At the beach

Abby the agility star!

Abby made an agility comeback this past weekend at our club's 'away' trial (we all went camping at the trial site - lots of fun!). We had 1 lone Snookers Q this summer, but other than that it had been a looong time since any significant numbers of Qs. I guess Abby decided it was time to step up our game...on Saturday we had Steeplechase, Standard, Snooker and Gamblers. Steeplechase was a gong show. I got us lost. It was the first run of the day, though, so that was ok. I also got us lost in our Std. run..no excuse. In Snooker we didn't get far enough in the closing. Then, in Adv. Gamblers, Abby Q'd. She was the only dog to complete the gamble AND she got the highest number of opening points overall and won us a bag of kibble* (* more about how this kibble became useful coming up). On Sunday, we had Team, Standard, Gamblers and Jumpers. In Team Abby ran clean but her partner didn't. She Q'd with a 1st in Standard, and Q'd again in Gamblers. We ran clean in Jumpers but were 2 seconds over time...and I'm not sure that any of the dogs ran under the 35 sec. time limit. It was a very very fast course time. So now Abby is a Masters Gambler - woohoo! Also very scary...

Now onto why the prize kibble came in handy - I agreed to foster 5 half BC puppies that desperately needed out of the shelter. They are very cute...of course. Also very much work. They are now the Movie Stars - Depp, Walker, Sandler, Vaughn and Jolie. They get speutered tomorrow and hopefully adopted very soon afterwards. They've been here since Thursday and my life is consumed by "puppies out, puppies in, puppies fed, puppies out" etc. *over and over and over*. At least they sleep all night. Ryan seems to think he's part of their litter. Wherever they go, he goes. Abby is being a good momma dog. She tells them to shut up when they are noisy in their crate and they have to stay still politely for her to sniff them as she pleases.

Ryan is just over 6 months and I can see him starting to listen a bit less than before. He's in a rally-o class so I'm finally teaching him to heel. Also to 'stay' since I haven't really taught that formally. I know, I know, bad puppy mom. He went through what seemed to be a bit of a fear stage the past few weeks where he would let out a "woo wooo WOOOOO" when we saw dogs out on the hiking trails. I made sure to treat him whenever he saw dogs and his barking seems to have stopped. He is still very much a puppy in his greetings with dogs and with people. Squirmy and licky and in your face. I'm just happy that he's so friendly :)

His growing has slowed down quite a bit. I found out that one of his brothers is 48 lbs - Ryan is only 31 right now! He's just a bit taller than Abby, so he's probably 19" or so. I have a feeling he still has some growing to do. My guess is he'll end up at 45 lbs. I'll just have to wait and see!

This Sunday was "Hyperbowl" - a reunion of everyone associated with the BC rescue. I was thinking about leaving Abby at home but I ended up taking her, and I'm glad I did. Even though there was a field with probably close to a 100 dogs and little kids running around and people with chuck-its, she was really good. I think there was just too much for her to focus on so she just decided to focus on me mostly. I barely saw Ryan - he was off running around and then flopping over for naps. He did get put on sheep for the first time. He is apparently pretty good for his age and he might have some talent when he's a bit older. That was pretty exciting for me and it's something I'd like to continue with him. I like the idea of doing different activities with Abby and Ryan. I will probably start agility with Ryan, but I might also like to do therapy work with him and herding while staying with agility and flyball for Abby. Ryan has a lot less drive than Abby. He concentrates and listens well but when we go out people don't stop and stare and point at him like they do with hyped up Abby. I can't remember if I wrote in here that one woman at flyball said she'd never seen a dog as "on" as Abby. Sigh.

Speaking of Abby, some of her 'bad behaviour' has returned. She jumped on people on the trails on 2 different occasions. I need to go back to bringing really good treats and keeping her close and then calling her back when we see people. I'd been lazy since she had been so good lately. I do have hope still that eventually she'll be able to ignore runners. In general her self control has improved so, so much. In the past she would have never been able to hold a 'down stay' while there were 5 fast puppies racing around, or 50 BCs chasing a ball. Now, though, she can do it. So I do have hope. It's just so hard when you make so much progress and then have a huge backslide.

He's got legs!

Would'ya look at the legs on this guy?? They are growing so much faster than the rest of him right now!

Raising a Puppy = No Time for Blog

So I guess my plan of tracking Ryan's puppyhood in this blog has kinda failed since I've been way to busy with him and Abby and everything else to write anything at all!

Ryan is now just about 5 months old and is starting to act more like a dog and less like a puppy. I'm liking him more every day - I've decided I'm not much of a puppy person. I liked him all along, obviously, but now it's finally like I got the dog that I wanted so much and not just a bouncy ball with sharp razor teeth in a little furry suit. I haven't done much 'trick' training with Ryan. We work on practical things all the time, though - loose leash walking, waiting in doorways/crates/the edge of the sidewalk, sit, down, stay, leave it, out. He graduated from puppy class a month or so ago and we're now doing a puppy agility class. We've gone to that twice and we're learning to touch a target (not so hard since he already knew a hand touch) and doing the tunnel and chute and table. Ryan loves the tunnel and is able to find the entrance even when it's curved away from the direction I'm calling him through from (if that makes any sense). In between the puppy class and the agility class we went to a few Rally-o classes but I ended up doing the courses with Abby and just taking Ryan out in between turns to meet the other dogs and practice paying attention to me with stuff going on. He's been going to daycare once a week and that has been great for his confidence around other dogs. Now he runs up to pretty much every dog and throws himself onto his back in front of them.

I'm still doing flyball and agility with Abby. Both are going really well - I'm completely addicted to flyball and am going to try and continue it when I move back home. Abby gets it now and I don't even have to have her on leash at practice. She stays in a 'down' until it's her turn to run even with all these ball crazy dogs running past her. I hope her good behaviour continues in the fall...she's been doing so, so well lately. She's been fine with all the guests we've had over and I haven't felt like I have to be super vigilant. She goes right up to most of them and demands a back massage! At agility she has been very good about ignoring the other dogs, and she's been just amazing at flyball. I really like the agility classes here and I think my handling has improved a lot this summer. It's nice to work in a big, open field. We do a lot of front and back crosses and I'm finally teaching Abby proper targets (nose touch instead of just the 2020 stance so she'll be able to do them without me right there). We went to a 4 hours distance mini clinic on Sunday and got lots of good tips there. It'll be hard to move back to doing agility in a tiny indoor facility in the fall...

Tycho came out here to visit us and he and Abby were soo excited to see each other! Ryan was pretty excited to meet Tycho, too, but Tycho didn't feel quite the same enthusiasm.

Ryan is almost as big as Abby. Abby is about 18" at the shoulder and Ryan is about 16-17" this week. Abby weighs 28 lbs and Ryan is probably about 24 lbs though I haven't weighed him in a long time. He has a nice silky coat now - no more puppy fuzziness. I've been told he'll have a medium rough coat and I'm hoping that's true - the less grooming the better! I'm not sure if his ears will prick. They aren't mini ears anymore like they were when he was tiny, but they aren't huge and floppy. His left ear stood up at the beginning of June for about a week and his right ear stood up 3 weeks ago for about a week and now they are both kinda airplane ears. We'll see what they decide to do. His freckles are really dark now and everybody comments on his beautiful colouring....they also all think he's a cattle dog mix because of his ticking. I guess no one has seen a ticked Border Collie before! In the past 2 weeks Ryan started getting some adult teeth. He now has all adult teeth in the front on top, and a few on the bottom in front.

Ryan is completely (knock on wood) housetrained now and has been for quite awhile now - at least since he was 3-4 months. He sits by the door and whines to be let out. I'm not sure how long he would sit there before he went off somewhere else to pee since I never test that out. He's pretty good about not puppy biting. When I get home he goes and grabs something to carry around or else I shove something (other than my dirty socks..which he loves) in his mouth. He'll go to his bed now from across the room when I tell him to and he stays there when I tell him to, although I have to remind him that he's staying there every few minutes unless I give him a bone to chew on. He still hates being held down on his back and makes the most awful noises when I do it to him. I should work on it more often...he doesn't really fuss about it, just makes that terrible noise. He also screeched his head off while getting a bath in the yard this weekend. The neighbours must have thought I was murdering him. Abby thought so, too. She started screaming at me to try and get me to stop torturing him. It was quite the racket.

Ryan's still eating kibble instead of raw like Abby because I like to do training with him at mealtimes and I still stuff his breakfast in a kong for him when I go to work. I think I'll put him on raw eventually but for now kibble works well. He seems to be allergic to chicken in kibble, though, so he's on lamb. He got a rash all over his belly when I put him on chicken kibble.

Speaking of raw, our entire freezer is filled with llama right now. One of the professors keeps llamas on his property and we killed one for a project. I got to cut up an entire leg for Abby - she is one happy and lucky dog! It was her birthday yesterday. She's 3 years old - wow! Time really has flown by.

Ears!

I'm too tired to write much of anything tonight so I'll just get straight to the pictures. Ryan is almost 12 weeks and his ears are starting to do some funny things!