A Great Prize Package

As some of you may know I took 2nd Place in the Bad Sports class at Mango Minster!


Last week a package arrived addressed to Mr. Ambrose - Gordon Setter. Notice the Mr. Ambrose, not annoying Ambrose or silly boy Ambrose but Mr. Finally I get some respect! It was from Scout and Freyja who sponsored the 2nd Place prize. There was a nice note inside.



I had to stick my head in the box right away to check out all the goodies.



Scout and Freyja put some terrific stuff in there including this great bone.



I had to play with my new Snoopy frisbee right away.



There was also a burger stuffie, treats and a Snoopy portable water dish! They even sent some nice gift tags for Barbara (which she doesn't deserve since she was so late in posting about my prize). All great stuff and I thank you, Scout and Freyja and your mom, for sponsoring this prize and sending it to me. And thanks to Judge Fiona for giving me 2nd Place in the Bad Sports class.



I will turn into a cat before I refer to my little brother Ambrose as Mister! Winning that prize has gone to his head and he actually tried to get me to play bitey face this morning before I had eaten my breakfast. What nerve!

Barbara does have some excuse for being slack with our blog. She had graduation for several of her classes last week as well as a Canine Good Citizen test and had to prepare dogs for their Therapy Dog International evaluation. Her students did very well so it was worth it.

Unfortunately Ambrose and I were subjected to all sorts of dog grooming torture last week. We both had baths. You can see how unhappy I am about that.



Then she pinned a towel on me while torturing me with the blow dryer. The towel is to prevent the dreaded fluffy butt that I sometimes get after a bath.



Ambrose is waiting on the grooming table before the bath. He doesn't seem to mind the dog grooming torture as much as I do. He is crazy.



The reason we were subjected to all this was for a trip to the University of North Carolina. Now we go for walks there all the time so I saw no need for a bath for that. However we were invited to give a demonstration of dog training to a class of General Psychology students. Their professor took a puppy class with Barbara and found that the practical application of operant conditioning is a lot harder than the theory! She asked Barbara to bring us to class to demonstrate our skills and to let the students practice with us.

It was great fun! There were almost 300 students in the auditorium and they were all looking at us!! After explaining about clicker training and showing off some of our skills, she helped students work with us on target training. We got LOTS of treats and of course many of the students wanted to pet us which we also enjoyed. Of course she forgot her camera so there are no pictures. However the professor and the class really enjoyed our work and we are invited back for next semester.

Training

Ambrose here. It has been mostly sunny in NC and Barbara decided it would be a good time to take me over to Fearrington for a walk and some training.




Fearrington has nice shopping area, lots of gardens, ponds and cows and goats. While we were walking around 2 people stopped to say what a handsome dog I am. Which of course I am.

They have outdoor sculpture by local artists and Barbara thought we should look at that. I wanted to see the cows. Look at this giant metal rooster. I would have preferred a real rooster with feathers.




I practiced my sit stays by this giraffe.




And by these mushrooms.



Then we did some more by this statue. However once Barbara saw the price tag of $2400 she moved me a way from it in case I tried to practice some bad sport skills on it!



I really wanted to go see the cows in the field but none of them would come close to me at the fence so I have no pictures to show of them.


Of course the sensible cows did not come near the fence while Ambrose was there. However the cows are my friends and always come to the fence when I visit. When I go to Fearrington I will get nice photos of the cows to post.



I always enjoy hanging out with my boyfriend Trotter. We like to practice our recalls and get good treats. Here we are sitting politely in front of his person waiting for her to give us bits of cheese.



Barbara has called us to come and we raced across the yard to get to her. She had turkey sausage which was very delicious and excellent for encouraging speedy recalls.



Tomorrow I will go to freestyle practice where Barbara and I will work on some moves for a new routine.

A Shared Post

Thank you all for your concern about my poor tail and ears. I am happy to tell you that both have improved greatly and I am feeling better although I still have to take medicine for another week.



You know how I have kept strict control of my blog and I rarely let Ambrose post on it. I am worried that he may get ideas above his station and try to take over the blog like some labradorks we know. Ever since Ambrose took 2nd place in the Bad Sports class at Mango Minster he has had delusions of grandeur and wants to post more.

As a compromise we are going to experiment with shared posts! I am sure it will be a train wreck but we are going to try. I will post in regular print and Ambrose will post in italics.

Ambrose here. I am still basking in the glow of taking 2nd place in Bad Sports at Mango Minster. Miss Perfect Niamh thinks that she is the only one who can win anything. I knew that all my badness would pay off some day. I was very inspired by Moose's well deserved 1st place. I will try to emulate him and be even more bad this year.

Barbara doesn't seem to think that this is a good idea. She has decided that I need more mental stimulation to keep me from doing bad things so we are doing a lot more training lately. Here I am practicing "leave it".



After my visit to Duke the nice students there sent me a box of toys to thank me for being a demo dog at Barbara's talk. Well actually the box was addressed to Barbara but I know that they sent them to me. We had to get right in there and check it out.






Of course Ambrose couldn't wait for Barbara to take the toys out of the box and grabbed one with the packaging still on it.



I waited politely to see the toys. They are excellent toys and I wanted them all for myself.



I took two of the toys and stood over them. Ambrose of course tried to get them but you can see I gave him an intense look and he turned his head away. I am very clear in my body language and as dopey as he is, Ambrose usually gets it when I am serious.



Niamh finally let me play with the toys. They are excellent and I raced around with them. I gave the raccoon a good shake.



The rabbit is good too. Barbara likes these toys because there is no stuffing in them for me to destuff and eat.



After some good playing I decided I would be a nice little brother and wash Niamh's ears for her. They had icky bacteria in them and I thought I could help her by cleaning them out.

Ambrose does like to lick my ears. Sometimes I don't mind it but at other times he just gets too enthusiastic and rough and messes up my ear fur. Then I have to tell him off.



Look how quickly he backed off when I told him to.