Friends

I've been doing lots of fun things in the past week or so - practicing my freestyle and working on my tracking. Unfortunately my person forgot her camera so none of my work has been recorded for posterity! I thought I would post pictures of some of my friends.

This is my new friend Minnie.




She was recently adopted from the Animal Protection Society by a nice guy who is now her special person. Minnie is a lot of fun. She runs very fast and likes to chase. We would stand very still and stare at one another and then just take off running. Such fun! She is also good at chew face games which I love to play. I am so glad that Minnie has a home and her own special person to care for her.




Here is a picture of one of my many boyfriends, Ralph.



Isn't he a handsome guy? He is a Retriever/Collie cross and he was also adopted from APS a couple of years ago. Besides being handsome, he has a sweet disposition and is very accomplished. He has his Canine Good Citizen (CGC) and just last month he passed the Delta Society's Pet Partner Evaluation so he can go visiting at nursing homes and hospitals.

There are lots of great dogs waiting for homes in shelters and adoption centers.

Memoir Meme

My Field Spaniel friend Hero tagged me for a Memoir Meme and Barbara finally took some pictures to illustrate my words.

The rules are:

1) Write your own six word memoir.
2) Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4) Tag at least five more blogs with links.
5) Don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.
6) Have fun

I am

Swift



Elegant



Tenacious



Thirsty



Educated



Rambunctious



That spells SETTER.

Most of my blogging dog friends have already done this but I will tag Ayla and Royal.

National Stuffie Appreciation Day

My terrier friend, Mr. T-bone Beasley, decided that we dogs need to show attention to our stuffed toys and declared May 8th as National Stuffie Appreciation Day. I love my stuffed toys so here are a few photos of some of my stuffies.


This is the new stuffed toy that Barbara got me in honor of National Stuffie Appreciation Day.



Here I am examining some of my toys. Do you see what a good job I've done removing the legs from the clown?


I exhumed these 2 toys especially for National Stuffie Appreciation Day. They spent the winter under the leaves. I think they look lovely and filthy now and their smell is delightful.



As I was leaving the dog park this morning I saw several abandoned stuffies on the ground. I really wanted to take one home with me but Barbara said "Niamh you don't know where those toys have been. They could have cooties!" Cooties must be some dread disease of stuffies that would be contagious to my own stuffed toys so, sadly, I left them at the dog park.

Another Drill Team Performance

I've been working hard since we had another Drill Team performance this afternoon at the Carrboro Day Festival. It was pretty hot outside but we had a nice shade awning to hang out under until we performed and of course lots of ice water to keep us cool.

Each dog and her person gets introduced to the audience and gets to show off a trick. Here is a picture of me doing my new trick where I jump up and touch my nose to Barbara's hand.



Erin and Hadji.



Amiga weaving in and out of Walter's legs.



Penny and Denise.



Here is the team doing a down stay during one of our routines.



We are marching in a circle to "I Will Survive".



Now we form a line and do a pinwheel. The crowd loved that and applauded loudly. It is hard to keep the line straight but I think that we look pretty spiffy.





Performing is a lot of fun and many people came up to me afterwards and petted and admired me. I like that so much but I liked the bacon cheeseburger that I got on the way home as a reward even more!!

Drill Team Performance

I was very excited this afternoon when Barbara got out my green bandana. I knew it meant that we were going to perform with the Drill Team. We drove over to a retirement community to do a performance of our routines for the people who live there. I was very excited to see my friends and acted a bit silly at first. I think that Barbara was afraid that I would not do well but I settled down when it was time to perform.

The people really liked our routines and clapped a lot. They asked many questions about how we are trained to do the routines. It is all positive of course. Lots of treats, praise and toys. No being jerked around or scolded. All of us dogs love to go to Drill Team practice and perform because we know that we will get lots of rewards and get to spend special time with our people.

Here is a picture of my friend Ayla and her person Sandi. Ayla is almost as silly as I am but she looks very calm here and did well in the performance. Ayla has her own blog which you can read here.



I have to rest up now because we have another performance tomorrow at the Farmers' Market in Carrboro.!

Leonberger Pups

I like Leonbergers. They are big and hairy, twice my size at least. Ika had 7 little Leonberger pups and you can see them at www.kenneldisforzando.com . Barbara went to her house to do a behavior evaluation on the puppies. She did this same evaluation to me and my sisters and brothers when we were 7 weeks old. I must have done very well on the test since she is my special person.



The evaluation looks at puppies to see how social they are, if they liked to be handled, how they behave with toys and food and will help to place them in good homes. This puppy obviously likes being handled.



But what is happening here? Barbara is playing with that puppy with my brand new tug toy that I just got last weekend at the Canine Freestyle workshop.



This is terrible. Now she has let 3 puppies play with my toy!. I am sure that they have ruined it with their puppy drool. I will not touch it until Barbara washes it for me.

Canine Freestyle

We had a great day today at the Canine Freestyle Federation Retreat and I learned a lot. We did Artistry and Presentation where we had to heel across the floor doing inside and outside circles and look good while we did it. Then we worked on the opening shape for our routine. The hardest part was the proofing class where I had to practice doing a sit stay while the teacher walked around me and tempted me with treats! If I stayed, Barbara rewarded me with pieces of cheese. It was very difficult but I really tried to do well.

The nice thing about Canine Freestyle is that any kind of dog can do it. Big or small, it doesn't matter. Your person has to pick the right kind of music that suits you. Then of course you have to practice a lot to get good at it. Here are some pictures of different dogs at the retreat.





Lucky and Jeanine are heeling to his music. He is paying attention to Jeanine very well.



I'm exhausted and I need to rest up now because tomorrow we will practice technical moves.

On the Road

Yesterday morning we got up very early and went over to Lucky's house. Lucky's person, Jeanine, and Barbara drove us to Tennessee to the Canine Freestyle Federation Retreat. I've never been to Tennessee and I enjoy learning freestyle so I was happy to go. Lucky and I had to ride in crates to stay safe.



It was a very long trip but we stopped at lots of rest stops to stretch our legs. I was certainly glad when we finally arrived as spending 7 hours in an SUV is very boring.

We are staying at a motel. The room has two beds so I spent a lot of time jumping back and forth between the beds to decide which was more comfy.




The motel room also has a little kitchen with a refrigerator for all my treats and food. I am eating my dinner here.



Today was the first day of the workshops. There was a freestyle trial and then Barbara and I went to a class on attention. I learned a lot and got many treats. Tomorrow I am going to learn all about artistry and presentation - whatever that is.

Puppy Class

I am the demo dog for the Junior Puppy class that Barbara teaches at the Animal Protection Society on Monday evenings. Barbara thinks it is so important for puppies to attend a well run, reward based puppy class and I do too. I went to puppy class when I was 12 weeks old and look how well I turned out!



This is Tank, a Mastiff puppy. He's pretty small now but he is going to be huge when he grows up so his person was very smart to enroll him in class. Tank is a very nice puppy and I even let him chew on my ear a bit.



I demoed the recall for the class as it is my best skill and then I watched the puppies practice it. Unfortunately they are all so wiggly it was hard to get photos of them doing their skills. We also did the Puppy Confidence Course and had several puppy socialization times.

Here is a photo of Bella, a nice Rottie mix puppy. She is very smart.



Here is Honeybear, the Goldendoodle. He looks a lot like my friend Riley only smaller.



This is Roxie, a West Highland White Terrier. She is very confident for such a young thing.



All these pups are less than 4 months old and already know how to pay attention, sit and down. They know that learning with their people is a fun thing to do and they are having lots of great socialization experiences. They are also a lot of fun to watch because they are so silly! If we can get them to hold still I'll post pictures of the other puppies next week.

He's Just Not That Into You

You know, if you have read some of my earlier posts, that I have lots of boyfriends. Since a girl can never have too many admirers I thought that I would make another conquest today at the dog park. I met Lucky, a very handsome Brittany. I was quite taken with him and he was very polite but I could not get him to chase me or chew on me.



I did play bows, I sniffed him, I even rolled around on the ground but it was not to be.





Barbara thought that I was behaving like a bold hussy but Lucky didn't seem to care.



We got along fine but there just wasn't any spark. I will have to try to be even cuter and more playful the next time we meet. I hope that I am not losing my touch.

I Sniff, Therefore I Am.

I am always trying to improve my mind and my computer skills. Barbara doesn't let me near her laptop but last week when I was at Furry Paws I saw Andrea's laptop on a low desk. I could not help myself and took the opportunity to surf the web.



Here I am studying Albert Camus, the author and philosopher. His writing is a bit heavy for me but one never knows when knowledge of existentialism will come in handy.

Bad Treats

I never thought that I would ever say that a treat was bad but it has happened. On Friday Barbara gave me one of the duck breast strips that we got on our treat shopping trip. I ate it fast as I like to do but I guess it cracked into a sharp piece.

I felt pretty uncomfortable on Saturday and didn't eat my breakfast. When we went to freestyle practice I was lethargic (and I am never lethargic) and just lay at Barbara's feet. She was very concerned about me especially when I didn't want to do anything during our turn and wouldn't even eat a piece of cheese. Then I did a massive throw-up (don't worry, no pictures of that!) and up came a 1 1/2 inch long piece of the duck breast strip with a point. I felt much better after I got rid of that pointy thing in my stomach and I am back to normal now.

Barbara was so upset that she sent an email to the manufacturer. If your people get you that kind of treat - Don't Eat It.

Treats, Glorious Treats

My friend Lucy and I got together at the training center yesterday. She is a lovely redhead. We are sitting so still with Lucy's person Allen because her other person, Susan, had some extra special treats - cheese tortellini!! Delicious! So delicious in fact that I got a bit overexcited and tried to jump on Susan. She is used to silly setters and just turned her back on me when I jumped. Susan would only give me tortellini when I sat politely.

Back at home I found that our treat supply was in a disgracefully poor condition. Just one stick of string cheese and a couple of stale biscuits. That was very disturbing news since one of my New Year's resolutions was to eat more treats. I can't eat treats that aren't there so Barbara took me to Furry Paws and Feathers, my favorite pet supply store, for some retail therapy.



I inspected the store thoroughly before I picked out any treats. Andrea is holding out several tasty selections for my approval.



I had to pick out many bags because I found out that Barbara gives a lot of my treats away to other dogs. I am shocked! She is a reward based trainer so she uses lots of treats in training, as she should. However I had no idea she was using some of my treats with her students' dogs. This is really going to affect how well I can keep my New Year'sresolution.



In the end I got 5 different kinds of treats - carrot, lamb, peanut butter, duck and salmon. It was a very successful shopping trip as you can see from my happy face.



Now if only I can get Barbara to make tortellini for me, the way that Lucy's people do for her, life will be perfect.