THURSDAY, OCT 7, 2010
I spent today really hustling around getting ready to go to Modesto to present a seminar with Megan Cruz (Go For It! Relaxed and Ready) - the whole time dreading being away from my puppy for the first time. She's only been with me for a week and a half and now I have to leave her.
She's 12 weeks old today!
We did a little training this morning while I took a break from computer work. We did 10 click/treats for standing and another for a cued sit. I am working on teaching her to wait for the sit cue rather than offer sits in a training session. She offered a down and I cued her to down 8 or 9 times using my fist on the floor as a cue. She's very itchy and it messes up the flow of training when she has to stop and scratch so much. No fleas though!
We then did 8 reps of check-in - captured head turns in my direction. She then wandered out the sliding glass door onto the deck. I didn't know where she was and so called her name. She came *barreling* back into the house, leaping over the sill of the door. She got a full 30 seconds of treat-treat-treat for flying back to me so quickly. She is sooooo funny how sometimes she'll just have a super burst of energy.
Marcus was in the office with us. Rosanne kept trying to get him to play with her by play-bowing and barking at him. I click/treated any downs she did as I am valiantly wanting to build the down behavior. Well, Marcus had it - couldn't take being pestered to play so he jumped her and yelled at her, leaving her squealing her head off. That all took place in a tiny space under my desk. She hasn't pestered him since I must say. I kind of think Marcus was a bit extreme in his correction. On the other hand, she's not traumatized and she did learn from it to leave him alone.
On our next computer break, I did quite a few captured check-ins and I put the treat only a short distance away. That made it easier for her to check in again (head turn in my direction) and it also helped her to get less distracted by things around her. This was a great training session!
VET VISIT:
Rosanne had her third set of shots today and she got worm meds too. A small scrape on the top of her back was discovered - possibly from the fracas with Marcus. It has a very purplish edge to it, almost looks like she ran into a purple magic marker. She weighs 9.0 lbs today. The vet wanted me to put flea preventative on her even though no fleas were found. I am declining to do so. I'll wait for a while and see how it goes. It could be a response to the climate change. The Willamette Valley has a lot of allergy-inducing grasses and such.
We had a really nice time on the couch tonight. She laid on my chest for a long time while I did massages ('sagees I call them), T-Touch, stroking. She had very modest chewing on my shirt or my ear. This was an hour of calmness, pretty amazing! She usually has a great need to be constantly busy so being able to relax for an hour was quite an accomplishment.
Later on she had trouble going to bed. I put her to bed at 10 pm, went to bed myself to watch TV. She was kind of agitated, playing with the crate bars, just fussing about. It seemed like a puppy version of insomnia. Could be related to her vaccination earlier in the day. She finally went to sleep around midnight.
FRIDAY, OCT 8, 2010
Off to Auntie Lynn's for almost four full days! I forgot to bring her plastic play pen to Lynn's house but she made do. She put a large dog crate in her office and Rosanne spent down time in that while Lynn did computer things.
Rosanne had big run-abouts with Cousin Ziva (Hungarian Wire-Haired Vizsla) and spent time on the doggie futon playing with Ziva. Lynn said that Rosanne could often be found in the same dog bed, cuddled up with her very elderly Border Collie, Liam. Liam is deaf in his old age and sleeps rather soundly. He never noticed that Rosanne was snuggling with him!
Lynn reported the Rosanne developed quite an appetite while at her house - wolfing down her food and still have stomach space left for training treats. Oh good! that's been a bit of a conflict for me till now.
Lynn also says repeatedly that I got a really, really good puppy. She goes into any crate, settles down and goes to sleep with no fussing. Her house-training is great. She has good dog skills, loves to play - only negative thing she had to say was her face-licking has advanced to face-biting. This is kind of good news for me as I have been unable to get her to play bitey-bitey games with me so I can work on bite inhibition so maybe now I'll be able to get that started.
