Fun Day with the Dogs

Although I'm a member of the Sherwood Dog Training Club, I don't get to attend many of their functions. Today, the club held an obedience match that completes a step needed before becoming an AKC santioned club. I had a great day visiting with friends and assisting in the ring as a steward while the dogs napped outside on their cushy dog beds in their ex-pen. Ecko got lots of socialization, as everyone thought she was just darling and wanted to visit with her.

A caricature artist was invited to the event and I purchased drawings of each of the dogs. I was pretty pleased with the way they turned out. What do you think?

The River

Yesterday I made a trip to the meat distributor to fill the freezer for the dogs. Since the weather was nice and I was down in Portland anyway, I decided to make a trip to Kelley Point with Stoker and Ecko so they could frolic by the river. Stoker wanted to swim despite the cold water temperatures and seemed none the worse for it when I gave in to her demands.

Click HERE for a photoshow with photos from our visit to the river.

"Blondie" makes good

Stoker's agility instructor and I lovingly refer to her as "Blondie" sometimes. She has such a high energy level and when she isn't focused and on task she really acts like a bit of a dingbat, albeit a beautiful and loveable dingbat! Several things have made me proud of Stoker in the last week:

First, I got to see both Subi and Cooper this week and I am really pleased with how the pups are doing. I know it has a lot to do with the wonderful homes they all live in, but I know Stoker made a major contribution too. They really are lovely pups, but then, perhaps I am a bit biased....

Stoker's next special moment this week was when she prevented my wedding ring from going missing. I wear my engagement and wedding rings on a gold chain around my neck. I was sitting behind the desk at work on Wednesday and Stoker was keeping me company. I bent over the desk and heard a tiny metalllic sound. Stoker immediately investigated to see what had hit the concrete floor, wedging her nose between the cable keeper and the desk surround. When I bent to see what she was looking at, there was my wedding ring on the floor. Good girl Stokie! Thanks to Stoker, I also recovered my gold chain before it fell off and was lost somewhere and will be able to take it in to the jeweler for repair.

Avast Mateys! A funny photo and some updates.

A friend of mine sent me a link to a "pimp your pooch" website and I couldn't resist turning Ecko into a pirate.

Subi

Joe and Nichole sent an update on Subi.

Swimming - We have taken Subi to George Rogers Park several times. The last time we went Subi accidentally fell into the water and found out she can swim just fine. We have not been back since.

School - Subi has finished puppy preschool. She is now able to sit, stand, down, stay, and poison (play dead). She walks well on a leash. She is doing well with staying out of trouble at home (staying off the couch and not chewing shoes). Next week she will start Puppy Agility class, which should be great fun.

Haircut - Subi got her first haircut 2 weeks ago. She is losing a lot of her white and it looks like she will look a lot like grandma Chili. We just cut her body—however it looks like she will loose most of the white on her legs, head and tail. She was not squirmy—seemed like she thought she was getting a massage.

Nail trimming - We have chosen to use the dremel method to trim Subi’s nails. She does not like the dremel but seems to tolerate it long enough to get the job done.

Vet - Subi only has her rabies vaccination remaining for her puppy shots. The Dr. has given her a clean bill of health. We will be giving Subi her heart worm preventative medicine soon. She is 21.5 pounds as of last week.

Trip to California - We went on a 3 day weekend to the bay area to visit with Nichole’s family. Subi got to meet the whole clan including niece (~1.5 years old). They played nicely together. She had her first experience of travelling that long of a distance in a car,staying in a hotel, staying in Nichole’s mothers house and watching Nichole’s dad ready his garden with a tractor. Meeting Nichole’s mothers German Sheppard Duchess. She played will with Duchess. She also met Nichole’s mothers Cat Puma. Puma did not take well to the new visitor so they never got to know each other. She got to meet grandmother with a walker and Oxygen tank. Amazingly she did not have any car sickness (she has had a few troubles with riding in the car). Everyone loved her. They were amazed at how good she was.

Her home - Well we are still working on her puppy mansion. It now has all the walls up and doors to the largest portion of the run. We are working on the doors to the smaller section this weekend and installing hardware. After this weekend, the run should be complete enough for Subi to safely stay in her run during the day. This is a good thing, since earlier this week she wanted to go outside and it wasn’t happening fast enough so she reached up and pulled on the handle.

Reef

Dick and Ginny sent some photos of Reef enjoying the snow last weekend too. You can check Reef's photos out here.

busy puppies

The photos along the right side of this post are of Reef before and after his haircut this weekend. Dick and Ginny were in town and asked if I could give him a trim while he was here. He was MUCH better and less wiggly for his grooming than sister Ecko, but you can see by his humped up back in his "after" photo that he was pretty sulky and sick of being fussed at by the time we were done.

It appears that my post about living with a "vertical" dog, struck home with several of you. Here is a comment, along with an additional update on Chloe from her mom Joan:

I just read the update on the website and I had to laugh! I found Chloe on top of her crate in the laundry room the other day! How she got there is beyond me since she has yet to master loading up in the car! And while she was on the crate, it was obvious that she did some counter surfing while she was up there! Luckily, there was no great damage.

Chloe has now moved onto spring soccer season and baseball. (Lots of baseball.) She has done very well at meeting new kids and parents alike in a busy setting as well as a few other dogs, some goldens and labs as well as a 2 ½ pound little ball of fur she almost ate for lunch! She does her best at being cordial, but still gets very excited to meet some people. We will keep working on it! One man this weekend came up to me and asked me to leave the field, because if his kids saw the “walking” teddy bear that they would want one for sure!

Ecko had a busy weekend.

On Saturday, a friend picked her up at my work and took her on a couple hour outing. She went to Home Depot, Lowes and the vets office for a visit. She got to meet 50 new people, 10 of whom were kids. She got to meet the resident cat at the vet clinic. She got an excellent "report card" from her adventures. Thanks Dean, for taking Ecko out and about.

On Sunday my friend and I loaded all four PWDs in her van, along with her German Shepherd and Malinois and headed to Rickreall for a practice match and handling class. Chili, Decker and my friends dogs were entered in obedience in the morning. Chili let it be known that divas don't work and was quite pathetic in her class, but Decker, Journey and Seeker did well in their respective classes. Chili will be getting a little taste of a "nothing in life is free" program in upcoming weeks to overcome her diva-ness! You can find a good write-up explaining what a "NILIF" program is all about here.

Stoker and Ecko did quite well in the handling class. There was a small turn-out so CJ played with Ecko so I could concentrate on Stoker. Ecko seems to be a natural at gaiting and tolerated the judge's examination pretty well too. Stoker was great - happy and confident, gaiting with her tail up and wagging. I was very pleased.

vertical challenges

Chili is six years old now and I can remember being fascinated with some of her puppy behaviors. I think she has passed some of her quirks on to her grand-babies.

None of my previous PWDs ever did the doggy "break dance". Almost every evening, Chili lies on her back with all four feet sticking straight up in the air and a big grin on her face and begins to flip from side to side and kick her feet up toward the ceiling, all while staying balanced on her back. Can you picture why we call it break dancing? I understand that her Grandma Star used to do this too.

Chili is also much more "vertical" than any of our other PWDs have been. As young-un she levitated in the air at my side as Stoker does, but she also explores the upper reaches of her living environment in a vertical sense also. When she was about 10-weeks old and I took her to work one day, she climbed onto a file box, from there to the top of a two-shelf bookshelf, then to a wooden counter and finally to a marble counter. A customer advised me to turn SLOWLY around and when I did, there was my tiny, fragile little puppy looking down at me, pleased as punch with herself!

One of Chili's current favorite perched positions is straddling the back of our living room couch. Perhaps Ecko gets her affinity for climbing up and perching on things from Grandma Chili...

Ecko has not been getting out to places outside of our normal routine in the last few weeks, but we are trying to remedy that.

Today she went to Jan's office briefly and got to visit with some of his co-workers. On Sunday, she is going with the big dogs to an obedience and conformation fun match and on an upcoming Tuesday she will start going to conformation handling class in a new facility and with a group of people she hasn't met before. Hopefully the rest of the little "sharks" are still making lots of new friends and going to many new places.

Fear Periods and Grooming

Fear Periods

Based on owner reports, several of the "deadliest catch" crew of pups seem to be a little more "careful" in how they approach new or surprising things in the last week or so. I see this in Ecko a bit. Although she is still a very confident puppy, she will sometimes pause to consider whether she wants to investigate something new instead of hurling herself headlong into new situations without a second thought. Given that several of the other pups are also a bit more cautious than usual lately (a little easier to startle, a little more prone to alarm bark), I think it reasonable to assume that the babies may be going through a mild fear period. Here is an excerpt from an article on early socialization I found on the internet that discusses fear periods and socialization:

Fear periods are when your young dog all of a sudden is afraid of people, objects or places he used to be comfortable with. Some dogs will manifest that fear into shyness and some into more active “go away” behaviors such as growling or lunging. The time frame I have listed here is approximate, but you’ll be able to recognize those times just by being cognizant of your own dog’s change of behavior.

• Between seven to nine weeks of age
• Anywhere from four to six months
• Again at around 12 months
• At approximately 14 to 18 months and with some dogs can even be as late as 2 years

Click HERE for a link to the article. I'll also put a link to the article in the Resources section of the blog.

Grooming

As you know Ecko got her first haircut recently. Several of you have asked what length she was and the general pattern she was clipped in.

I clipped her body, belly, chest, sides and tail with an Andis 3/4" HT Blade (you could also use a #40 blade with a 3/4" snap-on comb) and blended her legs and head with scissors. Her ears were trimmed even with the ear leather and the top of her muzzle and below her eyes was trimmed. Since Ecko's leg hair was shorter than her body hair when I started, I did very little scissoring on her legs and feet, just enough to tidy them up. With lots of wiggling involved on Ecko's part, the haircut isn't perfect, but it is a start towards getting the right shape for a PWD and teaching Ecko that grooming isn't so bad! The red lines on the photo below show the "line of demarcation" between areas that were clipped and areas that were blended in with the scissors.