Trixie

Shamas mom

Shamas mom

Location
Canada
Well Trixie had her first off-leash experience today, by accident. I'd say it went well. I took her over to the field, and she got excited and played tug with the lead...and won

I let her have her victory, snapping a few photos of her running circles around me, trying to entice me to chasse her. I did not. I do not chase dog when they are running loose. When I decided she'd had enough mischief, I pulled a paper bag of cookies out of my pocket, and watched her skid to a stop at my feet. And stepped on her leash as I scattered them on the ground for her.

I didn't bother to try and recall her specifically, since we've not specifically worked on recall out of the back yard.

I'll be getting a flexi lead, I think for field work. I didn't like the long line- it caught her leg. I don't give my dogs enough lead to let a flexi drag, but I do like to be able to extend more than 4-5 feet. First she'll have to learn to wear a harness- I'll only attach a flexi to a back harness.

Oh, speaking of gear...guess who walked on a flat collar today?? Yes! It wasn't perfect, and I had some trouble when we ran across dogs. Not Shamas level trouble...but definitely over-aroused and checking out. She can't "hear" the plain collar when other dogs are around(or me), and it's not high enough on the neck to keep her walking in the right direction(walking diagonally across my path is not helpful). So I have to rely on retreating instead of walking past. Which is counter to what I'm trying to teach her. With the training gear on her, I move my arm out from my body, which removes from her the option to cross my path. She can move in a straight line, or to my right(I walk right handed) away from the other dog but not towards it.

My goal is to get to walking with only the collar, as I did with Shamas

I might try adding a second flat collar for walks, above the one that holds the tags. so we can teach collar walking, and maintain the collar higher on the neck....
 
Shamas mom

Shamas mom

Location
Canada
went to go to bed last night, and Trixie very politely asked to be allowed to sleep on the floor beside the bed. As she was in the correct frame of mind(calm, sleepy, not inclined to run around the room looking for thinks to play with or eating my window frames), I let her stay there instead of crating. I don't want to crate for bed for her whole life. I want her to realize that good decisions mean more freedom.


So I laid my housecoat on the floor for her to lay on, and removed all books, phones, tablets, and anything else that might look interesting...and went to bed

About 1am, she smiled at me and became a blanket. At 8am she woke us with kisses. But no crying.

I'm thinking the crying in the morning is seperation anxiety. She knows we're right there and can't get to us. She's woken up and is in her crate, and wants to greet her people but can't- so the longer we take to wake up, the more wound up she gets. When we open the gates, she THROWS herself at us, and is spinning in circles, in an effort to get as close as possible

I usually crate at bedtime, because she usually goes squiirelly at bedtime. She's at her worst for eating things, chewing baseboards, knowing the zipper off your sweater, annoying Shamas, and so on. If I didn't crate, she'd chew on my bedframe, my window frames, crawl around under my bed, and generally hunt for anything to get into to make us go "Trixie! What are you doing this time?!" Which she thinks is really funny
 
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Shamas mom

Shamas mom

Location
Canada
Dropped into the vet for a social visit today to show Trixie that not every trip results in poking and prodding. Good thing too, because the second we went through the door she turned around and opened it herself to escape!

"NO WAY! I don't like this place! it's full of scary people doing scary things to me!"

So we just went to the front desk, and weighed her(69lbs) and bought some Nexgard and booked the next appointment for July 3rd for her Bordetella vaccine.

She nearly triggered a dog fight, trying to make friends.......STAAAAARE......so I had to work on some focus with her while I paid. The people were good about it. Their dog isn't usually triggered. I told them it's probably because she's staring and that's rude. I did not let her greet that dog, as she did not have good manners.

Oh! and she's finally a lady dog. also pretty well fully grown, which was our criteria for saying---we wanted her fully grown. So we just need to consider best time to do that. I'm considering booking it for the hottest part of summer, when we're basically stuck inside from the heat
 
Stacia

Stacia

Location
Malvern Worcestershire
Shamas mom said:
Oh! and she's finally a lady dog. also pretty well fully grown, which was our criteria for saying---we wanted her fully grown. So we just need to consider best time to do that. I'm considering booking it for the hottest part of summer, when we're basically stuck inside from the heat
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If you mean you are going to spay her, she needs to be done three months after season. She is a very good looking dog, I like shorthairs.
 
Shamas mom

Shamas mom

Location
Canada
She makes Shamas look little lol! She's a good head taller than he is.

It makes walking the two of them challenging, as he wants to mosey along the path and sniff and she walks at a trot. Usually I get hubby to walk Shamas...he also moseys now :)
 
Shamas mom

Shamas mom

Location
Canada
Graduation Day!

We have now completed Puppy and Basic and are enrolled to start Intermediate obedience on May 8th.

We are well on our way towards the goal of being able to walk loose leash on a collar...but are still pretty excited about dogs, so we use a Halti if we go where dogs might be.

I'd like to practice more with her obedience...but Shamas wants in on the fun. and he doesn't understand what we;re doing, so he just slaps me with his paw, pants happily, and generally gets in the way:rofl::smiledog:
 
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