Attempt at Pretty, Round 2
Sigh… really? What kind of face is that?
I would kind of like something that doesn’t look like every other photo I’ve already taken.
The one semi-pretty shot we got.
The rest of them all looked like this because as soon as I started to get down towards ground level she would jump up, run over, and climb all over me.
No Auggie photos because he was off somewhere eating grass this time. Or staring at a rock. I found him in the back of the yard just staring intently at a rock. I think there may have been a bug on it or something and it crawled away and he was waiting for it to come back. At least I hope so, because otherwise he was just staring intently at a rock for no reason.
Photo Attempts
I have a pretty girl dog so I should be able to take pretty, girly photos now… right?
Uhhh…
Dang it all.
Auggie would like to demonstrate how you do this whole “pretty photo” thing.
And I mean he was pullin’ out the big guns and everything. Sheesh.
I gave up on trying to get pretty photos and just started throwing the tennis ball instead. She has her very own pink tennis ball but I left it in the house (I don’t want it to get gross), and I was kind of surprised she was fetching this one for me. It’s nasty and gross and I’m sure it tastes of Auggie slobber and outside-ickiness. But she was game, so we kept playing with it until it started thundering and I packed it in to go back to work.
If you didn’t know better, it might look like they’re playing
Hurray!
She’s too slow – and if you only knew the struggles Auggie & I have been having you would think it very funny that Pepper is too slow for Auggie…
PEPPER DERPFACE
What you don’t see is that Auggie actually turned around and ran the other direction around the jump chute to me after this because he finally realized tearing after her at top speed wasn’t actually going to influence her to play with him.
She did actually grab the tennis ball in her mouth ONCE and took a few steps towards me with it in her mouth. Unfortunately as a result of seeing her actually grab the tennis ball in her mouth I started throwing a “OH GOOD GIRL PEPPER!!” party and I think that terrified her, LOL. *facepalm*
Between Auggie, who apparently thinks the best way to initiate play is to divebomb her at top speed from across the yard, and me, who hasn’t yet learned that when she does something slightly brave that loud and exciting is probably NOT the best way to encourage her, I’m pretty sure she’s right – she IS living in a horror movie, and the Crazy Banzai Twins are ruining her life…
Needs More Pepper
I purchased… some things.
Pink things.
In preparation for this:
Pepper has returned for Attempt #2.
She is pretty much stuck like glue to me so I couldn’t get far enough away to take many photos of her. I took a few that would have been great if they weren’t overexposed, because like a moron I started shooting based off my settings from a previous overcast day, so I lost about 15 photos before I realized I was off. And yeah, I realize even some of these are overexposed too.
My dog is incredibly undignified.
These were after I took some shots and told Pepper “You’re so pretty!” I guess he wanted to prove how un-pretty he is.
And seriously. Can you blame her for not wanting to play with this thing? I mean really.
Attempt at a pretty Auggie…
Auggie and I have decided we are going to basically carry on our lives as though she is no big deal, and she’s just going to have to deal with it. If she won’t play with him, too bad… we are going to play and she can just sit and watch!
BALL
Ball is smelly (and also it needs some more air put in it.)
Auggie is perhaps a little unimpressed with all this, but he’s being a good sport.
Kinda.
Awkward expressions brought to you by… Pepper!
Another attempt at pretty Auggie.
MOAR BALL
Pepper thought she MIGHT want to play… then changed her mind.
Auggie: YAAAAAAAAAAAAY
Pepper: God you are so weird.
This is just how it is, LOL.
I love that she has white whiskers.
Snowtiems wit Auggiedoggie
Ohhhh hai. Is snowtiems wit Auggie!
Dis kinda deep snow.
HAVIN HARD TIME GETTIN ROUND HERE
kay now I run wheeeee!
Wheeeee! (ahhhh pure Auggie joy!)
Kay dats enuf.
No really. I ran in it once. Is okay.
No wai. Not going back out dere.
Mama said “desperate times call for desperate measures.” Then she picked me up and put me here in the snow. WHY???
Now what?
Gramma shovelin’ the driveway.
No, don’t wanna play in too deep snow.
No is kinda cold on my belly when I get in.
Why you do dis to me Mommy?
You throw me in another pile of snow. I ignore you.
WHY, Mommy? WHY?
Why you on other side of fence. Where you goin. Dis stuff is cold and I has snowballs on my feets.
Okay now we go inside. END OF SNOWTIEMS WIT AUGGIE.
Something came to visit
Her name is Pepper.
Auggie loved her.
She thought Auggie was stupid… and she might be right.
Auggie’s like OOOOMG PLAY WITH MEEEEE and she’s like “ew no you’re weird.”
Auggie says “but but but…”
She’s so dark on her back, just like Kota. My mom was watching us play in the yard out the kitchen window, and I called Pepper and she ran across the yard to me and jumped up to give me kisses. My mom could only see Pepper from behind and when I came back in she was kind of choked up and said “For a minute there it looked like you and Kota.” Then she looks at Pepper and says “Kota didn’t want to play much with Auggie either.” Hahahaha… it’s true.
Auggie’s the biggest flirt in the world and normally ALL the bitches love him, but he is really stumped that Pepper doesn’t want to play. I think she will play with him tomorrow. Today she is just trying to get settled in here I think. She kind of has acted like she wants to play with him some but just isn’t sure. In Pepper’s defense the dog is in fact an idiot. He has run into the wall like four times in his zoomies.
Auggie is currently trying his hardest… tailwagging everywhere and she looks mildly interested… then he just barked and playbowed and she walked away. So he got a toy and she’s looking at it but won’t touch it. Poor poor Auggie.
Auggie says “this one is broken can I have another?”
I’m not kidding, he just tried to get her to play again, and when she wouldn’t he turned to me and barked in my face.
Auggie’s pumpkin break
I took these when I came home for my lunch break one day…
Slightly guilty face… he was trying to sneak a nibble on the pumpkin stem.
I did the exact same thing I did last year – set up the pumpkins too far apart. Again, I apparently think I have more than one dog. Two dogs would fill that space perfectly. Two and a small puppy.
LOL
LOOOOOL
SQUIRREL????
Serious Auggie is serious.
Lookin’ at a little punkin…
Lookin’ at a big punkin…
“Pfeh” says Auggie. This is in response to me trying to make him put his paws up on the pumpkin. He says no wai.
I think this is a good photo for everybody that meets Auggie and goes “OMG, he’s SO MUCH SMALLER than I thought!” It gives an idea of scale…
That’s it! Nothing spectacular but what can you do. I only had like ten minutes before I needed to go back to work.
Also he tried to nom my knee while I was carrying the pumpkins out to the yard. Thanks Auggie.
More bad bad bad Auggiemonster
I wanted to take some funny pics of Auggie with his Fetching Tag to send to the company so I got out his Auggles.
Then, while I was at it, we got some outtakes…
And a couple of other good shots.
I’s not up to n-e-thing. I’s good dog. Not brat at alls.
Auggie gets a Fetching Tag
I ordered Auggie a tag from Fetching Tags. I wanted one for a while but wasn’t positive what to put on it. The first thing I came up with was “bad bad bad to the bone.” “Why bad bad bad?” my mom asked. “The song goes b-b-b-b-bad.” “Yes,” I answered, “but Auggie is a bad, bad, BAD dog.”
I kept changing my mind though. Maybe something to do with sheep. Maybe a tennis ball obsession reference. Something about being a brat? Something about being a boy dog and he can’t HELP it if he’s pretty, he’s NOT a girl? Or maybe simply “bitches love me?”
But for some reason, I just kept coming back to “bad bad bad to the bone.” I couldn’t get past it. So I finally decided to take the plunge and order it… and here it is.
How it will normally sit, since he wears a martingale – his tags normally rest near his shoulders.
Talkin’ back about something… he wanted the cookie I had. I believe I asked him if he wanted it and this was “yes I wants the cookie.”
It was windy and it kept messing up my shot by blowing his fur in the way, LOL.
Of course, he has so much fur, this is sort of how it’s going to look normally…
or like this…
Just the tag. Oh my God I just love it.
The back of the tag with my phone number… and you better believe I wanted the little skull icon on there! That just makes the whole thing complete.
I LOVE this tag. I ordered the medium size for Auggie because I figured that was the only way to get the whole tagline to fit, and I’m glad I did. You can actually see the tag under all his fur – not always 100% clearly, but definitely better than anything smaller. It catches attention – people have asked me about it at agility meets. It looks heavy but it’s actually incredibly lightweight. I really couldn’t be happier with this tag.
Have a few more pics from while we were outside-
You has a ball?
Throw the ball.
YES I WANT THE BALL THROW IT
(This is why shelties are “loose eyed” herders… it’s not really an intense stare like a BC has. He REALLY wants the ball in that last one but he still looks like a big snuggleyboo… or maybe that’s just Auggie.)
Do you think adorableness is hereditary?
Because if it is… and I get a puppy from Auggie’s brother… I might be in big trouble.
WHY DOES HE NEVER STOP SMILING
AAAAAH
I think my dog has a perpetual happy.
Can I just say that sometimes, “heart dog” doesn’t even seem sufficient as a way to describe how much I love this dog?
Patriotic Puppy… or, dyeing your dog with sidewalk chalk
You can hardly see the blue. D= It sort of just looks like he killed something. I swear I was going for “red, white, and blue” rather than “murdered a bird and ate it.”
I said “cookie?” to get him to look at me. Does he look like he distrusts me to you..?
You can see the blue here better.
And a few from the day before…
He was so happy until I coloured him with red and blue…..
What Auggie thinks of being coloured with sidewalk chalk.
Auggiemuffin
First really nice day (summer-like!) in a long LONG time. I am so excited.
Auggie needs his ears thinned out. He’s got his rockstar/dreadlock look going on.
I wasn’t trying to be clever or artistic, I was just shooting.
My dog looks ridiculous when he runs because of all that hair, LOL.
I wish this one were in focus. =<
Little monster…
…is up to something. (As usual.)
Ohhhh hai. I’m a cutie.
Are you ready for this next one? Are you sure? Because I own him and I’m not sure I’m ready for it.
sjguijfsdhjlsh adorable
That’s his paw there. He was up on my legs.
<3
Imma lay down here
I look dis way?
Oh I look over here. (LOL weird face. He was making a face at a bird. Trying to figure out if he could catch it and eat it.)
And then there’s these. I didn’t set this up or intend this or anything, he just lay down and I lay down in the grass to shoot. And I took a shot and realized. So I shot a couple more, then hugged my little dog and cried a bit, thinking of a dog that I miss every single day.
Kota has always been Auggie’s hero… Auggie wants to be Kota when he grows up. Looks like he’s on his way to achieving that goal.
Easter Egg Hunting in 2010
Hey look! It’s Auggie hunting Easter eggs and being SUPER EXCITED about it!
Look at his tail… LMAO
This year he remembered *exactly* how to get them open and get his treats out.
AN EGGS *tail wag*
I sit for egg?
NOM EGG
Sitting nicely with his basket…
It was windy. And this photo just cracks me up because of it. It’s so model-with-a-fan, LOL
Knocking the basket over, as usual…
Pushing it so all the eggs will roll out.
Checking to make sure they’re really empty. =P
I put them all back in and made him lay down next to it. AUGGIE WAS PISSED. He wanted to push the stupid basket over and dump all his eggs out.
I NOMS MY BASKET
ONE good laying down pic (and notice that I had to reposition him on the other side…)
Nomming an egg as his reward for sitting nicely. Because I’m pretty sure I had to grab an egg and hold it up like a treat to get his attention.
(Don’t you love his sheep basket? I bought one for his breeder too because she shares my sheep obsession. I also bought… um… two more to put in storage… because I won’t always just have one dog… so I… I needed more than one sheep basket… DON’T JUDGE ME)
Susan Salo Jumping 1
I haven’t totally abandoned all thought of the Natural Jumping program, but I got both the beginning and advanced jumping DVD’s by Susan Salo for Christmas. So right now I’m learning another method and exploring it. So far I can say that the Natural Jumping program is a very clear regiment of “do this on this day; do this on that day,” and so on and so forth. Susan Salo gives you the tools for your toolbox and you are sort of left to decide which tool you should use when. The disadvantage of this is that somebody who doesn’t know (like me) could easily end up using the screwdriver when they should still be drilling holes.
Obviously there are probably people who would prefer just being given the tools and left to their own devices; personally I liked being able to look at the book and know exactly what to work on with my dog and which point. My plan is to actually try and write up a schedule for myself to try to keep us on track.
Today is the first day I have begun to put into practice training with Susan Salo’s methods (not counting the set-point exercises I’ve been doing since last week and do not have video of.) Today I set up a straight line equal distance grid and worked Auggie through it a few times. It consists of five jumps, set 5′ apart, with the bars at 8″. It went… well… it went I guess.
Here’s video:
Watching these, I think I’m setting him up way too close to the jump. He’s supposed to take one step and then jump… I’m setting him up so close that he’s basically popping out of his sit and over the jump. Ouch. So that is my fault. I’m pretty sure his one-stride on the second and third runs there is a result of that. Not really sure what happened towards the end there where he strides on jump three.
I took a LOT of notes while watching the Beginning Jumping DVD and I need to go back to them to remind myself about troubleshooting and see what I might do here. I think the first thing to do is to drop the bars down to 4″ and work him for a few days at that height… see how he reacts.
Obviously Auggie has major jumping problems and it’s going to take a ton of work to help him one way or another.
I will say that Auggie was REALLY EXCITED to see a jump chute set up again. He kept blowing his sit-stays because he was so super excited to get through these. I don’t know. It’s weird. His confidence isn’t 100% even in the jump chutes but he seems to LOVE jumping. My mom would tell me about times last year when he would go to the back of the yard where I set up the jump chutes and he’d pace around crying and whining at her, because he wanted her to set up the chute so he could go work it.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 10
Week 10 is the beginning of the Problem Solving stage of the jumping program. This stage introduces one stride lengths, bounce distances, long and short strides, and higher verticals and bigger oxers throughout the different weeks. This is where a dog really starts to learn to look ahead and THINK about what is ahead of him rather than just rely on muscle memory to jump the same way every time. During the problem solving weeks, the setup changes each lesson whereas previously all three lessons in a week were the same. However, Clothier doesn’t want you to move on until a dog has basically mastered each lesson. Some dogs might need additional practice rather than just one day/series of six jumps to master a lesson. Auggie needed more practice on lesson 3 in this series… unfortunately, I forgot and moved on to week 11 without really allowing him to master that lesson.
This video shows lesson one, lesson two, and lesson three of week 10. The patterns are different every day and can be found in the book. Week 10 is about teaching one stride lengths, which for Auggie is 45 inches. You’ll see there are still oxers and verticals mixed in, and that jump distances change between two stride lengths and one stride lengths.
As you can see, day three (I should have changed my terminology to lesson three – sorry) is a hot mess more than once. The good news is that Auggie seems to be getting a real kick out of the jumping program anyway, even though the distances between jumps keep changing! And having fun is what it’s all about.
Natural Jumping Method – Week 9
So week 9 is five oxers. No more single bar jumps… every jump in the chute is an oxer.
He does really well navigating smoothly over all five oxers, getting a nice arc over them. Unfortunately he also keeps up with that pattern of stutter-stepping the last jump a majority of the time. Still not sure why he does that. I experimented some with putting a target after the last jump, hoping it might drive him over the jump and remove that stutter-step… didn’t work. So I’m still not sure on the “why” of how he reacts with that final jump.
YEAH SNOW
It’s probably over 3 inches and it’s still snowing last I checked.
SNOWFAEC
I don’t know if you can really see it when this is zoomed out like this, but his hocks were CAKED with snow.
Ayy mateys, my name be Auggie McSnowbeard!
More snowy-beard.
He plunged his head back into the snow and when he came up again, no more snowbeard! How does that work?!
JOLLY BALL TIME
He’d roll it around with his paws a while before deciding to pick it up… weird dog.
Oh hai, I has a this.
WAAAAH SNOW
This is how he ends up with all that snow on his face. PLOOMPF
Oh hai jolly ball
I’m gonna pick you up…
but first…
I’m gonna munch allllll the snow off this handle thing here!
LOOK MOM
I like jolly ball
Stop-animation photography, haha:
AHHHHHHHH
fffffff snow in eyes
I can’t stop laughing at this for some reason.
licklicklicklicklicklick… slightly more sophisticated than the face-plunge.
My little guy <3
More stop-animation photography… this is how Auggie plays in the snow besides plunging in his whole face…
sproing!
sproing!!
Repeat sproinging.
Sproing EVERYWHERE
ALL OVER THE YARD
THE END
In the leaves
It seems the new Midwest fall tradition is cold and rainy all the time. It was a struggle finding a day where it was dry, the ground/leaves were dry, and that my dad didn’t go out and mulch up all the leaves so I had none to play with for the photos. So here we go!
Auggie Halloween 2009
Last year after I knit his dinosaur costume, I figured I would knit up a bumblebee for 2009. Well, I never really got around to feeling like I wanted to knit… so I didn’t. I have one of those ridiculous hot dog costumes I got at Target last year for 75% off and figured I would just put that on him. And then I couldn’t find it! So I dug around trying to find some other goodies, and located… well…
This little vampire cloak that I also got at Target (YES I LOVE TARGET) last year for $1. I also attempted a pumpkin costume that I got for $1, but he was having none of that… none. of. that. This, however, he was quite happy to wear, so he got to be a vampire this year.
While taking Halloween photos in the living room, I somehow failed to notice until editing the photos that night the record sitting in the front of the record box in the background is… Thriller.
Which is funny considering when I carved my pumpkin, I decided to go with a theme of… Thriller.
Distracted by squirrels behind me. My mom’s pumpkin of ghosts and monsters is on the left; mine is of course the Thriller pumpkin on the right.
Regal vampire puppy is regal. The other pumpkin and gourd are decorated with these little stick-in things my mom bought. I think her plan with the gourd was to carve it into a dragon… it turned out way cooler this way, I think!
Pondering sucking someone’s blood!
Plan for 2010 is a shark. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll get around to the bumblebee.
Auggie and pumpkins photo shoot
I took this one afternoon when I came home for lunch to sit outside with Auggie because the weather was GORGEOUS. He wasn’t very interested in the camera so this is the only one I took.
Then I attempted a photoshoot with uncarved pumpkins… and he still wasn’t very interested in the camera. So I grabbed a leaf and started twirling it at him to get his attention. He looks very untrusting here, LOL. Like “I want that leaf… but what must I do to get it?? Hmmm…”
Unfortunately a little poorly focused.
Sadly, this one is poorly focused too…
His face cracks me up in this one. He kept trying to sneak little chews on the pumpkin stems… this is his “I’m not doing anything… la la la… chew chew… la la la…” face.
Argh! More not-properly-focused!
I guess for some reason I thought I had two more dogs, and that’s why the pumpkins are spaced so far apart… either that or I was hallucinating that my dog is much bigger than he is.
Not sure what was going on here, he sort of looks like he hates the pumpkin and can’t stand to be in the photo with it, LOL.
And finally…
I don’t know what it is about this one, but I very much love it.
Caramel Apples
A while back I started a new tradition with Auggie. It started one night when I climbed onto my bed to watch TV and eat a caramel apple, and Auggie wanted to come up on the bed with me. So I ate the apple and he lay next to me watching.
Now, when I eat caramel apples, I don’t eat the entire apple. I eat the outer portion of the apple – I try to get a good balance of caramel, peanuts, and apples in each bite, so usually there’s maybe a quarter of the apple left around the core that I didn’t eat. Or maybe more like half of the apple… depending on what I think a “good balance” is that day.
So I’m sitting there, having finished my caramel apple, and Auggie is sitting next to me. And I realize – hey, there are all kinds of treats that have apples in them. Why not save the waste of the remainder of this apple?
So I held it out to Auggie and he happily bit pieces of it off the stick.
From that point on it was a tradition. I would eat the good stuff and then Auggie got the remainder of the apple when I was done.
So… this is how I share with the Auggie Doggie.
These are the best caramel apples IMO… outside of getting the gourmet expensive ones at the apple orchard.
Mmmmmmm!
Then the Auggie starts to chomp away on it.
I told him “Okay, that’s enough.” He said “Really?”
“REALLY really?”
No, not really really. I gave him the rest.
Just some photographs
I was thinking I wanted to take some photos of Auggie.
The problem is that I’ve had this dog for nearly four years now, and that’s four years worth of photos I’ve taken. And photos of Auggie playing in the backyard start to look the same after four years…
But nevertheless, here’s a few I took that were a bit different.
Thinking carefully about the sausages my mom is pulling off the grill in the background…
Another attempt at replicating a photo I took of Kota years and years ago. I decided after taking this one that I should quit trying to replicate the photo. It’s not going to happen. Auggie’s not Kota and he never will be. This photo is pretty cute, but it doesn’t really touch me the way Kota’s photograph does.
Look! My dog DOES actually have whites to his eyes! Amazing!!
Return to Natural Jumping
Well, I’m cheating it. I know, I know – I have the book, I have read it, I KNOW it says not to cheat and move any faster than she recommends. And I’m cheating it anyway.
As part of our effort to start over in Preferred, I have made a return to the Clothier Natural Jumping Method. Now that I know Auggie’s height (in preferred, for now, anyway) is 12, and I know that we really need to stick with that, I made a plan of how to continue.
And that is to just move the bars up to 12 for the rest of the method.
I DID back up some. I went to the final week of the rhythm lessons, where you have five regular jumps, evenly spaced, and did that for two days.
So here are your videos!
Jumps 4 and 5 are call throughs rather than run bys. On Jump 6, I cut out the less than spectacular shot of my butt running away from the camera, but I ran him through the chute going away from the camera, then turned him around at the end and ran him back up. He was nice and smooth, both ways!
So far, so good!
