Mega Cooties!

Usually when we are at Day School Barbara sets up a big exercise pen for Ambrose and me to hang out in when she works with the other dogs. It is very spacious and there is room for our mats and our toys and to not bump into one another. Sometimes when the other pups are playing bitey face I take some of the toys and take them into a crate. Here I have taken a stuffed raccoon along with both Beatrice's and Greta's Kongs into Greta's crate to guard them.

But today the unthinkable happened. Barbara made me share a crate with Ambrose!!!

I can't tell you how horrified I was. Ambrose is full of cooties and there was no escaping them when I was stuffed into a crate with him. Ugh! I will never get them off. And just look at him hogging all the space. I barely have room to sit there. Do I look happy?

I hope she never does this again.

I Am Sick of It!!!

Sick of what you may ask? Ambrose here and I am completely sick that Niamh just hogs the blog and I get no face time. It is always "Niamh does this and Niamh does that. She is so good. She is so smart." Ugh! What about me??

I am sweet and I am smart and very handsome too. I am sick of being neglected so I am taking over the blog today. This will be a Niamh-free post. It is going to be all about what I did today.

A new dog, named Mutley, has come to live at the training center. Barbara is fostering him for a friend. He is pretty big and looks very serious.

I was a bit worried about him and barked at him when he was on the floor.

What am looking at so intently?

There is a big shelf where Barbara keeps all the treats and toys for the Day School and her classes. I know where she hides all the good stuff and sometimes if she is not paying attention, I can snag something. Unfortunately today she caught me in the act.

We do lots of training and playing in Day School. Barbara didn't get any shots of me doing my exercises (she says it is hard to train and take pictures at the same time) but I do lots tricks like spins, bows and targeting. I like to play rough and Amos is one of my best buddies. Here we are playing tug with Riley's hedgehog which I "borrowed".

I am a happy guy and I am going to insist that I get more blog time so you can enjoy my smiling face.

K9 Kindness

This afternoon Barbara and I met one of our Drill Team friends, Gloria, at the Cole Park Veterinary Hospital's Open House. We staffed a table for K9 Kindness which is an organization of instructors in the Triangle area of NC promoting reward based dog training.

Barbara and Gloria had lots of free literature to give away about puppy socialization and the importance of puppy classes, training methods, dog body language and other important topics and to encourage people to use humane training equipment. I got to model my front clip harness. When I got tired I got to stretch out on my mat.

I am always good at the vet's and I demoed how to sit nicely on the scale while being weighed.

Ambrose and I have always been trained with reward-based methods and we wouldn't want it any other way. I got to show off my tricks and of course got petted by lots of nice folks. I want to give a shout out to my boyfriend Trotter. He was entered in a Rally Novice trial today and got 1st Place with a score of 98 our of 100! I am so proud of him. He has been trained with reward methods too.

Canine Good Citizen

Finally I am a Canine Good Citizen! Yes, I can now put the letters CGC after my name. Now I know you think I should have had those letters long ago and I have to agree with you. Many of my friends have those letter and I was a bit embarrassed that I didn't. But since Barbara is always evaluating CGC tests, she can't test me. So tonight she had a friend who is a CGC evaluator come to Paw In Hand to give a test to her students. She decided that we would take the test. Of course I passed everything!

I thought it was easy peasy. The AKC says you have to do 10 skills to pass and get the letters after your name and a certificate. Here is what I had to do: 1. Sit politely to meet a friendly stranger. 2. Sit for petting. 3. Appearance and grooming. 4. Loose leash walk. 5. Walk through a crowd 6. Sit, down, stay. 7. Come 8. Reaction to another dog. 9 Reaction to distractions. 10.Supervised separation. I am so pleased that I passed and can say I am a Canine Good Citizen.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to you all. Ambrose here. I wanted to give a shout out to my Dad, Loghan. His fancy name is now Grand Champion Seasac's Rumor Has It RN JH! He was already a Champion but last weekend he got the points to add Grand to that. He is a handsome guy and you can tell where I got my good looks! I am taking back the blog now Ambrose. We have been very busy, working hard at Day School. Twice a week dogs come to Paw in Hand and Barbara trains them and then I get to help them learn appropriate play skills and manners. I have many boyfriends who come to see me. This is Riley, a Goldendoodle. I am letting him play with my squeaky sheep. Tyson is a Labradoodle and a very sweet boy. Ambrose and Amos playing a vigorous game of tug. Amos tried to hump me last week. I was appalled and I chased him all the way across the room. He will not try that again! This pretty girl is Greta, a 15 week old German Shepherd Dog. Barbara thinks she is quite smart and is training her and I am teaching her respect. We were playing very nicely and then Greta decided to put her paws on my shoulders! That is just not done and I let her know it. She got the message and has been very respectful ever since. Ambrose is not allowed to play with her. Barbara is afraid he will sit on her. I am afraid he will lift his leg on her. He did that once on a little girl Australian Shepherd puppy and I have never recovered from the mortification! Tug is a favorite game at Day School. Barbara always supervises it carefully so no one gets out of control. Amos and Ryder are enjoying themselves. We like Day School and everyone goes home tired. In other news it is Barbara's birthday today. She is 399 in dog years. Very decrepit but we will keep her.

I am Seven!

I am 7 today! So why do I have a picture of cows on my blog on my birthday? I do like cows because they smell so nice. These are extra special cows as they are the ice cream making cows of Maple View Farms.

Barbara brought me to Maple View Farms to celebrate. We left Ambrose at home - HAHA! I got a cup of ice cream. People were surprised to see a dog on the porch eating ice cream but I didn't care. All I could think of was the ice cream.

See how nicely I ate the ice cream off the spoon.

Then she let me lick the last little bit out of the cup. Yummy!

When I was finished I saw a woman eating ice cream out of a big waffle cone. I think that next year I will hold out for a waffle cone. On the way home we stopped at Teddy's house. He is one of my Drill Team buddies. His person has goats, chickens and a miniature horse. The horse, named Daisy, was being abused so Teddy's person adopted her and treats her really well and has gotten her nice and healthy. She is wearing this harness to get used to it so that she can learn to pull a little cart.

Daisy is good with dogs so I got to get pretty close to her. She smelled wonderful.

Then I got to go in the yard with the goats. I love goats. Maggie is the white goat in the front and she is very protective of the other goats. I was pretty excited and she did not want to let me get too close to them. It was ok though because I could still smell them.

What a great birthday! Cows, ice cream, a horse and goats!! I am one happy setter.

Now I will go home and annoy Ambrose and keep him away from my toilet paper roll. What fun!

Freestyle Fun and Friends

I am having a great time at the Canine Federation Freestyle Retreat! Besides getting to spend time with Barbara (without Ambrose and his cooties)and staying in a motel I am learning lots of new things and meeting new freestyle friends. I learned how to switch from left to right heel by going behind Barbara and coming up into heel. I know how to do it in front of her but had not done it this way before

I've also learned some distance work and done lots of practice on walking backwards. There are over 50 dogs here and many are from North Carolina. This morning we got all the NC dogs and people together for a group photo. You can't see me very well in the back row because Barbara is wearing black pants and I sort of blend in! But this is a great group and I am enjoying training with them.

Doing all these classes is a lot of work though and between exercises I rest on my mat next to Barbara's chair and watch the other dogs work. I have been very well behaved and I don't mind when another dog walks by right in front of me.

One of the great things about Canine Freestyle is that any dog can do it. It doesn't matter if you are big or little, it is just a matter of learning moves and then having a willing human partner who will choreograph your routines. While we dogs have been learning the technical moves the people are learning to be creative. I am not sure if Barbara can learn this but I try to help her by doing new things all the time. I have made many new friends at the retreat. There are lots of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels here.

I've sat next to Benny in a couple of classes and he is very sweet.

This little corgi is only 4 months old! She is as smart as can be. Look at the attention she has with her person. She is going to be a great freestyle dog.

I met this nice English Setter boy, Bentley. It is great to see another setter doing freestyle.

Teddy is my Drill Teammate and my traveling companion. He is doing very well in class.

Kiwi is tiny (I bet my ears weigh more than she does) but she does great freestyle and is very smart and cute.

I am having a great time but it is very tiring to think so much. I just crashed in the bleachers this afternoon.

Tomorrow is the last day of the retreat so I will try to get someone to take pictures of Barbara and I doing some of our new moves.

Road Trip

We got up early this morning and Barbara packed up the dog-crate-on-wheels with lots of stuff. Then we dropped Ambrose off at K9 Kindercare (yay!!) and I got to go on a road trip with Barbara. Look at all the stuff crammed in the car! She says that more of it is for me than for her.



We picked up my drill team buddy Teddy and his person and they crammed even more stuff in. Poor Teddy had to ride in Ambrose's crate. I was afraid he would get some of Ambrose's cooties but he didn't seem to mind.

We had an eight hour drive, which was pretty boring, but now we are at the Canine Freestyle Federation Retreat. I will get to practice my dance moves and learn some new ones. I can't wait. But the best part is that I get to stay in a motel with Barbara.




You may notice that I don't have curls on my head anymore. Barbara took the evil dog grooming torture implements to my head. She went a bit overboard though and left a bald spot on the back of my neck! She is dangerous.

I am not a Labradoodle

One good thing about having broken Barbara's finger for her is that she is unable to wield the evil dog grooming torture implements properly. This means that I have been getting only minimal brushing and no trimming. Yay!

However I am starting to rethink this. This past Saturday our Drill Team performed at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine's Open House. Thousands of people come to this event to tour the vet school. Our drill team always draws big crowds when we perform. We got lots of applause.

It was a bit rainy which made the extra long hair on my head get all curly.



At least five people came up to me and asked Barbara if I was a Labradoodle! Can you imagine? Now I like Labradoodles very much and have several doodle friends but I am a Gordon Setter. So I guess it is time for some extreme dog grooming torture so I get back to looking the way I should.

Barbara's Finger

Why is Barbara's hand all swollen and her ring finger bandaged? A bad thing happened and it was not my fault!



As the 2nd place finisher in the Bad Sports Class of the 2011 Mangominster, I know all about doing bad things. But even I have never done anything as bad as this. Barbara's ring finger is broken and it is all Miss Perfect (not) Niamh's fault.



I will tell you how it happened. We were visiting our pals Trotter and Scout and had some good play time. Barbara put me in the dog crate on wheels and went back for Niamh. She leashed Niamh and had the leash in her right hand. She put her hand on the gate and opened it. Niamh is supposed to wait but she didn't. She dashed out through the gate like a bad girl. Unfortunately Barbara's hand was still on the gate and her fingers got twisted in the chain link. She let out a huge scream (although, amazingly, no HBO words were said). Her hand and fingers got all swollen even though she put lots of ice on it. I tried to help by licking her fingers but she said it hurt too much. When she went to the doctor he took x-rays and said that her ring finger is broken above the first joint and she will have to wear this splint and see an orthopedist.



I am really sorry about Barbara's finger. I know it hurts her and it is awkward to have to wear that splint. I didn't mean to do it and now Barbara is having me do remedial work to sit and wait nicely when we go through doors and gates.