A long week with no computer....

Several weeks ago my laptop screen began to flicker. The laptop is two years old and has seen a pretty huge amount of travel, use and a little abuse (including a certain incident involving a german shepherd and a large glass of diet orange soda). The good news is that I bought a two year service plan (from Staples) which expires in about two days. The bad news is that there are no Staples stores in MS so I had to ship it off for repairs. It didn't take me long to see the obvious - even with a smartphone I can't function without a computer. So now I have a shiny new little travel laptop and I will leave the large unwieldy one home as a permanent computer. Cracks me up though to think  that the "big" laptop, probably weighing 5 pounds, is too big and unwieldy to travel with. Then again I threw floppy disks away when I moved so I guess I am officially getting old.

Over the past week I have had some adventures and am getting ready for some others as well. I traveled to Missouri simultaneously delivering the stray pitbull puppies to their foster home and attending the American Rottweiler Club National Specialty, showing both Steel and Jill. More on the National tomorrow, however here is a clip of the babies before they left. The brindle boy was still suspicious but the blond girl, while shy and skittish, was warming up to me and still hopeful that people could be good.  After a few days of eating hotdog pieces from my hands I was able to reach out and touch her. I will never forget the look on her face when I reached out one day and scratched her behind the ears. It is as if she was stunned by how good it felt, she looked at me as if to say "how did you know to do that?" I think in the right home and with some patience she could be a sweet and loyal dog. I am not sure how well the boy can recover from his awful start and handling however at least now they both are with someone who can work with them full time. With my travel schedule for the next few months I just wouldn't be able to give them the rehab socialization that they are going to need.

The Babies:

What Steel and I found while tracking this morning....

I went out around 7am to lay a track for Steel. I wanted to work near some larger buildings so went to the nearby middle school. As I rounded the back corner of the school I was greeted by a chorus of yipping dogs. Someone had dumped a trio of pitbull puppies in the area and they were clustered under a small tree soaking wet and trying to stay warm. Upon seeing me they all did their best to act tough and warn me off with yippee little barks, while at the same time beating a hasty retreat at my approach. I finished laying the track and weighed my options. I determined that if they were still there when I returned later to run the track (well armed with food for bait) then I would get the to a shelter.

At 9am Steel and I attempted to run our track. It went okay except I had to walk him past the cluster of puppies who were STILL THERE. He did a good job approaching them and tracking away from them but had some difficulty overcoming his curiosity when very close to their "territory". So after I put him up I assessed the situation and, armed with a pound of hotdogs, attempted to make friends and determine how to catch the little buggers.  During this process I was approached by the building custodian, wondering what the heck I was doing. He called me "dedicated" but I am sure the word he was thinking in his head was "nuts". Then the heavens opened up. Just when I thought the little pups couldn't look anymore pathetic...

Two of the pups were willing to gobble up pieces of hotdogs and the boldest occasionally worked up the courage to tiptoe up to me and take a piece out of my hand. They weren't having anything to do with being touched or approached though. The tri colored one above, clearly the weakest, of the three was the most wary but also the slowest. I was able to loop a leash onto her and pull her towards the car. The other two followed and although she was not happy about it, people being clearly NOT to be trusted, I got her into a carrier in the van. The other two came almost the whole way (following a trail of hotdog pieces) but were too spooky to catch. Time for plan B....

I went back to the center and collected a smaller plastic kennel and lugged that out into the field where the puppies had returned to. By this time it was a deluge and the poor things had crammed themselves into a corner of the building, getting drenched. It had to be the most pathetic thing I have ever seen. One ran off but the braver lingered long enough for me to block her in the corner with the carrier and an umbrella (not like it was keeping me dry or anything....). I scooped her through the umbrella into the carrier. She was delivered to the van and I returned to the field with the carrier for the third. Did I mention that it was still POURING? Unfortunately the third pup, finding herself alone, kept herself far far away from me and I didn't have any luck catching her. The weather turned more violent and I determined that maybe standing in the middle of a big field holding an umbrella during a thunderstorm was not my wisest move (although I did get a giggle about how fitting it would be to meet my demise in such a manner....).  I left the carrier with some food in it and although the food was gone later, I still could not get close to the pup.

Following a shower and complete change of clothes I then attempted to find someone to take the two rescued pups. One local shelter said that they would take the pups but that they do not adopt out pitbulls - meaning the munchkins would be euthanized. The other shelter, which would theoretically take them, was completely full. I have left some messages with a few pitbull rescue groups and am hoping to hear back from someone. In the meantime the girls are setup in one of the outdoor kennels, they have an igloo doghouse full of blankets and have devoured two meals since they arrived. They were a tiny bit braver by the second meal but the wary one still retreated to her bed once she finished inhaling her dinner.

The view from the "office"

Yes I quit my job, moved halfway across the country and took a pay cut. However.....here is the view from my "office" today. Fun students, training dogs all day and this view. I am not complaining....



Should have listened to Oprah.....

What Oprah Taught Me About Dog Training

This morning I was getting ready to head out and go tracking with Steel and Amber and had the TV on and happened to catch Oprah on her network. She was taking her audience through a series of examples from her show on where people should have listened to that little voice in their head warning them of something. Or people who did and it led to something monumental. She quoted someone (can't remember who) that said that life is full of whispers. If you don't listen to the whispers they become louder, then they become pebbles then they become rocks and then they become an entire wall falling down on you. Much of the time we are clueless until we get surprised by the wall - even though the clues or whispers were there..

Sunday is a great day for tracking here because most stores are closed until late and there are lots of good opportunities for variable surface tracking. However it's starting to get warm during the day so I was rushing to get going and opted to skip Steel's breakfast and feed him when I got back. His food prep is labor intensive and conventional wisdom suggests that dogs track better when they are hungry (because they are in theory looking for food). However the tiny voice in the back of my head whispered that Steel does not do well skipping a meal. He has zero body fat and due to some health issues does not tolerate a lot of foods that should provide long term energy. But I ignored the whisper, after all we were ready to go and I was in a hurry and was focusing on getting what I needed to bring. Since I wanted the track to age a few hours I was in a rush. Like all that hurrying paid off.....Not.

The track was basically a trainwreck. A sluggish start with some unimpressive problem solving, I stopped it 3/4 of the way through and should have stopped it halfway.  If I hadn't also tracked Amber (rockstar but she also got breakfast) it would have been a total waste of my morning.  So, like Oprah says, pay attention to the whisper. It was telling me what to do and I ignored it. Next time I will pay more attention - hopefully....

Steel sleeping in his kennel with his tongue sticking out....

The benefits of traveling...

In the past couple of months it seems like I have been away more than I have been home. Home to me however is very relative - I have my dogs, my computer and my camera with me. That pretty much makes it home, regardless of where we are....

Traveling does have its perks too...

Wonderful weather and scenery....

Seeing old friends plus making new ones.....

Eating things I would not eat at home
(and why didn't anyone tell me that "nestle tollhouse stores" exist??!!)...

Seeing interesting things....
(columns still standing from a plantation house that was  destroyed during the Civil War)

Meeting and training some neat dogs...
(this is a mini aussie, I have seen bigger rabbits but she has a serious motor in her tiny little body:

Someone for everyone....

I am never get tired of taking pics of Calix and Jill....This is because no one except Jill has ever liked Calix. Poor Calix is like that person who means well but talks too loud and stands too close. I have some theories on why this is, but he is quick to offend; every dog he has ever met has pretty much hated him immediately. He was fine with the other dogs in the house over the years but they were more like casual acquaintences (or the obnoxious relative they were stuck with??). Jill actually seeks out his company....much to my (and sometimes his) surprise....

Here they are enjoying their recent vacation in SC:

The Irony....

I just spent the last 10 days or so traveling and teaching various aspects of dog training. Mostly tracking, a lot of work with dogs with poor impulse control and reactivity plus a little bit of obedience. All the dogs were great and I had so much fun with both them and their owners. The ones lacking self control or are reactive however hold a special place in my heart. I guess it is because I see a little bit of Calix in all of them and can see that they don't want to make the wrong choices. They just often have no idea what the right ones are and/or how to make them happen. They just need someone to be very clear to them about what their options are plus someone needs to control the environment so that the only beneficial choice is the right one. Then it is as if they breath a sigh of relief that someone finally gets them. I find the best way to fix things is to give the dog more control rather than less.

This often doesn't take long however it does require some patience. I was thinking about the irony of what I do for a living vs. my personality. I mostly tell people to be patient....I can hear my parents laughing out loud right now.... However on thinking further I realize that I do not find it hard to be patient when training dogs. Overall I don't consider myself a patient person, certainly something that I find a challenge when it comes to people. With dog training however I find it easy to see small subtle approximations of the behavior that I am trying to create. So I don't feel like I am waiting for a change in a vacuum but rather taking tiny steps towards the final product. All too often people wait for the BIG change when the little tiny changes are right in front of them, just waiting to be reinforced.

I thank everyone who make my trips to Virginia and South Carolina so enjoyable.  My new rule however, thanks to Carol, is that I am going to start requiring someone at all my clinics to bring along a cute snuggley adorable puppy. You know like those rock stars who insist on m&m's of a certain color? Well that's in my contract now. :-)



Abbey schmoozing with Dawn



Carol did manage to get some tracking in too....




Perfect tracking weather....