ended; with a SD, my general policy is not to stay past the end of the 11th inning at Giants' games. (A's games, I can leave the scorebook with Dad and get my dog out for a pee break if I have to, so we can stay later.) The game went thirteen innings and we lost, but hey, a fun night anyhow!
We're planning to go to the Pride Parade in SF this weekend. Juno will be in charge of that, and then Kaline will be on-duty for Dad's birthday dinner that night.
As you might have guessed, Kaline was absolutely not interested in the diversionary things and whined a lot in the crate. Juno was her usual excellent self. It was fantastic getting to meet Mary in real life, and both the dogs quite liked her also. Juno even favored her with a kiss, which is big coming from her. It was really nice to have a friend there that one dog could stay with while I did things with the other. And Mary took a bunch of fantastic photos of both dogs, but mostly the gorgeous Juno.
I tried to do things better than last time, given it was the same venue. We got a much better course, full of things that Juno is fairly good at, and sans broad jump. (YAY!) It was overcast, so I could warm Juno up in a figurative sense without really doing it in a literal sense. And for actual SD work, I had Kaline there, so Juno didn't have to worry about that.
Well, we again had jump issues, since on the first pass Juno decided to cut around the jump rather than go over it. Not knowing that you're not supposed to repeat a jump (I learn new things at every Rally trial, and always because I've done something incorrectly, haha), I got her back and had her take it properly. We lost ten points right there, but only one point on the entire rest of the course! So I was really happy with that. All four of the dogs who got ribbons for Advanced B got scores of 100, how insane! First through fourth was decided based on speed. An awesome toy poodle got second. All of us sitting together were commenting on how nice it is to see a little dog that's treated like an actual dog. All of us with dogs competing in Advanced (me, Kristin and Marissa) got legs! WOOHOO!!!
Anyway, we had just spotted our Doberman friend, Sue Korp, and her lovely bitch who has All The Obedience Titles. As we went to say hi and chat a bit, a woman with an Airedale came up to yell at me about Kaline's prong collar. I didn't even let her finish her little diatribe, continually cutting her off with, “He is a service dog. He is not competing. The prong collar is part of his normal working gear.” (I wasn't going to get into the nuances of SD vs. SDIT with her, considering that in California, it doesn't really matter.) I was getting pretty worked up but not too badly, because I had expected someone, at some point, to do exactly what she was doing and had prepared for it. Kaline was doing really well, standing in a block in front of me, between me and the yelling woman.
So I reached down to stroke him reassuringly and tell him he was a good boy. The Airedale woman gave him a disdainful look and said, “Can't be much of a good dog if he's in a prong.” That hurt, big time. I'm proud that I didn't cuss her out, or say something stupid, instead responding that my tools are my business, not hers. But you don't hear from a stranger that basically you have a terrible puppy and not feel totally like crap.
We immediately came back to the area with our friends, where Kaline parked himself on my lap/against my chest for most of the next half hour or so. He'd get off momentarily but then he'd be right back up. Such a good boy. And later, Sue came over to chat and say that the Airedale woman was over the top. She said that nationals for Rally are in Pomona this year—bad half of California, but still, West Coast! Maybe we'll figure out a way to go. It's in October, so we have time, and it'd be fun to see Sue's wonderful bitch strut her stuff (somehow at Rally I never end up finding time to go watch regular obedience).
During Rally Novice, a nice woman and her elderly mom came over to us to talk SDs—the mother is training her next mobility dog, a pretty smooth collie. She asked about Kaline's Petjoy harness vest, probably my favorite piece of gear besides our BLD, and I got to evangelize about all its wonderful qualities and how nice the company is to work with in general. It was such a nice, friendly, happy note to end on, rather than Airedale woman.
After crashing away the whole afternoon with the pups, Kaline and I accompanied Mom to Stanford for a quick outing (Nordstrom and Macy's near closing time). Kaline's fear of elevators is all gone and he's blocking properly again in them. He was really accurate with all the buttons, and is mostly using his nose now instead of his feet because he is SO DELIGHTFULLY TALL. TALL, I TELL YOU. He (mostly) ignored three other dogs at the outdoor cafe where I got some tea, and was just a lovely boy all around. Everyone upstairs at Macy's gathered around him to fawn over him and his beautiful silky ears. They were super nice and asked all the un-intrusive, fun questions.
Let's see, other highlights from my undocumented week. At our last session with the tdoc, Kaline was fast asleep until I started to talk about the access challenge we had in Pennsylvania. Then he woke up and laid his head in my lap for a while. Win. We've been practicing retrieves, and he's done pretty well with different materials including metal.
Last Thursday, Juno and I got to go with Sonja and Chief to the JCC in Palo Alto to talk to a class of preschoolers about service dogs. That was super fun!! Normally I'm very afraid of small children, but the teachers had prepared them extensively for the visit, and of course Sonja took the lead in talking to them and doing demos. They were really well behaved and just fascinated by the dogs. Chief demonstrated opening a cabinet and retrieving Sonja's medicine pouch, as well as going to a target with people around it (foundation for going to get help). Both dogs did regular retrieves, and then we showed the kids how the dogs can “undress” us. Then we let each kid put one of our gloves on their hand (their tiny hands were swimming in our gloves!) and one or the other of the dogs would come and tug it off! They were totally enchanted. I hope we get to do something like that again soon! I can't wait to take Kaline and see how he does. He will definitely have fun—Juno tolerates and is very quiet with children, but Kaline just loves them.
Juno's other big outing was going to the Giants game against the Padres (extra innings, of course) with me and Dad for Dad's birthday/Father's Day. Mom and I chipped in for really good tickets on the club level. Junebug was excellent, natch. Our usher was so proactive in looking out for her—anytime someone wandered near our row, she'd jump in and go, “Find another way in, there's a dog here.” We were right below the broadcast booths (TV and radio) and got to wave to the broadcasters during the seventh inning stretch. Lots of fun. Unfortunately we had to leave before the game ended; with a SD, my general policy is not to stay past the end of the 11th inning at Giants' games. (A's games, I can leave the scorebook with Dad and get my dog out for a pee break if I have to, so we can stay later.) The game went thirteen innings and we lost, but hey, a fun night anyhow!
We're planning to go to the Pride Parade in SF this weekend. Juno will be in charge of that, and then Kaline will be on-duty for Dad's birthday dinner that night.
06 May 2013
May begins!
I am mostly enjoying May so far! We've had more good things happening than bad (though of course the bad things make more interesting stories, I suppose).
I've been working on Random Retrieving with Kaline. We use objects I know he'll like, but we do it in odd places. Due to allergy stuff, I've gone out multiple times to buy different pills. They come in boxes, so once I pick my box and commit to buying it (obviously), I start practicing with it. First, Kaline has to do eager, non-chewy take it & hold. The take it is the very important part—he has to reach for the object. The holding he knows, and will do even with objects he doesn't like. Once he's done several good take its, then I drop it and have him do retrieves. I'm working on getting him to paw it less, and just pick it up.
The small cardboard pill boxes are very fun and easy for him. Then I decided to buy shampoo, and that was pretty amusing. He clearly wanted to practice with it, so we did the same exercises, but it was more difficult for him because it was much heavier and the bottle was smooth plastic. He was so determined though! It was really cute.
Kaline accompanied me to a baby shower over the weekend, and that was pretty much a disaster. He was super whiny and fidgety, even though I was able to let him run in this big pasture behind the house in the middle of it. By pet standards, I guess he was a good boy, but certainly not by my standards! It drove me nuts when people were telling me he was being such a good boy, when he was whining all the time and breaking downs constantly. Of course, as soon as we got home he curled up like a little angel and cuddled all evening. Figures.
He was much better the following morning, when we did the usual Sunday public access work. One of the many things I did wrong on Saturday at the shower was to be really tight on the leash all the time (there was a ton of food right at Kaline face level). That, naturally, made him pull all the more. So on Sunday, I tried to be very conscious of the leash and tried to keep it loose as much as possible. Shocker, Kaline hardly pulled at all.
In the afternoon, I took Juno out to meet Marissa and Macro for a socialization outing. We had lunch at Max's and then walked around Stanford Shopping Center. Macro was such a good little boy! He's a very relaxed little puppy. We took him and Juno into Needless Markup, where he was totally unfazed by the tiles and the escalator. He curled up for a doze near the escalator, actually. Nobody could keep their hands off him! He's so damn cute. Teehee!
Something else cute happened on Friday. It was really hot by our fourth walk, so on that walk, all the dogs wore shoes. It was freaking adorable. Many compliments.
Then today. We had our usual four walks, which were mostly nice (mostly because I found out that the "brother" of one of my dogs died, sadly. He was old, though, and it was very fast). Then we finished up the car upholstery saga.
Without going into too much detail, let's just say the car upholstery people don't understand the concepts of: customer service; people not being able to drive two cars at once; people having jobs that last past 4:00 in the afternoon; people not having chauffeurs/people on call to drive them places. My friend agreed to drive me to this place, thankfully. I took Juno rather than Kaline.
We got there, and inside the office was an enormous Labrador or Lab mix, barking its head off. Obviously I wasn't taking Juno into that tiny office with the dog acting that way, so I just waited awkwardly outside. Finally, someone came over to ask why I was there. I explained I was there to pick up the car. The guy goes into the office and leashes the dog, I assume to take it away somewhere while I conduct my business. Nope! He comes out, dog at the end of the leash and straining and bouncing, clearly intending to let the dog just run up into Juno's face.
I kept backing Juno up, asking the guy to keep the dog away from her. He responded by questioning whether she was really a service dog. I replied that all dogs value their personal space, and the majority of dogs really don't appreciate other dogs lunging into their faces. That only got me: “Oh, so she's an attack service dog?” At that point I just gave up, clearly a lost cause. The guy basically blocked the doorway with the dog, and luckily Juno remembered how to heel on the right, so I could be between her and the dog.
In the tiny office, the guy let the dog come over and sniff Juno, who showed admirable restraint and moved so that she was between me and my friend. It was just a metric ton of NOT OKAY. I am debating whether to post a scathing review on Yelp, haha.
Tonight we're going to a reading at Kepler's by one of my favorite authors, the hilarious science writer Mary Roach! It would probably be a good education experience for Kay ... But I want to just enjoy the hilarity! So Juno's going, hehe. We need our quality girl time anyhow.
I've been working on Random Retrieving with Kaline. We use objects I know he'll like, but we do it in odd places. Due to allergy stuff, I've gone out multiple times to buy different pills. They come in boxes, so once I pick my box and commit to buying it (obviously), I start practicing with it. First, Kaline has to do eager, non-chewy take it & hold. The take it is the very important part—he has to reach for the object. The holding he knows, and will do even with objects he doesn't like. Once he's done several good take its, then I drop it and have him do retrieves. I'm working on getting him to paw it less, and just pick it up.
The small cardboard pill boxes are very fun and easy for him. Then I decided to buy shampoo, and that was pretty amusing. He clearly wanted to practice with it, so we did the same exercises, but it was more difficult for him because it was much heavier and the bottle was smooth plastic. He was so determined though! It was really cute.
Kaline accompanied me to a baby shower over the weekend, and that was pretty much a disaster. He was super whiny and fidgety, even though I was able to let him run in this big pasture behind the house in the middle of it. By pet standards, I guess he was a good boy, but certainly not by my standards! It drove me nuts when people were telling me he was being such a good boy, when he was whining all the time and breaking downs constantly. Of course, as soon as we got home he curled up like a little angel and cuddled all evening. Figures.
He was much better the following morning, when we did the usual Sunday public access work. One of the many things I did wrong on Saturday at the shower was to be really tight on the leash all the time (there was a ton of food right at Kaline face level). That, naturally, made him pull all the more. So on Sunday, I tried to be very conscious of the leash and tried to keep it loose as much as possible. Shocker, Kaline hardly pulled at all.
In the afternoon, I took Juno out to meet Marissa and Macro for a socialization outing. We had lunch at Max's and then walked around Stanford Shopping Center. Macro was such a good little boy! He's a very relaxed little puppy. We took him and Juno into Needless Markup, where he was totally unfazed by the tiles and the escalator. He curled up for a doze near the escalator, actually. Nobody could keep their hands off him! He's so damn cute. Teehee!
Something else cute happened on Friday. It was really hot by our fourth walk, so on that walk, all the dogs wore shoes. It was freaking adorable. Many compliments.
Then today. We had our usual four walks, which were mostly nice (mostly because I found out that the "brother" of one of my dogs died, sadly. He was old, though, and it was very fast). Then we finished up the car upholstery saga.
Without going into too much detail, let's just say the car upholstery people don't understand the concepts of: customer service; people not being able to drive two cars at once; people having jobs that last past 4:00 in the afternoon; people not having chauffeurs/people on call to drive them places. My friend agreed to drive me to this place, thankfully. I took Juno rather than Kaline.
We got there, and inside the office was an enormous Labrador or Lab mix, barking its head off. Obviously I wasn't taking Juno into that tiny office with the dog acting that way, so I just waited awkwardly outside. Finally, someone came over to ask why I was there. I explained I was there to pick up the car. The guy goes into the office and leashes the dog, I assume to take it away somewhere while I conduct my business. Nope! He comes out, dog at the end of the leash and straining and bouncing, clearly intending to let the dog just run up into Juno's face.
I kept backing Juno up, asking the guy to keep the dog away from her. He responded by questioning whether she was really a service dog. I replied that all dogs value their personal space, and the majority of dogs really don't appreciate other dogs lunging into their faces. That only got me: “Oh, so she's an attack service dog?” At that point I just gave up, clearly a lost cause. The guy basically blocked the doorway with the dog, and luckily Juno remembered how to heel on the right, so I could be between her and the dog.
In the tiny office, the guy let the dog come over and sniff Juno, who showed admirable restraint and moved so that she was between me and my friend. It was just a metric ton of NOT OKAY. I am debating whether to post a scathing review on Yelp, haha.
Tonight we're going to a reading at Kepler's by one of my favorite authors, the hilarious science writer Mary Roach! It would probably be a good education experience for Kay ... But I want to just enjoy the hilarity! So Juno's going, hehe. We need our quality girl time anyhow.
30 April 2013
Fun with Sonja, going to the doctor, and retrieving tribulations
Sunday we had lovely fun with Sonja after very efficient errand-running with Juno in the morning. I just wanted to get things done, not do real training, so I took Juno to the Farmer's Market, bagel store, and Trader Joe's. We finished everything in about an hour, maybe less. No one noticed I had switched dogs, which I found a little odd. But it was, as always, the best being out with Juno!
In the afternoon, we met up with Sonja on the Stanford campus. While Chief was working on his poolside down-stays, I took Juno and Kaline over to an empty field to romp. They were off-leash most of the time, with e-collars on. Not that I actually need one on Juno, I just had it in case other dogs showed up and she gave stinkeye. Which didn't happen. Kaline had a great time running around and retrieving sticks, and then we came back and moseyed off-leash with Sonja and Chief. It was so delightful. I love the freedom the collar gives me and Kaline.
Sonja, being the fabulous friend she is, drove all of us to Foster City to get my mom's car (she left it with a friend who drove her and Dad the rest of the way to the airport). And then we (Juno and I) got invited to dinner at Buca di Beppo! So freaking delicious. And it was good I brought Juno, cause one of the other people there is afraid of dogs touching her. Can you just imagine Kaline giving her a Doberpoke?! Aaagh! Someday though, we'll go back and I'll take Kay.
Yesterday everybody got to go to the doctor. After our three walks in the heat, Kaline and I headed to my doctor's office so I could get checked out for some things. Also, my wonderful GP totally understood my airport paranoia and wrote me a prescription for a service dog, just in case. Not that I would ever show it to anyone and make them think it was okay to ask for that. I just want to have it.
Kaline was good in the exam room but man, was he squirrelly in the elevator! Ever since he was in the transparent one in Palo Alto, we get the knocking knees. I tried to distract him by asking him to sit, stand, come, touch, all of which he did, but he was not happy. Urgh. And he was pulling and sniffing a bit while we were walking.
Nonetheless, I was proud of how he did at the exam. The nurse always does my damn blood pressure before the exam, which for some reason just sends my anxiety through the roof, plus it's painful. Fibro + squeezing = OW. I sat in the chair and asked her to wait to put on the cuff. I cued Kaline to lap-up, and he did it immediately, and so gently. He was perfect, and I haven't been that calm for the blood pressure ordeal in years.
He tested out our new mat on the slippery floor (not too much sliding, yay) and held a nice down stay during the rest of the exam. Of course, his highness refused to pick up the mat at the end. “Get that? What does that mean? I have never heard that command everrrrrr.”
Next we went to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, and since we had to wait, I decided to work on, you guessed it, not pulling and not sniffing. It was a little bizarre. After being such a puppy ass in the doctor's office, he was perfect in the pharmacy. I think I told him leave it once. And I always had a nice loop in the leash. Good boy.
Then later, I had to take Juno to the vet just to make sure nothing was wrong (she's been limping off and on). Kaline came for moral support and still weighs 69.8 pounds. Sigh.
And today we had training. Kaline worked on hold and out (good) and retrieves (AWFUL). So I got Juno, and Anne set up a little course of objects for her to retrieve, going from easy (plastic water bottle, leather dumbbell) to hard (keys with no leather tab, metal Coke can). She picked up every single one like it was the greatest pleasure in the world to do so. I loved on her BIGTIME. I got so spoiled. She learned retrieving so easily with the clicker. Not so for wee Kaline ... He only retrieves the things he likes. Somehow, we shall advance to metal, the leash, and the roll-up mat!!
In the afternoon, we met up with Sonja on the Stanford campus. While Chief was working on his poolside down-stays, I took Juno and Kaline over to an empty field to romp. They were off-leash most of the time, with e-collars on. Not that I actually need one on Juno, I just had it in case other dogs showed up and she gave stinkeye. Which didn't happen. Kaline had a great time running around and retrieving sticks, and then we came back and moseyed off-leash with Sonja and Chief. It was so delightful. I love the freedom the collar gives me and Kaline.
Sonja, being the fabulous friend she is, drove all of us to Foster City to get my mom's car (she left it with a friend who drove her and Dad the rest of the way to the airport). And then we (Juno and I) got invited to dinner at Buca di Beppo! So freaking delicious. And it was good I brought Juno, cause one of the other people there is afraid of dogs touching her. Can you just imagine Kaline giving her a Doberpoke?! Aaagh! Someday though, we'll go back and I'll take Kay.
Yesterday everybody got to go to the doctor. After our three walks in the heat, Kaline and I headed to my doctor's office so I could get checked out for some things. Also, my wonderful GP totally understood my airport paranoia and wrote me a prescription for a service dog, just in case. Not that I would ever show it to anyone and make them think it was okay to ask for that. I just want to have it.
Kaline was good in the exam room but man, was he squirrelly in the elevator! Ever since he was in the transparent one in Palo Alto, we get the knocking knees. I tried to distract him by asking him to sit, stand, come, touch, all of which he did, but he was not happy. Urgh. And he was pulling and sniffing a bit while we were walking.
Nonetheless, I was proud of how he did at the exam. The nurse always does my damn blood pressure before the exam, which for some reason just sends my anxiety through the roof, plus it's painful. Fibro + squeezing = OW. I sat in the chair and asked her to wait to put on the cuff. I cued Kaline to lap-up, and he did it immediately, and so gently. He was perfect, and I haven't been that calm for the blood pressure ordeal in years.
He tested out our new mat on the slippery floor (not too much sliding, yay) and held a nice down stay during the rest of the exam. Of course, his highness refused to pick up the mat at the end. “Get that? What does that mean? I have never heard that command everrrrrr.”
Next we went to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, and since we had to wait, I decided to work on, you guessed it, not pulling and not sniffing. It was a little bizarre. After being such a puppy ass in the doctor's office, he was perfect in the pharmacy. I think I told him leave it once. And I always had a nice loop in the leash. Good boy.
Then later, I had to take Juno to the vet just to make sure nothing was wrong (she's been limping off and on). Kaline came for moral support and still weighs 69.8 pounds. Sigh.
And today we had training. Kaline worked on hold and out (good) and retrieves (AWFUL). So I got Juno, and Anne set up a little course of objects for her to retrieve, going from easy (plastic water bottle, leather dumbbell) to hard (keys with no leather tab, metal Coke can). She picked up every single one like it was the greatest pleasure in the world to do so. I loved on her BIGTIME. I got so spoiled. She learned retrieving so easily with the clicker. Not so for wee Kaline ... He only retrieves the things he likes. Somehow, we shall advance to metal, the leash, and the roll-up mat!!
27 March 2013
Another successful IKEA outing with Chief!
Monday night, for Sonja's birthday, we took the boys to IKEA for some fun training. The boys were so lovely and we had a wonderful time.
Kaline got to practice “under” quite a bit, since there were various convenient objects all around.
Both boys also got to practice picking up a credit card, which they did
well. Kaline was a little overenthusiastic, but I'm not terribly worried
about it. Enthusiasm is good! He was crazy when I asked him to pick up
his leash. Before he would hand it to me, he had to “kill” it, very very
dead.
We also worked on various distractions, as we like to do, with toys and stuffies and even an umbrella! A nice man took a video of Sonja trying to distract the pups with the umbrella.
At the end we had dinner in the wee food court and the dogs settled nicely under the table. Kaline was so zonked (he'd done four walks in the morning in addition to working at IKEA) that he didn't even notice when I got up to get a refill on our pops. This is the dog who normally cannot stand to let me go to the bathroom alone. And heaven forbid I go upstairs without him. The fastest way to wake him from a nap on the couch is to go up one flight of stairs.
And on the way out, Kaline blocked nicely, even when I asked Sonja to gently nudge him in the butt. What a good boy.
Kaline got to practice “under” quite a bit, since there were various convenient objects all around.
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| Kaline does under |
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| Chief does under |
We also worked on various distractions, as we like to do, with toys and stuffies and even an umbrella! A nice man took a video of Sonja trying to distract the pups with the umbrella.
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| Leaving the big carrots alone ... |
At the end we had dinner in the wee food court and the dogs settled nicely under the table. Kaline was so zonked (he'd done four walks in the morning in addition to working at IKEA) that he didn't even notice when I got up to get a refill on our pops. This is the dog who normally cannot stand to let me go to the bathroom alone. And heaven forbid I go upstairs without him. The fastest way to wake him from a nap on the couch is to go up one flight of stairs.
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| Sleepy boys. |
24 February 2013
Kaline's ten months old!
Kaline turned 10 months old yesterday, and did great today in his usual round of Sunday morning public access. First was the Farmer's Market. Just as we were heading in, we saw a super adorable Large-Eared Black-and-White Dog tethered at the entrance: Max! I of course had to say hi to him and love him up, so Kaline got to practice a little self-control and try to hold a sit while I did so. He was great at heeling and blocking through the market and only did a little illicit sniffing.
We were in the part of downtown with several handicap buttons, so Kaline got to work on those, including the difficult one at Walgreen's which is mostly blocked by a trashcan. (He will usually hit the trashcan at least once before figuring out how to orient himself to aim at the button.) In there, Mom and I did things with the small rolling baskets to work on proofing. I had him do a block and then got Mom to gently nudge him from different angles with the little basket (came up to about his thigh). I also had fun flipping it around in front of him, sometimes clipping his toes gently. No problems.
In Village Stationers, we ended up having a big training opportunity. Kaline was lying at my feet while Mom talked to one of the cashiers when a lady with a Basset hound came in. Kaline had no clue the dog was even in the store until she started barking at him. At first he was startled and jumped up with a little growl. Then he was like, “Oooh, a dog! Playtime?” The Basset continued barking away (no, I have no idea why the owner didn't find a way to shut her up) so I decided to take advantage of it—I turned Kaline away, so he was facing me, and just had him do very basic commands that he knows well and likes, such as touch and the “up-down” game. Once he was mostly focused again, we headed out.
Trader Joe's was the best. As I've noted, Kaline is always really on in there. He was being really great and we were almost done. Mom sent us to the other side of the store, and for some reason my anxiety just started rising. Kaline stared up at me and then started nudging my leg (yay!!!), then my drooping sweatshirt pocket for more emphasis. Once I stopped he leaned into me with his whole body. I was so thrilled with him. And then soon after that, I started getting all foggy like I sometimes do, where it's like my brain is on a seven-second delay. We were standing in line and Kaline jumped up on me, trying to press into my chest. It wasn't like when he's being a goofball and leaping up at me; he came up pretty carefully, for him, and just tried to stay there. I acknowledged him, cause I definitely want him to be proactive, but then I got him down, had him do some leg nudges, and gave him treats. Excellent little boy!
In retrieving news, Kaline continues to steal shit all over the house and deliver it to me with great pride. On command, he is very glad to retrieve clothing, but not my sneakers. (Mom's nice shoes, or Dad's leather dress shoes, not a problem!) He will also gleefully retrieve things like plastic water bottles or vitamin bottles, which I find a little odd just because Juno didn't want to get stuff like that for the longest time. When I dropped my chapstick (capped, thankfully) in the kitchen, both dogs went to get it for me and Kaline was the one who came up with it.
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| Kay doing deep pressure and looking extremely cute while doing it. |
This weekend we also headed up to Berkeley to pick up Juno's beautiful new Paco collar. It's a black rainbow Glow and she looks fantastic in it. She posed for pictures while we were there, which hopefully will end up in the Paco Gallery (fingers crossed!). Kaline was uninterested but Juno did a paws up on the lowest shelf with collars and then when asked looked fetchingly over her shoulder to show off both the collar and her insanely cute face. She got to come along to Johnny Rockets later that night, teehee.
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| Hard at work in her new bling. |
Bizarrely, after the movie, when Ben and I headed to Pizza My Heart across the street, Kaline blocked fairly well (he wanted to sniff some people, and also to lie down sometimes), and then when we got to our table, he went under, curled up and didn't move till we were ready to go. Explain yourself, wee one! So he really ended the night on a good note.
19 February 2013
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.
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| 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.
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| Juno and Kaline in festive Valentine's bandannas. |
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| 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!
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| 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.
20 January 2013
Second time in Rally Novice A: First leg!
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| Juno and her qualifying ribbon. If you look really close you can see the long string of drool hanging out of her mouth! |
There were a lot fewer dogs today and the trial was in the morning, so it was just more ... reasonable than yesterday. I made a point to go watch some regular obedience in addition to the rally stuff, and we were treated to the sight of a Papillon doing Utility! Her dumbbells for the scent discrimination task were so tiny. It was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. I will admit I am sometimes prejudiced against little dogs in the world generally, but it is such great fun to see them shine at obedience and agility. And of course service dog work! Little dogs are dogs, and it is refreshing to see them treated as such.
We made friends with a Sheltie and her family near us, and had fun watching the various rally competitors. One lady near us had three Goldens of varying ages, all in multiple competitions. She was running around like crazy, as you can imagine! My head would explode if I tried something like that.
The course we got for today was much more straightforward than yesterday's, and I quickly identified the exercises Juno and I would probably have more difficulty with—a 360-degree right turn, the figure eight, and the finish right. I botched the finish right a little in the ring, telling her “around” instead of “park,” but thankfully she cares a lot more about what hand signal she sees rather than the words coming out of my mouth.
She was super into retrieving today as well. Anytime I dropped something, she picked it up immediately and presented it to me with great satisfaction. Or sometimes she'd see something on the ground and decide I needed it, and present that also. She's so damn cute. She successfully begged food off several people too.
One of the best parts of our spectating was seeing some rather unconventional dogs shine at rally. This included a little pug, who got third place in Rally Advanced, and a beautiful black-and-tan Coonhound. You expect to see Goldens, Labs, Border collies, German Shepherds and now Shelties at obedience, but you don't really expect to see pugs or most hounds. There was also a Shar-pei competing in the regular obedience and two Shiba Inus!
Our little group, Rally Novice A, included a beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback and this sweet little Whippet. We were last, of course, so I had plenty of time both to practice sporadically with Juno, inside and outside, and to get hella nervous. Our performance passed in kind of a blur; all I could think was KEEP THE LEASH LOOSE. And hey, it worked! I wasn't sure how we did, because the judge said nothing to me after we finished (yesterday, the judge quickly told me I NQ'ed). Then she called all the qualifiers back in the ring and I didn't know if I was supposed to go or not.
Finally someone told me we qualified and I was super, super happy. We went in with the Ridgeback, the Border collie and one other dog, so I knew we'd get some kind of ribbon. I was shocked when we got second place! And a whopping prize of $15, woohoo. It was such a great finish to the weekend.
We came home and found the parents in the middle of the street with Kaline, using a Flexi so they could do super long recalls with him. The Flexi was actually attached to the end loop of his leather leash, which I thought was a good idea. Juno and I hopped out and Juno schmoozed with Mom while I did recalls with Kaline. He was not bad! With my parents he'd crash into their legs and/or leap on them, but with me he only did one drive-by in several tries. Mom and I let Juno crash with Dad, and took Kaline with us to drop off my chair at the storage unit and go to BK for lunch.
Mom had expressed disbelief that Kaline would be good at lunch, so I was extra gratified when he was basically perfect. He did a little sniffing, but that was it. Curled up very nicely on his mat under the table, and snoozed until we were ready to go.
I was exhausted, so I basically slept away the afternoon. Kaline snuggled a little in my bed, then leapt off to go sleep in his own bed in his crate with the door open. Such a good little boy.
But as of now, Juno is the No. 1 Champion in this house! Two more legs to go ... I gotta actually find rally trials around here now!
 |
| My cutie pie champ! |
29 December 2012
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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| Here we have a ground beef patty on a pumpkin bagel, mmmmmm. |
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| Yes, best dog in the world, this is for you. |
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| 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. |
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| Kaline wonders why he didn't get to settle ... |
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| Down stay. |
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| Kaline and Chief during a lull. |
We chilled on a couch and the boys got to schmooze a little bit.
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.
 |
| Melt. |
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| You are a good boy. |
14 December 2012
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.
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?
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.
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.
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| 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.
24 November 2012
Thanksgiving etc.
Happy belated Thanksgiving! Guess it's pretty obvious what I'm thankful for: my amazing pups!
Juno came along to Thanksgiving while Kaline stayed home. She was very good and quite sneaky (in an amusing way). Last year I vested her so she'd go into serious-work-mode, but this year she actually got an invitation, so I didn't. Thus, she was a little more ... lax ... about manners.
During dinner, I sat across from my mom, who is always Juno's target. She (Mom) is a total softie and all Juno really has to do is look at her sadly and the food starts flowing. I put Juno in a down-stay next to my chair. She'd been there about 10 minutes without moving, so I pretty much stopped paying attention. Well, just before everyone was done eating, Mom was answering some question I'd asked when she suddenly just stopped talking. I figured she'd gotten the hiccups. Nope, my Junebug had stealthily and ever so slowly crawled beneath the table and had finally reached the promised land: Mom's lap. Just plopped her head right there. Everyone laughed.
Kaline has been working hard on refining his fridge skills. I'm trying to get him to grab the tug on the knot or the rope, but he insists on only grabbing the stringy end in his mouth and using that to get the door open. Whatever floats your boat, little man.
He also did a fun little outing with me and Mom to Stanford Shopping Center. We worked on off-leash down-stays all over Macy's, which he did really well at, hurrah! He whined when he got bored standing around though, and also when we did some "under" practice. At the end we went to dinner at Amici's and he settled after about five minutes and just went to sleep, nicely curled up under the table.
Today of course was our usual Saturday class. Before and after class, I worked with Kaline on "take it" which we started on a couple days ago. He doesn't hold whatever object it is for any great length of time, but we have progressed to me changing where I hold the object out, and having him reach for it. He was almost taking it from ground level after class. Freddie loaned me an adorably teeny obedience dumbbell (cause Juno's is MIA) for Kaline to practice with. We've also practiced with his indestructible blue bone.
OH. Speaking of indestructible. My puppy freaking destroys toys. With shocking speed. He hasn't been allowed squeakies/stuffies of any sort for quite a while. A few weeks ago, he chewed chunks off his tire & rope toy he's had since babyhood, so that had to get chucked. Recently he mangled his baby rope & plastic toy—I chalked that up to the toy being designed for baby pups with baby teeth. No "tuff" toys have survived him, because he knows that the seams are the weak points and shreds the black trimming.
So I bought him a fire hose toy. He was very excited to have it. Fifteen minutes later, he had gnawed off the corner so I had to take it away.
Then I got him a new, bigger, tougher version of the tire & rope toy, only the tire part was a solid bone shaped piece instead of a ring. He actually helped pick it out at the store. Fifteen minutes after I gave it to him, he was gleefully masticating a chunk of rubber that I had to pry out of his mouth. He's down to a Bento ball that he has an on-off affection for, regardless of whether a cookie is in it, his blue rubbery bone, his antler, and a Nylabone I can't find. Juno is still grumpy that all her stuffies are hidden away for safety. (Except her spider, which lives closed off in Mom's room.) Kaline doesn't understand why his new toys disappear so quickly.
If only I could get him to really like Nylabones! You'd think they'd be perfect for him, a powerful chewer, but he will hardly ever choose to work on one. If you hold it for him, he'll humor you. I may get him a new one, simply because nothing else is surviving. I wonder if the stores will take back the not-so-freaking-tough toys he's destroyed ... Poor Kay. He loves soft toys that he can really squash in his mouth, but he just pulverizes them!
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| Juno helps with Thanksgiving prep by pre-washing the sweet potato bowl. |
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| Kaline models one of Angel's many coats. I never realized just how many coats we had for her. She'd get so cold in the winter that her teeth would chatter inside the house. |
Juno came along to Thanksgiving while Kaline stayed home. She was very good and quite sneaky (in an amusing way). Last year I vested her so she'd go into serious-work-mode, but this year she actually got an invitation, so I didn't. Thus, she was a little more ... lax ... about manners.
 |
| Juno supervises dinner prep. A task she is never lax about! |
During dinner, I sat across from my mom, who is always Juno's target. She (Mom) is a total softie and all Juno really has to do is look at her sadly and the food starts flowing. I put Juno in a down-stay next to my chair. She'd been there about 10 minutes without moving, so I pretty much stopped paying attention. Well, just before everyone was done eating, Mom was answering some question I'd asked when she suddenly just stopped talking. I figured she'd gotten the hiccups. Nope, my Junebug had stealthily and ever so slowly crawled beneath the table and had finally reached the promised land: Mom's lap. Just plopped her head right there. Everyone laughed.
 |
| Juno all smiles after getting a ton of leftover turkey. |
Kaline has been working hard on refining his fridge skills. I'm trying to get him to grab the tug on the knot or the rope, but he insists on only grabbing the stringy end in his mouth and using that to get the door open. Whatever floats your boat, little man.
He also did a fun little outing with me and Mom to Stanford Shopping Center. We worked on off-leash down-stays all over Macy's, which he did really well at, hurrah! He whined when he got bored standing around though, and also when we did some "under" practice. At the end we went to dinner at Amici's and he settled after about five minutes and just went to sleep, nicely curled up under the table.
 |
| Off-leash down-stay at Macy's. |
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| Whinging away while practicing "under." |
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| Being a good boy at Amici's. |
Today of course was our usual Saturday class. Before and after class, I worked with Kaline on "take it" which we started on a couple days ago. He doesn't hold whatever object it is for any great length of time, but we have progressed to me changing where I hold the object out, and having him reach for it. He was almost taking it from ground level after class. Freddie loaned me an adorably teeny obedience dumbbell (cause Juno's is MIA) for Kaline to practice with. We've also practiced with his indestructible blue bone.
 |
| The pups sunbathing after class at Borrone's ... I was evil and blocked Juno's sun for the photo. Oops! |
OH. Speaking of indestructible. My puppy freaking destroys toys. With shocking speed. He hasn't been allowed squeakies/stuffies of any sort for quite a while. A few weeks ago, he chewed chunks off his tire & rope toy he's had since babyhood, so that had to get chucked. Recently he mangled his baby rope & plastic toy—I chalked that up to the toy being designed for baby pups with baby teeth. No "tuff" toys have survived him, because he knows that the seams are the weak points and shreds the black trimming.
So I bought him a fire hose toy. He was very excited to have it. Fifteen minutes later, he had gnawed off the corner so I had to take it away.
 |
| Just enough to put the new toy out of commission. |
Then I got him a new, bigger, tougher version of the tire & rope toy, only the tire part was a solid bone shaped piece instead of a ring. He actually helped pick it out at the store. Fifteen minutes after I gave it to him, he was gleefully masticating a chunk of rubber that I had to pry out of his mouth. He's down to a Bento ball that he has an on-off affection for, regardless of whether a cookie is in it, his blue rubbery bone, his antler, and a Nylabone I can't find. Juno is still grumpy that all her stuffies are hidden away for safety. (Except her spider, which lives closed off in Mom's room.) Kaline doesn't understand why his new toys disappear so quickly.
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| Kaline stares at me across Mom: "PLEASE give me back my fire hose toy!" |
If only I could get him to really like Nylabones! You'd think they'd be perfect for him, a powerful chewer, but he will hardly ever choose to work on one. If you hold it for him, he'll humor you. I may get him a new one, simply because nothing else is surviving. I wonder if the stores will take back the not-so-freaking-tough toys he's destroyed ... Poor Kay. He loves soft toys that he can really squash in his mouth, but he just pulverizes them!
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