Tracking

I always like it when I see Barbara's friend Gretchen because it means I'm going to have a tracking lesson. Gretchen is a tracking judge and she has trained one of her Weimeraners to be a Champion Tracker, which is very hard to do.




Gretchen laid a very interesting track for me that crossed a ditch with water in it. I had no problem with the track but Barbara has to learn to do her part, reading me, better.

Ambrose got to do his very first track. Gretchen put down a track with lots of articles (cloth, leather, plastic and metal) every few feet. Every time Ambrose found one he got huge praise and lots of hot dogs and sausage biscuit. They made a big fuss over him so he will like tracking. He doesn't really know what he is doing yet but he did get his nose down to sniff.







Ayla's person, Sandi, took these pictures for us. You can read more about tracking on Ayla's blog.

I do love to track. It is always interesting and fun and I am sure, once Ambrose figures it out, he will love it too.

Tug o' War

Tug o' war is a great game but my big sister Selkie would never allow me to play it. She and Barbara used to play it all the time but if I tried to join in, Selkie would give me a very fierce correction. So I stopped trying since Selkie was in charge and I didn't want to get in trouble.

Ambrose and I have had a few good tug games which have been lots of fun. The pictures are blurry because we were moving so fast. Barbara really should have had the video camera out to capture the whole thing.



See how well Ambrose holds onto the rabbit. He is quite strong for a little guy. Of course I can yank it away from him anytime I want to.



Notice how wet his left ear is? That's because when we play bitey face, I hold his ear in my mouth and gnaw on it.

Socialization

It's all about socialization at our house these days. Barbara is obsessed with it. Ambrose needs to be socialized to this, Ambrose needs to be socialized with that, is all I hear. It is very important that puppies get exposed, in a gentle, positive way to all sorts of experiences when they are under 16 weeks old. So according to Barbara, the clock is ticking. Of course we dogs need to keep being socialized all through our adolescence but the early weeks are critical

I was very well socialized as a puppy but I am getting a bit sick of all the time Barbara is spending doing it with Ambrose. It means I get neglected while she takes him off to have adventures. I have to stay home and he comes back with the smell of cheese on his breath.

Today she took him to her friend Jane's house to socialize with her foster dog Cherie and to walk in their neighborhood. Cherie is a lovely young pit bull mix that Jane, who is a dog trainer too, is fostering for the Durham Animal Protection Society.



Ambrose liked Cherie very much and you can see how nice she was with him. They practiced their sits before they went on their walk.



Ambrose got to see bicycles and he and Cherie met a little toddler. I hear that they behaved beautifully. I, of course, was not a witness since I was stuck at home alone. Barbara says that she has to "concentrate" on Ambrose. How hard can it be? He isn't that big!



Cherie is up for adoption. She is about a year old, spayed, housetrained and crate trained, really good with other dogs, loves people and of course has learned a lot of obedience skills from Jane. If you know of a great home for her, let me know.



Thank you for all your concern about my eating the brownies. I was fine and I can not understand why there was all the fuss. Actually I think it is some kind of conspiracy to keep us dogs from tasting something that is so delicious that the people want to keep it all for themselves.

The brownies were delicious. Barbara says that she hopes I enjoyed them because it will never happen again.

I am in BIG Trouble

Yesterday was Barbara's Junior Puppy class graduation. She always gets special biscuits from the dog bakery for the graduates and bakes some treats for the people too. I love the smell of baked goods. This time she made a nut bread and a pan of milk chocolate brownies.

She put the bread on a rack to cool on top of the fridge and left the pan of brownies on top of the stove. Later she put Ambrose in his crate when she went to take a shower. She forgot about the brownies. I did not.



I could not blame this on Ambrose since he was in his crate. It didn't help that my muzzle was covered in brownie crumbs.

Most of what Barbara said is not printable in a family blog. She did refer to me as a "complete pig" though and said that I was "a bad example to my little brother". To be fair, she directed most of the HBO words to herself for foolishly leaving such temptation in my way. And of course she was very upset because I ate chocolate. Fortunately I am fine.




To further humiliate me she announced to the entire Junior Puppy class that the reason that they only had nut bread to celebrate graduation with, and not brownies, was my fault.

Bite, Bite, Bite

Ambrose has very sharp little teeth that he uses all the time. Barbara says he is a little barracuda. So it is really important for him to learn bite inhibition so that by the time his adult teeth come in and his jaws get powerful, he knows how to control his mouth.

Bitey face games, or jaw fighting, teach us to control the force with which we bite and keeps our mouths soft. Who knew that something so fun is also a good way to learn an important skill?

Ambrose and I had a good game of bitey face today. Notice how my mouth is open but I am not biting down.



I am doing what trainers call self-handicapping. Instead of jumping on top of Ambrose, which I certainly could do, I am stretched out on my side to make the game more fair for him. This way he can lean over me and bite on me.




Then I take his muzzle in my mouth but I don't bite down.



This gives Ambrose confidence to play with me and understand that I won't hurt him.



Good bitey face games are reciprocal. That means that no one is in charge all the time. We reverse roles so that sometimes Ambrose gets to think he is controlling the game. Of course, I am really in charge!



Then I put my foot over his face. The game continues as long as Ambrose controls his mouth.



What usually happens is that eventually Ambrose bites me too hard and then I flip him off me and make him squeak. That ends the game and he learns that the game is over if he looses control of his mouth. After such a work out, we have to take a nap.



Ambrose also has to learn bite inhibition with people. Barbara doesn't play bitey face with him of course, but if he bites her hard when she is petting him, she gasps and takes her hands away. Already his bites are getting less intense. Puppies have a lot of things to learn. Now if I can only get him house trained.

Ambrose Visits the Veterinarian

Our people have a responsibility to help us stay healthy. They buy us really good food, exercise and train us. It also means that they have to take us to the veterinarian. Now I know some of you don't like to go to the vet's office but I really like my vets at Colony Park Animal Hospital. Barbara always makes the vet visits fun for me. I got lots of treats and petting there. Fortunately I am a healthy girl so I don't have to go very often, but I always have a big time when I do.

Ambrose had to go to see the vet for his vaccination and checkup. He seemed to really like the smells in the lobby.



Of course the receptionists and vet techs made a big fuss over him. Jessica gave him some treats too.



Dr. Allison was really gentle with Ambrose and gave him lots of peanut butter treats while he was on the table. When she looked in his eyes, he got a treat. When she looked in his ears, he got a treat. It was a complete treat fest, especially when he had to get his shot. He didn't even make a peep. Well he couldn't because his little mouth was stuffed with goodies!!!



I think he had a good time and will be happy to go for his check up in 3 weeks.

But outings are really tiring for puppies even when they are good outings. Ambrose came home and had to rest right away. Fortunately he is napping on his bed and not on mine for a change.

Snow Day

We woke up this morning to see that it had snowed overnight. I was very excited and did zoomies in the yard. Ambrose, of course, has never really seen snow but it did not phase him at all. He is a bold little guy.



He really enjoyed racing around in the snow and chewing on everything he could get his little mouth on.



It was hard to get good picture of him because he was always in motion but he had a great time.



We are getting along pretty well these days. We have had some good play times but of course I don't like Ambrose near me when I am chewing on a toy or eating. Barbara supervises us pretty carefully.



So after a lot of playtime outside we came in and Ambrose did some roaching on my bed with my fox stuffie!

My Boyfriends are Smart!

Two of my boyfriends, Roscoe and Riley, passed the Canine Good Citizen test this morning. They had to demonstrate that they could greet a friendly stranger nicely, sit politely for petting, be groomed, walk on a loose leash, walk through a crowd of people, do a sit, down and stay, come when called, sit politely to meet another dog, tolerate distractions and be left with a stranger for 3 minutes. They both did a great job.


Roscoe CGC



Riley CGC

Congratulations guys. Now they will go on to Therapy Dog class. They are both so friendly and sweet that I am sure that they will make great therapy dogs.


For those of you who are interested, Ambrose only peed 15 times yesterday. At this rate he will not get housetrained until 2012. Barbara says that all puppies do this and he won't have complete muscle control until about 16 weeks. She says I did the same thing but I do not think it is true. I was practically perfect as a puppy.

Ambrose is a fearless little guy and likes to walk through the woods with us and climb on logs and rocks.






He is also really good at destroying daffodils and crocuses.



We have had a few bitey face games, which have been fun, but it does not make up for his howling in his crate. He gets cranky in the evening and throws a temper tantrum when Barbara won't let him get on the couch with her. She puts him in time out for a few minutes (I think it should be for a few days) until he calms down. It is a lot of work being in charge of a puppy so I think I will take a nap while he is thrashing one of his little stuffies.

I am Trying to Like Ambrose

I really am trying to be a good big sister to Ambrose but it is very difficult. Let me fill you in on how hard it is to have a little puppy in the house.

First of all he pees constantly! I am not kidding. Yesterday he peed 17 times! Now most of those were outside because Barbara has him on a good schedule but a few times he did it in the house. I was shocked, I can tell you. I will not horrify you with the amount of pooping he did.

But the worst thing is that Ambrose has no personal space. I am a friendly girl but I do like to have some quiet times on my bed with a toy without being bothered. He came up to sniff me and I let him.



Then he sniffed my ear which actually was very nice.




We tried a gentle bitey face game (he has potential there).



But then he had to spoil it by trying to get my rabbit. See how stiff I have gotten.



Unfortunately he was oblivious to my body language and I had to growl at him. Ambrose ignored that too so I had to leap up and snap at him (no pictures of that). Then he got the message.

It is very exhausting to have a puppy in the house. I know everyone says that we will soon be great friends but I am not so sure.

He's Here

We had a very eventful weekend. On Sunday we drove down to Charlotte for a Carolina Trainers Forum meeting. I got to be the neutral dog in some training exercises. Not terribly exciting but there was more fun stuff to come. We went to South Carolina to see the new puppy Red Boy. You can see that he is a kissing boy.



Maise and Loghan are the parents of the litter and are very sweet dogs (although why Maisie wanted to have 10 puppies is beyond me). Loghan is actually my first cousin. He and Maisie both have their Junior Hunter titles and Loghan is a Champion.



Since they both are trained to hunt, they have quail at their house. I had never seen or smelled a quail before but when I got the chance I immediately went on point. Everyone was quite pleased with me. Of course I could do it. That's what Gordon Setters are bred to do.

We left Red Boy with his litter since we were going to spend the night with a dog trainer friend of Barbara's who lives nearby. You know that I find boyfriends wherever I go and this was no exception. Barbara's friend has a lab and a papillon. We got to run in the fenced yard and the lab, also named Logan, flirted with me a lot. That evening we had an excellent game of bitey face. Logan even let me put his whole muzzle in my mouth.





Monday morning we went back to pick up the puppy. I think he was sad to leave his family since he cried for awhile as we drove away. Fortunately he settled down in his crate once we got going.

Barbara has decided to call him Ambrose. It means immortal.

He follows me everywhere and will not leave me alone. He has even tried to nurse on me which I find very revolting. I am not his mother, thank goodness. I hope he gets over that idea very soon. The only time I like him is when he is sound asleep.

Preparing for the Puppy

I have taken Agatha and Archie's excellent advice about locking up my toys. We've gathered them up in a crate and I will be hiding them in the closet before the puppy comes home on Monday! Barbara has been puppy proofing and cleaning in preparation for his arrival. I hate to tell you the size of the dust bunnies we found behind the couch

She bought him a bed (which he will probably rip up) as well as a bunch of toys which I inspected thoroughly. Maybe he will leave mine alone if he has his own.



Then she picked up lots of Bitter Apple and Nature's Miracle in preparation for puppy chewing and puppy accidents. This worries me. What if this puppy chews on my bed or has an accident on it?

But my biggest concern is that Barbara will spend all her time with the puppy and not with me! We have our little routines and I don't want a puppy to mess them up.

Every morning we do ear rubs. Barbara rubs my ears and tells me how good and smart and pretty I am. I love the way the ear rubs feel and I lean into her hand and she rubs my ear even more.



You can see that it almost puts me into a trance.



What if this puppy takes up so much of her time that we don't have time for ear rubs and tracking and the dog park and other fun stuff?

A New Brother

On Saturday, Barbara came home smelling of puppies. Now I am used to her smelling of other dogs but it doesn't bother me too much. She trains them but then comes home to me. But this smell was Gordon Setter puppy smell. She said that I soon I might have a new brother.

Here he is.




What do you think? He has a very mushy face.




Here is a picture of me when I was a puppy. You can see that I was much cuter of course.



So she has decided to bring him into our home and we are going to get him on Sunday. She is frantically "puppy proofing" the house. She had better puppy proof my toys because I certainly don't want him to touch any of them especially my fish.

Barbara insists that I will love him and that it will be fun to have a puppy in the house. We will see.