I Am Six Today

Today is my birthday! I am six years old. I was supposed to celebrate by going to Maple View Farms and getting some ice cream. My boyfriend Trotter was going to come along. Unfortunately we had torrential rains all afternoon and really bad thunder and lightning so the outing was cancelled! I am so disappointed.

I don't like the rain. I don't like to get my feet wet and the rain makes my fur all frizzy. Instead of a fun outing Barbara sang "Happy Birthday" to me. You can see what I thought of that!



I hope the weather clears up so we can reschedule the birthday ice cream trip.

Yappy Hour

Can you believe it has been over 5 weeks since I have blogged?? It is disgraceful! My person has been very slack and I think that I am going to advertise her in the paper "Free to a good home". Of course she has her excuses about work and her modem issues blah, blah, blah, blah. I have been doing many interesting things, training and playing and I wanted you to know about them and find out what you are doing too.

This week we went to a very fun event called "Yappy Hour". It is a fund raiser for Chatham Animal Rescue and Education. Dogs are allowed to eat and socialize on the patio at the Carolina Brewery in Pittsboro. When I say we, I mean me and Barbara. We left Ambrose at home since we didn't want to create a commotion. Of course he cried his eyes out when we went without him.

Here I am at the entrance to Yappy Hour. Barbara paid $10 and I got a big biscuit, she got a drink and chips and a Tshirt.



I sat politely next to our table waiting for some food.



She ordered a barbeque sandwich. It smelled great but Barbara wouldn't give me any because she said it was too spicy for me. I don't believe that - I think she just did not want to share. I did get most of the french fries though.



There were about 15 other dogs there, most of them very well behaved.



Look at this cute little guy under the chair.



Of course many people admired me because I was so well behaved and I did hear a couple of people refer to me as "gorgeous". I got lots of petting. One of the waitresses gave me a good ear rub.



I had a great time at Yappy Hour and of course was glad they raised money for the dogs and cats that CARE fosters. The next Yappy Hour is Monday, June 20th from 5:30-7:30. I plan to be there and if you are in the area, you should come too.


AMBROSE HERE. Yes, I was highly insulted to be left out of Yappy Hour especially when I smelled all those french fries on Niamh's breath when she got home! However I have been busy taking a tricks class and playing with my girl friend Scout.



After chasing around we always wrestle and play bitey face.



I hope Barbara will take some pictures of me doing my tricks. I have learned to beg, spin in both directions, circle around her, crawl and roll a log. It is a lot of work but I don't mind since I get bits of hot dog for doing the tricks.

Glad to be back blogging and we will check in with all of you this evening.

Your friends,
Niamh & Ambrose

Spring is Here

Spring is in full bloom here in North Carolina. It is sunny and warm. Barbara thought that it would be a good idea to get some pictures of me in front of the flowers. I did not agree.



I really don't see why she wanted to ruin a perfectly good walk with shoving that flashing box in my face. I refused to do a sit stay in front of the flowers because it was interfering with my sniffing. Everything smells so good right now and I didn't want to miss a scent.



Finally she gave up and let me enjoy the smells in peace!


To celebrate spring I do have a new ruffled bandana from Jing A Ling Dog Bandanas. I like the polka dots. I think that I look quite fetching in it.



It is reversible and has dog bones on the other side.



Ambrose here. I thought you would like to see some good bitey face photos. My girlfriend Scout and I like to do this after we have had a good chase.



Of course it is all in good fun. I even throw myself to the ground so that Scout can pounce all over me.




Last night was another Puppy Kindergarten graduation at Paw In Hand. Look at the cools shoes that Lulu's mom wore to class.



I wonder if Barbara could find shoes with Gordon Setters on them??

Goat Babies and More

It was bad enough last weekend when Barbara came home and had Riley smell all over her. She was invited for wine and cheese and I was very miffed since I was not. Evidently Riley (who is my boyfriend) fawned all over her and showed off his tricks.

But last night it was even worse. She came home smelling of goat babies.



One our Drill Team friends has some goats and Maggie had twins named Sugar and Spice. You can see that Barbara is cuddling Spice which is why her shirt smelled so good.



I love goats! I am always fascinated by the goats at the farm at Fearrington and I behave very nicely around them. I never try to chase them or bark at them. I just like to look at them and take in their wonderful aroma. So why wasn't I invited??

Maggie is a very good mom to the twins and keeps the other goats away from them.



Here is Thelma on top of her dog house. I had no idea that goats could sleep in dog houses!



I could not stop sniffing Barbara's clothes and shoes - they smelled wonderful. She says the next time she goes to visit them, I am invited too. I cannot wait. Of course we will not bring Ambrose for fear that he would traumatize the little goat babies.




Goat babies are cute and they would be fun to chase but I have lots of fun chasing my girlfriend Scout. Barbara filmed us chasing each other during the winter and forgot to post it on the blog! See how she neglects me.

Anyway, here it is now for your viewing pleasure. There are lots of shots of the grass because Scout and I run so fast that she couldn't keep up with us. The best part is the very end.





We always have great fun racing around together and really tires us out.



You may have noticed that there is not a single picture of me, Niamh, in this post. This is a disgrace. Barbara is always forgetting to take her camera with her to my activities. I have freestyle practice tomorrow and I hope that she will finally remember to take the camera so you can see some of my moves.

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.

My Ears and My Tail

I have been a bit under the weather lately and not my usual happy self.



I had to go to see my veterinarian at Colony Park Animal Hospital. Now I like to go to the vet's office because they always treat me nicely and give me treats but sometimes they have to do things to me that are not fun. Barbara had been treating my ears because they were yucky (which sometimes happens to us long eared dogs) but they weren't getting much better. They had to power wash my ears and give me new medicine to get at the disgusting yeast and bacteria.

But the worst was my poor tail. I have some sebaceous cysts on my tail that never seem to bother me but lately they got bigger and got all infected.

Close your eyes and don't look at the next photo if you get grossed out easily.






My tail fur had to be shaved, I am on antibiotics for a month and Barbara has to exfoliate my tail every day with special soap!!! Ugh!

Because of all of this I had to miss a fun event. Barbara was invited again to the Duke Canine Cognition Center to give the students some tips on dog body language and safe handling. Ambrose and I went last year and had a great time. I couldn't go and I am sick with jealousy that annoying Ambrose got to be the demo dog and I had to stay home. All the nice Duke students petted him and gave him treats.



They made a big fuss over him and now he thinks he is cool.

National Train Your Dog Month Train-a-Trick Open House

The Association of Pet Dog Trainers declared January National Train Your Dog Month. The month is almost over but we did our part to encourage reward based training. To celebrate NTYDM we had a Train-a-Trick Open House at the Paw In Hand Dog Training Center on Saturday, January 15 from 1-4 PM




We invited people and dogs to come to visit, watch some trick demos, eat some snacks and learn a new trick. Barbara and her trainer friends Sandi and Jeanine helped each person teach their dog a new trick. I did some trick demos and my boyfriend Trotter came and he did one too. Barbara explained to the people why they should teach tricks to their dogs. We handed out a sheet from the APDT on 20 Uses for Dog Tricks.




We had delicious food for people and dogs. There was a fancy fruit arrangement along with cookies and homemade coffee cake. The best were the special sardine treats that Barbara baked specially for the dogs who came to train.




Twenty-eight dogs and their people stopped by to socialize and train during the 3 hours. Fortunately not all at once or we would have been a bit crowded!

Great Pyrenees Carolina learning to sit in a hoop.




Rocky and Giacomo working with their people.



Shiloh the Yorkie practices jumping up on the stool.



English Springer Spaniel Lillie tries the roll over.



Success!



Liam practicing begging.



Wilma working with her person.




Everyone seemed to have a good time and all the dogs learned at least one new trick. There is one more day in National Train Your Dog Month so get your person to work with you to learn something new. It is fun. And see if you can convince them to make the special sardine treats.


3 large eggs
1 can sardines in oil
1 packet of graham crackers (not the whole box which usually has 3 packets)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet or baking dish.

Crush the graham crackers into crumbs.

Put the eggs and sardines in the blender and liquify.

Add in the graham crackers and blend. The mixture will be soupy.

Pour onto the cookie sheet and spread out to 1/4 inch thick.

Bake for 15 -20 minutes until rubbery, not crispy.

Let it cool and cut into bite sized squares.

Your house will smell heavenly! Enjoy!