Friday, June 23, 2006

All fenced in now!

Boy do the puppies love to run around the yard all crazy! What a great way for them to get out some energy too. : ) Anyway, Tara is doing well, we stopped at the vet again yesterday and she now weighs 17.1 lbs. Growing, growing, growing! Anyway, I wanted to list what Tara can do, so here goes:
Sit with hand cue
Sit with verbal cue
Down with hand cue
Down with verbal cue
Make eye contact -- working on cue ready
Loose-leash/heeling
Hand targeting verbal cue/hand cue
Recall with verbal cue
Shake with hand cue
Speak with verbal cue
Leave it with verbal cue
Targeting a plastic lid
Off with verbal cue
Drop it with verbal cue (unless its something super-duper good which happened for the first time the other day!)
We're working on stay but haven't added a cue yet - we've just been adding duration to sits and downs with quiet praise
We need to get stand on cue and start working on tracking stuff -- which we haven't started yet. On Sunday she is going to a different puppy play group that we are going to try in Westborough and on Monday we are going into Harvard Square during the day and hopefully we will get a lot more things on our socialization list checked off. Two more weeks after Sunday and the time to easily socialize her will be ending -- so we gotta get as much as possible in before that. See ya all later we are off to Portland shortly.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Enjoying the just about all fenced in yard today!




More photos





She's not going to fit in Orion's bed much longer!!!

Friday, June 16, 2006

Cute Tara



Tara drinking Twisted Tea! LOL!



Some pics!

Some silly play! Aren't they so ridiculous?





Thursday, June 15, 2006

I finally got to brush all of Tara!!

I found that she tolerates a rake much better than even the softest brush, so I have been getting her little by little with that while she's playing with a toy or eating. And just now I brushed all of her while kind of restraining her as she was mouthing with ORion who was on the couch and she was on the floor. Yeah! The greatest reward is apparently playing with Orion. I guess that makes brushing worth it. : ) She actually wasn't even playing with him at some points and I was still brushing her and she didnt care. Right now she' licking Orion's lips which is an "appeasement" behavior, I think that's what it's called. Very nice. I also forget to mention how much fun we had at Paws in the Park on Sunday! Tara probably met more than 100 dogs and 100 people too. It was so much fun and she was just great. Even in that environment she still maintained lots of attention on me and was offering me sits and downs all over the place in hopes of a reward. What a smart girl. Last night we explored Inman Square in Cambridge and she was great! Inman Sq. is quieter than Central or Harvard, and night is calmer than day, so I figured we'd start that way. She met homeless people and drunk people -- woo-hoo! a couple of specific types of people that are included on our socialization checklist! --- and lots of other people too. Everyone of course called her a baby Lassie. I think she's finally getting to the point size-wise that people are hopefully going to stop asking if she's a damn sheltie or a miniature collie! LOL. If I have to say she's a "full" collie or that's she's a "Lassie" collie one more time, I'm going to wring their neck. LOL. There's no such thing as a damn miniature collie! I think she's gained some weight and some height this week for sure. Maybe I'll weigh her again next week. I feel like she's gotta be pushing 20 lbs for sure -- of course i thought she had to be at least 15 lbs last wk and she was only 14! Everyone that meets her acts like she's going to be huge. I hope she's going to stay in the 50-60 lb range. My last collie was 85 lbs and I don't really want a repeat of that again -- not that I think she'd even get that big, but I guess I'm just sick of people telling me how big of a puppy she is! I don't think she's that huge! :) So I'm sure we'll go back to Cambridge hopefully this week coming -- we've got to hit Harvard Square during the day soon, I think she'll be fine. She also got to walk around in her first pet store today, before I have taken her in , but I've always carried her. I'm feeling more confident that she's less at risk for parvo or distemper or something now that she's 3 months. She's so cute. Anyway, I do have pics to post, so I really will try to do that today. Also, I really don't want to have to tape her ears. They are still tipped, not a huge amount, but enough I think. I really, really hope they stay that way! Pretty soon she'll get to meet a real baby too, (actually she saw a few the other day at paws in strollers and everything) because my best friend just had her baby on Sunday, so Tara will get to grow up with her daughter Emerson, since she'll probably be an important aspect of our lives, being my best friend's daughter and all. I think it will be nice for both of them. Tara does really well with my mom's kids (except for when they are running, I have to keep reiterating how to deal with that situation to them.), she was actually participating in the old "pick a card" trick with my sister Sunida yesterday. Yes she caught on quickly and got really good at picking a card from the hand in front of her. Anway, she's up now and probably needs to go out -- we should go for our evening walk seeing how it's quarter to eight! I'll be back later (hopefully to post some pics!).

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Tara graduated! (kind of)

Tara gets to move into Flex 2 next week. Yay for her! We have really got sit, down, targeting and loose-leash walking going super well so far, especially the walking, wouldn't it be nice if we could keep that up forever? (The Level 1 class we are in is broken into 3 1-hr classes based on whatever skills you are working on. Flex 1 is at 6pm, 2 at 7pm, 3 at 8pm, we are now in the 7pm class) Yeah Tara -- what a smart puppy!

6/13/06

Tara met two new adult dogs today, Mea and Slate, two Australian Terriers I walk regularly. They got along well but I left them wanting more of each other. LOL. They will be staying with us from June 31 - July 4 so life will be much easier if they can all get along well. I think they will. Mea and Slate are both really nice, well-socialized little terriers. That weekend I'm also taking care of a friends two Cocker Spaniels, Tupelo and Sage, so we will have 6 dogs to tear around the yard. I don't think Sage will tear around the yard too much though, she's going to be 9 this year and is pretty laid back. Tupelo was a year in Feb., Mea just turned 3 and Slate just turned 4. We will have Luke come visit us from 7/14 - 8/2 and he'll only be 9 months old or so and Tara will be 4+ months so they should have some good fun too. Tomorrow night we are all going in to Cambridge to see a friend play music at a club, so it'll be her first time exploring the city. I figure it will be a little calmer at night. I'm sure she'll be fine. : ) I swear I'm going to post pics sometime this wk, I ran out of time before I left for MA though, so now it will have to be Thurs or this weekend when we are back in ME.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Tara discovered

that running water (we have two stream on our property and many that we pass on our walks) is really fun to run through! Yeah! I want a dog that likes water. I hope to take to some local lakes (there are quite a few) over the summer. Maybe she'll even like to swim! She kept running through the stream and then tearing around tail tucked and then running throught the water again she got Orion all going and then they played out side in the tall grass tearing around, rolling around, having a real nice time in the sun. Cute pups, should've taken some pics! yep i know!

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Long overdue update!

Boy has a lot happened since I last updated! Tara has now had her second puppy play class and two obedience classes! She is so smart and so easy to train. We have really got loose leash walking down so well, I’d almost call it a heel, and her sits and downs are really good too. She’s also targeting my hand really well, actually that’s the first thing I started clicker training with her, maybe I’ll start her on targeting lids today so I can start sending her away from me to do things. I’ve been reading about tracking and also thinking a lot about her cgc. I think the only thing that would be tough for her to pass on her cgc is the brushing. Boy does she hate to be brushed! We are working on it, but wow, she is not enjoying it, especially her head and back end, especially her legs and bum area. I know I’m skipping around her, but I’m just typing whatever I think of it when I think of it. Her ears, well I’m not sure what to do about them, for like a week they weren’t tipped, and now they are again, I have to get a pic today and post it online to show. If I do need to tape her ears, I’m not really confident about me ability even though I have a lot of notes! So if I need to do it, I might need to find someone who can help me. But right now they are tipping again…. so we’ll see!! She and Orion play really well for the most part, although I think it’s finally dawning on Orion that this pup just might not be going anywhere. She still listens to him when he tells her off about a special toy or a bully stick, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last. Diet wise I switched her over to a brand of kibble I was more comfortable with, Solid Gold their lamb puppy food and we have just started adding raw in again, this time raw lamb. I tried to switch her earlier, but combining her housetraining with some loose stools due to diet was really affecting my sleep! So now she is comfortably sleeping 8 hrs or so on her own downstairs in her crate, and we have decided to start experimenting again. Right now I am only feeding her lamb meat in the morning in hopes that if it causes any gi problems for her, that those will all be done with by the time we go to bed! Right now she is pawing her buster cube around and working for some kibble. I really can’t get over how smart she is. She is SCARY smart! I’ve been telling people that she’s a border collie in disguise! She premeditates things I swear. She’s very wise when playing with dogs, and if Orion goes flying one way around the table she’s smart enough to stop in her tracks and wait for him to come around the other way, she figured that out in the first few days we had her. I weighed her when I stopped in at the vet’s Thurs. to schedule her next round of vaccines, and she weighed exactly 14 lbs. Although she seems to be growing rapidly to me, I guess most of it is height at this point. In puppy class she’s too good. She runs around mostly calmly and plays very well with all the other puppies. There was one puppy that was really rough last time though and tried to be a jerk to her and she really let him have it. So far it seems like she has really good instincts about what’s okay and what’s not. (I wish she’d add brushing to her list of okay things though!) In puppy class we practice recalls by calling them away from play, which Tara is wonderful at, but everytime I’d tell her “okay!” to let her go back to play she’d just stick like glue to me, like I was more important and she’d rather hang around me. She’s so funny! It was hard to get her to leave my side so that I could call her back to me! We also did dog to dog greetings with the puppies on leash. The dogs were supposed to walk up to each other, sniff for a few secs and then we were supposed to call them away. Well Tara, would walk up to the dog, ignore the dog as it sniffed her (all while sitting and staring at me!) and immediately come as a I started to call her. Show off! I assist in classes at Gemini where all our classes are and I was told to stop making everyone else look bad! She was so good though, it was all her! I’m not going to complain about a dog that has attention that’s too good, there’s no such thing as too good attention! Her eye contact with me is just unbelievable. If we are in class and not working though and I’m ignoring her, I’m sure she would lie down and bark at the other dogs to try to get them to play with her, so mostly we just keep working. It’s amazing that she can focus on me for an hr straight at such a young age. She is so food motivated, and so happy to be praised or played with too. I can’t wait to start really getting involved in events with her. It’s going to be so much fun to have a dog who wants to work. (At least until adolescence hits! LOL) She’s beautiful, friendly, affectionate, outgoing, smart, trainable, agile, has a good temperament, plays well with others and is eager to please. So far so good. I hope I’m not jinxing myself by saying how good she is. : ) We have yet to go into the city, but I’m planning on it this week, to get her exposed to all the different sights, sounds and smells there. I’m sure we’ll get to see many interesting people. Also my friend came up with her 3lb Chihuahua puppy, Maisy, last weekend, and Tara did very well with her. Tara has also started going on walks with Luke, a shepherd mix that I walk twice a week who is about 7 or 8 months and 35 lbs, and also has been visiting my friend Sandy’s collies Max and Margo. She’s great. So far so good! Our vet appt. is June 29 at 2:00PM. Everyone thought she was adorable when I brought her in of course! They always do! Tomorrow we are going down to MA for the day to go to a really fun event. The rescue group that I volunteer for , Save a Dog, is having their 6th annual Paws in the Park Dogwalk. There are many other dogs, people, vendors, agility course, and all kinds of fun stuff. My friend Linz is supposed to meet me there with her Chihuahua Maisy, and of course Orion will be attending as well. It should be fun for all! The rain is supposed to go away and its supposed to be perfect weather. Maybe I’ll be smart and take some pics again. I have been slacking off with that more again lately. Oh well, hopefully writing this entry will make me get on top of it. But back to the mention of tracking, I was thinking of getting involved in that because it’s low-impact, we can’t do agility until she’s 14 months or so, not with the obstacles at full height anyway, so I thought this might be something fun for us to get started with. The Maine tracking club is based two towns away from me, so hopefully we can get involved there. Also there is a CGC test at a local petfest a couple of towns away from us at the end of August, and maybe she’ll be ready for that by then. We’ll just have to work on that brushing. : ) I’m not worried about anything else. I think very soon I’m going to order a grooming table, hopefully that will help her and me get some brushing accomplished without her chewing on me! I’ve been feeding her while I brush to classically condition that brushing is a good thing, but it’s hard to feed her a piece of kibble for every stroke that I make! I think she’s better than what she was, but boy am I dying to just brush every inch of her. I can do it quickly if she’d let me! It’s only going to get worse as her coat grows in. Anyway, we should go for a walk soon and do some training, the rain appears to have stopped. I’ll try to update again sooner next time!