Bitey Face

The contest over who could make the ugliest face took place this morning in my bed.

Abby starts us off with a pretty mild expression
Mia shows her how it's done, and shocks Abby with her added tongue-out move
Abby resorts to her classic wrinkley face...
...but Mia wins that round, shocking Abby once again with the size of her pearly whites.
Abby has one final move to be unveiled, though...the Demon Dog! This move is unbeatable in its ugliness.

Tycho is a Lucky Guy

Tycho got the two pretty ladies all to himself on Sunday! His brother Zeus had to stay home because he gets stiff and sore after this steep trail. I don't think Tycho was complaining!

Mia decided that copying Tycho was even more fun than copying big sister Abby. If Tycho was chewing a stick, she had to find a stick to chew, too.

Whee!

Sheep are scary (and maybe fun)

Abby was put on sheep today! I can see how people get addicted to sheep herding. Even though Abby is in no way, shape, or form a Border Collie, I'm tempted to go back and try again, so I can only imagine how much fun I'd have with a real herder!

We put Mia on the sheep first, so that Abby could watch her and maybe get an idea of what to do. Mia was definitely less intense and crouchy than she is with her ball, frisbee, dishwasher, or buster cube...The trainer said that a lot of young border collies are goofy around the sheep at first, though, and that Mia has some instinct and could definitely be worked. Her tail stayed up the whole time, and she was pretty bouncy, but she was moving the sheep and wasn't too scared of them.

As soon as the sheep started moving, Abby started barking. I kept having to back up further and further, so she didn't really get a chance to watch Mia in action. Once the barking started, I was pretty worried about letting Abby in there with the sheep, but the trainer seemed to have tons of experience, so I trusted her. She had me come in with Abby, who was still on the leash, and walk her up to the sheep. Abby was barking and lunging and trying to sound as vicious as possible to scare those big scary beasts away. The trainer said "let's see how tough she really is - let her off the leash". I let Abby off, and as soon as she realized she wasn't attached, she definitely lost a lot of courage. The trainer and I walked over to the sheep (they'd been across from us previously) and I called Abby to me. I was then told to pick her up and place her on the sheep's backs! I sat her up there and calmed her down, then let her sniff their butts, then put her back on the ground. When she started up the barking, I called her again and put her up on the sheep. After the 2nd time she'd calmed down quite a bit, and started to actually circle around the sheep and bring in any that strayed away. I was very pleased with her! She kept her head enough to listen to me when I called her and when I told her "that'll do" and we left the pen. What a good puppy!

I might bring her to meet the sheep again on Friday. The trainer said that building a dog's confidence around the sheep can really help with their confidence in general. After the sheep experience, Abby was either in shock, or was feeling pretty pleased with herself. She really had this new glint in her eye - it was so nice to see. I think she was probably in awe of the fact that I was encouraging her to chase something, rather than trying to stop her.

The trainer also knows of a good place to train for flyball where the dogs learn one at a time, instead of being thrown into a room full of screaming dogs from the get-go. I may try that again, we'll see. I have to pick and choose here...I do not have the time and money to do agility, herding, flyball, Rally-o, and possibly lure coursing in the spring. My NuttyMutt may be talented, but she's going to make me go broke!

Ugh.

Bad day at the field today, and it was, as usual, due to my own mistake. I didn't have Abby on a long line, even though I've promised myself many many times that I'll keep her on one. I started class late today, though, so I went to the field at the usual time from last term, when I know most of the dogs that are there. Everything was great until the very end - Abby had gone up to greet all the dogs nicely, and there was nobody playing fetch. There was one newish dog - a tiny poodly thing that I've seen there once or twice.
My big mistake was trying to put Abby's leash on while close to the other dogs. I did my usual "Abby, ready to go?", and asked her to "place" so that I could put her leash on. I reached down to attach the leash, and as I was just about to buckle it Abby went lunging towards the poodle, who was a few feet away. I think she thought she was already on leash...and right now she is terrible at greeting dogs on leash. I can easily get distract her while we're walking, but I don't ever let her greet dogs while on leash because it never goes well anymore (and i don't think leashed dogs need to interact, too many things can go wrong). So anyway, she definitely has some barrier frustration/anxiety issues while on leash.
She jumped on the poodle dog, who was about a third of her size, and pinned the poor thing. The dog was screaming and trying to run away with Abby pinning it as it ran. The owner, a large guy, went running towards them to pull Abby off, but luckily she jumped away before he got there (don't even want to think about what would have happened it he'd tried to grab her, but I can't really blame him for wanting to pull her off his little dog). The dog was ok - Abby had some of its hair in her mouth, but I think that was the only damage done. I apologized profusely, and another man on the field said "wow, I didn't know she had that in her". I was obviously in no position to reply with a sarcastic comment like I wanted to (has WHAT in her? the ability to snarl and bite?), so I just kept apologizing and I left.

Ugh. That's about all there is to it. Another lesson learned: Don't put any stress on Abby while she's in close proximity to other dogs. She will find the smallest, weakest one, and bully it to the extreme. I mean...pinning and snarling when the dog did absolutely nothing to her? That's pretty bad. Long line every time from now on. I don't even think this is something I can "work on" - it's just a very low frustration and barrier tolerance on her part. It happened way too fast for me to call her, and I wish I could get her to a point where she could be called off immediately, but that seems close to impossible. Maybe I should bring the whistle to the field again, that might get through to her.

Gaaah! Things were going so well!

On the bright side, she and Mia continue to love each other...and today I taught Abby "pet" by shaping it with the clicker. She has to stick her head up under my hand herself. My last attempt to desensitize her to head touches ended up with her choosing to leave instead of take treats, and this way worked much better. Training is great with Abby when I don't push her too hard, and when I am very precise (that's why the clicker is wonderful). I think we're both perfectionists...

The foster dog is not learning that it's ok to dig, I swear.

Oh, and we go sheep eating on Saturday. Well, potential eating with Nut, and potential herding with Mia.

Annnd we got a Roomba! My dad is loaning it to us to try out for awhile - hopefully a long while. Yippee, robot vacuum!

Mia (=Maya) is here

...and is she ever cute! She's about Abby's height (could be a tiny bit taller, hard to tell), and a lot chubbier. I would estimate her weight to be about 40 lbs, which is 10+ lbs more than Abby.
We went to pick her up at the airport on Friday night. My plan was to have Abby meet her through a baby gate. I knew Abby could jump over the gate, but I assumed (stupidly) that Abby wouldn't jump the gate to 'go after' Mia. So I locked Abby in my bedroom and brought Mia into the house, and I set up the baby gate. Abby heard/smelled her come in and was barking (at 2:00am). I grabbed some treats and let Abby come down the hall to the baby gate. Mia kept her distance since Abby was growling at the gate. I kept calling Abby back and giving her treats...then she suddenly jumped over the baby gate and leaped on top of poor Mia, growling and snarling! I pulled Abby off (she was making lots of noise but not actually 'doing' anything). A few seconds later Abby was prancing around trying to get Mia to play with her. That is obviously an unacceptable way to greet new dogs, but it's a bit late to practice using Mia as the new dog...since they have been playing non stop ever since the meeting.


Mia makes Abby seem like an old lady! I've never seen Abby get tired before another dog, or seen another dog pester Abby to play (she's normally the one doing all the pestering). She is getting a lot better about settling in the house - she is actually sleeping next to my bed right now (I'm dog-sitting while my roommate is in class). I even managed to get have a bit of a nap this morning with both her and Abby in my bed. When I woke up, they started rolling around and chewing each other. It was adorable. It's really good for both of them to be able to tire themselves out by wrestling. I have a feeling that Mia will be adopted pretty soon. She's young, doesn't have any real issues (she barks at things that she's unsure of, but is really friendly with people and dogs when she gets over her initial surprise), and is, I would say (from my very limited experience) a typical young Border Collie.


Abby and I were gone at a trial all day yesterday. We were supposed to do 4 runs, but it was getting late and I was exhausted, so we skipped the last one. It was Masters Jumpers, and I have trouble enough remembering the course when I'm fully awake. The first run that we did was Advanced Gamblers. Abby was in typical first run of the day mode - very fast, a little confused, and definitely not listening well - which was fine for the beginning where we could do any obstacles. She did both mini gambles; one was a hoop -jump, and the other was weaves-tunnel. I was so happy about the weaves! She hesitated for a second on the entrance, but did a perfect weave! Yay! We didn't get the end gamble, but nobody else did in 22" regulars, either - and Abby had the most points. So 1st place ribbon for that!
The next run was Advanced Standard. That was a bit of a gong show...I knew the course really well, luckily, or I would have gotten lost after Abby went up the Aframe instead of into the tunnel. After that mistake I was going way too close to everything, and she started popping out of tunnels and out of the chute. She ran super fast, as usual, and still managed to get a 4th place (obviously without a Q). The third run was Advanced Snooker, and it was flawless (well, practically). She ended up with a 1st and a Q....which puts us in Masters Snooker - scary!!

Abby only missed one target in all the runs, and I made her redo it and she got it the 2nd time, so I think those are coming along nicely. She didn't bark at me too much (only when I wasn't handling very smoothly). She also got lots of compliments for being cute, and someone told us how she was watching our runs and had noticed how well trained Abby was. That made me very happy.