Lessons: How to Open Your Christmas Stocking

Step 1:  Locate your stocking...

Step 2:  
Ensure your stocking has been filled, as there is no point in proceeding to step 3 if the stocking is empty.

Step 3:  Take your stocking down from wherever it has been hung.  This step really shouldn't be necessary, but for some reason that remains unfathomable - humans have this weird tendency to display Christmas stockings hung on the front of things.

Step 4:  Get a good grip on the stocking with both front feet and look inside to survey the contents.

Step 5:  Getting the contents out of the stocking is the goal of all stocking opening.  Sometimes contents will be stuck in the "toe" of the stocking and you will need to pat with your paw to dislodge them.

Step 6:  Other items will get lodged in the cuff and you will need that firm grip on the stocking while you grab them with your teeth to pull them out.

Step 7:  While it looks a bit unladylike, there may be moments when you have to put your whole head in the stocking. 

Step 8:  Persistence is the key.

Step 9:  And more persistence... 

Step 10:  Make sure you have gotten all the toys you want before you stop looking.

Lastly, if you believe you stocking contents were inadequate, it is sometimes effective to take up a stance near the stocking, with head hanging low, using your most pathetic look.  Humans are really soft-hearted and can sometimes be persuaded to make it right once you appeal to their guilt.

Merry Christmas

Have a Joyous New Year

Cutest Dang Picture...

My friend took this picture and I just have to share it...  I'm using it as the background on my computer.  I get charmed all over again every time I see it...

Isn't that just to die for? 

BTW the same friend created our Christmas video.   We went to a Christmas lights display in a nearby town and Gimme had a great time exploring.  She was fascinated to discover there are truly beautiful things in the world, without being a reflection of her lovely self.  Who knew? 

A nice little girl gave her a really cute toy, but Gimme graciously gave it back when she realized the girl didn't have another one to keep for herself.  

Gimme's First Christmas 

Assumptions...

The very best advice I can give about assuming is "don't".  No matter what you assume, you will surely be wrong far too often.  So what does this have to do with the dogs?

Recently someone I know well suggested I do something with Gimme that I didn't think my puppy was ready for and I said as much.  Later she asked if she could hold Gimme and I handed over my precious baby.  I had no more than turned away to answer questions about liver spotted Dalmatians than she proceeded to do what I had already said no to.  I assumed she meant "hold" as in "I wanna cuddle the cute puppy."  I assumed she understood and would honor my objection.  I was wrong on both assumptions.  Perhaps she assumed that I would be pleasantly surprised to see that Gimme handled the situation better than she assumed I expected -- if that was the case, she was wrong.   I had a number of reasons for not wanting to do what she suggested; she didn't have the full story.  I've written to her about my objections and her response indicates that she had a number of assumptions about what I wanted from the meet and greet experience. 

The point is much larger than this one experience AND its not the only experience.  I described in another blog entry a person who asked if her dogs could meet my puppy.  First she said one of her dogs was "great" with puppies, but would have to get in the puppy's face first.  Obviously I can't assume that people understand dog behavior or that we have the same standard; her dog was not "great" by my way of thinking.  Then she went on to say that she wanted to try out her other unknown dog on my puppy, because she was getting a puppy.  I'm thinking that assuming someone has common sense may not bode well either.

I've had other experiences that made me question assumptions.  You can't assume that people will be careful about their dogs and yours.  We've all had the experience of someone letting their dog get in our dog's face or crowding, or staring down.  Often just running over you and yours in their haste.

Also having played pass the puppy, I was surprised (to say the least) about how rough some are when handling a baby puppy.  Fortunately Gimme has a real strong sense of self and made it clear what she didn't like.  My own father is one of those people who handles puppies roughly, with a little country ear-pulling thrown in.  He flat out adores Gimme - having completely fallen for her spottie dottie charm.  I was able to intervene in these cases, but with a more sensitive puppy, it could have caused lasting distrust.  Gimme adores my father in return and has become accustomed to his ways, but still doesn't accept it from anyone else. 

Lest it appear that I'm completely inept when I comes to sizing people up -- in correspondence with another person (not a novice either) who has a puppy from this same litter, she is experiencing the same thing.    She described people who seemed to have what she called "their own agenda", who ignored her instructions and wishes regarding her puppy.  Similar stories have turned up in conversations with friends .

While attending an Ian Dunbar seminar, my friend played pass the puppy.  This is an environment filled with experienced dog people who presumably are interested in reward based methods.  One of those experienced people allowed this young puppy to eat an earring right off her ear.  C'mon, do we need to do a TSA screening and pat down to make sure people aren't harboring harmful objects?  Again with my earlier comment about assuming people have common sense.  Another person, who presented herself as a reward based trainer, when she got puppy-nibbled, grabbed the puppy by the jaw and shook her.  How nice to have planted in this show puppy's baby brain the idea that some people aren't nice to your mouth.  If that's her idea of reward-based, let's all thank God that she doesn't do what she thinks is punishment, eh. 

It sure doesn't help that one service dog at the same seminar snarled every time the tiny baby Dal got within ten feet of her.  Fortunately there were other people who were appropriate and took exquisite care of this baby and another service dog had a sweet and gentle play session with her.

This time around I haven't experienced (or lately even heard of) these issues with the general public.  I believe it may be that we are much more careful with people that aren't dog people because we assume (correctly) that they probably don't know how to interact with puppies.  Unfortunately we tend to assume (wrongly) things about people in the dog community, and its those assumptions that get us in trouble.  Remember, in the dog community, people have varied backgrounds, experiences, knowledge and training styles.  As such they approach everything from their own perspective, viewing everything through the prism of their own assumptions about right, wrong and appropriate.  When we assume that we're all on the same page - we stand a good chance of being wrong.

I don't want to leave this sounding like I've had one horrid experience after another - most people and most interactions have been delightful and have added positively to my baby's learning base.  The point is all about assumptions - that every experience I preferred to avoid could have been prevented had I (or the other person [or both of us]) not made assumptions. 

Also, not all assumptions led to negative experiences.  I practice with someone who is a steadfast traditional trainer (jerk and pull).  I assumed that he might not be the best choice for Gimme to meet and thus it was not my intention to let them interact.  She had other ideas and took matters into her own paws.  Their meeting was wonderful, she likes him very well and thinks he has a stunning expertise at treat delivery.  So you see how it is about assumptions - nowadays you can't even safely assume that traditional jerk and pull trainers are awful evil spawn who will do dastardly things to your puppy.  What is the world coming to???  <e.g.>

All foolishness aside -- we each need to remember that our puppies are our responsibility, so decisions about them are also ours to make.  No matter how much you think you know someone, your future with your baby is resting in their hands every time you give up control, even for a moment.  Small actions can have big consequences.  Vigilance and being ever ready to step in is essential.  We cannot worry about hurting someone else's feelings or about how we might seem when we intervene or just say no. 

Put succinctly:  My Puppy, My Rules -- and Never Ever Assume Anything...

Return to Sanity

After getting home from a great seminar about dog health (stretching and strengthening, with a strong focus on the abnormal stressors to an agility dog's joints), I suddenly realized how inappropriate the behavior I was encouraging is for a pup of Gimme's age (three months). I was about to email the breeder about some thoughts I had and, I kid you not, just as I sat down to email her, there in my inbox is an email from her on the exact same thing. Great minds think alike.

Gimme is a real jumper and bouncer and I know we don't need to worry about it when they do things on their own, because its not a repetitive stressor. But we should set their environment up to make sure it doesn’t become a repetitive stressor. I initially thought to reward the cute behaviors from time to time, just to keep them in her repertoire, but not enough that she repeats them to any great degree. I subsequently decided not to reward them at all - "airs above the ground" is her default, so I feel confident the behaviors will be there when I want them.

I found I needed to change how we do the food bowl self control exercise. Gimme's reaction to not getting the bowl right away is to do the razzle-dazzle (jumping straight up). And to make it worse, that is in the kitchen on linoleum. I've been positioning her where she doesn't have the room for jumping and that seems to do the trick.

Now that I'm freshly re-sensitized to this issue, I am shocked at all the respected agility people that are really pushing agility prospect puppies with little evident concern for the safety of their joints. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the internet to see what other agility people are doing and there seems to be a recurrent tendency for people to fast track their puppies teaching things that are real joint stressors. I don't intend to do that with mine. One instructor is teaching tight turns to puppies. Between the 30-40 repetitions in class and all the practicing at home, that really concerns me. Just yesterday another respected agility person posted a video of her new puppy playing an indoor chase game with her adult dogs. The chase circle involved a jump, that while doable for the puppy, was set up at the puppy's elbow height!

I'm thinking canine genius Gimme and I will have to do another creativity session and find some other cute (and much safer) behaviors to put cues on. I encourage everyone to really think about what they are doing with puppies.

As someone I love and respect just said, "Go slow to go fast." There is so much we can do to further our end goals without risking injury to their joints. Let's all give our kids time to grow up.

Some good sites to look at, include:

www.caninesports.com/SpayNeuter.html
www.agilityability.com/bone-growth-and-health-in-agility.html
www.woodhavenlabs.com/documents/PuppyPlay.pdf 

Did I Mention?

I just had this amazing training session with Gimme and I'm absolutely certain she's a canine genius.  Gawd I love this pup.  She's been cooped up all day and so I wanted to do something to work her brain, so she could let off some steam.  I decided a little creativity session, which we haven't done before, would do the trick.  It took her all of four clicks to figure out that she was getting clicked for anything different.  She was throwing behaviors at me so fast I could barely keep up. Did I mention I think she's a canine genius?

Then she did the cutest behavior I've ever seen.  Its a leap straight up, where she sort of wriggles her butt as she is coming back down.  It reminded me of the razzle-dazzle move I learned in military drill team about a hundred and twenty years ago.  I soooo want to capture that and put a name on it.

Then she immediately did another behavior that I love, its a two-bounce-spin.  She bounces and lands 180 degrees, with an immediate repeat, ending with her facing me again.  This had a little bit of the razzle-dazzle wriggle to it.  I soooo want to capture that and put a name on it.

Then she immediately chased her tail, first in one direction and then the other.  Naturally I want to capture those and put a names on them too.

She puts sooooo much style into these that they'd be ten kinds of wonderful for musical freestyle.  Basically for the rest of that session (until I ran out of treats), I treated all of them.  Any one that seemed to be lessening in frequency, I jackpotted. 

Did I mention I think she's a canine genius? 

Speaking of the canine genius, she is really mad at me right now.  We had about a 100 treats and when they were gone the session was over and she had to go in a crate so I could let the others in out of the rain.  So she is, not very patiently trying to explain to me how incredibly inappropriate it is to end her training session when SHE is having fun.

So, did I mention I think she's a canine genius?

A Thing of Beauty

It occurs to me this blog entry could just as easily have been titled "Me And My Shadow".

In an on-going quest to set up successful interactions between the new puppy and my existing dogs, I've been taking Gimme and Meaggi to the Fort Lewis training areas for some light hiking (which actually means, puppy-speed roaming and snooping).  

Last Monday was the first time and it was a thing of beauty to behold.  Watching dogs interact naturally without interference by people, when both are socially appropriate - well its just cool to see.  Meaggi is clearly setting up the hierarchy and telling the stinker that she's got boss status.  Thus far Gimme is fine with that and showed due deference. 

It was really kinda cute watching her follow Meaggi around and copy what she did.  If Meaggi stopped and sniffed, Gimme sniffed too - about 6 feet away.  When Meaggi stopped to pee, Gimme would too. 

Today we did it again, with a longer "hike" and the interactions were great.  Everywhere Meaggi went, Gimme was pretty close behind, until Meaggi got outside the distance from me that Gimme is comfortable with.  Then she would stop and wait for her to return and then follow her some more, inside the comfort zone.

The sad thing is that I now have even more evidence that Meaggi's eyesight is getting bad.  For one thing, she doesn't travel as far from me as she used to when we hiked there.  She's always tended to stay where she could see me, and that is much closer than it used to me. 

Also, she was trotting toward me once and Gimme was in a bit of a play bow and pounced toward her from plain view - Meaggi yelped in surprise at something I would have thought would be hard not to see.  So it seems her clarity of vision has decreased.  It's sad when they get old...

Arrival of Big Foot

Today was a fun day.  Gimme got to play some agility - time on the Buja board, which she thinks should be galloped across - was highly rewarded.  Also I specifically reinforced her for coming out of the big tunnel.  Each time I have sent her through a full size tunnel, she has stopped and waited until I'm in sight before coming out the other end.  I think this is probably a carryover from playing in the kitty tunnel with her littermates.  I suspect she got some secret joy from waiting just inside and seeing who she could pounce on.  She figured out real quick today that running through and catching Mom was the fastest way to get a treat.

Then we went out to Rochester to see her Papillion buddies, Henry and Gunner.  She met them two weeks ago, but we we couldn't play just then.  Gunner is a barking goof and sometimes wasn't entirely nice, so it took her awhile to get used to them.  On the other hand, their toy box is vewy vewy big and well stocked with all kinds of toys.  So she had a lot of nice things to play with.  I didn't realize until we left that we'd been there three hours.  She had a late lunch, then slept all the way home, had a brief burst of energy and is now sound asleep again. 

So what does any of this have to do with the title of this blog entry?  Nothing. 

THAT refers to the sudden growth of her feet.  Yesterday they were normal, relative to the rest of her.  Today they are HUGE.  I was just shocked when I noticed them and can still hardly take my eyes off those big things.