I suppose I should do an updated post talking about the V litter out of Xita and Lord (6 pups born Jan 30), and the recently arrived W litter out of Oda and Sumo and the even more recent puppies out of Jubilee and Django (3 girls, 1 boy; May 2), but instead, I'm going to go the easy route and share some adorbs.
Oda did not think that the Squarepants toy was appropriate for puppies, apparently. Here's the 9 "Soda" pups (for Sumo + Oda), born April 23 (5 boys, 4 girls)--getting their ruckus on.
The late June storm knocked out power here for 3 days--which we all sweated through and survived. The weekend after the 4th, a few friends joined me and we hid out in the A/C. The puppies--15 of them (Reason had gone to his new home)--joined us.
The chaos of 15 puppies rampaging through the house is... well... watch and enjoy!
The song is a lot cheerier than I was this morning while walking dogs in the cold, soaking wet in a coat that is no longer waterproof and in pants that had sucked water up the fabric to about knee height. The dogs only minded the puddles and the rain a little bit, fortunately.
This past weekend, was the Bundeseigerprufung--the German national Sch3 championships.
This is the obedience routine of the winning pair. I love the precision and evident relationship between dog and handler. The handler also does an exquisitely controlled job of handling the dog throughout the routine--she knows exactly what she is going to do, what the dog is going to do, what is allowed, and what is needed by and for her dog. Beautiful training, beautiful performance.
Oh, and Jubilee passed the 2nd leg of her JHD! I'll post the video of that soon. :)
This is the second real lesson with Jubilee in which she worked calmly and under control the entire time. I am working the AHBA JHD class trial course at first, then I just do a bit of training. I spent a lot of lessons with her where she blew me off and was pushing the sheep hard and was zooming around them in full circles. In this video, she wants to overflank regularly (cover more than just one side, she wants to do more than half circles--you can see her wanting to come around to the heads of the sheep), she is disagreeing with me about walking them along the fenceline and I am teaching her that she can just cover one angle of them. She is being a bit squirrelly about following the sheep close to the fence and wants me to pull them off the fence so she can cover them more. She does not yet know flank commands by voice alone and sometimes I have to tell her to lie down to get her to change directions behind the sheep. You can see her tail go up as she contemplates running between fence and sheep, and then when she has done it, she is all wound up and excited. This is an area of conflict for many herding dogs and she just has to work through it.
What she does in this video that I am thrilled with is settle down and walk/trot calmly behind the sheep. She begins to "wear" on her own, only covering the area behind the sheep that needs to be covered in order to have the sheep move where we want them. She never pushes the sheep so hard they run past or over me. She starts off a bit sticky on her downs, but she starts to figure out what I am asking as we move on--you can see me try to "push" her out of the down in the direction I want.
She ends up being very responsive to directional/flank indicators from me. She learns to cover and push them along a fenceline without trying to come around to their heads and move them off the fence so she can have more fun chasing them around. And we end the lesson with her calm, clear, in control, and being very smooth. Good girl!
I've gone back and forth on sharing this video. First off, I am in it. ::dies, crawls away, looks for brains:: Second, while it shows truly amazing work to me, it is all in context. She is at a point in her training where I have just gotten control. I don't like the pressure that she is showing. I do like that she is listening and learning. With another lesson or maybe two, I hope, she will understand more of what I am asking and the signs of pressure from me will even out into smooth work and understanding of what is being asked and that responses on her part further the work instead of hindering her fun. That's the hope, at least.
Largely, this control has come from doing obedience work away from the sheep--training for rally. In this training process, she has really come to like the idea of our partnership and engaging with me and the push-pull of I ask, she does, she does, I reward, and from her perspective, she asks by doing, I reward--so she feels like she has control in our relationship, too. I don't know why she didn't get this at a younger age, but I'd say it's because she's always been extremely independent and drivey--and self-rewarding. She's very hard and resilient and not easily deterred when she's in drive. :) And in herding, she knew she was faster than me and was pretty sure that her idea of fun and what the sheep should be doing was better than mine.
This weekend, we go trial for her 2nd AHBA JHD leg, then I'll need to find an AKC trial to get her final Rally Novice leg.
They are rather relaxed and hot in this video, but it's a nice capture of the happy chaos that follows this lot. Little red-collar girl goes to her new home today, yellow girl will be here for another week, and the boy is here a little longer, too. And the sable girl is still looking for her person -- so I will get to enjoy three of them a bit longer. We have started meals in crates and will be working on name recognition (for them what have names!) and puppy recalls and sits and downs for hotdogs.
Little sable girl has turned into a unique individual. She is warm and affectionate with a strong sense of self that often has her marching to her own drumbeat. She doesn't feel any need to follow her bicolor siblings around and I will often find her off doing her own thing while the bicolors rough and tumble together. But this isn't to say that she's a loner--she will often follow at my heels while the bicolors are off romping somewhere and she is quick to seek and give gentle affection.
Red-collar girl's mission in life is to steal my shoes--the ones I am wearing, preferably, and she will bite my ankles until I yelp and give over. Meanwhile, little yellow is probably off conquering her image in the mirror or wrestling some far-larger toy into submission. Mr. Qi (chi), the boy's new name) is amazingly suave--relaxed and confident as he surveys the chaos around him.
So, here's the video of a hot (about 95!) summer afternoon with the Q puppies...
Almost overnight, they turned into tail-wagging, eye-contact-making, roughhousing, barking, growling, climbing, playing puppies. <3
Last night they were all riled up and making me laugh, so I grabbed the camera and started filming. It's a bit dark but you can see most of the video pretty well.
Today, they were just being adorable, so I went for the camera again.
They were climbing out of the box, so I have set them up with a double-box set up to give them more room.
Oda and her sister Leia and a young Aussie named Gage and a 3 month old Border Collie named Alex have some mad play skillz. Oda has the orange collar; Leia is slightly shorter and more compact with a thicker tail---other than that, it's really hard to tell them apart!
The heavy breathing is Lynx--he kept wanting to cross between me and the puppy, so I am holding him with one hand while trying to film with the other. Apologies if you get vertigo from the moving camera. :)
In the video are Pandora (black and tan girl), Pagan (big sable girl), and little Petunia (soon to be "Pistol"). These 3 girls are still looking for homes, so I took some video of them playing with a new toy in a new location.
Knowledge of the research that's been done on learning theory is invaluable, but, as Ian Dunbar points out, humans don't have to train like computers to integrate the latest science--and people are hamstringing their relationships with their dogs when they try.
Dunbar presents some interesting thoughts about using learning theory in real life dog training and communicating with our dogs when we're training--and how the nuances and idiosyncrasies of human speech and gestures can do so much more than a simple click.
