So easily excited!

When you are an owner of a new puppy it takes only little things to get you excited... for instance - Tuesday night at puppy class our loose leash walking work was not so good however the reason it was not so good was because Groovy was wanting to visit the people we were walking past! I found this to be VERY exciting! Who needs a dog to walk loose on a leash anyway when you live on 10 acres? Another for instance... at our informal pup class that we have at rotating places Groovy took a treat from TK (someone she's been VERY scared of since she was 10 weeks old) - this I found very exciting as well! And today's exciting moment - Groovy went out the doggy door on her own and went poop unattended! Woo hoo! That is huge as she has not wanted to be out there on her own quite yet. Nope... doesn't take much to make me happy. The good news is this is true of most "dog people". Example? Sarah's excitement today at finally getting the giraffe toy in her Happy Meal so Kate and Java could have it! :)

Here are some pics taken by Sarah on Sunday and Tuesday. Thanks Sarah!

Groovy and I at the beach

"Shake Your Groove Thang!"

Puppy class friends - Groovy, Kate and Blitz (via cell phone camera).

Want to take a guess at how many pics it took to get this one?

(I don't know the answer but Sarah might)

Groovy and Kate

Beach Baby and Run Run Run!

What a fun weekend we had! Saturday was our disc dog club’s annual picnic that is held at Ft. Desoto which has a dog beach. We always have a good time at this event and I look forward to it every year. Our eldest dogs are not “dog beach friendly” and Tali and Jam only somewhat enjoy themselves there so while it’s fun for me the dogs would probably be just as happy going for a hike or something. Well with the addition of Groovy that has changed. She LOVES the beach. Someone suggested that of course she should – it fits her name. Works for me!

When we arrived it was just about lunch time so we sat and ate with everyone. Groovy was quite comfortable in the group of people – more so than I expected her to be and than she has been. Even with 2.5 year old Kiera around there were no woofs or anything. Kiera did get a little warning when she got into Groovy’s space too much for too long but in all honesty Groovy did awesome with her compared to her last few kid outings and was more curious about her than fearful. After lunch we walked down to the dog beach. I left Groovy’s short leash attached to her in case she went running off or something. We set our stuff down, walked towards the water and Groovy walked right in and started swimming around as though she had been at the beach 10 times before. Jack and I looked at each other in amazement. The more interesting thing is that Groovy would swim up to complete strangers to say hello (men included). Again, Jack and I exchanged looks of amazement – especially when she proceeded to do this on land as well. What dog was this? We didn’t know but we didn’t care and certainly hoped to take this “new” dog home with us. Tali came with us on this outing as well and swam more than she normally does. I think she’d love the dog beach if it were only dogs she knew – it’s all the strange dogs that kind of wig her out but it’s good for her to experience. The day was so much fun. Here are some links to a slideshow of pics and a video. Folks will think I was deluded when speaking about Groovy’s aversion to men when they see this because she is so confident and friendly in the video. The difference was amazing. Needless to say we’ll be going back to the dog beach soon!

Pics:

http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/CFDDCBeachDay2009#

Video of the social swimming butterfly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjzEE21bNwo

On Sunday Tali and I attended a 5 hour small group lesson with Wendy Pape. The group consisted of us, Sarah, Gary, Bev, Sally and Kathryn. It was a good time. We all learned a lot and ran our butts off. It was even not too bad of weather for the first few hours as the rain kept things cooler than normal for a while. Tali did very well on some very difficult courses. I didn’t do too badly either! Wendy was able to help us with our 10th pole popping issue and showed me I could be places I wouldn’t have thought I could be. I was also glad to see that 2 or 3 times when I wanted to handle something differently than most it was actually the way Wendy would handle it. Good to know my brain can still function well as it relates to difficult handling. Haven’t been on tough courses in a long while since Mickie has retired and Tali is still at the beginning levels in most venues (Not that any venue has courses as difficult as the ones that Wendy makes up!). Hopefully by the end of this trial season coming up Tali will be at the upper levels but we’ll see how it goes this year!

Ear update? I untaped them for the trip to the beach – one advantage of using this method! By Sunday we had 1 rose ear and 1 “regular” ear. As of last night we have 1 ear taped and 1 ear not. We’ll see what happens!

Marshmallow head!

She's so cute with her marshmallows on! :) (Why is it spelled mallow but everyone says mellow? Anyone?)


Yes... we've established I'm vain. But to be honest - had she arrived at 8 weeks old with rose ears I'd have left rose ears as I don't have any issues with rose ears. However - her "new" rose ears don't suit her as well so that's why I'm taping. We'll see what happens!

Splashin' Sunday

Yesterday we started out with puppy “class” at our friend Kathryn’s house. It was puppy pool time and child socialization time. Groovy had a TON of fun playing with her brother Seven, a BC pup named Cab, Poppy the adorable swimming Corgi, Pixie the Chinese Crested and assorted IG’s. To be honest – most of the playing occurred with the herding breeds as the CC and the IG were too busy bumming food off of the humans to play with the pups. I am VERY guilty of indulging them in their wishes too – they are just so darn cute and seem so polite when begging since they weigh next to nothing when jumping up on your leg and looking at you longingly… much different begging style than the aussies and clearly I was not immune! I have a few new doggy friends though!

Groovy did really well with the puppy mom’s, running around to say hello and greeting them all. She was rather confident for not having ever been there before, etc. She did OK in the big pool. Wasn’t petrified but wasn’t having fun either. She and I just hung out in the pool together with me holding her and letting her swim and get out on her own. There was a baby pool as well that she, Cab and Seven enjoyed playing around. Notice I said around… Seven and Cab were in and out – Groovy was pretty much just around with no real desire to get in (more on that later). The cutest though was watching little Poppy swim and seeing her tail/nubbin’ spin around like a crazy rudder… SOOO adorable.

Groovy was not comfortable when Tristan (Kathryn’s son) came out. He is 3 but a very dog savvy 3 year old (living with 6 dogs of his own). She woofed at him a little while he was in the pool and some when he was out of the pool. She would eat treats from him though which is something new for her. Normally with men and children she steers so clear of them she won’t eat treats. She even ate treats from Kathryn’s husband as well. She didn’t “like” him but was at least willing to get that close to him. That’s progress! Problems come with this progress however in that now that a little bit of her fear is gone she is what I *think* is curious and aroused by small children. Not a good combo of all three feelings for a little 15 week old brain to deal with… fear + slight curiosity + arousal… gonna have to work out a plan in that regard for sure. The good news is though that she was willing to do behaviors and play with the other dogs with both of them around.

The puppies played for around 2 hours with very little resting. We were amazed. It was actually not hot out (due to continual threatening rain – though luckily it never actually rained). I think the pups were enjoying the reprieve from the heat. It was fun to watch little Poppy do a body dive on top of the pile of 2 aussies and a BC – all of which were more than twice her size. No fear in that little one! I’m not sure that Bev thought it was as fun to watch! :)

After the playtime at Kathryn’s I took Groovy over to our friend Sally’s house who lives literally just 5 minutes away. Groovy and Tex love each other so I figured it was a good chance for her to go somewhere else new and have fun. Turns out she was a little too tired to hang with Tex (no surprise after her busy morning) so we only let them play for a short little while. After Tex went back in the house Sal got some treats and coaxed Groovy into her baby pool. It worked! Not that I hadn’t tried that several weeks ago at Kelli’s but Sal must have good pool kharma! After that Sal and I stood around talking while Groovy explored her small yard that has the pool in it. I actually watched Groovy get bored/run out of ways to entertain herself. She NEVER gets “bored” in our fenced in backyard which I guess is a testament to how distracting the place is thanks to all the woodland animals that come through. It didn’t take long though and Groovy began entertaining herself with the zoomies which promptly included jumping in and out of the pool and biting the water. It was SO hilarious and Sal and I were laughing out loud watching her antics – of all the times to not have my digital or video camera! I guess Groovy finally figured out the fun of water and why her brother Seven is so obsessed with it! I guess I better get a baby pool before the “season” is over!

Groovy spent MUCH of the rest of the day sleeping with a little bit more playing in our yard with our dogs and finding ways to get in trouble in the den while Jack and I watched the last episode of Dexter. I thought it’d be good to have her hang just with us and just chill. No other dogs… no real activity going on. Well needless to say we had to pause several times to remove things from her mouth – things we didn’t even know were in the den (AKA “The Mancave”)! She is definitely a 15 week old pup through and through! :)

Below are some pics of her from Saturday evening… Enjoy!

Groovy head

Groovy butt

Groovy "killing" her toy

Shake it!! (and that rubber heart is pretty darn heavy)

Saturday chillin'

Not much on the agenda for today... Jack and I went to our nephew Nathaniel's 7th birthday party and then back home. The fur kids have gone out several times to play ball and such and now all are taking a nap. A nice relaxing day... as promised some pics of Groovy's current earset. Also a nice pic showing how well Ruckus is tolerating and is getting more comfortable with his new little sister! I measured her today - she's around 15" tall at 15 weeks old.

A good week!

Well I wasn't feeling well when I got home from work today so we didn't make it to the NADAC trial this evening... :( That's OK though - there is another one in August and we'll be sure and hit that one!



Groovy turned 15 weeks old yesterday and weighed 18.2 #'s at the vet on Wednesday. She's growing up fast!



Monday we went for a walk with her and Jam and stopped along the way to see the miniature horse. On the way back dad was coming down the road and stopped to chat. I wasn't sure how Groovy would do with this as she'd never seen a car on our road, had never seen a person talking from a car and still is a little unsure about dad. Well the car didn't phase her, the talking head sticking out of the car didn't phase her and once dad opened the door to say hi to the dogs Groovy took Jam's lead and was very happy and wiggly to see Grandpa! Hooray!



Tuesday was Groovy's first puppy class. She did very very well! Of course she already knew everything that we learned but she's there more for the social aspects anyway. Our teacher is a male - I planned that on purpose! She did great with the VERY full class of people and dogs. She'd hide under the chair a little if a man or child got too close (within 3-4 feet) but other than that was doing her sits and downs like a pro. She loved all the other dogs and I think having them around helped her feel at ease. Groovy also got to spend the day at Duke's Doggy Daycare (Sarah's house) and got a good report card for the day! :) Oh and for an extra bonus - she didn't puke on the way to Sarah's, on the way to class or on the way home (and she had a ton of treats at class)!! Woo hoo!



Wednesday was her big trip to the vet. She did great! Wasn't running up to greet the techs but was not scared either. Didn't puke on the way there or back and enjoyed watching the kitties in their cages up front!



Monday and Wednesday Groovy was "evil puppy" in that if I called her she'd look at me and go the other way. Grrrr... so we've hit that stage have we? Wednesday she ducked under the barbwire fence and out into the cow pasture. She had no intention of returning anytime soon but a baby cow decided to check her out and that scared her enough to come join me on the other side of the fence! The cows were way closer than they normally are and she was actually scared of them at first. I put her on her long line and we just sat and watched them for a while then she was fine. She is officially on "long line lockdown" any time she is out front now.



Thursday was a whole new day for Miss Groovy! Mom was over at the house during the day and told me how well Groovy had listened to her out in the backyard. Then Thursday evening I took her out in the front yard on the long line to watch the other 4 play frisbee (one at a time). Every time I called her name she turned and ran to me - without even having to pull on the long line or anything. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised! :) She also chased a few rollers too!



So overall a good week... not much planned for the weekend except our puppy playgroup/class on Sunday. It's swimming pool and kid socialization day at Kathryn's. Should be interesting!


This is a pic of Groovy from this past Sunday... her ears had gone "rose" a couple of weeks back and after a week of not going back to "normal" I taped them for about 5 days - intended to do it for longer but one fell out. Yes - I'm vain and I know rose ears are acceptable but she is just so much cuter with "regular" aussie ears. Well these ears seen in the picture stuck around until yesterday... now the rose ears are back with an occasional higher set button ear (note the singular there - the other ear stays rose). Interesting... I'll give it a few days and if the rose ears stay it'll be back to tape again I think though I have to say this round of "rose ear" is better looking that the last round... will have to get a pic of the current state of ears sometime this weekend.

Florida States and a Groovy recap

This past weekend was the Florida State Disc Dog Championships. Jack had been out of town all week in Kansas. He literally arrived at the airport at 11:40am, arrived at the house around 1pm and we were leaving by 1:20pm. We had to be in Jacksonville by 5 and literally showed up right at 5pm. Thanks to our friend Colleen for registering Jack and Tali for us so they could play.

It was a fun competition but felt very frantic due to us arriving so close to the start time for freestyle, etc. Tali and Jack made the cut to the top 10 for toss n fetch but Tali was “off” and did not play either TnF or Freestyle like she normally does. Oh well – it was still a good time.

I guess we are due to catch up on Groovy… well let’s see… She’s growing like a weed - up to 17.5 pounds at 14 weeks. She’s getting along SO well with the pack. This past week I’ve allowed Ruckus and her to interact some and while it’s clear he doesn’t care for her he is tolerating her nicely. She is doing an excellent job of steering clear of him too.

On the socialization front… over the past two weeks Groovy has been to DACOF, Florida States, Petco, Petsmart and to my mom’s – meeting my aunt Barbara and playing with mom’s kittens some more. She’s a busy little girl! She did OK at DACOF. The event was indoors and there are dogs and people everywhere. She was pretty scared about some loud noises when folks were moving stuff around and she was scared of men once they talked. She greeted most women very happily. She did well walking around the place with Jack, Tali and I visiting the vendors and meeting some new people and dogs. She also did well just hanging out with Jack in the stands watching the activity below. She did pretty good at Petsmart though she wouldn’t take treats from the manager or a boy that was there. She would at least take treats from me while standing near them. She did well at Petco too. At mom’s house she took a little while to warm up to my Aunt Barbara but once she did they were good friends and she was doing tricks for her. She’s becoming more and more comfortable with my dad too.

She did pretty well at Florida States. She didn’t really want to greet anyone except two teenage girls and our friend Kay. She also was totally freaked out by the speaker system when we were within 20 feet of it and a man’s voice was speaking. She was totally fine with the music though which I found interesting. She did get over the men’s voice on the speaker issue by the end of the competition though so that was good! More good news is that while she didn’t want to greet anyone or take treats from them (though I did get her to eat baby food from a woman or two) she also was not petrified when men standing near talked. She was comfortable greeting dogs “attached” to men and being in their general vicinity while they were speaking. This is progress! By the end of the competition we were hanging out with a group of friends and she was totally comfortable doing so. She wasn’t loving up on any of the people but was completely OK just hanging out with them and their dogs. She has excellent dog skills and definitely feeds off of the dogs around her which is a good thing since all the dogs we hang around are confident at competitions, etc. The best part of the day though was when I took her over to watch Jack practice his routine without Tali. She was very intrigued with him playing disc by himself. I let her run over to him and he started playing with her a little doing short rollers and running around with her. She loved it and had a blast. We were very impressed that she’d play with him in that environment (granted we were a good 100 feet away from the crowd, etc.) not to mention these were full sized discs!

We are still hit or miss with the motion sickness while in the car. She got sick on the way to Petsmart, on the way to Petco and on the way home from Petco. She did not however get sick on the way to or from DACOF or Florida States. An empty stomach seems to be the key to preventing puking – unfortunately that is not something I can always control – especially for evening outings as I don’t know when she’s eaten the treats in her frozen Kong during the day. In the mean time we travel with extra towels in the car! *sigh*

This week Groovy starts a puppy class on Tuesday night at a new place she’s never been and we’ll be at a NADAC night trial on Friday. Speaking of the night trial… little Jam will be running in tunnelers and touch n go. We’ll see how she does! Some folks may call it a debut but I just call it a test. Also speaking of Jam… she rocked at her Frisbee practice last night and we actually happened to be videoing their practice so hopefully I can put a link up to that video later on. If only she played like that every time! She’ll get there though!

DACOF 2009

DACOF 2009

This past weekend Tali and I competed with fellow teammates from Pasco Paws at the 2009 Dog Agility Competition of Florida (DACOF). This agility competition is different than all others in that there are no “Q’s”, no individual titles to be earned, etc. It is one where you compete as a team. Three dogs from each level form a team (for a total of 9 dogs). The top 2 scores from each level count towards the team total. It’s based on time and points. Two teams represented Pasco Paws – Achieve and Believe. Tali and I were on team Achieve. This was my 2nd time running for Pasco Paws – in 2007 Mickie and I ran on team Achieve which placed 2nd overall (out of 30+ teams). This year was kind of sad not being able to run with Mickie but I was excited to give Tali a chance to run. Fortunately for us and for Pasco Paws Tali has not being doing a lot of AKC or USDAA and had no novice or open titles from those venues. Even in CPE she just finished her Level 3 standard titles a few weeks ago. All of this means that she was able to run as a novice dog at DACOF.

I wasn’t sure how Tali would do. She’s never been in an environment like that (indoors, on dirt with stadium seating and 3 rings running at one time). Well I couldn’t be prouder of my girl. She did phenomenal! She had one millisecond of spacing out in her first run and that was it. The rest of the weekend she was focused and ran clean minus a few missed weave entries (which luckily don’t count in novice). Out of her 5 runs she placed 1st in one, 2nd in one, 3rd in two and 4th in the other. Even cooler than that she won High In Level Novice 20” dog! What a shock and surprise! Even cooler was the fact that our team Achieve placed 2nd again this year and the other Pasco Paws team Believe placed 3rd! J

I find DACOF to be very enjoyable – I love the team camaraderie and the atmosphere. Who knows… maybe I could be a flyball person if only it weren’t such a loud sport!! ;)

Here are some pictures of Tali and I with our loot from the weekend…

OK - so it appears I stink at keeping up with blogging. I suspected I would be! :) For weekly pics and stuff Facebook is the place to go - I'm good about posting photos there at least!

Well... let's see...

Last Thursday my sister, brother in law, mom and dad came over for dinner. When is the last time we made dinner for that group? Um... maybe never? Maybe 10 years ago? :) The things having a new puppy will do to you! Randy and Laurel were very accomodating to work with Groovy. Groovy, as suspected, found Randy to be very scary. He's big, he's got a deep voice... she was quite scared. Mickie is our "never met a stranger dog" so I let her be out with Groovy and that helped some. What helped even more was having Tali come out and play with Randy. Groovy warmed up to him some and definitely relaxed as she became willing to walk near him and sniff him and stuff. Good progress... Dad came over a bit later. This somewhat set Groovy back a little but she just hungout under our chairs while we ate. All was going well until something fell off the buffet and made a loud noise. Groovy was back to eyeing the men suspiciously. *sigh* By the time everyone left she was doing better again but not like she had been earlier. Not a success but not a failure... we definitely have some work ahead of us...

Sunday we had our first puppy class. Our friend Kelli who owns Groovy's brother Seven had the idea to have a rotating puppy class. There are several of us who have pups right now so the plan is to have class every week and half or so and have each class at a different person's house so the pups get used to working in a variety of environments. The first one was at Kelli's. The pups (2 aussies, 2 BCs, 1 Corgi, 1 Chinese Crested and 1 Rat Terrier) had a great time interacting with one another and working the various stations Kelli had set up. Groovy did ladder work, wobble board, a short tunnel, etc. Kelli also had her husband TK come out to do some socialization with men. Groovy wanted nothing to do with TK though when Seven was playing with TK she was willing to be near TK. Gary was there too - she doesn't mind him one bit though. He falls into the same category as Jack - a "safe man". Overall though I was pleased with how she did. She was friendly with the ladies and did well with the dogs (minus one spat with the Rat Terrier but they quickly made up). She tugged and chased a roller or two. Overall a good experience. Next class is out here at our place!

This week we spent several evenings at my mom's house. Mom just got 4 new kittens and so I took Groovy over to meet them. She LOVES them - especially the little black one named Amalie. She did very well with dad on Tuesday and Wednesday and is starting to greet him happily. Good progress there! Wednesday my nephews were over. She wasn't too sure about them (they are going on 5 and 7 years old). She woofed at them when they did something too "strange" but otherwise kept her distance and hung out with us. Not great - but not horrible. On Thursday they were still there as was their parents (my brother and his wife). She did very well with Nathaniel (the older boy), sniffed him and generally didn't mind him being near. She was scared of my brother's voice and was very cautious of what Josiah was up to. Every time Josiah came near she got some peanut butter (which she loves) and the boys did pretty well at staying calm around her. She pretty much just sat on the couch between Jack and I watching the whole scene. It worries me that she gets so stressed and worried about men and small children but we'll continue to work through it. I'm hopeful that with continued exposure and no negative experiences she'll at minimum be able to just ignore men and kids. She doesn't have to love them... she just has to be non reactive to them. Frisbee is full of both men and kids so getting to that point is a big priority.

Other than the socialization issues she is doing awesome. No accidents in the house for several weeks (though I'm very good at managing it). I haven't taught her to use the doggy door yet but will soon now that she isn't eating every thing she can find in the pee yard. She LOVES her toys and is doing great with her disc work and retrieve. I've posted some video of her taken on her 13 week old birthday (yesterday).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hl-AkxjcRI


This weekend we have DACOF (Dog Agility Competition of Florida). She'll be coming along one of the days so it'll be interesting to see how she does with that environment! Tali is on Pasco Paws team Achieve. It should be a fun time - I love the supportive team environment of DACOF and we have two really great teams this year. Hopefully I'll have some video links of Tali's runs to post come early next week.

Here are some photos taken over the past week or so... Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/Groovy12Weeks#

http://picasaweb.google.com/HiFiAussies/Groovy13Weeks#