Bugs and snakes, oh my

It was an interesting evening tonight outside. We were hanging out in the backyard and Sandy kept pawing at a small spot in the grass and backing off. I thought perhaps there was a "June bug" in the grass as Sandy has shown an interest in the flying bugs. She likes to catch them and run over to the grass and drop them and then she can't find them again. I didn't see any. Next I thought that perhaps she was playing with some grass/weeds that I had just cut with a scythe, but no. On closer inspection, there was a tiny brown snake about 3 inches long and about 1/8 inch thick at its widest in the grass. I promptly removed the little snake and relocated it. Sandy was disappointed that I took away her plaything but oh well.

We did play stick a bit earlier in the evening and she brought the stick to me a couple of times when I whistled to her. I was able to toss it and she ran around with it in her mouth. She came back with it 2 or 3 times, so perhaps I should review those handouts from training class on "leave it" and get her to do that with the stick so we could turn it into fetch.

Another slow day at Petco

Well, this Saturday was our monthly 3rd Saturday at Petco Lakeline. I really like the staff of the store, but the store location is just not great. The big draws in the shopping center are the Barnes and Noble down the center and the Petco is tucked in the corner and we don't get a huge amount of walk-in traffic most months. There was a lady there with cats from Street Corner Rescue and we shared the front entryway. Ben and I took Sandy (her second month in a row there) and Princeton. We really didn't get much interest accept some folks interested in Princeton as a second dog to one they had that was similar to him. Princeton and Sandy got along pretty well. When we got back to the shelter to drop off Princeton, Lindsey had gone home with her new family.

I dropped off Sandy at the shelter on Sunday so she could spend the day. Her pen tag was still up on No. 3 on the end, so I put her in there. It really isnt' a great location among the pens at the shelter. It is at the end and around the corner and people have to walk all the way around there to see her. On the one hand, she is only there on some weekend days, but on the other hand, how can she be seen if she is way off in the corner. I would bet that some folks don't even make it over there.

Anyway, with Lindsey gone, Ben won't have a dog for the last training class. I need to get back to work on training Sandy. I have been slacking off too much (doing too much "work" at home and not enough training). This Saturday is the final class and Sandy does well with Sit and Stay most of the time, but I haven't done come nearly enough. She comes to me when I call, but that is only in the house or in the backyard into the house. I need to work it hard the next few days to get it nailed down.

What color thumb would you call that

You have heard of a green thumb, well I am not sure what color to call Ben's thumb. What the heck am I talking about, well, there is a good application in on Lindsey at the shelter. Yes, that makes the second dog that he has taken to training that it looks like will get adopted. We don't have training this weekend and graduation is the following weekend. If Lindsey get's adopted, she will likely be going home this weekend leaving him without a dog for dog training. I told him that he has to take over training Sandy so that she will get adopted too.

Seriously, it is wonderful if Lindsey gets adopted like Confetti did. It is after all what our work with the shelter is all about, but to be a little selfish, it would be really great for Ben to be able to complete class with Lindsey. He is doing really well with her.

We have our monthly Petco adoption day this Saturday again. I took Sandy last month and I intend to take her again this month. This month also has a 5th Saturday, so we do Petco Lakeline. I am trying to get more volunteers to that Sandy doesn't monopolize the adoption days, but she has been with the shelter for a few months including her time with us and she really needs the exposure to find a good forever family.

On another topic, it was really storming tonight, but she got bored, so out back she went. She wandered around looking for the dogs behind us to bark at and to generally see what was what and finally came back in soaking wet. Not quite as bad as the picture of her when I took her to the dog wash and definitely without the shampoo, but she was soaked but good. She seems a bit stir crazy so I gave her a Kong with frozen peanut butter in it and it seems to have her busy for a while. Hopefully we will have some nicer weather tomorrow and she can go out chasing squirrels.

Training week 3, countdown to graduation

Saturday was class 3 of 4. Next meeting is graduation (ha, ha, ha). Sandy and I have been working on sit/stay and down stay and she does pretty well in the backyard where I seem to have her attention and okay in the house but she can get distracted or hyper and go off. This week during class it was very warm. Diego and Sandy are both black haired and it was getting to them. We started with recall work. The idea is you give the dog a lot of treats and praise for paying attention to you and after a few intervals of that, get them to come to you and sit for treats. Sandy just didn't want to pay attention to me. She was interested in the Fedex truck, Brinkley and a number of other things, but wasn't interested in taking treats from me. Perhaps at home I can get a better response. Dana also said that we can move to more "high valued" treats to see if that helps. Perhaps some chicken bits.

This week we also started working on leash walking. I thought to myself, leash walking, good grief, that's just another name for "try to pull me down the sidewalk". Fortunately, we don't have to do the same walk to the mailbox. We only have to walk in circles getting the dogs attention to come walk with us. We started by going into the store to let the dogs cool down and to try to find a sound that will get the dogs attention. Other people were making a clicking sound with their tongues, but I don't seem to be able to. I had already been doing a short whistle at times with Sandy, so that is the one that I worked. When she wasn't paying me attention, a short whistle and then a treat/praise when she responded to the sound by coming over to me. We took this outside and started doing it with walking. When the dog got to the end of her leash ahead of me, I whistled and when she turned to pay attention, we changed directions so that she ended up by my side (and then passed me). After a few times, it seemed like she was walking more beside me, but that could just be the heat.

Sandy spent the weekend at the shelter so she could get more exposure. When I pick her up tonight,I will start working on this weeks homework.

Dana also mentioned that when she looked at Sandy, she thinks she looks a bit like an Australian Kelpie. I "googled" Kelpie and looked at some pictures. Ben says he sees it,but I am not sure. There are definitely Kelpies with the same coloring as Sandy, but I am not sure on the rest. She is definitely a mix of something and I guess Kelpie is a possibility. Who's to say.

I can sit

Do you have any treats, I am sitting?

From Sandy Shots

Would you like kibble with that frisbee?

One of the things that I have heard at the shelter and also in dog training is that dogs need to not only be worked physically, but also mentally. Dana recommended that we give the dog puzzles. One such that she recommended was to put some of the dogs food into the open part of a kong and put in a touch of peanut butter and jam the whole works with a dog biscuit. She recommends putting this in the dogs bed at night so that they have a snack and settle in and also when you leave the house. The dog has to figure out how to get the food out and snacks on it. I have been doing this and it seems to work pretty well. I have also noticed the past couple of times that I have come to pick Sandy up at the shelter that she is bouncing up and down like a spring. She will leap a couple of feet into the air with excitement. Seeing her do this brought the image of the border collies and border mixes that I have seen doing competitions with frisbees. I guess you can see where this is leading. I thought to myself, get a frisbee, it will be challenging for the dog and a mental/physical release.

Well, I was at a local discount retailer on Saturday and picked up a $1 frisbee and took Sandy out in the yard with it. I tossed it and she ran away from it. When it landed, she went over and checked it out and seemed to think it might be a pretty good toy for her favorite game, run around the yard with the toy in her mouth. She picked it up and proceeded to do some laps of the yard until she dropped it and didn't grab it back. I tried a few more tosses which elicited the same "you aren't going to throw that at me" response followed by the picking up and running. We both went back inside and I figured this is something I can ask Dana about and see if she has any thoughts. Later Sat. night, I let Sandy out into the yard and didn't pay any attention. Sunday, when I looked out in the yard, I found that Sandy had chewed up about $.05 of the $1 frisbee. Luckily there were no missing pieces, but I can't leave her unsupervised with a frisbee anymore, I need to pick it up after playing.

Training week 2

Saturday was class of training. Since Confetti was adopted, I talked to Monica about who Ben could take with the parameter that class was 4 additional calendar weeks and it would be nice to have a dog that is a) reasonable in size for Ben, b) relatively intelligent so that the dog can catchup on the missing week, and c) likely not to be adopted immediately. Lindsey was determined to meet all the criteria since she hadn't really had anyone looking at her and so Ben, Sandy and I piled into the suv and headed to the shelter before training class so that he could check her out and do a little catchup work with her before class. Initial indications were positive, so we off we all went to training.

This weeks training topic is impulsivity. Now, my first thought was that I should pay attention as this might help me personally, but then again I already know how to sit/stay and down/stay, so it isn't really the training that I need for myself, but is excellent for the dogs. We broke up into different areas and each took a small tree to clip our leash to so that we could get the dogs to sit and then teach stay and the same thing with down. I wasn't sure if Sandy was doing well or not. She would sit, but then she would look around and I couldn't tell if she was staying because I told her to or if she was just taking in the scenery. She would sit and then I would go to tell her to stay and she was already looking away. Likewise with down. Sometimes she was paying attention, and sometimes not. I looked over to see Ben and Lindsey doing great. After practicing that a bit, we heard about sitting for leash, sitting for bowl and sitting for door. All things we need to practice. I also found out that I need to be doing more on our walking exercise. I was following Dana's example in class and making the dog sit every 20 or so feet or more and she told me that I need to do it more like every 5 feet with Sandy. I tried that yesterday and I don't think she gets it, but that is something I will have to work every day.

We dropped Lindsey back at the shelter and Ben worked with her a little bit more. On Sunday, I dropped Sandy by the shelter so that she can be seen all day and Ben and I came back around 4:30 so that he could feed Lindsey dinner to work on her stay and sit for bowl. Sandy is doing great on sit for leash and already does that and is getting pretty good at sit for bowl. At first, she shied away when I had the bowl up and was lowering it. I think she thought I meant to whack her with it, but she seems to be coming around. I have only worked on sit for door at the front door with the leash on. I don't think working on it at the back door everytime she wants to go out will work, but that certainly would give me more practice. Sandy and I worked on stay in the meet and greet pen at the shelter on Sunday and if there weren't too many distractions around, I could have Sandy stay for quite a while and walk around. If another dog was being walked past the pen, then she lost focus. It is a good start and I just need to work it daily at home inside, in the backyard/front yard and 1 other place.

We put a sign on Lindsey's kennel inside and left a note for April that we would be coming by everyday for dinner time so that Ben can work with her on sit for bowl, so that should be good. He is really doing well which is very nice to see. I need to make sure that I make time to train with Sandy. She is right there at home, so I have all the advantage, but it is just so easy to want to "just chill" and to not get it done. She needs the work and I need to put in the time.