The Wonder of Water

Vivre has never been crazy about water. While her sister, Juno, loves all things water, Vivre considered water a form of cruel torture. Today we walked down to the creek so I could play with my new camera. her normal behavior is to get across the creek as quickly as possible so she can stay as dry as possible. However I was walking up the middle of the creek to get some shots. Then I noticed splashings sounds. I have never seen her voluntarily get wet, but when I turned around there she was running up and down the creek and splashing through the deep part in the middle.

She didn't get up the nerve to lay down in the water, but a few more walks on hot afternoons might get us there.

Hot!

Last summer when Vivre made the trip from lovely northern California to Kentucky she wasn't happy with the heat. She just layed stretched out like she was dying any time she started to get hot. Not so this year.

My AC has been on the blink. We had somebody come out to fix it, it ran for a few hours and quit. Then the weather got cooler and his motor fell out so I just didn't worry about it. Lately the weather has gotten warmer again so he came back out over the weekend to fix the air, it ran for a few hours and quit. It is almost 90 degrees in here and Vivre keeps dropping tennis balls at my feet. I can't believe she wants to run and work in this.

Though I vastly prefer this to the 12 degrees and seven inches of snow, I am certainly more willing to work and play when it gets cooler.

Disappearing About Turns

For some reason we totally lost our left about turn. She has always had a beautiful left about turn. Not so good to the right, though we are actually do pretty well with those now too. I have no idea what happened. I will admit to not reinforcing it as much as I was reinforcing the right turns while I was trying to get those right, but it seems like it just disappeared over night. Luckily she is quick and eager to work. But she seemed completely cluess, almost like she had no idea that she was even supposed to turn with me. It seems to have been a good thing though, because now she is not only turning beautifully to the left, but the issues with her right about turn have also disappeared. She is staying much tighter in all her turns. I need to try and get the flip on the tripod so I can get some video of her heeling.

Picture news. I haven't put up any new pictures for a while. I was still using a SLR, but it finally started to have issues. So I got my Mom's old digital, which is what most of the shots of Vivre have been taken with. I don't think the cold weather was good for it, since it hasn't been the same since winter. But since my Mom's other camera isn't doing well I get it tomorrow, to test it, so I will hopefully be able to get some shots of Vivre. Of course it is going to rain tomorrow so I might not get too many. We have had a lot of rainy days, which has also put a damper on outside training. The falls were 11 feet above flood level. And with more rain on the way it really slows down training. I am going to try and take Vivre to the barn with me sometime this week. That way we can work someplace unusual, but still be out of the rain. Camera is here, so I am going to play.

Puppy Pics

After several instances where I had a hard time finding the picture I was looking for I finally downloaded Picasa for linux and started tagging my photos so I could find them. OMG! I had no idea I had that many pictures on my computer. The finally count was somewhere over 4600.

I did come across some of Vivre's puppy pictures. It is hard to imagine her as this little ball of fluff.

This one was emailed to me by Franziska when Vivre was about 8 weeks old









And this was taken at a horse show shortly after I got her.
All right I am done with my trip down memory lane.

Vivre Vids!

My Flip came in yesterday. I spent most of the day playing with it and then trying to get the videos edited down to something somebody might actually take the time to watch. I run linux so I can't use the FlipShare program it comes with. She is a little off in this video. She was moving a little slower than usual and after a bit I noticed she would occasionally start to limp a little. So she is going to be kept up for a couple of days. She won't like it, but she will live.

The Good, The Bad and the Strange

The good! My new video camera is on its way. Actually according to the tracking it is already at the post office, but our local post office seems to be understaffed since it normally takes them two or three days after something has been scanned to actually get it in the mailbox. So by the end of the week I should have Vivre Videos up and running. Basically the first few videos will just be of her running and playing. I need to go get a tripod for training vids and we are having a new web site done for the ridge so I will be getting videos of the wolves for the new site.

The Bad! Yesterday Vivre and Yoda (my GSD mix) started cussing at each other. My aunts dogs starting snarking at Vivre, Vivre started snarking back and in classic GSD fashion Yoda went in to take control and make everybody behave. Usually Vivre gives him a quick snark and goes on. Not this time, they circled around the yard snarking and cussing and growling at each other. They didn't really touch each other, but they didn't stop when I yelled for them to cut it out either. Yoda is twice the size of Vivre. He may be ancient, but he can stick kick ass if he needs to.

The Strange! (but good) I came in the other day to get some water and when I went back out to finish working I forgot that Vivre had followed me in the house. She spent about an hour and a half loose in the house unattended and nothing was destroyed! I also took a nap with her loose yesterday and she just stayed in bed and slept. Usually she gets up and harasses the cats to entertain herself. Aww, my little girl is growing up!

Give me a little distance.

I will be the first to admit that my training is a little strange. I started working on distance downs today and largely Vivre did well. I finally got the meadow in front of the house mowed and we were walking along to the creek when I figured what the heck she has finally seemed to really get the verbal cue. Lets try it at a distance. I wish I had thought to take a clicker because I think that would have made it a little clearer to her, but she did very well once she realized what I was asking for. She tend to not want to go all the way down, but keep floating elbows even in the house so I had to watch for that and a couple of times she sat or just stood, but by the time we headed back toward the house she was downing pretty far away. I am not good with distances, but may 75 or 100 feet away. Not on the first cue, but she was doing it. I had some cut up hot dogs I dragged out of the car, so I could toss her a bite. She is wonderful at catching so I could reinforce her at a distance, even with the food.

This is going to sound really bad and I am almost afraid to admit it, Vivre doesn't know "Sit," We train downs, heeling, go outs, marking, recalls, I could go on and on, but I just find sit boring. But Vivre has had a few sit sessions, and has been reinforced for sitting, but I haven't even tried to perfect the behavior and get it on cue. It has hit me though that I need to do that. I think that might help clear up what exactly sitting is for and keep her from offering it when we are working on distance. She is a year old any way. It is time for her to know how to sit. Plus I need to put it in the heeling.

I also need to work on slow heeling. She loves to heel and is great at normal speed and at a jog, but she just leaves when we start slowing down. I think she thinks we are done working. I'm allowed to cue at the speed changes for competition so if I have to remind her that we are still working I can, but I would prefer for her adjust her speed with out the added reminder. Just a personal preference.

I am going to start introducing her to jumping too. She had one session when she was 10 weeks where I had her stepping over a target stick held about an inch off the ground. I also have had her step through a hula hoop so this won't be totally new.

I really (REALLY) am going to have to start tracking. I wish Ring Sport was more common.