Puppy Foundation Skills

Can there be anything more eye-catching than a fluffy Chow? 

Well, yes - an adorable Chow Puppy!

This is Charlie-the-Chow-Puppy, who apparently gets stopped on the streets all the time to pose for total strangers who want to capture him on their cameras! And you can sort of see why, can`t you?! 

My connection to this spectacular puppy is that Charlie is a Puppy Foundation Skills class student. He (and his people) came to class last night. The room was filled with "stuff" for puppies to explore and investigate. There`s a ton you can do to build a dog`s confidence early on with "Enrichment"; by creatively introducing them to as many novel items as you can (safely) dream up: surfaces, things to go over, under, pass by, hear, see, smell, feel, various footing,...etc. In Puppy Foundations we do a lot of this and I try to inspire people to see the importance of all these simple but important games and keeping it going outside of class, too. Introducing a young pup to "novel stuff" is something fairly simple you can do with your young puppy at home, with a bit of creativity and changing things up - but of course of big importance, too is taking your puppy out to new places where he is exposed to sights and sounds of the real world; all the things and stimuli you want him to be familiar with through his life.   

For your reference, and for a bit of further reading on risks vs. benefits of socialization with a partially vaccinated puppy, I am attaching a link to the position statement On Puppy Socialization of the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior:

http://www.avsabonline.org/avsabonline/images/stories/Position_Statements/puppy%20socialization.pdf

We also worked a bit with Charlie on building play...as in tug-of-war. Building solid play-skills and then using play (with you!) as a reward when working on teaching other skills is such a valuable investment of time and effort. There are many skills later on that become a breeze to teach and work on, if your dog loves to play with you. With young puppies it is usually quite easy to build their play and tugging, but if not - be patient and keep working on it! Build up and on  from CHASE, don;t try to shove a toy into a dog`s mouth..instead, think like a squirrel running away from the dog (!) and pull the toy away from the puppy along the ground. In the beginning, you just want to engage the pups instinct to chase the toy - and ultimately, grab it.

Every effort to play and develop this game with your dog will pay off and is like money in the dream-bank..the return-on-investment is really big!

Luckily for Charlie, playing Tug is likely never going to be an issue as his people were totally keen on the game and quickly "got it":-) And, so did Charlie. 

We will continue to work and build from here - check back for his grad photo later this spring...the changes and growth will be amazing!

Chowder and Barney

Introducing: Chowder and Barney, both retired racing greyhounds adopted by a Canmore couple through  SAGA (Southern Alberta Greyhound Association) http://www.sagaa.org/. 

Chowder is a recent "Manners" class graduate. Barney has been a "Frequent Flyer" with Wags, graduating first from "Manners" class and then going on to work in Rally Obedience. Sadly, arthritis shortened his Rally'O career and  now perhaps Chowder has her older brothers' "paws" to fill. Time will tell...They're both amazing dogs - unbelievably different from one another in terms of personality, each with their own very distinct trademarks of behavior. I had the great honour of doing some portraits of these great dogs last night and wanted to share some of the resulting images. 

Gorgeous and funny dogs, who are so fortunate to have been given a great life with great people after a short racing career. They also truly represent a very happy outcome and great adoption story. True "tales of redemption". Aren't they simply stunningly beautiful dogs?

Of tragedies between Kids and dogs...

By now we've all heard the absolutely awful news. A baby infant child killed by the family dog (a Husky) in the family home. I was teaching classes last night when I heard about it and this morning the reality is setting in as I read more about it...and questions of course remain in everyone's mind. By all accounts, it sounds like something very uncharacteristic not only to the breed but also to this unique family situation. A totally unexpected, perhaps inexplicable incident. We may never fully understand...


I find it's impossible to even try to comment...personally it stirs up enormous emotion. I am a mother of three and in my suitcase of "baggage" I carry a personal story: not forgotten, not untold, and not pleasant - but with an outcome far less traumatic than this one. The news from last night just stirs up memories and makes me want to bend over double in grief and sadness I feel for the family trying to recover from this enormous loss. 


A split second goes by so fast...yet, when we're dealing with dogs and kids...SO much can happen in that split second. And there is no going back in time. We can't erase what was, we can't undo what was done. The only thing we can do, is look forward and decide what to do next.


In my own case, the split second was a bite by our own family dog to my own child's face. The dog was on many levels a very difficult dog and had a history telling us in many different ways "this is not a good match"...we were just Really bad at listening. Until...


Of course I didn't know then what I know now and was really just starting my journey of learning about dogs and behaviour. Our son was a toddler at the time and while there was an adult present in the room, when the incident happened - the "supervision" could only be called very passive at best. The lucky thing - it was "only" a warning bite to the face, not fatal - and it didn't leave any large scars. But it happened...and yes, to reiterate; there was an adult passively supervising at the time it happened. The adult was "there" to the degree they could witness what took place, but not proactive, nor close enough do anything about the split second as it happened!


And that's the point I am trying to make with bringing up this story. Dog and child interactions leave no room for "passive" supervision. In our case, we were lucky in the sense that we had an enormous reality check that allowed us to re-group and look at the facts in front of us and then make a tough decision. I cringe when I think back of how things could have evolved differently, but I also know we made the right decision to get the dog out of our house. Through a rescue group, we found a couple (with no children) experienced with the breed mix she was (Rottie cross)....and she was re-homed with full details of the account. Last we heard, which is a very long time ago now, things were good. I am, however, uncertain whether I would make the same call today - but that's what we did then. The report we got on the dog after re-homing, indicated a life with adults only was a good choice and at least then seemed to be the best choice, for the dog and certainly for us.


Tough lesson, not fun and a long lead-up of High stress to get to that tipping point. The breaking news of a much worse outcome leads me to think back with enormously mixed emotions of gratitude for our own situation and grief for what this family is going through. 
And please know I am not commenting or saying any of this as any kind of commentary to the incident with the Husky. I don't know what happened, only that there was a massively tragic outcome.


My personal story is that we were spared and got away with a huge warning only. We still have all our kids, older kids, more aware kids and parents, more educated parents, different dogs.... but the lesson I personally learned stuck in deep ways and the memories very much remain and re-surface in the face of a tragedy such as this. 


Going forward, I guess one can only hope for more and better awareness, education and understanding when it comes to successfully and safely raising kids and dogs under the same roof. One cannot emphasize enough the importance of being proactive, being one step ahead, actively supervising - or having solid management plans in place - all the time. 


Whatever happens during that split second in time, we can never erase....

Happy REAL Valentine's today!

Yesterday was sort of the warm-up to the Real Valentine's day. Today of course being the 14th. 
So - I get to wish you a Happy Valentine's with another photo!

My kids say "They almost look like a married couple."

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Happy Valentine's Day to all! 
Enjoy and celebrate all the friendships; two-legged and four!
The two dogs seemed to be completely on the same page when trying to coordinate them for this little photo shoot. They cooperated better than ever dreamed of for a series of really sweet Valentine's photos yesterday! They were "well paid" models and seemed to quite enjoy posing on the comfort of our bed :-) Enjoy!

Pinot's first Agility trial.

Well, the Big Day came. My first agility trial with Pinot! and what a day it was!
The event was a fundraiser held for two fantastic Alberta competitors going to the World's to compete; Lynda Coughlan and Stephan Henry and started with two workshops taught by them in the morning. First a 2 hour session with Stephan on Distance skills, then a 2 hour session with Lynda focusing on Using Motion effectively in handling. Both workshops were great and certainly helped both Pinot and myself totally relax and get into work-mode, forgetting all about nerves (which has been such an enormous issue for me in Rally and obedience!)


Then, in the afternoon, as a lot more people arrived for the trial portion of the day, we were entered in our very first ever AAC Steeplechase run. 
I had a few clear goals in my mind. (No, it was not winning!)
The first goal was to work through nerves and be able to stay focused enough to remember the course and be as clear as possible with my "driving". The second goal was to maintain connection with my dog the whole time. And the third goal was to get through the whole course - from start to finish, with obstacles in the correct sequence!
And we DID IT! Never mind the fact that I had to re-do the weave poles both times, I am OK with that, it just shows where I have some work to do - once she got going, she was fine...and certainly stayed connected with me the whole time. 
I can't believe how emotional it actually was! I was very close to tears as we crossed the finish line :-) and I think I've been smiling ever since (it's now 4 days ago. LOL)


Here's a video of our first EVER run in a trial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCE5YQcNn-w&list=UU2C_HmSN4P0qKiLUDC9f5eA&index=1&feature=plcp


Oh what a great feeling! I came home telling the family all about it...and the amazing thing is that we did not even get a Q. Our time was 49seconds, and the allowed Course Time was 43...so we would have needed to shave 6 seconds to qualify - but the amazing thing was that it did not even matter. We might as well have won a World Championship. The feeling was worth more than Gold, I have a Happy worker who loves doing this together with me? What could be more important?

What a face :-)

This is Boulder, a giant Alaskan Malamute. One of the most recent "Manners" class graduates. Don't you just LOVE this face?

Just have to share this photo of Boulder. A face like that...well, could get away with anything :-) What a character, too!

When something isn't right...

Two visits with Maggio to the Marda Loop Vet in Calgary in the last month. We've seen Dr. Wanda Vockeroth there for Maggio's odd and puzzling skin issues (allergies) earlier in his life and she put him on a couple of different Chinese herbs that have made all the difference! I totally call these herbs a God-send.
In the first two years of his life, he had multiple flare-ups, equally multiple courses of antibiotics - even Prednisone, with no real resolve or help for how to address the underlying cause. Then, at age 2 when his whole face turned into welts, and he was given Prednisone to help clear it, I finally said "that's enough!" There must be a different way.
We did search...and we did spend some dollars in the search :-( but finally, our road took us to Dr. Vockeroth. And I've never looked back! It was a journey with her, too - no over-night answers, but each visit took us a step closer to finding relief for him. And the big relief for both of us was - we were looking for a way to support his own immune system now, rather than suppressing symptoms with drugs!

I've been SO impressed by the results, I can't find words to accurately describe the change from "before the herbs" to "now". Of course there's a bit more to the process than just adding a few granules of herbs - like an elimination diet to figure out exactly what role foods played in his miserable skin issues...
But, Point being - the change and improvement is remarkable and I recommend Dr. Vockeroth highly to anyone interested in a holistic approach / trying to resolve issues resulting from/ affecting immune system (well, what health issues don't?)
As I learned more about Maggio and his "triggers", his overall health just got better and better and by figuring out diet (he is, and always was on Raw) as well as these supplements, Maggio has had several years of phenomenal health! He'll be 6 in a couple of months.

But just recently...something odd/ non-skin related / has been drawing my attention. Maggio is a retriever who normally does not have a slow or low gear for games like retrieve. His only gear, really, has been to retrieve and play at 150%.
Eager and at full speed when he goes out to get his retrieve-object. Equally eager and fast to return. So when earlier this winter - after about 20 minutes of retrieving/ running in the woods and playing outside - he started to run out for the toy, take the toy in his mouth -- only to look for a place to lie down to "get a rest" or roll around --- I had to wonder what was going on.
Something's not right...

So, we paid a visit to Dr. Vockeroth to get her to take a look. Jammed up in the front/ shoulder muscles as tight as can be, but also jammed up in several other areas of his body. Starting with the least invasive way to address what seemed to be happening - she gave him a full osteopathy treatment and sent us home with instructions to give arnica, daily stretching and massage (boy did HE ever love that!!), easy on walks/running for a couple of days, gradually back to exercise and come back in 3 weeks to re-check.
Wednesday we went back....he's not 100% but the signs are quite subtle, so we are getting referred to a rehab specialist now. He's not lame, not limping, not picking up feet and not favoring legs. But his forward reach is definitely not what it should be. He "STIFF" but it's subtle; there's something going on...

Mostly you'd actually not even know, but definitely obvious when he went over a few jumps the other day as I was training Pinot for agility. He came out of the house and joined us in the back yard and got excited about the idea of doing some jumping and clearly said "will you throw my toy, too if I go over a few of these?" Bars as well as jump standards went flying as he plowed through the jumps - unable to get himself over. No more jumping for this boy until we figure this out! I feel so badly and yet again wish dogs could talk. Our hopes to continue to train and prepare for Open Obedience will be put on hold for sure...
Let's wait to see what the rehab specialist can tell us next.