WINTER TEMPS MEANS MORE BEDTIME FOR THE GIRLS

These two are never far apart - she loves her Fizzy. 

But there is more than just cute pics going on here.  What does your dog do when you are cooking or eating?  I live in a very small old farmhouse and there is not a ton of room for dogs to be milling around while I am cooking.  The big boys, Gryph and Luka tend to hang out on the beds in the adjoining bedroom and the girls are happy to settle on this bed in the kitchen so they can keep an eye on things but not be in the way.

Teaching your dogs to automatically go to their space when you start preparing dinner and stay there while you are eating can be a huge help and it is a great IMPULSE CONTROL behavior. 

It stops accidents from being underfoot, stops begging and scavenging, prevents counter surfing behaviors and creates calmness and an automatic SETTLE behavior.  Every house can benefit from this!

DINNER MINI SESSION

We have been working on a few things today - one of which is changing Luna over to an older hand signal I used to use for SIT all the time, which is just a palm up motion. This is worked much better for her and her response has gone from being 45-50% to about 90% reliable.

She is also working with Fizz loose in the room learning to ignore distractions, learning FREE which is one of her release cues and learning to differentiate between cues.  For instance if I ask for a TOUCH or KENNEL and she offers a DOWN, she has to listen to and work out what I actually wanted.

Then there is the actual body work.  SIT to a lot of dogs means - put your rear end on the ground.  But what if they are in a DOWN?  Their rear is already on the ground, so what then?  They often have no idea what you are talking about.

I teach SIT as a body position to be in - that it is not important how they got there.  So she will be able to SIT from both a STAND or a DOWN, DOWN from both a SIT and a STAND, and STAND from both SIT and DOWN.  I want her to understand the concept in multiple contexts - not just SIT = rear end goes down.

FIZZY MAKES A GOOD PILLOW

Awwww - I guess that works for now!

NEW BABY BED - THANKS REBECCA!

When we were at Rebecca's meeting her crew (Izzy, Lilo and Laney) we picked up a few things she had set aside for us and one of them was this little plush bed.  Luna has decided - if it fitz - she sitz - at least until she falls out...and she's a snorer!

NEW EXPERIENCE - CELERY - LOL

When I was prepping dinner the other night, I gave the girls the celery ends to see what they thought.

Luna doesn't mind, good to shred, good teething toy for later but not overly impressed...

PLAYTIME & RESOURCE GUARDING OBSERVATION

The girls are a pretty even match right now, but Fizz will have to use her speed soon as Luna is already double her weight.

We've had a lot of rain over the last few days, but Fizz doesn't mind.

LUNA, she is not loving it. I am actually going to get her a couple of sweaters and hoodies tomorrow.  She will play in the rain some, and it is good exposure to get her used to wearing things so when she gets her first training cape it is not an unfamiliar sensation, but it is also because she gets the Chihuahua shakes right now if it's wet or cold and I want to make her more comfortable.


I'm watching them play this morning and something interesting in the second part of this video is I noticed some minor resource guarding behavior and stopped filming to go interrupt. No idea what she thought was valuable - I couldn't find anything up there, but the body language changes are very distinct and readable which is a good thing.

Resource guarding happens when a dog finds something innately valuable and defends it again other dogs/people/pets.  Some dogs have no desire to guard anything and others seem to guard the very air itself.  This is not a behavior you want to let develop as it can lead to reactivity and behavioral issues that quickly spiral out of control if not addressed.

She didn't do anything wrong here, and it is certainly nothing to worry about but it is interesting from a canine communication standpoint.  She is very clear in her language to Fizz that she doesn't want to play - no matter how much Fizz tries to instigate play.

Can you tell what I am talking about?

Can you identify when she is playing and when she is defending whatever it was up there?

Do you know what signs to watch for in your own dogs play and how and when to interrupt?

THESE TWO!

I do a lot of my photo and video editing at the kitchen table and although Luna has the choice of several places to lay in the evenings, she normally wants to be within about 6' or so of me.

She's not clingy (thanks to our hard work on barrier frustration which has made a huge difference) but she likes to be with you and keep you in sight - good traits in a service pup.

So I put a blanket down for her by the washer. I live in a little 800sq ft old farmhouse that we are fixing up as we go (my landlords are awesome) and with baby gates up between rooms, it hasn't been hard for her to learn to settle in the evenings with a chew or Kong and just chill. She will play with Fizz and then seek out her blanket when she's ready to head to bed.

I'm going to put a raised bed there for her this weekend as capturing a Go To Mat behavior with her is going to be really simple I think.

SHARING IS CARING

Sharing a cow ear with her Scruffy sister - FizzGig. Fizz is almost 4 months old to Luna's 9wks but they are pretty close already.

(Cows ears are just that, dried cow ears - tattoos and all sometimes. I prefer them to pigs ears as they are much cleaner and less greasy, do not tend to upset their tummy, are generally larger and more robust, don't have swelling or blockages concerns like rawhides and for pups with baby teeth, can be a great teething aid)

It's important for Luna to learn to be around dogs of all sizes as there are two Pugs with her family, so learning polite manners with little ones is crucial.  And that applies to the pug boys as well so this is something we will be working on during her monthly visits to her family.

She doesn't need much help here though, she has been very good so far.

My very dear friend Rebecca has graciously allowed me to bring her to visit her babies this weekend for some small dog playtime.

Rebecca has a Boston Terrier, a French Bulldog and a Frenchton...the cuteness overload from photos this weekend will be insane!

SETTLING IN NICELY

Since she had such a big few days, we are just hanging out today and letting her find her feet here. She has done very well and fits in really well with my crew.

We are working on passive house manners behaviors like waiting at the door, soft recalls (meaning just hanging around in general and checking in as opposed to the more formal recall we will teach), learning property boundaries, general polite mannerisms... Nothing specific... as I see it we work on it.

Her only two issues at the moment are:

• Mouthing too hard - I don't want to discourage putting her mouth on things since we want to teach retrieves but we do have to curb the strength behind the bite as she doesn't know when to stop and goes too hard.

• Containment stress - she is not a happy girl if blocked behind a barrier of any sort. In the car, behind the fence, in the crate - she has a powerful set of lungs and will sing the song of her people at full volume for awhile in an attempting to persuade the hoo-man that she will likely die if left there.

Neither of these are in any way worrying and are things I am already seeing improvement in.

Her first night of crating, we had hours of unsettledness, last night was significantly better and hopefully tonight will be better still.

It is about reducing stress in those situations and building value to being in the place they don't want to.

While it is certainly a work in progress, I think in a week or so we will have it most of the way resolved...

FINALLY HOME!

After meeting up with her family, we still had a 4hr trip home which Luna slept beautifully through. I had some car trouble coming home and it had been a long few days but we finally got home just after 1.00am.

I let my personal dogs out to meet her.

Living with me are:
Gryphon - 3yo Rough Collie
Luka - 5yo Giant Schnauzer x Standard Poodle
FizzGig - almost 4 month old Yorkie mix

Within minutes she was exploring the yard, had let everyone have a good check over of her, was not intimidated in the slightest by the 80lb boys (but then again when your parents are Giant Breed dogs, these boys are probably small) and was running around the yard with Fizz.