I really am feeling very confident that this is the right choice with the puppy. Everything I’ve seen of Haven I just love. She seems to have the qualities that I really adore in the other borderpaps I’ve met. Oh, her little tail – it never stops wagging! Just happy and joyful and cute as all get out. I have an incredibly hard time figuring out her SIZE, but I guess we’ll figure that out when she arrives. I keep asking all my small dog students how much their little dogs weigh, and I can’t at all figure out what little dogs weigh (assuming Haven does actually end up in the 15lb range, I think she may be bigger). I have tiny little 8 inch jumping dogs weigh that much, but also much bigger dogs weigh LESS than that. How big she’ll end up is definitely going to be a surprise.
I do already have her embark test waiting for her, I’m very curious to see what her DNA percentages come back as. Both parents are 50/50 mixes (one BC grandparent has a little cattledog in them). Looking back at grandparents, as theoretically that’s common to throw back to grandparents. I think physically Haven looks more like the dad than the mom, so that can sometimes mean something as well. Time will tell. It’s just really novel to actually get a different ‘breed’, even though I assume she’ll have a lot of BC traits, the borderpaps I have in classes are most definitely NOT just small border collies. I look forward to having something a little different in the household.
The handy part about teaching is that I do have a pretty good progression of skills with puppies already in place because I work on it all the time, but I also grabbed Justine’s latest puppy program too. I always enjoy her stuff. I don’t feel the need to actually work with someone actively … but maybe I should! I can’t say my last two agility projects turned out as planned. Hindsight is 20/20, of course. I could tell you NOW what I should have done … but I think both of them have a heck of a good time, at least, even if we can’t seem to put anything together even now.
Some memories came up from 2020 today, just into the pandemic and Asher was … 15 months? We had gone to an outing at Rhoda’s and there were all the cute puppies doing baby agility. I notice there were NO pictures of Asher doing agility. He was never easy, and we definitely started later, as I kept assuming he would grow into his body and settle down. Ha! Double ha!
There are many reasons I’m looking forward to a smaller dog, and one of them is that they just tend be less dangerous to themselves. Hopefully Haven won’t prove me wrong. I think she has really nice energy … but, yes, a lot of energy. I continue to keep thinking how much easier she’s going to be because she’s smaller. It’s possible this may not be true. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a smaller dog – and my smallest, Lord Fenwick, definitely was NOT easy – at all.
I may have spent a ridiculous amount of money on exciting tug toys and other toys for the puppy. The borderpaps I’ve met have liked toys, but not like border collies, and I want to make sure I can find things she likes. And besides, who doesn’t need 20 new tug toys that can’t be laundered? I’ve also bought lots of little tiny puppy sized toys, which are just so ridiculously cute. And little tiny collars and little tiny leashes. I know she’s not going to be that small, but I seem stuck in that mode. Watch her be border collie sized … which I know is definitely plausible, genetics are funny like that!
The plan is to set up an x-pen in the living room. If there is one thing learned from when Bryn was a puppy is that my house is way too big and you can lose your puppy in an instant. At the time, I had too many other things going on to set something up for Bryn though, and she was such a good easy puppy – and older than Haven will be. I also assume Haven will be more challenging to housebreak, but I’m okay if she proves me wrong in that regard. I’d like her to sleep in the bed, but, once again, I get a more ‘busy’ feel from her – like she’ll just partying all night falling off the bed if I attempt that.
A big question is how to integrate her into pack dynamics. I don’t want her to get squished with my dogs running around, so I need to be very careful. I also don’t want to leave her in the yard as I worry about predators and fence security. I’m planning to keep her somewhat separate for a lot of things, but that does come with complications. I think once she’s grown and can make good decisions I’m not going to be worried (she’s not going to be THAT small!), it’s just the puppy stage. And especially Bryn, the Flying Brick – she doesn’t think about what she’s doing.
I haven’t had a puppy since I’ve had the arena, so teaching classes I’m deciding if I want to bring an x-pen there and let her hang out while I teach. I’m worried that will be too much stimulation and that she’ll be a pill. At Sherwood I usually have puppies hang out in the car with my other dogs and take them out every hour for a quick romp in the arena, and I think that really teaches them to chill, but not worry because they’re with the other dogs that are also chilling.
This is great timing for a puppy, as I am moving into summer and will have so much more time to work with her. By the time I return to full time in September I think she’ll be settled in and have a good start and settled in. Hopefully I’ll also be able to get her swimming, her breeder introduced her, and I can’t say she really looked like a fan. We shall see! I’m so looking forward to doing all the puppy things.
I kind of want to start a list of things I want to make sure we do this summer, but there are SO MANY THINGS. Which is what I love about puppies! I do want to make sure she has more experiences working in new places than I did with Bryn, that’s for sure. I’m probably going to spend an extraneous amount of time working on getting Haven to come into me appropriately … which I probably don’t need to do at all, since she’s not Bryn (I have yet to run into another dog like Bryn). Still, we will be very careful that our flatwork looks good before putting anything together! This puppy will learn to heel from a young age … hopefully. There was a reason Bryn didn’t learn it until later, because she was unhappy working on fiddly things. My priority will always be happy dogs, and Bryn stressed with non action based training. I do think not getting her until 3.5 months had a lot to do with that though. We shall see with Haven, who will be coming home at 10 weeks.
I really have learned to enjoy reward cues, so that’s something I have never done right from the start. So looking forward to training all the tricks! Once again, not something Bryn was into (though she still learned a lot!), so I’m hoping Haven will enjoy all the cute tricks. Hopefully this dog will enjoy jumping into my arms, which I have never done regularly with any of my dogs. Yes, ALL the small dog tricks – like balancing front feet on one palm and rear feet on another and other cute little dog things.
Had an interesting experiment in classes this week. Gladys wasn’t in class with Heidi so she ran Asher instead, which has not gone well in the past when he’s run for other people. But she does have the experience of running sister Gladys, and he does very much love Heidi (grandma!). I found that when I tried to have other people run him he just acted like he’d never done agility before. And he’s crazy anyway. He actually listened! And didn’t get too nutty, though of course was still pretty nutty. A lot of guessing, but he was trying really hard and I think he enjoyed it. No one was hurt!
The more interesting one was having Heidi then run Bryn, who also has very limited experience running for other people. But Bryn has done herding with Heidi, and also very much likes her and works well for her. Bryn was slower but happy their first run even if things didn’t go quite smoothly. She wasn’t really driving, so she wasn’t flanking – but also not committing and sending like she … can when she wants to ;-). She was happy and engaged and it was super cute. But the second time they went out together there was some confusion and Bryn just disconnected and left, and even with Heidi really trying to keep the rate of reinforcement up she went all sensitive princess.
It really hit home with me how much I really protect Bryn when working to keep that enthusiasm and engagement. And, yes, how little it takes for Bryn to disconnect and worry. I definitely manage Bryn, but in a trial, I can’t manage all of that – and it shows. I need to go back and work through this more where she’s choosing her engagement rather than me managing her. While Bryn would never quit or lose enthusiasm on stock, in other places she’s always shown that sensitivity. And she does AWESOME when she’s all in – but we don’t always get that. She’s older now, I think she can do this.
I have Navarre, Asher and Bryn entered for TWO three day weekends in a row down in Salem coming up. I think it’s going to be a disaster. I haven’t been running Navarre since Martine has been, but Martine is injured, so I’ll be running him. And then the young dogs … are still young. And we haven’t really been training, I’ll admit. Certainly not courses. Those people that tell you that you never need to run courses and only need to work on small skills are full of shit. My dogs are EXCELLENT at small skills – but we fall apart a lot with longer coursework. I expect Navarre and I to have stupid errors, for Asher to be over the top and Bryn to be sensitive. I’m HOPING we get better as we go along.
And then it’s time to send the dogs off! Bryn is having a little sleepover with Carol to get some bonding time together before attempted the AKC herding trial in August. Then I’ll be talking with Robin Brown to see about sending Bryn off to her for some herding training. I know it didn’t go well with Bonnie, but she also didn’t have as many places to work sheep and different types of sheep. The skills that Robin put on Bryn when we went to that 2 day clinic and Robin worked her mostly the whole time were invaluable, and have really stuck with her. She did have to work pretty hard to get into her head, but afterwards Bryn worked well for her. It’s not really about the skills so much as giving Bryn a chance to really focus on what she loves, and I think Robin might be a good choice to give that to Bryn. We shall see.
And then Navarre is off to the West Coast Open with Martine in September – assuming Martine is healed up by then! I’m excited for him to go to a ‘big event’, though I don’t expect him to have any exciting results. I think he’ll have a great time and I’m so thankful to Martine for running him. They’re a great team and it was so nice for Navarre to have a ‘last hurrah’ in agility. Not that we’re going to stop doing it, but he’s 8 and a big dog, I think this is the last year I really want to push anything with him. Knock on wood, physically he’s continuing to look good.
As for Asher, he is going to have a little adventure up with Carol and look at finishing up a title at the AKC herding trial, but he’s mostly stuck with me. He is always fun to run, even if it’s often a bit of a chaotic mess. We’ll also enter at least one day of the UKI trial as well, it will just be him, which I think he’ll enjoy … unless I should run Navarre to get him ready for the WCO? Hmmmm ….
Haku is doing great with his Legend infusions and daily galiprant. Still keeping up on hikes, trucking around the property and can get onto the bed and the couch again. Getting to be REALLY deaf, so that’s a new adventure. He’s happy and I hope he enjoys the puppy.
Summer so far has been surprisingly pleasant. No ridiculous long streaks of hot weather, and the property remains just beautiful. Since we’ve gotten permission to run the dogs in the orchards, lots of long walks all around the area, as the orchards extend for miles. Knock on wood, haven’t lost Haku yet! Excited about my summer specialty classes, lots of fun puppies in classes and enjoying some free time and playing with my puppy. Can’t wait!
Oregon Dogs 