Snowy Shelties
I think it’s done dumping on us, but we got a decent amount of snow in a very short amount of time. I came home from work and immediately took the dogs outside. I put their coats on because it was blowing like crazy (the blowing and drifting in the country is going to be a MAJOR problem for people tonight!)
Pepper THINKS she likes this. She certainly likes to lick the snow off the ground.
This was happening.
My Auggie-man.
Pepper is… mmmmmmaybe not a fan of the blowing.
P don’t give a @#(!
Trying to get good photos of Georgie, but it was really cold and she was shivering a lot. I didn’t keep her out very long.
Too bad ’cause she’s super cute LOL.
It just. kept. snowing.
Ahhh baby Pay. I was trying to get him all crazy but whenever I’d grab a handful of snow he’d sit and wait for me to throw it… good dog I guess haha.
More Auggie <3 <3
Auggie was mad because I told him to stop barking at the sound of the salt trucks rolling around the city. =P
“Where is the squirrel Payton?”
“Please throw the snowball, I can’t sit here any longer.”
Baby Georgie. Not impressed by the blowing snow either.
Friends are visiting!
A friend stopped by on her way down to pick up a new puppy, so she, her husband, and her two girls met me at my new house, so her girls could rip around some with my dogs and see if they couldn’t get a little bit tired out, haha. This is the first time I’ve ever taken photos in my backyard there with the sun coming from a different place than it does at my parent’s house, and in early morning light too, so my settings weren’t quite right so a bunch of photos didn’t turn out… but I have some!!
First, this is Payton’s first time able to play in the “big yard.” He likes it.
Auggie has to make sure the grass tastes the same as it does at my parent’s.
I went in the house for a second and left them in the big yard. Pepper does not like being left behind.
Ridiculous ball-catching Payton.
Ball-retrieving Payton. This is the last time Payton was that interested in the ball.
LOL Pepper.
A not-so-stupid looking Pepper.
A Bazinga has appeared! Zing is an Australian Koolie and she is quite pretty.
Sadly my best photos are of their backends chasing after the ball. Or rather, Zing went after the ball, and Payton went after Zing.
More butts!
You can totally see how Payton is barking his head off here. Non-stop barking. The guy who lives behind me is an older gentleman who always tells me he has a sick wife to care for. I’m sure he is going to love Payton.
How most of the photos turned out – boo! Zuma is a petite BC mix, and she joined in the fun – and by fun I mean she told Payton he was obnoxious. Spoiler alert: Payton already knows he’s obnoxious.
At one point Payton realized there was a TREE in this new yard and ran around it barking because there might possibly be a squirrel up there at some point.
Nobody else cared.
“Oh you guys are still chasing the ball?”
More P running after Zing!
Okay, I know this is blurry, but it’s hysterical because Auggie.
More LOL Auggie. He’s like “I am way too old for this you guys.”
Unsure if depositing or removing tennis ball from Zuma mouth.
That’s all that turned out – boo to my crappy camera settings! The girls are super cute and Payton might love Zinga because she doesn’t stop moving and that’s awesome. It was super fun to have friends over to visit our new house and play in the new yard!
Snow!
At last! Not much, but enough to get some photos.
How I discovered 100% Pepper was in season – she sat in the snow, stood up, and left blood behind. YEP that’s what I thought.
Payton nom-noming snow.
More Pepper.
Ack such perfect sits on this puppy.
LOL Snoface.
How much snow can I possibly cram in my mouth??
Throw snowball plz.
Perfect.
Auggie <3
This photo makes me so happy.
Snow makes Auggie frisky. Normally he doesn’t care to play with Payton outside (too many things on the ground to eat) but he plays outside in the snow, haha.
Auggie’s FACE.
Snow makes Auggie so happy he levitates!!
Ahhh boys <3
BROFIGHT
Really really ridiculously good-looking.
Tomorrow I think I will try and get winter coat pics.
Payton agility training 12/26/12
Baby P at the training building tonight.
Need to clean the teeter up some more, he thinks it’s faster to get on by hopping on it halfway. So I’m trying to reward both when he gets on it straight and when he exits. I really should decide if I want a 2o2o or not because I keep changing my mind and it’s going to confuse him…
Some handling stuff at the end and also a blooper clip very last. I laugh every time I see it. I’m so mean.
Sheltie Christmas 2012
Spoiler for anybody who hasn’t gotten my Christmas card yet. These are the photos I shot to pick one to go along with the card:
Christmas Eve… I tried to take some of those “glowing” tree shots and I got laser eyes on all the dogs in several of the photos. So forgive the weird looking eyes in some of these. I thought to myself “I am buying an external flash in the new year!” and then I saw how much they cost and NEVERMIND. I’ll just shoot with the lights on and forget this.
Perfect Auggie.
Little P.
Ahhh Miss Pepper!
And Georgie who was pissing my mom off mostly because she listens to me better than she listens to my mom…
Then I tried close up shots on everybody, which worked better as far as the camera settings went, but since I had my focus on manual because the autofocus kept trying to focus on the tree instead of the dogs, Auggie and Payton didn’t come out in focus. I’m horrible with manual focus. It looks sharp on the preview screen and then bam, out of focus when I open the photo.
That said:
Pepper wins the “cutest Christmas photo” contest this year.
Though Georgie got a pretty cute one too.
Presents!! Payton helping Georgie open her present from me.
I told him to leave her alone and come open his own LOL.
“But I wanna see what SHE got!” Georgie ceases to care because I put a little baggie of treats in their and she only wanted the treats.
I found this gator super cheap at Gordman’s and since he hasn’t managed to tear up Sherman, I bought the gator too.
He pulled it out of the bag by himself.
I think he likes it.
Auggie is an expert at getting his presents out of bags and dragged this shark skin right out and started running around shaking it at people and asking to play TUG. I was thrilled because Auggie isn’t a big tugger, but he wanted to tug with this thing!
Georgie stole the shark (I took it back and told her I’d kill her if she ripped Auggie’s new shark toy) so Auggie got his second present out of the bag – a big sheep ball that is supposed to be extra tough.
Payton’s second present, another gator that makes a grunty-squeak sound. Super annoying so perfect for P. Georgie also tried to immediately rip THIS up so my mom had to take it from Georgie and give it back to Payton.
Auggie went to lay down under the tree once all the presents were cleared away, as is customary since he was a teeny tiny puppy playing chase games with his tiny puppy brother under the tree at his breeder’s house… I admit this moment is always one of my favourites…
Poor Pepper didn’t know how to open her gifts and didn’t want to even stick her head in the bag so I opened them for her. I bought her a pink sheep all of her own. She was too worried about my dad sitting on the floor across the room to play with it though.
Both of her “gifts.” I’m working on getting HER to tug next.
I had a pile of the bows sitting next to me and Payton kept thieving one and running off like it was a ball LOL.
Stockings from this morning! Most of these didn’t turn out but you get the idea…
Auggie got a new ball for the Chuck It!
I bought Pepper another sheep all her own LOL. It’s got long legs so she can tug on it… because again, tug with Pepper = next. She also got a rope bone that tastes like peppermint and she LOVES it. None of the photos of her chewing it turned out though. =< I didn't realize she was going to like it so much but she immediately curled up with it and chewed on it!
Auggie’s other ball, haha. He has a large one of these that we use on a flirt pole, this one is just for fetch AND ALSO FOR TUGGING BECAUSE AUGGIE NOW LIKES TUG SOMETIMES YEAH.
Payton playing with Auggie’s new Chuck It ball. He got a new ball on a rope toy to tug and play with for agility so we tugged with that for a while but he was quite interested in the ball too.
That’s it! Merry Christmas. I didn’t get a puppy. (My mom keeps going YOU DON’T NEED ANOTHER DOG YOU HAVE THREE. YOU DON’T NEED ANOTHER PUPPY YOU HAVE PAYTON. I may not NEED another dog but that doesn’t stop me from WANTING one…)
Santa
Look at Pepper.
She went right up to him to sniff him. I put her on the bench next to him and she sat there no problem.
I can’t get over this.
The other dogs are pretty good too. ;>
Hoodies
So I bought these hoodies for the dogs… Payton’s and Pepper’s were on MEGA clearance (five bucks each!) and Auggie’s was pretty cheap too. I just think they’re cute. It’s warm enough that I was out in just a hoodie today so they all got their hoodies too.
Payton was zooming around in his hoodie and I imagine he was pretending to be a hot rod.
Pepper’s!
It has little wings on the sleeves and everything <3 it's SO CUTE.
And of course Augs has a skull on his. <3
Typical Payton. He got nice and worn out chasing after balls and running after Pepper, he is currently recharging his batteries so he can annoy me in ohhhh probably twenty minutes.
“Tee hee I just peed in my sweatshirt!” Payton’s needs to be altered. *facepalm* Just a touch too long… he peed all over it.
Okay, so Pepper was feeling sassy. This is a series of photos of her yapping at me. Bark
bark
BARK.
This girly. <3
And meanwhile, Payton.
Okay, so I don’t know if anybody remembers, but Pepper likes to hop up and down. Vertical. She does this when she’s really excited (which means not often) but she was doing it today and I was trying to get a photo. Unfortunately she doesn’t stay very far away from me and I had the 50mm on so I wasn’t getting the photo I wanted and was kind of bummed.
Then I opened the photos to see what I got and I think these are even better.
Perfect.
The Pepper I know and love and I wish everybody else could know and love it too.
Since she was thinking about playing and kept running after Payton and his football, I went ahead and got the tennis ball because I know she will play ball if she’s in the right mood…
I love how I’m trying to take a photo of Pepper but Payton is the one who shows up non-blurry.
SHE HAS THE BALL. We played ball for a while then Auggie would spoil it by getting the ball then walking away with it, I’d have to go get the ball from him, throw it a few more times, Auggie spoils the game… repeat.
What? I would NEVER do that. I’m not a jerk.
My best girly. Be still my heart.
Pepper playing ball
Not monumental for most dogs, but Pepper is so goofy about playing it’s a pretty big deal!
And Payton is kind of annoying, sorry. Ignore him.
Trick Training: Spin
This week our trick training challenge is “spin.” Auggie and I worked on this one a few years ago but I never really put a cue on it or had it perfect, so cleaning it up will be Auggie’s challenge this week. I haven’t done this at all with Payton or Pepper.
Once again I just started shaping with Payton, clicking for back end swiveling. Payton already knows “pivot” of course, and starts offering that (it’s one of his favourite tricks to offer.) I decided to go ahead and reward that and see if we can’t turn that into spinning.
I tried to lure Pepper but she isn’t handling my arm going behind her back well, so I decided to just try and shape a head turn instead.
After this video I decided Pepper was just having a hard time and maybe she isn’t ready for something of this level yet. Having only just started clicker training with her a few weeks ago and so far only really doing some targeting work, this might just be too much. So I think Pepper will sit this week out in favour of me trying to shape her to do something else, like maybe climb into a box?
Final video! Just Auggie and Payton:
Both of them can only spin one direction reliably – teaching them to spin both directions is my next task!
Trick Training: “Sit Pretty”
The dog forum I belong to is having a trick training challenge. Each week we get a new trick to work on. This week we had “sit pretty” which is a trick I’ve been wanting to train anyway, so I worked on it with all three dogs. At first I just decided to lure with all three, but that wasn’t working very well for Payton who is quite good at shaping anyway, so I scrapped luring with Payton and switched to shaping. It worked out just fine with him. For both Auggie and Pepper, I lured, and then switched to targeting (which is also more or less luring, I know) my thumb. This will turn into my hand signal for the behaviour at a later point.
On with the videos!
This one has all three dogs in it:
Just Payton in this one:
All three dogs for the “final” version here! Of course we still have some cleaning up to do, but this was the end of the week so this is our final video rather than final version of the trick. Auggie is the one struggling the most with this, but I think physically it’s difficult for him. We’ll keep working on it though.
Auggie is seven
So I am a major idiot and completely forgot what day Auggie’s birthday ACTUALLY was. You would think it would be easy. Auggie 15th, Payton 16th, Pepper 17th. But NO… somehow I thought it was 11/11 instead of 11/15.
So these first few are from Sunday when we had Auggie’s party.
I gets cakey?
Yes you get cakey! These are based off a recipe I make for myself… just a mashed ripe banana, one egg, and some peanut butter, and I microwaved them until they were like a moist cake.
Birthday boy gets to sit at the table.
Okay, since I was originally planning on giving Auggie a caramel apple I got free at work and then I opened the caramel apple to discover it was moldy, I had to hurry up and make the cake in a rush. So I took them out and they were hot so I was blowing on it to cool it off, LOL. Auggie was like DON’T CARE WANT CAKEY.
NOM
Everybody else got theirs out of their bowls.
Pepper… took a bite and I’m not sure if she was surprised it was soft or that it was warm, because she then dropped it on the kitchen floor and ran off.
Don’t worry, Payton will clean it up. (Don’t feel bad he got two, Auggie got two also actually. I gave Auggie one, gave the other dogs one, then Auggie had another while I sat at the table with him and ate one too LOL.)
Georgie!
Happy birthday boy!
Then once I realized TODAY was actually Auggie’s birthday, I knew I needed something better. Payton and I shopped for a present at PetSmart but I didn’t see a toy I thought Auggie would like, so we agreed that a bully stick was the best Auggie Present.
Auggie also agrees.
He also got ALL OTHER DOGS shut out into other rooms while he had a blissful hour+ to just chew his bully stick. He was quite happy with this.
Happy birthday little old man. I hope you stick around for many many more birthdays.
Payton CGC
Wednesday I happened to be browsing around on a local club’s Facebook page and noticed they were having CGC tests the following night. $10 if you weren’t enrolled in a class (which I am not.) Hmm, $10 isn’t a whole lot… I’ll take Payton!
Immediately after I made that decision I started to panic. What am I doing?! This is the dog who sometimes spontaneously decides he hates random stuff that has always been present, like the bag hanging on the coat rack, or if we move something five inches he thinks it’s an intruder in the house and must be barked at. Or we’re out on a walk and WHAT IS THAT ROCK DOING THERE. or THAT PICNIC BENCH. Or THE FIRE HYDRANT.
And then of course sometimes I see stuff that I think “oh Payton is going to think this is bizarre and bark at it” and he completely ignores it.
But it’s just the CGC right? Right? No big deal… right?
Thursday after work I went through the house and found every weird thing I could come up with to play “Look At That” with him. This is a fairly regular game with him; I regularly patrol the Dollar Spot at Target or the Dollar Store and buy anything that looks bizarre or I think he will find weird so we can play. I found a wind-up t-rex that my parents put in my stocking years ago. This Payton did not like but worked through it quite easily. Next I found the old Bumbleball that I got Auggie when he was a puppy and turned it on – that was a piece of cake! Then I grabbed a plastic bag with tennis balls in it and shook that. Who cares! Threw a handful of cookies on the floor. Nope, you can’t fool me.
Okay, cool.
I’M STILL PANICKING.
My next move was to load up Payton in the car and drive to PetSmart so we could practice in a different environment. This is a little bit of cheating because Pay has been to PetSmart a good handful of times, but still, sometimes he sees A Bad Thing at PetSmart and you never know what kind of people or dogs you’ll encounter there, so it’s worth the practice. We did see a man in a wheelchair while there, which he didn’t care about, so that was pretty cool. He did amazing in the store, I was feeling pretty good.
Put him back in the car and he started flipping out at a fire hydrant he saw on the side of the road as we were driving. *facepalm*
We got to the club and got out of the car to a line of people waiting for the doors to open, so I took Payton off in the grass and pottied him and started working. He was doing amazing again so we went closer to the line, where people had dogs freaking out and barking and lunging at other dogs. GREAT. Played more Look At That and he was awesome.
Then we had to get into the building when the doors opened, which meant we had to get actually IN LINE – with all those dogs who were spazzing at other dogs. And spazz dogs make Payton a spazz. I’m not making excuses for my dog, reacting to a reactive dog isn’t a free pass – Auggie doesn’t react to reactive dogs, for example – but “other dogs” aren’t Payton’s, trigger, it’s “other dogs wigging at me.”
My solution was to simply pick him up and hold him until we were in the building and we had more space. I wasn’t going to leave him in line with other dogs stressing around him, making him stressed out. He wasn’t completely calm in my arms but he was a good deal less stressed than if I had left him on the ground, and reducing his stress level to manage his threshold was my goal. Sometimes you have to manage a situation until you have trained through it, so management was my solution at that point in time.
Once we got inside and got my paperwork, I got us settled down in a chair in the corner where we were mostly away from other people and other dogs, and started working on getting him to calm back down. While I filled out my form, Payton had a I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THAT IS I DON’T LIKE IT moment – at the frickin’ CLIPBOARD I was using the fill out my paperwork on. Well this does not bode well. On the other hand, I was able to get him to eat cookies off the clipboard and was able to pick it up and carry it back to the registration desk without him flipping out at it, so we were able to work through it pretty easily.
We watched other people practice for a while and once the floor had cleared out a bit, it was Payton’s turn to practice.
Two things for me to come away from our practice with: One, my dog is not the most reactive dog in the building. Two, my dog may not have the tightest heel in the world, but he does have the most enthusiastic, attentive, happy heel – especially in comparison to some of the other dogs. And this was around OTHER DOGS going spazzo which normally would have him be flipping out. Yes, we were practicing with a handful of cookies (and later with cookies sitting on my chair across the ring) but thinking back to how he reacted at the rally trial in May when I couldn’t even get my dog’s attention back even with cookies right in front of his face, he has definitely made progress.
At this point, I sat down in my chair and thought “It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t get his CGC tonight. This is a win. This is worth it.” I was so immensely proud and he hadn’t even really done anything yet.
Then it was our turn in the ring. Turns out the evaluator was the same evaluator who CGC’d Auggie! We didn’t have a perfect heel in the actual ring, he got more distracted once we were “in the ring.” But he did everything reasonably well – and he was AWESOME in the distraction test! I patted him and told him he was a good boy and he didn’t even really think about reacting to the distractions. The lady dropped a bag full of soda cans pretty much right in front of him, and he just looked offended, like “Why are you throwin’ stuff?” Hardly even looked at the guy hobbling around us on crutches.
The guy who took Payton for supervised separation came back and said “This is the most talkative dog in the world.” Um, uh oh, LOL. Apparently he took Payton in the room and shut the door, and Payton looked at him, muttered something, then turned back to the door and muttered at the door. And kept muttering back and forth. Like “C’mon. We should go back out there. This is boring!” That is apparently NOT a fail, but it was pretty hilarious. Yes, Payton does talk quite a bit. He’s rather obnoxious, I know.
So my Pay has his very first ribbon! I know it’s just the CGC, it’s not like we’ve done anything amazing… but I can’t help being proud when I was anticipating Mr. Horrible Meltdown to come out and play and send us home with me in tears.
YAY PAYTON!
Pro Christmas Pics 2012
Annual Christmas photos were yesterday… huge photo dump impending…
Georgie first! New prop this year, A SLED. OMG.
Serious Auggie is serious. Sigh.
My boy. <3
Aaaaand here we go with the annual “I love my dog a whole lot more than he loves me” photos!
THIS one I think is the winner… I like his face in this one.
Annual “Auggie hates me” photo LOL.
Payton. OMG. LOL.
My HAIR again. I almost cut my bangs before we left to prevent this from happening and I didn’t. Sigh.
Sometimes he is kinda sweet.
I like him a bit.
It’s a PAYTON!!
See, Auggie? PAYTON loves his mommy. PAYTON will give me a kiss on camera.
My little guy. He is sometimes proper…
and sometimes cute.
Slight bit of handsome devil.
I think this is my favourite. He looks naughty. He looks like Payton. XD
This is his “I just licked the floor and there was a bitch sitting here” expression. He was chattering. Stupid intact male dog.
GET IN THE SLED
“Call him, see if I can get him jumping out of the sled,” the photographer said. WELP. Future agility dog in the making LOL.
Peppy girl!
Remedial stays are still in progress. =|
I don’t even know…
SIGH this is what so many of my photos look like LOL. Bad girl.
Hey, THERE’S a cute photo!
Me ‘n my girl. <3
I love love love this photo because of how she’s looking at me. She is MY GIRL… no mistaking it.
And I kinda like her too.
The best of us I think.
Now time for ALL THREE DOGS. This was totally photoshopped together, not gonna lie, and it’s still not even perfect haha.
…oh dear.
“Quick quick, take the photo, I’m losing them!!”
This is my life guys.
I gotta admit it’s pretty hilarious LOL.
Watch me try to direct my dogs without even looking away from the camera. “Payton you come here…”
“…Pepper YOU should lay down too…”
Also shopped. Again, not gonna lie, LOL.
THEN… Auggie’s breeder was there with some of her crew so we tried a big family photo. Top row is Georgie, Pepper, Twizzle (Pepper’s sister, Georgie’s mom) and Twigley (Georgie’s sister.) Bottom row is Payton (Pep/Twizzle’s half-bro, for those who don’t remembered they are related), Raleigh (Auggie’s dad, Georgie’s grandpa), Georgie (Auggie’s grandma, Payton and Georgie’s great-grandma), Quigley (Auggie’s brother, Georgie’s dad), and of course Auggie.
I was behind the table, by the way, holding butts down. The front row was for “dogs who will stay.” I was very proud to be able to put Payton in the front row. Good boy little P.
LOL at the three young boys looking all excited.
OMG Quigley is SO bored of this!
Not sure what they’re looking at, haha.
Pepper will NOT stop sniffing her sister. STOP IT.
This one would probably be good except PEPPER is trying to plot her escape obviously. PEPPER.
I think this is the best one we got.
If only Pep and Twigley were looking at the camera! Georgia gets a pass because she’s mostly deaf and blind so she doesn’t have to look anywhere, she just has to wake up every morning.
THEN Payton decided he wanted to try and get away. He recalls somewhere on that floor a bitch was sitting and he would like to find that spot again please.
But wait, it gets better.
We got Payton to sit back up, then Georgie wanted to lay down.
Again, really close. I might be able to shop something together out of some of there haha.
BUT THEN.
Pepper was like “I BAIL BYE.”
Look at EVERY DOG’S EXPRESSION IN THIS PHOTO. I can’t stop laughing. By the way, Georgie decided since the big girly was bailing she was bailing too.
Payton is like “Crap she’s gonna land on my head! ABORT ABORT”
And poor Grandma doesn’t even know what’s happening LOL. (LOL at my arm in this one haha.)
The really funny part? Pepper jumps down so Georgie jumps down and then Twigley got down and everybody else was up and running around and we’re laughing and I’m like OF COURSE IT WAS PEPPER WHO RUINED IT ALL
And then I sit up and look down.
And there is Auggie.
Still sitting, still staying, right where I told him to sit and stay.
AUGGIE IS THE BESTEST BOY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.
Payton “cop-cop” training – again!
It’s been a while since we worked on this trick, but I haven’t forgotten about it. I still think it’s a really cute trick so we came back to work on it some more.
Here’s two videos of us working on it:
Apologies for this one where you can’t even see my feet, I realize how completely unhelpful that is!
Halloween Costumes
I was trying to decide what Pepper should be when I browsed PetSmart’s website and saw this. Then I went there and they had one in her size and it was 75% off.
PAYTON GET OUT OF THE SHOT. STOP TRYING TO EAT THE PUMPKIN STEMS.
She’s supposed to be Wonder Woman anyway. Since all my dogs get superhero alter egos. But I could totally fashion a better Lasso of Truth for her…
Look, I don’t know what Auggie is, okay? I just saw those pirate socks and they were cute, and also that shark fin was like two bucks. He’s a pirate eating shark. Or maybe he’s a pirate ship in disguise.
Look it really doesn’t matter because he’s Auggie and he’s awesome and adorable so who cares.
I have cuffs that I intended to put on him too… somewhere. I have no idea where they are. =< So he just gets to wear his tie.
The idea is that it goes with his registered name and all. Y’know. Sharp Dressed Man? Silk suit… black tie… don’t need a reason why…
Yes, Payton. We all know. Thank you.
Georgie has a sock monkey hoodie, by the way. We bought it at Old Navy. It’s adorable. No pics because she’s annoying (I’ll get some later.)
Punkin Pictures
I bought pumpkins yesterday morning. They were on mega sale so I was like “I will take all your pumpkins plz.” Actually I only bought five, but I wanted more…
Uhhhh unfortunately most of our family photos looked like this.
This was the best I got, haha. Pepper needs remedial stays again.
Just the boys <3
Auggie saw all the pumpkins and the leaf pile and was like “Oh. *strike a pose*” He just knows… he knows. What a good boy.
I told Payton his turn was next and he decided this is what he wanted to do. Also pivots using the pumpkin as his perch. I’m not sure if I should facepalm or be proud.
Since Payton started it I asked Georgie to do the same thing. SHE IS SO CUTE AHHH
Not in focus =< but it's sooooo cute.
The over-achiever, LOL. Oh Auggie.
Aaaaaand the under-achiever, haha. Poor Pep.
Leaf Pictures
I may have a good reason to re-do the family photos this weekend…
Boys! LOL at Payton with a leaf stuck to him.
All three puppers.
Excuse me while my big dog is devastatingly handsome.
Auggie is the bestest boy.
Seriously, it’s kinda ridiculous how good looking he is. Not even a show dog, Augs.
Oh? But I so pretty.
Yeah, he definitely knows he’s a handsome boy.
And then there’s this thing.
This…
…thing.
I guess he’s kinda cute. Maybe I’ll keep him.
Oh fffffffff seriously? Fine you can stay.
Yeah okay, he’s sorta handsome too sometimes.
But only sometimes.
the rest of the time… uh…
That’s okay. I pretty much like him anyway.
Girly!!
She’s actually very good at posing all by herself, but when you try and get them all together, she can’t hold still.
Yeah she’s pretty cute too.
The end… for now…
Payton learning “shake”
Yeah, yeah, so my puppy is almost a year and a half old and I never bothered to teach him “shake.” I realized this is an issue when I told Payton he might need to start performing tricks on the side of the road to make us money, and then remembered HE DOESN’T REALLY KNOW ANY TRICKS. Are people really going to be impressed by a dog who can sit, stay, and do weave poles? I didn’t think so.
Well, if he’s going to do tricks to bring home the bacon, I guess I’d better train him up. I mean, he should at LEAST be able to shake.
Right off the bat I kept missing opportunities to reward him. DERP. I also realized I shouldn’t have been rewarding with the same hand I wanted him to “shake” – I was using that hand because the clicker was in my other hand, but rewarding with my right hand meant every time I wanted to reward him I had to take my hand (the target) AWAY. Not what I wanted to do! So I switched reward hands.
Obviously the trick isn’t 100% done by the end of this video, but I’ve got the behaviour I’m looking for! Next is to continue to reinforce it in different locations, and then to put it on cue and name it.
Next: “roll over.” Which is always hilarious to see Auggie do because he kind of THROWS himself over. We’ll see if Payton will be any better at it!
Weavin’ Wednesdays
(Sing this to the tune of Maroon 5’s “Payphone.” Without Adam Levine’s really horrible falsetto. Think of Ne-Yo’s falsetto instead. Yeah, that’s it. Now sing.)
I’ve got a Payton, tryin’ to train him,
All of my change I spent on treats
Where has his brain gone,
Baby it’s all wrong,
Tryin’ to do these two by twos
Unfortunately every time I hear that song I FREAK out and practically kill myself trying to change the station, so I can’t parody the rest of the song because I have no idea how it goes.
BUT THAT IS NOT IMPORTANT.
LOOK AT THIS VIDEO.
Make sure you watch all the way to the end!
HE DID IT! Payton can weave!! This is the only time Payton is allowed to say “LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!” Yeaaaaaaah Pay!!
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. =<
Wordless Wednesdays – Weave Pole Wednesdays? 09/12/12
Today was (is?) the premier of WORDLESS WEDNESDAYS. No words, just a photo. Except today is also… weave pole Wednesday. I had this idea ages ago when I was starting the 2x2s, posting all about Payton’s weave pole progress and eventually posting some weave pole exercises. But of course the 2x2s didn’t work out and we took a break from weave poles for a while.
Well, the other day Payton was running laps in the yard and came by the weave poles, hit the entry, and weaved two poles. Just hit the entry and weaved two straight up and down poles for no real reason at top speed. I almost fell off the deck I was so amazed. So I decided it was probably time to get back to training them.
Today we did three sessions with the clicker and shaping them, using a bit of weave-a-matic action to help us out. He is doing fantastic, getting low, going fast, and even one-footing a bit. Not too shabby for a dog who hasn’t seen weaves in months. I’m very thrilled with him and hope we will see some pretty amazing rapid learning over the next few weeks.
So instead of just WORDLESS WEDNESDAYS where I will post “just” a picture, I think I will also go ahead with WEAVE POLE WEDNESDAYS for a while and update on Payton’s progress with the weaves. Enjoy this week’s photo and some weavin’ action.
He did it!!!
PAYTON JUMPED INTO THE LAKE!!
We went out last weekend and tried to get him off the baby dock (it’s maybe a foot to the water, and only about a foot of water) and he wasn’t really game. I lowered him in so he would see it wasn’t deep but he still wasn’t game. He DID want to go play in the shallows, there’s a place where people can slide their boats into the water and he was all about playing there, but jumping into the lake… nope.
So I tried again today since it’s supposed to rain and storm all weekend. The first time he actually FELL in. OMFG hahaha. But the second time he actually edged up to it then hopped/slid in. At first I thought it was an accident because he looked shocked when he was standing there… but then he came around the dock and up onto the shore and looked at me, and I was going NUTS and gave him a whole handful of cookies… and he ran back to the edge, looked thoughtful for a second, then hopped in. Again I shoved a handful of cookies in his face, while he was in the water this time – the time before he looked so shocked he didn’t want them – and he came running back up on the shore again, ran to the edge of the dock, looked at me like “Do you see this??” and JUMPED IN.
And he did it again, and again, and again. And every time he came back to the shore like =D =D DID YOU SEE WHAT I JUST DID MOM
I only let him jump in about six times, he kept wanting to jump in but I knew rain was on it’s way and I didn’t want to over do it the very first time. So I toweled him off and we came back home (and just beat the rain.)
I can’t stop smiling. I was so proud and excited I almost cried.
HE JUMPED IN THE LAKE AHHHH
Payton AND Auggie at the lake!
I was packing our swimmy bag and put Auggie in his crate. He cried like he normally does when I’m going somewhere with Payton and without him. Mom and I went outside to put our sunscreen on and he started crying louder. “I think he wants to go, but he has no idea,” I said.
We came back inside to grab our stuff and Mom said “He wants to go…”
So we took Auggie with us.
Payton went in the swimmy first of course.
And yes, if you’re wondering, I convinced my mom to go because I REALLY wanted her to take photos of Payton swimming.
Cute puppy <3
My little guy. He looks so proud of himself when he reaches the shore. Like =D =D =D LOOK WHAT I CAN DO
Then… guess who had to swim next.
“Okay, I THOUGHT I wanted to go… I didn’t want to go.”
“OMG I thought I would never make it to shore.”
Payton actually chose to swim OUT away from the shore today. Especially after I had just taken Auggie in. Because while I was in the lake with Auggie Payton was on the shore SCREAMING “THAT’S MY SWIMMY GET OUT OF MY SWIMMY THIS ISN’T FAIR.”
I have no idea what’s going on here but I think it’s a cute picture of us so there.
Happy swimming Payton…
So yeah, this is how Payton swims still, LOL. Flailing a bit, butt sinking down, searching a bit for when he hits the ground to push off – it’s like a hop-swim. Sometimes if he’s in really deep water he will even out and just swim. I think he just needs more practice in deep water where he has to REALLY swim rather than shallows or my little pool where he can kick off the ground… or maybe not, since he loves the pool too, and who am I to tell him what not to do when he loves it?
He really does love it.
THE BUMPER! We had major success with the bumper today. He played with the bumper IN the water which he wouldn’t do last weekend.
AND he would even reach down and grab it from the water and retrieve it for me! We celebrated each retrieve with a huge game of tug. There is no public dock for me to use here, but there is a ledge. I decided the next best thing was to put Payton on the dock, toss the bumper into the lake, and tell him “get the bumper!” He would jump down off the ledge then run into the water to get the bumper and bring it back to me. Hey, it’s close, LOL.
Auggie LOLOLOL. I don’t know why I always find Auggie’s disdain so amusing… sorry Augs.
So my mom came up with this GREAT idea… racing. LOL.
I call Auggie my little tugboat… because he just churns along, smooth and steady. Honestly Auggie is the far better swimmer of the two.
And Payton meanwhile tries to catch some air when he swims LOL.
Auggie won EVERY race we had, by the way. Including when Payton had a head start. LMAO. I’m not sure if I should say “oh Payton” or “oh Auggie” here.
I do believe this photo sums up both their feelings on swimming quite well.
My dirty FILTHY dog!
I’m totally sending this one to his breeder. “Oh his sister is winning at conformation shows? That’s awesome! Here’s mine.”
And if you’re curious how he got that way – like this. Including rolling ON HIS BACK and wookie noising. NOW I definitely know I should say “oh Payton.”
I feel like Payton is coming along well for sure. I’m hoping to take a few trips to the small dock at a local lake (not nearly as big as this one and I can’t swim in it) and see if I can’t get him to jump off the dock and snag me the bumper. It’s not into deep water but it’s a dock nonetheless. Baby steps. The Dock Dogs event I want to take him to is in TWO weekends… so we shall see.
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.
