Making use of the dogs ability to Help around the house :-)

Both Maggio and Pinot are wickedly amazing retrievers. As far as Maggio goes - a Flat Coated Retriever from working lines: he came to us that way. There has never been a day of needing to "teach him" to retrieve. More so, with him: it was a matter of putting some impulse control around retrieving and quite quickly starting to use it as a "reward" for performing other behaviours first..

But with Pinot, like with many of my students' dogs, it was a different story. It was a long journey to develop play. There were days of feeling quite desperate and frustrated - wondering if I would have to resort to simply just using food in training because play didn't seem to rank very high for her. 

Thankfully, I wasn't about to give up and also had great help from people like my dear trainer friend Catherine Thomas and with her very experienced set of eyes, she was able to give us some very helpful advise early on - and a long journey of many months of "just playing" paid off. 

The end result is beautiful and Pinot is as keen to retrieve as her brother "bird dog" - and along the way, I learned many great lessons.

On a recent camping trip that I wrote about before, the kids got incredibly creative with how to use the dogs' retrieving skills many times per day. What a blast it was! We have continued the trend since returning home, and it's amazing how useful it is to have a retrieving dog.

How do you use your dogs retrieving ability around the house?

Well...for starters...we always seem to run out of toilet paper in one bathroom or another. Have you ever thought to get the dog to bring up a roll of toilet paper when you're sitting on the toilet, realizing there's no more paper on the roll nor in that bathroom cupboard?

What about getting the dog to bring a rolled up plastic bag when you need to empty out a garbage can but have no baggie to empty into?

And of course letters and mail need to be delivered to the right addressee after bringing home the mail. AND then there's the daily newspaper that gets thrown on our front porch. It needs to be brought to whoever is awake and having their morning coffee.

How about using the dog to send a note to one of the kids with a message "Dinner is ready!!"
...and being prepared that the note will moments later be returned by the dog with a new message that says "Thanks - I'll be there in a few minutes - please send up a roll of toilet paper!"

OR while camping - the thing that started it all: getting the dogs to carry the firewood from the van to the fire-pit when ready to get our evening fire going - one piece of wood at a time...

Here are some photos of what happened. What a riot - and WHAT great use of the dogs!
They felt so important, too - as can definitely be seen in some of the photos. There was some debate over who would get to carry the newspapers for starting the fire, too...although quite quickly resolved. Enjoy!

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Day-hike with the family and dogs

Pinot and Maggio enjoying a small dip, and cool-off in one of the cold streams we encountered.

Yesterday we took the whole family, dogs and my friend who is visiting from Finland, on a gorgeous, fairly strenuous and  simply stunning day-hike through Sentinel Pass in the Lake Louise area.

Short synopsis of the day:
Through Larch Valley to Sentinel Pass, over Sentinel Pass into Paradise Valley, down to Lake Annette and through the forests down to the Moraine Lake Road.

19 km, 7+ hours, more than 2 liters of water each, 2 sandwiches, multiple mandarin oranges, and a few much-appreciated sugary treats...
Tired legs but ecstatic minds.
My friends' super tech watch reported 2100 calories burned.

Going up toward the Pass.

Almost at the top of the Pass. Maggio's real name isn't Mountain Bluebird for nothing :-)

Coming down from the Pass toward Paradise Valley side - a fairly steep and extremely rocky 500 meter descent, probably not enjoyable for someone with a fear of heights. The kids and dogs were amazing - they just "go with it" and get down.

Once down the steep and rocky descent off the back of the Pass, Paradise Valley opens up and the scenery is - once again - completely surreal. 

It was still several hours to get all the way down from here and yes - all got tired - and we finished our last drops of water in the last 20 minutes of walking - but happy, content and Exhausted - we made it all the way around the circuit. Had a big dinner at home and slept a solid night's sleep.

The final photo (bottom) is again from the top of the Pass. Absolutely stunning scenery!! The hiking in "our backyard" is simply unreal. 

Our kids at 10, 13 and 14 are like Mountain Goats and seem at home wherever we take them. The dogs, having both grown up in the Rockies, too - don;t miss a step, never stumble, trip...just simply amazing hiking partners. 

Camping adventures

Where a door closes, a whole other possibility will open up. 

Isn't that true with most things in life. 


Through a series of events, I have learned to see that this also holds true for camping and I am quite sure my whole family will actually be forever be grateful for the "inconvenience" we experienced with over-booked provincial campgrounds we encountered about 4 years ago. We had planned on camping in B.C. at a popular provincial campground, and went there without a reservation: hopeful that we would still be able to find a spot for our tent. But the whole campground was jam-packed! It looked more like a parking lot than a nature-experience.

There were only "no reservations/one night only" spots available, and anyone who has set up a large tent with all necessary sleeping arrangements for a whole family for one night, only to tear it down the next morning to go and find a new spot for yet another one night only/ knows that this is not very much fun and the constant setting up and tearing down will really start to take the fun out of "camping" very, very soon. 

So it was after one of these experiences four years ago; myself with three kids and two dogs in tow that I said to my kids "that's enough...we are out of here! surely we must be able to find someplace where we can stay a while. this is just not enjoyable." and we packed up; went and gassed up the van and wondered where to go next. It was in that gas station that I casually struck up a conversation with a friendly gentleman stating that we were on the look out for great places to camp; might he know of anyplace to recommend? Did he ever! He pulled out a map of BC / one of those free maps you find in every gas station and pointed to the small brown tent symbols strewn out all about the map...those brown symbols indicating a whole "underground" of camping / free camp sites all over the place! Surely we had noted these small symbols on the maps, but without any information about what they were or any road signs pointing us in their way - they had remained symbols on a map - nothing more.

The free camping spots are all off paved roads, and you really have to know about them to find them as you venture in on gravel roads, sometimes more like washboards than roads - but most are still accessible by our mini van without too much trouble, and once you find your destination you are in a place of peace and solitude/ very unlike the busy provincial campgrounds that is the only thing we had known of until our first and "forced" experience of Free Camping.

Now that we have seen and experienced what that can be like: there is no turning back and doing things the commercial way anymore. I will forever be grateful for that one turn in events, which  forced us to look outside the beaten path and find an alternate way of enjoying what we all call Camping.

At many of these free campsites; there are no services. No running water, no showers, no water slides, no mini putt, no entertainment, no check in counter, no power, no guest services, no laundry facilities, no toilet paper in the outhouse and that; *the outhouse* IS the only luxury you will find. in short; there are none of the things you find at all the big "fancy" camp grounds. And that's probably what keeps the majority of folks away; and that's fine, of course. But if you are Iike me, and think you might enjoy trying these lovely free sites and simply don't know about them (like we didn't know about them) / then, that's a different story, and that's why I decided to write about our experience.

What you get instead of all of the "luxuries" outweigh all of those things in our minds; first of all true privacy: at our favourite lake,  there are only a few campsites to begin with and they are spread out far and wide with lots of privacy between each. There are a few picnic tables, and if you are lucky, you might get a site with a table. On our first visit, we didn't have a table but on subsequent visits we have always managed to get access to a table.  In total there are only about 10-12 sites and this time we counted only 4 other sites being used! Peace, tranquility, quiet and close to nature are the only appropriate words coming to mind describing it there. You wake up in the morning to the song contest of loons, listen to the squeaking of ground squirrels during the day and if you are lucky; as we were; you will get to see deer and other wildlife use the lake as a water hole at night, as well as fish jump high above the water, turtles swim around and share the waters with you as you go for a dip.

This was our third time back to the same place and we all saw the excitement of the dogs as we approached on the washboard, gravel road.They, too remembered and got SO excited arriving there! For the dogs; it means freedom, amazing access to swimming, lots of hiking, exploring, retrieving in water as well as on land, more swimming, snoozing in the shade with the wind blow-drying their wet fur...and surely one of their favourite "duties": prewashing all the dirty dishes and making sure we have no left overs to worry about storing ;)

I can't help but think this type of camping represents the kind of togetherness every dog dreams of. 

Miss Pinot, moments before she decided she WILL actually take up dock diving. Here, she hadn't made that decision (yet) and was looking rather stressed about how to make this call..or whether it's even worth a try. "I AM a sheltie, after all". LOL. What a character, this one.

Pinot, has always been an amazing traveler and has a beautiful appropriateness about her when it comes to being "on" and "off" (ie ; being able to settle and relax after activity periods end). With one very short exception she was off leash and completely free the whole time. Maggio has a tendency to loop and stress a bit more, gets rather obsessive about toys and can't really turn his retrieving desire OFF and needed a bit more management to begin with but was actually better on this camping trip than ever before. Likely; his ability to relax a bit more this time was a combination of now being in a place that's starting to feel familiar, together with a natural anti stress formula we all swore REALLY made a difference.

Not quite sure what to do...as you can see. She wants to go in, but dock diving is a new concept to this girl. She learned to swim in this very lake when a little 8-10 month old youngster..but diving off a dock??? not so sure it's a good idea.

BUT THEN something happened (maybe our encouragement that she CAN DO IT...and look at this - all brakes still on she decides to give it a try...but then, look at the next image!!

WAHOO - Dock diving sheltie! This is jump number 2 and look at the different body language here! Holy moly. Now a diver extra-ordinaire! 

Of course, its hard to compete with Maggio's confidence and flying ability. He'd do this all day long and never start to think it's boring.

After five amazing days away, we're back home now and unpacking and remembering through photos and stories. What a great camping trip! It's moments like the fun dock diving event and swimming across the lake multiple times per day that bring us back year after year. The water is warm, you can actually swim and bob around on pool noodles (unlike in the glacial waters we have here at home in Banff). I'm sure we'll go back - if not a couple more times this summer - then next summer for sure...

Everything feels great after a walk in the woods.

Sharing just a couple of shots from the other day with my patient and extremely cooperative models; Maggio and Pinot.

I walk around with a lot of photo inspiration these days - seeing trees, bushes, branches, and grasses as potential backdrops. Opportunities seem to be everywhere - it`s fun to be riding a massive wave of inspiration!

Bringing the camera on a dog outing brings me a lot of joy right now - and fortunately I think the dogs are really loving it, too. 

The reason I love to photograph my dogs in the woods so much is likely very very simple - it`s my `daily therapy session`- the time for me to recharge and renew and just spend time with these amazing four-legged friends of mine. 

I`ve heard a neat saying that goes  something like `there`s no problem or worry in the world that can`t be resolved from the back of a horse`and I feel a bit the same about our daily outings into nature. 

How could  Everything not feel great after one of these adventures!

The garden hose - in frequent use these days.

After a long winter and walking dogs that always were nice and clean when we came back home from our walks - the garden hose is now out, ready to hose off dirty dogs on a moment`s notice.
Most days I can`t deny Pinot and Maggio a good roll in puddles and mud - they get hot and want to cool off in whatever water they find. So be it. That`s a dog. Then we come home and hose off in clean water and quickly try to close the bedroom door so they don`t go have their after-run-nap in our bed!

AAWH. The pleasures of spring. Dirt. Muck. Dogs.

A walk with my dogs and camera

Yesterday I went on a lovely forest walk with Pinot and Maggio. Two hours of exploring, playing, enjoying, just being: and for me: photographing the dogs. I had this massive inspiration to just experiment and test different things: play with light, shadow, shooting right into the light, getting flare, trying to control it (as best as I could) - seeing what would happen if I didn't even try to control it and playing with backgrounds. 

Here I will leave you with some of the resulting images. Bless these dogs: they are truly amazing - unbelievably cooperative and happy to test and try what we're going to do next. I think they really like seeing the camera come out; they're well-paid models! 

Pinot certainly seems to soak it up and actually gets a bit frustrated with me when I tell her it's Maggio's turn and she needs to wait. She will then go on to place herself in a beautiful sit or down near Maggio and pose toward the camera - as if she's still part of the "show" - I just tell her how gorgeous she is and she seems to be happy with that arrangement. She doesn't know I cropped her out of the frame. (unless of course she reads this blog post or goes to check out the photos. LOL). 

Enjoy the photos - Maggio is sporting his True Retriever Colours: mud and muck, twigs and dirt pretty well covering his body. The measure of Enjoyment for a dog :-)

Maggio posing and doing his typical "goofy face". Pinot is impatiently waiting for her turn right below and in front of Maggio...cropped out of the frame.

And then - Pinot's turn to "smile" for the camera. Doesn't she just look like she is soaking it all up??

Am I brave enough to say it out loud?

It's February and it's time to "spell it out" and put down some Goals for 2013 in Writing. I've been collecting strength and strategy / wondering if I will be brave enough to actually verbalize it? 
Some of you know I come from a Visual Arts background first and that Dog Training  - like for most of today's Trainers - is a second career. The super short version of my first educational background is that I did a Master's in Visual Communication - having had a love and passion for all art as well as photography for a long time. My first real job out of University was working as a Freelance Photographer for  the Daily Gleaner in Fredericton, NB. Simultaneously I held a part-time job as Media Production Assistant at UNB; assisting in the department of Media Services and catering to the University's Visual needs. Well - fast forward about 15 years and photography was for many of these years left aside while pursuing the second Passion of my Life: Dogs. I didn't know whether I would ever return to Photography or not. For a while - as film cameras everywhere were replaced by Digital cameras - I didn't even have anything other than a point-and-shoot digital camera. Couldn't justify spending the money on a good DSLR if I wasn't going to be "shooting for real". My focus has, for the last 10 years, been entirely on Dogs! The Training and Behaviour part, that is.

And the years rolled by as I immersed myself in the Learning of All-Things-Dog. All my darkroom equipment from days past became obsolete, film cameras collected dust and became obsolete...and the knowledge I seemed to have gathered - much about printing and darkroom techniques: also became obsolete.

But as months have turned into years and years translated into a Wonderful and Fulfilling career working with Dogs in a Training Capacity - it feels like it's now time to start merging my Two Passions; to pick up the camera again and Really make a commitment to shooting. I have no idea where this will take me or what will unfold. Just know it feels so right that I must put it down on paper. My Big Goal for 2013 is to "Shoot lots of Dogs" - yeah yeah that sounds bad for a "dog friendly trainer" - doesn't it - but maybe that's part of the reason I enjoy that juxtaposition?! 
Therefore, over the next few months I am going to be mixing blog posts about training with lots of posts with Photos of Dogs. I hope you'll enjoy the Visual Component that is to come! A new Year, a New Journey - I hope you'll check back often to see where this Road might go?!
I have no idea - but I'm excited!

random thoughts of the day...

Can't help but smile back when I look at this happy face displayed by Pinot. What a privilege to be owned by these happy and completely faithful characters we call our "Companion Dogs". Pinot is truly a side-kick dog...if all of society would allow for a constant "daemon" to be present - she would be it :-) (If you wonder what a daemon is - you can check it out here: the Golden Compass)

My other buddy, Maggio, is currently not feeling 100% after recently being diagnosed with pyelonephritis (inflammation of kidneys). You can see a bit of his his bare and shaved belly in this photo (as necessitated by the ultrasound to check him out last week).
He's being treated for it, but the poor guy's immune system is not completely happy about antibiotics. 
What a journey it is to live with someone suffering from allergies, and what a learning curve it's thrown me for. While saying all of that - it's been very educational and brought much positive with it: we've made some amazing contacts and perhaps foremost; for me, the journey has been a real first-hand eye opener into "Options" - that there are multiple ways to view healing and health. I've been personally blown away by what holistic medicine  - in the hands of a skilled practitioner - can offer. Through this journey, which started as a VERY frustrating wild-goose-chase looking to identify "allergies"...I have found a holistic vet I simply adore;  and my own views to the body, health and healing have really been impacted. 
And so the journey continues in different ways with each of these remarkable dogs...

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!

Rally Obedience with Maggio

This past weekend I competed with Maggio at the APDT Rally Obedience trial hosted by Sit Happens! in Calgary. We needed one more leg in Level 3 to get his RL3 title - and it just had to be under a different judge than Tammy Brooks who we had already qualified twice under in the spring.

Funny thing, how this training and behavior stuff seems to Evolve without us realizing. I mean - I really did not train and practise much at all for this trial as I have felt pretty confident in our skills in regards to what's required for Level 3. I read through the exercise signs and did a couple of run throughs last week, feeling like "we've got this under control". I should be able to handle through the courses and we should be able to finsih (provided my ring nerves stay under control). But then, in the ring - a brand new problem was born. One that I didn't even know existed.

Our first round, under judge Sarah-Jane Petti - a round which WOULD have counted (had we qualified), resulted in an NQ due to a silly brain fart that took me completely by surprise. Stuff that just "happens" and left me confused about what really did happen? The brain fart moment caught me totally off guard and I was not prepared with a "plan" of how to handle it. Had I kept my brain on my head through it - I would have said to the judge "I would like to re-do this station"...taken a few steps back and re-done the station...thus resulting in deductions in points - but because of my choice to just keep trying on the spot without indicating I am re-doing - I had a Non Qualifying score. It was very messy and also pin-pointed a brand new problem to me: Maggio was totally confused about the similarity of the words "Stay" and "Stand". It had never happened before, but with so many position changes in a row in Rally and going from sit to down to stand and then sometimes leaving the dog with "stay" - I think everything just became a guessing game. He was honestly confused - and happily trying his best. Here is a video of this run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtuKlYzl_08

I only did this one round on Saturday, went home for a "think", a glass of wine and a good sleep before returning back on Sunday. In my warm ups on Sunday I made a point of experimenting with what difference it made whether I used or dropped my hand-signal to "stay" simultaneously as I said "Stay" and whether I could really slur through the first letters in "st...." and really emphasize the "AY!" when I wanted him to STAY. as opposed to "Stand" when I tried to really enunciate every letter. With this somewhat comical plan I made it through the first half of the course pretty nicely....and then we ran into the same trouble again. Stay? or Stand? WHAT?

This time, though - I knew that I have to tell the judge clearly that I am re-doing...and re-do I did: a few times, before we got our stuff straight. Goodness gracious. We got through it but Now I REALLY had to come up with a Real plan.
Here is the video of this round: (which I call "warm up" as it is for the "wrong" judge, so even though we did qualify and had a score of 199, it did not count towards the title)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raIbgzziqtM


I now had a few hours before my final try. I drove off with Maggio, found a nice, big piece of grass in the city and over three little mini sessions set out to convince him that "WAIT" is the new "Stay". I had come to the conclusion that the frequent changes of position, similarity in words was just too confusing and without a new cue that would really sound distinctly different, I would be up for the same mess. Same hand signal, just a new word that is distinctly different than "Stand" to replace the old "Stay". This saved us in the last round. We got through. No big mess-ups, "Wait" worked and Maggio was happy to work. We lost some points to other mistakes and oopses, but with 6 months to wait until the next opportunity to try - I was happy with some loss of points - at least this counted: and Maggio finished his RL-3 title. Hooray!

A big Bison bone for Maggio in the car on the way home. A smile on my face. A couple of ribbons to add to our collection. One fourth placement and one third. But Mostly I returned home with a great feeling of gratitude for a dog who was so very happy to work. It felt like true teamwork and really fantastic to work together! He made me very proud. I hope he understood the many Thank yous I tried to convey last night. He's never asked to sign up in any trial - yet he's travelled this journey with me as a very willing and happy partner. What amazing creatures these dogs are!!!!

Rally Obedience; video

Finally getting around to sharing some video from last weekends fun and great APDT trial in Calgary March 19th and 20th 2011.
Starting in reverse order with the highlight of our weekend - Sunday afternoon, Annette and Maggio earning a 208 (of 210 possible) and a High in Trial for level 3. This was our second level 3 leg - now we only need one more leg under a different judge to complete Level 3 of  APDT Rally'O.

And then goig backwards in time...and into Saturday.
To get to compete in level 3, we had to first successfully complete and Qualify in a final leg of level 2 (under a different judge...we actually had plenty of Qs; just not under different judges)  - which we did Saturday morning (March 19th, 2011)
So, here is our final level 2 leg:

Very happy with how the boy worked! Back in the fall to hopefully complete level 3 with Maggio.