Paytongility 2014
I had no idea this photo was being taken until long after the fact.
It has not been a very good year for us in agility. In an entire year of trialing, Payton has only gotten three Qs. Two are in Novice FAST so they don’t even really count. One Open JWW Q. So many near misses in JWW; most of the time it’s just no weave poles, but if we have weave poles, I get so excited he got his poles I blow it for us, gaining us extra refusals from poor cues or doing something that results in a dropped bar. Standard has just been an overall disaster between the weave poles and contacts.
And yet we train. I sign us up. We go.
And we play.
Everybody loves Payton. Even after a horrible run the peanut gallery always tells me he’s a beautiful dog, he has great structure, he looks amazing. His speed is highly desirable if nothing else is. He loves the game, he is happy, he is excited (yes I know.) Over Halloween a friend who last saw Payton when he was a tiny 14 week old puppy finally got to see him run and came up to me after our run and said “I think you should know, that dog is going to be really good really soon. He’s fast, he’s really incredible. He’s going to be great. He really is.” Many many people who have given me a lot of votes of confidence with him, which helps when we have a bad run and all I want to do is sit down and cry.
But this past weekend is when I actually got the best comment of all.
After a run, which didn’t go as planned, we came back to our crate and Payton was sitting in his chair getting cookies for his stay and whatever else he did that was clever (I always tell him exactly what his cookies are for. One cookie for a stay. One cookie for the weaves. One cookie for that obstacle discrimination. Et cetera.) And the lady crated in front of me said “I really like how you handle your dog.”
Thinking she meant “handle” as in handling on the course, I said “oh, thank you.”
But then she continued.
“He has a lot of drive. And you do a really good job of trying to channel that drive instead of trying to just squash it.”
“Oh,” I said, realizing what she meant. “Well thank you. That actually means a lot, because it honestly doesn’t feel like it.”
“Well, it might not feel like it,” she says, “but I can tell by watching you together. You’re doing a really good job with him. You seem like you really know your dog and you really know your breed. I love watching you with him.”
That is probably the best compliment I have gotten with my dogs. And of all the awesome photos I’ve gotten of Payton doing agility this year, I really do think this one is my favorite.
I would much prefer to be posting brags of his Qs, his ribbons, his placements, his MACH points, how close we are to a championship. Instead we are limping along just trying to get some Open Qs, never mind getting OUT of Open. He is not an easy dog, but he is mine, he’s kinda cute, and I kinda like him. I know in other hands he would be treated an entirely different way. It is a balancing act with him and will probably forever be one. But he is mine and I’m glad he is.
I guess I’ll keep him.
At least until we see how next year goes.
Meanwhile Georgie is over here like HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT I THINK I MIGHT GET A MACH IN A YEAR OR SO
So this just happened…
My mom walked into the bathroom and said “Pepper!! Hey! Come look what your dog did!” I couldn’t figure out WHAT she had done… Pepper has started rifling through trash cans for kleenex, but I had specifically emptied the bathroom trash can so she couldn’t do that.
I walked down the hall and looked in the bathroom – and somebody had grabbed the roll of toilet paper, dragged it into the middle of the room, and had proceeded to start shredding it.
“Oh. Pepper?? No way. I bet you Payton did this.”
“Payton? But Pepper was IN HERE. And Payton doesn’t do that, does he?”
“Oh yes he does… in the basement, the toilet paper isn’t between the toilet and wall like it is in here, so he keeps trying to grab it. I bet it was Payton.” We look down at Payton. “He looks guilty to me,” I add.
“Check for evidence,” she says.
So I grab Pepper and open her mouth, look all over her gums… nothing.
Payton has not had the sense to flee yet so I open his mouth – and I don’t even have to look very hard, there’s little pieces of toilet paper ALL OVER his tongue and his teeth!
“IT WAS PAYTON!” I show my mom the toilet paper on his tongue.
“What! He was trying to frame her!”
About this time I look at Pepper and I actually see she has a piece of toilet paper stuck to her mane. “Ah!! Toilet paper!”
“So she DID do it!”
“No, I bet she just got into it after he shredded it… Payton probably taught her to do this. Payton! Did you teach Pepper how to do this?!”
We’re both looking at Payton, who looks up at me, and…
he starts WALKING BACKWARDS out of the room.
My mom starts laughing and I start laughing and I’m CRYING I’m laughing so hard because he just keeps walking backwards, looking super guilty. He gets all the way to the hall where he can’t back up anymore, stands there, and s-l-o-w-l-y lays down and puts his ears down in his “I AM SOOOO ABUSED” sad face.
Now, I DID teach Payton how to back up. But I never actually put a cue on it. And the cue was MOST CERTAINLY not “Did you teach Pepper how to do this?!”
Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.
I told him “I think you might ACTUALLY be the naughtiest dog in this house.”
Painting Helpers
Yesterday was Payton’s annual. My new house is halfway to the new vet’s office, so Pay came to the new house with us while we painted yesterday. He was a very good boy, but I thought it was immensely unfair that HE got to be the first dog at the new house. So Auggie got to come today. My mom decided to also bring Georgie, and because that wasn’t fair to only take two, Pay came along today too.
All three dogs “helped” while I was painting my new master bedroom. Would you care to guess which of the three did NOT come home blue?
Can you tell from this photo??
AUGGIE decided to curl up in the corner of the room right up against two freshly painted walls. AUGGIE!!
You might not be able to see it – I didn’t see it until we all packed up to leave and then I went “hey, WAIT A SECOND.” It’s on her tail and there’s a small bit on her side too LOL. I have no idea when this even happened.
So PAYTON was the only dog who didn’t get in the paint! And he had TWO opportunities to get all painted, yesterday and today! What a good pupper.
The girlie, just because. Not the girlie I wish I was taking a photo of. I’m very unhappy because this house is taking a lot longer than I expected, and the longer it takes, the longer it takes to bring MY girlie home…
Someday. I hope it’s soon. =<
Anybody else have this… um… “problem?”
I’m working on “look at that” with Payton. About a week ago we had our first major success. I was using a hand chopper to chop some nuts for trail mix and I figured he was going to hate the chopper, so I got my treats ready and treated him for being calm while I touched/moved/used the chopper. It took about ten minutes, and only that long because I stupidly decided to make SURE he really was going to hate the chopper first and he went over threshold. (Sometimes he surprises me with what he does and doesn’t decide to bark at, so… I should have just gone with my gut instead of making sure it was a Bad but. Lesson learned.)
I felt so proud of him. I wasn’t crazy chopping going to town, but I chopped three cups of nuts and he didn’t really care by the end. And not once did I whack him or yell at him or intimidate him or even flood him.
So I got out my big pile of Weird Stuff tonight to work on it some more in a controlled setting and without setting him over threshold. The first thing I got out was three tiny pinwheels.
I accidentally taught my dog to spin a pinwheel with his nose.
Then I got out a plunger.
I accidentally taught my dog to put his front feet on a plunger.
Then I got out this big fake plastic lollipop.
My dog decided to jump on top of a moving box.
He thinks there’s more to the game than just looking. He wants to interact with stuff when I put it in the framework of “here’s a clicker and some treats, and there’s a weird thing.” I think this is good but at the same time not. Good that he sees something weird and instead of “THAT IS WEIRD I NEED TO BARK AT IT,” he thinks “This is a game! What can I do to get cookies? LOOK WHAT I CAN DO”
But I won’t always have a clicker and treats with me to re-frame the “game” into a game of LOOK WHAT I CAN DO. And he won’t always be able to interact with the weird stuff beyond just LOOKING at it and then looking back at me, which is part of the point of just teaching a Look At That.
This is a strange problem to have. Definitely not the worst problem in the world to have, but I’m not 100% sure how to go about fixing this. =P
By the way, Auggie is wearing an e-collar to stop him chewing on his foot, and Payton grabbed the edge of the e-collar and was dragging Auggie around by the e-collar. Just thought you should all know that. oh Payton.
Kicked Out Of The Nest
Yesterday I was about to let the dogs back outside after their dinner and my dad told me to wait – there was a baby bird in the yard that couldn’t fly. Georgie found it and tried to make friends. He rounded her up and brought her back inside and was going to make sure the bird had left the yard before taking her back outside. I took the spade to our scoop and shovel set and carefully herded the baby bird through the fence into our neighbour’s yard where it would be safe from puppy mouths.
This morning I let the boys back out after their breakfast… and Payton discovered either another baby bird, or the same one. He tried to introduce the bird to his mouth, but decided it might not fit, so he proceeded to chase it around the yard trying to figure out HOW to get it to fit in his mouth. Auggie watched him for a minute, kind of confused about what was going on – until I came running out of the house, in my pajamas, barefoot, with my toothbrush dangling out of my mouth (see, I was halfway through brushing my teeth when I let them back outside) trying to yell “NO PAYTON DON’T EAT IT.”
“Don’t eat it??” Auggie thought. “Technically she said ‘PAYTON don’t eat it!’ That means I can NOM NOM NOM NOM!”
So I’m running around the yard after my dogs having more or less just rolled out of bed and looking like it, Auggie hopping around trying to dart in and introduce the bird to his belly, Payton POKING the baby bird repeatedly with his nose trying to determine the best way to eat it, and meanwhile there’s apparently a whole flock of birds up in the trees screaming, “OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD” or something like that. I’m not really sure what birds actually scream in cases like this. And I’m trying to grab both dogs, and as soon as I catch one the other one darts in to try and eat the bird instead. So then I have to try and grab the other one, and the one I’m holding manages to wiggle free. This went on for what feels like five minutes, but was probably only about 30 seconds before I managed to lift Payton into my right arm and Auggie into my left arm, then marched back towards the house with one sheltie under each arm, while the birds continued to scream “OH MY GOD I THOUGHT WE WERE ALL GOING TO DIE.”
This happened a few years ago, actually; Auggie kept discovering tasty snackies in the yard. I thought at first the birds were going suicidal – or that one baby bird in particular kept hopping into our yard on a dare from his birdy friends – but a friend told me certain species of birds will push their babies out of the nest before they can fly. Supposedly they still care for the baby bird in the bushes on the ground until the baby learns to fly (by screaming OH MY GOD OH MY GOD when two dogs try to devour it.) and will take off on his own. So I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on again, and the bird this morning was probably the same from yesterday.
Unfortunately we have feral cats around here so baby bird is not likely to survive very long on the ground, even if I can successfully prevent my shelties from introducing the baby bird to the inside of their bellies. In the meantime, I’m glad none of my neighbours were outside this morning to witness the ridiculousness that occurred.
Master Auggie
So this is the result of this weekend. Well, not just this weekend. The result of a long time, a lot of work, and more money than I care to even try calculating.
It takes 10 Excellent B Q’s to get Master’s titles. Auggie got his MJP on Friday afternoon and his MXP this morning.
And with that he is more than likely all done. I doubt if we’ll ever get his speed up to where it needs to be to ever get a PACH, so there’s no point in continuing to shovel money at it when he has just as much, if not more, fun playing in the backyard. I’m already entered in another trial and there’s one here locally that I might enter depending on the judge, and I’ll be getting Auggie a pirate ship cake that says BON VOYAGE AUGGIE and we can have him a little party. I may bring him back out of retirement one day if his speed issues ever get resolved and let him play again… but I’m really not counting on anything. I feel like this is it.
I wish I had gotten today’s run on camera. It was so totally an Auggie run. He was a little snot in the rally ring so I was hoping he would be on fire and run fast in agility and he was definitely revved up. We have been having rear cross into tunnel issues but he took off for the tunnel today like nobody’s business. He came wide around a jump and headed for an off course tire and I ended up yelling “Auggie Auggie AUUUUGGIIEEEEE” – and he stopped RIGHT in front of the tire and looked at me and came over to take the dog walk like he was supposed to. He flew through the weaves so fast he slipped but kept in them and tore it up. The triple jump was the last obstacle and he was running so wild I thought he might knock it. He took off and I thought “oh God, he’s not going to clear it.” He clipped the last bar. It went CLANG…
but it didn’t fall.
There were people outside the ring watching and they all let out a “WHEW” when the bar didn’t fall. I looked up and mocked wiping sweat off my face, hahaha. One of the agility people I know was scribing and she yelled “Boy, you had to work for that one, didn’t you?!”
It didn’t even occur to me until we were out of the ring that that was it, that was #10. We were done. I was just laughing so hard. What a snot.
I really wish I had it on camera because it was just… it felt like a defining run for us, LOL.
I’m so proud of him and even though I’m sad that we will never get a PACH and never get to run a victory lap or anything like that, we have done so much in our time together. At more than one point I thought he was done and I would have to quit, but he never quit on me. After our very first run in agility together, I heard someone outside the ring – and to this day I don’t even know who it was that said it – say “One day, that dog is going to be awesome.”
In some ways that was more of a curse than anything else because I have always felt like I was giving up on him whenever things happened. Dropping him to preferred felt like I was giving up on him, because one day that dog is going to be awesome. Even this sort of feels like I am giving up on him, because one day that dog is going to be awesome.
But the reality is that “one day” is today, yesterday, last Tuesday, tomorrow, next Wednesday – every single day since the very first day I brought Auggie home and every single day until our time together on this earth has ended. It doesn’t matter if Auggie will never have letters before his name. It wouldn’t matter if he never had any letters on his name at all.
My dog IS awesome. And he always has been. He is an amazing dog, and I could not have asked for a better partner in our journey together through this ridiculous game called agility life.
Payton in class, round two
This afternoon I texted with Auggie’s breeder. My initial thought was to just bring the puppies over to the training building after her class tonight and let her see how things are going and give me some tips, especially on an issue I’m having with Georgie. But she told me she was just starting a new class and asked if I would like to bring the pups along.
I decided to bring Payton, since our rally trial is in three weeks, and he could use some work in a new location and with some other eyes watching. Georgie will wait for another day; besides, I can’t really work two dogs at once.
The class is a unique one we developed to meet some in-between demands… people who weren’t quite ready to jump into agility, but were looking for something more than just pet house manners. We delve into some rally exercises and do some extended sit-stays and down-stays in a line up like you would at an obedience trial, and also do some beginning obstacle introduction with agility stuff (jumps, tunnels, tire.)
So away we went tonight. Payton did fairly good with heeling though he is still very forgey, and forges more on me the longer we heel. I stepped on his paw once and almost tripped over him several more times. Sigh. And the sits, oh God, the crooked sits! I’m still hoping to clean it up enough in the next few weeks that we can scrape out at least ONE qualifying RN score.
But in light of my decision earlier this year to stop always being so negative about my dogs and their behaviour, I am not going to tell you where he was awesome.
First, his first sit-stay was ALMOST great, but being his very first time in a lineup with dogs he had never met before, he got up and came to me just before I went back to him. The next several sit-stays, however, were lovely, and I was even able to test him some by doing stupid dance moves and things (I made sure none of the other dogs – or their handlers – were looking at me while I was doing this.) So he rocked those!
Next, his recalls were equally lovely, though the first was lacking the enthusiasm I like to see, but he gets a pass because once again, he was sitting in a lineup with dogs he had never met before.
After that, we moved on to introduction to agility. First we had a jump, and I felt bad because Payton and I are totally cheating. We have at least a dozen jumps of varying type at home and he has seen regular jumps over and over and over again being that we’re doing beginning jump training! The other students were like “ooooh!” but HE’S CHEATING HE’S DONE THIS A MILLION TIMES ALREADY.
Next we got out the tunnel. Payton has seen a tunnel before but not fully extended, and as many times as I see it in my basement and think “I need to get that out and work on it,” I have yet to actually do that. So I wasn’t sure how he was going to do with a tunnel stretched all the way out.
Of course I am an idiot and had no need to worry. He darted right through it, then came back, then back through again. Everything was going GREAT until Auggie’s breeder suggested I run with him through it.
So I did. And Payton went OMG YOU GUYS THIS IS SOOOO MUCH FUN and the next thing I know he jumps on top of the tunnel, STAYS THERE for a second or two, then hops back down. How he managed to actually stay perched on top of the tunnel is beyond me, but he did it.
But I said I wasn’t going to be negative, right? Well, as embarrassing as that was, he only did it the one time and then appeared to realize that on TOP of the tunnel is not how we do it. I ran him back and forth several times after that in both of our turns, including setting him up for some odd entries.
The best news: he is really fast. Not so fast I can’t keep up, I am a runner myself and just generally a gym junkie (in fact, I’m blowing off a Wednesday class at the gym to take him to this class… but I figured I can do those weight lifting sessions at home…) so I have the added bonus of being able to sprint myself and not end up nearly killing myself. But he is definitely fast.
Now I just have to figure out how to not kill that speed in him. Which means I need to become a far better handler and very soon.
So there you have it. My dog is a huge brat and embarrassing, but he’s a very talented little embarrassing brat too.
Training Challenge
Okay, the “challenge” isn’t actually in the training. It’s in the staying organized and focused.
I’ve made up a little calendar for myself detailing what I’m going to work on every day. I usually do two or three training sessions a day, so it’s broken out into three training sessions… one at lunchtime, one after work (or after I get back from the gym on days I go to the gym right after work), and one late at night.
Every week, between the normal agility stuff, I’m going to try and focus on new “tricks” on certain days, so this will require me figuring out which tricks exactly I want to work on. So I will try and make a post on Monday detailing what I plan to work on, and at some point later in the week I will post again about our progress. Maybe even with some videos? We’ll see what happens. It’s a challenge.
Auggie gets less training/more time off, however you’d like to look at it, because he is both further along in stuff and because I’m kind of ramping down his training. More on that later whenever it’s more relevant to talk about.
Below is the current Base Schedule. Certain outside stuff is of course dependent on the weather, right now we’re drilling hard on heeling because we have a rally trial coming up in a few weeks, and of course once certain tasks are mastered they won’t be “drilled” so often (like the 2x2s.) And this schedule doesn’t account for Georgie at all, who will pop in and out when I can work with her. And I actually work on training my dogs all day long… this is just the actual structured training sessions I have planned.
BASE TRAINING SCHEDULE:
M – W – F
Session 1:
2×2 weaves (Payton)
Session 2:
2×2 weaves (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)
Session 3:
Heeling (both dogs)
T – R
Session 1:
Jump work (both dogs)
Set Point x3
Straight line x3
Straight line with height x3
Session 2:
Shaping (both dogs)
Session 3:
Shaping (both dogs)
Sat
Session 1:
Jump work (both dogs)
Distance grid – x4 out, x3 back in
Progressive grid x3
Session 2:
2x2s (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)
Session 3:
Heeling (both dogs)
Sun:
“Rest day” – just playing, shaping (both dogs)
This week, shaping sessions will involve perch work. Both dogs can pivot on the perch in one direction but do not pivot in both directions. Auggie’s pivot involves barking loudly at me and jumping off the perch a lot. Payton’s pivot is a lot better and I’ve already done one session getting him to pivot the opposite direction so I anticipate Payton will progress faster than Aug.
I may also work on Payton’s back up which is in progress. Auggie already knows this trick and cracked me up last session by patiently laying in a chair watching me work with Payton for almost the entire session, and when I was down to one last cookie in my hand, he jumped out of the chair and proceeded to back up across the room. Like “Seriously, screw this – WATCH ME DO IT LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME GIVE ME THE COOKIE MOM!” And, well, I had to give him a cookie after that. It was too funny not too. Yes, I do sometimes reward my dog for being a brat.
Auggie’s Pee Saga Continues
This morning I let the boys out to pee. Auggie squatted to pee, then almost immediately decided he would rather bark at my mom moving cars in the driveway instead. “Auggie, you still have to pee,” I told him, and sent him back out into the yard. He came back on the deck and barked in my face instead. So we came inside for breakfast. I sent him back out after eating and all he did was poop. Fine, it’s YOUR problem if you don’t want to pee.
Except it wasn’t exactly like that, as I would find out later.
When I came home for lunch and let him out, he squatted, then did the little “Imma wag my tail while squatting” thing which he first did when he had his UTI last year. He has since done this a few times, causing me to freak out and immediately get a urine sample to the vet only for it to come up clear. It still makes me pay more attention, but doesn’t cause immediate worry like it used to. I do know when he is wagging his tail, he’s not peeing yet, and it’s not until he stops wagging his tail (or just moves and tries a new location) that he actually pees. So he moved and squatted again.
And then I realized it didn’t look like he was ACTUALLY peeing.
I told him to try again, so he picked another spot – and this time I was watching closely – squatted… no pee. After a little bit a few dribbles came out, but no real pee.
I went inside and called the vet. Doc was at lunch but they would call me back as soon as he came back to the office and let me know what they wanted to do. I took Auggie back outside and asked him to pee again. He tried a few more times but each time nothing came out. I could tell he obviously HAD to go – for one thing, he gets his food floated in about a cup of water, so I knew there was pee in his bladder – but nothing was coming out. Not. good.
Auggie came back to work with me while I waited to hear back from my vet, then off we went rather quickly to be worked into the schedule.
Doc couldn’t feel anything obvious, but as I expected, an x-ray was first up to make sure there weren’t any stones floating around, even if he couldn’t feel anything. Away the little pup went for his x-ray, then came back looking smug. I wondered if he had peed all over their x-ray equipment, but no, he had just been a very good boy for his x-rays. Doc came in with the x-rays after a few minutes and… nothing. Nothing on the x-ray at all. So away Auggie went again, this time to have a catheter run. Doc warned me they might have to sedate him a little to get the cath in, which, if you remember from Auggie’s last annual, he has developed a heart murmur, so that gave me some anxiety. Back in they come, Auggie looking EXCEPTIONALLY smug now and not woozy at all. They hadn’t had to sedate him, he was very good, he had peed AROUND the cath even. So they had collected a urine sample and were running it, but visually, there wasn’t a lot of blood or anything. It could come back with a bladder infection, but it could also be clear, and if it was clear, we were out of ideas as to what was up.
At this point I seriously started to think my dog was trolling me. Especially as he sat on the floor looking at Doc and Doc gave him some cookies. Auggie, we have cookies at HOME, okay? And they’re a lot cheaper. You don’t need to fake me out just to come get cookies from Doc. That is ridiculous.
So after the urinalysis was finished, Doc came in and said “Good news!”
“He has a bladder infection?” I asked. In what world, exactly, is it good news that your dog has a bladder infection? In my world, where money is tight, and cute little dogs are threatened with a horrible death when they go to the vet and run up bills for no good reason.
“Yep! Lots of white blood cells and bacteria in there.”
“Whoo-hoo! Auggie, you get to live after all!”
(I am, of course, joking. I was trying to fight off a panic attack and trying very hard NOT to cry this afternoon when I realized we had a problem. I love my Auggie doggie even though he may be the biggest snotbucket in the world.)
We came home with antibiotics and some anti-inflammatory too, since he is likely pretty sore and inflamed to not have been peeing. Poor baby dog! Hopefully he will get to feeling better in a few days here. We’ll go back next week and run another urinalysis to make sure we’re in the clear. I sure hope so. I don’t want the poor thing locked into another cycle of urinalysis after urinalysis and I definitely don’t want any stones developing from this infection like we had last year. So hopefully this chapter in Auggie’s Pee Saga will be a short one!
A small handful of recent pics
Now that I have FTP access again rather than just crappy flickr, let’s try to get caught up! I have quite a bit to get caught up on (a bunch of pro pics from Louisville) but so far I’m just using a web client and haven’t got the actual FTP client to cooperate with me yet, so here’s just a small handful to get us started…
First: I ran a half marathon April 28th. On April 29th, I was stupidly entered in the local agility trial. LOLOLOL I woke up going “WTF WAS I THINKING?” and hobbling around my kitchen throwing down a handful of Ibuprofen. The weather is notorious for being crappy at our local trial, and this year was no exception. It started pouring just in time for our first run and didn’t let up until long after we had gone home.
Auggie was not very excited to be stuck in the car while it rained outside. I was not excited when I went inside the building to go pee and realized my legs were both completely blue and purple. I went home right after our second run and got straight into a hot bath. Yikes!
And of course because I am an over ambitious idiot, I also entered in a trial the following weekend, too. (and also would have stupidly done one this weekend were it not for Mother’s Day!) Got in the car Friday night to leave and discovered my A/C wasn’t working – I only ever use it when I have dogs in the car to keep cool. NOT happy, and my dad had no freon to put in it. Auggie is now crated in a VariKennel, which I call his clamshell, since he ate his way out of one of the soft crates down at Louisville, and I was really worried about him being stuck in a hot plastic clamshell. I got our crate fans out and put one on his door, and unzipped the top of Payton’s soft crate a bit so he would get more air flow, and wedged the second crate fan best I could against the “door” to his soft crate.
I forgot to zip the top of Payton’s crate closed when I left the dogs in the hotel to go grab dinner and was quite surprised when I opened my hotel room door and TA-DAAAA! PAYTON!
He had stuck his nose into the small opening and wedged, wedged, wedged his head through until he opened it enough to squeeze his whole body out. =P
Next, things you never want to see in your rear view mirror:
PAYTON.
I did not learn from the hotel incident. Payton, however, did. It was over 90 degrees when I was heading home so I again opened the top of the crate to give Payton more air flow. About thirty miles away from the trial site, I suddenly see PAYTON’S STUPID HEAD in my rear view mirror.
I drove like this for 18 miles until I got to the next exit and pulled off. Though on the actual highway he had his head up towards the crack in the window like “Ahhhh fresh air!” I ended up just taking him out of the crate and letting him loose in the backseat, which I hated, but was terrified he would overheat or would end up like THIS again, which certainly isn’t safe either.
And then some random miscellaneous shots…
Family shot. At least they’re both not looking at me…?
There we go!
PAYTONGATOR
The holee roller is his fave. Unfortunately we’ve tugged on it so much it’s ready to rip. =< I'm trying to be gentle with it but I don't think it's going to last the summer.
and finally,
my big ol’ baby dog.
Watering the Payton
OMG WATER
*gargle*
Georgie: What are you doing?
Payton: GETTING THE THING
Payton: AHHHH
Georgie: you’re stupid.
that’s Georgie’s tail in the background. She really can’t figure out WTF Payton is doing.
Meerkat impression!
IT MAKES ME DO THE PEEPEE DANCE
Gonna get iiiiiit
I GOT IT
It makes me so haaaappy!
Just right in the face. Over and over.
He sometimes seems to mind and other times doesn’t care at all LOL.
I really don’t know LOL.
Streeeeetch!
She tried watering higher so he couldn’t get it and he kept trying to get it anyway, including putting his muddy paws on her legs like “HEY LADY, GIMME THE WATER!”
At this point he realized he was SOAKING WET and tried to roll around in the grass to dry off. Of course this is the same grass we are watering so he was basically just rolling around in mud. Fantastic.
Georgie trying to figure out if this is a game she wants to play…
is this… is this a game?
No, no… it’s… well maybe. But no, you don’t want to play, Georgie.
Georgie: Seriously. What’s wrong with you?
Payton: Oh, LOTS of things!!
I really do like the way this dog moves, as an aside.
Aaaaand right back at it when she started watering low enough for him to mouth water again.
RAWR!
And some killer dance moves.
I had to go get him a towel when all was said and done. Then I finished toweling him off and my mom wasn’t done watering so BACK AGAIN HE GOES… sigh…
Seriously, Payton?
Two nights ago I was laying in bed on my stomach. Auggie was on my right sharing my pillow. Payton usually sleeps down at the foot of the bed or with his head draped over my legs.
All of a sudden I feel somebody walking on me… which I know it’s not Auggie because he doesn’t do that anymore PLUS he was sleeping right next to me. So Payton is walking on me.
THEN I feel him LAY DOWN on my BACK. Like I was a big human pillow.
“WHAT the HELL are you doing” I believe is what came out of my mouth.
Last night we were all tucked in bed, same thing. I was laying on my stomach and Auggie was curled up against me on the right with his head on my pillow. Payton keeps pacing around… he’d lie down, SIGH dramatically, get up, move around, try again. He kept laying down with his BUTT on Auggie’s face and I kept pushing him away until Auggie was like “meh, fine” and got up to move down to the end of the bed. Then Payton kept trying to put his butt in MY face. Twice he burrowed under the blankets… sigh, moan, shuffle around, get up, move.
I couldn’t figure out what his deal was… he’d already peed and pooped, he didn’t seem to be acting sick… just being stupid.
Then a thought occurred to me.
And I rolled over on my right side…
and Payton shoved his head against my back and IMMEDIATELY fell asleep.
Apparently he just could NOT get comfortable with me laying any differently than I normally do when we all fall asleep… usually I start on my right side and then roll over in the middle of the night or move when I get back in bed after getting up to pee.
No excuse for deciding to try and use me as a human pillow two nights ago, but maybe he just really hates it when I lay on my stomach??
Oh Payton.
Payback
So I think most of you know that Payton’s favourite toy in the world is a leaf. Last night he came running up to me in the yard carrying a stick with a few leaves still on it, all excited he had found one last stick to play with. We were getting ready to go to bed so I put it up on the picnic table on the deck to keep safe until we could play with it properly.
We went out to play today and Auggie decided it was time to enact a little bit of payback.
Auggie: You like this? Here let me have it.
Payton: HAY! That’s MINE!
Auggie: I want it. Give it to me.
Payton: Noooooooooo
Auggie: I am taking it now.
Payton: WAH!!
I was secretly cheering Auggie on. Seriously, he doesn’t even really LIKE sticks… he didn’t really want it except for the fact that Payton had it therefore he decided to steal it. This is the first time he has ever done this, LOL. Usually he’s the one getting puppies (or Pepper) running up to him going “WHAT’S THAT?” and he drops it so they can have it. Good for you Auggie, LOL.
“Hay Mom it’s kinda windy out here!”
My very handsome little boy. With dirt sticking out of his muzzle. Sigh.
Payton the Amazing
This dog is awesome, and hilarious. I’ve posted a couple of times about our perch work. The last time he was on the perch was two or three days ago (I know, but I’m also working on other stuff, so we are actually rotating tricks…) He was going about a turn and a half for me, a turn regularly but often giving me more. I want him to be doing more than that before we start lowering the perch and then fade it out entirely, but he’s doing pretty good. The hand signal I’m using is Celeste Meade’s, which is a fist with my knuckles down towards the dog.
Well, I just had him in the bathroom with me while I was getting ready for bed. I wanted to put him in a sit so I said “Payton, sit,” and made the hand signal I use, which is scooping my hand up towards my face. Normally I have my hand open, palm up, but I was holding something so it was basically raising my fist up in the air. He looked at my hand but didn’t sit right away, so I just waited. Sit is his default behaviour so I knew he would sit in a second anyway once his brain caught up to his feet.
Except he didn’t sit.
He stared at my hand, which was a fist, knuckles down… and he thought about it, then proceeded to start pivoting his butt around.
I looked at him, totally shocked, then looked at my hand, and realized he was doing EXACTLY what I asked him to. Just not what I MEANT to ask him to do!
And he did it without the perch anywhere nearby and without having done any kind of fading of the perch. Just up and turned a pivot on the bathroom floor.
I then almost fell over laughing hysterically. Really, Payton? Wow. Okay.
Now I don’t know if I should just ditch the perch and make him start doing pivots without it since he already proved to me he can, haha.
Recall Bootcamp
After a lot of thought and a lot of staring at my bank account, I decided to enroll in Susan Garrett’s 5 Minutes to a Brilliant Recall e-course. It wasn’t exactly cheap, but I asked myself what a good recall is worth. If somehow Auggie or Payton were to get out the front door, or maybe broke the gate in the backyard, or escaped from their lead at an agility trial… and were running towards a busy road with cars coming… how much is it worth if I said “AUGGIE” and my dog would turn around and come racing back to me without hesitation? The answer, for me, is that it would be worth a lot more than I paid for the class.
So that will be our winter project… how much work we’ll get to do outside once the snow dumps on us, exactly, is anybody’s guess. But I will at least be arming myself with the games and the learning to work on it later.
Both dogs have also been learning perch work. Payton is doing better than Auggie, who ever since I got out the clicker and tried to teach him to speak has added barking furiously at me to his repertoire of “stuff to try during shaping.” Auggie was giving me two full turns around the perch but frequently would stop and bark at me, so I dropped WAY back and am currently rewarding for two steps in a row WITH NO. BARKING. and hoping that eliminates the annoying barkface.
Payton, on the other hand, is now doing a turn and a half. Sometimes he gets overly excited and ends up slipping off the perch and since he is no longer on the perch starts jumping around the room (my puppy is so weird) but once he gets himself collected and hits the perch again, he returns very quickly to pivoting. I’m very proud of him… when I first brought him home and tried to teach him to touch a target, he wouldn’t do anything. He would just sit down and stare at me. Having gone from that to a dog who learned to start zooming around a perch purely from offered behaviours, it just makes me smile. I almost cried when I saw the light bulb go off in his head and he started stepping in a hurry around the perch. Hurray for Payton!
So I will probably be posting some updates here, maybe with some videos, while we work through Auggie’s Recall Bootcamp! I’m looking forward to it for sure. (How can anybody NOT look forward to not having to go out and retrieve their dog who is in the back of the yard barking at ABSOLUTELY NOTHING through the fence when it’s 20 degrees out and they are only wearing a t-shirt and boxer shorts?)
More Brothers Antics
They really DO love each other, I swear, but things like this happen at least once a day and it’s so freaking funny.
Payton: GIMME THE BALL GIMME THE BALL GIMME THE BALL
Payton: GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME
Auggie: OMG. Take it and SHUT UP. *ptoo*
Payton: !!!
Payton: MA MA LOOK WHAT I HAS
Auggie: stupid puppy.
my stupid puppy.
Big brother, little brother
I bought Payton a fire hose toy for his sharp, destructive, teething fangs. This is HIS toy, I bought it just for him.
A few minutes ago I heard Payton barking… and barking and barking. I got up to go see what he was barking at…
And discovered Auggie on the couch, laying JUST out of Payton’s reach (Payton thinks he is too small to get up on the couch) and chewing Payton’s fire hose toy. While poor Payton bounced up and down trying to reach his toy/Auggie and barking at him because he was so mad he couldn’t reach.
So after trying to get Payton to jump up on the couch and take his toy back I finally PUT him on the couch. And then he looked confused. He took the toy and then Auggie grabbed it back. Payton looked at me and then jumped off the couch.
Auggie then jumped off the couch… but left the fire hose on the couch. And here comes Auggie, marching over and smiling at me looking proud of himself, while Payton resumes bouncing up and down trying to reach the fire hose sitting towards the back of the couch JUST out of his reach.
These two. Seriously.
Despite how it may sound, they do actually love each other.
(I promise Auggie is smiling – you just can’t tell from this photo. He had a smiley face in the other photos but they were blurry.)
I just want to be close to you
Last night we had a thunderstorm so bad it actually woke me up through my earplugs (an unusual occurrence) and Auggie, who sleeps in a bed on my bedroom floor now, asked to climb into my bed. He’s too short to get on my bed unless he gets a really enthusiastic running start, so if Auggie wants in my bed, he hops up and put his front paws on the bed, sticks his face in mine if I’m unlucky enough to be sleeping on my right side, and stares at me.
Auggie is not afraid of thunder – the most he reacts is to bark when the rumbling vibrates the windows, and that’s a reaction to the glass rattling, not the thunder itself. So the thunder was pretty loud to have distressed him enough that he wanted in the bed with me. I picked him up and put him on my bed, and he immediately curled up at the foot of the bed with his chin on my leg. He wanted to be touching me. But this was apparently not enough, because after a few minutes he got up and climbed up to the top of the bed. I rolled over and put my arm around him, and he curled up next to me, snuggled into my belly. I love Auggie and I wish he were a cuddly boy, but on the whole, he’s not cuddly (staying still is boring and being restrained in a cuddle or a hug means he has to stay still; therefore being cuddled is objectionable), so laying down to sleep cuddled into me with my arm around him is definitely not the norm. He wasn’t shaking or anything, but he was definitely an unhappy boy with all the thunder.
Unfortunately, the cuddliness only lasted until the thunder stopped. A few minutes after the thunder stopped, he got up and moved back to the end of the bed and curled up against the wall to sleep. Boo.
He did, however, stay on my bed the rest of the night. Most nights if he starts on my bed, he ends up on the floor after a while – either because he gets too hot, or he starts walking all over me and I put him on the floor because I don’t take well to having him walk all over me while I’m trying to sleep. So he was apparently slightly alarmed and wanted to stay closer to me than usual.
My mom is working early hours in the summer, so she came to get him early in the morning to feed him and play with him before she went to work. I watched him get off my bed and then rolled over to try for another hour or so of sleep, since I hadn’t slept that great. When she left for work, she closed Auggie into the kitchen and the office where his crate is – I just figured he was actually in his crate rather than loose in the other room. So when I got up and went to the bathroom to get ready for work, I was first surprised to hear a scratch on a door across the house… and before I could get to the other side of the house and let him out, I heard a loud WHUMP as he apparently launched himself at the door trying to get to me.
I guess it’s flattering that my dog is so obsessed with being close to me that he tries to bodily break down doors separating us..?
Pepper is helping
I decided I needed a new bookshelf for my bedroom, because my bookcases are overflowing to the point of absolutely ridiculous. I went to Target and found some organizational shelves that I liked so I bought two and brought them home.
Pepper and Auggie both said they would help me put them together but Auggie bailed first to go nap in the living room and try to sneak some chews on his sock, and Pepper’s brand of helping was mostly to run in whenever my dad would come in the house, step all over me and the stuff on the floor, then leave again when my dad would go back outside.
Well, I got the first one assembled and took everything off my old bookshelf, moved it out, and put the first shelf where it needed to be. There’s holes on the side where you can insert little dowels to stick the two shelves together if you want, and I started to do that, then changed my mind and pulled the dowels back out. Pepper was “helping” me at this point.
A minute later I reached down to pick up all the remaining parts and the instructions and realized I was missing one of those dowels. And also missing a Pepper.
“Pepper?” I called. No answer. “Pepper, did you eat my dowel?” Still no answer.
Fine. Whatever. ($&@ dog.
A few minutes later my mom walks into the room and goes “Hey, was Pepper in here helping you?”
“YES,” I said, “did she bring you a dowel?”
And my mom hands me this dowel, all chewed and soggy.
Good thing I didn’t need it.
Thanks a million Pepper. Or not.
Success with the wait command, and family photo attempts
Hurray!! I have started pushing “wait” with Pepper the last week or so (they have to wait before they get released to their bowls) and it looks like it’s starting to pay off! She is still very new to it, I can’t make much noise or anything or she’ll get up and come to me, but she at least has the general idea now. Unfortunately this means I can’t do much to get her to focus on me (she hates the camera and thinks it’s evil) or try to make her look a bit more excited, LOL.
Testing… testing… how far back do I dare go?
I’m maybe ten feet away and kneeling. HURRAY!
Except she’s eating grass.
Grass chew… wait for it…
graceful CHOMP
“Pepper stop eating the gr- crap.”
Okay, so I called Auggie over. He was having NONE of this.
“At least try to look like you like each other,” I said. “No,” said Auggie.
*facepalm*
Pepper is losing interest… Auggie still loathes me for ever bringing this bitch home…
Pepper got up so now it’s Auggie’s turn for solo portraits.
Except he hates me. Hates. me. from the bottom of his soul. (This one cracks me up.)
Sigh…
Grudgingly looks at me…
One nice shot, aaaand-
now he’s done.
Try #2 with them both. Uhhh…
“Pepper don’t eat the-
– crap!!!”
Auggie then took pity on me, or decided to show off. I’m not sure which.
Lookin’ at the flower…
Obviously weighing in his mind how much he hates me versus how much he loves me.
Oh, be still my heart. He can be a handsome little monster when he wants to be.
Or a big cutie!
And then I had to ruin it all by bringing Pepper over.
Ummm… can we both look in the same direction?
oh LOL Auggie and your stinkeye.
Then Pepper had to blink, apparently.
Semi-nice… the focus is not very sharp but it’s close…
aaaand then Pepper makes a ridiculous face that looks like somebody drew on her with marker…
Aaaaaand Pepper’s outta here! Game over.
Good boy Auggie sat there until I said “good boy, come here.” He’s a very good little monster who will hopefully not kill me in my sleep.
Dividing the Bed
I saw on a dog forum an equation for how to divide up the amount of space you get on the bed when you share with your dog.
First you add up the total number of feet. Four on Auggie and two on me. That’s six!
Next, you take the number of feet you have – so two – and the percentage of feet that you have of the total number is the percentage of the bed you get.
Therefore I get 1/3rd of the bed.
This sounds about right.
Auggie has been doing SO good sharing the bed with me at hotels and stuff that I decided to give him another shot at sharing the bed with me at home. He has been sleeping on my bed all week, and he only starts stepping on me at about 5:30am – which is when other people in the house wake up, so he takes this as his cue to start walking all over me and sticking his face approximately an inch from mine and giving me kisses and generally being very annoying for any time of day, let alone 5:30am.
The only downside to this is that my bed is hardly large enough for the two of us. I’m not supremely tall but I am 5’9, so there’s really no room for him to lay down at the foot of the bed. This leaves space for him to lay next to me, and of course when Auggie is in deep sleep he has his legs stretched out… last night he stretched his legs out and I could hear his toenails scraping up against my wall. He was literally wedged in there with no room to spare, back shoved against me and his feet against my wall. And I was laying on my side. If I try to lay on my back it’s not very comfortable, for either of us, I’m sure.
So I’ve decided once I get my own place I’m probably going to buy a King bed. I was thinking a Queen would be nice, but if all I get is 33% of the bed, suddenly 33% of a Queen doesn’t sound like enough room.
I’m going to be in even more trouble if I start sharing the bed with TWO dogs… then I only get 20% of the bed… wah!
Go to your ROOOOOOOMS
We had the canine equivalent of this last night. Auggie would NOT stop terrorizing Pepper… chasing her all around the house, cornering her if he could, and then humping her.
Well, this all came to an end when he was humping her, and she finally completely freaked out…
and peed on the rug in my room.
After having been telling them to knock it off all night long, this was the last straw, and I crated them both. Auggie found this immensely unfair. It’s not like HE peed on the carpet. Why does HE have to go in the crate. Normally we get one-on-one time at night after I crate her because he’s SPECIAL. Now he had to sit in his crate and pout next to that crazy girl because SHE peed on the floor and we didn’t GET our special time.
They were right back at it again this morning with the pouncing back and forth and play-bows until I ended the game by putting Auggie on my bed, because he kept turning around and diving into my legs, and he HURTS. Probably why she still can’t decide if she really wants to commit to playing with him. He’s kind of like a miniature cannon ball.
Pepper has been living in the smaller crate that I use for agility trials. I am going to one this weekend and am actually leaving right after work, and I like to load up whatever I can in the car the night before… so I got out the HUGE crate I bought for Happy when they were living here and was going to switch Pepper into that and fold up the agility crate. So I had my mom holding Pepper while I tore down the agility crate before I could set up the giant crate, took the agility crate and set it by the door (where it always sits when I am getting stuff ready to load into the car) and looked over at Auggie in his crate and said “There. Do you know what that means?”
Mom: “He’s smiling.”
Me: “He knows that means he’s going with me.”
Mom: “I think he thinks it means Pepper’s going away.”
Little sisters are soooooo annoying.
Crazy Banzai Twins, Part 2
I want to teach Auggie to jump over Pepper. She doesn’t find this highly amusing, but AUGGIE AND I SURE DO!! Actually he did it by accident but it cracked me up so I asked if he’d do it again, and he did, and ohhhh it’s so funny, and Auggie looks so proud of himself after jumping over her back too! Now I want it to be a trick.
And all it requires of Pepper is teaching her to stand still, which might be easier said than done.
I talked to Auggie’s breeder and she thinks Pepper might be coming into season. This would explain why she suddenly and randomly loses interest in food, some of her bizarre behaviour (like suddenly becoming terrified of a photo of Auggie I have sitting down near the floor that has been there ever since she arrived…) and Auggie’s determination to hump her. So we will have to just keep an eye on her and see if things start to change.
Also, at the time of writing this, she is ASLEEP under my desk. Head down on the floor and everything, not sitting or laying there with her head up like a tightly wound rubber band, but actually zzzzz-ing away. FINALLY!
The Crazy Banzai Twins
We are continuing to ruin Pepper’s life. (I like to imagine her as Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday. “You’re ruining my liiiiiife-uh!”)
First of all, she is finally starting to seriously think about playing and has even grabbed toys a few times… but the games never last very long and she doesn’t seem to want to actually grab a toy while Auggie has ahold of it (and definitely no tug games.) Auggie thinks the answer to this is to run after her and throw toys at her, and when she still won’t bite, bark in her face and pounce at her and sometimes hump her.
This does not amuse the Pepper.
In fact she seems distressed at the thought that she may want to play with Auggie. She play bows at him, and then immediately looks confused. She grabs at a toy he has, then drops it immediately and looks confused. It’s not really funny but at the same time it is also hilarious. INCREASING DESIRES TO PLAY WITH THE CRAZY AUGGIE IS CAUSE FOR ALARM.
Second, I STILL can’t get it through my thick skull that she is not Auggie and I can’t play with her the way I play with Auggie… She was getting a drink in the other room but I got up to make sure that was all she was doing, and when I walked behind her she startled. My response to this was to make it into a game, so I started jumping at her, all “IIIIII’M gonna getcha!!!!” She was game to hop around and let me chase her, but the game took a terrible turn when our chase led into my bedroom, she realized she was cornered at a dead end, and she then flattened herself to the floor like I was going to murder her. *beats head against wall* So… no chasing games, unless we’re outside most likely where she isn’t likely to end up cornered. (Auggie’s response when cornered, just for comparison, is to turn into wiggly giggly puppy and do his best to squirm past me so we can resume the chase.) Derp derp.
I said I’d give her two weeks to learn to play with Auggie, and this Saturday will have been two weeks. Mom is voting one more week, or at least that’s what she said yesterday. I haven’t asked for Dad’s vote yet. Next Thursday night Auggie and I are packing up to go to an agility trial for the weekend and I’m worried about what to do with her while I’m gone if she’s still here. I don’t know if I want to take her. For one thing I’m looking forward to one-on-one time, just Auggie and me. For another I don’t know if she would do okay being at an agility trial all day, and we’re inside so it will be LOUD… and of course Sunday we are supposed to go do herding so… what to do with her? I don’t know if I want to leave her here or take her to her breeder’s for the weekend or what.
I don’t know what to do about her. She drives me batty by not letting me out of her sight. I’ve stepped on her and tripped over her probably fifty or sixty times just this week because she is always glued so tightly to me (if I step on her enough times she’ll eventually figure out to not stick to me so closely, right? Right..?) She is in so many ways the exact opposite of Auggie and the opposite of the kind of dog I want.
But I love her.
