Throw the Ball!

The Fence Game

2012-02-02T04:14:00.007-05:00

Phase 1: Get 1 or more dogs on the inside of the fence and 1 or more dogs on the outside of the fence

Lynx

Oda (18 months)

Nemi (5 months)

Phase 2: ???

Phase 3: PROFIT... err, FUN!

Lynx

See the whole album...

Herding, HRD, and Healing

2012-01-18T15:39:00.000-05:00

Whoa... it's been too long since I've updated. Got caught up in socializing, visiting family, and training! The last 5 weekends, I've either been out of town or had company visiting here. I've done a lot of herding and HRD training and just a wee bit of obedience. Xita tried to cut her toe off on New Year's Day so is wearing a lovely black and red booty to keep her bandage dry. Jubilee ended up not pregnant, much to my dismay.

So, we're hanging out, getting whiplash from Virginia's winter weather that goes from ice and sleet to sub-20 degree temps to flooding rains to sunny and 65 degrees all in the course of a work week.

I'll be breeding Jubilee back when she comes in heat (end of February), and I'm still expecting Xita and Hunter litters this year too.

In the meantime,Hunter's got a thick winter coat and layer of happy chub. Coal has been practicing his emo sighs. Nike's scheming to steal all the toys and bones too. And Ruffian and Flint are keeping up the quality of misbehavior.

Xita's working on ~~heeling~~ healing, Jubilee's working on herding, Macha's had her 2nd birthday and her herding has shown a leap of confidence--she was giving me some super fast downs at full speed and doing figure 8s in the round pen this weekend! Lynx has a bright new orange and reflective vest to help him know when we're doing search work instead of agility, and Oda's trying not to be too evil (she's also blown all her coat and I bet she comes in heat in a week or so!).

O.D.A (oE.)

2011-12-10T15:46:00.002-05:00

sigh

I am grateful for the absence of blood. That cat should never have come into the kitchen, as far as Oda was concerned.

It's a good thing you're so good looking, Oda

Whut?

Is there a problem???

Yeah, whatever!

Places to go!

Balls to catch...

Things to see...

Dogwalking in the Rain

2011-12-07T17:48:00.000-05:00

This was this morning's walk with a couple of guest dogs (including Sid from the Manor of Mixed Blessings) and Lynx, Oda, Nike, and Xita.

The song is a lot cheerier than I was this morning while walking dogs in the cold, soaking wet in a coat that is no longer waterproof and in pants that had sucked water up the fabric to about knee height. The dogs only minded the puddles and the rain a little bit, fortunately.

Thanksgiving with Nike

2011-11-29T03:40:00.000-05:00

It wasn't all that many years ago when Nike grabbed the thawing turkey off the table on the back porch and tried to run off with it. I was in the house and I heard a loud THUNK!!! and then my dad roared like ... well, like a man whose turkey was stolen.

Dad recovered the turkey and was greatly dismayed by the four smooth puncture marks in it. He washed it off, probably scrubbed it with hydrogen peroxide and salt, too, just to make sure we wouldn't be tainted by any remnants of dog saliva.

And I was trying very, very hard not to laugh.

Dad, however, has been terribly conscientious about leaving meat out on table tops and counters ever since.

Nike, Turkey Thief and Ball Nabber Extraordinaire

This year, Nike did not steal any turkeys, but this girl at 13+, tottering like a happy drunk, stole the soccer ball from the young cousins and promptly popped it. My cousins sounded out the"whoooooooooosh" of the air being let out for me, several times.

I tried very, very hard not to laugh. But really, now, she can't run much faster than a four-year old. How did she end up with the ball in the first place? It's like they wanted her to pop it!

Who me? I would never!

Why I Love Dogs, Reason #214

2011-11-13T02:31:00.000-05:00

Peanut butter.

Lynx Does Agility

2011-11-05T08:00:00.004-04:00

Entered Lynx today in a USDAA Intro Gamblers class at a local trial. It was the first time in any agility trial for both of us, so I was a bit, "OMG THE SKY IS FALLING" this morning, but after the walkthrough, my nerves went away and we just did it. It was really fun--and Lynx was happy, focused, and listened really well--so well, he got himself a blue ribbon!

I love working with this dog--he's so into anything and everything I throw his way. :)

Best laid plans....

2011-10-27T13:18:00.000-04:00

Jubilee has started spotting blood--so she's in heat now too.

No Rally trial for us this weekend.

On the good side.... in a few weeks, I hope to be able to announce the breeding of her and Nathan!

Rally, Herding, and Heat Cycles, Oh My!

2011-10-26T23:54:00.000-04:00

I've been pretty busy between keeping up with work and training and traveling. Competed on Saturday for Jubilee's 3rd Rally Novice leg, she got 100 points and 2nd place. The club gave out a beautiful rosetted red ribbon and a squeaky toy for 2nd place, but Lynx ate the ribbon and I think I lost the squeaky toy in the backseat of the truck.

I'm real proud of Jubilee, though, 99, 100, 100 scores for her 3 legs. She had a few moments of spaceyness in the ring on Saturday, but fortunately they were not at moments that affected the score.

Had four fantastic herding sessions with her over the weekend, though. I worked her in the 100 x 200 field and she did some really good stuff. She regulated her speed a lot, and we worked a lot on the "get back/get out" commands as well as "walk in"--really thrilled about that.

It's a boiling pot of hormones around here--Hunter has been in heat for 2 weeks, Macha's been in heat for a week, and Xita started spotting today. Coal is banished t the kennel for the duration--his thought process seems to consist of, "Hey baybeee! Come on over here.... hey baybeee!" Hunter shamelessly seeks to accommodate him, pressing up against the kennel fencing and stropping against the gate like a cat.

Lynx is a little bit better, being somewhat less familiar with the mysteries of the female of the species. Still, he's spent the night breathing on me and whining under his breath.

Jubilee's not in heat yet--hopefully she'll hang on a few more weeks. She is normally on a four month cycle, so I would expect her to start up around mid-November.... Two more weekends to get her Rally Advanced title--hang in there, girl!

I got to watch brother Jedi work sheep in the fading light on Saturday.

Handsome boy he is....

Jubilee's JHD

2011-10-10T11:14:00.000-04:00

In between herding and rally with Jubilee, I got her to pose for a stacked shot. Unfortunately, it looks like she has no front feet in this picture, so I'll probably have to try again. In the meantime, this is still better than any other side shot I have of her. (Seems like she's always facing me!)

She's in great shape right now. I'd really like a bit more spare weight on her, but she's packed with muscle and she pretty much puts all her food into more muscle or burns it off. She's a densely packed 56 pounds, 22 and a quarter inches--not a bit of fat, but tons of muscle. I was comparing her to her mother Nike the other day, and I think Jubilee actually has thicker bone, it's just that Nike has twice as much coat! At this age, Nike was about 55 pounds, 22 inches.

In an AHBA herding trial in North Carolina, Jubilee got her 2nd required leg of her Junior Herding Dog title. She was a bit fresh and rude and almost blew it when she lost the plot in the far corner. Since then, we've had two good sessions where she kept her cool and ended up working calmly behind the sheep. I need to cement that picture for her--that working sheep is about teamwork and calm and that she'll get to do plenty with the sheep if she can keep all that drive and eagerness reined in. I have been debating competing her in the next level up in an AHBA trial coming up in November, but I think we just need a few more working sessions in a controlled environment before taking her out on a trial field again. I want her to concretely know that it is possible for us to work together without her circling and overrunning. I generally travel 3+ hours to my herding lessons, so there are times when it takes us months between lessons. I need to not let that much time lapse for us from now on, though. I need to keep her in work as much as I can.

Here's the video of her JHD performance.... You can see she was just on the edge of control. I could have kept moving through the routine a bit faster (particularly in the 2nd corner) but at that point, I felt that I needed to get some control (a lie down), and instead she blew up a little bit. Yet again, under stress, old habits come back--I never use German commands in herding, but I did in trial when I was trying really hard not to yell death threats....

In the next few weeks, I've got a couple of AKC trials lined up--I need to get her 3rd Rally Novice leg (she did her first 2 legs back in June) and I'm hoping to go on and get her Rally Advanced title in early November. I went into rally competition with no expectations, but now that she did really good on her first two trials (99 and 100 points), I want to do really well on her 3rd leg and in RA. Ambition, it doesn't take much to get it stirring! :D

I'm racing the clock a bit as Jubilee has always been on a 4-month heat schedule and that means she'll be back in heat in November sometime. If all goes as hoped and planned, she'll be bred this season--she's going to be 4 in February and I don't want to wait too much longer for her to have her first litter.

BSP 2011 -- Schutzhund Obedience

2011-09-28T23:40:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, was the Bundeseigerprufung--the German national Sch3 championships.

This is the obedience routine of the winning pair. I love the precision and evident relationship between dog and handler. The handler also does an exquisitely controlled job of handling the dog throughout the routine--she knows exactly what she is going to do, what the dog is going to do, what is allowed, and what is needed by and for her dog. Beautiful training, beautiful performance.

Oh, and Jubilee passed the 2nd leg of her JHD! I'll post the video of that soon. :)

Herding lesson with Jubilee

2011-09-20T12:34:00.002-04:00

This is the second real lesson with Jubilee in which she worked calmly and under control the entire time. I am working the AHBA JHD class trial course at first, then I just do a bit of training. I spent a lot of lessons with her where she blew me off and was pushing the sheep hard and was zooming around them in full circles. In this video, she wants to overflank regularly (cover more than just one side, she wants to do more than half circles--you can see her wanting to come around to the heads of the sheep), she is disagreeing with me about walking them along the fenceline and I am teaching her that she can just cover one angle of them. She is being a bit squirrelly about following the sheep close to the fence and wants me to pull them off the fence so she can cover them more. She does not yet know flank commands by voice alone and sometimes I have to tell her to lie down to get her to change directions behind the sheep. You can see her tail go up as she contemplates running between fence and sheep, and then when she has done it, she is all wound up and excited. This is an area of conflict for many herding dogs and she just has to work through it.

What she does in this video that I am thrilled with is settle down and walk/trot calmly behind the sheep. She begins to "wear" on her own, only covering the area behind the sheep that needs to be covered in order to have the sheep move where we want them. She never pushes the sheep so hard they run past or over me. She starts off a bit sticky on her downs, but she starts to figure out what I am asking as we move on--you can see me try to "push" her out of the down in the direction I want.
She ends up being very responsive to directional/flank indicators from me. She learns to cover and push them along a fenceline without trying to come around to their heads and move them off the fence so she can have more fun chasing them around. And we end the lesson with her calm, clear, in control, and being very smooth. Good girl!

I've gone back and forth on sharing this video. First off, I am in it. ::dies, crawls away, looks for brains:: Second, while it shows truly amazing work to me, it is all in context. She is at a point in her training where I have just gotten control. I don't like the pressure that she is showing. I do like that she is listening and learning. With another lesson or maybe two, I hope, she will understand more of what I am asking and the signs of pressure from me will even out into smooth work and understanding of what is being asked and that responses on her part further the work instead of hindering her fun. That's the hope, at least.

Largely, this control has come from doing obedience work away from the sheep--training for rally. In this training process, she has really come to like the idea of our partnership and engaging with me and the push-pull of I ask, she does, she does, I reward, and from her perspective, she asks by doing, I reward--so she feels like she has control in our relationship, too. I don't know why she didn't get this at a younger age, but I'd say it's because she's always been extremely independent and drivey--and self-rewarding. She's very hard and resilient and not easily deterred when she's in drive. :) And in herding, she knew she was faster than me and was pretty sure that her idea of fun and what the sheep should be doing was better than mine.

This weekend, we go trial for her 2nd AHBA JHD leg, then I'll need to find an AKC trial to get her final Rally Novice leg.

My GSDs and Sheep...

2011-09-14T03:42:00.002-04:00

Back in 1995, I shared a house near Yorktown, VA, with a friend who wanted to learn about herding with her Border collies. I had recently moved back to Virginia from grad school in Oregon and I was job hunting. I had two dogs--Thorn, my American-line GSD (born in 1992) and Frost, an import-bred German working-line girl (born in 1994). My friend loved Border Collies and wanted to trial at the highest levels and she was buying a small farm and a few sheep and she needed a housemate.

In Oregon, I had trained Thorn in tracking, agility, and AKC obedience--he had gotten his CDX before he was 2 years old. And then I fell in love with doing bitework and started learning about the three-part sport of schutzhund. I started out first with a group doing personal protection training, then just worked him with a friend of mine who was learning to do decoy work. We learned from talking and from books and videos and visiting a couple of clubs--we figured it out as we went along.

I trialled for Thorn's BH at a DVG club in Corvallis. So, back in Virginia, I was looking for a club to continue learning about schutzhund and starting driving up to Alexandria--two hours up on early Saturday mornings, and four long hours home through DC-metro traffic.

As much as my friend loved Border Collies and herding, I loved GSDs and schutzhund. I wanted to learn everything about GSDs--breed surveys and conformation shows and biking for the AD and pedigrees and hip xrays, bitework, tracking, obedience, working in drive, understanding the interplay of courage and drive and biddability, control versus instinct, conflict versus teamwork, and environmental pressure and handler pressure and the pressure coming back at the dog from his engagement with the helper... or the sheep.

Frostbite v Pantara, KK2, Sch1, CD

You see, I was also having the time of my life learning about herding. I watched Border Collie training and trials. I learned how to care for sheep, how to trim hoofs and clean lanolin glands. I helped rehabilitate a few BC rescues that came through our hands and started a few young dogs on sheep. And I tried to herd with my GSDs.

Frost was dripping with drive. She would do anything for food and anything for a toy. And she liked the sheep. But her drive was greater than her capacity to be guided by either her instincts or by me. She would gather and down--but she would scream the entire time she worked. And the sheep would move faster and she'd run harder and she'd whine and whistle and scream. And finally, after a whole lot of getting nowhere very fast, I had to stop with her.

Thorn had drive and hardness, but his instincts didn't seem to tell him what to do past "gather the sheep together." I couldn't move him out, couldn't slow him down. A bag or bottle or a waved hand to push him out and off the sheep didn't faze him--did not affect him in the least. Something that would send a BC swooping 30 feet wide wouldn't even get an ear flick from Thorn. He was more than bombproof--he was undeterrable. Like herding sheep with a juggernaut. A pvc pipe poked against his shoulder and he'd turn and start barking at me. If it was someone other than me in the ring with him, at the first wave of stick or pvc or buggy whip to push him off and back--trying to gain some room for the sheep--he'd turn grab the stick and bite down, cracking it along its length, then he'd toss his head and jerk the stick out of the trainer's hand, throw it to the ground, bark again, looking straight into the handler's eye, just to makes sure his point had been made, and go back to his sheep.

So, no matter that Thorn was the most willing and eager and biddable of dogs when it came to obedience training or tracking or protection training--in herding, it all jumbled up.He wasn't hunting the sheep--he wasn't looking to hurt them. His instincts told him to do something, I told him to do something else... and it never came clear, we never moved past that beginner stage--him pushing too hard, me never able to back him off, slow him down, calm him down, control him, work him, herd the sheep.

Blackthorn's Ashen, KK2, SCH3, IPO3

And after a year of trying, I had to move on. I had to move out of eastern Virginia to find a job. I had to give up on herding with Thorn and with Frost. And I had to decide--would I get a Border Collie and pursue herding? Or did I want to stick with GSDs and walk the walk in schutzhund?

So I moved to Charlottesville and began driving two and three times a week to schutzhund training. First to Alexandria, Lynchburg, then to Leesburg, later to Berryville or Manassas or Fort Valley. I trialled in Maine and Texas, Alabama and Tennessee and Boston. I went to shows and trials and training and seminars. And I left herding behind for nearly 14 years.

And then, somehow, in the summer of 2008, I showed up at for a visit with Terri with a bicolor puppy named Jedi, a son of my Ashen and Nike, a grandson of Frost. I asked her if I could hire her to socialize him a bit, and left him there--just for a month! But he never came back home to me. Not even a year later, I got a phone call from Terri, "My German Shepherd herds sheep!" Jedi had gone to an AHBA trial and gotten his Junior Herding Dog title at barely a year old.

A few months after that, I went for a visit and discovered herding. Hunter, starting at age 3, showed a natural gentleness, great self control and biddability, and natural instinct. She'd bump the sheep with the side of her open jaw instead of biting. She wanted to listen to me and she wanted to work sheep. And Jedi's litter sister Jubilee showed great promise--natural balance, intense drive, and talent.

Hunter, with her maturity and her desire to please--her biddability--as well as her somewhat softer attitude toward the sheep, was easy to take to an AHBA trial and get that JHD in two legs, two tests. Not so much Jubilee. On Day 1 of the AHBA trial, going for her first JHD leg, she got dismissed for biting a sheep--and hanging on. Day 2 our routine was a bit insane--and very, very fast (I did the course at a jog!)--but there was no blood, and we kept it mostly together, and Jubilee got her first JHD leg.

Since I first went down to try again at this madness called herding, I have tested Kva and Kari and Xita and Macha on sheep. Kiva had instinct but not the bond with me--and she had a taste for biting sheep. Kari had instinct and desire and a gentle, gentle approach--she would take a feather-light hand.

Xita has had only 6 lessons, 3 of them this past weekend. And she is showing interest and instinct and biddability--starting a mature dog makes it too easy to overrule their latent instincts, so it can be all easy to teach them not to herd when you ask them to slow down, stop a second, change direction, move more slowly. It takes a delicate balance of enthusiasm and control, instinct and teamwork. But Xita is going to do well, I think. When we walk out of the round pen, she throws her chest against my side and grins at me, as if to say, "Thank you! That was FUN!" And that grin, and the one I return to her, is worth it.

Jubilee

But Jubilee, for the last two years, in our intermittent adventures in herding, has been a challenge. Like doing calligraphy with a jet rocket, to draw the picture for you. Jubilee has treated me in the herding realm with both disdain and disregard. I was, patently, wrong in my requests of her, to stop or slow down or change direction. What's more, I was no fun.

But somewhere in there, I started working Jubilee more and more in obedience, getting her ready for some rally trials. And I learned that I had to insist not only on respect, but on consistent respect. I could not give an inch of leeway when it came to control around the sheep. This is not about controlling the dog by force, but about insisting and demonstrating that my way was the only way to be around sheep, that going behind my back at an accelerating zoom was not going to be an option.

And piece by piece, step by step, something amazing has happened. Jubilee has granted me her respect not only in the trial ring but off the training field and in the round pen. And this hard won regard is, I think, one of my greatest training accomplishments. I had to learn, and Jubilee taught me.

This past weekend, herding with Xita and Macha and Jubilee was a layering of learning, an application of theory, showing the dogs how they could do what their instincts wanted them to do, what I wanted them to do. And that listening to me while hearing their instincts, they could have fun, could play with sheep. And on Monday, I drove the 180 miles home saying to myself, "My German Shepherds herd sheep!"

Serious Cute

2011-09-04T22:01:00.001-04:00

Hunter's boy pup has been hanging out with me (he goes to his new home this week), so this weekend, he went with me to the country to visit my parents. There, he learned about stairs, cow manure, swimming in the river, riding in the back of the Gator, and cow wrestling. He also fell in love with my mom and spent a lot of time crawling in her lap and getting hugs (and trying to steal her slippers and remove her bracelets and chewing on her pants and stealing rugs...).

Cow wrestling = mad puppy

serious puppy iz serious

these feet... look at these feet

Serious puppy is watching you!

Crazy Girl

2011-08-23T16:00:00.001-04:00

Jubilee is a bit intense. She's got a sense of humor, but it's rather understated and easily subsumed by her focus on her goal--whatever that goal is.

I took these pictures of her with her Orbee a few weeks ago while out at the pool. The light wasn't great so the pictures are grainy, but I still love how they capture her intensity.

I have more pictures of Crazy!Jubilee than of Beautiful!Jubilee. I tend to think that this is because Jubilee does not much value beauty. She's all about keeping eyes on the prize.

*MY* ball!

You're going down, boy!


Die, Lynx, die!

Not crazy, just focused!

Q-pups at 8 weeks

2011-08-11T09:03:00.000-04:00

They are rather relaxed and hot in this video, but it's a nice capture of the happy chaos that follows this lot. Little red-collar girl goes to her new home today, yellow girl will be here for another week, and the boy is here a little longer, too. And the sable girl is still looking for her person -- so I will get to enjoy three of them a bit longer. We have started meals in crates and will be working on name recognition (for them what have names!) and puppy recalls and sits and downs for hotdogs.

Little sable girl has turned into a unique individual. She is warm and affectionate with a strong sense of self that often has her marching to her own drumbeat. She doesn't feel any need to follow her bicolor siblings around and I will often find her off doing her own thing while the bicolors rough and tumble together. But this isn't to say that she's a loner--she will often follow at my heels while the bicolors are off romping somewhere and she is quick to seek and give gentle affection.

Red-collar girl's mission in life is to steal my shoes--the ones I am wearing, preferably, and she will bite my ankles until I yelp and give over. Meanwhile, little yellow is probably off conquering her image in the mirror or wrestling some far-larger toy into submission. Mr. Qi (chi), the boy's new name) is amazingly suave--relaxed and confident as he surveys the chaos around him.

So, here's the video of a hot (about 95!) summer afternoon with the Q puppies...

Q puppies at 8 weeks from ce kemper on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday Nike!!!

2011-07-27T22:05:00.001-04:00

Jubilee, Coal, Nike, Hunter, July 27, 2011

Nike turned 13 years old today. She came to me at the age of 20 months, from California. She has been, quite simply, a marvelous addition to my life. As a young dog, she was a spitfire and a flier--drawing blood in protection work when the helper didn't play by what she considered fair rules.

21 months old

A small girl with compact muscling and bearcub ears, at first she thought the only thing I was good for was throwing the ball. Pets were for in-between ball throws and snuggling was not high on her priority list.

An early training session in Virginia, around 1999

2002 or so, getting her Sch2 title

Nike's first litter--Blackthorn's B litter out of Bodo v Tiekerhook

In her time with me, she produced a number of excellent sons and daughters, and it is an amazing pleasure to see her with her grandchildren nowadays.

2010 -- Nike, age 12, with grandson Lynx, 18 months

Nike, followed by grandson Lynx, grandson Musket, and daughter Hunter, 2010

As she has aged, she has only gotten so she enjoys life even more--people have become a great pleasure to her and she loves nothing more than to find a visitor and climb in their lap on the sofa with her ball.

Coal and Nike, 2010

Nike and granddaughter Macha, 2010

Nike and Jasper, around 2009

Nike and Flint voted in 2008

Nike and Ruffian

Today, I took pictures of her with her son and two daughters--Jubilee (Ash daughter), Coal (Ash son), and Hunter (Alex daughter)--and then we went into town and walked through the aisles of Petsmart, letting her explore and sniff and pick out a few toys to take home. Then I bought her a bag of ice (my icemaker is broken, tragedy!!!) and at home, I gave her a toy, a bowl of ice, and a marrow bone. She wasn't sure what to enjoy first!

A marrow bone, a squeaky toy, and icebones--life is good!

eenie, meenie, miney, mo....

Yet More Quteness!

2011-07-26T18:16:00.003-04:00

red collar girl

I was going to make a substantive post, with thoughts and everything, but I decided that it was too hot for extended thinking, so instead, I will just throw you some more puppy pics!

This smile *kills* me.

The good news is that the boy and the 2 bicolor girls have found excellent working homes.

on a mission for cuddles...

Little sable girl is looking for a nice pet home--she's not as forward and bold as her siblings, so I think life as an active companion will suit her best.

yellow collar girl, green collar boy

Yellow girl is a real wild-child--bold, athletic, and full of scamper and win, while her brother spends most of his time looking squishably handsome.

As always, additional pictures are in the picture gallery.

Puppies Are AWESOME

2011-07-20T13:29:00.000-04:00

Quick and Quest

Five weeks old today! These guys are wonderful, awesome, amazing--and completely beautiful. I think I get to a stage with every litter where I am unbelievably in love with each and every one of them. I've gotten there with these pups. They are waggy and affectionate and make eye contact and snuggle and like to have their bellies scritched while they wriggle on the ground.

Query and Quarrel

Quick tries to grab my thumb and run off with it. Little Questy (yellow girl) is full of bounce and scamper and fierce. Quarrel (red girl) is turning into a very focused snuggler with mischief lurking in her grin. Sable Query has decided that she likes to be held close and whispered to.

Quarrel

Query

More pictures in the gallery, here.

Q puppies gather for dinner

2011-07-13T15:20:00.001-04:00

The Q pups had their first solid food on Tuesday and they took to it immediately. I, of course, videoed it.

Here's a teaser--I couldn't keep from cracking up....

I had to break the rest of the videos up so I could upload them, so it's in 5 shorter parts.

Enjoy!

3 week puppy videos

2011-07-08T04:00:00.002-04:00

Almost overnight, they turned into tail-wagging, eye-contact-making, roughhousing, barking, growling, climbing, playing puppies. <3

Last night they were all riled up and making me laugh, so I grabbed the camera and started filming. It's a bit dark but you can see most of the video pretty well.

Today, they were just being adorable, so I went for the camera again.

They were climbing out of the box, so I have set them up with a double-box set up to give them more room.

Red string = Quarrel (big bicolor girl)

Yellow string = Quest (smaller bicolor girl)

Green string = Quick (bicolor male)

no string = Query (sable girl)

2011-07-07T09:45:00.001-04:00

First tastes of food

It was a busy weekend, with guests here for my annual July 4 BBQ and Pool party, we celebrated the 1 year birthday of the O litter on the 4th, and of course, puppies were adored.

Oda supervises puppy snuggles.

Clean-up duty (it WAS her birthday!)

Oda got a prezzie!

Who's a happy girl, who?

Qutest Puppies IN THE WORLD!

2011-07-01T12:29:00.000-04:00

This post is going to contain shameless puppy pr0n. Caution is advised. This blog may not be held liable for any noises, urges, impulses, or squees that may occur during viewing of this post. View at your own risk.

Query is not happy to have her nap interrupted

I think that's the boy on the left. You can see Quest's chest blaze.

"Quest"

"Quest" was having a howling fit

"Quest"

Now she's just being coy.

Happy Hunter is SMILEY. :)

Axis of Evil, Redux

2011-06-29T01:42:00.001-04:00

Oda precision-urinated in my shoe.

What the .... I don't even.

Who me?

Q-puppy portraits

2011-06-21T19:19:00.000-04:00

Quick boy

So, the other pictures I took this past weekend were of the puppies. So, at 5 days old, I present to you the very healthy and sleek Q-pups!

Who knows what names they will end up with--Q is a hard one!

However, the boy's speed at getting up and scootching across the whelping box in the first hours of his life earned him the early nickname of Quick.

He has the most beautiful red markings coming through on his legs.

Make sure you get my good side!

The bigger bicolor girl is already gorgeous. She has such a handsome head and sleek body. Also, she has a bit of an opinion on, well, everything! I am going to call her "Quarrel"...

Quarrel--bicolor girl

The world should try harder to accommodate me!

Maybe my name should be "Querulous"?

And, as an editor, I think it's essential to have a Query, so I will give the sable girl this nickname. Right now she looks a lot like a plump otter baby. She was the smallest pup at birth (14 ounces) with the smaller bicolor girl being the next smallest at just under 16 ounces. She is pretty talkative and grunts and groans at being handled.

Query - dark sable female

I object to the lack of milk!

Such a sleek girl, I love her little mask. :)

I've always been a fan of the name Quest, so I will tentatively call the small bicolor girl by this name. You can see her small chest blaze--this will shrink to just a small spot by the time she's an adult

Quest - bicolor girl

She was very good at posing for her profile shots...

Get this side too!

I will, of course, be taking LOTS of pictures as they mature. I generally update the puppy gallery every weekend, so follow along there if you like!

Its a Family Affair....

2011-06-20T02:22:00.001-04:00

This weekend, Samantha (Blackthorn's Olivia) and Sid (Blackthorn's Obsidian) were here for a visit. So we had family pictures....
Sid tries to appease the steely-eyed bitches

Well, we TRIED for family pictures. A lot of them turned out like this....

We were lucking to get them moving in the same direction....

Samantha and Sid

Or looking in the same direction...

Not just nose to the camera lens....

Or, you know, not photobombing each other....

And then it just deteriorated ....

Xita got her romp on, trying to get her son to play bitey face....

Oda was oddly dignified....

Sid tried to figure out how to stay out of trouble with the girls....

Which turned out to not be all that easy....

"oh crap!"

Sid says, "i am little dog!"

We were visited by the Four Dogs of the Adogoclypse....

Which turned into the Three dogs and the Disappearing Tail....

Don't these girls look like they're bringing Trouble your way?

Oda just looks like she's always carrying a can of WhupAss... and a can-opener

So, eventually, we got a couple of pictures that were pretty good...

Look at the camera, son!

But we did not get the magical Four all together and all looking the same direction. Will Three do?


Sid, Oda, and momma Xita

Announcing the Q pups!

2011-06-14T23:59:00.033-04:00

Hunter went into labor yesterday--and they were not petite small things, unfortunately. The first one down the chute was a big 18 oz bicolor boy. He got pretty stuck and I had to help pull him out.

Over the next 14 hours, she delivered the rest of the pups. There were a few stillborn, but in the end, I have four beautiful and strong pups--1 boy and 3 girls. One of the girls is a gorgeous sable, the rest are bicolors.

The sire of the litter is V-Bandit vom Wolfsheim, KK1a, SchH3, FH--the same as the sire of the P litter. The combo with Hunter should make some beautiful, strong working dogs.

Bandit

Blackthorn's Hunter

This litter is the Q litter, so I'll be coming up with some Q puppy baby names... Quick, Quest, Quasar, Quill, Query, Quandary.... (Click for puppy pedigree.)

Here, have some pictures from this afternoon!

Look at the head on this girl!

AKC Rally Trial

2011-06-12T23:55:00.000-04:00

Jubilee, for once not insane looking

Aww, she is GOOD GIRL!

It's been a busy few weeks. This weekend I entered my first AKC trial since I got Frost's CD back in, oh, 1997? I entered Jubilee in Rally Novice B--and I wasn't sure how she was going to handle the crowded indoor venue. I know she's never seen that many dogs in one place much less that great a variety of dogs. Well, she did great! I am super happy with her. She took it all in stride--curious and interested in everything going on around her, but not distracted or stressed. This showed in her performance both days--99 points and 2nd place on Day 1 and 100 points and 1st place on Day 2. Good girl!

Joy in the Work

2011-06-06T21:22:00.001-04:00

Ash's recall, trialing for his BH, Fall 1998

I was looking for this quote today, only to realize that it was on my website on some deeply buried page.

Trust is a sine qua non, and obedience is the foundation of every training; both go hand in hand, and both are inseparable. Blind and servile obedience is not rooted in trust, but in fear, and only rebels when out of reach of the whip. Such service we do not demand from our dogs, but an obedience which is joyful and always willing, founded on love for the master, and as such . . . founded on the satisfaction of a natural craving, which therefore must be consolidated by wise training from earliest puppyhood. With a young dog who is obedient in this sense—who waits upon the eyes and the mouth of his master, who comes joyfully when called, even from his feeding dish or his companions at play, because he knows he will be rewarded for his obedience by a kind word and by an affectionate pat, by a special tidbit, or as the highest reward, by a sharing in the activity of his master — with such a dog everything is possible later on, for joy in the work is combined with its accomplishment. This, as the outpouring of the power accumulated in the dog, is the result of sound nerves and a serviceable body build; and here again, it is a matter of breeding and training, both directed to a special purpose with a definite goal in view.

The German Shepherd Dog in Word & Picture
Max v. Stephanitz

This is what I want for and from my GSDs.

Cell Pics, May 2011

2011-06-06T03:14:00.001-04:00

No great pictures here, but a smattering of cell phone pictures that give a few glimpses into the past weeks.

Walking Oda and Xita early morning, Bedlamb Farm in Smithfield, VA.

Working SAR Dog

2011-05-14T13:37:00.000-04:00

This slideshow is of Clue (Blackthorn's Guiness) searching in Tuscaloosa, AL, following the recent tornadoes.

Pistol Goes Off

2011-05-11T17:30:00.000-04:00

rendering ... rendering ... rendering ...

Pistol has her topcoat coming in slowly, creeping out from beneath the fuzzy puppy coat. At this point, it's a matter of feeling the new hard coat rather than seeing it. It's particularly distinct on her face, where soft puppy fuzz is slowly being overcome by sleek adult hairs. A friend remarked that it's like watching a picture on your computer slowly get cleaner and more distinct.... it's a puppy being rendered, live action, slo-mo!

Pistol took a plane to her new home in Texas this morning, and it nearly broke my heart to say goodbye. She snuggled deep into my heart in the last few weeks, and I will miss her greatly. If I didn't know where she was headed, I wouldn't have been able to send her off. But it is a super-fantastic home with someone who has been doing SAR work with a girl from my B litter. And I KNOW PISTOL WILL BE WELL LOVED AND VERY HAPPY.

I'm usually pretty good at not getting too attached to my puppies in their first 8 weeks. I mean, I love them all, but it is a generic sort of love. But in the last 4 weeks, I got to KNOW Pistol's little heart and she followed me from room to room every day, and she would tell me when she thought I needed to feed her and when she thought I needed to sit down and give her a snuggle, and I knew what the whines in the crate each meant (if it had a howly tone, it meant she wasn't just fussing, she really did need to pee, but if she was screaming and biting the crate bars, she was just mad that she wasn't out free to sleep under the coffee table and/or steal my shoes, and if she barked, it meant that I should pay more attention to her and maybe she would like snuggle/pee/eat). It even made me laugh every time she would grab my shoe, look over her shoulder to see if I was watching, and trot away from me, head and tail high. So, I will miss her hugs where she crawled into my lap, tucked her head under my chin, and snorfled me in sleepy happiness.

But now she gets to go be a big kid, gets to learn to do a job, gets to have a whole family of her own to love and entertain her, and, well, gets to finish rendering into a marvelous, beautiful girl.

Mad Splashy Skillz!

2011-05-02T03:09:00.001-04:00

Oda and her sister Leia and a young Aussie named Gage and a 3 month old Border Collie named Alex have some mad play skillz. Oda has the orange collar; Leia is slightly shorter and more compact with a thicker tail---other than that, it's really hard to tell them apart!

Puppy at Work!

2011-04-28T14:58:00.002-04:00

Blackthorn's Pathfinder, aka Scout (puppy name: Pandora)

Pistol Plays

2011-04-21T21:52:00.001-04:00

The heavy breathing is Lynx--he kept wanting to cross between me and the puppy, so I am holding him with one hand while trying to film with the other. Apologies if you get vertigo from the moving camera. :)

The calm following the puppy storms

2011-04-19T00:14:00.001-04:00

Over the past two weekends, eight of the Ppups have left for their new homes. Little Pistol is still here with me, and I am crate and house training her and evaluating her for what sort of home she will best fit into.

Still, the change from 9 puppies to 1 is drastic for both of us. I've slowly moved, cleaned, mopped, laundered, scrubbed, folded, shuffled, and otherwise put away the whelping boxes and puppy play area and moved around the dog crates that I had shoved aside to make room for puppies.

Around her siblings, Pistol was quite the fierce pup--on the offense and no-holds-barred. But by herself, she is a real sweetheart who likes to sleep at my feet and cuddle in my lap while gazing liquidly into my eyes. I am NOT.KEEPING.HER. Really.

For a few weeks, I was quite worried about her health--she was comparatively small relative to her siblings, although she ate well and had plenty of energy and attitude. At 7.5 weeks, she was 10 pounds, though, which is well within the normal range for a GSD pup. (Biggest brother Panther, now Panzer, was 17!) So, now I am getting to know her, not just her defending her every bite of food and tug on the toy. And, she is a love--she likes to carry all of the dog toys over to the dog bed, then curl up next to Nike or Xita and fall asleep surrounded by toys.

She's been very smart about house training, slept through the night last night in a crate, even. Although during the day yesterday she got so wound up about the crate that she was biting the bars and screaming... then she threw up. Poor baby. It really wasn't that dreadful--she'd been outside for an hour and I was in the room not 10 feet from her the whole time. I think she is like an over-tired 2-year old having a tantrum. Too much change, too much DO.NOT.WANT.

She spent pretty much all of today by my side--either on walks outside or in a puppy pen a couple feet from my office desk and she asked to go out 4 times--very understated whines and commentary from the pen. When she got thirsty, she signaled clearly by banging her metal bowl. When she has to poop, she starts digging on the floor--like a cat!

For the rest of my dogs, puppies, weather, and heat cycles have thrown training all of course. Hunter came into heat on April 1, and both Lynx and Coal promptly lost their brains on April 8th. They went missing for most of last week--asking Lynx to practice weave poles was pointless--and it kept storming on us! Then the grass started growing. Not just little bits of growth here and there, no, not here in the land of green. The grass quickly got so thick that it was hard for me to walk through and Pistol and Flint (he's still bigger than she is, this week, at least!) had to hop frantically to keep up.

Also last week, I ran up to Pennsylvania with Hunter and bred her to Bandit--the sire of the P litter. I will talk more about this breeding when I know whether it took--but it should be an excellent combination. I've had this breeding planned for 6 months. [It was luck and timing that sent Xita to Bandit first (the original stud I had planned to breed Xita too was suddenly unavailable when she came in heat)--a fortuitous stroke of inconvenience.] Bandit x Hunter should make some wonderful dogs--lots of drive (prey and hunt) with a lot of trainability, very social personality, and a really nice off-switch.

Spring pictures

2011-04-14T01:21:00.000-04:00

Lynx, Jubilee, Oda and... mysterious guest

Last Monday was a really nice spring day, and I had a guestdoggy visiting...

Samantha (aka Olivia)--a littermate to Oda and Sid (Obsidian). She certainly looks like family... She got a bit wet when she tried to walk on water and fell in the pool.

Lookat those curls.

The forsythia are in full bloom--even starting to pass peak bloom. But they still make a lovely backdrop for a picture...

Macha with her forsythia-colored ball

Lynx is starting to look grown up


Oda makes a dorkface


Jubilee--looking mostly not crazy

Coal

Learning to Play

2011-04-03T02:22:00.004-04:00

In the video are Pandora (black and tan girl), Pagan (big sable girl), and little Petunia (soon to be "Pistol"). These 3 girls are still looking for homes, so I took some video of them playing with a new toy in a new location.

The Horde Rampages...

2011-04-02T02:14:00.000-04:00

Some pictures from Thursday, romping in the house....

Panther


Pagan (left) and Panther

Peregrine and Pollux

Pollux and Peregrine


Pollux tries to "kill" the dog bed

FINS TO THE RIGHT!

Peregrine and Pagan


Primus is in belleh rub heaven

Pagan

"Petunia"

Pele and Pagan played tug with this rope toy across 3 rooms for almost 20 minutes

Pandora

Pollux and Pagan

Peregrine and Pele have a good game going


Pollux--it's not easy being awesome

Sunday Morning Routine

2011-03-27T20:13:00.000-04:00

Meal Time

2011-03-22T23:17:00.000-04:00

So, to make up for no individual pictures this weekend, I have video!

I got a neat little inexpensive vidcam, a Kodak PlaySport Zx3--it's waterproof! So come summer, I can make pool videos!

I put together my first little movie of the puppies getting their lunch today, so, enjoy!

Pardon the mumbling commentary--next time, I'll turn up the mic and mumble less!

Schutzhund training seminar weekend

2011-03-20T22:55:00.000-04:00

I do not have awesome, amazing, adorable pictures of puppies tonight. :(

Won't you play with me?

I prevailed upon a friend to take over things for me for a couple of days and I took off for parts north to attend a training seminar with Bernhard Flinks. I attended one of his seminars back in 1999 or thereabouts, so some of what I learned was re-learning, some was re-awakening old knowledge, some was just plain good learning.

Flinks takes a very methodical and endgoal-focused approach to schutzhund training--but, as he says, he wishes to train "with kindness"--while still focusing on getting international levels of performance from his own dogs. (That's not to say he's not also excellent with beginning dogs and handlers--indeed, he was very good with some of the brand-new people who were at the seminar, and I very much hope they were able to absorb most of what he was saying.)

One of the conversations that was very interesting to listen into is how much schutzhund training has changed in the past 15 years--the general level of knowledge of training and behavioral theory has greatly advanced and some of the harshest training methods that used to be semi-openly used are broadly disapproved of, discouraged, and for the newer members of the sport, unthinkable. This, I think, is very good.

One of the great joys of the weekend for me, in addition to getting to talk dogs and pedigrees and training and learning theory and drives with like-minded friends, was getting to watch Bandit, the sire of Xita's puppies, go through his paces.

V Bandit v Wolfsheim, KK1a, SchH3, FH

In Bernhard's words, "He is a great dog." He had all his titles (SchH3, FH) by the time he was 2.5 years old so he could be sold, and his fast (and harsh) training left him with some training problems that his handler here in the U.S. has been picking apart and mending a little bit at a time.

Bandit brings the anger to the blind...

She has been greatly successful and I think the training with Bernhard helped to put a bit of polish on these areas of retraining. They worked on speed on the escape bite and running to meet the helper where he was going to be rather than where he had been

I had seen Bandit work in tracking and obedience and had seen videos of him in the bitework. But it was significantly better to watch him in person. He is there on the field with all his heart and is thrilled by the fight with the helper. His courage tests were impressive as he sped up and launched himself in the last feet of the run down the field.

Finally, I got to watch a 7-month-old Bandit daughter get her start in protection...

First Day Outside

2011-03-14T16:24:00.000-04:00

all 9 pups

These pups are precocious! At four weeks old, they are very active and forward and quite confident. They're rather rough with Xita when nursing--she seems to grit her teeth and then will growl at them and leap into the other half of the box, leaving them to catch up.

The milk bar is FULL!

The wobble boards and wiggle seats have been crawled, walked, and climbed over--they are completely unfazed by changes in surfaces or moving footing. And they make good pillows!

Panther

He looks so sweet and innocent here.

Agility training is hard work!

Yesterday was warm and sunny and clear, so I took the pups outside for their first time. Normally puppies seem kind of lost and worried on their first adventure outside, but not these guys--they were only worried about the heat of the sun--and spent a fair amount of time trying to squeeze into the shade.

Look at little Pandora out there trying to get Oda to play with her!

Oda was in *love* with the puppies. She ended up pressed up against the wire, kissing puppy faces and playing footsie with any puppy who would come her way.

Peregrine checks out Oda.

Pele looks for the exit

The puppies have been starting to show more and more of their personalities. Pagan and Pandora are living up to their names--Pagan is really rough and tumble and bold and showing the beginning of prey drive, grabbing and shaking blankets.


Pagan checks out Oda

Pandora is quite the explorer--she gets into everything! Pele is a sweetie-she makes really intense eye contact, demanding you pick her up, then she calms quickly and just enjoys being snuggled.

Petunia

Petunia is right much smaller than her siblings--but she's still very confident and adventurous--but also really likes being held--she's quite the kisser if you pick her up.

Panther is big and stout and very forward and so is his brother Pollux (who seems to be hiding from the camera this day!)--they don't hesitate to tell me when they're unhappy--big mouths! I think both of them are going to need working homes. (Which is good, because that's where they're headed!)

Puma

So far, Primus and Peregrine aren't showing me their personalities--they seem to be asleep a lot of the time. And Piglet.. err, Puma... well, she's still living up to her name--very confident and food motivated.


Puma, Primus, Petunia, and Panther

See the rest of the pictures from this week.

Three weeks--expanding horizons

2011-03-07T18:14:00.001-05:00

Puppies are now 3 weeks old and have turned into a horde of adorability. They've started moving toward me whenever I am near them and if I pick them up they gum and lick me, so it's a bit like being pursued by very slow, fuzzy, cute zombies.

Puma and Petunia

I was missing my hand model this weekend, so I have some pictures of the puppies in their newly expanded and enriched habitat.

I haven't turned the TV on for them yet, but that's coming soon!

Primus, black male

The expanded area is the 4x4 Durawhelp box arranged so it rests against the front of the collapsible wooden box I built last summer. Puppies were escaping EVERYWHERE so, I made it so they have twice as much room but they are all safe. And it's pretty easy for Xita to jump in and out.

Xita has added toys to the box--she would like to have every toy in the house in there, but I have taken out anything hard that could hurt a puppy if it were dropped on their heads (e.g., bones). I also added a little wobble board and some balance disks--one with the "smooth" side up and one with the "nubby" side up--so they'll have something else to climb around on and experiment with.

The wobble board is certainly being explored--they seem to like to climb over it and I've seen a couple of them experiment with standing on it.


Panther sneaks up on the wobble board

Athlete in training!

I don't have pictures of every puppy this week, at least not individual pics. They are all doing great--and they raise quite a ruckus when it's time for lunch, or dinner, or a midnight snack! I'll probably put collars on them next week to make it easier to identify them in the pictures. For me, it's a matter of knowing who is in the photo when I take it and of checking *really* carefully and then double-checking against my notes.


Pollux always has a purpose

Sometimes it's a process of elimination (no pun intended!)

For example, there are two "red sables" who are very tan right now--Pollux, male, and Puma, female. The female doesn't have the white on her chest and she has a different head shape. The male has distinctive black and red markings on his face already.

Pagan is adorable.

There are 3 black sables--big (the male), medium (female), and small (female). The smallest is Petunia and she has a white star on her chest. The medium girl is Pagan--she's the darkest and has a tighter coat than her brother Panther; she's also got a white blaze that is narrow but a couple of inches long. Panther is quite big and has a fluffier coat with gray tips on it (at the moment, at least)--and no white.


Pandora

Between Pandora and Peregrine, I have to see the toes to tell the difference--at least at this age. They are very similar in appearance. Pandora has the white toes. She also seems to get in more trouble (shocking, I know!).

Pandora

Peregrine seems a bit milder mannered, although it's hard to be sure.

Peregrine?

More Herding and HRD

2011-03-04T00:34:00.002-05:00

Blaze (Ilya)

Today, I went herding with Jubilee, and Macha, and Hunter--Jubilee continues to show that she knows what she's doing better than I. And she's going to make me be right so she can be right so the sheep can be right. IOW, don't get in front of her shoulder dummy, and let her balance. The first session she was very good--got out, balanced, downed when asked. Second session, she was a bit wound up and when she sped up instead of downing immediately, I thought maybe I should break and do a bit of "play my way or don't play at all" obedience, but T. said to set her up again and give it a go. So I did.

And Jubilee went hahahaha ..|. and proceeded to blow me off. *Then* we did some HI LOOK I DO EXIST obedience (which is just asking for her to focus on me around the sheep, down, here, no you don't get to try to run forward and grab a sheep tail when I call you away) and sent her around again--and she was beautiful and lay down when asked, and we quit there.

She needs me to have a zero tolerance policy--when I say down, that means RIGHT THEN. Not down in another 20 strides or after you speed up and try to slip by me then grab a tail and try to take down dinner. It's a good reminder--dogs do best with really clear criteria. Not gray lines, not criteria that change depending on the time of day, the mood you're in, or whether you're paying attention.

One day, I will have pictures of my dogs herding again.
Until then, you get pictures of Blaze playing ball!

Macha was loverly. She needs a "stop" -- that is, I have to teach her a sit and down that isn't just me standing in front of her with cookies. More sits for a ball, with me beside her behind her in front, and more lie downs, same thing, and more stand stays. More stays in general so I can leave her in a stay and move toward the sheep so she can start doing some mini-gathers.

Hunter ... well I saw some things I really liked and I'm figuring out our communication issues. If I say sit, she downs, and if I say down, she has a micro-panic. So, I'll be using a "whoa" command that just means "stop there". But I got some lovely come-by gathers with good attitude and a nice, calm space. She likes the come-by (clockwise) work--so we'll be doing a bit more of that direction as she and I continue to build our communication bridge.

After morning herding (we started early!), I audited a search training seminar by Jonni Joyce--learned a lot just from listening. Learned that any discussion of cadaver dog training can be subpoena'd if your dog ever has to go to court about a find. So, it's generally inadvisable to talk much about cadaver dog training specifics other than your training logs.

At some point during the early afternoon, L. and I snuck off to take a few pictures of Blaze in his vest, doing his favorite thing EVER--playing ball. That was a lot of fun--Blaze reminds me a lot of his grandmother Frost. :). Also, I get awful bossy when you put a camera in my hands--Go over there. No, there. Back up. Further. Do that again. Stand still. Throw it again. Not at my head!!!! Other side of the road. No, the other other side!

And then I got to see Nora for the first time in months and months! She GREW!!!!

Precocious Ppups

2011-02-28T13:02:00.000-05:00

Petunia, Panther, Puma, I think

The ppuppies have gotten precocious. Pandora has gotten out of the box twice today and Xita is a bit distraught. They were clamoring and swarming all over the box, obviously hungry and Xita just wanted me to fix it all. So I made her lie down and feed them and stroked her head and told her she was wonderful and then the oxytocin buzz kicked in and her milk let down and there were 8 gulping babies moaning in happiness. (#9 was Primus, the black boy, who was sound asleep in the corner--guess he got his belly filled earlier!)

Pandora

I've been watching and thinking about the service dog puppy training videos--they have very young puppies learning complex commands--such as to carry and tug. They do very prescriptive handling routines (like the military "bio-sensor" program for puppies) to stimulate the puppies every day. But then their puppies are born and spend their first weeks in a kennel situation. There's quite a bit of daily exposure that my puppies get just from being in the same room with me for 8-12 hours almost every day (my at-home office).

Petunia is very serious about her food!

But I was intrigued by the early puppy training and decided that I would play with seeing what we could teach very young puppies. So I had my friends Andrea (my puppy picture hand model!) and her husband D. and her mother come for a visit on Saturday. I mixed up some puppy gruel and we all proceeded to feed puppies off our fingers.


Petunia is really into this hand-feeding thing!

Peregrine has Andrea in her sway.

The puppies loved it and we humans got ridiculous amounts of enjoyment from interacting with the puppies and having them try to toothlessly devour our fingers. Almost immediately, we could see their response to us change--they were moving toward us more and climbing on us to get to our fingers. Yesterday and today, I can tell that this has carried over--they are more active and moving toward me. So, I am sold on at least some of this.

We will continue! Next Saturday will be another "training" session--we'll see if we can get the 3-week-old pups to do some baby sits and climb over some obstacles. Who knows what they'll be doing by 8 weeks!

For most of the puppy finger feeding frenzy, Xita was crated with a bone, but she let us know after about 30 minutes that she needed to make sure her puppies were OK.

Puma (aka "Piglet") is not going to let that finger get away

Xita is extremely protective of her puppies, and even with Andrea and Daniel, whom she likes very much, she was wary. She only allowed them to interact with the pups according to her rules. Some of those rules are that you're not allowed to stand up near her, and you're not allowed to leave the room and come back, and you're most definitely not allowed to have a puppy crying. She doesn't get frantic or bark--she gives extremely direct looks and will growl very clearly. For a dog without language, she is remarkably clear in her communications.

Pele, the solid black female, worn out!

If you're following the rules but she thinks you're paying too much attention to the pups, Xita will "hug" you--that is, she leans her chest against yours and puts her head over your shoulder. It's very affectionate--and very good at keeping you away from the pups. She lets me do anything with her and the puppies (she's never, ever growled at me or given me that hard look), but even I get the the Hug of Doom sometimes, when she thinks I should stop messing with the pups.

Panther, the black sable male

I was reading someone's blog and they talked about having "Puppy Potlucks" for those interested in helping to socialize the pups--I think that is a wonderful idea. So I am hoping to implement that for these pups. By the time the pups are 4 weeks, I think Xita will be less intense about guarding the puppies, and it will be good for more people to come visit and help us in our puppy training and socialization.

Pollux, the red sable male, is crazy handsome--he's got a huge head and rich red coloring already

Primus--solid black male. We decided after these pictures that he should really be named "Playboy"

Primus, aka Playboy


Pagan, black sable girl

Peregrine, aka "Pippin"

Just a note: I have been having problems with my ISP--some websites won't open for me, namely, Facebook. If you need to reach me, please e-mail me directly.

Herding and HRD

2011-02-28T01:39:00.000-05:00

Friday, I got up at 4:30 and drove to Isle of Wight, Virginia with 5 dogs in the truck.

I got in a herding lesson with Macha and Hunter before 10 am. Hunter was not where I would like her to be--she doesn't really trust me and watches for me to turn my back so she can dart in and grab a sheep while I'm not looking. She and I need to do some work on building a foundation for training. She had the misfortune to be born a few months after the deaths of Thorn and Frost--and I think I wasn't up to putting a lot of training into her first few years. Because one of the things I value most is that strong working relationship, accepting that Hunter doesn't really trust me feels like admitting to a failure. But, I suppose, it's really just that I have to think hard on how to fix that which is broken between us.

Macha... she was brilliant. She has lots of drive for working the sheep and she is very responsive to praise from me. She's showing a strong desire to work with me as well as a naturally gentle approach to her sheep. Not scared of them--pressing close against them in a tight spot--but not feeling the need to bite them to make them move. She was fantastic. Amazing. Awesome. Then we worked her again in the afternoon, and she was again fantastic. Amazing. Awesome. I can't wait to work her again on sheep. In the meantime, I will work on teaching her some mechanical commands--sit, down, stand there, get back--with obstacles like the picnic table and a ball as a reward.

At 10, we stopped herding and met with the SAR/HRD (human remains discovery) group. I walked along with several dogs as they did their 2 acre searches for cadaver sources that L. had planted earlier. It's good for me to learn how not to signal the dog and but how to keep an eye always on the dog, watching for that first moment when the scent is found, the change of behavior as the dog zones in on the strongest scent and then indicates the find.

Then a couple members of the group helped me introduce Lynx to some source scent. He was brilliant. :) I am going to make a series of posts about how I started him on indications and how we introduced the scent--so I won't go into detail here. But it was a thrill to watch him thinking through and testing the criteria for what would get him his reward. He is so much fun to train--he's like a thinky version of his grandfather Ash, with only half the squeaking!

After HRD training, I and T. ran out to lunch then up to pick up some sheep feed, then back to her farm for a few more herding lessons. We worked Jubilee. In her last herding lesson, she had made it clear that she far preferred chaos and havoc to calm and obedient. I had decided on a zero tolerance policy on disregarding the down/stop command and she had, quite literally, rolled her eyes at me and then shrugged off me placing her in the down. So, I brought her out on leash on the prong collar. I asked her to down outside the gate--she did. I entered the area with the sheep--down. I walked toward the sheep--down. I stepped away from her and she held the down. I called her to me and she came promptly. For all of this, I'd had a loose leash and had given no corrections or leash pressure or anything other than a calm, quiet command and calm praise. I asked for another down and I pretended to turn my back on her. Her ears popped forward and her eyes got intense. I pretended to keep looking away but I stepped so a small tree was between me and Jubilee. T. said something to me and I shifted to look at T., knowing that Jubilee was going to lunge -- and she did. The line between me and her tightened against the tree and she popped herself on the collar. I called her to me and asked for another down. And... she was good.

She was done fighting me. She was prompt in her responses to everything I asked, so I gave her a chance to work the sheep. She stayed responsive and respectful, stopping behind the sheep and walking slow when I told her easy. She even stopped on her own and walked the sheep forward toward me--not running me over with sheep flying like popcorn, not taking 5 steps after every down command, not causing havoc and reveling in it. It's amazing how good she is when she is good.

I left shortly after a second session with Hunter and Macha and got home after dark. My puppy sitter had been by twice to visit Xita and the puppies and all had gone well. Despite the speeding ticket I got on the way home, it was a *very good* day.

Nike vs. the Axis of Evil

2011-02-21T13:50:00.001-05:00

Oda just tried to pull her newly developed snapping turtle routine on Nike.

Oda was lying on thedog bed with her special Orbee whistle ball, which is extra-special good because it is soft and kinda squishy and makes these excellent sucking noises when you chew it.

Nike started to walk past, not even looking at Oda's ball or bed, and Oda launched forward with a GRRRWRRRR and a gaping mouth of teeth. Nike, who has seen all this before, didn't make a sound, just circled away from Oda, letting the teeth bounce off her ruff and shoulder.*

Nike, being Nike, did her 360 circling routine and seemed to shrug and decide to head back from whence she came, and Oda went back for her bed, but in the process she dislodged her ball, which rolled toward Nike's foot.

Nike, ever quick to seize the advantage, and the ball, scooped it up, despite the landshark's re-launch, and trotted away with ball in mouth.

Oda seeing the failure of her second bluff, watched a bit hopelessly as Nike walked away, ball in mouth, then Oda went back to the bed, picked up a bone, and played with it a second, tossing it in the air and grabbing it with her feet, as if to say, "doesn't matter, my bone is better anyway!"

Nike, meanwhile, has tucked herself in a crate, ball between paws, a sly smile on her face.

Nike is so much win.

*Oda's not biting (as in, closing her jaws/teeth), just launching with mouth open--at 7 months, she doesn't have the gravitas to do this routine for reals, with actual biting, but if she keeps it up, she will eventually get there--she tried it 3 times on her visiting brother Sid this weekend, and the 3rd time ended with Sid's paw on her head and an embarrassed look on Oda's face--very much a "How did that happen???" expression.

Ppictures of Ppuppies

2011-02-14T11:44:00.005-05:00

I've created a gallery for the P-litter puppy pictures and will regularly upload pictures there--even if haven't posted about adding new pictures. :)

P pictures here!

For now, I'm going to use these names (for fun--probably not final names):

1. Primus: solid black male, first born
2. Pollux: dark red sable male
3. Panther: black sable male

4. Pele: solid black female
5. Petunia: smallest puppy, black sable female
6. Poppy: big bt female
7. Pandora: small bt female
8. Piglet: red sable female (she had the biggest belly yesterday!)
9. Pagan: big black sable female

Look, even Xita rolls her eyes at me!

Everyone's doing great--happy and hungry, sleeping, eating, and sleeping some more. Even Xita!

Blackthorn Kennel Facebook page

Sooner than later, Ppuppies!

2011-02-12T16:02:00.001-05:00

Xita, wider than normal!

Xita has started labor. She's very early in the process--nesting, wanting to go out every 30 minutes, trying to dig a hole in the bottom of the 400 crate. She likes to come over and stare at me intensely, trying very, very, very hard to get me to just UNDERSTAND. Also, I'm not allowed to go too far away.

She popped out her milk yesterday--woke up in the morning and suddenly she had boobs! Full bags.

Sorry for the sunspot! It's bright out there and Xita's not being helpful!

Dad, for the curious, is an awesome dog named Bandit v Wolfsheim. He's Sch3, FH, KK1a, V rated in conformation, and son of one of the top-producing working dogs in Europe. He has his own FB page!

In addition to his good looks and great working ability and strong working-line pedigree, he's got impeccable temperament--neutral and accepting of strangers, no dog aggression, and sound, sound, sound nerves. He's producing puppies with very good drives and great nerves, too. (More Bandit pictures.)

Bandit

I'm expecting these two to produce puppies of exceptional temperament with plenty of drive to work but the ability to turn off and make great house dogs. Should have beautiful conformation, strong pigmentation (lots of red!) and lovely heads, big bone, medium to large size--sables, blacks, and dark black and red (like Xita's color).

I'm guessing 9 pups. I'll soon know!

It gets no easier

2011-02-09T13:02:00.004-05:00

Ashen, a few weeks before his death,
watches me walk the rest of the dogs

Two weeks ago, I got up late, having overslept for my agility class. I would need to rush to get everyone taken care of and get to class on time. I walked Coal and Xita in the front yard, the terriers too. I let Macha out, made sure the cats had food and water, then let everyone back in. Somewhere in there, I put on pants and socks and a a shirt. Throughout my bustling, Nike slept in, as she does now, occasionally raising an eyebrow in my direction as I rushed through the room.

Finally, it was time to take Nike out and walk Oda. I called Nike out of her bed and she lurched to her feet and stumbled. I figured she wasn't all the way awake--these things happen when you get a bit older and sleep so very hard. She trotted ahead of me toward the Bestower of Ice Bones (the refrigerator/freezer) and wiped out in front of it. The floor is slick, and she got ahead of herself at the thought of Ice Bones first thing in the morning.

But she stumbles again on the way through the TV room. Something isn't right.

I catch up to her and steady her with a hand on her shoulders and we make it through the back door and off the porch and she stumbles again, her feet flail at the air, as though she is trying walk on a floor that isn't there. She lifts her feet high and throws them out to her left and right. She falls again.

This isn't right. Nike is the dog that flew

Nike, 22", trialing for her Sch2, around 2002, 1 meter wall

Reader, I lost it.

Right then and there, I burst into tears and sank to the step of the back stoop and wailed like a child who has lost her favorite blankie

Suddenly, I was facing a future of an old Nike, a feeble Nike, or soon, no Nike. And no matter how long the brain had known, has planned and expected, the heart was betrayed and shocked and unwilling.

Frost (Sch2) and Thorn (SchH3, CDX) -- my first two GSDs

There was a day about 7 months before Thorn's death when I knew what the course of his death would be. I knew what would take him and that it would be a long road away from me. That day, too, I wailed. I lost Frost unexpectedly and quickly, over the course of 24 hours. I said goodbye to Ashen before I had expected to, but that morning of his death, I had had a vision of him dying in my yard, nose deep in the grass, like dozing off in the sun. Somehow, I miss him more now than I did then--before it was grief, I guess, now I just miss him.

I will always have a bit of Nike and a bit of Ashen and a bit of Frost in my life--through their children and grandchildren. Lynx's joy in, well, everything is straight down from Ash. Macha's intelligence contains teasers of both Frost and Nike. Watching Blaze and Nash (Ilya and Inigo) work last week, I felt like I was with Ash again and I knew them well from the many hours I spent training for schutzhund with both of their parents.

Nike and Ash together

Ash

That morning two weeks ago, I was devastated by her inability to walk--not so much because I thought something fatal had happened to her, but because something fatal would happen to her. I knew that the most likely problem was a disruption of her vestibular system, which governs her balance and orientation to the world, but she didn't have the characteristic nystagmus (side to side or up and down eye movement) that I'd always heard about. I knew that most dogs recover well from vestibular problems. But perhaps something neurological had happened or she had a tumor that had suddenly destroyed her physical control. Perhaps she was permanently disabled? Perhaps I would lose her today. (Or not.)

The sudden comprehension of that reality was more than I could bear right then. Instead of getting easier to part with my old dogs, it seems to get harder and harder with every one. The path we are on is familiar and the familiarity makes it easier to tread, but no easier to bear.

I regained (most of) my composure that Tuesday and called the vet and made an appointment for her. It is vestibular disease. She started on anti-nausea meds right away and stayed on them for 3 days, although they sedated her, so she slept a lot. After a week, she'd only improved moderately, so she was xrayed from head to tail. She has a bad inner-ear infection and is on antibiotics and prednisone and pain meds. And the good news is that her skull is clear of tumors and her heart is strong and healthy and her abdomen has only the normal lumpy bits. She should be around for years to come.

This morning, with Nike, I pause and watch her for a few seconds before I call her name. She sleeps so still, so deeply now, I am not always sure she breathes. But when she wakes, her eyes are bright and comprehending and she moves toward the door with clear intent.

She wants an ice cube, now please!

Nike, Dec 2010

happy sigh

2011-01-31T20:59:00.000-05:00

My cheeks are sunburned and my lips are chapped. I have a bruise the size of a fist on my right knee where a ram ran into me. I have muck on my pants and boots, and my car smells like sheep poop. I think I may have pulled my trapezius muscle from playing tug with Nash (Inigo) after a successful HRD training search. Lynx thinks that searching for the scent of cadaver is AWSM. Macha thinks that it's *very* interesting but does she really have to give back the stinky tennis ball?

Oda thinks that the sight of fleeing sheep is the best thing since Cats (and I don't mean the musical). Leia (Organa) hugged a ram. TWICE. Jedi has grown up beautiful and talented and very much a momma's boy.
Jubilee is pretty sure that this lying down thing is just a silly idea of mine and if I would only look away for a second this herding thing could get VERY fun. Hunter has figured out that it's really very easy to make me happy if only she lies down when I ask her too and why didn't I explain that last year?

BEST WEEKEND EVER.

Happy Goodbyes

2011-01-29T17:47:00.003-05:00

Wonderful news! Musket is off to Georgia to be a Search and Rescue dog with Steve, who trained and certified Circe (Coal's littermate). Circe's now getting older and is facing some health issues, so Musket will be stepping right into work--and I think Musket can hardly wait! Hopefully Steve can keep up with him! :)

And driving off with Musket and his new person was Outlaw. Steve's fiancee has a 9 year old therapy dog and has been looking for a new dog to step into that role. She appreciated Outlaw's sweet personality, gentle mouth, and great love of physical contact. I think Outlaw has found her place.

I'm delighted both of them seem to have found their people and will have jobs, doing good things for other people. I hope Steve and Pat have many, many happy years with them both.

Musket and Outlaw--BFF!

E-collars and e-pinions

2011-01-28T12:01:00.001-05:00

A recent blog post by a veterinarian/behaviorist has garnered quite a bit of attention in the online dog training realm. This post discusses an article published in 2004 that claims to investigate whether electronic "shock" collars are painful for dogs: http://drsophiayin.com/blog/are-electronic-shock-collars-painful-or-just-annoying-to-dogs-a-new-study-r

This blog post has been a topic of discussion in several dog-related forums that I follow, and many have pointed out some of the flaws of the research. My main issue with this article is that it seems to be studying the improper and extreme use of e-collars--that is, what they are describing is the first thing that people are told *not* to do with an e-collar--and using it to condemn any and all use. All in all, I wish they'd done this study with less bias and a little more training sense--I'd find it far more useful.

I gathered a few links that give additional information and/or critiques of the original article.

Here's a good critique of the study: http://ruthcrisler.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/remote_control/

A little more "heated" critique can be found here: http://www.loucastle.com/schilder.htm

But what I found really interesting was this link to some additional info about research that has been done on the (lack of) physical harm an e-collar can cause--from the Handbook of applied dog behavior and training, a textbook on applied behavioralism, by Steven R. Lindsay.

This is an issue that polarizes dog trainers, and it is hard to find unbiased information. For many people, the issue is black and white, and it has become politicized by those who would like to see all electronic training collars banned (as happened in Wales in 2010).

I've seen dogs' lives improved by the careful use of these collars, cases where dogs are permitted freedoms they might not otherwise get, for example, in a yard with an invisible fence (although invisible fences have significant issues that owners must be aware of!) or getting to accompany someone on a long horseback ride or stopping a dog from chasing horses and getting his skull kicked in or preventing a dog from dashing into traffic. Some trainers have found the pulse/vibrate feature on some electronic collars to be invaluable in training distance communication with deaf dogs; other trainers have found that the vibrate feature interrupts the unhealthy behavioral loops of some dogs who are scared and aggressive with new people.

But it's also true that these collars have been overused and abused and over-recommended and inappropriately handled--and dogs have suffered for it. But the same can be said of a leash.

All Grown Up

2011-01-26T12:31:00.001-05:00

One of the things I enjoy the most is getting to see my puppies all grown up--working or playing or relaxing--happy and making their families happy. So, today, I share some of the pictures.

So if you don't see a picture of your Blackthorn puppy here, please e-mail me a picture and, if you haven't told me recently, tell me how your "puppy" is doing!

Evidence for the 1 Dog Axis of Evil

2011-01-16T16:15:00.000-05:00

Blackthorn's Oda
--it's a good thing she's so cute

Yesterday, I bought a new keyboard because after I caught Oda chewing on my glasses, she jumped up on my desk and knocked a soda on the keyboard. Subsequently, the X key no longer made Xxxxx, instead it made Zzzzz. I figured that after it dried out it might work again, but instead, I got neither Xs or Zs.

Sadly, I need all 26 letters of the alphabet, so new keyboard it was.

Earlier in the week, I was very naughty and bought myself a set of weave poles and a new matching collar and agility harness for Oda from CleanRun. So when I got home with the new keyboard, the mail had the new collar and harness. I was totally *glee*--although I am still waiting for the weave poles.

Oda poses with her new collar

So, I got home and slipped the collar on Oda and then tried the harness on. It fit ok, but I wasn't sure if the front loop was too loose (it's not adjustable). I left it on her while I hooked up the new keyboard. But... well.

She was in the room with me!

After reviewing the evidence, I suspect that the front loop was indeed a bit too big for her.

Hey now, I'm trying to take a picture of that!

She looks so remorseful. Don't believe it.

Too nice a day for this

2011-01-14T12:24:00.001-05:00

Musket almost just killed Macha. I don't mean that as hyperbole, I mean it literally. When I got out there, she was lying still and had begun to lose consciousness.

Musket has no ears. These pictures took a lot of bribing.

They had been in the front yard for maybe 15 minutes. I was inside on my computer, working. I heard snarling and knew immediately it wasn't play growling.

I took a quick look out the window and saw Musket standing over Macha, she appeared to be submitting to him. She doesn't submit to him--she beats her brother up when he goes for her ball. There was no more fighting. But I took off running to the back door anyway, I knew what had happened. I should have stopped for the scissors in the kitchen, but I didn't.

It's only shocking they don't all look like this.

When I got to them, Macha had blood on her tongue and her muzzle was being held in Musket's mouth. She was limp but watching. He was bleeding from the mouth too, and her collar was wrapped around his lower jaw. Yes, I knew that could happen. I've heard stories. I knew he liked to grab collars when playing. He grabbed, she jumped and twisted, and suddenly they were in a lethal tangle. I knew this could happen.

Naked dogs, no collars.

But that didn't matter right then; right then, I had to get her free before she died from lack of blood to her brain and lack of oxygen to her lungs. How does one do that? Well, there would have been no way except that Musket was a good boy--he let me push his head closer to her neck and somehow I managed to get enough slack to get the slimed and bloody collar off his lower jaw, freeing her to breathe, to live.

He stood up and backed off, somewhat cowed by the incident; she got up and moved off, weaving, not trotting in a straight line. I went and sat on the steps and they both came to me for comfort. She was cautious of him, and he of her. The took a few laps of water and leaned on me a bit. She reached over and licked his muzzle a couple of times, checking in--all is well, all is forgiven.

Musket's jaw isn't broken, but his gums are bleeding a little. Macha seems to have bitten her tongue but no other wounds. He's got a little bit of blood on his ruff, his cheeks; she's got mud on her forehead and muzzle. I get mud and blood and slobber on my hands as I run my hands over them, checking for injuries

It's all very exciting to Musket.

I took their collars off, both of them.

They are living beings, things happen. But I knew of the hazard, except for that moment this morning when I opened the door and let them out together, collars on. Did I forget, did I think it wouldn't happen? It doesn't matter. It doesn't take long for disaster and then there's no fixing things.

I am glad I heard that few seconds of serious snarling. I'm glad I recognized it. I'm glad I wasn't in the bathroom or out by the kennels. I'm glad the TV was off and no music was playing.

I need to remember this. As it is, I have blood on my hands this morning.

Musket's ready to get on with things. Macha's wondering how many cookies I have left.

Puppy brags

2011-01-05T11:33:00.001-05:00

"Nash was fabulous yesterday! We passed our state evaluations for field work. I was so proud of him! I have to brag."

"2 acre sector, one cadaver source.....47 seconds....priceless!"

Nash (Blackthorn's Inigo)

Best update ever from Leslie, the owner and trainer of Blackthorn's Inigo (Nash), who is trained for HRD (human remains discovery, or cadaver search and recovery).

Actual Conversation

2010-12-31T10:26:00.000-05:00

hears ruffling sound

"Ruffian, are you being bad?"

I get up and tip-toe toward the tv room. Ruffian sees me, and greets me in the hall with her jazz-hands specialty, up on her hind legs, reaching out with her front paws. She dances.

"Yes, yes, I am! I am bad to the bone!"

She dances more, she leaps, she bounces, she turns circles, all standing up on her hind feet, she can't bear it, and she taps her paws on my legs.

"I am! I am! Bad, bad, bad dog!

All bad, no good, just bad to the boowwne!"

"Grrrr!!! Rrrrr! Rrwwwwhuhhhhh!"

"Bad to the bone! Bone?"

She collapses to the floor and wriggles on her back, all paws in the air.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, belly rubs!"

And that's how we roll around here. Belly rubs to you all!

Happy New Year!

The No-Snowday Pictures

2010-12-28T09:39:00.000-05:00

Blackthorn's Musket, 11 months


Musket controls the ball ... with the power of his mind!!!!


Musket

Outlaw, Musket, Obsidian


Outlaw

Outlaw

Outlaw <3 Musket

News and Gratuitous Oda

2010-12-09T10:21:00.006-05:00

Gratuitous Oda picture... isn't she pretty!

Back in early November, I sent off DNA swabs on five of my dogs to test for the gene for Degenerative Myelopathy.

There is some anecdotal information swirling around that the DM test for GSDs isn't very reliable--some dogs tested clear have shown up with problems that certainly look like DM. And other dogs who show two copies of the suspect gene have never had any DM-like problems. These are not widespread contradictory cases, but that they exist at all implies that the full genetic story has not been revealed for DM in GSDs.

For a long time, I resisted doing the DM testing because of this reliability problem. Finally, though, I decided that what the test did was give me information.

And it is up to me to gather as much information as possible before doing a breeding--it is up to me to try to apply that information in ways that will increase the likelihood of sound puppies with long, healthy lives. And if the DM test can help me avoid having even one puppy whose body starts failing at 5 or 6 years old, if it can prevent one family and one dog from having to live with that misery, then the DNA testing will be worthwhile.

So, in the absence of symptoms (in parents or the dogs themselves), I decided to treat the test results as both informative and useful--at the least, the genes tested for are likely involved in the inheritance of the problem in GSDs, even if we later find out that it's necessary to look at other factors as well.

Well, the good news is that every of my tested dogs came up clear, carrying none of the suspect alleles. So, Nike, Coal, Danca, Hunter, Jubilee, and Xita all came up clear.

And because both parents (Coal and Danca) are clear, then I know that Lynx and Macha and Musket do not--cannot--have the genes for this problem.

Gratuitous Oda picture #2 (with a rear end of Macha) --doesn't Oda look a lot like Outlaw?

For the O puppies, I know that they are in the absolute worst case "unaffected carriers" -- which means that even if they did get the gene from their dad (who may or may not have any genes for this problem), they should never be affected. So, for the O puppies, it would be a good idea to test any individual who is going to be bred, but there's no point in doing the test until all other health/performance/conformation hurdles are crossed. A dog who comes up with 1 allele (an unaffected carrier) can still be bred--selectively and with care (which is the whole point anyway, no?). In that case, one chooses a partner that has zero alleles (non-carrier), then all of the puppies will be healthy and unaffected, and individual pups can be tested if they are being considered for breeding.

Gratuitous Oda #3
She's so pretty, I can't believe she's one of mine.

Other good news is that I have Xita's AKC registration in hand, and back in early November, I sent off her DNA swab to AKC. (Before registering puppies out of an imported dog, AKC has to have a DNA sample for their records--they don't actually do anything with this sample unless someone challenges the parentage of a puppy somewhere along the line.)

As soon as I get her DNA confirmation, I can register the O litter, and I should be able to send puppy owners the AKC papers within a few weeks of that date (AKC typically has a fast turnaround at the litter registration stage). So, hopefully that will be completed before the new year. Such a long chain of paperwork!

Sid and Outlaw

2010-12-03T15:10:00.002-05:00

Woe. Woe is me.

I'm working at my desk with one eye and one ear on the puppy behind me.
It's Outlaw, who is growing into a big, sweet, thoughtful girl. I was about to write about how she was gnawing on a blue Wubba skin, but something sounded wrong and I realized that she had my glasses and had thoroughly licked both lenses and was getting ready to test her molars on them.

Outlaw, 5 months

So. Even the good puppy is still all puppy.

Outlaw and Oda are still almost twins. Outlaw is slightly bigger overall, three pounds heavier at 4.5 months, with larger ears and slightly thicker boning. She's got a bit more tan in her coat, although she's still very red. She's playful and sweet and is incredibly affectionate. She's been known to ask for snuggles and then wriggle her way up, until there I am, holding her in my arms and laughing at her as she kisses my chin.

Outlaw, 5 months

I am still looking for homes for both Outlaw and Obsidian (Sid). I have been sort of sitting on them, a bit, watching how they grow, seeing their personalities develop, learning from them, thinking about what their mom has put into them. This will, hopefully, help me make more informed decisions for breeding Xita in the future. But it's really time for me to find them permanent homes, their own people to love.

What I've seen in both of them is super temperaments--sweet, interactive, loving--and very sound nerves and gorgeous looks. Their conformation is excellent (as in, they would be likely to be able to get a V/Excellent rating as adults)--heavy bone, great shoulder angles, lovely toplines, beautiful heads with large, expressive ears, thick coats, strong pigment.

They are very human oriented--they are clear in letting me know that I am their person and I am important to them and they need their daily quotient of physical affection. While they like to chase and carry things--sticks, balls, tugs, bones, metal bowls, giant buckets, eyeglasses--they are not natural retrievers. They are more inclined to get a toy and play with it near me than to bring me something to play with. They have very good food drive and are extremely trainable. They aren't stubborn or resistant--they want to do things that I want them to do--because I want them to do them. In short, they are both delightful to have around--good company, good looks, and easy to live with.

Sid is much more of a handful. He is 100% boy--galumphy and sweet and demanding and sensitive and pushy and possessive and snuggly and very physical in his enthusiasm and affection. He likes new people, but he watches them. When he is older, I suspect he will be aloof but accepting of strangers--but he will watch out for his person--I can see hints of his protective instincts as he eyes people who walk past the car--not reacting, just watching.

Unfortunately, one of his testicles hasn't descended, so he is only available to a home that doesn't plan to breed. I think he could be a great active companion, but he could also be a nice working prospect. I do think he'll fit best with someone who has had GSDs (or at least, big dogs) before.

He's the one who wakes me up every morning, demanding to go out, warbling and scratching at the door of his crate. He can hardly hold himself still and bounces forward to hit the door then back--he knows the door doesn't open if he's touching it, but it is very hard to be still!

He needs a home with someone who can handle his enthusiasm, his size--his very big sense of self.

Roughousing Around

2010-12-01T14:09:00.002-05:00

I always recommend not trying to raise two pups from the same litter. They can so easily become utterly dependent on each other for support and confidence, and you have to work hard to make sure they have sufficient interest in interacting with the human members of their family. So, by and large, Macha and Musket don't hang out together much--usually walked separately and traveling separately and definitely socialized separately.

But every now and then, they get together for a play session or just for a daily walk. Monday they got together for a photo session after not having seen each other in more than a week. It was all hugs and kisses and widespread mayhem.

Mouth hug!

Chicken?

I think this is called an "oh shit" moment.

(with Oda? chasing along behind)

Making Much of Macha

2010-11-30T16:42:00.005-05:00

Macha, 10 months

It occured to me, yesterday morning, that I have been highly negligent. Not just of this blog, but in failing to properly introduce the latest permanent member of my pack--not a new member, not really, but one who has been sorely overshadowed by her two brothers.

Blackthorn's Macha, 9 months

Macha, 6 weeks

Meet Macha--a littermate to the Entertainment!Puppy and a full (younger) sister to Lynx, she's a daughter of Coal and Danca born in January 2010. She's named after a Celtic goddess of war and (if you read the legends) vengeance.


Macha, 8 weeks

By 8 weeks, she had made it clear to me that I was hers and I really didn't get a say in the matter, she was staying--but I knew that my hands were full and was worried that I wouldn't be able to give her enough individual socialization, so a friend of mine kept her for about 6 weeks and taught her all the important puppy things--slick floors, things that fall and clatter, car rides, housetraining, playing with new dogs, snuggling on furniture....

She has had some major gangly stages in the past few months, and she is taller and longer than the more compactly built Musket. She's also wicked smart and thinks really hard about everything. She hasn't been as intrepid or wide-open as Musket, but she is not about to be outdone.

After watching him climb in and out of the pool via the ladder this summer, she taught herself to use the ladder too. She went in the water one day, swam over to the ladder, and climbed out--no involvement from me, no coaxing or training or intermediate stages.

Thinking dogs are both fun and challenging to train. She isn't thinking about the next step, but the next 3 steps, so while using a marker and positive reinforcement is essential, it's not sufficient. She needs to have greater faith in what I have planned.

Due to me doing mean and horrible things to her, such as putting her in the front yard or crating her, when she reached that independent phase at about 8 months, I started having to prove everything to her, also I had to regain her faith, many weeks of ... "really, if you come here, the most horrible thing I am going to do to you is hand you this piece of salmon jerky."

Macha, November 2010

I think we're just about over that molehill, and she's starting to grow into those long legs, and I'm beginning to get glimpses of the beauty she is going to be. What's more, her drives and wicked personality are starting to resurface. And she's showing herself to be a true member of the Throw the Ball pack.

Still Alive with Puppy

2010-10-13T23:24:00.003-04:00

I've eaten dinner, I crate Lynx and Xita. Tonight's puppy is Oda, so I let her out of the crate where I fed her dinner, then take her out to pee, then we head back inside.

Just 15 more minutes of work to do before I can break for the night, so I sit at my desk. Oda trots by, 8 pages of edited work in her mouth. I thank her for the delivery and ask her to go back for more. Agreeably, she trots back into the TV room and returns with the sat TV remote. I rescue it from her and suggest a tug toy might be a better option. She agrees and hops onto the futon sofa with the tug. I turn back to the computer screen.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Oda trot by with a shoe. I rescue the shoe and hand her a stuffed sheep with blue legs and fuschia feet. She hops onto the futon with the toy. I grab the rest of my pages from the TV room and sit down at the computer again.

I hear a thump and a plastic noise, Oda trots by with the DVD remote. I rescue it and hand her a tennis ball. She hops onto the futon with the ball. I go back to work, replying to emails. Flint steals the tennis ball. I rescue the tennis ball from Flint. Nike flops beneath the futon, Oda jumps on her head. Wrestling ensues. I go back to the email.

Another odd noise comes from the mudroom. There's Oda with a shoe. I rescue the shoe and hand her the tug again. Futon posing ensues.

Who me?

Oda is to my right now, trying to remove the quilting buttons from the seat of the old office chair. I suggest she do something else, so she grabs an old monitor part and runs off with it. I decide I don't care about the plastic monitor back. But I can see another shoe needs rescuing now. I find a rubber puppy toy and play tug with Oda for a couple of minutes until she distracts herself by grabbing some lint from the trashcan and running off.

Wreaking havoc is *hard work*!

This time I get up from the computer because I hear a clack and a clatter and the television starting up. With a sigh, I get up and go into the TV room. The DVD remote is on the floor.... and Terminator 3 is playing. Oda seems pleased with herself, but I tell her she's not allowed to watch the movie without me. She looks at me, hops over the coffee table and heads off to the futon in the office. With a sigh, I follow her.

The Puppinator.

The Trouble with Terriers...

2010-10-06T16:30:00.007-04:00

... is that terriers are trouble.

They have, however, taught me quite a few things. The lesson of Terrier Morality is perhaps the most important:

If you can do it, you may do it.

It is notable that my herding-breed German Shepherds do not embody this principle. They very much factor in the concepts of right and wrong in their worldview. They may well decide to do wrong, but it will have been a considered decision. Even the German Shepherd motto reflects this: Do right and fear no one. (No, really, there is a GSD motto!)

This doesn't mean that they automatically know right from wrong--but they learn and they care, and then tend to think about this question of morality: "Is this a wrong thing to do?" Some GSDs are more concerned with this question than others. On one extreme, my first GSD Thorn spent all of his days studying this question and pondering what his goddess wanted of him. He dedicated his life to learning the language of his goddess and spent his hours pondering possible interpretations of her wishes. My 2nd GSD, Frost, was close to the other extreme--she was was greatly dedicated to her wants and needs, and ultimately, was a great, tormented sinner--she knew what was wanted of her, but she just had to do what she had to do.

And even among terriers, there are differences--Flint spent his first year at Thorn's side, and he seems much more desiring to not only hear the commandments but to try to obey them.

Ruffian is free of this--she has grown up heathen and her gods are the wind and the birds and the scent of dirt in the fields.

She ventures forth and quests for communion with her gods and the commandments of the goddess are all too often naught but sounds in the distance.

The scent of blood, the snarls of battle, the rattle and flutter of a chicken--these to her are celebrations of life and she throws herself forth to participate, body and soul, no time for consideration, no room for shoulds and do nots--only the deafening whistle of exhilaration through her head and heart.

* * *

All this is to say that last night Ruffian got herself in the middle of a fight between three German Shepherds and now sports a deep puncture on the bridge of her nose, another by her ear, a third through and through her ear and also a rip to the edge of her ear as well as some bruising on her thigh (stepped on?), and no greater appreciation for the frailty of her life.

The German Shepherds are fine. Hopefully they spent the night in the kennel pondering the will and anger of their goddess.

The Xita-Laruh Puppies at 12 Weeks

2010-10-03T19:18:00.004-04:00

Obsidian

The O puppies turn 12 weeks old today. Most of them are in their new homes--doing SAR, schutzhund, personal protection, agility, herding, and of course, being best friends to their new people--but I have three still looking for the right homes.

Obsidian has grown in to a gleamingly massive chunk of puppy. He's doing great in his crate training but he likes to tank up on water so it's been fun trying to time his night time walks. He's a very busy fellow and likes to investigate everything personally.

I think he needs an owner who has had a working-type dog before--not so much that Sid needs a job to do, but that he's big and bold and determined... and he thinks he's in charge of everything.

He does listen and learn, though, and if he gets corrected for trying to bear hug the cat, he remembers and the next time he holds back on the bear hug and just licks the cat's ears. Not that the cat appreciates the distinction much--both are equally undesirable!

Obsidian @ 12 weeks

Outlaw @ 12 weeks

Outlaw is a bit more relaxed and a bit less into everything. She still isn't likely to be a great couch potato--but I think she'd be a delight for an active person looking for a canine best friend. She's outgoing and interested in people and shows very nice drives. She's crate trained and settles nicely after only a little bit of fussing.

As you can see from the pictures, she loves to chase the rag or a ball and is very athletic.

I think she'd be a good candidate for agility or schutzhund or just for hanging out with someone who likes to hike and play ball.

Oda, 12 weeks

The third puppy I still have is the green collar black sable girl who I have named "Oda." She's another puppy who isn't a good candidate for couch potato.

She's showing some significant "forward defense" already--as well as a thorough enjoyment of fence fighting and barrier aggression. She has very high pack drive and is a great companion, but she likes stirring up trouble.

She also loads in drive as she gets more and more wound up. She'd be a great protection dog and probably a good schutzhund dog if trained with care--but maybe not a "competition" dog. Although she has the prey drive, she's going to really like taking a more serious approach--I think she's going to like looking for a fight.

Dunbar on Practical Application of Behavioral Learning Theory

2010-09-22T03:03:00.001-04:00

Knowledge of the research that's been done on learning theory is invaluable, but, as Ian Dunbar points out, humans don't have to train like computers to integrate the latest science--and people are hamstringing their relationships with their dogs when they try.

Dunbar presents some interesting thoughts about using learning theory in real life dog training and communicating with our dogs when we're training--and how the nuances and idiosyncrasies of human speech and gestures can do so much more than a simple click.

From: http://www.dogstardaily.com/blogs/beyond-quantum

A Nora Picture Post -- Dorkface101

2010-09-12T11:51:00.000-04:00

Nora is one of the most fun puppies I've ever had. She imbues every action with glee and enthusiasm yet she is also one of the most affectionate puppies I've ever raised. I keep saying that I have to find a home for her soon or I'll be a goner--I'm more than half in love already. Yesterday's photo session has not helped me out. She's almost 13 weeks now and has moments of grace and loveliness in between the stream of spaz and dorkface.

Nora makes excellent use of her floppy ears to explore the various permutations of puppy dorkface, omgcuteness, and spaztasticness.

OMGCUTENESS

SPAZTASTIC!


Beginner Dorkface

Now, at 13 weeks, she's begun perfecting her expressions and even adding other elements such as Action!Dorkface and Dorkface with a Toy.


Dorkface with a tug

Dorkface with special lip distortion and ironical eye contact

An action shot without dorkface


Demonstrating that the ear CAN stand up when she is not seeking dorkfacedness

Look at that ear, reach for dorkface even while focused on the tug

Dorkface with Grandma Nike demonstrating the pro!dorkface maneuver

Nora concentrates hard on her first attempt at pro!dorkface

Testing the pro!dorkface in action

Eyes closed dorkface maneuver

I don't even know

What?

Focus!

Tug and Dorkface achieved


Joint action!faces with Nemo (right)

Taking a break, but unable to resist a profile dork-squint

Anticipation

This picture just makes me want to hug her.

Just to show that she isn't stuck in perma-dorkface....

Nora and Nemo, 13 weeks

As always, the full album is available on Picasa.

Entertainment!Puppy Strikes Again!

2010-09-02T03:10:00.000-04:00

Musket taught himself to use the ladder--after all, it was faster than swimming all the way back to the steps! Entertainment!Puppy strikes again!

Hope you enjoy this crappy iPhone video. :)

OhWow! Grown up almost!

2010-08-26T23:37:00.008-04:00

The last few weeks have been a busy blur of talking to potential puppy people, taking care of puppies, and trying to do my work-work all at the same time. But the puppies have continued to grow and have adventures and I've been trying to document their experiences in pictures, if not in words. I've been diligently updating the puppy photo galleries.

From the N litter (picture gallery), Navarre and Nineva and Nick have all gone to their awesome new families and have been expanding their worlds daily. Nora continues to charm me with her hoyden ways and Nemo remains unflappable. Both of them are still looking for the right homes, but I really think that they both need owners who are interested in more than just a house pet. Nora is a little wild-child who likes to throw herself into new things and Nemo keeps surprising me not just with his super calm attitude but also with his very high ball and tug drive.

Nemo

* * *

And the O puppies (picture gallery) are almost 8 weeks old now--five of them have new owners, but due to travel and weather and work and whatnot, some of them will be hanging around here for a few more weeks. Little Olivia (pink collar girl) will be the first to go home--to an active family with three kids who will maybe adore her as much as she thinks she deserves to be adored. :)

Olivia

Next to go home will be Orion (on Sept 3), one of the three solid black males, to his new owner Chris, who is excited to get into SAR work with him. Today I introduced all the puppies to the pool, carefully putting them on the top step or two of the pool to cool them off and show them where the steps were. Orion looked around and promptly swam a 7-foot circle away and back to the steps--calm as you please. None of that newbie splashing either--he swam like he'd been doing it daily for the last three weeks. Just to show me it wasn't a fluke, it did it again a few minutes later. Good thing Chris lives near the water, I have a feeling Orion is going to insist on regular swims.

Shortly after that, Organa (littlest, darkest sable girl) will be going home with a long-time friend of mine who has been training and competing in herding with Jedi from my J litter. Organa will be going by the call name of "Leia" to match with Jedi. :) "Leia" is a little badass, much like her namesake--Terri's gonna have her hands full!

Then as the weather cools off in early September, the red-collar boy, Omri, will be flying to his new home out in Denver where he's going to be doing schutzhund and personal protection training. He'll be flying via the all-pet airline, Pet Airways--where the cabin stewards are all vet techs and there is no such thing as waiting on the tarmac in a crate! What an awesome service--I hope that it continues to grow and expand and offer an affordable alternative for pets to fly.

Finally, in mid-September, Ms. Flufferbutter, now named Onyx, will be going home with her new family. This is quite the most delicious puppy--she's almost irresistably cute and has been since she was 3 weeks old. I hope Michelle is better at withstanding the power of her charm, because otherwise her family will spend all day, every day, rubbing her pink belleh.

That leaves me with three O puppies looking for homes. I've talked to a lot of interested people, so hopefully it won't be long before they have their places too. Little green collar girl, Oda, has been giving me the eyeball since she first could see. I think she wants to stay here and I am so, so tempted. Sooo tempted! But I really want to concentrate on getting Hunter and Jubilee and Lynx some more training, doing some herding and tracking and BH titles on all of them. And that means I don't really have the time (or energy!) to spare to raise up one of these puppies the way they deserve. But, dang, isn't she a looker?

That's pretty true of all of these pups, though. Super consistent litter, all with sound and "forward" personalities, very affectionate and human-focused, great pigment, great heads, compact and strong bodies, and plenty of drive to boot. Olivia is the only definite "pet" in the bunch--and that's mostly b/c she'd rather snuggle than do most anything else.

I've named the 3rd sable girl "Outlaw"--she's shown consistently good confidence, good drives, and a lot of human focus without any hint of insecurity or neediness.

The third male, also solid black, I'm naming Obsidian. He's going to be a big boy, and he's got a good sense of humor and a relaxed confidence that I'm really liking. He's shown very nice drives and likes to carry a ball around. I'm hoping he finds a working home as well--I suspect that he might grow into to a bit "too much" for the average pet/companion home. On the other hand, he's not extremely dominant, so with someone who's had GSDs before, he might do just fine as a companion. He's another puppy I look at and think, "Oh, it would be TOOO bad if he had to stay here with me... I could make room for another boy dog, couldn't I?" But then I smack myself upside the head and move away from that daydream. :)

As much fun as these puppies are, I still look forward to the day they have a whole family to love on them. I go outside every night and sit on the front porch with them and am hugged and loved by eight puppies at once. I try to give everyone some lap time and scritch everyone's belly and let everyone kiss my chin and just snuggle a little bit. But I end up thinking there's not enough of me and that these guys are just so hungry for attention and for a bond with a human. So while it's always sort of sad to be sending them off to their new homes, I hope that it will fill that need for each of them and also, I hope, for their new persons.

Fighting Canine Cancer -- We Bite Back

2010-08-15T11:51:00.001-04:00

Daybreak (lost to cancer, 5yrs), Diesel, Dare (lost to cancer, 4yrs), Daria (euthanized at 6 weeks, failure to thrive)

There's too much adorable around here, it keeps dragging me away from the computer! But as this picture from 2003 reminds me, these babies grow up to be our beloved friends--and we are losing too many of them to cancers of one kind or another. So I wanted to link and support this WE BITE BACK fundraiser to fight canine cancer. This fundraiser spearheaded by Sheli Rhodes, handler of Agility Victrix MACH Blackthorn's Deva, is targeting $5,000--and they're almost there!

If you don't want to donate online and you're in Virginia or nearby, there's a fun doggy event at Sheli's Love on A Leash, Saturday August 28th--see Love on a Leash Dog Training and Agility for info on how to get there.

Sheli says:

We will start Agility, Obedience and Rally Run Thrus at 4 pm. Obedience and Rally will be inside, Agility outside.Come let your dogs try out the agility equipment!!!!
We will have raffle items, food and some activities. We will have the paw prints again this year to decorate and put on the wall in honor or in memory of someone that is always in our heart.
The balloon release was amazing last year. We had markers and stickers on hand to decorate the balloons, so many of them went up bearing the name of a gone but not forgotten Best Friend. Everybody got so quiet as the balloons went up. They were blue, pink, and white. It was quite a moving sight.
We will have the luminaries walk at the end of the evening.
It was just beautiful last year with the sun going down. We lined the walking field with different colored bags we decorated and put tea light candles in. We are having a much shorter day this year. Unfortunately we started too early last year and lots of people left before the luminaries walk. Hope more can stay this year. Things should finish up around 8'ish.

If you would rather mail a donation instead of donating online, you are welcome to send your donation to

Love on a Leash, LLC
3225 Harpine Hwy
Harrisonburg, Va. 22802
540-746-3333

Throw the Ball!

The Fence Game

Herding, HRD, and Healing

O.D.A (oE.)

Dogwalking in the Rain

Thanksgiving with Nike

Why I Love Dogs, Reason #214

Lynx Does Agility

Best laid plans....

Rally, Herding, and Heat Cycles, Oh My!

Jubilee's JHD

BSP 2011 -- Schutzhund Obedience

Herding lesson with Jubilee

My GSDs and Sheep...

Serious Cute

Crazy Girl

Q-pups at 8 weeks

Happy Birthday Nike!!!

Yet More Quteness!

Puppies Are AWESOME

Q puppies gather for dinner

3 week puppy videos

Qutest Puppies IN THE WORLD!

Axis of Evil, Redux

Q-puppy portraits

Its a Family Affair....

Announcing the Q pups!

AKC Rally Trial

Joy in the Work

Cell Pics, May 2011

Working SAR Dog

Pistol Goes Off

Mad Splashy Skillz!

Puppy at Work!

Pistol Plays

The calm following the puppy storms

Spring pictures

Learning to Play

The Horde Rampages...

Sunday Morning Routine

Meal Time

Schutzhund training seminar weekend

First Day Outside

Three weeks--expanding horizons

More Herding and HRD

Precocious Ppups

Herding and HRD

Nike vs. the Axis of Evil

Ppictures of Ppuppies

Sooner than later, Ppuppies!

It gets no easier

*happy sigh*

Happy Goodbyes

E-collars and e-pinions

All Grown Up

Evidence for the 1 Dog Axis of Evil

Too nice a day for this

Puppy brags

Actual Conversation

The No-Snowday Pictures

News and Gratuitous Oda

Sid and Outlaw

Roughousing Around

Making Much of Macha

Still Alive with Puppy

The Trouble with Terriers...

The Xita-Laruh Puppies at 12 Weeks

Dunbar on Practical Application of Behavioral Learning Theory

A Nora Picture Post -- Dorkface101

Entertainment!Puppy Strikes Again!

OhWow! Grown up almost!

Fighting Canine Cancer -- We Bite Back

happy sigh