Incoming Puppy

It’s official, I’m going borderpap. It’s funny, as it seems EVERYONE is getting a borderpap at the moment – I’m very trendy, apparently. I ended up going with getting a dog from Rayna. I like her lines, the dogs she’s bred (as that’s mostly all of the BPs I’ve ever met) really speak to me and she’s been doing this for a while. This pup is a ‘multimix’, several generations away from any purebreds. A lot of pap, some border collie and a dash of cattledog. Really, at this point it’s just looking at the particular dogs involved rather than breeds – and I like her dogs. It seems like a very ‘known quantity’, and her dogs are the reason that I really like the mix anyway.

After talking with Rayna she felt a particular puppy would be the right fit for us, so we’re going with her recommendation. This puppy is related to ALL the dogs I know, so I feel pretty comfortable with the choice. From what I’ve seen she’s very outgoing, happy and full of personality (and perhaps rather pushy). She’s also very ‘colorful’, which I had not expected. Fancy looking sable merle(?). I hope she’ll at least be fun to photograph. Looks weren’t in my consideration though, so we’ll see what she ends up looking like. Which, yes, as a multimix it’s going to be pretty surprising – both looks and size. Rayna thinks she’ll end up around 14lbs, she’s the biggest of the litter at the moment. And a smooth coat too – which I don’t mind as a small dog, I do find they shed a lot more. I’m hoping she’ll end up around 14 inches, but who knows.

I do think she’ll end up being the smallest dog I’ve ever had, so that’s really fun. Fenwick was about 18 lbs and 15.5 inches, so I’m looking at getting the next size down. Don’t want teeny tiny though, and I don’t think I’m in danger of getting that. For agility she may end up being an ‘inconvenient’ size, but who knows. I think the cut off for 12 inches for UKI is actually 15 inches though, so that’s what I’m shooting for.

She already has a name, as one sort of popped into my head and I think it suits her and has a nice meaning behind it, “Haven”. It will be interesting to see what the other dogs think of her, I assume the boys will like her. Bryn … hopefully? We shall see, she loves her bitches. I haven’t seen any real nasty borderpaps, hopefully mine won’t be the first. As the cats will be bigger than her, I assume she’ll get along fine with them – maybe she’ll play with Haru? Poor guy needs a friend. Puppy arrives in like a week and a half, so, yeah, suddenly puppy.

I have plans! Plans that hopefully won’t be interrupted by pandemics, moving and building an arena and establishing a new clientele and crazy schedule. Now it’s okay if agility is not her thing, but my hope is that she’ll be my agility dog. Or, at least an easier agility dog than Asher and Bryn. Not that I’m going to stop doing agility with them, of course. We still have a great time together, but it would be nice to have a dog that could do all the agility things, instead of just some of the things. I have plans to make sure I do ALL the foundation this time! But, well, we shall see what Haven thinks of that plan. Fingers crossed for a puppy that likes to train – or at least likes food! That makes puppy training so much easier. And we won’t be distracted by herding or anything else, just agility – I’m looking forward to it. Tricks, puppy things, teaching about the world – I do love the puppy stage so much.

I also feel a little better about the timing, as Bryn will be turning 3 in 2 months – boy, that snuck up on me! Three years is not a bad gap, though I still say little dogs don’t count. I won’t have five dogs, I’ll have 4.25 dogs. Little dogs are just easier, little crates, little tiny amounts of food, tiny poops, little everything! Except maybe barking. We’ll see about the barking. I am a bit worried about Haven and fences, at least I have the dog yard … which I think she can’t get out of. Eventually it will be good, but she will be teeny tiny!

As for the current crew, I’m winding down to summer break and so enjoying having more time with the dogs. As always, the plan for the Fall is to try to keep the schedule under control … we shall see if that happens. But one thing that should never go by the wayside is that dogs should get trained every day. It’s not hard, it doesn’t take that long, it makes us all very happy. It could be agility. obedience, conditioning, basic husbandry, stationing, cute tricks, just playing one on one – especially with the puppy, this is the priority so we stop putting training as something ‘when we have time’. There is always time, it’s just putting it back into the daily routine.

Agility league this week was a bit of a mess, but both dogs nailed the flip away out of the weaves and several other hard moves I was thrilled with. Their issues, as usual, were the simple stuff where they were just doing weird stuff. Like, you know, not coming in … or just randomly making things a threadle rear (not helpful!). So not as much flow as I’d like, but I’m actually very happy Bryn wasn’t as bad as I thought she’d be – this was a BAD course for her. And she did some very nice things! And afterwards we trained through some sections she struggled with, and, yes, the behaviors are there – it’s putting together with more motion that kills. We will get there. Especially with targeted practice! She is such a fun little thing.

At home we did just little bits and pieces, but not with forethought and targeted practice. I need to start writing down our homework every week. I had even set up some dreaded wrap pull throughs for Asher and NEVER WORKED ON THEM. Guess what Asher did at League? Yep, ridiculous backjumping. So silly. I have plans for Asher and Bryn, and I’m hoping to get into a good practice routine this summer so it sticks when I get busy again.

In other news, Bryn finally swam on her own in Lori’s pool. I did require getting out a leash and gently helping her – but after that she wasn’t worried any more. I’m hoping I can retrain her to swim – she just hasn’t had the opportunity since she was younger to swim in a safe comfortable environment. And hoping I can train new puppy to swim – but I have no idea if she’ll like water. I certainly hope so! She does have the benefit of a being a summer puppy.

Practiced a bit on sheep at Maddy’s, both dogs were being really well behaved – like they weren’t being obnoxious heathens about it all the last time we were there. I’m sure it also helped that I was not going to argue and did my best to keep Asher calm and relaxed. But he really is relaxed at Maddy’s, he looks lovely there. He did leave some sheep behind several times- but other than that he looked nice. He’s a good boy, when he’s not spun.

Bryn was also good, lovely outruns, worked on lifting off other people – no problem. Her pace was nice, did some reasonable driving – inside flanks … she was iffy about responding to them at a distance. Not too frantic or obnoxious, mostly went down when requested. I’m saying she was well behaved from Heidi, who let her tag along on her trip up to Fido’s. Heidi worked her up there several times a day for … four days? Something like that. And Bryn had no problem listening to her, and did lots of nice things and had a fabulous time. So thankful Heidi let her tag along! She loves her sheep most of all, I will try my best to keep her exposure as frequent as I can.

Navarre went off with Martine at the UKI Rainbow Festival up at Argus. It’s was a big trip with all her dogs and a rental house, so an experiment in traveling with that many dogs. It went well! So far he continues to adore their puppy and is behaving himself with her dogs. Martine had taken him to a seminar a couple weeks ago, and he actually exhausted himself between marathon play with the puppy and intensive agility training he’s not used to. That was a lot! Martine had to cut the trip short as she had hurt herself the week before, but ran Navarre in a couple runs on the new turf at Argus. He did well, and hopefully Martine can get back up to running soon. We’ll see if she wants to try to take him to the West Coast Open. It’s funny how quiet the house is without Navarre, he’s definitely in charge around here.

Meanwhile, took Bryn up to Brigands for Carol to evaluate for a potential AKC herding trial in August. She was … not good. Especially at first on really heavy sheep. She wasn’t responding AT ALL to Carol, just doing whatever. But she didn’t work well for me either, I think she was flummoxed by the super heavy dog broke sheep that didn’t move like they should. Once we got some lighter sheep she definitely responded better, but was still not exactly stellar. Still, Carol thinks should could do Intermediate, and didn’t fire her (I was going to fire her).

Then we tried her on ducks, as that’s an option at that trial as well. That was very amusing as there were sheep right next door and she would not even LOOK at the ducks, for like 10 minutes. I didn’t think there was any way she was going to work those ducks, but they encouraged me to keep pushing and suddenly … she saw them. And then she had a great time working ducks! Now, will she need 10 minutes the next time she sees ducks? That’s the question.

The plan is to give it a go though, I think Bryn would do a lot better with Carol if they had more of a relationship, but Carol likes living on the edge. And it gives me, once again, a solid goal to work towards. She’ll take Asher too and see if they can get a shed for his B title. He had so much fun working with Carol again! Very different dogs, “Asher, look at the SHEEP, not Carol!” “Bryn, pay attention to Carol!”

Haku is doing great on the Legend infusions and daily galiprant – he’s running around way more than he was, getting on the bed and basically being much more spry. Super happy about that! The goal is to keep him comfortable and moving as much as possible. I’m very glad he’ll get to raise one more puppy … assuming she’s not just a total terror that I have to keep separate from him.

I tortured Dragon by giving him a bath. And not just a bath, but like a full show groom bath. He has just looked so greasy and unthrifty – I had tried dry shampoo and I think it made it WORSE. So I figured I’d try a bath. This involved three separate cleansers, including dawn dish soap, and lots of letting it sit and so much rinsing … Dragon was NOT happy. And he was mildly less greasy for like three days, and not looks exactly the same. So it’s not that he just needed a bath. No one can say I didn’t try.

Cats are evening out though. Haru is harassing Marvin much less, Marvin is harassing Dragon much less, and everyone seems to be getting along. Still trying to keep Haru occupied and exercised, but maybe he doesn’t need a kitten after all. We shall see. One extraneous animal at a time.