Rally Graduate

Gimme graduated from her first rally class and did a good job.  We had a couple problems on the first run-through on graduation night because of a wardrobe malfunction.  Gimme was in season at the time and had to wear drawers - and they sagged.  After we got them all tucked up, she did a great job.

Gimme thought her name should have gone first on the certificate, after all, she did all the hard work, whilst all I did is wander around and try to keep my two left feet out of her way.

We have formally set a goal to enter her in rally at the Puget Sound Dalmatian Club specialty on August 26th.  That'll be a nice way to start her performance career - among all her Dalmatian peers.

Gimme thinks she's going to have to train me a LOT to get me ready in time.  She's happy to be out of season so she can concentrate on getting me ready.

Growing Up Gimme

In honor of her 8 month birthday, here is a short time line in pictures of Gimme...  (she provided her own commentary)

At eight weeks after the romantic rendevous, I was already stunning. 

I may only be one day old... but I'd already made a name for myself.  That's me toward the back with the pretty pink ribbon.

Naturally, at three days, I was already my mother's favorite.

I'm only ten days old here, but you can already see what a beauty I will become.  That's me, the first one to the left of the pile.

I've just turned four weeks and am enjoying my first picnic. 

Here's another picture of me at four weeks.  Again, its me on the left.  Those three little dots on the back of my head will later grow together to become a perfectly formed heart.

It's probably a surprise to most people, but even a beauty like me doesn't always want to have her picture taken.  I may only be one month old, but I'm not shy about expressing my opinions.

At this age (again 1 month) I have far too much to do to be standing around taking pretty girl pictures.  By the way, if you look carefully, you can see where those three dots are growing together and already starting to form a heart.

Here I am at seven weeks and you can already see what an elegant and powerful personage I will become. 

At eight weeks I'm already a babe.  If you look along this side of me, there are at least three more hearts.  Mom has since found another heart, a snowman and M. Mouse. 

Sometimes you just have to take charge of the situation...

Naturally when you are this good looking, this young, its easy to fall into the habit of admiring yourself.  Only two months and one week old and already gorgeous. 

Tana says I've always stopped to admire myself in mirrors.  Mom always sits us by the mirror at rally class so I can have something beautiful to look at.

My Mom's ability to stack me properly leaves a lot to be desired.  (two and a half months)  Fortunately my inner beauty shines through anyway. 









It was dang cold out when we took this picture.  I'm three and a half months old, but I'm not a dummy.  You'll note that mom is all bundled up in a big thick coat and all I get to wear is that little collar.

No, I did not lose my tail when I turned five months old.  Sometimes it just wags too fast to be captured on film...

I am six and a half months old and getting more elegant by the day.

I still like to pose for people - I get on the dogwalk in the front yard and strike a pose whenever there is someone walking by.  I just know they want to admire me.





And here I am in all my glory.  Let me just close by saying...
               "It's all about the attitude."

8 Months



We Could Go For Miles and Miles...

And we often do...  Gimme and I walk a lot on the Fort Lewis training areas.  They are wonderful places to let her get off leash and be a dog.  She really loves it and I'm sure it contributes a lot to how fit and agile she is.  Here's a photo essay from a recent day on area 23...

There are hills... 

 And flat areas...

That seem to stretch on for miles and miles

This area is an underground petroleum pipeline.

This spot in particular, I call the "hill from hell."

I'll let you guess why...

Gimme is fond of surveying the furthest reaches of her domain...

She also loves to run with wild abandon...

This plant is popularly called "skunk cabbage", because it smells like a cross between skunk and cooked cabbage.

I usually smell skunk cabbage LONG before I see them - their odor does travel on the breeze. 

This is the time of year when skunk cabbage makes its appearance in the many wetland areas...

Gimme loves to snoop around the edges.  She's even getting braver about getting her toes wet on occasion. 

I doubt she'll ever take up swimming.  So, I guess there's no dock diving title in our future...

Passing through this area was really a pleasant end to our walk...

Wish I had it in my back yard...

Upon closer inspection, in some places you could see beds of snow flowers... called that because they look like patches of snow from a distance.  They have no leaves.











Gimme found this lovely bunch of wild daffodils right at the end of our walk... just a couple dozen yards from the car.  She's a wonderful walking buddy who never misses a thing.  I would have missed them entirely.





A Horse is a Horse, Of Course

Gimme has done really well in her training - which is, of course, to be expected with such a smart girl.  This is a picture of her at Rally class.  If you look carefully, you can see the glimmer and sparkle from her halo.  <g>  She'd do better if her person was a bit more adept. 

I did learn during this class that I'm going to have to revamp our cue system (and the sooner the better).  Since I'll be training her for freestyle at the same time as rally/obedience... if I use the same behavior - at the least I have to give it a different name.  I found during this week's class, that when she came in to "front", she kept wanting to spin and back into "under", which we'd been working on.  While incredibly cute - it won't be particularly helpful in obedience and rally. 

Of course, Michele Pouliet made the point that you need to train positions for freestyle different anyway, since you almost never want them sitting.  So once I retrain that way, the confusion should clear up, methinks...

Despite my efforts to have Gimme get used to horses when she was very little... she has since decided they are evil devil spawn that are not to be trusted.  I think the real problem is that she mostly sees them while we are out walking - where they seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere (lots of woods and paths that come from both sides).  After being surprised by having them appear from wherever they lurk, they are actually 100 yards away, and having her react poorly, we have been putting a special effort into getting her used to them.  You'd think 100 yards would be far enough for them to not be threatening, but I think Gimme thinks that the whole 100+ acres per training area is all hers. 

I'd been using lots of treats, but it didn't seem to really be working.  Then someone suggested (for something else) that I get one of those tubes that hikers put peanut butter into for traveling (you can buy them at sporting goods stores).  I was going to look for one, but then saw at the seminar that someone had made one out of a toothpaste tube and a hair barrette.  Since I was near the end of a tube and already had barrettes, I made one too.

Its easy to make and they can easily be opened for refilling.  Empty out that toothpaste tube and trim away the crimped edge.  I actually had two tubes that were near the end, so I selected the one with the flip top (don't want to worry about keeping track of a screw top).  Open up the tube and clean it out thoroughly (I found a tooth brush worked well) both in the tube and near the place where the paste will come out.  Then fill it about two-thirds full with your reward of choice (I used a butter knife to fill it).  Carefully fold over about a quarter inch of the open end.  You may have to fold in one corner if the barrette isn't wide enough.  Place the barrette on it.  I like the kind that snap closed; you squeeze the sides on one end to open it.   

Our reward of choice is peanut butter.  Gimme loves peanut butter better than anything else.  That's why her recall is so good, because most of the time it is rewarded with peanut butter.  You could really use anything soft - like baby food meats or cream cheese.  One of the advantages to peanut butter is that it doesn't have to be refrigerated between uses.  But, of course, you'll want to go with what works for your dog.

I hold the tube in my hand, with my thumb holding the snap lid up out of the way, and I gently squeeze as needed.  The great advantage to this is that you can really prolong the experience, getting a lot of mileage for your counter-conditioning time.

We recently ran into a lady with a grey horse she was unloading from the trailer.  My friend walked up and asked her if we could bring Gimme closer and do some training.  Fortunately the horse folk that we run into on the training areas are, for the most part, very willing to indulge my training requests.  I'm sure they'd like to have my dog comfortable with the horses (and quietly not-barking) as much as I would. 

Anyway we stood there chatting while the horse hung out a few feet from Gimme.  Mostly she was intent on sucking as much peanut butter from the tube as she could get.  She was clearly aware of the horse and I watched Gimme very carefully to let her set the tone of how long, how close, etc.  Toward the end the horse was close enough to reach out and sniff Gimme.  She momentarily turned her head from the tube to see what that was and then calmly went back to her priority mission.  I considered that a HUGE SUCCESS and squeezed hard to give her a big glob of peanut butter.  Then we ended the session and walked away.

Someday, if I can scare up a horse resource, I'd like to train for a road trial title.  Naturally, its essential that Gimme be very comfortable with horses.  Now that we've found a way to use peanut butter -- I see that as a very realistic possibility...

Our Busy-ness...

I don't know why I'm still surprised by how smart Gimme is... but some of the things she does just astound me.

Recently I decided to INTRODUCE the "under" position, where she stands between my legs facing forward with me - for our future in freestyle. I emphasize introduce, because its usually a slow process for that position - at least it has been with my others and other dogs I've seen being taught to do it. In no time she was completely comfortable in the under position and so we quickly played with doing a figure-8 between/around my legs. It was really fun.

Then she just "invented" the cutest move. She was sitting at front, staring at me and I was trying to free-shape something else. Apparently she wasn't done playing with the under, and did a spin on her hieney, while scootching toward me and ended up in under position. Of course, I jack-potted the dickens out of it, so got it several more times. Actually that's a pretty advanced move - so I know she wasn't the first to invent it. It just amazes me that she figured it out on her own.

A couple weekends back, I went to two obedience seminars. The first was a 4 hour Denise Fenzi workshop, where I took 5 pages of notes. Then there was two days of Michele Pouliet, where I took 15 pages. I learned so much I hardly know where to start. Sure am glad I hadn't done much with the retrieve as I really like what Michele showed us. I also learned tons from other exhibitors, since I had a million questions.

The really big news is that Gimme did soooooo well when I took her in the building. I was able to get her in three times a day: before the seminar started, during lunch and after the day ended. I set up her soft side crate and used it to practice the Relaxation Protocol. Gimme did sooooo well on that - much more than the limited practice I'd done deserves. I do think it helped that we had practiced RP in that crate - so she knew what to expect and how to win treats.

She also did well with general attention. She was, of course, highly distracted by all the people and dogs and general activity and newness.... but then after a short while, using what I learned from Ursula, I was able to help her get through it and get some responsiveness to cues she already knew. Sunday she was only distracted by people and/or dogs when they got within about 15 feet. She might watch them if they were moving around at a distance, but didn't feel the need to respond - watching them with interest and calmly. Our last session after the end Sunday, we actually had a very short training session and she invented something new... its like a get in... I don't think I can use it in obedience, since it includes a serious lean on my leg (she's practically resting her head on my knee with me standing), but I may be able to build on it to get her backing around me. I know I've said this before, but she is soooo smmmmarrrrht.

This is huge progress for her since she was a whiny fussing wild child at the seminar in February, so much so that it was very distracting for other participants, so I could only expose her during breaks. Of course she's two months older now, but I also think the work I've done and my new understanding of how to get her brain in gear makes a big difference.

The funny thing was that in the hotel - she was quite pleased with the fact that we had a second bed. Both nights she spent the majority of the time laying sprawled diagonally across the bed and really effectively taking up the whole thing. (boy how I wish I had a picture of that) The first night she slept there all night. The second night she started there but crawled in with me when it got colder. That Sunday night she was quite disappointed to realize that Serta failed to make their delivery while we were gone. She walked in the bedroom and looked around as if to say, "there's something missing here." Every night since, she walks in the bedroom, stops in the doorway and then sighs. Sadly for her, my bedroom is too small for a second bed.

Also she just thought up another fast one. I have a bell hanging on the front door so she can tell me when she wants to go out. She rang it earlier and when I got in the living room I found her waiting at the door to the kitchen. So apparently she now thinks its the bell for her servant to come running. Not! I made her go outside anyway... the stinker...

What We've Been Up To…

 

We've been up to quite a lot. We walk on the Fort Lewis training areas or lower acreage of St. Martin College several days a week. Gimme enjoys that a great deal, as do I. Here is a recent picture.

We are training in several performance disciplines at once, as well as continuing our work on life skills. I'm fortunate that she is the canine genius that I thought she'd be when I picked her, since bouncing from one thing to another is pretty much the norm for people with adult ADD.

 

Tracking:

Gimme is doing great with tracking training. This picture is our first tracking adventure in her pretty blue harness.  Cute eh...

This is Gimme's first time actually following a scent.  She has a phenomenal nose and loves following it.

We are using the serpentine method. We are fortunate to have access to Fort Lewis' training areas, which is where many of the local tests are held.

 

There is lots of different terrain and cover to play in. Gimme is currently doing tracks with multiple turns soft curves of about 45 degrees.

We tracked in snow once just to try it out and she was great. I hadn't noticed any breeze, so was surprised to see her nose just inches to one side of my foot print. When I did the wet finger check, sure enough she was right.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture - maybe next year.

Our next goal is to start aging the tracks a bit more.

Our only area of difficulty was article indication, but we did some training to address that and, as you can see, she is doing fine now.

Obedience & Rally:

We are working on basic skills and she's doing well. Some things she picks up so fast it makes my head spin, others take a little longer. She starts rally classes tomorrow night. We have enough of the basics that I expect her to do good. 

This picture is what I see when I look down at her sitting in heel - any question why I love working with her so much.  Who could resist that face?

I think the biggest challenge in class will be dealing with distractions. Interestingly and quite unexpectedly, stay seems to be her strongest behavior – which I'm surely not complaining about. I'm also noticing that she seems to generalize the things she has learned much faster than other dogs I've personally trained or taught. Another thing which I'm surely not complaining about.

Agility:

We continue to work on her basic behaviors. I'm in no hurry to get her in the ring, being much more concerned to protect her joints and baby body so she can have a nice long trouble free career. She learns everything I teach her so fast and is quite happy to show me how smart she is all the time. I have a baby dogwalk in the front yard and whenever she sees me coming she likes to get on it so I can see how well she hits her running contact. She also likes to stand on the cross plank and pose for those who are walking by on the sidewalk.

I spend all my free time with her, training, cuddling and playing. We are also working through the dog_read_study_group study of "Control Unleashed". I am learning a lot and I think it will benefit Gimme over time.

She is a treasure and I am blessed to have been adopted by her.

My View

[Editorial Note:  I had this ready a month ago, but somebody chewed up my last 3.5" floppy disk and I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to get another to format.  I've since resorted to setting the laptop next to the desktop and typing in the entry anew.  Such devotion - I should get a medal...]

I started this entry before Christmas, but it has taken time to think through what I wanted to say. I want to keep on topic for my blogs – about the dogs – rather than whining endlessly about life. This time of year we ponder the year past and plan (and dream) for the year to come. What a year it has been. I was going to call this blog entry "Gains and Losses" because the year has been one of those. I changed the title because I hope it will express, "My View".

The biggest loss was the recent death of my nephew Joshua Baker.  Josh has always been a special person.  As the family was reminiscing, I remembered how my sister used to complain about going to mall with Josh in a stroller.  Strangers would impede her progress because they just had to meet this tiny tot.  This friendly attraction stayed with him throughout his life.  At his funeral, I learned so much I didn't know about him as a fire fighter, a husband and a father.

His best friend spoke about their trips to Alaska for fishing.  He said, "When the fish were biting, Josh was very, very happy.  When the fish didn't bite, Josh was very, very happy."  He brought complete happiness to any situation.  Josh leaves behind a lovely wife, two wonderful children and a host of family and friends who miss him dearly.

Also this year, I faced the unavoidable – it was time to retire Michael.  It was easy to avoid the decision while he was having fun and still dragging me into the building to play agility.  If the run wasn't successful and even when it was ugly, it didn't matter, as long as we were having fun.  Then one weekend Michael avoided multiple jumps for the first time, and I immediately knew that the fun was gone for him.  It was very sad.  He's been a faithful and enthusiastic partner.  Suddenly he looked old to me.

Lesson:  Life is always too short and often unpredictable... so hug the ones you love and let them know how you feel.  Remember, spend time with those you love and keep building memories.  It is inevitable; the day will come when memories are all you have left – make them good ones.

I also learned this year that I have Adult ADD.  At first I was sad because I realized that I'll never completely conquer some of the issues that hold me back.  Still after I accepted it, I found the diagnosis liberating.  While part of me heaves giant sighs for living with so much criticism and guilt; I also see that some of the traits that hold me back are behind other successes and behind things I love about my life and myself.  I am now making some better decisions because I can recognize some impulses for what they are – just impulses.

Lesson:  Know yourself, strengths and weaknesses.  When you know, you can build on them to be the best you can be.  No one is perfect... let go of the pains and aggravations and move on.  You'll be happier for it.

Lesson:  Know your dog's strengths and weaknesses.  When you know, you can build on them so your canine best friend can be her best.  I don't want to imply that I promote setting limitations on your dog; rather recognize the ways her path to success may be different.

We've all seen the poem that goes around about friendships – how they are for a Season, a Reason, or a Lifetime.  In our culture, we value friendships very highly (though this too seems to be changing), so it can be hard to let go, even when the people have changed and the time has passed.  Some were never really friendships to begin with, but only gave a surface appearance of friendship.  The interesting thing has been that as I've let go of these, other friendships have sprung up to take their place.  By "losing" the old, time has become available for other friendships to blossom and grow.  It has been an odd and wonderful mixed blessing.

This got me to pondering the nature of friendship.  Any real friendship requires trust.  How each of us defines trust is highly individual.  For me I really need my friends to be honest and to allow me to be honest.  Betrayal of trust is a death knell that most friendships do not survive.  I believe friendship needs to have give and take to it;  if there's no balance, it cannot really survive over the long run.

Lesson:  All the qualities that are essential to a good friendship are also necessary between you and your dog.  You need to balance between your wants and the dog's needs.  This has been so apparent with Gimme.  As I teach her things, some lessons come easy, some don't.  When she has difficulty with something, I move on, work on something else and come back to the other days later.  Gimme and I spent much time trying to "get" heeling and were having no luck -- so I decided to let it go.  A couple of days later, I took her for a potty walk and right after taking care of business, she turned to me and said, "Mom, pay attention cuz I don't want to have to repeat myself.  Today we are going to learn heeling -- allow me to demonstrate."  And demonstrate she did.  You just never know what is percolating on a back burner.

Lesson:  Just as trust is essential to any friendship, it is equally important to our relationships with our dogs.  Years ago I attended a seminar with Chris Bach.  I have to admit some of her ideas have taken me years to wrap my mind around, but one thing she said I immediately accepted.  She talked about people and dogs having a "trust history".  Good or bad, you have that kind of history in any relationship.  If you have a good trust history with a dog, you can do things that might be uncomfortable for the dog.  Because the history says you won't hurt them, they will accept it (such as changing a wound dressing).  If you have a bad trust history a dog will look at you with some measure of suspicion, no matter how sweet you are or how many cookies you offer.  And the most important thing she said was, once trust is broken, you can seldom, if ever, really get it back.

Lesson:  And lastly on friendship -- it takes time and effort to build and nurture a relationship.  Likewise our dogs need and crave our time.  The are so forgiving and will survive on whatever crumbs of time we give them.  They thrive on quality time; they deserve quality time.  I am always saddened by how many dogs live much of their lives separated from the people they love.  I always thought this was something that only backyard-dog-people did.  Unfortunately, I am also seeing it among performance people.  I don't think they know, or they've forgotten, what they are missing.  I love snuggling with my Spottie Dotties.  Call me crazy, but every night is a three-dog-night for me.

Of course, the biggest gain in 2010 was Gimme's decision to adopt me.  She continues to bless my life.  I have this vision of introducing her to someone when she is seven years old as, "Gimme, the cutest puppy on the planet."  Is it any wonder that despite the losses of the last year, I look down on this view and I see only joy...