3 … 2 … 1 …

Finishing things up tonight to be ready for the new arrival tomorrow. My very much NOT TINY puppy – good lord, Asher already weighs 13lbs! Yes, my little fatty is now the biggest in the litter. Hmph. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, I already knew these were not going to be tiny dogs – I just was assuming they’d be like, Navarre sized (a little under 22). Navarre has lot of BIG relatives though, and these guys definitely seem to take after the Luna side in term of size.

In my mind I had kind of assumed Asher would kind of grow up sort of like a red Navarre. I’m probably in for a rude surprise, because things never go that way. Still, got to meet Rooster in person and he’s just as sweet and easy as expected. This was a litter of two VERY similar temperaments, and the puppies have been nothing but happy, sweet, social and confident. I’m still assuming Asher will at least have that going for him.

I got to play with Rooster a bit in agility this week, he was super fun and a lovely, easy jumper. He was also a superstar in herding that was very responsive and trying very hard. He really wants to be a good dog, and he’s so sweet and loveable.  It is no surprise that I just adore these puppies, I just love both Dove and Rooster. I really wish they were all staying local, I’m really going to miss them, it’s been a very fun 8 weeks. I’ll keep myself busy though!

I’ve had my share of angst about whether I was doing the right thing the last few weeks, but I really am very confident that this is the right dog for me. I’m so excited to add him to our household and learn who he is – but he just has that ‘good dog’ energy that I adore. He has from day one. He tends to sit back and analyze more than the other boys, he’s a thinker and not as pushy – but so super sweet. Now that he’s the size of a small house I have downgraded my ambitions for him in agility, if he really is a bigger boy I worry more about the impact on his body (though of course we will still do it!). I am excited for him in herding, assuming he gets the best parts of Dove and Rooster … instead of just the issues. I’d love for him to be more responsive and forgiving than Navarre, but more confident and powerful than Haku. And hopefully have more natural distance than Navarre too, which will help me a lot!

I have made some lists, joined some classes, and I have my own puppy classes I’m teaching too – but every puppy is different in what path you take. I have to wait and see what he tells me he’d like to do as a pup. All he really needs to do is fit into our household, the rest is up to him.

As for the other dogs, been making lists and plans for them as well, so they don’t feel left out with the new puppy. Was interesting that in my lists of things I wanted to work on with all the dogs, there was almost no agility skills that we’re actively working on at the moment. We enjoy playing around with whatever I happen to be working on in classes every week, and I know what their issues are in agility, but with Bright being older I’m inclined to manage her – and Navarre has issues to address, but we have other sports we’re focusing on this summer.

As for herding, I entered Haku in ProNovice at a trial in July down at Ian’s. Foolish, perhaps, but I feel him getting older all the time. He now has ‘old dog hair’ – the weird long hair they get on the top of their head for some reason, that you can then style into a little mowhawk. I’d like to attempt a few Pro-Novice trials this year, but I can see that we don’t have long. I think AKC, and especially arena courses, are more appropriate for him at this point. So we’ll give our little Pro-Novice career a little go, probably just at trials at Ian’s, I think, but our time in herding is limited. I eventually will have to actually attempt to work Navarre again at some point … but not yet. Probably this Fall. His time is coming.

No herding for Navarre this week, but Haku played a bit with a slightly larger group at Dave’s where he was surprisingly super slow with this group. So that doesn’t bode well. We played around with a little trick to help him get slower sheep moving, basically wearing behind them. He seemed to enjoy that, and it did work when I could keep the flanks small enough. Haku was also weirdly poor on his responses with this group, where he would take three steps before responding – which is not helpful. But he is always trying his best, love that boy.

Navarre did do some obedience practice, broad jump looked good, if his fronts were a bit off. This was with the higher broad jump though, so I’d like to try it with a flatter one, where they’re more likely to try to cut the corner. He also had some issues with remembering to jump on the return with his dumbbell, so we worked on that. His drop on recall is looking pretty good. I’ve been using an arm signal which I think works better than his verbal … but I’ll keep working both. If he’s distracted at all I think a verbal is better. Heeling continues to be forgey, I don’t think I’m going to fix that one. I’ll definitely be using some different methods to teach Asher to heel. Navarre actually was surprisingly difficult to teach to heel from the start though.

And we played herding games in the park, Navarre is doing better at responding to walk-steady-walk, and, to a lesser extent, his flanks on a toy. He still needs a lot of work with his whistles on a toy. Yeah, we have time. Haku is starting to catch on to the walk up whistle, so something we may be able to use in July. Maybe.

And Bright is adorable, I need to get an agility project for her, I’ve used her as a demo dog a couple times this week and, OMG,  she’s just making shit up. She’s super happy to play though! I really should just work on her running contacts, may not make a difference, but she’ll have fun. Bright turns 8 this month! Gosh time goes by so quickly. The tentative plan is to go down to preferred at the end of this year, maybe qualify for the AKC nationals that is hopefully somewhere that we can drive to. So maybe one more big event for Bright? We shall see. Love my Brightness, and I hope she’ll have fun raising Asher. He seems like such a sweet soul, I can’t imagine her feeling he needs discipline! So far she’s never so much as acknowledged that he, or any of the other puppies, exists.

So tomorrow is the big change, we will have a very busy summer!