Meet Rosco

Yesterday Jess drove down to Washington to pick up this gorgeous guy.

He is a 3 yr old purebred Beauceron whose family could no longer keep him. For a dog who had been put up for sale on Craigslist then taken into rescue for a few weeks then driven for 5 hours with strangers...he was amazingly calm when I met him. He is reportedly good with kids, cats and other dogs - Jess got a good catch :) He was just neutered a few days ago so I thought Abby would get all flirty with him. She started to when she met him but then seemed to realize something wasn't quite right and ignored him instead. Ryan was put off by the residual "I'm full of hormones and I'd like to deeply sniffff and lick you" and kept giving him the full flashy smile and growl. I'm sure it won't be long before they all love each other. Rosco is also really into toys and playing fetch and was showing already last night how he sits politely waiting for his toy to be thrown. Somebody did a good job raising this guy.

Jess is working on a new name...one of the top choices is Ruckus. I think it suits him!

One more stolen from Emma ;)

Homework

Agility tonight! I always look forward to agility night. I have a lot of fun playing around in class...but I definitely haven't been doing enough training in between classes lately.

When the weather gets a bit nicer and I have some light after work I can get back into more training again. I have a "crawl" training challenge to get going on too! I am going to try and teach crawl away from me towards a target stick since I haven't done that before.

Abby has forgotten how to finish a set of 12 weaves (she always pops out at pole 10...she will go months with perfect weaves and then suddenly 12 poles elude her. I just don't get it). She also needs some more work with contacts since I've been slacking on my contact rewards. Oh and her start line is still broken. She'll stay where I put her but will stand up from a sit and I have to go fix it at least once, and I just don't trust her to stay like I used to. Bad me for letting that one slide!

Ryan needs tons more foundation work but I fell into the "sequencing is fun!" trap and probably have him running sequences that are too hard too soon. I need to do more one jump stuff with him and work on his collection over jumps. His contacts are great but he won't drive ahead of me into position. I actually worked on this a few days ago so we'll see how it goes tonight. His weaves are looking like they will be excellent (head down, really fast) but he still occasionally misses the entry or pops out. He is still definitely a puppy in a lot of ways including his ability to keep his brain in his head...after weaving 3 or 4 times in class you can tell that he just isn't thinking anymore.

I was reading about barking dogs in agility on Susan Garrett's blog today. The consensus seemed to be that barking while working = acceptable and hard to get rid of. People who had lower drive dogs were posting saying they wished their dogs barked while running! Barking at any other time in agility = not acceptable. Although I wish both Abby and Ryan were quiet while running I think I have to come to terms with the fact that they just aren't. The love agility, they run really really fast and they like to tell the world how much fun they are having. They are both quiet (for the most part) when not running and are great in their crates and I will continue to reinforce that. As of writing this, though, I am officially giving up on my inconsistent tries to get them to be quiet while running.

Don't let this flower on my head trick you...I'm a speedy barking agility fool!

Mud Mud Mud

Lots and lots of mud. I went away skiing this weekend and it was beautiful - clear skies, bright sun, perfect powdery snow. I came back to....a big pit of mud. The dogs didn't care. The more mud the merrier!

Ryan's New Look

Ryan! What a flashy new look you have!

We went for a walk with Xylo, 7, Jazz, Cooper and foster dog Fenway...and extreme fun was had by all.

These four run and tackle and dart and weave with endless energy. Ryan, 7 and Fen are all pushover boys and Abby is a ....errr "controlling" girl so the group works well together. Add another Abby into the mix and all hell would have broken loose.

Mostly they were split into 2x2 wrestling.

How do you tell puppies from dogs?
Check out their running stance!

This is 7's angry face. It only came out for 6-month old Fen when Fen got too rough.

When confronted by Abby and Ryan his face didn't look quite so tough.

Abby takes a split second rest.

Super cute Fen! Check out his overbite.

I'd be tucking my legs and running too, 7, if I were you!
You can see how much he's grown in that picture - he's 8 months old now and last time we saw him he was much closer to Abby's height.

7 finds the most special stick on the entire field (...that was covered in sticks).

Ryan uses 7's puppy attention span to his advantage and steals the stick.
"Just watch the stick chewing master, 7."
7 realllly wants his stick back.

He pretends to be interested in a speck in the grass and then...

SHAZAM!
Viszla distraction tactic employed!

Success!

Fen's only distraction tactic is barking. It didn't work.

Ryan's tactic to reclaim the stick didn't seem to work either...
FAIL!

Guess who ended up with the stick?

That's right. Xylo the sneaker male came in on the sly.

7 is really growing up! And his ears seem to be growing backwards.

Just keep running (Abby is never ever chased...Ryan is almost always chased, by everyone)

Xylo and Cooper share the same strange obsession with rocks. They both try to paw rocks around the field, dig the field around the rocks, bark at the rocks...

Jazz doesn't get why anydog would be obsessed with something so non edible.

Abby doesn't either...and as we know, she has very little tolerance for things she doesn't understand. She would be running with the others and then pause to yell at Cooper as she passed him and his rock.

Maybe she should have been paying more attention to where she was going.

Puppies running.


Ryan! Get up and RUN so we can chase you!

Hyyyyy YA!

When Abby really needs a drink after running(unfortunately in this not so clean puddle) she dips her entire nose into the water..I guess it cools her off faster?

Tired dogs now!

Raisins are BAD

I am so antsy to get home from work to the dogs...I accidentally (stupidly, without thinking) gave them each a crust of my raisin english muffin this morning. It was a tiny little crust each but as Ryan gulped his down I suddenly realized, in my half asleep mind, "no, raisins bad, VERY BAD!!".

I ran to get Abby's little crust from her (she had taken it to chew slowly on the carpet, strange little dog that she is) and counted 4 raisins just in that small piece. From what I've read, one source said that it would take over 100g to be toxic for a dog Abby or Ryan's size (way more than a few raisins). Another source said as few as 7 raisins can be toxic...causing renal failure very quickly.

I don't know if I should have done something other than leave for work and panic quietly all day, but I thought that since they had so few raisins (Abby may not have even had any yet and I'm not sure how many were in Ryan's piece) they should be fine. Logically, they should be fine. Right??

Agh, I just need to get home and make sure there is no vomit or anything and that all is well. I feel so dumb for giving them raisins in my early morning brain haze!

And...random fur seal!

After work update: The dogs are fine! They are wrestling as I write this. No more panicking!

Skiier Down!

I just got back from a weekend trip with my family to a very dog friendly hotel (the owners' dog, Guinness, hung out in the lobby) a few hours from here, in Pemberton. It was so much fun! There were trails right behind the hotel that went on forever that were practically deserted except for a few other people with dogs. The first afternoon when we arrived we went for a long snowy walk and then decided that we should try the trails on skis the next day. So we got out our cross country skis and skied for most of the day on Sunday and another few hours on Monday. Abby and Ryan were in heaven! Running and playing for hours on end in the snow...it doesn't get much better than that for two energetic dogs. Abby didn't seem to get tired at all at the time but is pretty sleepy today. Ryan was getting floppier and less coordinated near the end of skiing on Monday (not that he is ever the *most* coordinated dog...). He is also pretty sleepy today!

I was a bit worried about Ryan getting ice balls in his feet like he did last time we went to the snow - they got so bad they made his feet bleed. This time, in preparation, I shaved all the hair from the middle part of his feet - not between each pad, just the long hair in the middle of the foot. It worked perfectly! I didn't notice a single ice ball and he never limped or licked his feet frantically. I guess this will be a winter tradition with hairy footed Ryan (smooth coated dogs are sooo much easier!!).

The trail into the woods

Incoming!!!

Bend your knees and hope for the best since you can't hop out of the way too easily while on skis!

When I throw snowballs they act like I'm throwing a ball...they are just as competitive over it (as in...Abby screams at Ryan if he gets it and then tackles him) and if it lands before either one catches it they search for the specific piece of snow that was thrown. I guess all snow isn't the same?

This is Guinness. He was very interested in Abby. Especially in her hind end.

Abby...not so much interested in him. She did her best to be a good girl and ignore him, but when the noseinbutt got to be too much...

...she took it out on Ryan.

I think he's her punching bag. He doesn't seem to mind.

What??

I'm just innocently hopping through the snow like a little bunny rabbit.

What's that down there?

Skiier down!

Abby goes to investigate.

And then promptly goes for backup.

She gathers the brawn of the operation.

They head back down to begin the rescue operation.

...this doesn't look too much like a rescue operation...more like an excuse to cover her face in kisses...

...not like a rescue operation at all actually...

Ryan are you *biting* her ski pole??

Fleeing the scene of the accident

*The End*