Pool time
First, a handful of pictures from yesterday…
Auggie still takes better posed shots than Payton LOL. He’s such a supermodel.
A dur durr?
Then we got out the pool. I bought these at Target last week… pool Weebles. They wobble but they won’t sink. I thought they would be fun.
Payton says OMG THEY ARE WOBBLING
Georgie isn’t sure what to think…
Payton says “I bite?”
Every time he would go to grab one it would bob into the water. He had no idea how to deal with this hahaha.
Why does it keep running away??
I’ll just hop into the pool…
Payton is my pool puppy. He likes it. He’ll go run laps and then hop in the pool, go run laps, hop in the pool. No big deal.
Dribbles. Nice.
What? Who’s being gross?
I want to get this ducky.
Look who else is in the pool!!
Auggie hates the pool but yesterday I grabbed some treats and a clicker and taught him “get in the pool.” He did this on his own today… he walked up and kept looking in the pool and thinking about it, and finally, he climbed in. It’s just so HOT.
Hmm, it’s much cooler in here.
And all I have to do is lean over and get a drinky.
I’m not really sure what the big deal is actually.
I quite like it actually now that I’m in here.
Aaaaaahhhhh Auggie <3 <3
Somehow Payton splashed around so much he got his eyebrow wet. But only ONE eyebrow. WTF Payton.
LMAO we were trying to clicker Georgie into the pool too. She wasn’t doing it for treats though, we finally had to get out frozen green beans. Auggie also loves frozen green beans. Trying to give the green bean JUST to Georgie was funny LOL. Her face, and Auggie’s, hahahahaha.
Auggie’s face again LOL. I love how Payton’s like “mine?”
Happy Auggie!!
Payton will even sit in the pool LOL. “The water is cold on mah balls. I likes it.” Weird dog.
My Auggie <3 I'm so proud of him for getting in the pool all on his own today. I think he's going to get in it a lot more this year, so hopefully he'll be able to keep cool!!
Guess who’s having a birthday?
What’s a birthday??
Is THIS a birthday?
I think I like birthdays.
OMG… I think my birthday is gone already.
Auggie got his piece of cupcake on the deck instead of on the table, LOL. Poor Auggie. But it’s not your birthday.
Is there more birthday?
Mommy… I want more birthday. Make more birthday.
OMG Auggie I seriously cannot stop laughing at this picture. Like I’m in tears every time I see it.
Auggie: Birthdays are super fun!! I LIKE CAKE.
Payton: You smell like birthday.
Payton: No, seriously. I think you have some birthday in your mouth.
I think this may be the best photo I’ve ever taken. Ever.
Payton: I think you stashed some of my birthday here.
Payton: Mmmmm… brothers are delicious and taste like birthday.
I was waiting for Auggie to be like “I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU TRYING TO GET ALL THE CAKE OUT OF MY MANE” and kick his butt, but it never happened. Birthdays put everybody in a good mood I guess! They wanted to stay outside and look for crumbs when I ate my lunch, and when I came outside later, Auggie’s mane was all drooled on from Payton licking and trying to get crumbs and frosting off him.
Later Payton will get his presents, but I just happened to have his cake now, so I gave him that already. Also Georgie wouldn’t behave (read: wouldn’t sit still and wear the hat) so she didn’t get any cake. >=| NO BIRTHDAY HAT, NO BIRTHDAY CAKE.
Stupid dog tricks
My sister came over yesterday to spend Mother’s Day with our mom. While sitting in the backyard watching Auggie chase bubbles, she said, “Why do you have that car??”
Because this.
She and my BIL have adopted a puppy who is due to come home Memorial Day weekend. Collie/lab/aussie/maybe some other stuff mix, nobody is really sure. I told her she should bring her puppy over and do this. Because that is what I bought it for.
And this. Payton… drivin’ the Little Tikes car like a boss.
Also I took Payton to PetSmart Saturday so he could try on some beds, see if we could find one that fits him. No beds we liked, but Payton requested a tennis ball on a ropey bone (seriously, I offered it to him and he jumped up and grabbed it to tug, so I put it in my basket. I kept holding out other toys to him later, and he’d just kind of look at it, then be like “I like the one we already have in the basket. *looks in the basket at boney ball.* <3 oh boney ball <3 <3") Anyway, at the register the girl asked how old Payton was and then asked me where we do our training.
"Oh, uh, I train him myself," I said, kind of offhand, because it's always just kinda awkward to get into a conversation in there about how I'm a trainer at a training facility the next town over.
And then I got the patronizing "oh right, you train yourself. Right. Idiot." look. I think I prefer the awkward conversations about me being a trainer the next town over.
So then I came home and taught my dogs to do this.
I’m SUPER proud of Payton. It only took a few minutes. Auggie I knew would get it almost right away, he’s the rockstar. But Payton has never been taught to get UP on something like this and pretty quickly he offered climbing up on it for me. Yay Payton!!
Then we put the dogs IN the bucket.
Payton thinks it’s hi-laaaaarious. Auggie remembers the days of being an only dog.
OMG.
Poor Georgie LOL. And poor Payton. He looks HUGE.
Just Georgie and Uncle Auggie. Auggie still remembers the days of being an only dog.
Then we couldn’t get Auggie to jump out of the bucket LOL. He was like “no, I’m just going to stay here, and remember what it was like when I was the one getting ALL the cookies…”
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.
My poor little guy
Payton’s last dose of flagyl was Tuesday… last night at 2:30AM I was up cleaning runny poo off my carpet yet again. =< Lucky me, I hadn't even taken the crate back downstairs from the previous week, so I brought it into my bedroom and started setting it up for him. He actually started CRYING when I was setting it up. He went into it willingly and settled down easily and fell asleep once I got it set up, but he really doesn't like being in the crate. He likes curling up with me right when we get into bed, then jumps down and sleeps on the floor... then in the early morning he jumps back up and snuggles some more before I get up. When he's crated he just stares at me from the crate with his ears back a little like he's pouting. But I never thought he would CRY when he saw me setting the crate up. =< Poor baby. The sad thing is, he's just going to have to be crated at night until we get his tummy figured out. So he's going to be really unhappy for a while. I'm not very happy about it either, I like having him snuggle up in the mornings. =/ Booooo. On the one up side, I contacted Auggie's chiropractor and asked for a second opinion from her. She agrees it's clostridium and has prescribed a nice chunk of stuff for him. Tylan powder for a while, B12 injections, and two herbal formulas. Whew! Getting stuff out of the cabinet to feed the dogs looks like I've raided a pharmacy. And to make matters worse, when I left for lunch my plan was to go to the vet's office and pick up the stuff my other vet called in for them to have ready for me, then go home, let the dogs out to potty, reheat my lunch, eat it, then come back to work. By the time I get home - too late! Payton had crapped in his crate. So I spent the rest of my lunch break cleaning out his crate instead. I kept trying to decide if I should just bring Payton back to work with me so I could watch him and take him outside HERE if I needed to, but ultimately decided I would just give him some Pepto and leave him at home. Then the poor little guy spat Pepto all over my clothes and that EFFING white carpet that I swear I'm just going to flip out about one day and rip up with my bare hands. Did I mention I'm running a 5K tonight? I managed to pop my lunch into the pizza oven and warm it up while I was syringing in the Pepto, then threw it in a Tupperware container and came back to work and ate at my desk. And now my stomach hurts because I'm so stressed out and worried. Worried about having left Payton at home instead of bringing him here where I can watch him. Worried I'm going to come home and he'll have crapped all over his crate and all over HIMSELF, and I don't know where I'm going to fit time to give him a bath. Worried he's going to be sick all night tonight when I'm trying to get sleep before my half-marathon tomorrow. Worried this is never. going. to end. To top everything off, when I was on the phone with my other vet, she asked how big Payton was and when I told her he's 17 pounds she said "Wow, he's TINY." He is. He is taller than Auggie's dad but weighs at least five pounds less. And every time his stomach acts up like this it's just not helping. He's not skin and bones or anything but I've NEVER been able to put weight on him. And then he asked me how old he is and I told her he'll be a year old on the 16th, and she said "Wow! He's old!" Waaaaah!! My puppy!! I'm drinkin' tonight. finishing the 5K, havin' a drink. then going to bed. yuuuuup.
Payton’s tummy troubles continue.
Mr. Man has the poops again. And threw up a bit last night in his crate and it didn’t look right. Part of it looked normal… and part of it looked like poop. Every two hours, pretty much on the dot, he was crying in the crate to be let out.
The vet couldn’t get us in any sooner than 5pm, so he had to sit all day without even any water.
He’s acting totally normal besides having the runs every three hours. First thing this morning he teamed up with Auggie and they nearly caught themselves a squirrel. =P I was on the phone with the vet and they asked “Is he acting normal? Not lethargic or anything?” Nope… definitely not lethargic!
I took the morning off work to catch up on the sleep I missed letting him out all night long – and after he threw up I had a pretty hard time falling back asleep at all, even though I knew it wasn’t anything major to worry about yet – and one I found out the vet couldn’t get us in before 5pm, I took the rest of the day off too so I could just watch him and make sure he doesn’t get worse. And so I didn’t come home to take him to the vet and arrive back to a poo-covered dog.
So after a full day off work and fifty-some dollars later… the vet nothing apparently wrong with Payton.
We came home with more Flagyl, I guess it’s just the general tummy troubles med. Sigh. Best guess seems to be when he eats little pieces of rope and fleece bits off toys it might be enough to irritate his digestive system? I’m not on board with that theory, to be honest.
Doc was thinking blockage, but couldn’t feel anything, his belly felt fine, wasn’t hurting him… asked if I wanted to x-ray him anyway, and I asked if he thought it was worth an x-ray, and he said no. So no x-ray. A friend had recommended checking for clostridium, so I asked about sending a fecal off to check for clostridium. They can actually do a clostridium strain right there in the office with their fecal floats, so didn’t have to send away for anything. We talked about switching food, Doc said maybe switch food; I went over and talked to Auggie’s breeder’s husband about switching food, and he said probably not switch food, at least not now until we get him settled again this round, because if he doesn’t take to the new food it will be hard to tell if it’s that or he’s still got this going on… so no new food just yet… and he isn’t convinced switching food will take care of it anyway. Neither am I.
So chicken and rice for a few days, Flagyl for a week. I’m frustrated. I want more than “The good news is, it’s not this, this, or this! Bad news is I dunno! Here’s some Flagyl, cross your fingers!” which is kind of how I feel right now. =/
Poor Payton.
We just did this two weeks ago. Seriously? Buh.
Easter Egg Hunt – VIDEO!
Unfortunately I couldn’t wield both the video and DSLR, so I gave Mom the video camera… and she doesn’t really know what she’s doing… so not the greatest video, but I think it carries the idea LOL.
Easter Egg Hunt 2012
Rockstar Auggie who LOVES this game… I have video… I just have to edit it.
Eggy eggy eggy eggy
Payton found one!
…but he doesn’t really know what to do with it and neither does Georgie.
“I think you eats it.”
Auggie stole it and was going to open it, but apparently after being in Payton’s mouth it tasted bad because he spat it out and started pawing at it LOL.
Payton thinks that was his anyway and he wants it back…
“MAH EGGY”
He lay down and started chomping it a bit and I thought he might pop it open and get the cookie…
But then this happened. *sigh*
Meanwhile Auggie was running around finding and opening all the other eggs.
Payton DID finally open his yellow egg and was surprised there was a cookie inside. Then Georgie found another yellow egg but didn’t know what to do with it, and Payton stole it, then opened it by accident and was again surprised to find a cookie.
By the time he found this one he seemed like maybe he was figuring it out… but this was the last egg!
Auggie had found all the other eggs because he is a rock star at the egg hunt.
Payton with his three eggs!
“I lick my eggy.”
“What? There’s no food in them anymore? Rip off.”
And poor Georgie with her empty basket LOL.
All three! Payton knocked over his basket by laying down when I didn’t want him to, but it was kinda cute, so I allowed it. =P
Baby Georgie with the GIANT EGG
Auggie monster with the giant egg (effing blown whites!!)
Payton with the giant egg.
Okay, Payton is NOT a “head tilt?” kind of dog… I didn’t even notice this happened until I was editing photos later and was like “FFFFFFFFF WHY IS HE SO ADORABLE OMG.”
Because it’s funny.
Garden pics
First:
I hope this makes you smile because it makes me smile…
Auggie, jus’ chillin’.
I so could have named him “Happy” if I wanted to… but I didn’t want to… not so soon.
Der de der!
So then I let them in the garden… but only one at a time, because there are toxic plants in there, and in order to watch and make sure nobody ate something, it had to be one at a time.
Started with Augs.
He did this on his own because he is a photowhore.
This looks very fall-like… I think this is a fire bush or something like that? I don’t know.
My boy. <3
Ahhhh cutie <3
I like when he looks like he’s laughing.
the bestest boy.
Then it was Payton’s turn…
“Look at this Payton! Oh look! Look! Payton look at this!” Finally he did look at it.
“But just look Payton.”
“Payton… just look…”
“LOOK WITH YOUR EYES PAYTON.”
“Oh. I sowee.”
Not nearly as cute as Auggie in the end. =P He will learn to pose with time I guess.
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…
Dandelions
First, you need some context.
Obviously when he was MUCH younger, before he got the title Grumpy Old Man. This was I think only the second year my sister had him, so five? Six?
those whiskers are out of control… time to trim them up a bit!
Happy’s flowers have started coming up. I realized I don’t have anything for Kota. I would kind of like something, but I don’t know what to get… is there a grumpy old man flower out there somewhere?
Family photos and a few more
A few I took with my cellphone down in Louisville, sorry for the crappy quality but I didn’t buy my cellphone for the camera… it rained pretty much every single night down there (MUD EVERYWHERE. PAYTON UP TO HIS KNEES IN MUD PUDDLES EVERY DAY, LOOKING JOYOUS. SO GLAD FOR WASH AND WEAR COATS.) so camper lighting, not the best:
Payton, Auggie, and Grandma/Great Grandma! You can see Payton’s right leg is filthy dirty… =P
Payton, Auggie’s Dad Raleigh, and Auggie. Ral is the one Payton heavily resembles. I can’t remember if I posted about this here but I saw a picture of him at a show when he was eight months old, and it was about when Payton was eight months old, and we were all like “D= D= D=” looking back and forth at the picture of Ral and at Payton… Payton looks more like Ral than Auggie does and Auggie’s his kid, LOL.
Then we came back home and I took a really long shower in which I kept thinking I HAVE NEVER FELT SO CLEAN and then washed the boys.
The baby Georgie! I took a few photos of her sister this weekend but they’re not very good LOL. And I don’t think you guys would appreciate the photo of her trying to attack my phone the way I do… hopefully we can get the sisters together again soon and I can take a good photo of her.
Paytonmobile. Pay and Georgie’s sister, neither of whom were down in Louisville to actually do conformation, were attracting a LOT of attention. Which cracks me up considering how much time Payton spent diving into mud puddles like “=D =D =D THIS IS THE BESTEST”
My Auggiedoggie. <3 I was chasing the babies around the yard and looked over and here he was, laying down on the retaining wall. My little sun worshiper.
Wow, Payton
So the last few weeks Payton has been very restless on the bed. Pacing around, taking a long time to settle down and sleep.
Last night he actually jumped off the bed, and since I’m sick, I just rolled over and figured whatever, I don’t care.
I could hear him shuffling around a bit and it sounded like he was in the bed on the floor, so I lifted my head to look, and sure enough, he curled up in Auggie’s bed on the floor. We don’t really have beds around the house anymore, so I was kind of surprised he decided to curl up in there. Auggie does climb into that bed sometimes if we’re hanging out in my bedroom, but Payton usually doesn’t.
He stayed there almost all night. I know since I kept waking up from my throat hurting… I expected him to get out of the bed and start making trouble, but he just curled up and slept there. It was actually kind of nice, because he was in there with me, but I had more space on the bed haha. That was how I imagined things would be back when I first started letting him sleep out of his crate, but he was too little to jump on and off my bed and was still at the age where he would destroy things if he got the chance to do so, so it just became him sleeping on the bed with us (since he wouldn’t jump off, he was “stuck” up there with me… therefore he had no chance to destroy things!)
He did jump back on the bed and curl up against me when I woke up about 4am coughing so bad and I couldn’t stop coughing… it quite alarmed him. =P So he slept on the bed for the last few hours of the night. But I’m so impressed with my puppy for being so good and CALM all night long and not tearing up anything in my bedroom hahaha.
Now we’ll have to see if this becomes his new habit. I don’t mind at all – I actually think I would prefer it this way. Auggie might prefer it this way too actually.
Boys lately, Payton wearing hats
Whatever caption you can come up with for this picture, I’m just going to say “that’s what she said” afterward, so…
Aaaaauuuuuggieeeeee…
Auggie says “see I was under the impression that when we get in bed we are supposed to go to sleep… not this nonsense…”
Payton says “sup.”
“This is really too big for my head.”
MIKE WAZOWSKI
What Auggie was doing while I was putting hats on Payton’s head. Lately when I get the camera out he tries to make himself scarce. He used to be a photowhore, but lately, since I’m trying to do more than just taking yet another picture of my dogs hanging out in the backyard/my bedroom, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it LOL.
IIIIIIIII’M PAYTON!!
Throw ball plz.
Chuck-it Times!
WARM outside today but crazy windy! Time to play fetch in the backyard.
Auggie has ball!
He must not like the plastic balls as much because he carries them funny LOL. The regular tennis ball he just chomps into his mouth, but these he carries like halfway out of his mouth…
YAAAAY SO MANY TENNIS BALLS SO HAPPY
See?? Normal ball, haha. Weird dog…
I don’t know LOL.
OMG OMG HERE IT COMES…
and by “it” I mean “Payton.”
Better catch!
Umm I don’t know what’s happening to my dog in this photo LOL. Momentum + wind = amorphous blobbie Auggie.
oh and here’s a cute picture of Payton! ahhhh cute puppy <3
aaaaand here’s another weird picture of Auggie trying to catch the ball LOL.
If you’re wondering why I don’t have any of that of Payton, it’s because Payton waits until the ball is rolling along the ground, then runs after it to pick it up off the ground. Auggie actually launches himself when I flick the Chuck-it and tries to beat the ball to the ground…
So all I have is Payton going “yaaaay I got it!” and bringing it back to me.
Chuck-it. Doing it wrong.
Still doing it wrong. He literally was running top speed to me, saw this leaf blow into his path, and immediately dropped the ball and launched himself on the leaf.
And ripped the leaf to pieces.
He’s going to be VERY sad once I get a place with no big ol’ trees in my backyard to drop leaves everywhere…
Payton playing in the snow (SNOWSUIT PICS)
Snow is a fine delicacy. It has been quite rare this year. Like when there was a pumpkin shortage except it’s snow instead of pumpkin.
I started throwing snowballs at him – that caught his attention.
Oh I see what you have there. I want it plz.
aaaaand this is where we start with some blurry photos LOL.
WANTS.
Umm, a little bit of “wrong breed” going on there, buddy, but that’s nice.
OMG this face hahahahaha
I threw one behind him to try and get him to back up so I could try to get better photos. Instead he just turned around and was like “!!” because the big white ball disappeared into the carpet of white and he was so confused.
I so wish this were a) completely in the frame and b) in focus, haha!
THROW SNOWBALL
Uh, you got a little something on your… you know what, never mind.
I’m so glad I bought this snowsuit. I don’t care. It’s hilarious.
Gahahahahaha
I will be good if you throw it…
Yessssssss
The best I got haha! We’ll work on it. XD
Auggie was also outside playing in the snow but he was just kind of like “WTF?” when I threw snowballs at him. He would turn and eat the one I just threw off the ground, then if I threw another he’d turn and eat that one off the ground… his nose was too busy being glued to the ground.
Just a few out in the yard
Auuuuuggie doggie. Still not quite back with all his belly coat after his bladder surgery. =< It will probably be next year sometime when it will look back to normal.
Playing some with a very low jump and the football. No formal jump training yet though I probably should get started with some jump bumps and stuff.
I think this was the day I accidentally threw the football into the neighbour’s yard and Payton almost died. He was like “MYYYYY FOOOOTBAAAAAALL” with his face up against the fence, and he wouldn’t have forgotten about it either. So I had to go creepin’ in the neighbour’s yard to get his football back since PetSmart doesn’t even make these anymore.
And when I let him out again later he was totally like “OMG FOOTBALL YOU CAME BACK!”
the things I do…
Goofy dog. He has now decided he is big enough to jump up on my bed before we go to bed, and this morning jumped OFF my bed because Auggie and I left him to go get breakfast and he was like “hay!” – but he still won’t go down the stairs to the basement.
Training Journal
Since joining Recallers 3.0, I’ve tried to get into the habit of record keeping my training sessions.
I am terrible at it. I have failed pretty gloriously at record keeping. I was GREAT for about the first week of Recallers. Then that was the end of that… whoops.
I do have training notebooks, several of them, all over the place. Inside of these notebooks are notes I take when I’ve watched training DVDs or webinars or whatever. I jot down lists of tricks I would like to train, make notes on what we need to work on, figure out game plans for training large tasks like jumping skills. I think it’s pretty clear how bad my record keeping skills are just based on the fact that I have multiple training notebooks instead of actually having everything just collected in one notebook.
I mentioned my training notebook on a dog forum I belong to and another poster asked what my training notebook was like. “Not very well organized” was part of my answer. I thought the thread might spawn more people giving input on what they have for record keeping and what all they write down, but nobody else piped up about their training notebook. Maybe it’s a rare quality – maybe very few people record keep. I suppose I’m not alone in my disorganization, but realistically, it’s a GOOD thing to do. Why don’t more people record keep?
Regardless, a group of us who have access to Recallers through the end of March (or some who have access for even longer) have decided to work our way back through the course lessons from the beginning. The Re-Doers, we are so dubbed! So I have decided to re-do my attempt at record keeping.
It’s currently the beginning of week two (not counting the first week of re-working what is called Critical Core and are more just games that become part of your everyday life; most of these are in fact games I already played as part of our everyday life anyway.) I didn’t actually write down my training notes for Monday yesterday. I remembered to grab my journal and brought it to work with me to put notes in this morning. NOT ideal… I’m sure there are things that I thought about writing down last night while working with the dogs that I have forgotten by this point.
However, in the interest of accountability, and in the interest of showing a little bit more of what I have in my training notebook, I decided to post what I wrote down from yesterday’s training sessions.
2/6 –
Crate Games – Progress with Payton sitting faster. Still need to play the games more to help him out. Closed the door on Payton breaking sit and he didn’t lock down again.
RZ – Tried this with chicken. Auggie tried to bite my fingers off. IYC fail. Payton seems to get it at first, then I realize it’s just a fluke. Need to do more!!
Hand touches – Also tried with chicken. Chicken was too messy and shredded to work well. Getting solid repeated touches from Payton. Criteria is for two hard nose touches in a row. Shredded chicken remnants were apparently teaching Auggie I want him to lick my hand… not what I want. Put the chicken away.
Not exactly the most organized of note taking, but this is the format I’ve decided on. Essentially, I’m just journaling. The name of the game we played, what worked, what didn’t work, what I need to do to fix it. This is what works for me. Other people might use a different format, far more structured – I do sometimes take structured notes if our activity calls for it (I have a whole page where I charted behaviours out for latency) but being far more relaxed about it by jotting down these notes is how I will take most of my notes. The other major problem I see with my journals is how frequently I focus on “what went wrong” and how rarely I focus on “what went right.” I’m trying to write with a far more positive perspective these days. It’s a hard habit to break since I tend to look at things as a problem solver… this didn’t work, so how can I fix it? The problem solving IS an important part of training, but when I read my notes back, it just sounds really negative. And I believe that the language we use with our dogs and when thinking of our dogs and their training affects our thinking and affects our relationship with them.
Therefore, time to be more positive.
I made some shredded chicken last week because poor Payton was having serious poop problems and fasted him, then put him on antibiotics and a chicken and rice mixture. I haven’t done treats with him – he only got back on full dog food Sunday – and am hesitant to do anything that might aggravate his poor belly again. We didn’t do much training last week because I couldn’t use treats, and what I wanted to work on I didn’t feel could be done with a toy reward as well, but I have extra chicken leftover and wanted to use it to train with. But the chicken just wasn’t working well for the hand touches, so I think I will have to get back to the dog treats. He finishes his antibiotics Wednesday, so hopefully his stomach is back and in balance again anyway. If not… I guess I’m about to find out!
Also, Auggie really needs to learn better self-control, especially when he’s super excited during training (read: just about any time food is present during training.) He is good about being gentle for a few rewards, and then CHOMP! Bites my fingers again. Sigh. It’s a work in progress, as always. Chicken is FAR too high value to be giving him right now if I expect to keep my fingers. We need to work up to him not getting really excited and biting my fingers off for plain old treats before I try chicken…
…see? Negative. I just keep doing it!
Spring in January
GORGEOUS weather today… I almost didn’t go back to work after lunch. I wanted to go for a nice run outside and then stay in the backyard with the boys allllll afternoon.
Handsome Payton. Without any dirt hanging from him. Yay!!
Playing with the basketball! PetSmart doesn’t have these anymore =< It's a shame because this one is really heading towards the end of it's life.
My very handsome Auggiemeister.
I named my puppy after a football great. Errr…
….uhhh…
These are from yesterday – my mom opened this two liter and it started fizzing everywhere and Payton WTF????d at it. So my solution was to give him the bottle when it was empty. And he didn’t stop playing with it. Finally he flattened part of it and ripped a hole in the plastic so I took it away before he ate the darn thing.
butt in the air. he does this SO much. it’s ridiculous.
Do you ever realize…
So the dogs are shut in the office here with me, which is where we spend most of our time lately. Payton was trying to lick my foot. I kept moving my foot around and saying “Why are you licking? Why are you licking?” and I kept making my voice go higher and higher into a falsetto until finally I said “I’m talking in a really high pitch!!”
This confused the Payton. He sat down and looked at me.
“Does that make you sit?” I asked him, in my high pitched voice. “You look confused. And now maybe kind of disappointed. Now you look like you’re judging me. Don’t judge me.”
And I thought to myself “This is funny. I mean I’m being stupid and I’m pretty sure my dog is judging me and it’s funny. I have such funny conversations with my dogs. Somebody should put me on reality TV. Or at least write a sitcom based on my life. Because we are funny.”
Then I realized it’s probably NOT funny…
And is really just kinda sad.
which is kind of even more funny.
Maybe I need a roommate. A human one.
Or not.
Payton being a dork, Auggie being Auggie
Perhaps it should be Payton being Payton too.
Auggiemonstah.
Why does my baby dog look kind of like a smug jerk..?
More Auggie!
Auggie says “you has a stick. I wants it plz.”a
I threw the stick and Auggie changed his mind. So Payton took it instead.
Weird dog…
der de der!!
oh you have the stick?
wooooo woo woo wooooo woo!
Ohhhh Auggie…
I need to thin out his dreadlocks, just haven’t gotten around to it. I did everything else last weekend but left all the ear hair…
I love how every time I try to get a nice, handsome photo of Payton, he has sticks and dirt all over him. That’s my puppy.
Payton has a sick
Poor guy had diarrhea all over the entryway last night, literally right before we all got in bed for the night. =< I had to clean it up, then clean out the spot cleaner, then decided to leave him in his crate for the night because I thought he might get sick again all over my bed. This worked fine for about three hours, until my mom got up to use the bathroom, and he started howling like he'd been abandoned on the side of the road. X_X I let him out to poop again and saw he threw up in his crate, so I cleaned that up too. He was unhappy about being left in his crate this time, so I ended up bringing Auggie's crate (smaller) into my bedroom and put Payton in there. I don't think any of us slept well. With no crate pad or anything in the crate I could hear him every time he moved, and he was confused as to why he wasn't on my bed like usual. At 5am he was crying to go outside again, and at 5:30am I sent my business manager a text taking half a personal day to try and get a few more hours of sleep.
I did manage a couple more hours, got up, washed both dog's pillows (I had removed Auggie's before putting Payton in it, but still, I was doing laundry anyway), bleached both their crates while I was at it, gave Payton a bath because his butt was all poopy and gross. He's been acting fine all this time, even in the middle of the night he would go out and run happy laps in the yard, stop and dump some poop, then bounce around again. Just an icky tummy. I was going to fast him this morning but decided to give him half his normal breakfast just to see if it made him sick again, and if it did, I was going to drive a stool sample over to the vet just in case, but so far so good.
Poor guy. I hope he's done being sick. Not sure if he got into something or just got a touch of a stomach bug. Before he had diarrhea, he had some REALLY smelly farts – like smelled like he had actually pooped farts. So definitely a case of upset belly one way or another.
Though I will say there was quite a bit more room in my bed last night with only one dog up there, LOL. Not that it mattered much since I STILL didn't get much sleep…
Payton coming home pics
Last weekend Auggie’s breeder’s husband was playing with her phone looking at all the photos and videos, and he came across a photo of a puppy and went “Who’s that?!” and I was like “AHHHH THAT’S PAYTON!” At the time, she sent me one of these but not all of them… so I sent the rest to my phone LOL.
So here’s photos of Baby Payton right after we picked him up.
“Hello new baby.”
Waiting in traffic – you could see the people in the car next to us so I erased them. X3 Not quite as sweet as the first “real” photo of Auggie and I hahaha. I think I’m kind of in shock at myself still. Like “Did I really just go buy a puppy?!”
He was actually a squirmy wormy and did NOT want to sit still on the ride home. He was climbing all over me as soon as we were actually driving. This was him faking it. “Ohhhh I’m a sweet, cuddly boy! Yes indeed!”
Almost home and he finally fell asleep… sweet little baby boy! Faker LOL.
Some pics from today, plus a Baby Pepper
This could have been a great photo… but overexposed. >=< I have so many problems with forgetting to adjust my camera for bright sunlight and ending up with overexposed photos… ughhh…
Eat da snow!
I don’t know how he got snow on his eyebrow LOL.
Auggie says “I also eat da snow!” Auggie is kinda skinny right now… I’m not sure if I like it or not. I cut back just a bit on his food since it’s his agility off season and all his muscle was getting soft, but I dunno… and yes I realize you guys probably can’t tell from this photo LOL.
Inside… for some reason he likes to play like this. I finally managed to get a good photo of it, haha. He’ll have a toy and then start rolling around on his back making wookie noises and flailing his legs around.
And in fact yesterday morning this is how he tried to wake me up. By putting his head on my BUTT and then rolling back and forth on his back making wookie noises and flailing his legs around. w.t.f. payton.
Then he grabs at the toy and makes more wookie noises and rolls around… because he’s so weird…
Also, yesterday I drove to Indy to watch Auggie’s breeder run Auggie’s granny (and Payton’s great-granny) one last time in agility… today is granny’s first official day of retirement. Anyway, before I went over there she had me run by her house and pick up her scrapbook that she forgot and bring it to the trial with me. We all spent some time looking at granny when she was really young, her AOM picture at Westminster, all that awesome stuff. And in the binder I found a photo of granny and Auggie’s dad at his first show when he was like six months. And HOLY COW Payton still looks an awful lot like Auggie’s dad now that I have puppy awkward photos to compare! It’s crazy. I meant to take a picture of that photo with my cellphone so I could show it, but I forgot.
But in the back of the binder were a few other miscellaneous pictures, and one of them was of two puppies, and I picked it up and said “Who are these?”
She pointed to one of the puppies and went “That’s baby Pepper.”
BABY PEPPER?!
So when I came home I looked around online until I found the photo, because I only have one other picture of her as a baby and it’s not a very good one.
Pepper is the one on the right. She’s so cute. D= D=
Georgie’s mom is the one on the left. Doesn’t Georgie look JUST like her mom?
