Kitty of Doom

Ok, one of my cats just stole a toy from Vivre. I have to admit I laughed myself silly. OMG! it just happened again. Vivre has this long tennis covered kong toy. Orrick just went after Vivre with claws then when she darted away he grabbed the toy and started playing with it. I love my cats.

Snow!

There has been a mistake! Denise gave me a dog that likes the snow. WTF? ;-)

It snowed last night. Well kind of. We got about an inch. I wasn't sure how Vivre would deal with snow because she didn't like rain as a puppy. She loved it! She just darts her head down and grabs a mouth full of snow on the run. Any way there are a few pics on flickr. The snow is just about all melted by now, but she had a blast this morning. I don't know if the flickr thingy in the side bar is working or not, but the link is there.

Progress

She is finally starting to get the verbal down cue. I tend to teach signals first since it is just easier for both me and the dog. When I started to introduce the verbal cue she just didn't get it. I have been using it for weeks and she finally clicked tonight. She isn't solid on the cue yet of course, but she actually downed on the verbal.

Now I guess I need to introduce a verbal sit. It would be so much nicer if I could just stick with signals. Oh well. I'll get over it.

Bad Blogger!

I haven't been keeping up with this lately. But I have good reason. At the end of October we had our open house here and we stayed very busy getting ready. Then the last couple of weeks have been so rough that for a while Vivre very nearly became an only child. My older dogs still aren't right. I am having to watch Yoda, my gsd mix and Apollo, my golden mix, when they are together. They had a huge fight and still aren't back on track yet.

Any way Vivre has always been ridiculously easy to shape. Even with the relatively little free shaping experience I have she picks things up so quickly. Making huge leaps over several small steps. I gave up on every being able to wear her down mentally with shaping, but I finally had a session where she tried things wrong! Okay why am I so excited? Because it means she finally has the chance to learn to keep trying new and different things when something doesn't work.

After years of saying "Why waste time training tricks? Train something useful." I am eating those words and looking for new stupid things to shape. Not only because it is more fun, I mean no pressure who cares if I mess it up? But because it helps Vivre learn to learn and to learn to use her body in a deliberate way. So I just stop and randomly shape things, like climbing straw bale. The other night I took her out and started working on getting her to go around an over turned bucket. This actually isn't completely useless since it will help with the blind search as she gets older, but the context will be different enough that I am not too worried that I will mess something up. It was the first time she couldn't figure out what I wanted. And trust me that doesn't imply exceptional shaping ability on my part. She is just that good. She tried walking up to the bucket and turning toward me, she tried sniffing it, heck she even tried lining up in heel position with the bucket. Actually she had better heel position with the bucket than she ever has with me. I did get her going all the way around it, but I was using treat delivery to help. By the end she would walk one circle around the bucket and come back to me. The light still never came on, but she was definitely having to work her brain to figure it out.

I have actually been getting more training done, but doing it all outside, but it is going to start getting too cold for that soon. I took some new pictures on flickr a few weeks ago, but they are very similar to the last. Though there were a few where she was actually standing still. I need to do better about posting. That hopefully will make me get on the ball. I also really need to start tracking again. I don't know why I dislike tracking. I think because I really have no idea what is going on in the dogs head. Or the dogs nose for that matter.

When Poodles Attack!

What is it with little dogs? Why do they never seem to realize their size? Vivre and I were coming back from our walkabout today and I realized that my aunt had all her little dogs out. I'm watching carefully as Vivre goes running over because her new foster pug mix isn't supposed to be good with dogs, though he does fine with hers. She is running around with the others just running happily behind. At first anyway. Then her little poodle does his thing and jumps up and nips at her face. Talk about turning ugly fast. That got him and the pug chasing after her biting at her heels, my hands are full of halloween decorations I was putting up and Vivre is running from these little dogs. We start yelling at the little ones trying to get them to leave her alone as I run to go get her, she finally realizes they aren't leaving her alone even when she tries to leave and starts to turn on them and tell them to back off. And you can't blame her for that. Marti gets most of her little guys called off, as I get Vivre's collar and start toward the car (which was closer than the yard) and I am having to pull her around me while this 14 year old terrier mix keeps trying to bite her legs. She could have eaten this dog in one bite. She jumped up in the car as soon as I got the door open and we put the little guys up so I could finish getting her home.

I never see bigs dogs do that. She really wasn't doing anything wrong, though she was fast and bouncy even after her near constant running and exploring. I can see how she may have made them nervous, but even when she tried to back off they wouldn't let up.

She watched them cautiously through the fence and who can blame her. None of them made contact, but jeez. So I guess the lesson here is make sure Marti knows when we are going for our walks, and if I see the little dogs turn around.

More Cell Phone woes

My cell now has no back, and no front and I still have to use it on speaker phone. Why can't she chew on remote controls like a normal puppy? I am going to make a special cell holder on my cork board and just slip my phone in there when I come in. If I can make that a habit then I will get a new phone. I just hate to get a new phone that will also get eaten.

I took some new pictures on our daily walkabout. I'll stick them up on flickr when I get done here. I even managed to get one of her standing still. That is rare. She noticed today that water moves! She still doesn't want to get her feet wet, but she would just watch the streams rushing around. Jumping from one high spot to another so she can watch the water. It was hilarious.

So far I'm not seeing a lot of behaviour changes. I was dreading adolescence and now it looks like it is waiting to ambush me just when I let my guard down. I did notice that while shaping new behaviours she doesn't work as long as she used to, but then she always surprised me with her puppy attention span.

I'm not tracking like I should be, I need to get on that. She tends to want to just race past the hot dog bits I need to not let her go on until she eats the food. So I am making a goal to really get tracking this week.

Busy Week

We have had a very busy week here. The sanctuary I work for had its annual open house yesterday. We had four days with out rain to try and get everything done. Vivre spent those days out in the yard with the big dogs. I would bring her in a work and play in the evening once work finished, but she was amazingly easy this week. She has always settled herself well, as long as she had had enough exercise during the day. I was a little worried that just being outside with out me being there to interact with her wouldn't do it, but she got to run and bark at all the people who were running around helping.

Which reminds me, everytime I think we are starting to get past our stranger thing she would do something that would make me doubt, but this week she had three different people come up to her one at a time and she just happily greeted everybody! I was so tickled. In fact one woman, who Vivre had barked at for a solid five minutes the first time she met her a few months ago, just watched in amazement when her daughter went over to the fence and Vivre was just as happy as can be.

I pulled out some new tennis balls this week and after giving Vivre one to cart around the house I took the other out and started tossing it to Yoda. At 10 he isn't big on chasing them, but he loves to catch them. Every now and then he would miss and Vivre would try desperatly to figure out how to get both tennis balls in her mouth at once. It is hilarious to watch, she just can't stand the thought that somebody else might get the ball.

I am going to try and find my tape measure to get a new height for her. She is still so small, but then I am used to large dogs, so she may not be quite as small as I think she is.

Not a drama queen

When Vivre was little I used to refer to her as Sprite's little drama queen. She was prone to screeching at the smallest thing. Apparently that isn't the case any more. Since I live way out in the middle of no where about once a day I take Vivre out of the yard and let her just run. She can get lots of excercise in the yard, but she can really open up and go when I let her out. She tends to run full out then start launching herself on and over obstacles. Those last pics I put on flickr are of her puppy zoomies. Anyway after her zoomies I was about to take her and turn her out in my aunt's excerise lot with my aunt's hound when I looked down and realized that my arm was covered in blood. Vivre has cut her pad going over something. It didn't even slow her down. No yelping, no limping, no evidence it even bothered her. It bothered me. There was a lot of blood.

Now I realized that I need to train her to accept doctoring. She was not happy with the wipe I pulled out of the first aid kit. Not at all.

She worries me some, this same day when she was launching herself over the picnic table she miscaculated and whacked her leg. She worries me. She still has puppy bones and she isn't even the slightest bit careful. When she is worked up I have to walk her down the steps or she lauches herself off my four foot high porch. Apparently all of her siblings are the same way. As soon as she gets old enough that I don't have to worry so much I plan on setting up some safe obstacles for her to launch herself over. I swear she jumps like a cat.

New Pictures

Hey I got some new pictures today. Vivre was running so some are blurry. Here are a couple. There are some more on Flickr.

Training Seminar

We had a training seminar scheduled today. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. The first day in weeks that it hasn't rained. It stayed a nice temperature and I didn't have to worry about Vivre getting too warm.

So Vivre got to finally start tracking today. Truthfully I have been nervous to start her, because I just don't know that much about tracking. There is enough information about starting a dog on tracking I could have tried, but it was something I wouldn't have any clue how to fix if I messed her up. I'm also glad that I waited, because the additional information that the trainer shared will be very useful when Vivre starts getting a little further along with her tracking. I'm going to have to get better treats for tracking. She will do obedience for what I had, but apparently she needs something more interesting to track. I wonder if that might have something to do with her working with me, versus her ignoring me to work the track.

After lunch we start on obedience. Of course we haven't done too much obedience. I didn't even try the pivoting with the fronts and start heeling. We've only done that at home and we were training in a public park. Though truthfully she probably would have been fine. There were kids running around and riding bicycles. But we were far enough away that the dogs were all fine. Allan wants me to ask for a little more from Vivre. He pointed out that since she knows down and sit it is time to start asking more. Such as more duration, or distractions. There were plenty of distractions, but largely she is very good at ignoring them preferring to work with me. She consistently does really well working in new places, I've been very pleased with her.

Our T.D has been out of town a lot for work, so she really hasn't done that much work with him. So today was her first real session with him. She won't bark while she is in prey, I may have to put barking on cue for the hold and bark. I kind of suspect that once she is working a little more she will really start to anticipate the game and it will get easier to get her to bark. Of course while Allan was trying to get her to bark she kept looking back at me to try and figure out what she had to do for me to turn her loose so she could play. She tried sitting, for a minute we thought she was going to go through her entire repertoire, but she just tried sit and attention. She has a good bite. Now I just have to not mess her up.

I was going to take my camera and have somebody get some pictures of her working, but I had to get up early in order to make it and I am not at my best in the mornings. Oh, one other note, while I felt that Vivre was getting better with strangers and her suspicions, our trainer noted today how big a difference there was between the way she greeted everybody today and the way she greeted everybody the first time she met them. I also didn't hear her barking madly at the park goers that walked back her crate. She did really well in everything today. Somebody commented that I am really going to have fun with Vivre. I already am.

Desperate

I'm lost. What do you do with a sprite pup when you are single and sick? Besides morn the loss of your brand new cell phone? She is banging a buster cube around right now, but I have to watch her and Yoda over food. So far, (totally my fault bacause I'm not watching her the way I normally do) I have had her poop in the house twice (which she never does), and pee in my bed. Yes in between my sheets not on top over the covers. Then thinking she was chomping down on something else I lay in bed while she nearly destroyed my brand new (3 weeks old) cell phone. Actually it is probably a good thing she was crated for the night when I found it. That spared her from my murderous wrath. The sim card is gone and I can no longer hear from the ear piece. So I stuck using speaker phoneand getting a blut tooth. I can't afford ANOTHER new cell phone. This is the first one she has destroyed, but I am really, really rough on cell phones.

She has gotten borerd with the buster cube and wants to play. Ok. I'm going to drag myself to the store and get lots and lots of bones, chews and kong stuffers.

No Brakes

Wow, I can't believe it has been so long since I updated this blog. I don't remember if I mentioned, but when we got back from the beach my hard drive was dead. So I haven't been doing too much computer while I debate getting (another!) new hard drive or a new computer.

Anyway, I thought I'd just get a quick update written. Vivre has lost her brakes. When she was younger and would come charging at me I never worried because she always stopped. The bruises that are no doubt forming on my calves as I type are evidence that those days are long gone. I had her outside with me and she was doing her speed demon puppy zoomies when she comes charging at me from behind, slams in to my calves and almost knocks me on my butt. If I hadn't been so worried I'd land on her I'm not sure I would have managed to right myself before I went down. After a horribly busy few weeks involving two visitors to the refuge and 18 relatives from out of town we are finally getting back to training. I'm more focusing on CU excersises than obedience since we aren't showing for a while any way and even my TD who believes in motivational foundation still uses corrections and e-collars so I would like to have a strong self-control foundation. I don't have a firewire port on my computer, but I will try and get some video of her as soon as my aunt gets her computer fixed and I can use it to upload the files.

Our Beach Adventure Day 3

Sunday was the best day of the trip. Most of the other campers checked out Sunday morning and the new ones didn't check in until the afternoon so it was quiet. Vivre finally got better about me leaving her with Mom. For most of the trip she wasn't quiet when I would walk away, but by Sunday she started to get better. I was actually able to go for a swim. There really wasn't anybody around for her to disturb, but luckily it wasn't a problem most of Sunday.
More playtime on the beach. She never did get to the place where she liked the waves. I have never had her pull on a tug as hard as she did when she was trying to pull us back on to dry land. I have some pictures of her laying at the site, but didn't get any on the beach because it was too hard to handle two dogs and a camera at the same time. I think my mom still has the camera, but as soon as I get it I will post some of the pictures.
The trip back was fairly uneventful. I think both the pups are glad to be home. This is the first time I have ever been out of town when there wasn't some awful emergency. Everything was fine and the same way I left it. Of course I got home and found out my computer ate another hard drive. I'm currently working off a live cd. So I don't know how long it will take me to get the pictures up, but I'll get them as soon as I can.

Our Beach Adventure Day 2 -LAT

Our first full day was busy. We just managed to get the site because there was a cancellation. It was in many ways a great site. We were directly across from the beach access, just a short path, close to the restrooms, but far enough away that we had some peace and several trees to provide shade for us and the dogs. However because of these factors as well as the play ground at one end of the camp ground we had a constant stream of traffic walking past our site.
I live in the middle of no where, so Vivre isn't used to having strange people walking around unless we are out and about. She was very loud and truthfully a little scary. So we spent a lot of time playing the Look At That game when children walked past the site. She was a lot worse with the kids than with the adults. Though she was wonderful with bikes. I had Tess ride her bike up and down the barn while we played LAT and apparently it stuck. I don't think she barked at a bicycle once the whole trip. I am shocked I didn't make her sick from all the treats, but it did seem to help. Truthfully given her behaviour I think it was just a little much for her. A strange place and strange people and a new strange schedule.
She was much more interested in walking in the water today, primarily since it was either water or hot sand. She also started to get used to the waves. We walked all over the park and she was great with just about everybody when we were out and about. The only exceptions were meeting people on the beach path and this one poor guy picking up shells who she decided must be a serial killer. To be fair to Vivre, Yoda, who is wonderful with everybody did pick one man who for some reason he didn't like and he barked everytime he walked past the site.
At this point she was being good when people walked past, though there were times the whole weekend when she just went over threshold before I realized what happened. But she went right back to being friendly on the way home at the rest stops. She seems to do best if I have her engaged. Even if she is just a little focused on me. Once she grows up a bit it won't be such a problem, since it will be easier to just keep her under cue. But I am still going to work on it.

Our Beach Adventure Day 1

I don't like to leave my animals. It is almost a phobia. So we went camping. That way I could take the dogs with me. Or at least the ones who I thought would be okay. So Friday my mother and I loaded Yoda and Vivre up and headed for South Carolina. I noticed the night before when I was loading the car that the floor was warm. Apparently the tail pipe had rusted in half and was blowing up at the under side of the car. Great. Oh well it wasn't too hot so I figured it would be fine. We loaded up the dogs and took off. I positioned the dogs so they weren't near the heat, just in case and checked it. It was fine for the first few hours, up until it scorched my carpet and melted a plastic bag. So we went looking for a midas. First and EMT sent me down the higway where a liquor store manger sent me across town, and so on and so on as we could not find the Midas. We spent an hour and a half driving all around Spartanburg visiting various mechanics trying to find somebody to fix my tail pipe before we finally found the Midas the EMT told us about. Vivre was great. She went in to the garage and greeted everybody and got lots of attention. She was great. So after 2 1/2 hours in Spartanburg we were back on the road.
We get to the park and start to get the tent set up and I look up and Vivre has managed to get out of the crate and is running around. Great, what next?
The real fun was her first trip to the ocean. I had a toy on a rope to lure her in to the water. She does not like the water. When she got hit with a wave it was the only time I have every really seen her let go of a good solid bite. Actually though she did get better about getting in the water. Especially if she thought she might get to chase the sand pipers.
She did really well right up until dark, then as we were walking back to the camp site she scared the crap out of a family when she started lunging and barking at them on the trail. I finally had to put her in the tent. So I need to work on finding ways to get her used to being around strange people in the dark. I live in such a rurual area that this will take some thinking.

Honey

Sometimes my animals are so smart they scare me. Vivre and I were on the way to my grandparent's house to pick up something. Vivre was laying quietly in the backseat, which is usually what she does when we are in the car, so I didn't think anything of it. Then I heard the licking sound. I sort of glanced behind me and saw she was licking something up from the car seat. Then the smell of honey filled the car. I had left the brand new jar in the car so I could take it to my parent's house. I had driven all over town and up and down bumpy country roads and the lid stayed on, but it apparently couldn't survive the force of nature known as Vivre. I was close to my grandparent's house so I went on. When Vivre jumped up on to the front seat I saw that all four legs were completely covered in honey and she was leaving little foot prints every where she walked.

I got her out of the car and tied her to a tree in the front yard while I went to get a bucket so I could wash her and my car seats. When I came back out my aunt, Dyan, was hosing Vivre off for me. Funny since she hates tubs and pools, but loved the water hose. Even after she was clean Dyan stayed out there with the hose just so she could watch Vivre attack the water.

I had to clean my car seats twice and then pull them up to get the honey that had drained in to the carpet, but it did get all cleaned up. Thankfully this car has those pseudo leather seats. I have only had it about three weeks, my last car has fabric seats. Those never would have come clean.

I am still trying to figure out how she managed to get the lid off that jar.

Weird Puppy

I had gotten some shrimp fried rice yesterday. It was horrible, so I set it aside to put it in the dogs dinner later that night. I left the room for a minute and Vivre had climbed up on the desk (yes she is part mountain goat). The weird thing is, she ignored the shrimp and was trying to get in to the package of dried mangoes. She is a strange little puppy.

She has one puppy tooth left. An upper canine. Her big girl teeth are all starting to poke through, but her canines just barely. I finally caved and played tug with her this morning. It makes a world of difference. When we don't tug, it doesn't matter how much we play fetch (or try to), or train she always has energy to spare. A good game of tug and that really goes a long way to working off that puppy energy.

EEK! What a Weekend

This last weekend I was sick all day Saturday. I couldn't hardly get out of bed. Vivre was actually very good. I truly expected her to be a total wild child since she wouldn't be getting the work or play that she normally gets. And she was, but not nearly as bad as I expected. For most of Saturday Morning she just laid in bed with me. By the afternoon however she had to do something with all that energy. Every time one of the cats would move she would fly off the bed. I was sick, tired and irritable and ready to do her bodily harm. Really though as soon as the cats moved away or laid down and ignored her she would come right back to bed and settle right down.

Of course that energy doesn't just disappear because she stayed calm. Sick or not I had to work the Fair horse show that night. Which meant she was crated for around seven hours. My aunt came over and let her out for a bit, but said she was still revved when she put her back up. Just as she was still revved when I got home after midnight. Again wouldn't have been a problem except I had to get up early to go to club practice the next morning. I let her play for a bit, but she still wasn't happy when bed time came.

Sunday Morning I get up way too early and start our drive. The schutzhund club practices at a park a little over an hour away. I am not a morning person, and our training director has been out of town a lot since I got my puppy. I haven't made it for tracking before which was in another part of the park. So I get there thinking practice has been canceled and I left before I could get the email. No big, I have a hyper puppy and a relatively strange place to train. We start doing downs all over the (thankfully) small park. Of course I realize that my bending over to deliver the hand signal has become part of the cue (Duh! Becky) and start working on fading that. She does very well, never misses a down and I can almost stand completely straight. So we get ready to go, I get in my car.

My keys are gone. I haven't owned this new car long, maybe a week and a half. Haven't gotten extra keys made because the key has a chip and I haven't caught the locksmith in yet. This is bad. The only key in existence to my car is lost somewhere in the park. We get back out and start retracing our steps. This would be a good time to point out that my key chain is a small green rope horse halter, that blends well in the grass. Thankfully as we are walking Vivre's nose goes straight to my keys. Of course she then dismissed them as not of interest and went on, but she did point them out. So I am going to try the locksmith again this afternoon and see if I can get a copy made. I really hope he is in.

There is one thing I found amusing. Our Schutzhund club meets at a public park instead of having our own field. While we were doing bitework on Sunday a car pulled in to the parking lot. I was a little amused since after sitting in the car and watching for a few minutes they turned around and left. I guess seeing a GSD swinging by it's teeth on some guys arm wasn't what they were expecting when they came to the park.

Luring vs. Shaping and Capturing

I started teaching Vivre heel by teaching her to walk on my left side and then shape it to an actual heel. We got very enthusiastic and bouncing heeling. Or almost heeling any way. However I watched a video the other day where you teach heel by using a paw target and starting with a pivot. It looks like a great method and has the added bonus of also starting fronts, finishes and helping the Vivre learn to use her body.

I started by luring Vivre on to the paw target. In this case a book. After the first day I decided that she didn't seem to be noticing what her feet were doing, she was just watching my hands. Whether I had food in them or not. So I left the book down and after clicking for a couple of glances at the book, just started to click when she would touch it with her paw. It was always accidentally at first, but eventually she started to understand. It seems like it was much quicker that way, even though I spent more time to get less reps than with luring. Of course it is hard to say since she had already had over 250 reps with me luring her on to the book.

The session was convincing enough though that with the exception of sit and down I am going to try to avoid luring behaviors. We already have a lovely, quick, sharp fold back down on a mostly reliable hand cue. A nice square, tucked sit has been a little harder to get, regularly, but I have put more time in to the down.

This session also demonstrated the usefulness of the clicker. I was clicking anytime any part of Vivre's foot hit the top of the book. Because of where I placed the book when she would try to lay at my feet she would lay a paw on the book. At one point she decided that she was supposed to lay down on the book to get the C/T. She tried to purposefully down on the book twice, both times interrupted by the click. After that she had it. I shudder to think how long that would have taken with just treats.

Any way she is pivoting very well to the left and pretty well to the right. We did the three sessions to the left before I realized I was only going in one direction. Occasionally she moves off the book and follows my hand as I reach for a treat. Not wrong since the click ends the behavior, but I always lead her back on to the book to get her treat. I need to do some more doggy zen work, but it isn't generalizing well.

Oh, for anybody who is interested there is a new clicker training list specifically for bitework. Called Click Bite.

Amazed

I shouldn't be amazed any more. I have been clicker training my animals for years. At some point I should just be able to say "Yep, that's normal." But I'm just not there yet. I was working with Vivre on standing on a paw target. This will transfer to several other behavior. We had a couple of training sessions with it earlier, but I hadn't revisited it until now. So we usually work in short 2-3 minute sessions and were on our third today. Two of the cats got in to fight, for those of you who have heard cat fights you know how awful this sounds. Normally Vivre rushes straight over there to get in to the middle of it, but today as she started to take off she hit the target. When I clicked she stopped dead. You could see her practically dancing from foot to foot trying to decided if she should stay and get her treat or head off for the cats. The treat one out and as she was headed back to the cats she hit it again. Click! She stayed. Part of her mind was still on the cats until after the second click, but I love the fact that a dog, especially a puppy will choose to stay and work rather than go check out the cats.
That is the reason I ended up crossing over to clicker training. My GSD mix, Yoda's, biggest distraction was the ferret. I didn't know enough about training when he was younger to understand raising the distraction level slowly. I had always been told to just correct them if they didn't listen. I hated doing that and finally just accepted that he would never work around the ferrets. Until I decided to train the cats and gave clicker training him a shot. The only time he looked away from the target stick was when the ferret was litterly walking on him and even then it was a quick glance and then he shot his back to me to make sure he didn't miss a chance to touch the target.
I know some people do, but I don't know how you can have that and still go back to traditional training. I couldn't.

Monkey Puppy

I think that Denise has sold me a puppy that is half terv and half monkey. Vivre has learned that she can climb. She is putting this new skill to use. She climbs everything. Boxes, chairs, my computer desk, which wouldn't be a problem except the places where I can put off limit items is rapidly dwindling. I'll need to get more furniture with drawers if this keeps up. My cats seem to be working with her. The only two places she can't reach are the top of the bookcase and the top of the fridge. So the cats knock the good stuff down to puppy level.

Teething is going well. I've noticed she seems a little needier this week, but I have been gone more than usual this past week so I can't tell if it is a side effect of teething, or of me being gone. She has finally gotten big enough to knock the buster cube around. That has been a life saver. I have only used it for my horse so I wasn't really aware of how noisy they are, but it keeps her busy and lets her work some energy out. I can handle the noise. It will be nice when teething is over with and she can go back to tugging, she climbed up on to my desk and got the squit bottled we played with it and chewed it just enough to make it useless. Silly Puppy.

Teething

Vivre is teething. Of course she always has her mouth on something, so there isn't too much of a difference in chewing.

The big difference is since we aren't tugging now she has a lot more energy. Which she has devoted to becoming a monkey puppy and climbing everything. I'll be sitting at the computer and will feel her climb over the arms of my chair and plop in behind me, or will look over and see her climbing crates and boxes to get to where the cats are sleeping. Before too long I am going to walk in find her standing on the bookcase eating the cat food.

Since it has been a busy couple of days I have been gone a lot. Yesterday my aunt came over and took Vivre out and over to her house. Vivre and Jethro (yes, that really is his name and it suits him,) ran and wrestled and played. I am shocked that Marti still has a house left.

I have been invited to a fireworks show this weekend. It is supposed to be a very impressive show, but I am worried about leaving the dogs. We are over a mile from our nearest neighbor, so there shouldn't be any loud fireworks near here, and none of the adult dogs are afraid of fireworks. I just hate to leave Vivre where she might get freaked out if some idiot rednecks decided to go off in to the woods to set off fireworks. Which means I will probably be home. Of course I don't like crowds so it won't be a terrible loss.

Changes Clicker Training Can Bring

This really isn't related to Vivre at all.

I was at the barn today watching a couple of the borders work with their young gelding. A Tennessee Walking Horse, they were working on getting a running walk. He was doing very well, and finely he gave them a great few strides. His reward was to quit. Something that seemed so normal to me before. Now all I can think is how bizarre it seems that they don't want to work with their people and they everyone seems to be okay with that. If Vivre didn't want to work with me I would know there was something wrong. Even when she is heavily distracted she still is ready and willing to work when she focuses on me.

It has been a couple of hours and truthfully it still is just hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that they big reward is quitting.

My old horse is 29 and a retired champion. There isn't much to teach him except for novel behaviors like targeting. He is so arthritic that he really also needs behaviors that don't require too much movement. But even though my horse clicker training experience is limited, I can't help thinking about how much easier it would be if they could have clicked what they wanted. If they had a horse that understood "Yes, this is what I want."

I think what is really getting to me the most is that I know that this used to seem normal to me and now I can't just wrap my mind around it.

Lavender Festival

I took Vivre with me to the Lavender Festival.  There isn't a lot there, but there are a handful of jewelry and craft booths, a farmers market and music.  And of course Lavender Lemonade.  We took my mom's convertible, which was entertaining since Vivre kept trying to bite the wind.  Mom wanted to get over to the farmers market before the bread lady sold out again, she had to leave me and Vivre behind since I can't walk ten feet with out somebody stopping me to tell me how beautiful my dog is and how they have never coloring  like hers.  Except there was actually a number of people who recognized her as a Terv and two who said "Look it's on of those drug sniffing dogs."  Which could be a Mal of could be a Terv since I know their local police department had a Terv.  I'm beginning to think her getting older won't stop people from wanting to pet her.  Her coloring is just too striking for that. 

I did have one lady tell me I needed to put a halti or a choke chain on my puppy to stop her from pulling.  I can only imagine the look on my face.  I have to admit there is a small part of me that cringes because I never take an unruly dog out in public, but Vivre who is still just a wild puppy goes everywhere.  My mother just shakes her head. 

I grabbed some food from a  booth on the way out.  I've discovered that Vivre likes hummus, but it gives her awful puppy gas, so no more hummus for the puppy. 

 



--
http://lifewithvivre.blogspot.com/

Another Horse Show

We have hosrse shows on the second Saturday of the month. Vivre did wonderfully. She never once chased after the running children. All though the horses were another story. We started to play tug, but after two yelps I checked her mouth to realize her gums were a little swollen. It seems a little early for her to start teething and her gums are fine now, but I am a little hesitant to tug with her.

It was a much smaller crowd, and there was no whooping with the applause. There was also somebody who actually knew what a terv was. That makes a total of two people. There was also another person who thought it was a wolf pup. All though to be fair she knew me, so she knew it was possible I would be running around with a wolf. There are some new pictures on the flickr. I'll go ahead and post one here anyway.
.

Another One!

I have lost another phone charger. I don't know why she likes chargers so much more than everything else. The first time I just didn't think, I let the cord dangle in to Vivre reach. Then I moved the charger to the head of the bed and placed the excess cord behind a trunk. Some how she still managed to get it. But it was still usable. Until the other night when I stretched it out to talk while the phone charged and then forgot it. Thankfully she doesn't seem to like thicker cords. My aunt had her refrigerator cord chewed completely in half. My dad, an electrician, was suprised the dog survived. My laptop power cord also has teeth marks, it was behind the trunk too. I haven't checked it to make sure that it still works, but it isn't bad so I'm not worried.

I bought an adapter so I can plug a car charger in to a wall socket. I think I have three car chargers. Ridiculous since the lighter in my car doesn't work and I can't use them. I hope this will work better since they have shorter cords and they are curly and don't dangle. I really don't want to have to buy another charger.

Not Much Going On

There hasn't been too much going on, though today we went to my Mom's mechanic's house. He was replacing some mount that would only take a minute so Vivre and I went along. I made a discovery and now I feel like an idiot. Vivre does her charge and bark routine at kids. I hadn't noticed because she doesn't do it with children she is familiar with or if she in engaged. The trip to the falls, she started to do that to a group with a kid, but minutes later she bounced passed two girls and then had a boy run right past her face with nothing but a glance. But while we were just walking by the first kid, Vivre was just walking. By the time we came across the two girls she was trying to figure out how to get across the water without getting wet. And we had just finished a training session with the boy so she was more focused on me than him.

It hit me today when she ran and barked at the mechanic's younger son. It was a good trip though since she paid no attention to the noisy equipment and the boys and I played tug with her. The younger son was very good. I only told him once to let me hold the tug while she grabbed it, then I would pass it to him. And from that point on he would hand it back to me to restart the game.

I have also noticed that she doesn't like to be separated from me. Tonight though she was particularly bad. I left her with my dad and ran to take a shower while I was there. My dad kept her for me, she whined the whole time. Then when I went downstairs and he eventually let her go to follow me because she was choking herself so badly. Again if you keep her busy she does okay. Tess took her and played with her at the barn while I was busy. So I need to work on her staying calm as I leave and I need to find more kids.

Espresso Fairy

I think the Espresso Fairy is spiking Vivre's drinking water. I'm not crazy. Well okay, I am crazy, but not about this. Last week if Vivre started getting in to trouble, we'd have a training session and it would work her brain and wear her down a bit. But yesterday, she went to the feed store and played there, went to the barn and barked, chased poop, manure forks and the aussies. Still revved so I crate her with lunch while I went to feed the wolves. Four training sessions (almost back to back), and three empty treat balls later I was tethering her to me to keep her out of trouble.

She has always been so easy to manage. I was shocked actually at how calm she was. I should have known it was too good to last.

Vivre update

First congratulations to all the K-litter puppy people.  I hope everything is going well for you and your new babies. 

I took Vivre down to the falls today. She didn't get car sick, which kind of surprised me, since it is a very curvy road and I was driving and started to get car sick. I know this is probably really sad, but I had no idea it was Memorial Day weekend and it was going to be so crowded.  I think the only time I have ever seen so many people there is during the moon bow.  She wasn't crazy about the water, largely avoiding it and jumping over puddles where possible.  She eagerly climbed rocks, chased leaves, jumped downed trees and picked up sticks to cart around with her for a while. 

She went up to everybody who payed her any attention, and shockingly enough everybody spoke to me before they started petting her.  I told Denise yesterday that everybody I have had Vivre around has always let her approach them and despite the crowds that held true today. But to be fair we were walking fairly briskly unless somebody stopped me to ask about Vivre.
I got
   2- Look at that German Shepherd puppy
   1- That pup looks part wolf
and a whole lot of "What kind of dog is that?  Huh, I've never heard them."

The only time she seemed nervous was when we had just gotten out of the car and were walking toward a family by a car.  She reacted in typical Vivre fashion and went to the end of the leash and squared up, but as soon as I said "come on," she came right to me and walked passed them with a quick drive by sniff. 

She got to visit with a wide variety of people, some old, some young and some very very young. As well as some wearing interesting and scary hats.  (Well they scared me anyway.)  There were also several motorcycles there.  The first time one buzzed pass she quickly moved to the other side of me, but by the second one was headed toward the end of the side walk to get a better look.  She also had a boy run right past her, but she just gave him a quick glance and then dismissed him. 

After spending an hour in constant motion, from one end of the park to other she was finally slowing down. Apparently not that slow however since as we were leaving we were stopped by a woman who commented on how she was so full of puppy energy.  She did pass out in the car for a full fifteen minutes before we got to my parent's house and she started her puppy zoomies again.
                                                                                                                                                               Becky


-- http://lifewithvivre.blogspot.com/

Life With a Puppy

Under my porch is a mud hole. It never gets any sun, so it never dries out. Added to the torrential amount of rain we have had over the last two months I am glad all my dogs are larger or I might lose one in the mud pit under there. Especially since Aradia, my old hound dog, likes to go under there when she is outside.

I gave up on mopping during the continuous rain because it never helped. Which explains my floor in some of these pictures of Vivre. The yard has finally dried out so the mop came out today. The dogs go out, the dogs come in no problem. Until Aradia, Once I saw the paw prints she was leaving I rushed to get a towel. I was going to clean up her feet and then wipe the floor. I hate to clean, and I don't want to do it any more often than necessary. As I hit the floor and grab for her feet to clean then the towel is ripped out of my hands. I'm sure you can guess who the culprit was. I wiped off Aradia's feet and cleaned the floor with a puppy hanging off the towel the entire time. Yes, she has a good out and I could have used it, but it seemed like it was going to be just way too much temptation and too much to ask her to ignore the towel.

We started a new behavior tonight. Paw targeting. I was clicking her for putting one front paw on a pillow. I find that it is an easier behavior to teach if you start with a change in texture so the dog can feel the target under their feet.

We also started heeling yesterday. All though at this point it is more left side walking. I click for her being in a certain area then reward with a tug. She is doing pretty well for two sessions. There is a video I am thinking about getting that teaches heel differently. I think they teach them to stand in heel first while keeping their paws on a target and spinning in heel. I was going to teach heel stationary first, but that would require Vivre being stationary. :-) But if she is focused on keeping her feet on the target that might help. Which is the reason we started the paw targeting today.

I have heard that dogs tend to be either right or left pawed. With one training session so far Vivre seems to be left pawed. I wonder if that will stay true or if she will switch.

More behaviors

Well, I understand the saying about Pride and falls. Apparently Vivre will sit at the door if she needs to poop, but not to pee. Sigh. Ok, we are still doing pretty well with the house training. On the other hand I am finally getting to do some more training. She outs everytime on command. She occasionally hesistates, but I think she is really getting it because even if I freeze the tug she only outs if I give the cue. We've done sits, downs, down to get out of the crate, out, eye contact, targeting and name recognition. Now we are getting to "Take," and jumping. She is a baby so jumping basically consists of going over a target stick. It started on the ground and now is maybe three inches up. She can still walk over it, but I am going for the idea that she has to cross it and hoping that can be built up to jumping.

It helps that I have discovered that training sessions make her sleep. Yay for brain work. It wears her out so much quicker than physical excersise. Of course the dumbell I am working with is a Tennis Bone. This makes it easier for her to grab the ball ends instead of the bar. But she grabs the bar often enough that even if I use the Tennis Bone for a while I can shift criteira and get what I am looking for.

I really need to start tracking. Well really all kinds of scent work. So that is my goal for this week, to start scent work and work on her taking metal in her mouth. Given her love of chewing on aluminum cans I don't antcipate too much of a problem with the metal. For the tracking Ivan Balabanov has a Train per View site that has different training videos including puppy tracking. I am going to try and watch that this week. I am running a linux system though. I can watch the test video on my computer, but the free videos haven't loaded for me. Of course that could be my impatience. So I have some computer work to do before I try and watch the videos. I know most people are running windows PCs, but more and more people are switching to Macs and linux. I wish people would take that in to account when setting thses sites up. This isn't the only time I have run in to this problem.

House Training

Well, it is official. My ten week old puppy is better house trained than my aunt's adult dogs. Over the last two days Vivre has figured out to go sit in front of the door when she needs to go out. Since she often lays in front of the door while I work on the computer I don't always realize that she has shifted to sitting and looking at the door, so she gives one quiet bark to let me know she is there.

New Toy

I discovered a new toy for Vivre last night. My cats were just neutered and were getting ready to fight last night. I grab the spray bottle and head for the cats. They are very tenacious and once they get started the only options are to lock them in separate rooms, keep them separated for a while or spray the crap out of them. I am working on Go to your Mat with them so I can play LAT while they are looking at each other, but truthfully I am hoping that the surgery will help. Anyway when I got the spray bottle out Vivre went nuts. She kept trying to jump up and grab the bottle. We even got some nice puppy heeling with the bottle as a reinforcer. Of course she was soaked by the time we were done, but she had a blast.

I also forgot to mention yesterday that she is consistently laying down in her crate and waiting until I release her before she breaks out of the crate. She always breaks once when I start to open the door, but usually only going in to a sit before she catches herself.

I think one of the cats finally nailed her this morning. I was checking my email, heard a yelp and turned in time to see her going backwards in to a slide away from a cat who was just sitting there with a mean look on her face. She stayed away from her after that.

Progress

We finally got targeting today. I haven't really put effort in to targeting, though it is usually the first thing I train. With Vivre it was a little challenging since if you something if front of her face her first reaction isn't to touch or sniff it. Her first reaction is to bite it, and she is quick. I finally abandoned target sticks and just used my finger. She only grabbed my hand a couple of times. She now gets the idea though. She only grabbed my finger twice today, and that was after several correct repetitions.

We also worked on confinement, I put her in the x-pen, I put her in the crate, I laid in the bed and napped in the crate. She hardly made a sound. She whined half the night last night. My fault I am sure. I will not take a whining dog out of the crate, but I have waited until she calmed down and laid down and then taken her out and let her sleep with me, or just not crated her and let her sleep with me. Now I think she figures there has been a mistake and she isn't supposed to be in the crate, she is supposed to be on the bed. She is just reminding my that I am a bad person and have forgotten her in the crate.

Vivre discovered the litter box today. As I was pouring new litter she came up behind me and decided to catch the falling litter with her mouth. Apparently litter is fun, since I had to block the box off after she decided to go digging for buried treasure. We have very different definitions of treasure. I think she is growing on me, and mostly in the legs. It seems she gets taller everyday.

Not A Happy Puppy

Vivre spends very little time crated or restricted when I am home. It really hasn't been necessary, as long as I keep checking on her and make sure she gets out often enough. Today I had the cats neutered. I won't leave them at the vets overnight because I have heard horror stories about animals who stayed the night and weren't closely watched. I wasn't going to subject the still drowsy kitties to Vivre. She is getting better about understanding that the cats don't want to play, but she can still be a pest.

So I got home with the cats and set up the x-pen for Vivre. There was a pillow, a variety of stuffed animals as well as two different treat toys. She was very vocal in her objections. Especially when I took the opportunity to sweep. Normally Vivre helps me sweep, by grabbing the broom with her teeth and picking up all the dirt and dust I miss with her fur. Just stopping the broom doesn't fix this since she loves to chew on the broom. In fact she will regularly grab the broom and drag it to one of her pillows and chew on it. The fact I was sweeping with out her didn't go over very well.

After a couple of hours on intermittent barking, with breaks to empty her kong or roll the treat ball around, she finally fell asleep. I did take her out and just keep her leashed near me for a while. She likes that better, but we need to start working on her being calm and quiet while contained. After all I am going to have to start cleaning again soon (despite how much I really dread that) and I really can't let her help me with that. (She is chewing on the broom again. Weird puppy.)

Horse Show

We have a horse show at the barn the second Saturday of every month. A great puppy opportunity since it gives me a chance to expose her to applause, loud speakers, whooping screeches, and a varied crowd of people I know. The people are all regulars who are there almost every month. Except last May we had a miniature horse show, where we added several classes specifically for minis. Well apparently this is to be an annual event, so there was a larger crowd than usual and several people I wasn't as familiar with. Luckily it wasn't much of a problem and my mother was helping me so I could get Vivre out of there periodically and give her a break. The original plan had been to park the car just outside the door and give her several breaks, but the torrential rains that have caused the wildlife to begin traveling two by two, made parking in the back of the arena iffy in my little car.

There were points where Vivre got a little nervous, she is only 9 weeks old, but she did very well, walking across the table to greet people and playing with the kids. I let some of the other children pet her and give her treats, but there were only three siblings that I let her actually play with. I know their parents, they are regulars and there mother even said that if she got them with her puppy teeth while playing that it was no big deal. She did actually pass out and sleep for a little while on top of the table where I could keep an eye on her.

We had a few iffy moments. She did fine with the applause, but the whooping would get a reaction. Kids jogging were okay, but if they were flat out running there she would go. The same with the horses. We played Leslie McDevitt's Look at That Game with the jogging and running kids. I finally managed to find a food treat that Vivre likes and I don't find completley objectionalbe. Three Dog's Bakery We Pity the Kitties. The treats are 100% Alaskan Salmon, but Vivre and the cats are crazy for them.

Vivre is very good at settling down to sleep at night, tonight I think it will be easy for her.

Busy Day

Yesterday was a very busy day for Vivre. First she got dragged to the feed store where she got to wander around the aisles and then sit and play tug while the owner finished checking everybody else out. She had no problems in a strange place or playing tug in a strange place, but she did approach and sniff the strange men cautiously. Then on to the barn. Lawnmowers don't faze her a bit. She approached Sharon, the trainers wife, sniffed and decided to be friendly. Then did her little guard dog routine when Erica showed up. Other than that she had a great time eating poop, hoof pieces and digging in the saw dust.

After sacking out for a bit, it was on to my parents house. Their cat is a lot less tolerant than mine. Just being another animal in her house is a killing offense. D.C (Disaster Cat) would swipe at Vivre, but she was too quick for her. At least until the cat decided to get her back end. Vivre actually surprised me when we got in their living room, by rushing straight up to my dad's chair, jumping all over him licking and wiggling. My mother only got one quick sniff before she was all over her as well.

Then she turned back in to the puppy I know and love. While chasing her ball she decided that my parent's curtains were a lot more fun tug on, which was followed by attempting to eat their carpet and their coffee table legs. Mom made the mistake of trying to fold clothes with Vivre in the house. After taking her to the back yard and having her chase me around, we went back inside just as amped up as before.

She slept on the car ride home, then was ready to go again. Vivre has two speeds, dead asleep or flat out flying.

Training

I am not getting the training done that I would like. There was a family emergency so I was having to take care of my aunt's five dogs plus the two extra she was watching for a friend. But so far we have worked on eye contact, sit, name recognition, calm behavior around the cats and some work on out. I am getting a sloppy puppy sit, but she is a puppy:-) I had a great puppy training plan all worked out, but I am going to adjust it to work on some Control Unleashed exercises. I don't want to waste that wonderful puppy brain, but I want to make the most of her socialization window and want to play a lot of Look At That. There are much worse things that she could learn now than new things are an opportunity to get a click and treat. I am planning on taking her with me to the feed store tomorrow and back to the barn. Hopefully we will get some more training done.

Here are some pics of Vivre

Classic Sprite Pup!

Puppy Trips

Ok, well we are past the first 24 hours of Puppydom. Vivre continues to try and get the cats to play using her 3B methods. She Barrels towards them, can't stop and Bumps them with her nose and then Bites to try and get them to play. Orrick who has dealt with more of it now just jumps up out of the way. The others take a quick jump back and look at her like "What are you doing?"

The older dogs are starting to get a little tired of bouncing puppy, so I play with her so she leaves them alone, then they seem to get bent out of shape because I am playing with her and not them.

She is actually crashed out on the floor right now. We went to my grandparent's house twice and I took her to the barn. A great place for premack. Call her to come, then let her run and sniff horse poop. She was a little nervous of the aussies at the barn. First jumping back and hiding behind me, then switching gears to going to sniff them growling. It didn't last long though as she finally started bouncing off their heads too. It really changed her attitude for the rest of the day. When we went back to my Grandmother's she put all but one of her dogs out and Vivre went up to my grandmother to bounce off her for a bit.

Now she is passed out in the floor near my feet. The older dogs are enjoying their reprieve.

Trip Home

Ok, I picked up my puppy last night. When the paperwork is done she'll be Sprite's Joie de Vivre. It poured. A friend brought Vivre back when she went to pick up her puppy, so I just had to drive to her house. The roads were flooded. I can't count the number of times that we lost traction on the road. She was a trooper though. I gave her a chicken leg to chew on during the ride. It took about 10 minutes before devoured it. She whined some, but settled down when I started to sing. I think it had less to do with any real musical talent than her wondering what that noise was. ;-)

I let her run around some when we got home. It didn't take her long to get comfortable and start bouncing around my older GSD mix, Yoda. The cats mostly ignore her, but she really wants to play with them too. She gets a little too rough, and the cats end up getting up high to get away.

It was late and I was pretty tire, but I didn't want to lock her up again so I let her lay in bed with us. (Us being me, Yoda and Apollo) We dozed till about two when I took her out. When she came in, she was revved and my hair was far more attractive than her toys. So I figured it was time to put her in the crate for the night. Well she whined a little than settled down. I look in to check on her and she was trying to eat the pillow in her crate. Sigh. At 2:00 am I can't find anything that I am not worried about her chewing up and swallowing so out she comes. She actually slept well almost all night, only occasionally waking up when a cat would jump on to the bed in front of her face.

She is stretched out on my pillow taking a nap. I'd kind of like to join her.