Ecko's First Haircut

Ecko had a sleep-over at my friend Darlene's house. In addition to getting to visit with Darlene's husband Kurt and son Kyle, she got to play with their big, brown PWD Gibson. It only took her about an hour to really settle into the spirit of the visit and then she proceeded to run Gibson ragged until she came home!

Once she got home, she seemed to realize how tired she actually was and settled down for a nice nap on the couch. Little did she know what was in store for her....

First, mean Jan and Suzanne got out the brush and comb and insisted on making her as fluffy as she could be....


And then they took a photo of the result and started in with the clippers and the scissors. Many, many cookies and lots of patience later, a whole new puppy emerged...

It's not a perfect haircut, but Suzanne says it's hard to groom a moving target. And we think her face is too cute for words...

Diarrhea

How's THAT for a title?

We are baby-sitting Reef while his owners are gone for a few days and he vomited and had diarrhea this morning. Since it appears that the cause is nothing more than some dietary indiscretions (spruce needles, grass, twigs) we're just keeping an eye on the little guy and trying to make his tummy more happy. The absolute best thing I have found over the years to treat diarrhea in dogs is a product called Dia-Stop that is sold by a company called "The Three C's". These vendors are a constant presence at local dog shows, but also have a website you can order from. Dia-Stop isn't cheap, but it is well worth the price. With a "homemade" looking label and no ingredient list, I assume someone makes this product in their home. Due to it's appearance and smell, I am guessing two of the ingredients might be activated charcoal and carob (both of which are remedies for intestinal upset). You can click here to go to the Three C's page for the product and I've added it to the resources section of the blog too.

Management and Behavior Info for Puppies

Feeding

How many times a day should you be feeding your puppy?

Well, Ecko is still getting three meals a day and will likely continue to be fed on that schedule for another month or so. Feeding three meals a day allows us to feed slightly smaller meals than if we were feeding only twice per day. Ecko is a bit of a glutton, so feeding three meals a day does not interfere with her eagerness to work for treats when we are training.

Feeding twice per day is a perfectly fine option for your pup if he or she is maintaining weight well, and might even be a better option than three meals a day if your pup can be a bit of a picky eater sometimes. The hungrier the pup, the less likely they are to be fussy about what they are eating! If your pup enters a rapid growth spurt and seems ravenous, you can always bump him back up to three meals a day for a few weeks.

The only option I absolutely do not condone is free-feeding your pup. Reasons not to free-feed:

• When you free-feed food becomes a less valuable commodity and your dog will be less excited and eager to work for food treats. Your dog will likely become more picky about food when allowed access to it whenever he wants.
  
• Potty training can be more difficult because you don't know when and how much your pup is eating so they are less likely to have a potty routine.
• Controlling a valuable resource (breakfast and dinner) makes you more important in your pup's world. You can even make her work for her meals by asking her to sit or down or..... before putting the bowl down.
  
• Some dogs self-regulate their feeding habits, but some become overweight when free-fed. Although you may not see this in a young puppy, when your pup's metabolism slows as he reaches his full size he will be more likely to gain weight.
• Finally, if you feed your pup at scheduled interevals you are more likely to become immediately aware if he is not feeling well. If chow-hound Ecko turns her nose up at a meal, we know we have a problem on our hands!

Behavior

The PWDCA (Portuguese Water Dog Club of America) recently contracted with an animal behavior consultant, Dr. Lore Haug, to monitor the PWD e-mail list for a week and answer questions about behavioral issues. Dr. Laug gave advice on such issues as barking, puppy nipping and biting, separation anxiety, noise sensitivity and fear, clothes eating etc. A synopsis of the discussion is available as a PDF file on the PWDCA website and you can click here to get directly to the PDF file.

Resources

Many of the resources and suppliers I've mentioned in past blog entries are now indexed to the right of the latest Blog entry. I've catalogued them by type such as "Book", "Chews", Collars", Foods". I will include the link to this behavioral discussion under "Behavior" in case you should want to refer back to it.

HAPPY EASTER!

We don't really celebrate Easter here, but I needed a Thank You card for my friend Hallie (who loaned me her microchip reader so we could chip the puppies) and it seemed timely for it to have an Easter theme.

Training 3/18 and 3/20

Tuesday, 3/18/08

I took Chili and Ecko to work with me on Tuesday and trained both of them in the morning. I intended to take Chili home at lunch time and bring Stoker back to train her, but ran out of enthusiasm. Big mistake since Stoker was bouncing off the walls in the evening after having been home and bored all day.

Chili worked on weave poles and scent articles. I started off with six closed weave poles and her toy, which really gets her running fast and wild. The faster and wilder she is, the more she tends to pop out of the weave poles. I got her doing six reliably at a fast and furious pace pretty quickly, then added two more poles and worked on doing eight poles for the rest of the session. I think it will be a good long while before she is doing twelve poles reliably. Sigh.....

We also worked on scent articles. With the high rate of reinforcement she is getting (cookie on the article AND cookie for bringing it back) her attitude is much brighter and more confident. She find the correct article 100% of the time, thanks to baiting it with a treat, but will still sometimes opt to bring a different (unscented) article back. I let her know this is "wrong" in as matter of fact a manner as possible and encourage her to bring the one I want. Her success rate is gradually getting higher, so I think she is beginning to under stand.

Ecko got lots of cookies for standing again. Nothing too exciting.

Thursday 3/20/08

I missed training yesterday because the chiropractor came to Pup-A-Razzi and I had Chili, Decker and Ecko all adjusted. None of them are lame or unsound, but I feel it's the preventative maintenance that helps keep them that way. Each of the adult dogs gets adjusted once or twice a month depending on who needs it most and Ecko gets adjusted twice a month to make sure she grows correctly and doesn't develop any imbalances.

Chili worked on scent articles today. She seems to be slowly progressing, but her attitude was nice and happy again today. We did a few laps of informal heeling too. Since she had a chiropractic adjustment yesterday, she is not supposed to do anything too physically taxing for a couple of days.

Stoker work on conformation training: self-stacking with a click for wagging tail, hand-stacking once or twice with a click and release to a cookie and practicing gaiting by sending her ahead to a series of targets laid out in the pattern of a square or triangle or..... She has fun with this when it is jus the two of us and there are no judges in sight.

Ecko worked on targeting. She is getting really good at this and does not need a cookie under the target any more. We also worked on scent articles by hiding a cookie in a metal tea ball and mixing it in with several other tea balls that did not have scent on them or cookies inside. She thought this game was great fun and was even picking up the correct ball and bringing it to me for the cookie. We ended up with a little play retrieving and tugging.

Retail Therapy and Training

One detail I left out of my post on yesterday's adventures: Since I was a bit disappointed in our performances in the show ring, I stopped by the Woodburn Company Stores for some "retail therapy". When we named "Ecko" it never occured to me that there was a line of clothing called "Ecko Unlimited". Ironically, a new Ecko Unlimited company store just opened at the Woodburn Outlets this Friday! The clothing line is kinda of "hip hop", but I managed to find a couple of tee-shirts for Jan and I with the name "Ecko" on them.

I spent about five minutes today training each of the girls.

Stoker already knows to self-stack (ala the conformation ring) when I position myself and hold my hand a certain way. Today, we worked on having her wag her tail when she stacked. We didn't worry about the position of her feet at all, just clicked and treated about 30 or so times each time she wagged her tail. This was easy in the spare bedroom without an audience. I'll work on it a couple more times in quiet and familiar environments and then try taking it on the road to strange and slightly stressful places.

Ecko was pleasantly surprised to find that her session consisted of clicking and treating for nothing at all - or so she thought. I was actually marking each time I got her to stand instead of sitting. I haven't really taught her many position cues yet but, like most puppies, she defaults to sitting when I am holding a treat in my hand as her weight naturally shifts to her rear when she looks up at the treat. A couple more days of this and I think she will understand that "stand" is a rewardable position and then I will put it on cue.

Chili got to work on the Utility scent articles. I think this will be the most difficult exercise to teach her in Utility. Chili HATES being wrong and works very hard to make me happy. She puts a lot of pressure on herself because of that, and exercises where she has to make a decision on her own can be stressful. We worked with just the leather articles (little leather dumbbells) today. She would run out and find the correct one (I was putting my scent on it AND baiting it with a little bit of roast beef) every time. The problem arises in that she then second guesses herself about what article I want her to actually bring back. She chose the correct one about 50% of the time. The times she chose incorrectly, I just helped her find the correct one and clicked and treated when she brought it to me. When we've dabbled at articles in the past, she has shown signs of stress almost immediately and today she stayed upbeat and happy the whole session. We'll keep making baby steps and hopefully she will figure the game out...

Checking In

Reef and Ecko take a break from playing. Dick and Ginny have been driving all the way up from Florence every weekend to bring Reef to puppy class.

Jan left for his golf tee-time EARLY on Saturday and I wanted to sleep in. He put his pillow over my eyes so I could pretend to sleep while he got dressed to leave. The girls apparently wanted to sleep in too....

Yes, that is Ecko sleeping on my head! Spoiled puppy...

Decker was entered in a dog show Friday through Sunday in Albany with my friend CJ. He ran agility on Friday and qualified with a first place in his Novice Standard run. On Saturday, he did obedience and did a creditable job in Open, but missed his two retrieves so he did not qualify. On Sunday, he did an awesome job in agility and qualified with a first place in Novice Standard and also qualified in Novice Jumpers. He now has his Novice Agility (NA) title and needs only one more leg for his Novice Jumpers (NAJ) title.

On Sunday Chili was entered in agility too. She is in the Open agility class. Due to my less than stellar handling, we had a bit of a choppy run in Open Standard, but would have qualified except for mistakes on the weave poles. In Jumpers, we had an awesome run with nice smooth teamwork, but still struggled with the weaves poles and failed to qualify. Time to get training on those poles!

Stoker and her cousin Rebel were entered in conformation. Rebel got Reserve Winners Dog and Stoker did not show well and lost to the competition in her class. I'm not ready to give up hope that she will finish her championship some day, but it is going to take lots of work and retraining to make it happen.

It was bittersweet to run into my friend M'lou who owns the house Jan and I used to rent on the coast in Yachats. They sold their house this winter, although a family member's house next door is still available for us to rent. Remembering our good times in the house brought back memories of our visit this past summer when Kilo was still alive and enjoyed laying in the sun on the deck and strolling on the beach. We sure miss him and are grateful that we have his kids and grand-kids around us to remember him by.

With the pups out in the world and doing well, I'll still be posting updates on their progress, but probably not as frequently. This blog may turn into more of a training diary for the resident "four-pack" interspersed with puppy updates if and when I recieve them.

Ecko's Vet Visit

Since I was under the weather with a nasty cold last week, Ecko didn't get as much entertainment as I would have liked, nor did I have the energy to get her into the vet for her shots. We made it into the vet's today for her 2nd shot and a quick checkup. The vet pronounced her weight to be good (16.8 pounds) and her ears clean. She distracted Ecko with a cookie while she gave her the shot so she didn't even notice.

The vet and I had a discussion on ear care philosophy. I've been fortunate that none of our PWDs over the years have had ear problems and we've only had one or two ear infections in the 19 years that we've owned PWDs. That's a much better track record than we had with our Labs! I've found that dirty, yeasty ears are usually more of a problem in pups and senior dogs and they do need more cleaning and upkeep during these stages of their lives. Allergies may be an underlying cause behind ear infections in some dogs.

Some breeds, including PWDs, grow hair in their ear canals and many vets and groomers are adamant that the ear canals should be thoroughly plucked of hair during grooming visit. I find that if I do too much plucking, the dogs ears are irritated and look red and sore and they seem more prone to infection. "Naked" ear canals also seem problematic for the dogs when they are swimming a lot and they are constantly shaking their heads to clear the water from their ears.

When I pluck our dogs ears, I do it when they are getting their routine grooming. I only pluck what I can pull fairly easily with my fingers and only the waxy mats of hair that look like they might be blocking air flow in the ear. I often shave the ear flaps and under the dog's ears shorter in order to facilitate air flow into the ear.

I find with ear plucking, as with many things, moderation is the key.

Warm and Fuzzy

Subi is getting so much bigger.
Her coloring is getting darker and darker too...
She looks pretty pleased with herself in this photo
where she is watching as Nichole and Joe work.

I am sitting here typing this and I have that rotten winter cold that is making the rounds. I'm generally pretty healthy, but had the flu a couple of weeks ago and now this... Ugh!

A couple of things happened this week that are keeping my spirits up despite my clogged head and sore nose.

First my PWDCA Courier magazine arrived in the mail. I love getting my Courier and if you haven't already applied for membership in the PWDCA, you should do so just in order to get the magazine. It is truly an amazing and beautiful publication with gorgeous photos and interesting and insightful content. This edition is always one of my favorites because it features water work. Chili's breeder Sandy Overton (who also co-owns Decker) has an amazing two page ad in this edition and Chili and Decker are among the dogs she honored in the ad. I also did an ad this year for Decker, since he earned his Courier Water Dog Excellent title this year.

Secondly, I got several more updates from the "deadliest catch" crew, as well as a contact from someone who met one of the pups, fell in love and wants to know where to get a PWD pup of their very own. Good news all around.

Chloe was the pup whose extreme cuteness made someone want a pup just like her. Ecko has nothing to report except that it is no fun having a human that is grumpy and sick with a cold. Here are updates from Subi and Mako:

Mako

We are seeing an amazing growth in Mako, not just physical but also mentally and emotionally. He is very smart and a lot of fun. He knows sit, come, down, and my personal favorite - out of the kitchen. He is now bigger than the cat but the cat still weighs more and is still boss and probably will always be boss. Mako so much wants to be friends with Alex. For the most part Alex is ok with the friendship but sometimes has to put Mako in his place. They are cute to watch, Alex will let Mako lick his face and sometimes Alex will rub his head against Mako’s head. Alex even let Mako climb on him once that I saw. When Alex has had enough he bats at Mako’s head and Mako gets the message. I don’t think Alex is using his claws as Mako never cries when he gets batted.

The beach didn’t seem to be a big thing for Mako, or I should say the ocean. He loved running on the sand but he really didn’t register that there was a big body of water there. He played a lot in the streams that come down to the ocean. We are heading over to the coast later today and we think he might notice the ocean this time. We have taken him to two rivers, the Siuslaw and the Yachats river. Both rivers we found calm spots for him to wade and play. He goes right into the water but when it touches his belly he turns around. I know he will be swimming sooner or later. We are not pushing him, he will do it when he is ready.

Regarding what you said about the water dish. Yes, he just loves to spill his water dish. He steps on the edge so it tips over and then he brings the dish to me. Like an idiot I fill it up and 5 minutes later he dumps it again. I noticed that you have a water dish that refills itself so I decided that is what we need. I bought one that is low profile and he cannot tip that one over. But he sure did try. He straddled the water bottle and tried to get it to tip over but no luck. He still plays with the water by putting his feet into the drinking part of the dish.

He walks real nice on a leash. We have a routine of a morning walk right after we get out of bed and an evening walk. If he has to be home all day along then I go home at lunch and walk him and play some before he has to back into his crate. He sleeps the night through beside our bed, does not wander at night and does not have any night time accidents. Regarding the 5 minute walk rule per month of age, I am assuming that is per walk, not per day. I asked my vet about that and she also thinks it must be per walk. We tend to walk 10 minutes or so per walk.

Suzanne and Jan, we love this little guy so much. The PWD is a totally different type of dog from the Briard. At first Mako seemed rather unruly, did not like to be brushed, very mouthy etc. But now that he is a little bigger and older he is much more settled and willing to have things done to him. He entertains himself very nicely with his toys, doesn’t always need us to be playing with him. He still likes to bite at our sleeves but does stop when we say no, he knows he isn’t supposed to be chewing on us but sometimes I think he just can’t help himself.

I’ll give you another update about the beach after this weekend.

Subi

On Friday last week Subi had her first vet appointment with Nichole and I. It was found that she does indeed have the “bug” (coccidia) in her stool sample and we have medicine to cure that. We also got some ointment for her ears because they were really dirty and found to be yeasty--we were given some better cleaning solution also.

On Sunday Subi got to meet our friends dog Drake. They had a good time and got to play for about 2 hrs. Drake is a big Lab but seemed to fear the teeth of Subi—they soon became friends.

Then on Tuesday this week Subi went to her first puppy class. Where she has been nicknamed the 'Pistol' for her eagerness to play hard. She seemed to get all the other dogs riled up--even those that were a little shy. She was also quick to run out of the way of those that were chasing her (she seem to use the hit and run method) She also saw her two other siblings that were in the class prior to her—she was particularly growly at Chloe.