family playdate

Last week Piper and I drove down to visit her breeder, Wendy at NoRulz Australian Shepherds. It was very snowy and she had lots of fun playing with her sister, Party, also a red merle. Party is a little obnoxious, more than Piper even, and definitely more of a barker. But still they had fun.

Party and Piper in the backyard

Piper are Party wrestling! Teeth bared, most of their feet off the ground.

Stare-down between Piper and Party

Piper leaping like a deer! Party trying to chase her down.

After a while Wendy put her back inside and brought out Tawny, her 11 year old female. Tawny is also a red merle, although with less white and no tan markings. Her spots are also more uniform, so her colouring altogether looks quite different from the younger sisters. Tawny is a great-great aunt to Piper and Party. She had surgery on the same day as Piper's spay (January 25) to have a few lumps and teeth removed, so I couldn't believe how energetic and enthusiastic she was! She was more than happy to run around and play with her 8-month old relative. Must be good genes :)

Tawny leaping for Piper, legs tucked up in the front. Piper trying to run through all the snow, can't go fast enough!

Tawny also does this hilarious butt-scratch thing. I wish a had a video. She stands between your legs so you scratch her bum, wiggles like crazy and kicks her back feet out in a little dance. I think she might be the most endearing Aussie I've ever met!

Piper and Tawny on the deck

dog faming

Since I am friends with many dog people, and am generally known as a crazy dog person, I get quite a few emails with pictures of "dog-shaming". Some of them are cute, or funny, but to be honest most of them I find sad. Most of the dogs in these photos are poorly trained, or improperly managed.

Working in a pet store, I meet a variety of people. Sometimes they are crazy dog people like me, sometimes not. Whenever I ring a customer through, I always ask what kind of dog they have, how many dogs, how old are they, that sort of thing. Most people love to talk about their dogs, sometimes I even get to see pictures, or will go out to meet them in the car is the person isn't able to bring them into the store.

One day I rang through a customer who told me he and his wife adopted a large-breed dog from the humane society half a year earlier. She was very timid, and comfortable with the man when they were alone together, but anytime his wife was present the dog would be terrified of him. He would speak in a whisper on a regular basis so the dog would be comfortable. This alone I find an interesting behavioral problem (what is the association with the couple as opposed to the individual?). Anyways, when they first adopted her they were told that she had been found roaming the streets with a sign safety pinned to her chest, saying "I am a bad dog".

Can you imagine?

I can't look at a dog-shaming photo without thinking about this poor dog.

So this afternoon I was snooping around the internet and heard about a reversal of the dog-shaming revolution... DOG-FAMING!

First on this blog:
http://aftergadget.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/dog-faming-picture-it/

Then this one:
http://eileenanddogs.com/2012/11/21/dog-praising/

Why are we focusing on a dog's faults and lack of training when we could be celebrating the amazing things they do every day! I think this is an amazing idea, and I'm looking forward to posting some dog-faming photos of my own!

thesis

According to my program timeline, all student research and write an original thesis from September to April in the third and final year of the program. For as long as I've been a student at Guelph, my plan has been to write about some aspect of ecological restoration. It's a topic I am interested in, and something with employment potential. However, recently that has changed.

Before Christmas I had a meeting with my professor Nate, and his wife Tina. While Nate is a prof in Landscape Architecture, Tina is a prof in the Animal Science department and specializes in animal behavior and welfare. They are looking to have research done to look at the need for and design of outdoor components of humane societies.

Starting now (so I can hopefully meet some of the deadlines to get research grants), I will be researching the design of dog parks, training areas and walking areas for dogs at humane societies. Part of this will look at the need or use of such areas by the dogs, and another aspect will be their use by humane society employees and volunteers.

It is an interesting research project, but never something I had ever considered doing before! This will be the first time I have combined my love of dogs with academics. Hopefully I'll be posting a bit more about the project as it progresses.

training classes

When Piper was little (as in, three months old), we did a puppy class at Elite Dog Training, located in Kitchener. It was good to get Piper out around all the other puppies at such an early age.

We worked on sit, down, name recognition, etc., and the last 15 minutes of every class was playtime! However, there were 16 puppies in the class, so for many of the puppies it was just too overwhelming. Personally I think the attendees should have been capped at ten, 16 was just way too many.

I also didn't like the way she handled puppies that were fearful or snappy. Her method was to hold the screaming puppy until it stopped screaming. Even for puppies who didn't want their mouths touched, she would hold the puppy's mouth open until it stopped struggling and screaming. I'm so glad Piper was pretty good at everything, because I would not have allowed that to happen to my puppy.

I learned from trying to force Willow to sit still so I could trim her nails, that force does not work in dealing with an issue where fear or resistance is involved. A much better way is to use treats to make the experience positive, and gradually work up to being able to complete the task.

Piper growing up! This week she weighed just 38lbs, at around 6 1/2 months. She only put on three lbs in the last month, so she will definitely be a small little girl! Just what I wanted :)

In November we started the Competition Puppy 1 class at Companion Dog Training. I've done probably three classes there with Ace and always enjoyed them, although I sometimes found that I just didn't understand what they were trying to accomplish. Starting with Piper from the beginning has made all the difference! I understand the basics much better, and am actually looking forward to taking more obedience-style classes.

In the Competition Puppy class, we started by learning competition-style sits and downs. Piper and I are still working on the down! Lots of other things as well, like set-up, get-in, front, around, over, wait, recall, and trot. Thinks I'd never done before as well, like how to properly play tug and use it as a reward, fetch work with a dumbbell, and beginning scent discrimination. I very much enjoyed it!

We were signed up for Competition Puppy 2, but there were not enough people so the instructor had to cancel the class. I've already paid, so I'm hoping there will be another class running in March. We may have to switch into the Attention 1, but that would be ok. It's all practice anyways! And now we have two months to fix all the things we didn't have time to perfect in the class.

home for christmas

This year I made the 3 hour trek to my parents house for Christmas. Ace, Piper, Archie, and I spent 3 very interesting days there. Overall, I think it was a success!

Archie sitting on the tile at the front door.

Piper survived her boots, and was not even fighting them by the end of the trip. They are a little big for her, so they would fall off once in a while, but overall the boots were a success.

Ace was his normal, lazy bones self. Cuddling with anyone who would give him space on the couch. He is always a hit with my parents.

Archie was also good, with one exception. The first morning there he pooped and peed under my dad's work bench. My dad doesn't like cats to begin with so this was not a good thing to happen. I moved his litter box to a more open spot and Archie decided that now the box was where he wanted it to be, he would use it. He also had a good cuddle with my 86 year old Grandma, which gave him lots of points.

My Aunt and her partner also brought over their 7 month old Australian Labradoodle (aka lab x poodle x cocker spaniel x irish waterdog x something else I can't remember) on Christmas day. He was very cute, and played well with Piper when they were running around in the basement, but when they were around all the people he was getting pretty snappy with her. He seemed to be possessive over toys (which were actually Piper's) and also his space overall. It was kind of odd, considering how well they played together in the basement. Hopefully my Aunt will work on whatever issues he may have so they do better next Christmas.

Ace being forced to dance with my sister. He's clearly thrilled.

I have the whole next week off, so I'm looking forward to doing lots of hikes and training with the dogs! Oh yeah, and schoolwork. Blah.

goals

Dog-related goals that is.

Piper is 5 months old now, so it's time to set some realistic goals for what I want to accomplish with her.

We are currently enrolled in a Competition Puppy class, working on tuck sits, stands, and learning to love the heel position! So far I'm finding the class a lot of fun - way more fun than the Attention class I took with Ace. Maybe if we start at the bottom, I may actually be motivated to compete in traditional obedience? We'll see.

Anyways, my first goal is to do the Canine Good Neighbour (CGN) test with Piper sometime this winter. Ideally in January or February. It's easy to practice for it in my neighbourhood pet store, so I have no excuse not to do it soon!

Before she hits a year, I would also like to have her complete a Herding Instinct Test, and a Disc Dog Proficiency Test. Both are simple tests, and look at natural abilities more than training. But I think they would both be good things to have under her belt! It looks like there are lots of local Disc Dog events, so it might be a convenient sport to pick up, although I don't have a lot of desire to get really competitive with it.

Finally, I would like Piper to do her Rally Novice, and Ace to do his Rally Advanced sometime in the spring or summer.

Now that I've written it down, we'll see how I can keep up with it! It looks like an awful lot of things to do. We'll all have to work very hard to accomplish it all.

we survived!

Well, we officially survived our first weekend at my parent's house. You remember, the one with the precious floors?

Lucky Ace got to wear his mut-luks, he's very stoic about it. Honestly, he takes it like a champ. I just have to watch that his dew claws don't get stuck above the boot, since I'm guessing that would be pretty uncomfortable.

Archie acquired a lovely set of black nail caps. He's all dressed up for halloween now! Actually, I think this is the most manly Archie has ever looked. Well, it will be once I take off his collar with the flowers and heart-shaped ID tag :)

And lucky Piper is apparently too small for her nails to scratch the floors, so she got away with bare feet the whole two days we were visiting! I'm guessing she won't be so lucky next time, but maybe the long fur on her feet will help protect the floor? The only catch was that she was not allowed to run. As you can imagine, trying to keep any four-month old puppy from running over a two day period would be a challenge. Let alone an active dog like an Aussie? Wishful thinking!