My name this week...

is...

Clever McCleverpants.  And I can hold the hotdog just like a dumb-bell without nomming it!

While this one got lost in her own back yard and howled her little heart out till mumma came and rescued her. 

 

And these two were just plain mischief!

  

We've been saying Kiah is a lot like my old fellow Cade, who is now at the Bridge.  She's been growing leaps and bounds, so I decided to hunt up the collar I made him when he was a youngster.  It's double sided velvet hand embroidered in a celtic knotwork pattern and looks rather lovely on her if I do say so myself.

Meanwhile my stomach issues are flaring back up again, so I had a little extra snooze this morning so I could lay straight on the heat.  Nic went to let the girls out, without realizing Miss Kiah Papaya needs to be escorted straight to the door if it's not me letting her out because she's a big mumma's girl.  I soon found myself with an armful of wriggly, deliriously happy puppy moaning and groaning her bliss and attempting to clean every centimeter of my face (she's not usually a licky puppy so this is about the only time I get ecstatic kissy fest from her) before settling in to enjoy the heat pad too.  Such a little smile bringer she is. :)

It's also time for the little lovebirds, Romeo oh! Romeo and Cinnamon the Cinnabun to go get their vaxes.  Unfortunately the Australian government is STILL with-holding the myxo vax from pet bunny owners for no sound reason (yay for logical reasoning and evidence based decisions... oh, wait, no that would be prejudice, ignoring evidence and just not giving a rip!) but we can vax them against calicivirus which is just as important.  So we're off to visit the Melbourne Rabbit Clinic later today.

 

 Romeo would be giving me this face again if he knew what I had planned...

And one of Nilla, just being full of 'satiable curiosity for cuteness sake.  Excuse the craptastic lighting in all of them.

the squidgey edition

Soo.... Demonspawn Anklebiter McNoseyboots is growing up... from a dainty 2kg when she first arrived the little madam is now double and a bit that size.  She has been keeping up with her 10 new people, 1 new place, 3 new things a day for the most part aside from when I've been too ill. She goes with us to club and thinks the place was designed for her admirers to gather.  The vets and all around town and bush walking are other favs.  We're working on most of the same things we established as a little tyke, keeping their practice up and waiting till she's a bit bigger to push out duration further in most cases.  She has fun playing with the flyball box, playing stalky Kelpie dog (in her mind she is a rough, tough cowdog) and generally being a little ball of energy.  She is learning calm, control and her on-and-off switch - even when you are watching the other big dogs play flyball and run in agility and your mum won't let you.  (Life is DREADFULLY unfair - we are SURE we could do it even better if only we were allowed!) 

"Yep, with these ears I almost CAN take flight!"

Proving undoubtedly that she is one of MY dogs - and therefore both weird and ruled entirely by her gut - at her vet visit when she got her vax she never paused in chewing her treats.  When she got the thermometer (and no, vets aren't progressive enough to use those nifty little ear thermometers kids get - this is the old fashioned thermometer up the bum) it merited barely even a glance.

"That's right dear, just pay attention to the nice yummy bribe... pay no attention to the man who is about to do... yes, that... here have some peanut butter."
When it came to the microchip needle however, which is fairly BIG as needles go, she alternated between yelping and chewing in a sort of oddly crunchy yodel. *yel...crunch...elp...crunch...YE...crunch...LP..gobble*  Now that is impressive dedication to your grub!

All that didn't really slow her down much however. Or, y'know... at all.

 

She's still her nutty self.  The only that that continues to surprise is what a comfort hound she is.  Honestly I'm pretty sure she is an Italian Greyhound in a Kelpie/Border jacket.  She loves the heat blanket, she burrows under doonas like a seasoned pro, she shivers most pathetically if required to go outside sans a coat and is generally just a bit whussy about the weather.

And I am still loving having a dog I can put a pretty collar on and SEE it!  LOL  (Please note: Rin is actually wearing a pretty collar -just even with her minimal coat you can't see it!)

Surprisingly, among the dogs it's not just Rin who is finding having a puppy a great blast of fresh air - Sierra has taken on the role of patient teacher and is Kiah's most sought out (and endlessly pestered) friend.  They have endless play sessions and mock-battles teaching her to recognize and listen to her native (body) language, rehearsing recognition and responses for HOURS every day. They practice and rehearse apologizing and making amends, taking turns negotiating resolving issues and defusing situations, approaching, inviting games, making requests etc. It is beautiful to watch how elegant and deliberate they are and how they teach and learn! I am reminded of watching a Cade and Bella teaching a baby Sierra many years ago and later all of them teaching a cheeky and irrepressible baby Hopie. 

When a response is correct Sierra will bow and invite a game, wrestle or settle in for an ear grooming session (a legacy from Bella I suspect, who was obsessed with ensuring puppies had clean ears) or such before setting back up and inviting another rehearsal. Hope and Rin get in on the act as well, both particularly love to teach play skills - how to respectfully approach an adult to ask for some of their chewie or to play with the toys they have, how to take turns in playing chasing and wrestling games.  They will take the toy and dangle it clearly in front of her to entice, prancing and showing it off before taking off at a slow run for her to chase and guide her into being both the chaser and chased, signaling that it's just play or practicing calming down skills.  Hope will bring a chew right to her and of her to practice polite approaches and requesting skills.  When she gets it right they pointedly and deliberately give her what she's requested, walking away, "I'm done, all yours!" After a few moments they'll inviting her to come away - occasionally having to show another toy to get her to drop the first, pick it up and inviting another round.  Bless her, she is such a fantastic little member of our family I don't think we could have picked better!

the continuing adventures of an adorable Demonbaby

This week, we remember the other poor neglect cases in our training a bit more... in the face of "taking the puppy out every 15 minutes" and spending most of our time out socializing to every person/place/noise I can wrangle and/or playing, their training sessions have been um... well... kinda not... (On the other hand we've done several towns, heaps of people, footing surfaces, the vets 2x and are rocking the mobility aid socialization gig!)

So they are all remembering where they were in stands, Hope is recalling she has a bum and she needs to tuck it for her left about turns, Rin is practicing everything because she's Rin and does everything at warp speeds.

On the cute-adorable-all-kinds-of-wonderful puppybreath front...

 Skill-set stuff: mostly the same things but where we were working primarily in relatively non-distracting settings or where if the environment did have distractions they weren't immediate (as in under 1m) we're now starting to add some distractions for the behaviours she does at a decent duration

• crinkling a wrapper (so HARD, she LOVES crinkle toys!)
• rattling the food container, pieces on the ground one by one while she holds
• small/brief movements with toys around her
• me moving around - so stepping back/left/right 1 step, waving arms, shifting weight etc
• asking for increasing duration near people getting a trolly at the shopping center or where the doors are opening and shutting as people walk in/out
• while other dogs are walking around her at home and at club
  
  As she gets better at ignoring each they get progressively longer, louder and more attention grabbing. (wrapper 1 second in pocket, longer, 1 second out of pocket, longer, in moving hand, longer, with a flourish etc.  I've totally slacked off on stand, I just find it boring for some reason so that's currently our worst.  (Erm... same as the adults actually...)  Targeting I've started adding a tiny bit of 'you have to search for it' by placing a smidge around a corner.  The bite hold is stronger on tuggy, she is SUCH a little tug freak!  Retrieving has taken a bit of a dive - not unexpected as I was just grabbing a voluntary behaviour rather than teaching it properly - as she's determined she can keep it.  So voluntary object exchange will be played with a lot this week.  Restrained recalls, walking recalls and running recalls are all featuring heavily.  Manners stuff is just more of the same for now.
  
  Meanwhile I'm not the ONLY one teaching her things... Rin has been demonstrating the 101 Places Border Collies Don't Belong (But Go Anyway)
  
  

The past few days have been a bit of a blur.  "Cold" turned "chest infection" along with "totally lost my voice".  Poor Lily and Nic also had it as did La, so we all pretty well curled into balls, took ample amounts of  medicine and bonded over seeing who could hack up a lung first.

Unfortunately 7-8 week old puppies (age per the vets opinion) have little respect for wishing to quietly hide under the covers till the nasty bugs are gone so we've mainly been working on stuff at home.  We have gotten out to socialize some more today (finally!) and visited Paky and Gembrook as well as visited the vets to practice having a once over and standing on scales.  We've discovered the secret to socializing with men - go in the morning when all the tradies are getting their coffee!  GOBS of socialization to guys today! 

Our coolest socialization moment this week goes to this great big fella in full bikie kit - the jacket, the liberal use of chains, the tatts, headgear, sunglasses and massssivveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee beard, muttonchops and mustache.  He looked like someone you'd NOT want to meet in a dark alley but instead crouched down and cooed at her softly while asking to give some treats, telling me he'd just lost his dog this week and we'd made his day watching her be so clever and sweet.

She is becoming a lot more active and into everything, so the real fun begins!  She reminds me a lot of Cade actually - a bit of an old soul in that little fur jacket and similar traits.  Watching her as she checks out the cows echoed Cade's reactions to the young and curious horses we had around our place in Michigan.  When she is wild she is willlldddd and when she has had her fill of running she sits with me soft and serious-eyed as she considers the world.  She is a comfort seeker - give her a cozy blanket or a lap and she's curled up under your jacket.  She seems very paw oriented as well - loves to whack things, scuttle them and bat them before taking a massive pounce.  She seems deeply loathe of all things cold and wet and detests her poor princess paws getting wet.

Skill-set stuff:

• sit and down at about 30 seconds duration (assuming quiet area, that goes to about 15 seconds out and about reliably.... though I was very tickled when she offered +30 seconds holding while very intently watching a tempting fluttering candy wrapper in town today before I decided to mark it while the marking opportunity was still good!
• stand at about 5 seconds reliably (without shifting feet or offering targeting behaviours)
• touch - now includes 'hit' (feet targeting), nose-to-palm and touch plates.  Touch plates are on the floor and at a short distance pretty well! (1 meter) 
• watch me - about 14 seconds, a bit more in a non-distracting setting
• tuggy - bite is still wanting to be very regrippy when she's very excited... I think it's the size of the bite surface though - hard for her to get back into a good grip position so I'm looking for a thin but softly braided one.
• picking up an item (keys, rubber kids toy, tiny ball)
• bringing back a thrown item
• polite release (let go when requested and pop yerself into a sit kid) even while highly excited (aka in feral SHARK PUPPY MODE... dundun dundun dun dunnnnnnn....)

Manners stuff:

• zen work
• jaw/tooth grip moderation (iow jaw-wrestle games, very softly with mums hand thanks!)
• body handling - focusing on head (reaching down toward, tugging lightly on the collar, putting head through things like the collar or circled fingers and examining teeth/eyes/ears etc)
• LAT on the kittens (wrestling mobs of kittens are just SO TEMPTING to join... and then sit and yap at when they fail to respond to play bows and offers of tuggy)
• environmentally cued sits while walking on lead when mum stops (pretty good unless there is something fairly distracting)
• environmentally cued sits when people reach down to pet (about 60% of the time un-cued so obviously still plenty of work to do - made harder by the fact I'm usually trying to keep tabs on a free-roving 2 year old while teaching this!

Indoor play for a rainy day...

Well since it was bucketing rain most of the day and my shoulder is still sore (although much better - bless my chiro!) I found the third set of clothing my 2 year old needed changing into courtesy of flinging herself in the mud enough we broke out our indoor goodies!  After hosing them off we had our ever faithful BOXES.  Boxes are wonderful things for amusing 2 year olds and puppies alike - you can crash them, tumble them, hop into them, push them over from the inside, bop at the flappy lid bits and doors cut into them, hide in them, use them as tunnels, bash your toys around in them and chew them to shreds without mum becoming the least bit upset.  (Somewhat abashed if you happen to have 2 feet instead of 4 but not upset!)  I am certain the nice people at Bunnings think we are a special brand of crazy with the amount we get from them every week but you just can't beat a box in the bun/dog/kittens/kids opinion!

When I was called to pick up La from school after he spectacularly crashed and burned hard enough to register even on his limited sense of pain (well, at least a bit... 3 hours later we're explaining to him he oughtn't bash about and jump out of trees on a strain... *sigh*) we also brought out the ball pit balls in the kiddie wading pool and our newest find -

Check it out!  TWELVE dollars at Bunnings!  It's a tunnel and a hidey hole and it ROLLS either when you stand on it like this or run amok inside like a giant not-quite-spherical hamster ball! They amused themselves with this for the better part of 2.5 hours before dinner!

I also finally uploaded a vid of her from her on her 3rd day here (so 6week-ish old) trying to find a free editor that works with mov formats to put the clips together.

Random funny out-take shot - Kiah does a Tasmanian Devil impression!

Saturday and Sunday quickies

Saturday was rather boring as I've got a nice cold going and played narcoleptic half the day - waking up basically enough to feed and water everyone and ensure the kids weren't running too feral.  We did do some basic training with Kiah (yep - it has a name!) and Rin but other than that not much.

Sunday we loaded up on cold meds, loaded up the dogs and went to training.  So the girls got their runs in flyball and obedience and Kiah had an absolute blast - she got to meet some of her future flyball team-mates (Collie, Sheltie, Poodle, ShihTzu, Lab, JRT, Border Collie, Golden, various mixes), see the flyball box (ohhh... that is COOL!) and chase a ball and play tugs.  I managed to injure my shoulder (thanks Rin!) but still got through stepping in to teach an intermediate class and Hope's flyball before going home.  Really, really pleased that Hope was pulling some very close crosses with Maddie flawlessly and Rin was handling crosses, position changes and dual lanes like a pro!  Should make September start with a bang!

At home with Kiah did a few quick-bursts of the same stuff we'd started working on manners wise a few days ago, some restrained toy fetching and worked up her tuggy as well.  She got SO revved up with the tuggy which has little 'flappy' bits she went into zoomy mode and just ran in great laps for about 20 mins before flopping over.  Then we did some cardboard box games - we had a flat piece of cardboard she 'surfed' on while I pulled it around the floor - I'm thinking that'll be a favorite game, a 'tunnel' to be sent through/recall through and a small box to bop around the house with her paws like a hockey puck.  I also used an old computer keyboard and some bubble wrap as "weird surfaces it's fun to walk over" and had her jumping on and walking around on them, sits, drops etc.  She is a funny little nutter!

On her second day after school drop off she spent the early morning toddling around after us.
She met:

•  the kittens more fully and learned that 4:1 are not odds in her favor with curious kittens.  Whichever she was sniffing the other two or three would be patting her tail.
• the sheep and our neighbors visiting cows and jumped up for a better sniff but without being over the top excited.
• gardeners with linetrimmers, leaf blowers and pruning sheers as well as hard-hats and protective goggles
• various people at he hardware store, grocery and a park, cafe
• plastic door strips on a shop that was closed, with Lily flipping them about and making all sorts of ruckus while I encouraged her to push them with her nose and investigate.

We had several tuggy sessions and introduced the idea of running out to a thrown toy (small rope bone and plastic baby teether) and bringing it back, again with polite releasing. More work on basic sits and downs, touching etc.  We also worked a bit on bite inhibition (aka YOUCH! needle teeth hurt!) playing very gentle mouth games with my fingers.

Friday after school drop off she met:

• various people at Coles, the shopping strip and neighborhood in Pakenham and in Gembrook - not many men unfortunately.   
• a community van which is equipped with automated lowering and raising ramps for wheelchair users which they were very nice in letting us go up to and have a meet-n-greet.
• the 7-9's class at La's school as well.
  Manners wise we continued with sits and downs, making them downs from sits and sits from downs as well as continuing with targeting introducing a target plate.  We continued with retrieving thrown toys (soft tuggies and plastic teething rings) as well as tuggy. We introduced the idea that if she wants to get out or into her pen she needs to sit and be polite.  We introduced a bit of doggy zen, object trading, some basic body handling (light 'pinches' on the webbing between toes, feet, ears, lips, collar holding/tugging etc), some short and light restrained recalls and eye contact.  She's been absolute gold with her house training, not a single accident and only one time using the newspapers provided in her pen - which was really my fault as I had the choice between taking her out when I saw her looking fidgety and chasing the naked-wet-soapy 2 year old who was streaking through the house on her way to merry mayhem, so puppy got ploinked in her pen till I caught and nappied the 2 year old!

 As you can see a busy puppy is well behaved by default...