One Drop Aussies

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#