A Seminar!

Poor Asher, as soon as things got back to normal after Bryn’s season … Haven goes into season. It’s hard being a boy. It’s also hard because, unlike Bryn, Haven is quite the flirt – so I have to protect her from the molesting boys (Bryn is VERY clear to keep away!). So we’ll see if there are any changes with Haven after her first season. Theoretically I plan to spay her when she’s around 2 and finished growing. The only thing holding me back is fear of spay coat (as Haven is surprisingly fluffy), and spay incontinence (such a nightmare!). Still got another year to see how things go though.

Yes, Haven is getting closer to her birthday! It’s been such a fun first year, some puppies are just more fun than others – and Haven has been a blast. Zero regrets about adding her to the household, she’s just been a gem that makes me smile every day. The other dogs agree, though she does occasionally chase a cat, so maybe the cats aren’t always on board with Team Haven.

Miss B. Haven went to her first sequencing seminar! When I signed up I was like, “Well, she’ll be 10 months by then, I’ll probably have done some sequencing with her at that point.” Well, I was wrong. We did a little crash course the week before, and I’m always amazed how all the foundation pieces do make it so easy to put it all together. However, at the seminar the courses were all giant extension lines, which we really have not done. She was game though, and got more confident with the agility as we went on. A little distracted occasionally by smells in the arena, but happy to play and having a great time. A good experience for the baby.

What we worked on at the seminar was putting some Jenny Damm moves into play. I have been following her online stuff, but hadn’t really put any of it to work with my own dogs. She’s a very analytical and organized trainer, but I wasn’t sold on it for every dog. Turns out, signaling things earlier and supporting your dog more are never bad things to do – go figure. Definitely a different way to of handling than I’m used to, but I’ll admit it did make a huge difference with Bryn to a ridiculous degree. Turns out Bryn really wants the personal touch, when I was super connected to her, she was connected to me. Go figure. Harder to say whether it was all helpful for Haven, but there is nothing that she does that is going to be harmful – baby dogs need the MOST help.

So seeing the handling changes in a real life situation with multiple different types of dogs was very helpful. I will be making changes to my handling to help support both my older and baby dogs. Fun to play around with something new. And we moved the seminar to my place so Bryn got to play and she had a blast – god I love that little thing. But, yeah, she can’t work at Barb’s with the sheep right next to the arena …

And shortly after that, Bryn started getting all sensitive with her post-heat hormones – piff. She’s not terrible about it all, but it’s definitely noticeable as she’s not her perky self. I thought about entering her in some AKC, but turns out it’s all judges I won’t show under – and then I thought about the UKI trial, but with her being sensitive … well. Yeah, I am looking again into sending her out to Robin Brown so she can have a herding vacation this spring/summer. It would be a good time for it, and Nancy is heading out there anyway. I THINK she would really enjoy that, and Robin has worked with her before and they didn’t butt heads like Bryn can do with some people. I wouldn’t have any grand expectations that she would come back with a ton of new skills, but I think she would enjoy the adventure – sheep are her very favorite thing in the world and I do want to continue to give her opportunities, even if I don’t have any ambitions for herding at the moment. And maybe she WOULD get some skills … I wouldn’t complain about that. We shall see, communicating with herding folks is … difficult.

In the meantime, still looking into getting ASCA trials at the arena, though it wouldn’t be until September at this point. Nothing is certain, but it’s looking more concrete. I think Asher would really like that, so that gives us something to look forward to. He is still really fun to work with, even if we don’t have any agility goals right now, with UKI not being appropriate for his jumping and AKC being a bad choice with the lack of spacing for my big boy. He still loves agility the best.

Mainly focused on the puppy right now, as she’s getting older and we can start looking at more things. Haven remains pretty easy, more sensitive than a BC, but I’d expect that. As always, she likes things super clear and fun, and if she’s not getting that, she’ll find it elsewhere. Which I think is a pretty reasonable response. We did put her teeter into some sequences, and she was upset about that for a bit as I really haven’t actually trained the WHOLE teeter, it was just her getting on it and offering it all the time. Actually asking her to do it when cued kind of freaked her out at first, but she got on board quickly. Also getting ready to start some serious dogwalk training, and not that we’ve really done anything but downramps, but her aframe when offered looks really nice – knock on wood. I suppose I should ACTUALLY train it at some point though …

Trick-wise we’ve been stuck on skipping for quite a while. She WILL skip when she’s right in front of me and I’m backing up, and it’s freakin adorable – but I can’t get it when she’s farther away from me. So we’ve been trying to isolate the issue, working on tricks at a distance in general and putting individual verbal cues on each front leg lift and trying to clean it up. I can get LIMPING from a distance, but getting the leg switches has just not clicked yet.

But, yeah, Haven is almost a year and she’s almost never had her meals out of a bowl, we’ve trained every night since she arrived. Admittedly, sometimes it’s just asking for one thing and then just a big jackpot, but we really enjoy our nightly ritual. I do this with all puppies for a while, but usually start tapering off by now – she just enjoys it so much!

Asher had some minor plastic surgery recently. He had a little tiny growth on his eyelid for months, and it didn’t seem to bother him or get any bigger, but more recently it looked like the white of his eye was getting irritated. So expensive surgery to snip that off, but I had his teeth done at the same time (he didn’t really need it, but hey). It was his first ever surgery, so I’m glad it went smoothly. They said he was so quiet they almost forgot he was there – good boy.

Now, NAVARRE, on the other hand, got fired from the grooming salon because he would NOT shut up. He gets all worked up about the force dryer and apparently was just barking continuously when he heard it. So no more groomer for Navarre, which I don’t think he’ll be super sad about, but he IS my fluffiest dog, darn it. Such a troublemaker. Haven also had her first grooming recently, she did great, and did NOT bark her fool head off the whole time (and was so pretty when she got back!).

Haku is doing GREAT on his Librela, it’s given him a whole new lease on life – so great to see him RUNNING and playing again. That shit is magical, I would never have guessed he could go back to looking so good. Now, admittedly the last few days he’s been limping, but I think he just gets over excited now and probably fell somewhere. Hopefully he’ll be better soon!

Weather is getting warmer, days are getting longer, we’re all enjoying spring. Now that everyone is finally out of season around here, we are hiking again and no longer having to rotate everyone around. Good to be back!

Back to Teaching

I really love my Winter/Summer break schedules – it’s my goal to have this sort of schedule year round. The classes are lot more labor intensive, but I do love all the specialty stuff – and, omg, so many cute trick dogs! Love it.

I did put my own dogs in two of my agility classes, and Bryn and Haven have been splitting the international skills class. Haven is making Bryn look bad. Though Bryn does have a lot of skills … when there is no motion involved. Which is why I continue to be surprised in the international sequencing class that she can’t do even two obstacles in a row. Bryn HAS the skills – IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS HARD. I think it really has been a revelation lately that it’s not just me and a lack of practice, she’s just … so hard. I KNEW she was hard, but I think I had underestimated HOW hard. Especially going from Navarre to Bryn in this class, and then double checking in the skills class that, yes, she does have the skills … it’s just ridiculous. And I realized why I got into so much WALKING when I do agility, because if I run she pulls off of everything, flanks like maniac, runs around things – did I mention, SO HARD? Between Bryn and Asher I have gotten into the worst handling habits.

So, yeah, it really shouldn’t be news, but Bryn is not just, like, a little hard – she’s REALLY FUCKING HARD to run. And starting to work on more skills with Haven is showing me that I had really sort of deluded myself about the whole situation. Still going to keep working on it, but hoping to get ASCA trials out here at my arena this year – and I think they’ll be perfect for Bryn (and Asher!). Bryn is still really fun to work with, and she’s having a lot of fun – just not much actual progress, that’s for sure.

In the meantime, Haven has been gaining confidence working in the group setting with the skills class. She can’t do all the skills, obviously, but the opportunity to work her around other at the same time is awesome. We started off slow, she got fired a few times when the excitement got a little too much for her – but she settled in and was able to work with all the other dogs running about and playing. Occasionally she would get a little distracted by high drive border collies whipping through tunnels, but she only looked and then could redirect back to me, and this was all off leash. I am super pleased with her, and she could do little parts of some of the exercises. You know, easily, without flanking around or pulling off of things or jumping like a lunatic – so novel! So much to do with her eventually, but we’ve got focus and working around other dogs with toys and food, which so much awesome.

Asher hasn’t been in any classes, but I did enter him and Bryn in one day of an AKC trial next weekend. I’m feeling at peace with my decisions to let go of international aspirations with him and Bryn (though I’ll still look at it with Bryn), as well as Navarre’s agility retirement. There was a lot of letting go of things so far in 2024, but one door closes and another opens. I am going to look into doing more obedience with Asher as well, though I’m still pretty sure Navarre would prefer not to go back that route … but who knows. I THINK Haven will enjoy obedience, and if I could get her into a Rally class, I think that would be fun.

We DID go to disc league … for two weeks, until it was cancelled for the rest of this session, just a muddy mess at the field by the second week. Navarre did great, thought it was a grand way to spend his time and my throws were not that bad the first week. Second week we had rain and wind … not so good at throwing in those conditions! He still had fun anyway, we’ll try coming back in the Spring.

I was hopeful for Haven to enjoy disc league, but she decided that she was not bringing back the disc in that environment. She still had a good time (she’s fabulous about GETTING and catching the disc, just not coming back), but you don’t get much of a score for laying down and chewing on your disc 😉 We went back to the drawing board and I worked with using some jealousy with Bryn and Haven to work on BOTH girls’ rather sad retrieves, firing any dog that detoured or stopped on their way back with the disc. This worked way better than I anticipated, both girls were spot on and no more screwing around (who knew Bryn even liked disc this much?). Turns out that only works with you have the other dog stationed ready to take over though 😉 We will continue to work on it, and hopefully in the Spring she might do better. Haven does love her disc! And maybe Bryn would like to do it too …

I have Haven entered in a Mia ‘Young Dog’ seminar in March. I waffled whether to put her in puppy or young dog, as she’s very much a puppy and we’ve done almost no actual sequencing at this point. But the only thing the puppy section was working on was engagement, and I feel good with that with Haven – and she has been there and worked at Barb’s already as well. So we’ll see, even if she does little two obstacle things, it’s just jumps and tunnels, she can do tiny pieces.

I also entered her in a 2 day tricks workshop with a trainer I’m not familiar with, but she does tv/movie stuff and looks like a good trainer. The freestyle folks are bringing her out, so that sounds fun. Once again, the actual working part is just to get out into new places, but hopefully we can learn things too. I am NOT good at actually transferring tricks to real life situations. I train behaviors and never actually proof them.

I also continue to audit the Justine classes with Haven, though we don’t do all the work. There is a LOT of repetition in those classes, and, well, she’s not a border collie. But she continues to enjoy it, and there is nothing she’s particularly struggled with so far. We don’t do that much though. We have started some contact flatwork with the platform, which she thought was sort of stupid at first, but is getting more into it.

We still do tricks and things every night, she continues to think that’s so much fun. Right now we’re working on limping, hoping to work up to skipping – which I did with Navarre, and it was freakishly adorable. We haven’t started anything too new and exciting, and try to circle back to previous tricks and actually keep them in her brain, and try to put them on cue.

Haven got to go back on sheep, I think her first experience was at 5 months? It’s been a while. Her initial experience was more just chasing and barking, and I expected more of the same – but guess which little borderpap was being all thoughtful and trying to figure out what we wanted. No problem circling, changing direction, staying off the sheep and not just barking and chasing. And she eventually started balancing and rating herself too – volunteering downs and all sorts of crazy stuff. So that’s annoying, as I don’t actually want to train her on sheep – but we’re going to at least keep revisiting it if she’s going to be so … easy. I’m not saying she’s ‘talented’ or has a lot of fabulous natural instincts – but she thinks it’s great fun and is super happy to control the sheep without being over the top about it all. Go figure. But if she continues to make it easy, I’ll keep letting her play occasionally. Carol worked her again, who has a lot of familiarity with ‘off breeds’, so that’s helpful. I don’t think she’s going to train my borderpap for me though.

Carol worked the other dogs too, Bryn continues to be too focused on holding the sheep, Asher is too damn fast and Navarre just wants to do his own thing. They all have skills in their own way though, and Bryn and Heidi continue to practice fairly often – which makes Bryn very, very happy.

So back to teaching, and back to working the dogs in agility. Going to focus on american style agility with Bryn and Asher and see what we can do the next few months – this is the best weather for agility. Summer will be here before we know it!

Oh, and Bryn FINALLY went into season – in February. Once again, 8 months since her last season, which makes it really fucking inconvenient for when I want to breed her on her next season. She SHOULD have been in season in December, and then her NEXT season was supposed to be June/July, puppies it the Fall. But assuming she goes 8 months from now, we’ll be doing puppies in the dead of winter. Sigh. Still planning on the borderpaps though, I think that will be a lot of fun. And maybe she’ll decide to have some pity on me and go into season in August, which would be a lot better than October. Fingers crossed.

Hello, 2024!

Wow, 2023 went by FAST – so fast I barely had a chance to adjust to writing ‘2023’, and we’re on to 2024. As expected, it was a busy year. Hard to believe I’ve been here for 3 years now! Hopewell continues to be a perfect place to live, and the property just gets more and more comfortable. Helps that Heidi is always out there working on it! I ended up finally replacing the old appliances in the kitchen and that’s been a huge last item on my list of things I wanted to do when I moved in. Well, three years isn’t so bad. Of course, I now need a new roof and new siding … but, hey. There is always going to be something. I love how cozy my 50 year old house is … but it’s still a 50 year old house, it has quirks that need work, that’s for sure. But won’t be dealing with interior stuff for a while now, it’s time to put the money into the outer stuff. Still, super happy with the decisions that landed me here, life is funny like that.

Animals have been a bit neglected as I’ve been slogging through the last portion of the year. I really dislike having evening classes, and while I have limited them, they really grate on my nerves this time of year. But, yeah, roofs and siding and probably at some point a car … shit happens. And, good lord, has it gotten expensive to live! I still enjoy all my classes, but, yeah, I needed a break and I’ve really done nothing but read books continuously so far during my vacation. Didn’t help that I started out getting sick again, that sort of weird not really feeling sick, but congestion that eventually went into my lungs. Not sure what that’s about, but it’s FINALLY going away. Annoying, that’s for sure, looking back at my FB memories, it’s funny how if I’m going to get sick it’s almost ALWAYS the same time of year.

I didn’t go to the New Years UKI trial at my arena, and I’m not sad about it. The courses were rough, and it’s not fun when dogs are failing left and right. When no one Qs in anything, that’s probably a sign to scale it back a bit. I like the UKI courses that are mostly flowing with a COUPLE weird challenges, not 15 of them in a row.

Really though, in the end I don’t have a dog for UKI. It’s official, I gave it a year, but Asher is not the dog for international courses. He’s been pretty clear it’s uncomfortable with it all and I need to respect that. Boy, taking that away really took away any urge to, you know, train anything. So I really haven’t, not since our big Week of Agility where it was just a disaster. And I don’t really want to drive to Ridgefield for AKC, and, well, it’s AKC. So, yeah, not a lot of motivation at the moment – especially as Bryn doesn’t really like trialing.

Navarre is officially retired from agility, which is another huge bummer. I gave him 4 months off and just being a dog, he’d been cleared for months beforehand that there was nothing obviously wrong. I started to ease him back into agility and put him into a class of mine for the break, just jumping 12 inches. He went through one and a half exercises and did the freeze thing again – something about agility makes him uncomfortable, so that’s that. I’d love to actually find something to FIX to help him be more comfortable, but I’ve been searching for that for like 4 years and haven’t found it.

So … yeah, Navarre is retired from agility. He’ll be 9 in a few months, so it’s not like I thought he had a ton more time left. But he’s such a vibrant and athletic dog otherwise, it’s hard to think of him as retired. He does love to work though, so what to do with him is the question now. He never loved obedience, I can’t do herding with him … what else could we really do? I have zero interest in nosework, I’m sorry. I mean, I think it’s a fun thing to play around with, but I’ve never been drawn to nose sports whether it was barn hunt, nosework or tracking – just not my thing at all. I don’t want Navarre to feel like he’s being left out though, so I’m still pondering on finding something he’ll love to do.

I HAVE been thinking about trying to consistently go to the disc club events that happen in McMinnville every weekend. Navarre certainly loves that! And Haven is doing great with it as well. Well, once she decided that bringing it back was fun. We’ve introduced actually catching the thrown disc and she’s been making fabulous and safe decisions about it. Unlike Asher who continues to make TERRIBLE decisions in that regard (hence why he doesn’t get to play disc). But, yes, disc when the dog tracks the disc and plucks it neatly out the air in motion while not jumping … I actually think that’s a pretty safe activity. Navarre and Haven are both good at it, and it makes it fun. Naturally, the first meeting of the disc club is when there is 5 inches of snow expected this weekend – ha! Okay, universe, I’m trying to take a hint here.

So then we have Bryn, who I also have in classes this January. The good news, super excited and having a great time. The bad news … she’s just so HARD. Agility should not be this hard! So, yes, she’s still flanky, it’s still a pain in the ass to run her … just, hmm. And I’m not going to stop playing with her, we have a lot of fun – but it’s probably in both of our best interest to stop trying to push the more complicated international stuff. Sigh. She’s going to be a hell of a lot easier to run on more straightforward flowing courses. I’m not giving up on it, and as Navarre had to drop out of his international class, she’s filling in for him. But, yeah, we made PROGRESS last year – but she’s just … hard. Fun, but hard. And she does great without the motion! I worked her some in the international skills class and she has lovely skills … but the motion, man, it just kills for her.

So … back to square one with Bryn and Asher, or back to AKC, as the case might be. And sometimes AKC CAN be fun … but, yeah, been there, done that. I am trying my best to get an ASCA club started locally to put ASCA trials on at my arena. Flowing courses, just standard, jumpers and gamblers – it’s something that would be appropriate for all my students, not just a select few like UKI. And, yes, Asher and Bryn would absolutely enjoy ASCA courses, that’s for sure. So, we’ll see.

In the meantime, Heidi has actually been working Bryn quite a bit on sheep the last few months – and they’ve been having a great time! Bryn is funny like that, she is particular about who she will work for, and her and Heidi really seem to understand each other. So that makes me very happy that Bryn is getting more chances to do what she loves the most. I don’t know if she’s learning anything, but I don’t care, I have zero ambitions in the world of herding. I do think if I had need for a dog for actual work, Bryn can absolutely hold her own in a real world situation. She is a lovely natural herding dog who has a lot of skills.

So goals for Bryn and Asher this year? Hmmmm … good question. I’d definitely like to actually work with them more, as I really didn’t make the time last year for it. I always MEAN to, but the problem with having your own arena is that when I’m out there I focus on all the maintenance and even when I go out with PLANS to work my dogs, I just get things ready for other people instead. So I think for 2024 I am going to give a very simple and should not be at all hard goal of working them once a week. And, no, I have most definitely not been doing that, especially the last couple months. You don’t make any progress when you don’t practice ANYTHING. I think I was discouraged as last year I really pushed and tried the beginning of the year to work through the issues we were having … and, well, didn’t succeed. And I don’t have any big goals for them, other than I’d really like us to come together as a team and feel like we’re out there working together. We do that MORE now … but not like we should by this age. But, yeah, they grew up in a different time than the other dogs, what with covid and moving and building up the arena and business and all that. Hopefully we can catch up this year … but it’s not going to happen unless I put in the work.

In the meantime, yes, I’ll admit while the other dogs have been somewhat neglected, I’ve been having a fabulous time with the puppy. Because puppy time is my favorite time, and you can’t be lazy with a puppy – they NEED you to make the time. Haven gets trained on something every day, and she continues to just adore training. What she is less good at is actually taking those behaviors on the road, she is not a good generalizer. She gets so mad when I ask her to do something and it’s not in the normal place/situation. So our goal for 2024 is to get out there and work in all the new places so I don’t end up with another Bryn situation.

Haven is 8 months old now, 15.75 inches and 20 lbs – which, to me, is just perfect! Small enough to carry, big enough not to worry about being fragile – and a great height to jump 16 in all venues. Knock on wood, I am hopeful that she actually will be able to do all the venues! She seems quite the comfortable and athletic dog (as she jumps the walls of the arena and the fences in my yard like a gazelle), and has not shown anything that would indicate she won’t be able to do more complex skills. We have introduced all the backside/threadle skills on a 4 inch jump. As usual, she picked everything up right away and she thinks they’re fun. We don’t work on agility super often, but when we do she seems … easy. Which I think is a very dangerous thing to say, but I’m saying it anyway. She’s not a speed demon, she doesn’t throw her body around, she doesn’t flank or do anything weird – she’s just … normal. How novel! We just keep introducing little bits of agility here and there, she absorbs them quickly and we move on to something else. It’s fun, it’s easy, I’m just waiting for her to get older to do more, but I’m happy with what she’s shown me so far. I’ll admit, I’m perfectly happy if she ends up being a nice, middle of the road dog that is just happy to play the game. I have had enough agility drama the last few dogs that I’d like to just DO AGILITY. Like a normal person, with a normal dog. So we’ll see.

Haven continues to love obedience and tricks, I finally broke down and taught her a front. Which is a behavior that I just HATE as it seems like such a grey behavior for dogs to understand. Yet Haven just sort of picked it up immediately. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but compared to the drama I’ve had in the past getting some of dogs to have any clue about ‘straight’ I’m shocked she’s been so easy. She is a very clever little dog, I’ll have to say. So, yeah, she heels on both sides quite well, she’s got a front. Taught a stand for exam and even did it for Shannon (who she LOVES), so that was novel. She’s got a stop/down out of motion. She can do position changes at a distance, she’s got left and right finishes, her stays are good. She has the skills to do all the novice exercises and some beyond as well. And she enjoys it, that girl is born to heel.

We’ve worked on some more difficult tricks like catching a toy into a hug and putting coins into a small container independently. We’ve worked on solidifying her verbal cues and putting together some fitness exercises like going down to bow and back to down, and standing on back legs to sit-up and back to standing on back legs. We trained side leg targeting and side stepping. She’s a little sponge and we’ve been having a GREAT time together.

As for Haven and 2024, I’m excited to train her in agility, and possibly in obedience/rally/freestyle as well. Agility is my focus though, I really miss just being to enjoy agility without the drama. Obviously I still don’t know if she’ll end up being to do all the things I’d eventually like to do in agility, but we’ll see. But she’s a hell of a fun dog, and even if it ends up that she, too, can’t do all the things, I have no regrets. I am a huge fan of the borderpap!

So, yes, I decided to go ahead and attempt to breed some borderpaps with Bryn this year (and, no, I’m not keeping one!). I’m waiting for her to come into season now, and then plan to breed her on her following season this summer/fall to a papillon. I found a nice boy from the Netherlands, he does agility, he’s adorable, a nice jumper, great toy drive … so, yeah. I think they’ll be really fun puppies, and hopefully easy. The folks that have continued to be interested aren’t looking to be on the world team, and that’s the homes I want for them. Hopefully they will be wonderful pets and really fun agility dogs – that’s my goal.

Came down to if I do want to have the option to breed Bryn when I am ready for another puppy … she’s going to be like 7. I am not breeding a dog for the first time when she’s 7. So we’ll do this breeding, hopefully make some nice puppies and I’ll keep that door open for a potential Bryn baby in the future. And maybe I won’t end up breeding her then, but I’ll have that option. And puppies are just fun, I really enjoyed raising Bright’s litter (except for constantly worrying about them dying), and I have a great set up for puppies in this house too. So bring it on, I think that will be an adventure.

As for Haku … well, it’s never a good sign when you bring your dog into the vet and she gives you the brochure for at home euthanasia on the way out. That was a bit of a kick in the gut. I had brought him into the vet for his second Librela shot, to talk about his lump in his groin (which, honestly, I’m not going to do anything about, so it was sort of moot) and other pain relief options. I saw no change after the first librela shot, but I’m cautiously optimistic he does actually seem to be a bit perkier after the second. So we’ll see. He remains on daily galiprant and I’m going to add gabepentin as well once I decide if the librela is actually doing anything or not. He still sees the chiropractor monthly as well.

The thing is, he’s still HAPPY, he still likes to play and take his walks and bark and eat … I don’t think he’s there yet. But, yes, he’s uncomfortable and it breaks my heart. I didn’t know if he was going to make it 15, but sometimes I think he might. He’s 14.5 now, if we can keep him moving … we’ll see. God I love that dog so much, I know he’s not going to make it 2025, so we’re giving it all we got right now.

WInter Is Here

The UKI Open certainly was polarizing this year. At least I’m not alone in saying, “Yeah, no thank you,” to the courses at the big UKI events. I’m okay with having different events for different folks, so I’m not saying they need to change it – but it just seems so extreme. I like interesting courses, but it’s funny how much UKI has become the new NADAC. Funny how trends come back around. I didn’t watch it, except for what was posted. It sounded like a bloodbath though. Which is one of the reasons I’m not a fan, so hard on dogs to have that much failure. And, yes, certainly training skills is good – but how much training should be required to get through a course? How much are we putting on dogs these days? Definitely some thoughts. For my part, most of my students can’t physically do those types of courses because of the running involved, so it’s really not relevant.

The big UKI events also have so many fricken runs it’s not even interesting to follow. I’ll admit I prefer a cozier big event where you can really cheer on those at home. I still prefer the FCI worlds as my favorite to watch, but it’s unfortunate they haven’t had a good video option for the last couple years.

So, no, the US Open did not make we want out and train. But I’m in a bit of an agility training block at the moment. Between Asher’s jumping and Bryn’s flanking, I feel like it’s an uphill battle that doesn’t have much to do with agility. Unfortunately Asher’s jumping on the turf at Lori’s for league has gotten so bad we won’t continue. Which is unfortunate, as it was really nice to have that resource to work in a new place, new equipment and interesting courses. We got a lot out of it, but I can’t see going just for Bryn right now. Navarre can’t do turf, and apparently Asher can’t either. It’s definitely not for lack of good lighting, good lord that lady has some lights up there (I’m jealous!).

So what to do with Asher? I don’t know, we’re just taking it easy right now and not doing much agility. He’s such a fun dog, but when your dog can’t jump, that’s pretty much all of agility. Sticking to AKC is probably the wise choice, but, well, yeah. I’m sure we’ll get back into it, but I’m still bummed about it all. And Bryn will get there, she’s growing up, making good decisions and feeling more confident. She’s not easy, but easier. Still, I feel like I’m not getting to do agility, just manage the issues – which is less fun. I have hopes of getting some intensive training with her this winter, she can do it!

Navarre … is still not right. I used him as demo dog for conditioning exercises in my foundation classes and you could see his back twitch. Which, first of all, shows me I need to get back into conditioning exercises. And, secondly, I’m not confident he’s ready to get back to full agility yet. Hard to believe he’s going to be 9, next year I WILL get that damn MACH – he deserves it, and to have me actually focus on him instead of the young dogs. COVID did him no favors, I feel like he missed his prime time.

Haku is continuing to deteriorate physically, but still wants to play, wants to be out there, still totally being Haku. We have an appointment to get the new miracle shot next week, so we’ll see what that can do. He’s very prancy on his front end, you can tell he’s just sore. Still on his all supplements and infusions, but they can only go so far. I’m going to ask about upping the galiprant if the magic shot doesn’t help.

As for Miss Haven, she’s six months old and seems much older – definitely a fast maturer, that one. I continue to be amazed how quickly she picks things up. Though we’ve mostly been working on actually finalizing the tricks I want to keep for her potential freestyle career. So trying to put things on verbals and on stimulus control. So that’s novel, as I usually don’t with tricks. We have taught a few new things, like circling me, paws on my feet, leg weaving, walking on her back legs and barking (which I’ll probably regret). We’ve been working on hard at trying to get her lefts and rights on verbals, which she’s doing better with. But basically revisiting everything we’ve already introduced, and she remembers it all really well. How novel!

Agility-wise we have been working on the Shape Up foundation exercises, which has been going well. She picks things up quickly, not doing much right now, but she is a very fun six month old puppy doing puppy things in tiny little bursts. As she can’t be left in the yard, she gets to hang out at classes and I try to get her out as much as possible so she’s not in a crate all day.

I THINK she’s done growing. I mean, she looks proportionate and physically she seems quite coordinated. She looks like an adult dog! She’s definitely getting some FLUFF on, which scares me a little bit. I mean, a little decorative coat is good – but how much is she going to get? It is winter though, and a surprising cold one too. We shall see. I think she’s just perfect, I love her size, I think she’s just a lovely dog and while not ‘cute’, she’s still just adorable. Love that girl, we’re having a lot of fun.

The funny part is one of the posts I had put out into the world about finding a the right boy for Bryn for the breeding I had originally intended to do next year got fished out of the nether and suddenly I have all these folks contacting me about boys to breed to Bryn – ha! And there are some nice options, actually – which doesn’t make me regret Haven (I got exactly what I wanted from her!), but does make me wonder if I should go ahead and breed Bryn anyway next summer. Not for me, but I think she could make some nice puppies and if I do want to breed her down the line, I don’t want her first litter to be when she’s like 6 or 7 if I could help it. But breed her without keeping a puppy? There is always a danger with breeding a girl, what if something happened to her? And then all the responsibility that comes with breeding a litter, what if the puppies were all just awful? Breeding is a crapshoot, you never know. Still, I’ll admit I had a lot of fun raising puppies with Bright. I probably won’t, but I’m open to the idea anyway. I THINK Bryn would enjoy being a mom, and I do think she has a lot to offer and is such an easy dog to live with. I wouldn’t be making any crazy dogs … I hope.

In the meantime, winter came on fast and I’m winding down classes. I have plans to actually work on my dogs during my break, so that’s fun. And then plans for 2024 … I haven’t wrapped my head around it yet. This year went by fast, we’re coming up on 3 years here. Crazy how fast time goes by! I keep PLANNING on teaching less, and, boy, that hasn’t happened at all. And I don’t see it happening in at least the first part of 2024 – so we will keep busy!

Teenager

Haven remains charming, but definitely more opinionated as she becomes a teenager as she nears 6 months. Recalls are optional and she’s definitely way more interested in checking out the world these days. Been a little spookier, as seems normal this age. Her bounce back remains strong, even if she is a little weirded out by something she is usually fine in a few seconds. Her alarm barking in the yard has improved, but she still sometimes can’t help herself. She has finally recognized that yapping like a chihuahua just makes all the fun go away.

Training remains super fun and we’ve been having a blast. Definitely a bit more sensitive about things these days, you can see when there is any sort of conflict or confusion she’ll sort of check out – maybe sniff, maybe run around. When she’s confident with the training she remains totally on task. So that’s helpful to see, no pressure if she disengages, just gives me information to break things down more. In general she’s willing with work through things and try something else, but if it’s not clear the second time – nope.

Finally trained the silly crossed legs trick – yet again, it took FOREVER. Asher was the same way – though I thought it was just because I free shaped it. With Haven I used a foot target and it SHOULD have been simple – but it took three days and she just had no clue for the longest time. It is pretty freaking cute now that she has it though. And because I’m a glutton for punishment, I trained the other side too – took another 3 days, but I’ll admit it’s really cute to have both. Finally got both back leg lifts, the first took like a minute to train, the second leg took like 2 days – she REALLY only wanted to lift the first one! But she’s got that now and enjoys it. Revisited handstand on the wall and she can do that without a prop now – still a little wobbly though, worth revisiting in the future to see if her core strength improves. She got the bow in no time, once again, very cute. Side legs is still on the list. Running out of the basics for body tricks though. I do LOVE her little nose through my fingers trick – that got her doing all the things we hadn’t been able to with her weak ass hand touch. She now really drives to the hand and holds position from wherever – it’s my new favorite way to train hand touches! Easier to add duration and no palm nipping like can happen with the hand touch.

Agility-wise, put her left and right wrap cues on a jump (and hence introduced rear crosses), and added a jump cue to a (very low) jump. She knows the tire too. Obviously didn’t do much of that, but I like to introduce it when they’re still young in a happy way. Got her started on the running contact platform, which when I introduced before she would only get on and stay on, so she was having fun with that. Been working on lateral sends to tunnels, introduced tunnel threadles, tunnel on verbal only, opposite motion sends. Introduced threadles, just because we were doing them in class and she was handy to use what it looks like in the beginning phases. I use Haven to demo quite a bit in class actually, she enjoys it and doesn’t seem to mind that I’m not really actively engaged because I’m talking to the class. The other dogs tend to be terrible demo dogs – Bryn especially, she likes my 100% focus. As Haven can’t be left in the yard while I teach, I don’t want her to sit in a crate all day, so I try to take her out every couple hours or so and we play a little in the arena while students are walking. It’s amazing how much you can get done in just a few minutes when you do it several times a day! And, of course, she loves to say hi to everyone – wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

Still working on getting her big girl teeth in, and she weighed in at 15.2lbs at her 5 month birthday. She also got measured (officially, by a judge!) at 15.5 inches. I am guessing she’s going to end up around 16.5 inches and … 18-20 lbs? We shall see. She’s been getting her beautiful flowing hair on, and I think she’s looking quite attractive. She remains very mature for her age and is jumping the arena wall obnoxiously regularly. Yesterday she jumped on top of a tunnel and from the tunnel she launched from there over the wall. Ridiculous. And, yes, I got her adjusted at the chiropractor this month, she was a bit out. Dork.

Otherwise I’ve been focusing on being very consistent with making sure she doesn’t have any accidents in the house. Which, sadly, means no more sleeping on the bed. But she doesn’t seem to mind sleeping in the crate next to us. She’ll get her freedom back eventually. She remains easy to groom and do her nails. She’s a lovely heeling dog and walks politely on the leash (despite having no training in that regard). We HAVE been working on getting her to pull in a harness to a reward, which she is gradually getting on board with. Also been working with her circle work and getting her to drive around my body better. She’s definitely finally running full out on the property with the other dogs, which is really fun to see. The tiny puppy stage is definitely running out, my puppy is becoming a dog.

We did go on an adventure to check out a freestyle competition (Rally Free, or whatever). It’s so cute! I went for some training inspiration, but I actually think I’m going to try training for it. There is nothing not to like, it’s adorable tricks and happy dogs. The ‘rally’ portion is also really fun, with tricks and heeling on both sides and just way more fun than actual rally. It gives me some more concrete trick goals to work on, and I do love working on tricks. Right now we’re going back and trying to get everything on a somewhat reliable verbal discrimination. Ha! This will take a while. And also have a bunch of fun freestyle moves to train as well. I don’t know if I’ll ever really do anything with it, but I think it will be fun to play around with while Haven grows. And all those tricks, discrimination, verbal cues and heeling will only be good for agility anyway.

In other dog news, we had our burst of actual agility. A UKI trial followed by a marathon of seminars, trials and other events. Just Asher and Bryn, I haven’t started bringing Navarre back yet. I will get started on that this week (he’s been cleared by the chiropractor). First, the two day UKI trial at our arena was really fun. Once again, I signed up for everything with the assumption I wouldn’t actually run it – but I did run everything. Lots of good experience for the dogs, and Asher is slowly getting more consistent. We aren’t there yet, but he’s trying really hard.

Asher actually ended up going high in trial, though it was a bit ridiculous as it involved just telling Asher to lie down and wait for 10 seconds while I ran 80 feet across the arena to catch up to help redirect him to the last jump, but we qualified, where no one else did (and in jumpers!). Yes, I perhaps should have used that stop on the dogwalk instead of the last minute lie down, but hey. I wasn’t alone with just not getting places. This judge really liked the ridiculously long lines across the arena where you can’t get any distance to help. Even the very spry were struggling with the distances. They were fun courses, overall, but, yeah – give us a bit of a break here! Asher even ended up qualifying quite a few times, which is novel. It even got him out of Senior and into Champ, apparently. And mostly his non qualifying (all those speedstakes!) were like one bar or one refusal – nothing earth shattering. Was proud of the Asher, once again, not perfect, but getting better.

Bryn had a good trial overall, I mostly stuck to FEO – that toy makes a difference for her, even if we were mostly just running the courses anyway. But Saturday I started FEO, went a couple for real (that she qualified in!), and then back to FEO. Sunday I tried to start without the toy, and it didn’t go well, so we mostly ran FEO after that. Still, she did some really nice stuff. Not there yet, but so much better. Taking obstacles, doing her behaviors, trying really hard. Only a few places where she got fired for ridiculous flanking. She had fun, and I had fun with her. Progress, one step at a time.

Then we had a big week of agility, starting with league, where Asher’s jumping has been off for the last couple sessions (stuttering). So that always makes me worry. Then I took the day off to do a full day with Susan Koldenhof, as we had a lot of fun at the last one a few weeks ago. However, this seminar definitely went in another direction that was, uh, less fun.

Don’t get me wrong, for the dogs that had the skills and the handlers that could do it, this flowed nicely. But forced layers and constant obstacle discrimination and never, ever taking the next logical obstacle … oof. This is a type of agility that my dogs definitely don’t have the skills for. Now, it was still fun to play with. We took it pieces at a time and it was fun to see them get through each challenge. After a certain point Asher got real weird though, and started refusing to do backsides. He’d go to the backside, look at the jump, and then backtrack and come back and take the front. And there was no convincing him otherwise, so I listened and didn’t push it. He tried REALLY hard, this was definitely above his paygrade.

Bryn remains super happy at Sarah’s facility. Don’t know why, but she was a trooper and gave it her all. She did some real nice things, and I was super proud of her. Once again, this was over her head for the most part, but she did some lovely pieces that I wasn’t expecting. She was using her brain and trying so hard. This was definitely more fun than going to a seminar that was too easy – I just wish I had my dogs better trained to feel like they had the skills to really do these. I do find this kind of thing really fascinating, but I don’t have a dog for it right now.

The small evening UKI trial we went to the next day after that was a bit of shit show. Asher was still refusing to backsides, and was frantic and not confident. We ended on some FEO with a toy. Bryn we mostly just did FEO, and she wasn’t super successful either – but still did some nice things. She’s growing up, that Bryn!

Finally, after a rest day, we had one more seminar back at our place. I was not the most focused at this point, so much agility! Ran Asher at 12 inches, and he did backsides – and was trying really hard. Was happy to see him confident again. We’ll work on regaining that lost confidence, we don’t have anything else coming up right now. Mostly ran Bryn, who was not being super flanky, which was nice. I entered her in the ‘commitment’ session – but we didn’t seem to work on commitment, so I’m not quite sure what the point of that session was. Bryn had fun, we worked through things, she is getting better. Not quite there yet.

I think Bryn is ready for and I’d like to run her through the shape up drills. I do think she can do this kind of thing now, and while I don’t think she’ll be super easy, the more trained skills she has, the easier she is to run. So I am definitely planning for focusing on that during our winter break – and I’ll see what I can set up in the meantime. As for Asher … I don’t know if that would be a good idea with him. More work on jumping in general, but he’s good for the OCCASIONAL backside, not too many and nothing too weird. Local UKI is just our speed.

We don’t have any trials or seminars on the schedule at the moment. Unfortunately Haven’s 2nd puppy seminar got cancelled, and I’m sad for that. We’ll keep an eye out for other opportunities. We definitely need to keep working in new environments, she can be hard to get known behaviors in new places.

Heidi has been taking Bryn herding, which makes me so happy. That’s all I want for her, is a chance to do what she loves. Her and Heidi seem to make a great team, she listens to her and doesn’t get all obnoxious. I’m stepping back from herding right now, there is nothing there I feel like training at the moment. I do very much want to get these agility dogs trained though, so I can go to a seminar and not feel like I’m making excuses. I want to feel like we can actually focus on the AGILITY, not jumping and flanking issues.

Carol did take Navarre and Asher to an ABHA trial, and both boys got their level 3 titles – and Asher came home high in trial! I was so happy they got to play, especially Navarre – so big thanks to Carol for once again making my boys look good. Heck, she even put a novice rally title on Asher while he was there with the video option they have! Carol has put more titles on my dogs than I have at this point 😉

5 Months!

We have crested the initial gulf with Haven, she has graduated from clueless puppy to somewhat respectable citizen. Those first couple months are intense with teaching puppy, well, everything. I had definitely missed having a puppy! Bryn didn’t really count, first she was older and training was hard for her – and I was so busy with moving, dealing with the new property and then it was still covid lockdown at that point – I did not get to focus on her like I should have. And I have missed puppy raising since I moved here, though I recognize I don’t have time for it like I did, unfortunately. I always learned so much from every new puppy, and I do very much enjoy bridging that communication with a new puppy every time.

So, yes, Haven continues to be super fun to train. And while Bryn may have had the same issues if I had gotten her younger – I really do think those early exposures can make a huge difference. They are little sponges when they are itty bitty. Then when they get closer to 4 months you can see them sort of decide how they feel about things and get much more suspicious about new things. Obviously you can still train after that, just easier to do the baby thing.

Haven remains a very serious learner, she picks things up really quickly and, so far, has retained them as well. She doesn’t like repetition, but she doesn’t really need it. She doesn’t like it when things are unclear or to be frustrated (who does?), so it’s very apparent when she’s unhappy with my training presentation. She gives me “The Look” and just goes still with her narrowed eyes until she sees I’ve registered her displeasure. She is very clear which behaviors she likes and which she doesn’t. I have changed her mind on some things, so she can be persuaded. She mostly learns like a border collie, but with more food motivation, and I’m not unhappy about that. She will also leave if she isn’t happy with a training session, and I always respect that decision. She rarely does it now.

We have more recently been focusing on more difficult training concepts. Looking at more self control and choice games. Started working on her stationing while I work another dog and choosing to leave rewards until cued. I feel like she’s matured enough now to handle those without too much conflict. We’re even working on reverse luring with food while she tugs, which is something I’ve never gotten to train before as the BCs could care less that I had food when they’re tugging. Haven likes both, and can switch back and forth, but the concept of continue to tug with the food next to her took a bit to wrap her brain around. Another one I’ve never effectively taught is teaching her to pull to a reward, this took a while! But I think, for her, was a good concept to teach.

She has lots of cute tricks, and learned to hug and sit up with no issues at all. She’s a very physically and mentally mature puppy for her age. She jumped the 4 foot barrier in the arena to join Bryn and I on course – hence working on the self control and stationing. She does actually jump into my arms, and actually enjoys it, so that was fun. She retrieves all the neutral objects and toys, though still drops things all the time. She only has a few baby teeth left, so that will be nice to get those out. It hasn’t seemed to affect her tugging.

We did introduce some agility concepts, like going around a wing, tunnels and the finding the end position on the end of a teeter (she loves to offer that!). I plan to do more agility with her as a youngster than I did with Asher and Bryn. I don’t feel waiting did them any favors, once again, baby puppies are tiny sponges. Obviously not anything physically hard, but definitely more flatwork and turns and acceleration/decel games. Every dog is different, but having done both early baby agility and waiting for them to mature, it seems easier for them to learn the basic concepts as puppies.

We did go through the whole Shape Up Pup program … mostly, or at least introduced everything. It took a while for her to get up to speed on circle and flatwork, but she got there. I really do like their stuff. So we’re on to some foundation work with their next module, though no working spots, I don’t have the time for video editing these days. Also been enjoying Jenny Damm’s online puppy diary, really nice progression as well. Boy is it fun to have a puppy that can do the things!

We did her first seminar, and she did great! No issues whatsover, totally focused and happy to play, run, offer behavior and stuck with me in a new environment. We have another one in November, just nice to have some different ideas and eyes. I’ll admit, I really hope she can do agility – I’d like to work on agility and not jumping and flanking! Love my Asher and Bryn, and we have a lot of fun, but actually being able to DO things would be … novel.

We are currently working on, sadly enough, a hand touch – she still is puny about them. So we moved to pushing her nose through my circled fingers, and that seems to have helped grasp the concept of PUSHING into the hand. Working on more speed with our circle and flatwork. Putting left and right on wings and some tunnel/wing combos. Self control, waiting her turn, reward cue discrimination and driving to dead toys. Verbal discrimination and acceleration/deceleration. Trick-wise looking at rear foot lifts, side legs, side stepping, crossing paws, bang on recall (though it will never be as cute as Bryn’s!) and revisiting back into handstand now that she’s more coordinated. Oh, and hugging and being hugged by other dogs.

Haven is FINALLY almost 5 months – seemed like she was 4 months FOREVER. Mostly because I continue to be fascinated how big she will get. And you can’t tell anything at 4 months. At 5 months she’s probably almost 15 inches? I still am guessing about 16 inches for her, which, once again, maybe that’s my wish, as that’s about perfect in my mind. She continues to look just like a mini border collie. I ORDERED an extra cute borderpap, but just got a normally cute border collie – so that makes me laugh. She is getting her fluff on, so I’m curious how much hair she’ll end up with. I thought she was going to be a smooth, so the long hair makes me happy – I like myself some decorative fluff. She really is just about perfect.

A few changes this month, including finding her yappy voice. Not constantly, but trying out some alert barking in the yard. So trying to shut that down by taking her inside and putting her in a crate when that happens. Haven DOES NOT like that! She can still scream bloody murder for hours if she feels there is injustice. However, she has been really great at hanging out in the quiet room while I teach when there are OTHER dogs in there barking their heads off – but she’s totally relaxed and quiet (well, assuming she can’t see me!). The other change is she finally has learned to run. I was beginning to think she was just going to prance around no matter what she did. But she finally has starting running after the other dogs on the property instead of sticking to me like glue and prancing like a princes. I miss her, but dogs need to RUN, so it’s good to see her trying it out. This is much later than the border collies usually learn to run though, who seem to hit the ground running. So, yes, little miss Haven is learning to use her body more.

Dogs still like her, though her and Bryn remain the closest. Asher would like more Haven time, but she prefers Bryn – and Bryn prefers her over the boys. Poor boys, they have to play with each other. Even Haku continues to enjoy her, they play tug all the time. Haven can be very rough with Bryn, yanking her neck hair out – but Bryn can also be hard on the puppy, rolling and smashing her to the ground. So, hey, they seem happy, so I’m not interfering. Haru and puppy never became friends, but Haru also got over his drama about her. Helps that Costco smacked the shit out of her a few times when she foolishly thought to chase him.

So, yeah, she remains a delightful addition to the household that we’re all happy about. She is NOT housebroken. I don’t think she even has a clue. This, uh, may be my fault. Ah, summer puppy, I have used the outside as her ‘x-pen’ and she is far too used to going whenever and wherever she pleases. But she sleeps through the night on the bed, no problem – and when she’s in the house she’s usually so active she doesn’t have any accidents. But, yeah, same issue as when Bryn was a puppy – this house is big and I can’t really contain her to one area to make sure I have eyes on her at all times, she is so good at slipping off to potty in another room and I never notice she’s back so quickly. She has skills. I’m sticking with my proven theory that almost all dogs are pretty much housebroken by 7 months no matter whan you do … I may be proven wrong.

As for the other dogs, Bryn has been in a weird mood. Hormones? Puppy related? I HAD been feeling good about her coming together in agility and she had been fun to train. More recently she’s just been off, just disconnected and not pushing to work like she was. I’m always going to blame it on hormones, and as I don’t plan to spay her, I should have that excuse for quite some time. Yes, I’d still love to have a Bryn baby at some point – but obviously we have no need for any other dogs for quite a while. So, maybe when she’s six? We shall see, I also have a sire picked out for the litter … but as that sire hasn’t been born yet, it’s possible it won’t work out.

Anyway, we have restarted agility league, and both Bryn and Asher actually ran clean the first week! Unfortunately they had Asher’s time wrong, so I couldn’t compare the times. But last week, ooof, Bryn was just all over the place. Asher keeps having a 10 pole issue (admittedly, with some very hard exits), so been working on that. He is running well though, some bars, some stuttering at backsides … but, well, it is what it is. He tries so hard, and is so much fun to run. I have to decide if I even want to enter Bryn in the UKI trial that is our arena in a couple weeks. It is … not fun when she’s doing all the weird stuff.

Navarre, unfortunately, didn’t get to go to the west coast open. He had been doing really well, but he took a trip up to Argus with Martine and suddenly just stopped in the middle of the course and refused to go on. After a week, he did it again the day before they were supposed to leave. Got him to the chiropractor and he was REALLY out. Which was frustrating, as he had been doing so well – I’d been being so careful, getting hands on him every month to make sure he was holding up okay, so what happened? And then I remembered – the turf at Argus. Everyone had really liked like the turf, I didn’t think anything about it. But, yeah, when people say if you wore too grippy of shoes on the new turf you could blow your knees out – for some dogs, this is not a good surface. And for Navarre it was not good. He had an issue after doing a seminar at Corral Creek earlier as well, and, back in the day when he had his original back issues, it had been when we were running on turf at Daisy’s. I think it’s safe to say, turf is bad for Navarre. I had just never made the connection before.

So disappointing he didn’t get to go on the fun trip, I think the grass would have been fine! But the good news is that Sara thinks he’ll be fine. We’ll see her again in another couple weeks, and assuming everything looks good, he can go back to agility again. Just not on turf. Sigh.

Also took him to the vet to get his thyroid checked, as I recently learned that Asher’s brother was hypothyroid. I don’t think of it as a big issue in BCs, but I know there can be a genetic component. Navarre has been slowing down, which is reasonable as he’s a big boy – but he’s only 8. I’d love for a magic pill to turn back time. I doubt they bloodwork will come back with anything, but it is weird for him when he’s hiking not be off exploring and off roading like he always has.

Asher has been mostly on break a bit, I’ve been working more with Bryn than him trying to get our groove on. I actually feel somewhat in tune with Asher in agility these days. I SHOULD be doing more coursework with him, but hopefully with the cooler weather I’ll feel more in the mood for that. Bryn has been TRYING to work on her skills, but not great about it. She’s in the ‘everything breaks’ phase, which is when you just end up having to fix everything you attempt to do. Which maybe hormones, maybe being three, maybe puppy … who knows. We keep moving forward.

Haku is hanging in there. We went on probably his last hike, where we lost him (but obviously found him). It’s just trying to keep him moving at this point. He’s happy but often confused and not sure what’s going on. He’s happy to have me help him on and off of things, he’s deaf so sleeps through most commotion. I often choose not to have him loose on the property as he gets lost constantly. Still, so happy all the time. Still on daily galiprant and monthly Legend infusions. Loves his food, loves his toys, loves to snuggle. He’s my boy ❤

And the cats remain the same, with Fizban, Dragon and Marvin wanting to sleep about 23 hours of the day – and Haru trying to keep that from happening. Mostly by harassing Marvin, who I still think deserves it after harassing Dragon for years. They have their catio back though, so enjoying the outdoors again (except Dragon, who is having none of that).

The summer was lovely and Fall just happened IMMEDIATELY, and the property looks freaking amazing. Looking forward to some agility seminars this Fall with Kaimen Miller, Susan Koldenhof and another one I can’t think of off the top of my head – I don’t know her, but they’re having it at my arena, so hey. The boys are off at a AHBA trial with Carol next weekend, so happy they get some sheep time. Have a couple UKI trials coming up, and then I’ll see if there is any AKC that looks interesting. And then 2024 is right around the corner – time to make some new goals!

Australian BorderPap

Haven’s Embark results came back – she’s my little Australian Borderpap. She ended up like 43% pap, 35% BC and 20%(!) cattledog. I was not expecting the cattledog percentage to be so high! She remains her own special little creature, as really at this level of mix it’s not really about the breeds as much. Still, if she’s ever feeling bitchy or stubborn, we’re totally blaming it on the cattledog. Otherwise they are saying long hair and about 30lbs. I’m still pulling for closer to 20lbs, but time will tell (Embark has Bryn’s weight as like 10lbs heavier than she is, but I think it’s a good estimate). I’m still guessing she’ll be smaller than Bryn, but she could prove me wrong.

Haven is getting close to 4 months. And 4 months is definitely still in the rapid growth phase. Definitely not a sleepy puppy, this puppy is busy busy. She likes to nap too, and nap hard – but this is no ‘hang out on the couch and cuddle’ puppy. At least, not yet. She has things to do, toys to play with and dogs to harass.

The dogs remain infatuated with her, but none so much as Bryn. Those two have become inseparable, two partners in crime. Bryn now really brings to smackdown to their play, so I feel less bad about Haven mauling her now. They adore each other and Bryn just really loves having a female buddy in the house. The poor boys are now second fiddle as the girls just want to play with each other. It’s really fricken cute, I’ll have to say.

And speaking of cuteness, I have gotten a lot of flack for saying Haven isn’t cute – which, I’m sorry, she’s really not. I had expectations with a borderpap! But she is just NORMAL puppy cuteness – and, like, BC cuteness, which is really not that cute when they’re puppies. She doesn’t have the ridiculous cuteness that a lot of BPs have (but not all!). And, I’m sorry, Bryn is WAY cuter than her! Bryn is all about the cute factor. Puppy is still cute, and I think she’ll be an attractive dog when she’s grown – but she’s an awkward teenager at the moment and it’s, well, not very cute. But there are advantages, Haven will probably have a lot more boundaries compared to Bryn. Cuteness can be dangerous.

More importantly, Haven remains absolutely charming. Definitely way more of a teenager these days. We’ve been having talks about recalls and not being a total brat. She’s discovered her voice, so we’re trying to keep that under control. Bryn isn’t helping. But did Bryn ever have any boundaries? Of course not. Still, Haven remains super fun and social, just such a charming personality that I have found in the world of borderpaps. Joyful and happy and ready for action.

Training remains super fun. Sometimes I have to remember that she’s just three months old – she’s learned so much! And enjoys the process of learning. There is nothing we’ve particularly struggled with, and now at almost 4 months she has the coordination to even do things like hugging and sitting up. We even introduced a tunnel, because, hey, why not? Naturally, she picked it up quickly. I feel like she’s much more physically mature than the bcs at this age, that’s for sure. And she’s getting her BOUNCE on – that girl has springs for legs! She is up on everything now. I was attempting to teach her to catch toys and she didn’t just catch them, she jumped and caught them – holy crap!

I still don’t know in the long run if she’s going to be overly agile, but I need to stop judging her structure at this very awkward age. She’s finally starting to run more, but definitely prances more than runs. What she doesn’t do is run with the big dogs yet. They go running off and she doesn’t seem to have much interest in following them, she remains by my side. So that’s different than the BCs, who would have been much more interested in the big dog games than hanging out with boring old me when I’m working in the yard or arena. I still think that will change, but it’s almost like she doesn’t realize she CAN run – because I’ve seen her! So we’ll see, I’m enjoying having my little buddy.

Had her last puppy shots, and did her rabies as well as long as I was there so I didn’t forget about it. She didn’t have any reactions, but for once this vet did NOT ‘accidentally’ give her lepto. Not to say I have anything against the lepto vaccine, but as almost every puppy I’ve had has had a severe painful reaction I don’t like to do it when they’re young. Teeth are not falling out as quickly as I feel they should, but the big teeth are coming in. I’ve been warned that paps have a hard time with not losing baby teeth, so I’ll watch that. At almost 4 months old she’s 14 inches and probably 14lbs.

So, yeah, she remains delightful and super fun – no regrets about our bonus borderpap!

Meanwhile Carol has been taking my dogs herding again. Bryn had her AKC debut and didn’t do terrible. I think they were in Intermediate, but apparently Bryn lost her outruns (normally her best thing!), so that made for a bad start every time. Still, they qualified in everything, but Carol says she needs work. Well, yeah 😉 Unfortunately that’s not on the schedule this Fall, and I tried working with Robin Brown to send her out there, but couldn’t get her to reply and I was still worried about it anyway. Bryn is my baby, I’ll admit.

Asher also went up with Carol and finished his Advanced B course title, and then another weekend finished his advanced D course. So unless he suddenly starts showing interest in herding ducks and cattle, he’s all titled out of AKC (as is Navarre). So Carol is going to take the boys to an AHBA trial locally, which I’m really happy that Navarre gets to play. I noticed Bryn wasn’t invited along 😉

Bryn is almost 3! She remains my special girl, I think that connection to Bright and the time that I got her – we needed her so much. Yeah, she’ll always be extra special. Not the easiest sometimes, but she can do no wrong. Took her and Navarre down to play in one day of AKC in Albany, where she hadn’t been in like a year. But she was worried and sensitive and not running like she should. Then add in a malinois jumping the barrier and joining her on course during her standard run – NOT HELPFUL. Especially not helpful as we had to restart the course again, and she was already not driving. Still, she did it TWICE, including some beautiful distance weaves TWICE and her dogwak TWICE – good girl. She finished her AX, so she’s all in Masters now. For all those MACHs that we’ll never get. She also qualified in jumpers with 2nd place, which I did all blind crosses to keep her moving – but she still wasn’t herself. So maybe she needs those long weekends to ease into it? She remains my trialing puzzle.

Navarre dropped a bar early on in his standard run, and I really disliked the course, so we left after that. He had a nice jumpers run though. Yet another dog that won’t be getting a MACH, apparently! Asher was off with Carol, so he didn’t do this trial or the UKI that was the same weekend (too hot anyway). And Navarre was supposed to do the UKI with Martine, but it was cancelled. But she ended up taking him for the week to get some practice in and let him relax into their family before their big trip to the WCO in a couple weeks. I have zero expectations he will do anything there, but I think he’s having a GREAT time with Martine!

And then Bryn is off with Heidi up to a sheep camp at Fidos this weekend … my dogs have much busier social schedules than I do. It amuses me greatly. We did do a herding clinic with Bonnie, which was fun – so many Rooster puppies at work! Asher and Bryn did some nice stuff, some stupid stuff, and Bryn broke her collar tie off and decidedly did NOT call off when she joined me and Asher on the field. Ah, my little troublemaker.

Oh, and Carol did some virtual rally with Asher and got his RN, though his heeling was definitely not up to her standards 😉 He looked really happy though!

I’m heading back to normal classes next week, feeling pretty nicely relaxed after my summer and excited to get back to things. Unlike last year, I did not do any agility with my dogs during the time off – so I’m excited to get back it now that the weather is better. We have a UKI trial at my arena coming up. Also entered in two seminars, one of which is with the puppy! Not feeling super motivated to work on skills, but I’m hoping something is going to kick me back into it. I think Asher might be ready, he’s in his prime these days. And Bryn just needs the roadwork, we’re getting better together.

But, yeah, puppies get ALL the training – my favorite! Then I farm them out to other people, apparently …

End of Summer

Wow, puppies are time sucks – it’s crazy how much there is to teach those first few months. I do really enjoy it though, before things get more complicated and puppies grow up to have a lot more opinions about the world. But that first meeting of minds, where puppy is learning how to communicate – it’s a magical time to see the little gears start to turn.

Haven has been a super fun little puppy with no big quirks or issues so far. We have just started to move into the more independent months. She’s starting to think about following the other dogs rather than just sticking with me, and starting to weigh her options when I ask her to do something. She is definitely not a border collie, she wants to know what’s in it for her – and she has more caution about things than border collies. I do think of BCs as fairly oblivious where things like cold, rough surfaces or wet things are concerned. I wouldn’t say that Haven hates them, but she notices them.

Environmentally, Haven has been fairly bombproof. Every place I’ve taken her she’s shown no signs of shyness or worry. She may notice things like big bangs, but doesn’t seem worried or upset (she thinks leaf blowers are fun!). She loves visiting with all the people (and LOVES kids!), and has developed the full body wag, complete with her tail hitting her side on every wiggle. She’s also okay NOT visiting people, so if they don’t come over cooing at her, she can walk by them no problem. Most people have to come coo at her though, she’s one charming puppy.

Been doing my best to get her out and about and seeing things like traffic and crowds and kids – things that I don’t normally go around in my every day life. So that’s been novel, and she’s done great everywhere we’ve gone. Obviously done lots of dog related things too, she can be reasonably cautious with unfamiliar dogs, but is soon right up giving appropriate greetings. She’s seen big dogs, small dogs, hairy dogs, barky dogs – and no issues … except one. For some reason her BP cousin Sophie and her have it out for each other, I have no idea why! Haven has been doing great hanging out in a crate in the arena while I teach, doesn’t carry on unless she needs to go out and hasn’t had any issues with the other dogs and goings on at classes.

Now, while Haven is excellent at being appropriate with new dogs, she’s absolutely obnoxious with my dogs – and they just let her. I have never seen them correct her after that first week. Haven is the worst with Bryn, she latches on her cheeks relentlessly and Bryn WILL NOT correct her. Haven is the baby, and they all just let her get away with MURDER. All the toys are Haven’s, all the treats are Haven’s, she’s allowed to jump all over and bite and be as obnoxious as she desires – and they LOVE her. Even Haku just ADORES her. So I don’t know how this going to play out – surely the puppy license will expire? Time will tell, but right now, omg, such a spoiled brat. A very loved, spoiled brat.

Haven continues to sleep on the bed, that puppy sleeps like the dead – I have pick her up to wake her up in the morning. She CAN be a dick to the cats where the bed is concerned, resource guarding? Being surprised by them in the dark? Hopefully she will get over all that. She continues to try to play with Haru, and I still think it may happen – Haru needs a friend, even if he doesn’t agree at the moment.

We have been having a blast training, she picks things up quickly. She’s a fairly serious learner, but gets more animated once she’s confident with something. She has low frustration tolerance, and not a huge love of repetition. Still, we train usually just a few minutes twice a day and she has picked up a lot. I think the list is too long to type at this point, but the only thing I’m unhappy about was my experiment with a more ‘passive’ reverse luring (hand opening and closing) to indicate duration. It works fine, but I found it messed our hand touch and other things where I WANT her to come to my hand. An ‘active’ reverse luring (waving the treat), I have found more useful. And she knows that one too, but, hey, live and learn – it was an experiment. I did do a different method of teaching her to heel, and I like that better. No issues sound or motion, took a bit to get her pick things up – but once I found the right item (a pen!) she was picking up and holding no problem. Thing in a thing took longer, but it’s never been my specialty. She loves her position changes and can do down and back on verbal, but not sit yet (don’t use it enough!). She has some nice baby stays, can wait until her name release in a group and waited probably 40 feet while I checked the mail today.

Haven is a fun little player, she continues to be a pretty natural retriever, loves to chase, loves to tug, loves personal play. I really haven’t found anything that she doesn’t like playing with, and that was one of my worries with a borderpap. At this point I’d say she has about equal food and play drive, but food doesn’t really get her super animated like toys.

She did have her first public ‘event’, we dropped in on the local disc club and she got to have a little turn doing some rollers. I thought she might get distracted by the crowd, but she did fabulous tracking and retrieving her discs. She did pee mid-session though 😉

Structurally and movement wise, she is definitely different. I did have her adjusted when I took the rest of the dogs, as the chiropractor felt that a baby adjustment was helpful after the stresses of birth. And Haven DID look better once she had been adjusted. But she’s also a puppy, and no point in judging structure at this point. She’s also not a border collie, which is what I’m used to. We shall see, she’s jumping up on the couches and the bed (and into the car if she has enough of running start!). She can be very fast and turn quickly when playing. She was 7.8lbs and 11.5 inches at 12 weeks, and 10.6 pounds at 14 weeks. Sometimes she seems really big, and sometimes she seems small. I’m thinking 15-16 inches and 15-20lbs? She’s getting fluffier too, medium hair?

Anyway, I have continued to be very happy with my impulse puppy. She’s sweet, so happy and very fun. I may not have needed another puppy, but I have no regrets. I also definitely think she’s easier than a border collie, so it is not a big deal to add her to the household like a BC puppy can be.

As for the other dogs, Bryn has been a loud and sassy ever since the puppy came home. Good lord, I’ve never seen her bark so much! I don’t know where it came from, but she has decided to be much pushier now that she’s not the baby. She’s shoving her way in for cuddles, she’s shoving her way in to play and work. So that’s novel. Asher may be feeling a bit more sensitive, as he got in trouble a few times for being too crazy when the puppy was around. He loves her though, and is trying his best not to squish her.

Tried to go a bit longer on Haku’s Legend infusion this month and he was MUCH stiffer. So we’re back to going every 4 weeks. Definitely struggling more to get up and down. Went on a hike with the puppy, and even though we cut it short he was noticeably very stiff that evening. I don’t know, it may have been his last hike – but it will be hard to say no next week. He still had a good time, but Asher did spend the whole hike behind him, possibly making sure he didn’t get lost. As he would get distracted and I wouldn’t notice as he walks behind me.

Navarre was very excited to go to the disc club, he got to play with Jessie and Shannon and absolutely loved it. Not as fast as he used to be either, time does catch up with you. Still, he could do that all day long.

Bryn and Carol are off for their first AKC herding trial this weekend. My expectations are low, especially with Bryn being super pushy and we haven’t practiced AT ALL. Asher is also playing, so we’ll see how it goes. They will have fun … Carol may not.

Winding down the summer I will start looking at trials for the dogs this Fall. Navarre and Martine are heading to the West Coast Open, so that will be fun. Just a few more weeks and the hot weather will be over. Can’t complain, this has been a super nice summer up until the last couple weeks. I’ll take it.

Welcome Haven!

Everything about this puppy has just been so easy, and almost like I’m just along for the ride. Those damn BPs in classes were just so much fun and so easy to say, “I could totally have one of those”. Contacting Rayna and she basically picked out the puppy for me, and that puppy seemed right. And now that she’s home, yes, this puppy is amazing and so EASY to add into the household. So, yes, this was a hell of lot easier than making my own.

Haven had a bit of harrowing trip from South Carolina, the poor puppy nanny got stuck in Denver for 10 hours. But Haven showed up around midnight, none the worse for wear and ready for action – just happy and bouncy and wagging her tail constantly. We did have a couple nights where she was MAD about being an x-pen, even if I was right next to her on the couch. But she finally seemed to have a lightbulb moment that throwing a temper tantrum all night long was not getting her what she wanted. Yet she was totally calm and relaxed when in the crate in the car hanging out while I was teaching – go figure.

So, yeah, super nice little puppy – just takes life in stride, fabulous temperament, the dogs all quickly learned to love her in no time – and she made it easy, she’s fricken charming. Bryn held out the longest, she WANTED to be a stone cold bitch, but Haven just ignored her and was way too respectful so Bryn eventually just gave in and adopted her. The two girl together are adorable! The only member of the household put out about the puppy was Haru, who was horrified – go figure. But we really haven’t had puppies and guest dogs while he’s been with us, not many anyway. He’s getting better, and they have a weird relationship right now. I’m still hopeful he might play with her eventually, as she would really like to play with him. The other cats just ignore her, so she ignores them – or she did, once she met Costco and got appropriately smacked. She now has respect.

So, yeah, it’s hard to believe she’s only been with us for two weeks, Haven is just been a delight and so easy to add to the household. She’s super fun to train, very food and toy motivated – and naturally retrieves. She picks up on concepts quickly, and is very thoughtful but not worried when she trains. It’s really fun to have a puppy to train again, we’re doing ALL THE THINGS. I love having so many things to train, and at this age they just absorb everything like a sponge.

Haven sleeps on the bed at night, I have to wake her up in the morning. She’s sweet and friendly, but not exactly cuddly at this point. She’s got those puppy needle teeth and a lot of energy. But if you can get her sleepy, yes, she’s happy to cuddle. Not barky, though Bryn seems determined to make her so (Bryn has been EXTRA barky lately). Not at all reactive, as paps can be.

As for size, I THINK she’ll be around 15-16 inches. Or, at least, that’s my hope. She seems about half the size a border collie puppy is for this age. So at 12 weeks she was 8lbs and 11.5 inches. Definitely not small, she’s already bigger than all the borderpaps I have in classes I think. She feels substantial. I knew she wasn’t going to be tiny, so that’s not unexpected – but just HOW big is yet to be seen.

I did send off her embark, which the fricken post office has yet to deliver back to them after like 9 days (it’s in CA). Ah, we live in such high tech times. So waiting impatiently to get her DNA results, I’m assuming she’s going to come back as more BC than papillon. Though, much like the other borderpaps I have in classes, she doesn’t really act like either – she is her own totally different character, and I adore her. I don’t even know what kind of hair coat she has, I thought with both parents being smooth she would be a smooth, but with her being a multigenerational mix, I guess she could go either – she definitely has fluff! But not a lot. I’m thinking making a decorative fringe? Only time will tell …

So no regrets, it was not really the time to get a puppy, but it continues to feel right. No one has any complaints so far, but we may still be in the honeymoon stage. I’ve entered her in her first puppy seminar in September, very much looking forward to doing ALL THE THINGS with her. Structure wise, she’s … interesting. She’s just a puppy, so I don’t know how much it’s fair to judge at this point, but not the smoothest mover in the world. I’m enjoying the mystery puppy, and what she’ll be when she grows up. Ears have been up and down, but mostly one very prick, and one sort of flopped over – it’s a cute look – but, yeah, who knows at this point.

So far I’ve been giving it a go to keep her swimming. And she HAS swam all on her own, but often thinks it’s too cold – and she’s still a baby! We shall see, I expect a pap mix to not be that much into water, but I do love to have dogs that enjoy the water. She has already been all over the place, so nice to get her exposed, unlike the covid baby Bryn. Haven has made herself at home wherever we’ve gone with no worries and makes friends everywhere – that is one charming little puppy.

Meanwhile, puppy came home just in time for what has become my yearly Gauntlet of Trialing where I enter two back to back 3 day trials in Salem, as they are so close to home – and I’m on break from teaching, so I have the time. And we don’t get to trial much, so it’s novel. The results seem to be similar every year – Navarre gets ONE double Q out of 6 attempts – ha! At least I am more resigned to it now. Consistency is overrated, and not very fun. Shit happens, sometimes I didn’t cue something enough, sometimes Navarre was just being a dork, but it only takes one little slip. We still had fun, I haven’t been running Navarre so we got our groove back by the end. He even went high in trial for that one double Q, so, hey! It’s hard for me to tell if he’s slowing down, or I’m just used to the speed of the younger dogs. Maybe both, but he definitely feels slower to me these days.

Asher jumping has had a surprising upswing recently. Don’t know why, but he was actually jumping somewhat normal both at the seminar we went to, and at the trial. Now, there was no COLLECTION (by ANY of my dogs – ha!), but no ridiculous early jumping and launching. I was pleasantly surprised how comfortable he looked and felt to run. I don’t know what that’s about, but he was my most consistent dog and the one I felt most comfortable running. Boy, when did THAT happen? Contacts were good, weavepoles solid, he knocked a couple bars in a jumpers run, but someone said he slipped at the first bar and then was still recovering and his the second. Other than that, he also knocked one bar in another jumpers run when I called over the bar (my bad). He DID leave the table for no fucking reason, to add yet another NQ to the pile of NQs due to table faults. SERIOUSLY? He didn’t even GO anywhere, he just hopped off to get a bit closer. Lovely run otherwise. Well, other than the lack of collection. Wraps have definitely returned to AKC, and NONE of my dogs responded to ANY wrap cues whatsoever. I mean, seriously? So much ridiculousness. Sigh. Still, pleased with Asher, and we had a lot of fun without feeling like he was crazed lunatic. Maybe is really is at that magic age.

Finally, the Brynny-Wynn – OMG, she had the lightbulb moment and was really having fun and acting like someone had actually trained her. Six days of mostly happy, sassy and mostly NONFLANKY Bryn – holy shit! We started off just keeping the attitude, I didn’t care if she did the obstacles, hit her contacts, did any of the weaves – she was happy and with me and actually wanted her treats afterwards! If that was all she did, I would have been thrilled. But then she started actually responding to my handling cues, taking obstacles and being, well, fun and easy to run! She still couldn’t do weaves the first time, she would go up and run past them, but would nail them (happily!) the second time with lovely independence and speed. So, huh, she actually felt like an agility dog, and one that WANTED to be out there. Still some of the weird disconnection at the end of the runs, but would come back in for hand touches and super excited to get those treats at the end. Finally, she started to GET HER WEAVEPOLES. I had a dog that was actually excited to be there, responding appropriately to handling, nailing her contacts(!) and actually hitting her weaves – holy crap! Bryn QUALIFIED. Bryn had runs that were actually SMOOTH for the first time EVER in competition. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was!

Anyway, Bryn did end up finishing her excellent jumpers title, so she’s in MASTERS now. She even got a double Q, and ended up going high in trial too – squeee, go little thing! And she had SO MANY nice things. I don’t feel like she even runs like that for me in PRACTICE, where she was actually with me and not just flanking out and doing whatever. It felt GOOD, and I honestly didn’t know if it was ever going to be, well, fun to run her in trials. Well I am all sorts of encouraged now, that once we get our shit together maybe she really WILL be easier than the boys. Oh, so proud of the little Bryn – it’s been a journey, and one I wasn’t sure where she would end up – but I’m ever so hopeful for 4 with her. We have another year, but I’m thinking we’ll get there.

So, yeah, also went up to a new Sarah Baker’s place for an international seminar that ended up having a last minute opening, and, as I was on vacation, I jumped at. I had worked with Susan K online with Navarre with his contacts years ago and liked her. Expectations were low, with Asher struggling with jumping and Heather … well, I am sadly out of practice of actually PUSHING in agility. I was thrilled with Asher though, his jumping was mostly pretty good, some stuttering at hard backsides, but he did some really nice thoughtful stuff – and it was fun. And I am WOEFULLY out of practice actually pushing and running to get places, so that was a bit sad – but it was fun. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a dog I COULD take to seminars, but I think Asher actually can now. He had a great time, and maybe we’re not going to be on any world teams, but I’m alright with that.

The big news, once again, I decided to give Bryn a turn and expected her to be sensitive and flanky in this new environment. But, NO – she was pushy and loud and was doing all her things like someone had actually trained her! Holy shit, I didn’t know what to do with THIS Bryn! It also wasn’t pretty, as pushy Bryn needs very aggressive handling that I’m not used to giving her. But I was so happy to see her just joyful and fierce. Maybe it was a magical arena, I don’t know, but Bryn LOVED IT.

Now, I do think there are several things that may be going on with Bryn. First, we should be getting past the hormones of her last season, so that sensitivity may be related to that. Second, she is maturing – she’s going to be 3 in like a month! I also think the puppy has something to do with it too. Bryn has been ‘the baby’ for quite some time, and suddenly the puppy is getting all the training and the toys and I think Bryn is jealous and upping her game. I definitely hope this Bryn sticks though, she’s so much fun!

Also finished up this league session with Asher and Bryn. Asher got through the course cleanly, but I couldn’t get Bryn, unfortunately. I gave it a couple tries too, as it was a really good Bryn course, but wasn’t to be. Still, League has been really helpful for all of us, I look forward to signing up for the next session as well.

This has been the NICEST summer I can remember having in Oregon. No super hot streaks of awfulness, it’s been PLEASANT. Like, all summer. I have actually been enjoying it and being outside and not resenting the season for once. Now, we have a heat wave coming through next week, I may change my mind. But we are well into August, the end is in sight … if all summers were like this, I could get on board with them.

Countdown to Puppy

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!