9 Months!

Asher continues to grow like crazy, he’s getting both crazy tall and substantial. No petite princesses around here! And he keeps getting more nutty as well, as well as somewhat naughty. He’s most definitely a teenager. Funny how quickly they go from tiny puppies to obnoxious adolescents. We’ve now had several incidents of where he really just doesn’t think he needs to go back in the car when there are sheep involved. He doesn’t seem to this otherwise, thankfully, but, yeah, we’ve had to have some discussions about that. Dorky puppy.

Sister Flea was in season and was very sensitive afterwards. We went hiking and Bright told her off for doing the obnoxious submissive thing (as she’s done before), and Flea was super dramatic and hiding behind us for most of the hike. Ah, girls. Though Asher is in a sensitive period as well, so I think it’s just that time.

Weather has been nasty, so not as much sheep time for us as I had intended this month, but I think that’s okay. Asher is a much more sensitive dog that really wants to be right and I have been very cautious as he will disconnect from the sheep with even a little confusion, so it’s more about just maintaining his enthusiasm and basic feel.

We haven’t had any chance to practice on our own, and that is when I felt like we mad the most progress. Heidi’s babydoll sheep were a good level for him, not too heavy, not too light, mostly sticks with the handler without trying to kill you. At Dave’s he’s been having us work with the REALLY heavy knee knocker lean on you sheep, so I can’t even MOVE with them. And then working with Ian’s sheep is always a bit of shitshow, sheep everywhere and not enough control. I think that’s just over his skill level at this point. I still have done a little with him because, if nothing else, it’s VERY exciting and I think he’s at the age that there is nothing wrong with letting him be a bit wild without getting too uptight about it. Now, if he were Navarre, it would be different, but Asher is a softy.

So, yeah, we really haven’t made any progress at all since we stopped practicing on our own, and have probably gotten worse. But I have no expectations at 9 months, so it’s all good. Asher continues to think it’s a lot of fun and this week I even had both Ian and Dave work with him. It made me feel better to see that he would do the same stuff with him as he does with me, only more so – he’s naughty with them! With Dave he was biting butts! Not in any sort of serious way, but definitely takes the boys way less seriously than me. Which is novel. The goal is for me to train and work him, but hopefully he’ll also have an option of working for other people too.

Fingers crossed we may have some appropriate sheep to practice on in the future, that’s what we really need. And for Asher to grow up. Man, this teenage purgatory always seems like it lasts FOREVER.

It wasn’t just a fluke though, Navarre has entered a new phase in herding, where he’s trying TOO hard to be correct now. It’s just one thing or another with him. There have been some signs lately, including not moving sheep, which was just odd and unusual. But I think everything is going back to him now just wanting to be correct, and getting frozen by it. He’s now getting stressed and worried when anyone BUT Ian runs him. He’s decided that’s how it SHOULD be done, and when that doesn’t happen he now gets stressed, disconnects and eats shit. Go figure! However, I’m hopeful it’s a GOOD thing, a step that he does actually now think about the handler and wanting to be correct, which he most certainly didn’t before. Trying to get him out to Dave’s more, who we didn’t see much the last half of last year, and I think getting him comfortable working with Dave again is a good thing. But, yeah, now we need to go get Navarre to think LESS. It’s a moving target with him.

Ian and Navarre did well at their last winter trial though, 2nd place in Pro-Novice with the highest score they’ve gotten so far (and actually ended up 2nd for the whole winter trial series, which is pretty cool). I’m really proud how far Navarre has come in herding, which has absolutely nothing to do with me, but I would have never guessed he could do much of anything. Shows what I know. Navarre was actually being surprisingly thoughtful, and did not just race through the course. He was trying.

Another issue that may or may not be related to his new found sensitivity in herding is that he does have something physical going on. And, good lord, is he terrible about being worked on. Navarre has OPINIONS about things, that’s for sure. I’m not entirely sure what happened with him, but this does sort of coincide with him and Asher becoming best pals. It’s something that I think has been going on since at least the beginning of the year. And not helped when Asher t-boned Navarre (which was actually totally Navarre’s fault, as it was NOT his turn and he decided to go ahead and try to get Asher’s toy anyway …). Maddy feels it’s his front and back, and he just seems stiff and not moving as fluidly as he was. We have seen Maddy twice, and we’ll see her again next week. He’s never had any issues, so this has been puzzling. I do feel slightly relieved that I know it wasn’t agility, since we haven’t been doing any! Herding seems to have it’s own set of physical stress, but I worry less with Navarre who is more thoughtful when he’s running around on uneven terrain, unlike Haku who just doesn’t pay attention. So we’ll see how serious of an issue this is, I hope nothing big.

As for agility, I feel re-energized! We first had the ISC event judged by Tamas Traj earlier in the month, which was a lot of fun but also super frustrating because I just could not get around the course with either dog for ANY run. Navarre struggled with the 24 inch jumps, but did manage to weave just fine. However, I did have Maddy take a look at him and he was really tight all throughout one side and neck, which I think was the cause of his weird weave issues at the last trial. So after finding that we did scratch the rest of the trial. Neither dog could do a threadle consistently, and they both would totally blow off the first one, but after fixing it would do all the rest just fine. Which wasn’t helpful. We just were not at all together, I was feeling kind of puny and those kind of courses require a LOT of running! So while not our best showing, it was still really fun.

So actually working with Tamas actually turned out to be really motivating. Such hard stuff! I haven’t actually worked that hard on agility in a long, long time. It was also an interesting setup for a seminar. While he did talk about how he trains things and basic concepts on how he would handle different challenges, for the most part it was a 60 obstacle course and every team would spend their turn working on whatever part of that course they were ready for.

I only worked Navarre, as I really do want to finally get our agility groove on this year. He’s grown up enough, it’s time. We had a lot to work on with this kind of course! Really fun, really challenging and we tried some new concepts. We had played around with dog side arm threadles before – but it really came back to does the dog know their verbal threadle, and Navarre actually MOSTLY does. Once we got back into the practice of using it. And there were a LOT of threadles of which there was no time to use an offarm, you had to be moving forward and trusting the dog, and he could do that. You know, somewhat. We weren’t at all perfect, we have a lot of things to work on (tunnel jump discriminations where I can’t be there definitely comes to mind!), but it was so much fun to do something really challenging. That just hasn’t happened in agility in quite some time. Technically we got through all 60 obstacles over the two days, but there were a couple areas we never actually got through like we should have.

I liked Tamas, he kind of reminded me of Ian, there was a lot of shouting, “NO! Where was your shoulder? What was that? Do what I told you to do!” and such not. Which I find amusing and helpful, though I don’t know if everyone did. Sometimes it took a bit for me to figure out exactly what he was saying, but for the most part he did a very good job of explaining what he was looking for and why. If he comes back next year, I’d try to sign up again. It ended up being both worth the money and inspiring enough that I cancelled my local trialing plans to put the money into another european seminar presenter next month – half a day for Navarre, half a day for Asher. It really was very fun – though cold!

It gave me a lot to think about in terms of what I want to train with Asher. When I’m just thinking about American courses there is just not a lot of reason to train many skills. But with these courses … oh yes, lot of verbals and independence. I think Asher will enjoy doing the training, so I do need to decide exactly how many fricken verbals I want to end up with.

Oh, and, here’s a shocker, I need to stop throwing the toy as a reward for Navarre and end sequences with a hand touch. Now, we DID work on that a while back quite consistently, and it didn’t seem to make much of a difference, but that doesn’t mean I should stop. He really needs to come into me. So, yeah, no more throwing toys and lots of rewarding by ending sequences with a hand touch. With Asher too!

We did have a couple visitors this month, both Kip and Jasper (16 week old pyrshep puppy) came to stay with us. I was SO super proud of Asher – guess who CAN be gentle and appropriate when he wants to be? Just goes to show that even if your puppy is a total dick and doesn’t get to play with any other dogs when he’s little, he can still grow up to have great social cues. Asher is just so big and bumbling and powerful, it was so cute see him being so careful, especially with the puppy. Navarre also was super excited about the visitors, but they were not excited about him. While Asher is a fun playmate they really enjoyed, Navarre was a pervy uncle they didn’t thought was obnoxious and pushy. And Bright and Navarre basically ignored them, but weren’t at all upset about them being here. It a good experience for everyone, I think.

Asher went to the vet! First time since his puppy vaccinations. I needed to get him microchipped and his rabies vaccination, and I’m always trying to find a good local vet, so we checked out a new place that was in this old converted house. Knock on wood, I really liked this place! I liked the vet a lot and since it didn’t LOOK like a vet, Bright was suspicious, but actually pretty comfortable. Asher now weighs a trim 40 lbs, which I’m okay with. It FEELS like he’s 50lbs when he hits me, he’s one substantial boy. He’ll be at least 45 as an adult, if not more. He’ll be beefier than Navarre. Though I’m really hoping not taller! He did great at the vet, no issues at all. Bright I brought in just because, who now weighs 35 pounds – good lord! Bright has ALWAYS stayed at 32 her whole adult life. She’s on a diet, it’s never good for her to be that close in weight to Asher of all dogs. I did want to get her teeth checked as she has been not much into chewing these days, but her teeth look great, so there you go.

And yet again, no one mentions Asher’s tiny balls. No one ever mentioned Navarre’s either. Though, quite honestly, I don’t remember Navarre going to the vet as an adult. He had his rabies about 8 months and I don’t think he’s been in since. Which makes me feel like a horrible pet owner, but he’s been healthy, I haven’t any need to bring him in. I’m always amazed and what they DON’T notice on these so-called general exams. Like Asher, no one ever mentioned his umbilical hernia, not once (closed now).

There was one thing concerning about Asher though, he does have a ridiculously low heart rate – athletic heart. However, he had a murmur which the vet thinks is an athletic resting heart murmur, and if he actually got his heart rate up it wouldn’t be present. So that’s something I actually want to verify is the actual issue.

And he’s finally microchipped, which has been on the list forever, especially as he doesn’t wear a collar anymore. And he got a fancy new one that takes his temperature, so no more rectal thermometers! At least when he’s at a vet that can read those, anyway. Which led me down a whole rabbit hole of making sure everyone’s microchips were up to date, which I swear I did when I moved here. They most definitely were NOT, nor can I even FIND Haku’s. I’m assuming it probably AVID since it was 10 years ago? I’m pretty darn certain he has one, so I have to track that down and update it. I don’t have Bright’s connected to my name, but it should have Karen’s info, which hasn’t changed. And apparently I never even microchipped Marvin, at least I can’t find any record of it. He had a lot of weird stuff happen when he was young. So, yeah, good things to check …

As for training this month, didn’t do much. Mostly worked a little heeling with Asher, and he’s finally getting the idea and we recently introduced autosit at the halt. We signed up for a running contact flatwork online class, both to check it out and it sounded like something Asher could actually DO at this age, so we’ll see how that goes. But I start back teaching this week, so we’ll play around before classes again to test things out, which is a really good way to train your dog, just a few minutes at a time …