Friday, December 07, 2007
Friday!
I'm going to give the kiddos baths this weekend and get Chloe to help me take Christmas pictures. That should be an adventure...
I'm mulling getting Nemo back into an obedience class, just to get back into the swing of things. I really miss it, and I need a class to keep me honest with my training. I think I'll look into it.
I hope you all have a great and festive weekend! Pictures next week!!
Monday, December 03, 2007
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
**FLASHBACK Christmas 2006** I decided that stake lights were the end-all-be-all of Christmas lighting. After multiple trips to every Target, Home Depot, Lowes, Hobby Lobby, etc. within a 35 mile radius of our house to find clear C7 lights (the most commonly used light) and ground stakes, I finally had my mother import them from El Paso. Apparently they had a ton, go figure. I then spend a whole Saturday attaching lights to stakes and placing them in the yard. They were AWESOME, for one week... Marcus was taking practice swings with a golf club in the front yard (don't ask me why), smacked a light, it rained, shorted the line, no more stake lights.
**Present Day** I unboxed the infamous stake lights on Saturday with a new exuberance. I went through all five lines and found the two that were shorted out from last year. Then I re-staked the remaining "good" three lines, and we struck out to find replacements for the "bad" ones. Two Targets, a Home Depot, a Walgreens, and one Lowes later, no clear C7 lights... we did find an abundance clear C9 lights at our final stop, and decided it was easier to replace the whole lot, rather than continue try to find the evil C7's. Ok, so I un-stake my C7's, and stake all 6 lines of C9's. Excitedly go out to the yard and stake 150 feet of lights into the ground. Yay!! At 5:30, dark, I am SO excited to turn them on and see them in all their glory...plug in... GORGEOUS, for 45 seconds. Three hours, and 6 blown fuses later, we figured out that you cannot string together 6 continuous lines of C9 lights. Moral of the story: You can never have too many extension cords.
Friday, November 30, 2007
I'm so ready for this weekend! I'll be getting done my Christmas decorating, and hopefully wrapping up our shopping. To actually be done early this year would be so nice! I think we're headed to the ICE exhibit at the Gaylord Texan tomorrow, it's supposed to be pretty spectacular.
I got some pictures of a very muddy Knight learning how to park out. He seems to be getting it... :o)
Have a great weekend!
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Gameday
VS
I am SOOOOOOOO hoping that the Packers stomp the Cowboys tonight. I'm sorry, I can't help it. I was raised, being from Atlanta, with a strong disliking for all things Cowboy. I've been so glad to see Favre and Green Bay have a miraculously great season this year.
Ojoe and Kody's tummies are all back to normal. Romper room is back in session :)
I think tonight for the game I'm going to try to make Rachael Ray's meatball pizza and Italian popcorn. Have a lovely Thursday!
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
A few more pictures
This is Chloe and some scruffy puppy that she found when we were at camp:
Here is Marcus trying to give Mya a bath (sorry it's dark, I know):
and eating some hay, for some reason her expression makes me laugh:
My beautifoo and dirty boy:
Me trying to do some Parelli with him, and him wondering "what on earth??":
Monday, November 26, 2007
Okay let's see...
In doggie news... Ojoe and Koda have had tummy problems this weekend, but seem to be a lot better today. I hope I didn't get a bad batch of food. It's probably just a bug they passed to each other. Nemo eats the same food, and he's fine. I'm really looking forward to getting back into training with Nemers. He has become a master fetcher, so I'm hoping to incorporate the ball into training more :) The focus that he has when the ball is involved is really something to see! Ojoe has started this new thing where he growls at Nemo all the time. They don't fight, but it's driving me up a wall hearing Ojoe growling nonstop. Nemo used to be the alpha, but I think Ojoe has figured out now that he's been neutered :)
In horsey news... Knight and Mya will be staying at training camp until January. Marcus is going through a job transition, and my parents will be here for two weeks, so I decided that would be best for now. They are both learning a ton out there and getting handled daily. They got clipped for the first time ever last week (with loud electric buzzing trimmers), and surprisingly didn't freak out. Knight, oddly enough, loves trail rides and behaves very well out there, but doesn't really care for working in the arena yet. He's the kind of horse that gets bored easily, so you have to keep coming up with stuff to keep him busy. Mya is very sweet, and has gotten to be a big, sweet, teddy bear of a baby. I can't wait to see how she develops.
In people news... Marcus and I went to El Paso a few weeks ago for my mother's surprise b-day party. We had a great time, and Mom was SO surprised! Work has been very busy for me, and Marcus has had some crazy stuff go on lately with his work. I'm sure it'll all work out for the best though. We had a nice, peaceful Turkey Day - watched lots of football and complained about the weather. Chloe is bouncing off the walls, ready for Christmas. Her list is anything and everything that she sees on a commercial. Who says advertising doesn't work? I think her "big" gift from us will be a child-size ATV. She'll be able to ride around on the trails while we mess with the horses.
My mission this week is to scrub the house from top to bottom, so that we can get all the Christmas decorations put out. Many of our way-too-eager neighbors already put their tree and lights up BEFORE Thanksgiving! Really.... So now we're being peer-pressured to keep up.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Update soon....
P.S. Starbuck's Pumpkin Loaf is the greatest food on earth!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
On a totally separate note, meet our newest family member:
This is "Colortown's Royal Knight of Armour" aka Knight! He's a sweet American Saddlebred gelding, only 2 and a half years old. I haven't had a horse since I was a teenager, so I am beyond thrilled! He's at horsey camp for the next couple of months to learn good manners since he is just a baby, and then he'll be boarded at a nice little place in Fairview, only 5 miles from my house. I think I'll be able to do anything I want with this guy. He'll be great for CEP, elegant enough for Dressage (he has that beautiful high Saddlebred head and carriage!), and great for trails. Marcus is looking for a horse of his own so he doesn't have to just sit and watch me, but he is a novice rider, so we want to make sure we get a sweetie pie for him.
Now that Nemo's back in action and we have horse news, look for more updates! I promise... :o)
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Ummm updates...
I've been slacking big time on our walks. It's too HOT!! I almost wish the rain would come back.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Control Unleashed..
I just wanted to share our first night last night of working some of
the CU principals. I first wanted to work on attention with holding
a treat in front of Nemo and *click/treat* when he makes eye
contact. He caught on really fast with treats, and I was quickly
getting consistent eye contact. His ball is a bit tougher..he gets
a frozen eye-LOCK on his ball, so I *click/ball toss* for ANY blink
or eye movement away from the ball. I was soon getting at least a
nice glance from him for his ball. :)
Then I introduced him to that mat. When he checked it out, I
*click/treat* on the mat and continued to treat and praise while he
sat on the mat. It took no more than three minutes of this before
he was FLYING to the mat and diving to a down! He loved it! I was
very impressed!! He was also not breaking his stay on the mat (I
didn't cue stay at all, he was just doing it), until I gave him his
release work "okay". I was already able to add mild distractions,
at which he never broke his stay, and also add the verbal cue for
the mat. Yay!!
Afterwords we had some calm, sleepy time (RP) on the mat. I'm glad
that he liked the mat game, but I hope he's not too excited about
and will see it as a place to calm down. :)
Today I'm looking forward to working on the "Look at that" game and FINALLY a lesson with JH! :)
Friday, July 27, 2007
Hopefully I can get some video of Dakota this weekend to post - she's started doing the cutest thing when we go swimming - she'll jump from raft to raft and paddle trying to get the raft wherever she wants to go - so cute!!
This weekend I'm looking forward to seeing the Simpson's movie :) and munching on some Krystal burgers! That's all I got for today..have a wonderful weekend!!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Nemo Bootcamp
(Nemo sleeping under his bowl 3mos old)
So we met with Dr. Johnson on Monday and started our "action plan" to cure Nemo of his fear issues. In a nut shell it's a regimen of "watch me's" and down-stays, and lots of work on this around other dogs. Also he must learn that every good thing comes from me, so his attention gets more focused on me and less on his enviroment. So our day yesterday went like this:
5:30 am - hand feed breakfast, work on "watch me" without distractions, up to 1 minute
4:00 pm - played fetch one-on-one for about 30mins, but require a down-stay, watch me, or spin before each toss.
7:00 pm - 45 minute walk - moving across the street when other dogs or people approach and request a down-stay and watch me. Across the street is the closest distance for now at which he won't react to another dog or person.
8:00 pm - hand feed dinner, some more watch me's, but some fun stuff to relax too. Spins, rollovers, go on's etc.
He cannot get ANYTHING without doing SOMETHING - sit-stay if he wants to go out, down-stay when he wants to come in, sit for petting, watch me for fetch, etc...
We're going to do some work with JH tomorrow. I'm excited about that! Plus I get to meet her new baby Cheetah (a puppy, not an actual cheetah :)
Everything went pretty well yesterday, the only "incident" was on our walk we were rounding a corner and some people were coming around it whom I could not see. They startled Nemo, and of course they walked right up to him to try and pet him and he threw a fit. They said how cute he is and blah blah blah... Sometimes it stinks having a cute little dog, everybody and their brother wants to pet him - kids are the worst! :) I'm not sure when he got so nervous with people all of the sudden, but there it is...
Today we hand-fed breakfast, and tomorrow I plan on getting up earlier (eeck 4:30 am) and walking him some.
So that's it in a nutshell. There's more but I'm too tired to think of it all right now :)
Monday, July 23, 2007
On a positive note, I've met a lot of really supportive dog people who've had similar problems. They've given me tons of encouragement and ideas, and I'm really thankful! Dog people are SO NICE!
I'll keep the updates here on our progress with Dr. Johnson. The blog will be a good way to keep track for me.
Wish me luck with my crazy pup!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
I'm excited this weekend I have a private lesson with Patty at DDS, and Jamie at her house. That should give me plenty to work on! Plus I get to meet Jamie's new puppy, yay!! I definitely need to live on a farm. I am a certified puppy addict and three dogs is certainly not enough :)
That's all for now, boring...I know....
Thursday, July 12, 2007
I also started little sequences in my back yard (with a gallon of OFF on) of sending him to a target over a jump, or jump table, etc. He's doing great and I'm impressed everyday at what this little guy can learn. I'm really glad that I took the couple of months to work solely on his focus and obedience. I loved JH's class but neither Nemo or I were ready for that level. He was a silly puppy spaz!! Maybe soon we will be...
On the home front things are great, but ever busy. We just got back from Myrtle Beach, which was awesome!! Then my mother and aunt were in town for a couple of days. We shopped and shopped and ate and shopped some more! Work has been insane, but what else is new. :) Oh and we got new next door neighbors yesterday, Jamie and Chris (ahh another Jamie!). We met her yesterday, she seemed really nice.
I think that's all for now... I promise I'll do better with the updates! Ta-ta for now!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Guess what I found out...
Nemo is doing really well with his new lessons. I'm seeing a lot of progress with c/t everytime he sees another dog. I think the positive association is starting to sink in. I've also taught him to roll over and Lord help me, that's his favorite trick now. Whenever I look at him and he knows I have a treat in hand, he rolls over and pops back up so proud of himself! I also hand feed him his meals and make him do downs, left/right spins, roll over etc. for his breakfast and dinner. It's so funny because now he'll go through a sequence of all those things before I ask him to do anything. He'll down, spin, sit, rollover, down again, all in a row just in anticipation. It makes me laugh and I just have to break down and give him a cookie :)
We're going out of town to Myrtle Beach this week and I hope to start class at BF3 when we get back. I can't wait for some beach time!!!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Ok I give up...
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Summer is here!
Last night was P3 test and Nemo did pretty great. He passed all the elements required to graduate, yay!! Some of them were tougher than I thought they would be. For the down stay he had to stay for two minutes while everyone in the class jogged in a circle right in front of him. Terri walked one foot in front of him squeeking a toy, and then rattling a treat bag and saying she has treats - brutal!!! Nemo stayed though! :)
He was really cute on his recall.. He had to come to me in between two dogs playing about 10 feet apart AND in the middle of them was a pile of toys, eek! So I took off running and called Nemo from about 30 feet away, he took off for me, but as he passed the toy pile he did a double take but kept running so he almost flipped over himself. He didn't stop though, and came right to me.
We worked more on his tolerance of being near other dogs. He's showing signs of improvement. I'm going to repeat P3 even though he passed, so that we can work on that issue and just make sure everything is solid before going on to beginner agility class.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
You know what I mean....
I imagine that raising children is much of a roller coaster than raising a pup. That's how I know I'm not ready for kids! :)
Monday, June 04, 2007
Okay FINALLY an update!
Training Nemster has been going pretty well, with some challenges, in between all of the rain that we've had. I met with Terri last night to work on some of his weirdo issues that have come up in the past couple of months (hormones...). On lead he has been going nuts when he sees another dogs, especially a moving one. So we worked with her dog walking circles around Nemo, and C/T everytime he sat calmly. We figured out that his "comfort zone" for a moving dog is 15 feet and 5 feet for a stationary dog. He did great walking directly behind and in front of Roo (Terri's dog), if I held a target stick with some peanut butter on it right in front of his nose. He completely forget that Roo was there, he was so focused on that peanut butter :) So we're going to work on shortening and fading the stick eventually.
We also worked on him walking right past her dog with my giving him cookies as soon as he saw her dog and on up to her, but no cookies after we passed her. So hopefully soon he will learn that another dog = cookies! He's also developed a fear of some strangers - mostly men, he will squeeky bark and try to hide, all the while wagging his tail (told you they were weirdo issues..). So Terri had her son and husband walk circles around Nemo and toss cookies at him. After a while Nemo was eating out of their hands and doing pretty well.
She thinks a lot of this is age and he just doesn't know what to quite do with himself. She said the cases like this that she's seen before, where the dog has been well socialized and has had no traumatic experience, have "outgrown" the behavior by 12-15 months old with continued exposure like this to people and dogs.
OTHER THAN THAT :) he's been doing great! We've been doing mostly flat-work, which I want to have down solid before starting any obstacles, since I have no clue what I am doing handling. He's learned to target great and we're beginning table work. Since he's lost his puppy fat he's gotten tons of energy and is fast fast fast!
Ok so that's all that I have for now! I've been meaning to take some new pictures but... The stinkers all had baths yesterday so maybe I will get to it today.
I promise I'll do better! :)
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Pre agility 3 class
Monday, April 16, 2007
No cookies...
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Cookies for Nemo!
Good boy Nemo! We may actually be able to do this whole training thing. : )
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
April 17th can't get here soon enough
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Dirty Dawgs!
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Update..
Monday, April 02, 2007
Howdy!
We had a downpour on Friday night so I have some awesome pictures of muddy pups to download and post one of these days. There's a very low part of our yard that collects a lot of water when it rains. It had a good four inches on Saturday and needless to say, Nemo and Dakota were both belly deep in it when I put them outside. They were like little piglets rolling in the mud. They had a blast playing and the pictures are cute, I promise! Nemo kept trying to bury his favorite orange squeeky toy in the puddle, said toy is now nasty!!!
Not much news on the training front. I've missed two weeks of class and was cancelled this week due to mud. Didn't have DDS class last week either, Terri took Roo to AKC nationals. Hopefully they did great!
We've been getting some good practice in at home though. This weekend with Chloe we worked on "stays" with distractions, Chloe being the ideal distraction. :) Nemo did pretty good, she walked circles around him, petted his head, took off running, make squealing girl noises, and he didn't budge. He did trip Chloe twice though when I called him to me. He BOLTED towards me right under her feet as she was walking circles around him. She was so perturbed that he had the nerve to trip to her. It was hilarious!
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
I know it's been awhile..
We missed Wed. class last week so I'm hoping we're not too far behind. I just have to make sure that Nemo is RESTED, or else he has a.d.d.
Oh no new baby.. ) -: Cindy had her litter of pups but did not produce any black tri females. They are all very cute though! Four boys and one little merle girl. I will probably wait on her fall litter.
That's all for now!!
Monday, March 12, 2007
Isn't she cute?
That's Dakota Bear at 4 weeks old-ish. I just thought I'd post that picture because I was too lazy to download the new pictures from the camera this weekend. ( -:
The pups had fun this weekend helping me with yard work. Marcus and I uncovered the pool on Saturday. He dumped a bunch of chemicals and stuff in it yesterday, so hopefully between that and Mr. Sweepy, the murk will disappear. Dakota is thrilled that the cover is off, she loves to stand on the step in the water.
I wandered around the back yard and raked leaves, picked up sticks, bark, acorns, and other debris that's been collecting since fall. I love all of our trees, but holy cow it's never-ending work!! I also cleaned off the a/c units and swept up the patio. I'm trying to figure out what plants I can put in the back flower bed that are hardy enough to withstand three pooches.
We got to play about 13 holes on Saturday before we threw in the towel. It was too crowded and we were playing too crappy to continue. Sunday evening we hit some balls on the range. The weather was perfect and the grass on the range was pretty plush, which was nice to hit off of for a change.
I was so excited to go to class this Sunday. Nemo had been doing great in our little daily training sessions. He's attention has been improving and his stay's with distractions have been coming a long great. He's been loose-leash walking like a champ, BUT Sunday I learned TIRED PUPPY = ZERO ATTENTION SPAN! He got up very early with me to do yard work, and he and the other two ran wild all day. I could tell when I put Nemo in the car to go to class that he was one worn out pup. We had a good time though, I have to remind myself often that he is still a baby. ( -:
Friday, March 09, 2007
What a looooong week!
Nemo did well in puppy class on Wednesday. He handled all of the distractions much better and seemed more focus. His stay is coming a long great, except when I march in place in front of him. He thinks that means "ok let's go!" for some reason. We'll work on it.. His also getting his "sphinx" down pretty well without much of a hand signal. We have class on Sunday, looking forward to applying our new skills. ( -:
Have a great weekend!!
Monday, March 05, 2007
Mondays...
Chloe and I did have agility class Sunday, and had a blast! Dakota and Nemo both did pretty well in my opinion. Chloe's mom came and picked her up at our house yesterday, and Chloe just had to show her Dakota's "moves." Dakota must've hopped over her little jump 15 times, with Chloe saying ooooverrrrr... Chloe's mom must think we're weird, but oh well!! ( -:
I tried to talk Marcus into coming and taking some action shots, but he stayed home and watched golf. There wound up being a 4-way playoff, so I guess it was worth it!