Progress

Dog Blog Post #133: Still running behind...

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

• Come:Will chase a kibble if he sees it thrown, will return when he hears a click.
  
• Come:Will come when I call Henry (and probably just about anything else)
• Down: have lured a few – not pretty
• Sit: Lovely Sit and Stare. No clue what’s it called. Might know the hand signal, but it’s such a strong default at this point that it’s hard to tell.
• Stand:Has a nice solid stand – while licking a spoon full of Vanilla yogurt
• Target: Will touch hand if he notices it
• Zen: Gives a few licks, and then gives up

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

• Chewies: He’s fine with me holding them, and learning to push against my hand with his paws to get more leverage. That’s good, as it makes me useful and helps him to want me to hold/be around/pick up his chewies. (Meanwhile, hubby and son passed Zachary’s chewy back and forth while reviewing Math, as Zachary was obviously feeling left out and whimpered until someone held his, too, even though he’s usually fine chewing them solo!)
  
• Come: Getting better at following and finding tossed kibble (3-4 feet, good contrast between floor and treat.) Comes back more reliably. Is now looking on the ground between my knees for the return treat (as I’m kneeling, not standing, given his size and I don’t feel like being Quasimodo.)
• Come: Did a 20+ foot out of sight recall!
• Cuddling: Wow, is he cuddly. He loves to be carried around, is totally calm and sweet when carried, and I’m enjoying every moment as in a few short weeks he’ll be either too heavy or too wiggly to keep doing it.
• Day Crate: Is up to 2 hours during the day. He was a little fussy when left with his frozen yogurt KONG, but calm and had been asleep when I let him back out. After playing Zen Door the first day, he now just Sit and Stares, waiting for the door to open.
• Down: Ugh. Really need to work on this one
• Exploring Backyard: He’s raced around some, sniffed, poked around the shady areas, but it’s still way too hot to do much else. Zachary just pees and high-tails it back inside
• Grooming: Brushed him thoroughly… while he was fast asleep. That probably doesn’t count, does it?
• Handle paws, ears, tail: Doing this while holding chewie (two birds with one stone?) He’s fine with everything.
• Housetraining: Still having trouble with hot weather (ie: he can’t seem to “perform”) but he definitely knows where the door is, that whimpering or scratching brings people, and that if I put him in the ex-pen then he’s supposed to do take care of business.
• Mouthing: So incredibly subdued and gentle with mouth play that I am allowing it (me only) as a reward for such wonderful bite inhibition. Anything more than the most gentle pressure and I remove hand and insert an appropriate object.
• Playing Tug: Loves it, plays fair, doesn’t want to win, and is learning to drop when I go “still”.
  
• Playing with Zachary: Still a challenge given the size difference. Zachary is learning “Easy” means to tone it down, and will respond quickly and reliably unless I let the energy level get too high (my bad) and I frankly think he just doesn’t hear me then as when I snatch up Henry (and thus stop the game) he give me a “Huh? What happened?” look.
• Sit: Recognizes “luring” hand signal.
• Sit and Stare (Eye Contact): His default for practically everything, from wanting a treat, to being picked up, to wanting a toy, to anything someone does in the kitchen. It’s wonderful.
• Stand: Will stand still for a fraction of a second waiting for the treat
• Target: Target fell apart today for a while. I’m probably overloading his ability to remember hand signals at this point. If I snap my fingers to get him to look at the hand, then he touched it
• Zen: Give a few licks the first time or two, and then started to turn his head away

Conspicuously absent:

• Meeting new people
• Clipping nails
• anything new on Rules of Twelve

The Past Few Days

Dog Blog Post #132: Yes, I'm behind. Gee, what a surprise.

Sunday:

Wow - Henry slept through the night! And I didn’t even have to sleep on the floor next to the crate, or sleep with my hand through the mesh. It wasn’t a long night, I’ll grant you that; 12:30am to 5:45, but there wasn’t a sound the entire time!

We found out that he loves playing with paper bags and cardboard boxes, adores tug and rope toys, and is (so far) a gentle soul. He had about 20 min. of play in him, followed by an hour or so of sleep, and then he piddled. Kept the pattern up most of the day.

Sunday afternoon he mets lots of people at the indoor sports place while son was playing Lacrosse. We had him on a mat as I don't think dogs are supposed to be there, but as the staff all stopped by and cooed at him I didn't feel too guilty. Discovered he really is noise insensitive (as his temperament test claimed) although his hearing appears to be quite sharp.

That night he totally crashed (not surprisingly) and once again, slept through the night (12:15am to 6am)

Monday:

Awwww...

We are starting to phase in the crate for daytime use, and while he seems to be accepting it calmly (a vanilla yogurt slathered frozen teething KONG can’t hurt) he is still getting hotter than I would like.

The 100+F weather is killing potty training, which had been going surprisingly well While he would paw to go out, when I put him in the ex-pen it was just too hot, and he let me know it by sitting there miserably and panting.

No pee.

As soon as he was back inside, the floodgates would open.

(sigh)

I can’t say I blame him. Just a few more days of things and it should cool down, so hopefully things will improve after that. Thankfully, once it cooled down that night, he was back to being able to "perform".

Zachary seems to be wracking his brain trying to figure out how to get play value out of the little guy. He switched tactics on Monday and tried lying on his back, all four feet in the air, and wagging his whole body as Henry pounces on him.

Good idea, but at 75lb vs. 10lb of young puppy, it’s still a total mismatch.

So there I was, with both hands in the mix, trying to buffer the worst of the wiggling.

Training: We worked on sit, a lured down (ugly), spin (lured), hand targeting (not bad!) and stand.

He really has Sit and Stare down, and tries it whenever anyone stands still. It’s a lovely stare, soft and warm and steady and is guaranteed to melt you to a puddle.

Late afternoon rolled around he totally crashed – and stayed crashed for pretty much the rest of the day. Kinda scary, really. I wondered if he didn’t feel good, but he ate well, his temperature seemed fine, all bodily fluids looked like they should (I noted as I wiped them off the kitchen floor), even checked his gums (nice and pink) but all he wanted to do was sleep. And sleep. And sleep. Wasn’t panting, didn’t feel hot, but was just a limp rag.

In fact he slept nearly non-stop from 1pm to 8pm – with the occasional break to chew a bit of rawhide, eat dinner, “get busy”, and… that’s about it.

At 8pm, feeling worried and desperate, I moved him to the Living room (carpet) to see if somehow the hardwood floors were a problem (he does slip on them quite a bit), and he just took off - scampering, running around, spinning, sprinting, chasing, and exploring,… for about an hour, and then crashed hard for the rest of the day.

Sooo… was the problem the room (floors)? The time of day? The temperature?

Who knows. We’ll see how Tuesday goes.

(Sorry about the poor quality of the pictures, I'm trying to keep the house as cool as possible, so the blinds are mostly drawn and it's pretty dark in here!)

A New Family Member

Dog Blog Post #131: I am very pleased and honored to announce the arrival of Henry (the puppy formerly known as One-of-Ten)…

… and he’s adorable.

His introduction to Zachary was completely uneventful (yeah!)

Zachary was curious, but not unreasonably so. The sniffed each other through the ex-pen, Henry peed, Zachary peed, and that was pretty much that.

We spent the afternoon watching the boys (yes, it  does feel good to say that again!) dismember paper bags and try to figure out how to play with each other.

Zachary’s motions are still “too big” for Henry, who backs away when Zachary approaches shaking a bag or a favorite toy. Henry has made several attempts, with the cutest little bark and play bow, followed by some scampering around, but Zachary appears perplexed as to how to interact with something so small.

Later in the evening, as things were settling down and Zachary was just lying next to me on the floor, Henry came up and gave snug bug a complete sniffy once-over - from tip of tail, to each paw, to his back, and finally his head and muzzle. That seemed to put Henry more at ease, and Zachary just watched with quiet dignity.

Later Henry decided Zachary tail was a great sport, and kept trying to catch it as it wagged.

Zachary wags his tail a lot.

Henry had a great time.

Not all was fun and games… ok… it was all fun and games – but learning games!

I worked on Henry’s “default sit”. That is, when I’m in the kitchen, if you sit, you’re liable to get something good to eat. Henry picked this up really fast. I also worked on Food Zen (chewing on my hand doesn’t make it open), Toy Zen (see above), some play retrieves (I throw, you chase… and then eat. This obviously needs a bit more work!), calm for cuddling (he aced that one!), coming when called (no problems there (I know, just wait)), and Chewies 101 – that is, “I hold, you chew”.

I trotted the clicker out in there and he was fine with it. Hasn’t a clue what it means yet, but he’ll get there.

Oh, and I made a short video, titled (oddly enough) Henry's First Day.

Thus ends Day One.

(… and it was good.)