Good news --Pictures telling their stories

We had a good size computer malfunction here. Not really sure what caused it, but I think I am just going to go ahead and blame the kids. Why not right?  After all they break everything else. 

A lot has happened during  that time -too much to write about, but still I want to share, so I will tell the story in pictures  with  little wording.

Most important is that after spending a week or so with Poppy during April vacation, she was cleared by myself and Greely Middle School to go back to school with her boy Jack.
Woot!

In other news, Valli was adopted by a wonderful family who are totally committed to helping her with her skin issues.  Looks like they will be feeding her raw even.  Valli was a joy to foster. I will miss her gorgeous eyes, expressive ears and her overall wonderfulness.  She is a super lucky dog!!   It does feel good to know that the dog would have lived a life of misery without my help.  However, I am done "trolling" for dogs. There are enough needy dogs out there already without picking needles in hay stacks.

My son went to his girlfriend's prom.  While that is a big deal and a milestone for any family, my son has a complex cardiac defect (CHD) and had 5 heart surgeries before he was 2 and a half years old . He is a walking miracle of medical science and let me tell you it was a really big deal.  18 years ago I never saw this day coming.  He has had a Fontan operation and basically only has 2 chambers in his heart. 

Can I have a big WOOT for medical science? 

And yet there's more!

After a harsh winter, lots and lots and lots of rain, spring finally showed up at my house. It brought a shitload of mud to, but we are trying to stay in our a happy place today. So we won't mention that.

Meet Friday!!!  Hopefully Friday will by my friend Suzan's new service dog.

 

AAAWWWWW!!!

New kid on the block Beck is a blast.  That dog is learning everything so fast.  In between learning new tricks and agility, Beck is giving me a run for my money and pushing my training skills to the limit.

Wouldn't have it any other way.

I have not had the chance to get many pics of our new foster dog Delilah.  DD  loves my composted compost  pile and thinks it is her own personal sand box.    She is a  6 month old American Shelter dog with a high toy drive. Mostly likley she has some Shepherd in there.  DD and Beck play rough and tumble dog games really  well and she is a sweetheart of a dog. 

Oh and one last thing Osama Bin Laden is dead. Last night was one of those historical moments where we will all look back and remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news.  I like many many people heard it on  first on Tweet Deck .

 Social Media is here to stay.

Follow @gooddogz

Wordless Wednesday - Poppy's tuning up

Bromancing my Beck

After back to back posts whining about Beck, I feel I need to set the record straight a bit. He is an awesome dog and I don't regret adopting him, even during his trying times. As a commenter pointed out, dogs who are sweet and cuddly and give us the time of day, are easy to bond with, and to forgive them their trespasses.

Except  for the times when Beck is stalking the not really evil Daisy, or barking, or acting a young fool, he is a blast to work with. I saw a lot of potential in him (*obviously*) when he was my foster dog, but I also saw a lot of potential for a disastrous placement. Between his brain power, high energy needs, and his mild separation anxiety I knew he was not the dog for the average pet owner. Honestly, aside from basics that he would need for adoption, (stop jumping on top of people!), I didn't spend much time at all working with Beck until after March 4th when we adopted him.

Since I made a list of his issues, it is only fair that I write the behaviors that Beck has learned in 5 weeks. This is a dog who did not even know how to sit.

Beck has learned his name and to pay attention and watch me, sit, down, paw, paw an object, leave it, hit an easy button, howl on cue, sit stay, down stay, heel on and off leash on both right and left side, auto sit, come!, target my hand, an object, and a  target stick, boing with 4 feet off the ground, get in, sit front, finish right and left, say his prayers, jump up on something with 4 feet, paws up ( 2 feet) , crawl, play dead, roll over, spin, twirl, put his head all the way to the ground front and side (settle), go through my legs, back up fast, back up on both right and left side, jump 20 inches, send to a jump, bounce jump, down on a table, off, default down, 101 things to do with a box, go out around an object, go to his mat, target a mat with his hind feet, bow, sit up pretty, dance on hind feet forward and backwards and in a circle,. Whew! I am sure there is more, but well you get the idea. Only a few of these are proofed, but that is a lot of new info in just over a month. Yea!

The dog has excellent retention and it is mind boggling to me what a sponge he is. Hard to imagine such a great and needy dog in a shelter  for more than half of his life. I spend lots of time day dreaming and trying to figure out what is important and what in what order I want to teach him new behaviors. I have worked a lot on back, since it is a key behavior in Freestyle and my last 3 dogs have kind of sucked at it. Every night at dinner time, he backs up to his mat. Very enthusiastically I might add.

Today is not his day Beck's day for training. As I mentioned the other day Poppy is here for a service dog tune up, and she will be coming with me every where I go today. Poppy got a play pass yesterday because she looked like this pretty much most of the day. 

Service dogs should never be taken out in public access dirty, and when I tried to rinse her off, she stuck her whole head in the hose with such joy, that I just gave in and let her have a party. She took forever to dry, and by then it was too late and I was toast. So this morning,  she was not allowed access to my swamp yard. The yard  is a major loosing battle right now with all the rain we have had. Poppy came out with me most of Saturday and she did long downs yesterday while I was working with Beck. That was hard work for her and then she got lots of ball time and lots more mud. Poppy  will need a good grooming before I can take her any where today.

We are also watching a friend's Aussie and well, it is total spring break mayhem over here! I can tell you what, this never would happen  if Charlee was still here.  That dog knew how to keep order.

I told Beck to just say no, but he led Scout on. and on. and on.

As you can see, the pups are pooped at the end of the day. 

It's all good.  

Today is also Valli's first day of school.  Wish her well in class tonight.  She has her first meet and greet on Friday and she has to cram.

_________________________________

Trainer's note. Scout's humping is not sexual.  It is a displacement behavior brought on by being a herding dog with lots going on around him that he cannot control.

. When in doubt. some dogs hump. 

oh and another thing....Training Beck

Beck thinks that 11 year old Daisy is a She Devil. Beck has met Daisy a few times outside her home when I was picking up Poppy and wasn't all too thrilled with her, but she is way scarier in his very own yard.   Poppy is an Autism Assist Service dog that I have been working with for the last few years who goes to school with her middle school boy Jack.

Poppy and Daisy's family are away and both dogs are staying with us. Poppy will be brushing up on her service dog behaviors during vacation week as she has been out of work for a while recovering from knee surgery. My youngest and her friends can't wait to take Poppy to the movies to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2. Movies are a great place to train service dogs. There are lots of people who try to touch when they should not, and lots of food on the floor to work on  lots of "leave it" practice . Plus Poppy LOVES LOVES LOVES kids and she needs to leave them and concentrate on her handler. I will be posting more on Poppy later this week.

Back to Beck and Daisy. I am pretty sure that Beck does not recognize Daisy as the same species as him and he thinks we are all in grave danger if she remains any where near us.

Therefor it is his job to BARK BARK BARK,

circle circle circle and BARK BARK BARK

and herd herd herd to get her to move the hell on.

I really thought he would give it up once he saw that she wasn't gonna budge and that she could care less about him, but he did not. He wouldn't let me catch him either, so I went in the house and grabbed the camera.

Live and learn. Tomorrow we will try again. This time I am bringing a hungry Beck and he will be on a LEASH.

As you can see, Daisy loved our cool swamp. I mean yard.  Daisy is ELEVEN!! and that is OLD for a Newfie.  By the way, Daisy didn't give a rat's ass about Beck. At first I thought maybe she didn't see or hear him, but I observed her carefully. Nope, she just didn't give a rat's ass.
She gets around ok, but is clearly not a spring chicken.  

This makes two posts in one day bitching, complaining about my sweet dog. 

I do love Beck,  he just needs a little help learning about the world. 

Wordless Wednesday- Autism Assist Service Dog Poppy gets a tune up