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.