More Fun Time with Wallace

It continues to be ridiculously hot here in NC. It is very bad for us mostly black dogs. It is hard to get enough exercise and still keep cool. Niamh does not like the heat at all and only wants to stay inside in the AC. I have been going over to Scout's house and playing with her and jumping in her pool. We get nice and wet and then shake the water off on our people!



I want Scout to get out of the pool and chase me.



My brother Wallace came back for a visit to our training center. It is nice and cool there.



We had a great time training and playing. Of course Barbara did not have her camera on when we had a really nice, bashy game. Then just as Wallace got ready to leave I decided to see if I could get him to play some more. I think he was tired so it didn't get as wild as our earlier game but you can see that we had a good time together. Wallace is the one with the striped leash. I'm the one who is barking.





After Wallace left I made a huge discovery. Niamh has been hiding her Squeaky Sheep at the training center! It is the great one with the 16 squeakers inside. Well once I found it I gave it a good shake and raced around and around with it, squeaking it like mad. Niamh will be so annoyed when she see what fun I had with her toy.





One of the reasons we haven't been posting much lately, or commenting on your blogs the way we would like to, is that Barbara has been working on making a monthly newsletter for Paw In Hand Dog Training. Not being the most creative person in the world, this has taken her some time. I would be very surprised if you hadn't heard an explosion of HBO words yesterday when she somehow managed to erase all the changes she had made and the new copy she had written for the newsletter! I know it woke me out of a sound sleep.

The most exciting part is that I am going to have my own column in the newsletter! It will be called" Ask Ambrose" and subscribers will be able to write in with questions about dog training and behavior and I will answer them in the next newsletter. I know I will do a good job since I love training and and I am an expert in dog behavior because I am a dog. Notice that Niamh did not get her own column. She will be sick with jealousy when she finds out since she thinks she knows everything.

A New Boyfriend and Freestyle Practice

A girl can never have too many admirers. However, I like them to be well behaved and they must follow my signals about what is the appropriate way to play with me. I am very good at flirting with them and training them to play appropriately.

Jix is a handsome, young Retriever/Collie who was recently adopted by a nice family. They are doing a great job in training him but they told Barbara that he gets very overexcited when he sees new dogs. Barbara suggested that they come to the training center so that Jix could meet me.



He did get very excited when he saw me, lunging and barking. I am used to this reaction and it doesn't bother me. I knew Jix was just stunned by my Gordon Setter beauty. What boy wouldn't be?? So we practiced walking by each other until Jix calmed down. He got lots of good treats for passing by calmly. After awhile he realized that I was not impressed by his antics and settled nicely.




We got let off leash and of course Jix wanted to sniff me. Now I am happy to be sniffed politely, but intensive sniffing of my personal areas is quite annoying. My body is my own! I flipped around and told Jix to behave.



He stopped but then couldn't help himself (how could he resist?) and went back to trying to sniff me. I chased him off smartly!



After a few times Jix got the message. See how he is politely averting his eyes? That is how I like all my boyfriends to behave. Then we had some nice playtime together.



On Saturday we met up with our friends from the Carolina Canine Freestyle Guild for a meeting and practice. The meeting was so boring that I fell asleep. What can people talk about for an hour and a half?? Finally it was the dogs turn to get in the ring and practice. We worked on our freestyle routines and then I got to learn something new - platform pivots.



I had to learn to stand with my two front feet on a little platform while my back feet stayed on the ground. At first I thought that this was very silly and kept jumping over the platform. But Barbara kept clicking and treating me for putting my paws on the platform and after awhile it was very easy.



Then I had to learn to move my rear feet while my front ones stayed on the platform. This is harder than it looks but with clicks and treats I could do it.



Barbara was quite pleased with this. She said it will help me with my left pivots in freestyle and rally. It is also good exercise. Now she wants to teach it to Ambrose although where we will get a platform large enough for his big feet, I do not know.