Acceptance?

It was a big week, six weeks later, the dogs appeared to have finally thawed somewhat with Asher. For no particular reason I can see, but I’m not complaining. One night I thought Asher was just playing with some toys behind me, I look over and him and Bright and just wrestling away, like this was an every day occurrence! And they played for like an hour straight, appropriately and happily. So, huh, that was unexpected. Then a couple days later, with no warning whatsoever, I look out onto the porch and Navarre has pinned down Asher and is obsessively cleaning his ears. So that was just super bizarre to going from not wanting anything to do with him to stalking him down and hanging out with him under the karunda beds on the porch (Asher’s preferred napping spot).

I don’t see any real difference in Asher’s behavior, maybe the dogs are just finally getting used to him? Asher remains too rough with Haku and I have to intercede on his behalf when Asher keeps biting his nose trying to steal Haku’s toys. I know we are going to have to have some serious conversations about body slamming as Asher gets older, with dogs and with me, he’s just one Nature’s Slammers. He doesn’t think much about his body at all, which is not my favorite trait. He’s doing better at knowing where it is though, he can think about when he wants to – but it’s HARD, he gets really easily frustrated with body work. Navarre was a natural at this stuff, for Asher it’s work.

New behaviors this week! Silvia’s class certainly ramped up fast, suddenly we’re supposed to be holding objects and putting them in other objects and hugging and all sorts of tricks that take a lot of time and pieces to put together. We were ready for something new though, and he’s ready for a bit more now too. Closing cupboards and doors and proved surprisingly difficult for the dog that slams into everything. If you WANT him to suddenly he’s all shy and reserved. So we have the world’s wussiest nose push to ever so slowly close the cupboards, and that was with a lot of work. He oddly just does not like this behavior, which is a first. He’s found things hard before, but this the first time he’s said ‘no thank you’ to working on something. Which is his choice, he never has to, but curious that there is something about this that he finds unpleasant. It was a good process to go through, as he is free to decide he doesn’t want to train something, but he then got exposed to having his turn end and another dog take his place. He did not like that! So we work on a little cupboard and then we go to other behaviors he likes better (or in other words, anything!). He CAN close all the cupboards and doors, but not with the vigor I want to see yet.

We started the hold, and this is a behavior that easier every time you train it. He was picking up strongly after the first session and after a little break was giving it even a little duration. Helps that he’s not overly paw focused and he’s REALLY happy to do anything other than cupboard closing. So we’ll see how that progresses, I shouldn’t be cocky.

We continue to work on his other behaviors, trying to look at naming and stimulus control. His positions are ridiculous because he just throws himself around like a maniac, so not at all what I want to see going from position to position. He does have a sit now though, so progress. We have lost his long distance back working on his back as a kickback stand. Or, in Asher’s case, a fling yourself backwards stand. He is getting better at his opposite motion pedestal pivot, but still needs a lot of help, he likes the other direction a lot better. He still very much likes crossing his paws. We had an issue that he did not want to down on concrete, so that was good to know. Oddly, we have never worked on spin, so need to put that one on the list.

Went a couple adventures over the weekend, trying to keep getting him out and about. We went to a food cart court and he did pretty good chilling while we ate and ignoring the other children and people. Also went to a fairly large farmers market and he did great with the bustle and other dogs and things. I was particularly impressed he was able to settle and not bug us while we ate some waffles sitting on a curb, his impulse control skills are paying off even in new situations. He also, shockingly, managed not to offend Carol’s dogs at all. He played with Pixel (he pissed her off immediately the first time they met when he was younger) and he very much respected Demi. So that was unexpected as well, maybe he is growing up.

The big news is that he went swimming in the river, no problems. He loves the water, the waves too much and even did a tiny baby dive into the river on our last go. That’s a big goal of mine with puppies, to get them loving the water and swimming and I’m calling that mission accomplished.

Oh, and his ears are just ridiculous at the moment, a lady at the market came up and asked if he was a Brittney Spaniel, and I couldn’t fault her! I’d also take Toller, this is not a very attractive age! I don’t expect that to change for a few months, but I still think he’s cute in an awkward fugly way.

Navarre continues to be REALLY WEIRD. Herding, licking, posturing, sulking. Then for the first time ever he wasn’t being all gung-ho about herding, which shocked me. We hadn’t seen Dave for months, and Navarre was super weird and leaving sheep to come back to Dave and not really working the sheep but just being all stressy and odd from the moment he arrived. He’s NEVER done that, never been anything but enthusiastic, and it wasn’t anything Dave did, Navarre was just off from the start. So was it the length of time since he last worked with Dave? A new ‘I Hate the Puppy’ phase? Not feeling well? Or some completely different reason? I just don’t know, time will tell if this is a trend, but he remains ridiculously enthusiastic at Ian’s, including the day before this.

Navarre and Ian have been working on fixing his outruns on the top, which involves a lot of stopping him on outruns and waiting until Ian gets up the field. Haku and I worked on this, once upon a time. It seems to be helping, but, shocker, Navarre’s first thought is never to go wider. He also sucks at working a troublemaking single, which I’ve seen before. He’d prefer to just ignore the troublemakers and stick with the group.

So the plan is for one more week with Ian and then I’m taking over Navarre. I don’t expect this to be a very smooth transition, but we’re going to give it a go. My goal is to do a lot more practice in the Fall, which I think will help. I just need to be zen about it all, we’ll get there in our own time. We’re going on a herding road trip this Fall to Idaho to work with Kathy Knox, and while I’ll probably bring both boys, I plan to hopefully work with just Navarre. We will find our way, or at least have a lot of fun trying. Fun, not frustration, that’s the goal.

Haku continues to do well with puttering around with smaller chores in herding. I wish for so many reasons that he was younger, he’s so much more my style to work with. But, yeah, not much power there. We’ll see what Asher brings to the table when he gets older, but I imagine he’ll be a more powerful dog than Haku – but that doesn’t take much! Haku will continue to do AKC arena trials, which I think is perfect for him right now. I did switch his food back from his fancy joint formula and added a muscle builder to his supplements – we’ll see if that makes any difference in muscle loss.

Been refreshing Utility obedience with Navarre, just a little bit. He is so different in obedience than he is in agility or herding, there is a tentativeness there, I don’t know where it comes from. He CAN do his articles, but usually only the SECOND time, the first time he goes out grabs the first one, I point out it’s the wrong one and he goes, “Oooh, we’re looking for a specific one – got it!” and then runs out and actually LOOKS. Been working on pivots and gloves too, it’s all pretty shakey. Need to get a plan of attack for teaching Go-outs, need to practice the moving stand and train a recall signal. The plan is to finish his CDX this Fall and then have a long term goal of getting his UD … someday. If he just drives me up the wall in herding we can always take a break and do obedience, though I know which one he’d rather I do.

We actually worked on agility this week! Puppies are so time consuming those first couple months, but we’re finally setting down and getting back into a routine. This sequence was posted on FB and I wanted to give it a try, so many handling possibilities!

I was really happy with the dogs and their weavepoles, we did this with weavepole grabs, flip aways, push past the exits, blind crosses, layering and more – lots of options! It kind of cracked me up that the issue we had the MOST in this course was 1 to 2, they were both just sure we were going to the weavepoles – heh.

And in cat news, I bought them a ceramic water fountain, it’s just lovely! Okay, I may have actually got it for me, as I love the sound of the water tinkling away. I’m hoping that the cats learn to love it as well. I tried a plastic water fountain many years ago and it was a nightmare to clean, this one is just two pieces and no crannies, should be easy to really keep it clean. So far the cats aren’t impressed, but hey, they’re cats, they’re hard to impress. The cats are currently in a bit of tizzy as I didn’t realize that Fizban had learned to open the rubber bin I kept the cat food in. So he would flip the latch and open it up – and the other cats would join him. I’m embarassed how long it took me to figure out what was happening. By the time I did I had some very fat cats. Now that I have the food under lockdown again they are all acting like they’re starving. Still, I’m much happier, I just could not figure out why their was so much more litterbox waste to take care of!