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.