Impending Adjustments

Such a beautiful spring hike we had this week, I really love this time of year – it’s just magical. Also been doing a lot of appreciating the easy and comfortable relationship I have with my crew. The life we’ve built in our new home we’ve done together. It was such a big change to go from our old home and form a totally new family unit. My dogs were a huge source of comfort and support throughout that entire process, I am so thankful that they have been with me. Since then we’ve played with puppies and visiting dogs, but it’s just been the three dogs for quite some time now. We’re coming up on three years here, we have all gotten used to the way things are.

A puppy is going to be a big adjustment for everyone, and will change the dynamics in the household, no doubt. Hopefully things will go smoothly, these puppies SHOULD be easy to live with. But change is always stressful, and we will all have to make adjustments. Heck, will there even be room for Asher on the bed? I keep assuming he’s going to be a very big dog (these are NOT petite puppies!). I will be pleasantly surprised if he isn’t, but a big dog takes up a lot of room everywhere. Bright will now be sharing the big crate in the car with Navarre or Haku, which they’ve done quite a bit. There hasn’t been an issue, but it’s an adjustment.

Asher will bring a whole new dynamic when we’re out and about. We already draw quite a crowd when we go to the park, he’ll change the dynamic of our group outings as well. Remembering Navarre’s younger days before we fixed his ‘body slamming’ phase. That was not a fun phase. Navarre is used to always getting the toy (which I’m okay with, because Haku and Bright always seem to do something stupid). What will Asher think of group games and how will the other dogs adjust to him?

Will Asher get along with the cats as well as the other dogs have? Will we have to teach him about staying quiet in the yard? Will he be able to hang out in an x-pen in the arena while I teach? Lots of questions about a puppy, those first couple months are just about figuring out the logistics of how to manage a puppy that doesn’t have any manners yet – and then hopefully teaching some manners. I tend to think if you can get to 5 months you’re usually in the clear. Until then, there’s a lot to work on.

With Navarre I didn’t want to use a crate, and we couldn’t use an x-pen, so we did a lot of tethering to keep him from destroying the world. This litter does not seem to have the vertical aspirations that Navarre and Dove did, so maybe an x-pen will be an option for Asher. This weekend’s project includes digging through the many boxes of dog toys in the garage for appropriate puppy toys. I also ordered him some new ones, and spent way too much money buying him a puppy collar and tag considering I rarely use them once my dogs are grown. I also need to decide where I want to bring him to the vet, which is something that always seems in flux these days.

Joined the Silvia puppy class, I haven’t done anything with her for quite some time. I really enjoy her training and just fun she has with her dogs. I’ve also been following Justine’s puppy class, which is more to the technical side and also very fun. I could do a working spot there too as she has another class coming up as well, but I assume this puppy isn’t going to want to work for even one class, much less two! I’m fully prepared that Asher will be similar to Dove and Navarre and be pretty outwardly focused and not ready to work until he’s older. Which is totally fine, we’re in no rush.

Basically waiting to see what Asher wants to do. This week I worked on wave with all the puppies again. They were almost seven weeks old at that point, and way more distracted! Didn’t help that I took each one out individually to the porch, where they haven’t really been and were pretty distracted by the new location. So they all could still offer a wave with prompting, but not much offering yet. Asher just ran off to explore! He has an independent streak to him. He also remains very sweet and people focused. And with a more high value treat, he was happy to wave. Hard to believe that they’re almost ready to go home, the past seven weeks have flown by. I really like all the pups, not a bad one in the bunch. Seems like there is usually a shy pup or a troublemaker – all these pups are remarkably similar and even.

One more week before we become a four dog household. I’m mostly excited, but somewhat nervous that it could be a big mistake. But you just never know when you bring home a new dog, as you really don’t know what might happen. Worst case scenario, he’s just the wrong dog for our household – we will find out.

I did give him a name, which is perhaps a bit cheesy but, hey: Contact Point Heart of Joy, as Asher means happy/joy. I do hope that he is a happy guy, he certainly seems to be so far. I’m taking the puppies to go swim in a pool tomorrow. Well, theoretically. We’ll see if it happens. Then I’ll see them on Thursday for a little bit with Bonnie and Rooster, but I’m not babysitting that day. And then he comes home on Saturday, and all the housebreaking it is all on me.

Meanwhile, because it’s local and life is short, I’m entering Haku in his first Pro-Novice attempt at a trial in Scio in July. I have no grand ambitions we’ll actually do well, or even do it at all, but it gives us something to shoot for. And it’s local and Haku knows the field, so at least we don’t have to worry about the aspect. So, yeah, that might be a total disaster. Hopefully we don’t just immediately blow it and we at least get to limp through most of a run to try things out. These will not be with Ian’s sheep, unfortunately,  so I don’t know what kind of sheep these will be. Adventure awaits!

Back to practicing all the herding skills and, shockingly, Haku’s issues haven’t magically fixed themselves with disuse. He’s still too fast on the fetch, not fast enough on the drive and he’s not flanking with any sort of precision at a distance. He doesn’t actually know the difference between a big and a little flank. He knows what an outrun is and then he knows little flanks for driving, but if I want him to do bigger flanks when driving, that rarely goes well. So we’ve been working on it with toys, including attempting to teach his walk up on whistle, which just seems to be mostly breaking his lie down on whistle, so now he doesn’t listen to either. Oh, actually teaching Haku new skills is not much fun.

Navarre is ever so slowly learning to do his whistles on toys, which is remarkable that he’s even remotely doing it, and even more amazing that I can actually get the whistles out correctly. Yes, for whatever reason, and certainly not because I practiced it, I seem to magically be able to do the away whistle now. I totally can’t explain that. But Navarre is working on his ‘steady’, wait, big flanks, little flanks and whistles on toys. I think if we get them solid on a toy then we can actually just focus on the sheep skills when we get on actual sheep. Of course, I’m still not working him on sheep, so hey.

And we need to get practicing on his Open obedience skills, it’s JUNE now, so his Open debut is just a few weeks away. I have entered no agility trials, so I guess this is just the Year of Things Other Than Agility. 2020 WAS supposed to be about qualifying for AKC nationals in Reno in 2021, but apparently they tore down a building at the facility there,  so that location isn’t an option any more. I don’t know where the new location will be, bummer about Reno, so nice and driveable from us and we had fun at the last one. I heard they’re considering Arizona, which, ugh, no thank you. Too far and too hot. But I guess I’ll wait to complain that it’s not in my backyard until it’s actually not in my backyard.