Monty's Training Diary

This blog

2010-01-04T09:30:00.002-05:00

Most of the stuff that I talk about about Monty I now talk about on my other blog http://asdbymyside.blogspot.com So if people would like to read about my cardi there please feel free to follow the link. I also talk about my other dogs who are flat coated retrievers and my service dog there.

I've discovered I'm not very good at updating multiple blogs about multiple dogs.

Thanks for stopping by!

Weave progress

2009-08-02T20:17:00.001-04:00

Today I took Mont to the indoor for my 4hrs of classes. I knew I would have a little time between classes to work his weaves, which was my main thing I wanted to work with him. We also practiced the chute as he hasn't seen that in who knows how long.

I set up 12 poles (I only currently have a set of 6 at home, I need to bring another set of 6 from the indoor to my house at some point soon) and put cages on 1 side. He did AWESOME!!! Towards the end of training I removed cages at either end to work on his entrance/exits and he did well with those too. We're moving right along. Couldn't be happier about it.

Weave Poles

2009-07-24T17:46:00.004-04:00

Today Mont & I worked on his weave poles (and some start lines which went very well)

After him showing me he has a nice speedy, low to the ground, stide through the poles way of doing them with cages, I decided to take a cage off and train that.

He did great!

I took off the 1st cage on the left side of the poles.

He NAILED the entry every single time. When going the reverse direction it took him some time and well placed cookies to understand that the poles don't end where the cages end but that he needed to look for more poles and keep weaving until he ran out of poles, but in the end he got it and was doing great.

We worked on getting the entry from a jump 20' away in a straight line. And from a jump 20' away going on an arc.

I was VERY pleased with todays training session! Good boy Monty!

This blog has been idle far too long!

2009-07-19T20:46:00.003-04:00

That's because I'm a slacker when it comes to training the corgi. He's such an easy dog to live with that I get complacent. BUT if I'm going to go to Nationals next year, I have to teach him some agility so tonight after I mowed the lawn, I set up a course that has lots of little sequences in it and started working Mont.

Today we worked on-

start line stays
weave poles
tunnel dogwalk discrimination
dog walk contacts

I need to go to Home Depot and get a 12' board for the teeter one of my students gave me for my yard. The base is pretty nice, just needs a painted and sanded board. I wish I had some rubber left over but that's all on the Maplewood equipment. Hopefully I will get to that either tomorrow or Tues.

His start line stays are coming along. He is now respecting the space game and if I push his space too hard he does a stress turn so I have to be careful. Before he would not respect my 'taking space' and stays were a constant battle. We did a lot of training this winter and spring on 'wait' at the back door and learning to respect my taking space and it is proving that it's transferring over away from the back door which is really good. We've also been practicing sit and wait for a release at the bogs before he gets to race off and play and romp and I think that type of wait in a high distraction high value situation is helping as well.

Weave poles right now have full cages on 6 poles (I need to bring a matching set of 6 and more cages home from the barn so I can practice on 12 poles) and he is driving into the poles, driving through them and driving out. He is able to drive into the poles from a jump going from about 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock.

Discriminations need much work. He is VERY dog walk focused. Well duh, it's got a high rate of reinforcement for the contact. So tonight we worked quite a bit on a push out to the tunnel. I had to baby sit it a lot, but we were able to end on a positive with a nice out to the tunnel where he really changed leads to get the out.

Dog walk contacts are going very well. He does a nice sit wait in the zone. We do need to work more on him waiting for his 'ok' release after getting his food reward though. As he has a tendency to think 'cookie = all done and I can go race off'

So I was happy with tonight's session with the Mont-a-monster. I am going to try to make a contentious effort to work with him a little bit each night. The course I have up now has nice serpentine and pin wheel options as well as some 'switch' and more discrimination.

1st trial of the year!

2009-04-20T11:55:00.003-04:00

This weekend was the 1st agility trial of the year. My club, ACT-Up Agility was the host which meant I ended up working a lot. 1st was Friday set up day. Long day but nice to see lots of club members there helping and then tunnelers fun runs at the end of the day. I had James with me so he got to run the tunnelers course twice and he had a BLAST!!! He did so well I decided to enter him in 2 runs next weekend. (agility and James is a funny thing, sometimes he loves it and runs fast and clean, sometimes he's slow as cold molasses either case he's a goof on the field)

Saturday was the only day I entered. Due to financial constraints I only entered Niche, he was in all 6 classes. We near nearly finished with his Novice Versatility Superior title so once that's done we'll be in open and then Elite to work on his NATCH. Niche and I Qed in 5 out of the 6 runs. We had a knocked rail in Jumpers I cued the switch late and he dropped a back leg on the turn. He was also ticking bars in the 1st run of the day, Chances, but none came down. I found it strange that he was ticking, as he never does that, he usually has good jumping form and keeps the rails up with ease. I'll bet most if is related to the ear surgery he had last month and how out of structural alignment that made him, which is still getting adjustments to fix.

All in all I was happy with Niche's performance. We had some really nice runs- fast and clean and connected. Next weekend we have another trial, just Saturday also. With our 1st Elite class- Elite Tunnelers.

Happy Birthday Niche!

2009-03-19T12:10:00.002-04:00

I can't believe the whirling dirvish is now 5. Kinda scary. Niche is a great dog, but boy does he have energy. He is my insomniac dog, literally, he just wants to be on the go, go, go all the time! Niche has an internal clock that is completely out of whack and has trained me well. He starts demanding supper at 2pm and wakes up at 4am expecting breakfast (well that never happens!). He is ALWAYS hungry and eats the most out of any dog in the house. Fastest metabolism in the East.

Niche still loves agility and is crazy excited that the weather has warmed up so we are back to practicing in earnest. Last year we added carting to our list of fun things to do and today as a present I got his cart and harness out of the basement and we practiced in the yard. He's even getting the hang of backing up while traced to the cart. Pretty cool!

I can't take him swimming though which his favorite all time birthday present as his stitches from a household altercation aren't coming out until Sat.

This year the flat coat specialty is in RI so it will be Niche's year to have a lot of fun. Planning to enter agility, conformation and field and possibly obedience.

Here's too a happy birthday for my BrownBoy and to many happy healthy years more!

Back to Work!

2009-03-17T17:06:00.002-04:00

Well spring seems to be at least pretending to be here for the time being (we have had snow storms in April, so I'm not counting my chickens just yet!) and therefore my yard is clean of snow and actually suprisingly dry for this time of year. So it's time to get back to work with the boys! This winter I didn't really do much with anyone but Obi in terms of agility, and obedience.

I have been told that I need to go to the cardi national in PA next year. I keep hearing, "Katrin, it's sooooo close! You have to go!" from one J.G-P. friend of mine :-P But the only way I'm going is if I can actually compete in something and therefore I need to like um actually train the corgi on more than just house manners and kiddie stuff.

One thing I really, really want to do more of is herding. I have one student who comes to agility class as a drop in with her 2 dogs, and the fee she pays me would pay for a herding lesson and the travel to there, and I keep thinking that would be "my" money as opposed to like "food" or "house" or "car" money and I think I want to spend it on herding lessons. BUT before we can do more of that I really need to teach Monty a reliable 'down' and 'wait'. He has a pretty sucky down and wait. He does slightly better at a stand or sit and wait, but it's really all bad due to my lack of training it. I can usually teach a pretty good stay, but Monty loves to push every button known to man and I need to be more consistent about not letting him do that.

I think a year is a reasonable time line to get a good solid 'wait' and 'down' on the herding field (and agility and obedience) and get some good practice with the sheep and be ready for HT or PT come the national.

Once he gets a good wait and down, we could then do rally and agility. For agility I will also need to teach him weaves. He does everything else. Has generally nice solid contacts, keeps the bars up, knows the other obstacles minus the weaves.

Then at the national we could do- herding, agility and rally. Which would be more than enough and could be fun.

So my list for Monty is-

Reliable drop and down.
Reliable sit, stand and down stay
Weaves
Precision Heeling (he does a nice loose leash walking right now but not competition ready)
Train for HT or PT on sheep

I have a year, now to get cracking!

My have we come a long way

2009-02-09T11:01:00.002-05:00

For those that don't know, I got Monty because he's a resource guarder. His last home didn't give him a job, so he invented one for himself. Food objects mostly, which he tries to inhale at lightening speed regardless of the consequences just so that no one else can have it. We've worked a lot on his guarding since day one he was home, and he has improved tremendously and last night just showed how much.

Sunday night is garbage night here at my house. And last night I was really, really stupid. I currently have a cat that I'm borrowing to combate a mice problem, and my usual way of doing garbage is I go down clean the cat box, bring that bag of garbage upstairs, empty the kitchen trash then take those 2 bags outside to the trash barrel and move it to the street. Except last night I did it backwards. And it could have ended really, really badly.

I emptied the kitchen trash, and LEFT the full plastic trash bag Right In the Middle of the kitchen floor, right where Monty could get it. I completely forgot about his thing with food. He's been so good lately. I went into the basement to do the cat boxes and ask I came up the stairs I saw 3 flat coats staring at me, but no cardi. And went "Oh shit."

He had torn a hole in the garbage bag and was eating a cooked duck carcass left over from dinner the other night. Not good. He'd gotten a few good crunches into it, when I told him, "Mont, can we not do this? You're going to kill yourself." He let me scruff him, and he dropped it, I put it in the sink, picked up the garbage bag (he's still scruffed, as he'll just dive back into it if I let go) and then let him go. It was all rather painless. I got the garbage outside. Came in, fed him some bread to hopefully prevent any bones from perforating his insides and we went to bed.

All I could think of was how a 6 months or a year ago that incident would have been a massive fight. He would have hung onto that carcass until I'd practically cut off his airway to get him to drop it. He didn't do that last night. He would have sworn at me until the cows came home as I cleaned up the mess. He didn't do that last night.

He's come a long way my little short dog. Still gets into trouble, but it's a lot easier to get him out of it now than it ever used to be. Which is rather a huge relief. The work has paid off.

Visit with 'D'

2009-01-17T11:36:00.004-05:00

Monty has a little friend who we'll call D here for the sake of anonymity. D is a little boy about 5 years old and he's autistic but he constantly talks about dogs to his parents. It's at the point where they ask him if he wants a baby brother and sister and he says, "NO, Dog!" I hear about D all the time at painting class and that's how his grandmother got the idea to give D for Christmas 6 visits with Monty. Today was our 1st visit.

Overall I think it went rather well. I had brought some buscuit shaped cookies and Monty's quacky stuffed duck for us to play with. At 1st D was very shy and didn't want to talk to Monty other than say 'Hi' and really was nervous coming up and didn't want to pet him or Mont to touch him. So instead he played with his little race cars and talked about his cars and told Monty and me all about them. Then D decided that playing fetch with the duck would be fun especially since the duck 'quacks' rather than squeaks. So we did that for a while. Throught out the half hour we were there D kept getting braver and braver and closer and closer to Monty and in the end he even let Mont sniff his leg without getting nervous.

Finally when it was time to leave D had a little melt down because he wanted Monty to stay, but he did with his dad's help give Monty a good bye cookie and settled down and said good bye after that and was told that Monty will come back to visit him again.

So I think it was a good visit and Monty did well. He's such a good little corgi boy.

2008-12-27T10:34:00.003-05:00

Holly my friend from Visions tagged us for a new game. I have to think about who each dog would be if he were human (personality wise), in general or as a specific person.

Ok so here goes:

James (6.5yrs)- James, who is James? I don't know a lot of people, but if James were human he'd be a middle age geiser going "when I was a kid, I never would have done anything like that!" when we all well know he was 1st in line to pull those kinds of teenage stunts.

Niche (4yrs)- No question Niche is a jock. He will go all day every day working out and then some. And wants all the ladies. But underneath he really doesn't have the confidence to back himself up.

Monty (4yrs)- He's an Imp. Well those aren't human, but he still is one. He's got a mischievous streak a mile wide. But he's still incredibly lovable and cuddly.

Obi (10months)- I'd have to say Obs is Richard Feynman (the physicist). A hard working geek with a huge sense of humor who as a whiz kid was fixing neighborhood transistor radios during the great depression and setting his hands on fire in his magic tricks show.

No surgery!

2008-12-16T11:25:00.000-05:00

I dropped Monty off at the vet’s this morning and told them that the growth had gone down significantly (even more so from last night to this morning) and that if the vet checked it and felt he didn’t need surgery today to give me a call. Well about a half hour later I got a call that my vet checked the growth and felt it had gone down even more and wasn’t as rock hard so wants to continue antibiotics and recheck in a week. So no surgery for Monty! I am relieved! I picked him up and he’s back home.

Poor Mont-a-Mont

2008-12-15T08:59:00.003-05:00

I have avoided posting this while holding my breath that maybe the antibiotics would work, but alas they have not and tomorrow Mr Mont-a-Mont has to have surgery to remove a thing on his ncek. Thing "thing" is a "thing" because the needle aspirate path report came back that it was not really clear what it was. No cancer, but not a salivary gland thing either. Possibly a cyst. Not really sure though.

When this all started 2 weeks ago it was the size of my fist hanging off his neck, rock hard. Now it is the size of a ping pong ball and still rock hard.

Both my vet and I were hoping that after 2 courses of antibiotics it would have gone away, but it hasn't. Therefore tomorrow the boy is going under the knife. And I'll be a worried wreck.

Fun for Niche

2008-12-10T13:58:00.003-05:00

Niche now has a cart and harness and he LOVES it! We've been practicing around the yard and hope to meet up with the local Berner and Newfie club folks when they go for carting walks. So far I have learned that tunnel sand bag holder for agility make great carting weights!

Happy Birthday!

2008-12-05T12:41:00.003-05:00

Happy 4th Birthday to Mr Mont-ster!!!

He's so far having a good day. Though I did trim his nails and he was rather petrubed about that, after he got string cheese so that made things all better :-)

Can't believe I've had him for 18 months already! Where has time gone.

And when he is good he is very, very Good and When he is Bad he is Horrid!

2008-11-28T16:32:00.003-05:00

Yes that just about describes Mont to a 'T'.

"And when she was good she was very, very good and when she was bad she was horrid." Was some little saying that I grew up hearing. Says a lot about parenting 3 girls doesn't it? Regardless.

Mont has had times of being very very good and times of being very very horrid as of late. Yesterday and today being prime examples.

Yesterday he was good kitchen help all morning. Then very good all afternoon. Had a nice walk with Li, Ryan, Niche and me. BUT late in the evening he tried to guard the gate to the dog room and James (top dog in the house) said, "Uh, excuse me, what did you try to say to me?!" and Mont said, (rather stupidly), "Yeah you heard me, get away from the gate." And James said again, "Uh, excuse me, what did you say?" (giving Mont so many chances to correct the err of his ways), yet Mont just got himself deeper and deeper into shit until Mont tried to nail J and J got him on the lip. And Mont now has a fat lip.

This morning, he was quiet and good all morning. Had a nice walk with Julie and Bug and Ike and Niche and me. Behaved himself very well. Then I came home to eat lunch and Mr Horrid came out to play. He was trying to jump on the counters, to steal my lunch, to get in the garbage. He even managed to steal the wish bone and eat it (which was NOT good Mr!) as I was throwing it out! Bad bad corgi.

Now we will just have to wait and see which corgi comes out to play tomorrow. Here's hoping for the Very very GOOD one!

Kitchen Help

2008-11-27T07:28:00.003-05:00

Monty has decided that on this Thanksgiving (and probably forever more) that it is his corgi duty to take up as Kitchen Help.

His job includes-

cleaning the floor (short legs and long tongue come in handy for that one)
scouting out the counters (again short legs come in handy since if you can't actually reach to steal anything mum doesn't get as edgy about it)
catching falling objects- of the edible variety of course
cleaning dishes as the prewash cycle
Keeping The Flat Coats Out of The Kitchen!!!! (that one he invented himself since actually the flat coats really don't want to be in the kitchen as they get stepped on so they tend to go lay in the living room and take a break)

Early this morning when I was up and they were all crated eating he was very P.O.ed that he was not allowed to start as Kitchen Help right then and there but had to wait. Regardless he says it has begun! (you just can't hire help as good as this folks)

He ate paint

2008-11-16T17:39:00.003-05:00

These dogs are all trying to give me a heart attack. They'll be the death of me yet. Today Monty decided it would be a good time to test out how Sap Green tastes. Thing is some oil paints (the artistic kind) are made with stuff like lead and cadmium and chromium, which are all really freaking toxic. I put a canvas that I thought was more dry than it apparently was leaning against the wall, I turned my back for 2 seconds, and he had licked off a 6" square of the green. Damn it! So called the ASPCA Poison Control Hotline (a phone # every dog and cat person should have on hand!!!!) to learn that it won't kill him, probably just give an upset stomach with the amount he ate. Whew! Relief! The vet on the phone said that if I can get him to drink water to dilute it in his system that would be good, so my friend Li had the bright idea to mix chicken stock in the water to get him to drink and yup, he did. Also gave him some bread. Now he's fine. Knock on wood.

Maybe it's time I seriously thought about changing mediums. Acrylics are so much less toxic...

Something is very wrong with this picture

2008-11-11T22:11:00.002-05:00

A mouse just skittered across my kitchen and NONE of my dogs moved from their spots in the living room the next room over. And I'm rather sure at least TWO of the dogs SAW the mouse and CHOSE not to move.

Humph. I feed these dogs way too well.

Already ordered some traps. Will probably be doing catch and release all winter long...

Monty & Agility Class

2008-10-30T16:19:00.004-04:00

1st an obligatory cute devil corgi photo complete with vampire teeth and spooky eyes just in time for Halloween (luckily for all he just sucks the blood out of sticks not actual humans or canines, though cats have crossed his mind on occasion I dare do say. He and the neighborhood cat have stare downs on a fairly regular basis)

And the course from Tue class for Julie, Blue and whom ever else would like to reference it. Tonight we're doing the reversal of it. The spacing isn't right on the diagram on some bits, I ran out of time, it was pretty consistent 20' spacing throughout.

Bug in the Lily Pads

2008-10-20T18:07:00.002-04:00

I painted Bug in the Lily Pads for Julie (it's her birthday/holiday gift, see sometimes I'm nice and do stuff like that). Just finished the 2nd coat on the white lily flower today, so just has to dry a bit then the 1st varnish coat (not true varnish but a kind that the paint can still dry through, oil paints don't air dry they cure and that can take over a year) and she can have it. Her "Honor-Bug" is related to Mr. Monty, same breeder and all. Actually I think Bug is Monty's uncle even though Monty is 2 years older. I don't really remember. Regardless, Happy Birthday Julie!!!

OMG!

2008-10-16T16:05:00.002-04:00

I put a bowl of chicken noodle soup (hot, right out of the sauce pan) on the kitchen table to let it cool then eat and walked away to the other room and Monty did NOT put his 2 front feet up on the table to scope it out and see if maybe he could snitch something as he has done Every Single Other Time I put something on the table and walk away.

No, instead he walked over to the couch, not even glancing at the table, hopped up in his favorite spot on the couch and took a nap.

Oh my god. Who is this good dog and where is Monty???!!!!

LOL. Good boy. (and no he hadn't just had dinner, as if that would have mattered to him anyway)

Dogs are funny critters

2008-10-16T15:00:00.001-04:00

(or maybe it's just Monty)

Who would trade a nice juicy raw lamb bone twice the size of his own leg, for a tiny little peanut butter dry buscuit about the size of a human finger nail?

Would you?

Monty says, "Sure, that's a fair trade."

Thank god for small favors.

Tired dogs

2008-10-12T20:41:00.002-04:00

Today we went to the cranberry bog for a run. Well the dogs ran and ran and ran and Li and I walked. We haven't been there in Months! (it's hunting season, so only no hunting on Sundays) But the dogs LOVED it!

They were in an out of the water, chasing each other, racing around like nutcases. I saw a fox, luckily the dogs did not. Li got some good photos, will have to get them off of her camera and post them here.

Once home, I realized the flat coats were loaded with those tiny little cockle burrs, so had to get out the comb and brush them all. They seem to stick to Niche the most, though Obi has a very thick coat so they get rather embedded in him too. James, they practically fall out. Monty doesn't have any problems! Which is good since brushing him in the way I would have to would be a bear. So far, haven't found any ticks on them, but I got one off of James the other day so I'm sure I'll be pulling some off of all the guys from today's romp.

Now the guys are completely wipped out and zonked out on various pieces of furniature and dog beds. Zzzzzz. They won't move till I finally go to bed and kick them outside for one last pee break, then sack out on my bed and be dead to the world till morning most likely.

Agility Class

2008-10-07T22:41:00.002-04:00

Per Ms Julie's request. The course from this evening's agility class. I was not able to run any of my dogs on it. Niche can't come to the indoor as the horses give his allergies hell. Monty has a split toe nail. It's way too advanced for Obi, though we did practice his contacts and he was pushing buttons, typical adolescent. And James is recouping from an ouchie back soft tissue thing that tends to crop up every so often.

Herding Seminar Photos

2008-10-06T10:12:00.004-04:00

Thanks Julie!!!!!!!!!

Poor Monty

2008-10-06T09:20:00.003-04:00

What is it with my dogs and toe nails lately? A few months ago James snapped 2 off at various times and today Monty is gimping and come to learn it's because he's split a toe nail on a front foot as well. I think they are getting the nails caught in the back door but I can't for the life of me figure out exactly where so I can remedy the situation.

He is feeling very sorry for himself and wants mummy to take care of it. Which to me just goes to show how far our relationship has come in the past 15 months since I got him last July. Before he would have hid that he hurt and never let me touch his foot without a fight. This morning, he was holding it up and when I asked him what was wrong and if I could see, he came right over and let me look and I didn't get a nasty face until I touched the part the Really Hurt and even then he didn't snark me he just puckered up his face. It doesn't look that bad and I don't want to trim it back as it will bleed all over the place and then really hurt and he'll be really upset and it doesn't look like it needs that as I think it will grow out. He's walking on it and going up and down stairs and such, so it doesn't hurt that bad. So he's just going to have to take it easy for a bit and I'll keep an eye on it to be sure it doesn't get infected.

Nice to know we're at this point though and he feels ok with letting me do stuff to him that doesn't really feel so nice.

Monty's Herding Day Out!

2008-10-04T18:55:00.003-04:00

Today Monty had a day all to himself with his 'mum'. We went to the Amy Hill Herding Seminar put on by the Mayflower Pembroke Welsh Corgi Club.

All in all, I have to say Mr Mont did GREAT! We had 2 working times with the sheep and he learned a lot from the morning to the afternoon session. We have worked with a rake before, but not a stock stick, so that transition was different for him in the morning, but by the afternoon he was old had with it and understood.

Amy has Monty's Aunt Libby down in FL and says Monty is a lot like his aunt. Tough little dog, pushy too. She thinks he could go far in herding if I wanted, which was nice to hear.

Mont seemed to have fun and really does love those sheepies. The place the seminar was held was less than an hour away, so I might try taking lessons there when I can instead of the other trainer which is over 90 min away. Would at least be easier to get to and has nice sheep to work as well as ducks.

Fun day!

Class course for 9.30.08

2008-10-01T15:26:00.000-04:00

Woo-Woo!!!!

2008-09-24T17:46:00.002-04:00

He's such a back talker this one! Hysterical! He races back and forth between what he believes needs attention RIGHT NOW DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!!! woo-woo-ing the whole time. And getting more and more P.O.ed if I choose to ignore him or laugh at him because "No, you're not getting let back in the dog room to harass the other dogs as they finish their dinner bones, you ate too fast, that's not my fault"

Such a nutcase. Funny. But a nutcase. And a demanding one at that! :-)

The Devil is "Cute"

2008-09-20T13:52:00.004-04:00

My neighbors on 1 side are a husband and wife living on the 2nd story and the father and mother of the husband of the 2nd floor living on the 1st floor. So 2 families. 2 generations. I don't talk to them much (ok read that to be 'at all', well before a few days ago), (I do wave when I see them, then skitter into the house or car, I'm not really that friendly in person with people I don't know) but 2 weeks ago Niche got really, really sick. And when he was to come home, (he spent 3 days at the regular vet and 3 days at the ER vet/Specialty clinic where everyone and his brother looked at him and his case and scratched their heads, saying "That's one sick dog, but no idea why." It was just great, let me tell you) I walked over and rang the door bell on the 1st floor as I wanted to tell them that no one can figure out why Niche is sick and if it was catching I wanted them to be watchful as they have 2 older dogs and I didn't want anything bad to happen to their dogs. And I told this to the father.

So a few days after, I was out back in the fenced yard with all of the guys and the father comes over to ask how my dog was. And we have a little chat. And my dogs are being really, REALLY good and not barking at him or even paying him any mind or anything (thank god, have to keep up good neighbor relations and all, as by now they probably think I'm slightly off my rocker). And he says, "That black and white one is really cute." Yeah, Monty is, he's a little devil though.

Today, was out in the yard again with the guys (plus a few more belonging to a friend) and the son came to the fence to say hello and after a quick "They aren't all mine!!" frantic babble, we had a little conversation. Again my dogs were all SUPER good, no barking or paying him any mind. And he says, "That little black and white one is really cute." Yeah, Monty is, he's a little devil though. (why did I feel like it was deja-vu?)

Well, I have to admit, he IS cute and many days it is his saving grace. Like when I find him 1/2 in the fridge trying to steal something. Which is basically his only (knock on wood) transgression as of late. Though a really freaking annoying one! At least he sticks to things on the 'dog shelf' in the fridge. Probably because it's the lowest shelf there for most accessable to one at corgi height and 2 probably because it has stuff like RAW MEAT on it and all of the stuff on upper shelves is like vegetables or in containers since it's for human consumption only.

Goofing in the back yard

2008-08-20T16:47:00.004-04:00

The 4 goof balls: Mr Obi, already 6 months old:
Uncle Niche and his nephew Obi:
Monty doing what corgis do best, roll in stuff (at least it didn't stink)
James, with the squeaky toy of course!

Tattle Tale

2008-08-16T11:09:00.003-04:00

Mont is SUCH a tattle tale. He tells on Niche mostly, but on Obi too. And they don't even do anything bad! Mont gets in more trouble than those 2 combined, but they never tattle on him. Though I think Obi considers it sometimes.

The other day, I must have forgotten to close the hall gate that goes to my bed room. Not that there is anything really in the bed room to get into anymore. Except that Monty likes to climb from the bed onto the top of the wire crates trying to find dropped treats or god knows what else. That started the day he realized I used to leave the treat jar up there. USED to, that is, until I walked in the bedroom one day to find him on top of the wire crate, eating all of the dog cookies. Now it lives on the top of the dresser which is about 6' off the ground. That was also the day I started to keep the gate up or keep the bedroom door shut. He also once got into a pair of pants I had on the crate that had treat crumbs in a pocket, luckily found him before he killed the pocket.

But the other dogs go in and out of the bed room, not causing any trouble.

Still Monty tattles.

So I must have left the gate open, and all of the sudden Monty comes charging into the living room RooRooo and all excited. I go "What now?" and he runs towards the bed room. I do a quick head count, missing 1 black puppy head. Think, what could Obi be getting into??

Go in the bedroom and all that Obi is doing is laying on the bed, chewing on his toy, that he thoughtfully brought up on the bed with him when he jumped up there so that he wasn't chewing the covers or pillow or anything bad.

I told Mont "Just because YOU cause trouble and aren't allowed to be in the bedroom unsupervised anymore, doesn't mean anyone else has the same rules"

He's such a corgi, good thing he's cute.

Who needs a horse?!

2008-08-04T17:11:00.002-04:00

YEAH!!!!!!!! My dog sulky is almost finished!!!

I know- "Almost finished??!! When did it start getting made?!"

Yesterday. Literally.

And, I'll have you know- NOT by me!

Nope, a few Mondays ago I had my aunt, uncle, mother, sister and 2 young cousins over for dinner. On the crate next to the couch I had sitting the book/training manual "Travel at the Speed of Dog" which is a guide to dog driving (aka sulky driving with a dog instead of a horse) which my mother picked up and started to peruse.

I then had to explain my little plan to teach Niche to drive, then Obi when he is old enough. teaching Niche 1st because he is old enough and energetic enough. But that the sulkys are incredibly expensive (over $1,000) and the harnesses ain't cheap either (about $200) and I don't have that kind of money.

Then my uncle, gets ahold of the book and after a quick look says, "You could make one of these easy with a bike cart or double stroller." What?! My ears perk up! Oh yeah, he says, could do that simple, just have to find the right thing at a yard sale. Oh, I don't usually go to yard sales. BUT HE DOES!!!!!

Yesterday, I called them to tell them something else and got my uncle. He says, "I have a surprise for you!" Oh, no, what? (I don't like surprises) Luckily he remembered this and doesn't lead me on or make me guess or anything and just tells me, "I found a double stroller in a yard sale and already started taking it apart for your dog cart!!" Wooot!!!!!! He was as excited as I was!

Today he worked on it even more and I went over to see it. It ROCKS!!! We had a slight little 'discussion' about the folcrum point and why it was so important to me that he balance the cart in a certain way (with the axel slightly in front of the seat, not at an equal balance point to keep weight off my dog's back) and I believe I won that argument. When I left, he and muy aunt were going to Home Depot to get the last parts and hopefully by the end of the week it will be finished.

Right now the wheels are on the small end of what I read is considered 'acceptable' for dog driving, so I will probably have to up grade those, but it will be good to start with.

I have been doing ground work with both Niche and Obi over the past month, so hopefully it will go well when all the piece come together. I believe Niche and I will start in the cemetary as there are wide flat paved roads and his favorite thing- the pond there as a reward.

Now to just order the harness and wait for that to come in.

Who says I need a mini horse? I gotta flat coat! :-)

History almost repeats itself

2008-07-27T10:44:00.002-04:00

My 1st dog, Barley, was a large black fuzzy dog. A retriever x husky mix. The only similarity he would have to Monty is they both have a curled tail. And they both eat strange things. That's the bigger similarity I guess.

When Barley was about a year old, my family went to the grocery store, where we got items that were canned or otherwise what we felt non-desireable to a dog and then we went to lunch (or maybe it was dinner), leaving Barley in the car (it was a cool fall day, no risk of heat stroke).

We came back to a a WHITE interior (when we left it was brown carpet) and a black dog with his jaws fused shut and white paws. Guess what he decided to eat? A 5lb bag of flour. And flour when wet turns very glue like. Cleaning that car after was god awful. Luckily his jaw-glue dissoved fairly quickly and I didn't have to pick away at that for hours on end too.

This morning, I was trying to cook oatmeal for the dogs. And guess what I dropped on the floor? The ENTIRE, nearly full, container of Quaker "Quick Oats" oatmeal. And guess what dog dived right in? You got it, Monty. And guess what I then had on part of my dining area carpet? You got it, oatmeal glue (seems has those same glue when wet properies as flour). Right after I had just vacuumed the carpet and washed the kitchen floor of course. And Monty then realized he had oat meat glue caked to the roof of his mouth and started to glup trying to swallow, yet it was firmly stuck to the roof of his mouth. All while I'm trying to get him out of the kitchen so I can clean up the mess before he eats any more of it.

Ugh. It was fun. Really, really fun, if you hadn't guessed.

Corgi Torture!

2008-07-25T19:08:00.004-04:00

This evening Julie came over for a joyous round of "Corgi Torture" aka nail trimming. Monty and Bug were less than thrilled with the proceedings to say the least.

Julie had gotten some rather fancy organic and all roast beast from Trader Joes, but still, definitely "CORGI TORTURE! YOU HATE ME! I HATE YOU! YOU SUCK!" was screamed by the little short legged ones.

Bug was first. I did the nail part, Julie did the feeding part. He was a tail tucked wiggle worm nut case. Though he did settle down after a bit. And then when his nails were done we had goofy happy time on the table trying to convince him that the table was not the worst place in the world since of course Cardigan Welsh Corgis are table dogs and he needs 3 more points to that breed championship. He was not totally convinced about Happy Table Time and once I took the grooming noose off tried to fly off, but we then worked that and he was better.

Next was the Evil Dog, Mr Mont-ster. Nail trimming is one of the very, very few times where I think that if Mont was giving the opportunity to take my face of, he might just do more than think about it. Even Julie was amazed at what a shit he can be. Actually though, tonight he was a LOT better than he has been in recent weeks, I think the generous portions of Roast Beast being handed over by Ms Julie every time he let me trim a nail without a nasty face was a huge help. And he was even willing to talk to me after, on previous nail trim days, he hates me for at least an hour and if he could give me the finger I'm rather sure he would, repeatedly. The funny thing is, I rarely ever quick him, I think I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've quicked his nails in the past year, I'm always pretty calm and indifferent about it, I don't yell at him or get rough or anything it's just matter of fact "I'm doing your nails so deal" and he always gets treats when he lets me trim a nail and doesn't try to be a shit. And none of the flat coats have problems when I do their nails, they just stand there and I do their nails then they get a treat at the end, no biggie. And I am fairly neurotic about making sure nails get done once a week, so not like he goes months without having to put up with it. Dunno, he's just a nut.

Regardless, Julie and I decided to try to get together every week we can to work on the Corgi Nail Problem in tandem and hopefully get both the guys through and over their issues. Will probably take at least a year, good thing we're patient.

Mornings

2008-07-24T08:17:00.003-04:00

How the boys spend their mornings:

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. They haven't even had a run yet!

NADAC Championships 2009

2008-07-14T09:35:00.004-04:00

I think I want to go. I think I want to qualify with Niche. I think there is a decent chance we can, if I play the cards right.

NADAC Championships is going to be held in TN in Sept 2009. You have from August 1, 2008 to August 1, 2009 to accumulate points. While, I don't think I can manage running in the Pre-Elite Regular Division at Championships as it is so mentally and physically taxing, I do think we can qualify and do well in some of the Special Skills classes like Tunnelers, Touch N Go, Weavers and Jumpers.

To Qualify for those (this year, not sure what next year's rules are going to be) you need an Open or Elite title and at least 30 pts in that year. We have our Open Tunnelers and Open Touch N Go titles. And Novice everything else. Actually have our Outstanding Jumpers and Outstanding Chances. The trick is, I want to earn is Triple Triple or at least Novice Superior Versatility Award, so refuse to move him to Open until he has his Superiors (100 pts, or 10 Qs). We have 70 Novice Jumpers pts, 60 Novice Chances Points and 40 Novice Weavers Points. So to Qualify for Championships in Jumpers I will actually need 60 pts (30 to get us to Open then 30 for the Open title), for Weavers 90 pts, etc.

The other trick is right now I can't trial more than 1 day at a time. My body and brain quit, and I am so physically and mentally exhausted to the point that I can't get of bed (thank you fibromyalgia and chronic migraines!) And due to gas prices, I'm rather limited in the trial radius I can get to.

So this will take some thinking on how to sucessfully do. We haven't trialed in a year due to my health issues. But in previous years we have been pretty consistent in Regular, Touch N Go and Tunnelers. Jumpers usually 1 bobble would kill us and Weavers his weaves were really erratic for a while and were just starting to be come consistent in trials when I had to take a break.

There is a trial in August I want to go to that is just Special Skills classes, 1 day only. If we go to that and do well, that would be really good. Then in Sept there are 2 weekend trials less than 20min from my house, we're going to enter 1 day each. Possibly if they don't fill, I might enter jumpers and weavers only on Sunday, just to try to get those points. October there is another local trial, which I'm planning to enter 1 day, and that will probably be it for us till Spring.

I've found that I can't take Niche to the indoor where I teach every week since there is something in the new sand/dirt that sends him itching like crazy for days and days unless I give him a bath immediately. But we have a large nice flat grassy back yard, so I will have to work with him there on a regular basis. I know his weaves will need work, and his jumping too, his contacts are still pretty consistent, as are his stays and distance/discrimination/direction skills.

So lots to work on. Hopefully we can do it, and then afford the trip itself!

Agility Class

2008-07-08T13:00:00.003-04:00

Marie wanted a copy of this mornings course. So figured I'd post it here to, we had a lot of fun with it. Messing around with different start line formats, how to handle the 6-10 bit, what dogs were comfortable (or not!) on the weaves. Was fun.

Leash Law

2008-07-07T14:13:00.003-04:00

In this town there is a "leash law". So, why doesn't it apply to cats?

I don’t enjoy finding eviscerated mice in my driveway and half dead birds in my yard. Do you?

If people want cats fine. If people think it’s so sweet that their cat is a “hunter” and brings them “presents” fine. They can do it with their cat under their supervision, and not in my driveway or yard. I don’t want their cat, bringing me “presents”.

My dogs aren’t allowed to do stuff like that, I’d be fined and cited if they did. I’ll be fined and cited if they ever hurt that “domesticated animal” ie cat, that the neighbors let roam and is “dog friendly” (great terrific, what if my dogs in their own Fenced Yard aren’t “cat friendly”?) in my dog’s yard. Town law, doesn’t matter where, one domesticated animal hurts another domesticated animal, owner of said “aggressive” domesticated animal is in trouble.

Running cat is “prey”, sitting cat is “domesticated pet”, my dogs are fine with “domesticated pet”, they have ALL been raised and resided at some point or other in their lives with pet cats (and I do like cats, really, truely I do. I just don't like it when their owners see fit to impose their likes on me, like the neighbors who let their yappy, barky poodlething out on a tie out at 10pm for 20min every night). 2 of my dogs are not so fine with “prey”. James caught a robbin mid flight a few weeks ago, let it go unharmed, but he's FAST (he LOVES to lure course) and you've all heard about Monty and the squirrel. 95% of the time I am on the ball enough to call them off, and they will come, the other 5% that damn cat is on his own. I don't want the cat hurt, I don't want trouble with the neighbors, I also don't like worrying if the cat is out every time I open the back door to let the dogs out (hell I spent the money, I invested in a Fence, I shouldn't have to worry about this stuff!).

I don’t want dead rodent parts all over my driveway. I don’t want injured birds all over my back yard. Niche, good retriever that he is, brought me one of the birds last week, delivered to hand and all. Today he brought me to the other. He has an incredibly soft mouth, it wasn't him that half killed the bird.

I have a friend in Pittsburgh, whose cats go out the dog door. So she decided to invest in an electric fence (already had a real fence for the dogs) and train the cats to it. Bingo, problem solved. Her cats can do all the killing they so desire on HER property, no risk of getting hit by a car, or bothering anyone else, imposing on her neighbors. Why can't other people be so considerate?

Laser Mice...

2008-06-29T20:11:00.002-04:00

...Don't like dog hair.

It's sad. I broke another one. I'm pretty sure it's a dog hair problem. Give me a trusty track and ball mouse any day of the week.

Thank god for small favors

2008-06-24T15:05:00.005-04:00

Knock on wood, I don't have dogs that freak with thunderstorms. Thank god for small favors! We have had all out thunder and lightening, wind, rain storms here every day for the past week and a half. Some a short, then a break, then another short rolls in and that's it. Some go on for an hour or more. Some go on off and on all morning or afternoon or evening.

Everytime one sets in, I cross my fingers that the dogs are going to be ok about it again this time. That nothing is going to happen to spook one of them for life.

So far, I've been lucky. Growing up, my parent's golden, Gus, had a horrid horrid fear of thunderstorms. It was so sad.

Out of all of the current guys, Niche is probably closest to being worried about it. J, Mont & Obi don't really seem to care, thankfully. Most times Niche just wants to be touching me, and wants to carry around a stuffy, but he isn't really worked up or anything and if I'm not home and one happens when I get home I don't find that he's overly stressed. I've been trying to make sure that I never crate any of them in a room alone, so that they have each other's support from 'the crate next door' if a storm rolls in and I'm not here. And to not crate anyone in a crate with a metal pan, either in the plastic varikennels or wire crate with plastic tray.

If I'm remembering and one hits, automatic 'free' cookies start getting dolled out, trying to further reinforce that these loud noisy things are kind of fun! And cookies come from them!

Julie just sent me some info saying that there is a new Rescue Remedy formula with no alcohol, that the AVMA is approving for pets. I know some people who have dogs with thunderstorm phobia have found Rescue Remedy to help.

I know I jreally can't wait for this thunderstorm string to be done with.

A herding we went!

2008-06-21T19:25:00.005-04:00

And Oh My God it ROCKED!!!!!!! Mont acted like a real herding dog!!! He was AWESOME!!! I was soooo proud of him!

He didn't fight me on anything. He was calm, cool, collected. Had his head firmly on his shoulders, worked the stock wonderfully. It Felt really, really, really good!

Both Colleen (instructor) and I were amazed at the change from last summer to this. We haven't hearded since early Sept, due to me being so sick and Colleen moving over 90min away (she use to have stock about 15min from my parent's house), and last summer I had only had Monty about 1 month when we started herding. He and I rammed heads often. There was NONE of that today!

I really need to get cracking on his obedience (like teaching him 'down' and 'stay' much more reliably) but our relationship has gotten so much better and he respected everything I asked him to do, I respected him, it was just awesome! Colleen even had me working on getting him to 'sit' with stock between him and me, and once I got my act together he did it! YEAH!!! Other bonus was how much I remembered. Together we rocked!

Oh yeah, and Obi got to herd some too :-) Collen said "He has more natural talent then some of the herding breeds that come here" LOL. Yup, that's my herding flat coat over there, we'll take the AKC herding program by storm, just you wait! I have a corgi that retrieves ducks and dokkens and a flat coat that herds sheep. Oyi!

Julie and Honor-Bug had a lesson too! I think they did really well also! (Julie took all of these pics)

What's up?

2008-06-13T21:49:00.003-04:00

With this blog? It would be known as- crazy New England heat wave after an exhausting week at camp straight into a week of moving things one pick up or mini van load at a time, which then equals NO DOGS GETTING TRAINED.

Sad, very sad, I know, Monty and Niche tell me daily. Today James ran out into the yard and did his "You got a ball, right, right, right?? You got a ball for me finally?" dance, but alas I had no ball. I came home from teaching a lesson to a lovely basset puppy and Niche was all over me, "What?! You trained Another Dog and NOT ME??!!!"

Hoping to be moved over for real to the new place by the end of the weekend and then back to training. Monty has a herding lesson next Sat. 1st one he has had since the fall. I hope he enjoys it!

Will be back to Monty antics in no time I'm sure.

Decorating 101

2008-05-29T18:01:00.003-04:00

Ok, this is going on Monty's blog because it's entirely dog related and I think rather amusing, which is right up Mont's alley.

Today I washed the bed sheets. Shocking, I know! And since I am packing for camp and going to be staying in a cabin, I'm bringing a lot of the stuff that goes on my bed with us, hence I started packing lots of it today. So my bed making consisted of not putting the top 2 "dog fur resistance" sheets on the bed. And I went WOW! I forgot how pretty my quilt is! Seeing how I haven't really seen it on the bed in months and months! I mean it's been there but covered by the 2 "dog fur resistance" sheets, since otherwise it would be all muddy and gross and I'd have to wash it way more than I currently do.

2nd thing is next month the boys and I are moving to a house of our very own (also shocking!) and I started to go through what I have and what I don't have in terms of "decorating" and every single wall print or painting or hanging is of course dog related. Flat coats and cardi's of course (plus one rather sweet lab print that some how snuck into my collection, but it's lovely, so I keep it even though it's a yellow lab and I can't even pass it off as a crappy looking flat coat).

The area rugs I have of course were picked to show the least amount of dog fur. And I have 3x more crates than I do dogs. And more baby gates than I think a person with 4 human kids would have! We won't even go to the amount of x-pens, agility 'junk', leashes, collars, etc that I have.

I also know that I am not the only one in the world who picked their house with 2 things in mind- 1 how accessable it is for me (ie the less stairs the better!) and 2 how accessable is it for my DOGS! How easily can various rooms be gated off? How big is the yard? Can I make a smaller "dog potty yard" in the bigger yard? Is the yard flat for agility training? Can I set up a double door system to prevent accidental escapes to the road? Is there some barrier to the road (like rather large shrubs)? Where is the mail box situated? How good is ventilation if I seperate rooms? Do I need to repaint to not show the dog dirt? If it's coming with a washer/dryer can those accomodate dog bedding? No wall to wall carpets! How corgi proof are the cabinets and closets? etc, etc, etc.

So yeah, guess I'll be the neighborhood "crazy dog lady", is that one step above or below the "crazy cat lady"?

Interesting class discussion

2008-05-28T07:08:00.004-04:00

One of the reasons I like teaching people in dog sports (agility mainly at the moment) from 'never seen a dog walk' level through to 'working in Elite/Masters/Excellent' level is you get to see the circles and the progressions.

Yesterday morning, in the Tue AM agility class, one student brought up a concept and we had a discussion (which I will go into in a minute) but the main thing I thought was really cool was how things had come full circle. When you are working with rank beginner folks they all want to push, push, push to get to the 'important stuff'. So, you tell them all about why it's important to reinforce a start line stay, and teach an automatic sit or down on the table, and reinforce a consistent contact behavior, etc and sometimes they ignore you and sometimes they sigh and go "she's on that again!" but for the most part they reinforce their dog for what you ask them to (remind them to, over and over) and you keep prodding them to think, when they ask you stuff, by asking them "What do you think would work? You're the trainer" and then if they're really stuck you help them out with suggestions on what might work.

But they never really understand why all of this stuff you harp on is so important, because again they just want to get to the 'important stuff' and you get rather tired of saying the same things over and over, so you tend to remind why we do things less and less and just remind them to 'give your dog a cookie!' and 'don't let him release himself!' instead.

Then once they've started to get some of the 'important stuff' things come full circle and the 'beginner stuff' that you've been harping on- the contacts, the start lines, the table, etc now Matters to the student and discussions like yesterday happen. And it makes you, the instructor, VERY happy!

So what happened yesterday (as I understand it) was one student was working her young dog (her 2nd agility dog, but still just a yr old) on the dog walk and working on the dog sticking a 'down' in the yellow zone and the handler leaving the dog, going back reinforcing the stay on the contact, etc. And another student asked "Why are we doing this?" 1st I was rather shocked and was thinking "Why are we doing what? Class? Agility? Is she unhappy with my teaching? What?"

But really, again as I understand it, what she was asking about esentially boiled down to 'stay' and 'release' and 'what the picture was'. So I talked about why it is so important for the HUMAN (ie trainer) to have a picture in their head of what their ideal dog walk contact behavior or table behavior or start line behavior looks like BEFORE reinforcing it with the dog, otherwise if the human doesn't know what he/she wants, how can we ever expect the dog to?

I talked about why I teach my students and their dogs contacts the way I do, but how it isn't of course the only way, and that if the student has a clear picture of what they want their dog to do, I'm more than happy having them do it in class. So for this particular student she was having trouble feeling like she is consistent with her stay cue so we talked about the option of targets and what I felt she would need to decide before going to targets- would it be a foot target or nose target. Would the dog have to hit and hold the target position for a release. Or would the dog be taught to hit and go from the target. If she wanted the hit and hold did she also want the dog to hit and then do a sit or down while foot or nose was still on the target? etc.

Then talked about the table. And how I try to encourage folks and with my own dogs want an 'automatic down' on the table. That in the ideal world, with my own dogs, I want them already in that down when they hit the table. I don't want to have to cue the down once they are on the table. I also want that dog to stick to that table in the down like glue and me not have to manage the stay. I want to be able to move anywhere and get in position for the next bit of the course while the judge is counting. Even if the judge's desired behavior on the table that day was a sit, I find it is easier for my dog to have a consistent picture of table = down in the long run from whence I can cue a 'sit' once they are in a 'down' then be having to always tell my dog which it is.

The table discussion brought up the 'lazy down' and the 'sphinx down' topics. And I said how I want a dog driving to the table, into their down and off the table. I want that level of 'go, go, go' and I don't want the dog thinking they are to stay on the table and take a nap. So if I had a dog that was already conditioned to the 'lazy down' (ie down on one hip) I would shorten the stays so that, at 1st it would be- dog on table, in down, IMEDIATE release. do that until the dog got up on table, into a down, looking eagerly for the release, then lengthen the time asked to stay. I would have to be careful not to inadvertantly reinforce an anticipation from the dog or the dog releasing himself.

Last we started to talk a little about releases off of a stay. And she was saying how she finds people are only releasing their dog or asking for the same level of stay 25% of the time and how inconsistent that is. And I completely agreed with her. Because it is true. Again I don't think people have a clear cut picture in their head of what a 'stay' and 'release' means to them, let alone their dog. And most people (especially in a trial situation) get in the 'just want the Q' mentality so if the dog breaks their stay, they either a. delay in their 'correction' of the breakage or b. don't 'correct' it at all and the dog learns that he can break stays and it is ok, he still gets to play, so mom/dad didn't really mean stay that time.

With my dogs, I try VERY hard to teach a consistent release. The dogs of mine that have been taught 'stay' (ie NOT Monty) they learn it as- you stay there, until you hear the word 'OK', I don't care what else happenes, you are not to move from what ever position I put you in until you hear ME say "OK" AND you and I are making eye contact. There can be a dog charging at you, puppies chewing on your tail, a car back fires behind you, I can be doing a jig, tennis balls bouncing, etc you are NOT to move until *I* release you.

She was talking about something where people were teaching dogs to release on a praise cue, or a reward. But I didn't quite understand if people were teaching that intentionally or inadvertently. Will have to ask her about that next class.

Through out all of this other students in the class added bits in. Overall I thought it was a very interesting discussion. Glad it happened!

Tonight's course

2008-05-27T13:17:00.000-04:00

Comin' At Ya!

2008-05-24T16:38:00.002-04:00

Isn't he darlin'??? (yes he has redeemed himself the past few days after the squirrel incident.)

Vermin Killer

2008-05-20T15:19:00.003-04:00

WARNING- This Is GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monty’s other name is now “Killer” (maybe I should have kept his name as "Spike"!). He caught a squirrel in the dog yard today. Nasty Dog!!!!!!! Holly (Mont’s breeder), when I called her to say, "I'm sending him back!" (joke) tried to placate me by telling me that cardigans were bred to herd cows AND eradicate vermin. Yeah, well he does both those age old jobs now.

He and Niche have been ‘squirrel hunting’ all week on the bush and sapling in the dog yard. Today they raced out, and Mont saw one in the bush, so he knocked it out. Then the 2 of them chased it while I was mentally screaming for the squirrel to climb up the damn tree or the fence! But no, it was too freaked out and just ran willy nilly all over the ground until Monty grabbed it. Niche called off when I finally managed to scream “LEAVE IT!” but not so Mont. I got Niche in the house (thank heavens I still have at least one Good Dog!) and by then Mont was carrying this not yet dead squirrel around, very proud of him self, prancing around even, and finally he dropped it and backed off on like the 50th “LEAVE IT!” and I got him in the house. In the mean time the squirrel still not yet dead crawled under the fence where I am assuming it has since died. I didn’t go look. All I could think was “I can’t hit it over the head with the shovel. I know that I should. I know that leaving it there to die is cruel, but I can’t do the shovel thing.”

Since then all Mont has wanted to do is go back outside so he can try to catch another squirrel, so he will be locked in his crate for the rest of the afternoon. And to think I was going to bring him to agility tonight, guess NOT mister!

Luckily it doesn’t look like the squirrel managed to bite either dog, but I didn’t do a close inspection, will have to later once I am over the repulsiveness of this whole incident. I called my vet to see if there was anything I should do, like booster their rabies or anything, and they said no, squirrels generally aren't carriers of rabies so the dogs should be ok.

NASTY DOG!!!!!!!!!! If I had wanted a terrier I would have gotten a terrier! I didn’t, so I got a HERDING dog and RETRIEVERS.

Monty gets to go to Camp!

2008-05-18T08:37:00.005-04:00

I go and teach agility at Camp Gone to the Dogs in VT every year, this will be my 5th (??? I think??) year at June camp. For a while I did September camp also, but that is 2 weeks and takes a lot out of me at a generally busy time of year, so I stopped that last year.

This year, my friend Li is coming along and we had decided that she would bring her 2 dogs and I would only bring 2 of mine- James and Obi. Monty was going to stay with Julie and Niche with my parents. The reason being that I'm teaching about 5-6 hours every day, and when I'm not teaching I'm passed out sleeping or trying to stay awake for meals to then go pass out sleeping and my dogs tend to get a little (LOT!) neglected since I don't have much extra time or energy and Niche if he doesn't get a LOT of exercise and 1 on 1 time tends to go a bit Nuts!! and Monty same deal except he gets barky too which isn't good when you're staying in a dorm room. James I need with me to help me out and Obi is just a baby and I don't trust leaving him with anyone at that age.

Then I was talking to Julie this past week and she's had a lot going on in her life with Honor coming and stuff, so I said I'd talk to Li about my bringing Monty to VT and not leaving him with Julie. So, long story short- I'm taking THREE dogs to camp (and feeling incredibly guilty about poor Niche but know from previous years that he gets all worked up and doesn't sleep which leads to me not sleeping which is really Not Good, so he's staying with my parents). So to help with keeping the barkyness down I'll be packing the citronella bark collar as a prevenative measure in the dorm room and Obi and Monty will be in the same x-pen at the agility field so hopefully wear each other out.

Next weekend we're starting to pack Li's mini van and then the weekend after we're off to Vermont! Well at least Monty finally gets to go to his namesake state! (Monty is short for "Vermont")

Don't anyone tell Niche!

The Usual View

2008-05-15T15:37:00.000-04:00

Here is Clara in "The Usual View", done for my friend Li. The name is tongue in cheek, since this pose is what usually Clara does when we're out walking in the bog. She stands there, but facing you, shifts her weight on one back foot, and turns her ears back to you saying, "Yeah, I hear ya. Whadda you want? I don't need to look at you to know what you want." She is a total Corgi With Attitude +++! Even though we never see purple nettle type flowers in the bog, purple is Li's favorite color so I added a few in.

Trade? NOW!

2008-05-14T07:59:00.002-04:00

This is Monty's morning ploy- shove a nylabone in mum's face and demand that she trade it for a REAL BONE! (ie BREAKFAST!!!) NOW!!!

Problem is, sometimes it works!

I create my own monsters. Bad Trainer!

Though I seem to have been successfully managing Niche's need to demand Breakfast Please, please, please, please, please, please...from the moment I sort of wake up or get up to take Obi out at about 5:30am until I really feed them at 7am. Trick is- stick him in his crate! So our morning routine has changed: let Obi out (and sometimes the adult dogs), come back in the bedroom, Niche races into his crate, gets a treat, I shut and latch the door and then we all go back to bed for a few hours of whine-less dozing until at 7am Monty stands on top of me with a nylabone in his jaws and does his Corgi Talking and demand that I trade this bit of plastic for the Real Deal!

Mornings are oh so much fun!

Engineering at its Best

2008-05-10T20:16:00.003-04:00

My dogs would be sorely disappointed to learn that I gave up engineering for dog training if they were to ever see this:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90268081

(I would be forced then to inform them that I gave up chemical engineering and wouldn't have been making gadgets like this any how had I finished my degree)

Thank heavens for the Chuck-It!

(even Obi is already obsessed by the Chuck-It! but at this point his obsession isn't so much the tennis balls but the Chuck-It! it self)

This makes a trainer proud!

2008-05-07T07:40:00.004-04:00

Finally someone 'gets' my 'you gotta be cooler than Dirt!' thing

(most people just look at me funny, then shrug their shoulders and I think they even mumble under their breath- "Yeah, she's totally off her rocker. Dirt? Why would dirt be cool to anyone? She's crazy! Doesn't know what she is talking about. Dirt? We come to dog class to hear about dirt?")

Yeah!!!!!!

http://therainbowdogess.blogspot.com/2008/05/weaves-2.html

Guess what?! Dirt is really cool. Just ask any dog! LOL!

The Cardi Contingency Grows!

2008-05-04T11:21:00.003-04:00

Julie got a Cardi, and it's Monty's cousin. hehehe.

Honor (Visions Cornerstone Dream On) was picked up in NY yesterday and now is in MA. He was supposed to be with Julie 'on trial'. HA! He's as good as weasling his way into one's heart as Monty was!

http://slowasmolasses.blogspot.com/2008/05/deep-breaths-and-bug.html

Photos from a Rainy Morning

2008-05-03T08:55:00.001-04:00

Because I just posted them on the other blog, I'm just going to put a link here:

http://asdbymyside.blogspot.com/2008/05/rainy-day-photos.html

(I mean to put them on Monty's blog, but screwed up, oh well)

It's so (sob) Unfair! (sob)

2008-05-02T07:28:00.002-04:00

That is Monty's attitude as of late. Since he realized that Obi is here for good. Mont has been all depressed and bent out of shape that he is no longer (sob) the baby (sob) and (sob) center of attention (sob) cuz (sob) everyone thinks Obi is (sob) Cuter than him! (sob)

(ask Julie, really that's what Mont has been like with those (sob)s in there and everything)

He's sulking BIG TIME.

He says "No one loves me any more. My Monty Time has been interupted. She doesn't let me steal his breakfast. He bites my tail. She puts me in the car WITH HIM and then takes him out to go to class and leaves me with Grandma who yelled at me for eating the mentos. In MY CAR she put that crate in there so it takes up ALL the space and I only have 1/2 a bench seat to sit in now. I used to have the WHOLE back seat! And she gave me a bath and keeps saying she's going to trim my nails. And he gets to eat THREE times a day! I want to eat THREE times a day! And she keeps giving him MY nylabones to chew! I don't care that I have 7, they're ALL MINE! This STINKS! I'm going to go cry at the unjustic of my life!"

Yes I have learned that living with a corgi is synanamous with living with a Drama Queen. If the world stops turning around Monty for more than a day, he gets all bent out of shape.

(yet he is the one that chooses to lay grinning sprawled out on the floor inviting Obi to pounce on him and play)

Do you have to encourage him??

2008-04-30T10:12:00.004-04:00

Monty says, "I would like to thank, well, um, ME for being excellent and there by deserving of this award. I did it all myself. I allowed my mum to type for me since she has those opposable thumbs you humans think are soooo important. We dogs know better, and we just let you think you're imporant while we plan world denomination. Actually, I will let you in on a little secret- the dogs already have world denomination right under your inadequate excuse of a nose. Jeeze you people can't even find bombs or drugs without our noses.

"We dogs just choose to appease you 2 legged folk and roll our eyes at you every chance we get. You all think you're so great, yeah well, who gets fed at exactly 5pm every day? Who gets to spend the day lazing on the couch? Who gets a chouffer anywhere? Who gets to go out in the great outdoors? Who to all of those famous literary type humans write great poetry and works about saying how much they Envy us canines? That's right- the DOGS.

"So there you have it, ha, me, Monty, I AM excellent and I just allow you to read about my excellentness on this little blog."

Katrin's note- you folks asked for it. See it went straight to his head. Now he'll be completly incorigable for a month. Good thing he's so freaking cute! Humble is not in his vocabulary :-)

Dang Nambit, Foiled!

2008-04-28T09:29:00.004-04:00

Monty has some how managed to escape the last 2 bath times here at my house and at least one bath time when he was off visiting with Julie. I usually do baths because Niche needs one (for his allergies) and then I do James or Max (mostly because they're both taller than Monty and it's easier for me to do them than bend down and do the short one), and then I'm cold and wet and tired and my fingers and feet are numb so Monty gets a free pass.

But today his number came up! (and he was actually very good) I had to bathe James because he is shedding like crazy and I am giving a presentation tonight and I wanted him to look at least like a half way decent and cared for service dog and not be shedding black hair all over the place and Niche was in his crate since I had just put antibiotic on his face on a cut that was getting infected and if I don't seperate Niche and Monty when I put anything on Niche, no matter how bad tasting it might be, Monty licks it right off and it does no good. Hence I didn't have Niche readily available to torture with the hose.

It was interesting as since Monty has not had a bath the past 2 times I pulled out the hose, when I did today and washed J first, Monty was like ho-hum, what ever, nothing to concern me. AND THEN when I went to spray him he was all "What??!!! Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!" And ran around the deck for a bit, but then he was good and stood still as I got him wet, soaped him, washed him off, soaped him again with a conditioner. Then hung out as I washed the conditioner off James and then was good again when I rinsed it off Monty.

Obi this whole time was running around the deck trying to play with the spray from the hose. He had his bath in the sink last week. So better that he thinks the hose is fun at this stage of the game than torture of bath time.

James and Monty are now in the kitchen as it's too cold and damp today to leave them outside to dry and I'm not in the mood to drag out the force dryer and actually dry them manually, so I toweled them each off and now they can get the kitchen smelling like wet dog and then I'll wash the floor and all will be good.

One of these days I would love an elevated dog tub! The hose on the deck just ain't cutting it (plus means I can't wash them in the winter) as by the end by whole body is killing me and I need to go see my chiropractor (as I do today this afternoon) Due to the old design of the shower and bath fitting in the bathroom here, I can't put an extended hose and sprayer on it. So if I have to wash a dog in the winter either I have to go to a bath-your-own place or use a bucket (really NOT fun!) in the tub. And if I end up moving to this new house, it's bathroom fixtures have the same problem I have at this house- they're of a design that won't support a hose and sprayer shower head thingy.

GROSS!!!!!!!!!!

2008-04-26T16:38:00.003-04:00

Today Li and I took the dogs (my 4, her 2) to the bog for a nice long walk. And guess what Monty found to roll in/eat?

I nearly vomited it was so awful.

A dead, decaying, still fur on the bones mammal of some sort. I didn't stay long enough to figure out what was. I saw Monty, I saw fur, I saw a bone and I kept walking trying not to puke and screaming to Monty that he was DISGUSTING YOU DAMN CORGI!!!!!!!!!!!! Li thought it was a muskrat of sorts.

UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NASTY, NASTY, NASTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He finally came along, and amazingly enough doesn't smell badly now that we are home (and he is on my bed, probably crawling with ticks)

But, GROSS! GROSS! GROSS!!!

Monty & Obi

2008-04-24T10:05:00.004-04:00

Monty's teaching Obi some really important stuff!

1. Surveying "his" yard:

2. Keeping watch on "his" subjects:

3. Always be sure to get *every* last morsel of food even if it means you have to start eating the deck becuase it fell between the slats!
(thanks Monty, thanks a lot! I don't need 2 dictators in my life! :-))

excellent!

2008-04-24T08:40:00.001-04:00

the avsab (american veterinary society of animal behavior) released as really awesome position statement on puppy socilization that i have since forwarded to a number of vets I know and am going to encourage all of you (even if you don't currently have a dog) to go read it here:

http://www.avsabonline.org/avsabonline/images/stories/Position_Statements/puppy%20socialization.pdf

Monty is a Saint

2008-04-21T17:15:00.002-04:00

Mont has to be one of the most tolerant adult dogs I know when it comes to puppies.

He was awesome with Ryan (Li's Vizsla) when Ry use to hang on Mont's tail and drag Mont around by the neck. And he's great with the puppy k pups.

And he's being just as awesome with Obi (though Obi isn't nearly as incorrigable as Ryan was at this age)

Monty will play with Obi, let Obi pounce him, grab his tail, take his toys, stick his nose where Monty would never let another dog stick their nose (ie in his mouth after he's just eaten something or while he's eating something).

His corrections are very appropriate and rare.

Even when playing tug Mont down sizes it for a puppy. I mean Mont can TUG when he really gets going, he can drag Niche across the living room floor when Niche is lying down holding onto a tug toy. Niche is 65#! But with Obi he is very gentle and tugs just enough to keep the game fun for Obi without ripping his teeth out of his head.

I am very impressed with my corgi boy! He's so good!

He's Baaaack!

2008-04-16T21:13:00.003-04:00

Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. All over the house. At mach speed. And no one is even chasing or playing with him or even paying him any mind actually. The other dogs just look at him like- Ok, you ARE nuts!!!

Mr Monty is BACK! :-)

He says he had a lovely vacation (actually I think he thought it was permanent based on the greeting I got when I went to pick him up. He was rather aloof for a few moments, rather had a suprised look on his face actually like- You actually want me back? This new living situation isn't permanent? You came back?! - and then he was all happy!) but is glad to be home and would go visit his Aunt Julie and Uncle John any time, but just for a visit.

Obi is rather in awe of Monty at the moment. Then again he's had a loooong day for such a little puppy and he's rather liking that he has bars between him and the Turbo Maniac right now (Obi's in his wire crate and just laying there watching Monty do his crazyness)

Hoping Monty chills enough to be able to go to sleep at a decent hour. he's so silly that corgi boy of mine! :-)

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

2008-04-14T22:49:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow J & Obi and I are flying home. We'll get into Boston in the wee hours of Wed morning. My mum is picking us up (I think) and then we'll be home again. I'll get to see my Niche boy! yeah! But I have to wait all day to see Mr Mont again since Julie will be at work and I can't pick him up until the evening :-( But Julie has been taking terrific care of him from the reports I hear, so I will have to have some patience. Plus I'm probably going to be bushed from the red eye and Obi will be meeting Niche & Max at the house as well as my family and the stress from travel, so adding Monty right away might be too much for his little puppy brain to handle.

I'm ready to come home. Lots of exciting stuff has been happening there that involves the boys and I (like a potential home of our own! crossing fingers that works out!!!). And the weather here has been dreary for the past few days (not much different then how it is at home I hear) and plus I just want to sleep in my own bed and get back to teaching classes and being with ALL my boys again.

I guess Niche has been his usual off the walls self. My mother said- he isn't this crazy when you are home! He will actually settle when you are here! - and it's true. He's use to having me home for most of the day and having some level of near constant human interaction even if it is just following me from room to room or watching me work on the computer. My parents both work, so even though they've been taking him on off leash walks and playing ball with him very frequently, he is so starved for human attention from being alone for 8hrs that he can't settle down. My father said he's even waking him up multiple times in the night, he NEVER does that to me. Yes he's usually an early riser, but he'll sleep pretty sound for a good 6-8hrs and even if he's tried to wake me up early, he will go back to sleep if I tell him no he's not getting breakfast at 4am. Plus he is a huge mama's boy, so I'm sure he misses me. He always gets upset when he sees the hard suitcase come out as he knows it means I'm leaving and only taking James. When the soft overnight bag comes out he knows he is probably going too as that is the one I take for short weekend trips which 99% of the time are to a dog event and he comes with the others.

So we'll be home soon if all goes well. Knock on wood the flight hasn't been canceled due to all the FAA problems, so hopefully the weather is good and all of that for a safe flight home.

Introducing- Obi

2008-04-09T21:32:00.003-04:00

Gondolin's Road Goes Ever On

You can read about Obi on his own blog: http://asdbymyside.blogspot.com or his page on the Maplewood Flat Coats & Cardi's web site

And I hear Monty is being super good and has standing invitations to a number of places- Julies' house, her in-laws, her mother's, even her work! His fan club is expanding! I'm going to have to start charging membership dues or something soon! LOL

We're here

2008-03-29T23:43:00.003-04:00

And yes I have posted puppy photos for those who kept bugging for them :-)

Now I just have to find the thermostat and turn up the heat in this room, then go to BED!

Well he's on vacation

2008-03-28T18:33:00.002-04:00

Dropped Mont off at Julie's this evening. Hopefully he will have a fun 'vacation' at her house and not torment John, Ike or the g-pigs or the birds too much.

For the next 16 or so days, for Monty related fun go visit Julie's blog, she might either be swearing at me for sending him there or enjoying the crazyness in that relative sense (the relative's spoil the kid rotten then send him home for the parents to deal with). Though she did mention that she's going to try to teach him 'down' on a more reliable cue. We shall see.

Thanks again Julie!!!!! Give the boy a kiss for me!

Slow on the dog front, but overall knock on wood they're being good!

2008-03-26T17:59:00.002-04:00

So I've been just trying to get stuff done in prep for my 3 weeks off from teaching and life here in general. Making sure that I have everything set for my parents to take care of Niche and for Julie to take care of Monty. And have everything, or close to, that I and James will need in WA. And decide what bags I'm taking, etc. And wash the dogs. And prepackage dog food. And, and, and.

So, looks like we're pretty good to go so far. I have decided to ship the SherpaBag vis USPS rather than take it and check it on the way out, so that I will have it for the way home if it is needed. Also in that box I can put some other stuff I told Sandee I'd bring out for her, so will hopefully make for lighter flight traveling which is always good when I've got James and me and am in the middle of a fibro flare up from hell, so lugging anything extra through an airport terminal would not be an intelligent move at this point in time.

Dropping Monty off at Jule's on Friday evening. Then kissing Niche good bye, and J and I will be up at the airport long before I am usually coherently awake (I may be awake but not generally coherent at that time of the morning), like so early it will still be dark. And then we're off.

Hopefully will be fun!

Happiness Is

2008-03-21T10:28:00.002-04:00

A Cuz Toy (on a down comforter of course) A Rumble Ring (after a swim in the pond)
And what Monty is relegated to- a Nylabone (and yes I know it needs to be thrown out, he's worn the ends off)

How to make a Flat Coat Happy (when one lives with a corgi)

2008-03-20T21:58:00.002-04:00

I believe I have mentioned in the past that since The Corgi came to reside with us, The Flat coats have been sad when it comes to their toys. You see they can't have stuffies anymore, since The Corgi kills them all with amazing speed and finality. When The Corgi kills a toy, that toy ain't getting up again. And it makes The Flat-Coats cry. BooHoo. They even bring me the shell of the now dead toy as if to say- Look at what he did AGAIN! It's DEAD! That Bad, Bad Corgi, he KILLED MY TOY!!!! He's Horrid!

So I have been searching, searching, searching for a toy that would make The Flat-Coats Happy and be somewhat less likely to be killed by The Corgi (or at least have a prolonged death, like last at least 2 weeks, preferably 6 months. Pre-Corgi we had stuffies that were YEARS old! Now the max is 72 hours before a hole and some stuffing begins to emerge)

Cat placed an order with SitStay and I saw these toys called Tuffies. They claim that these are the toughest squeaky toys out there! And they even rate them on their 'tuffness' from 5-10 with 10 being the Tuffest! They aren't 'true' stuffies, but hey they're soft and they squeak, so close enough (I was hoping).

I decided to order the Ultimate Rumble Ring with a Tuff rating of 9. Which claims: This is the longest lasting line of soft toys we have tested.

So I said ok, for $14.50 I will try it. Even if it lasts 2 weeks that's the same amount of money one would spend on 2 'average' squeaky toys, so it'll be a wash.

I got the delivery tonight at class.

So far goal 1 has been met- I have 2 VERY HAPPY Flat-Coats! James has decided that this is HIS toy for tonight and right now he is very happily laying on the bed, with the Rumble Ring under his head. (if he continues insisting that he missed the 'sharing day' in kindergarten I may have to unpack the 2nd one I got so Niche can share the Squeaky Toy Joy) And glares at any dog (mainly The Corgi) who even looks in the direction of HIS Soft Squeaky Toy! (My favorite part? The squeak is somewhat muffled due to the so many layers of fabric and stitching!) Goal 2 has yet to be seen, only time will tell if this toy is indeed worthy of a Tuff rating of 9 out of 10. The Flat-Coats (and I) are hoping and The Corgi is plotting the demise of yet another Stuff Squeaky Toy...

Niche's "Party"

2008-03-19T19:55:00.005-04:00

Niche got a cake!

AKA Katrin was on a 'what's in the pantry/freezer, dump it in the food processer, then into pan and in the oven' type cooking mood (it's the philosophy I took on making my own dinner tonight too)

(2 yams, 2 apples, 2 large spoonfuls peanut butter, 2 spoonfuls molasses, dash of ginger, dash of cinnamon, some oatmeal, water and 1/2 can of left over pumpkin and you have "Allergy Friendly Dog Cake"- no meat, no wheat, no corn, no soy, no eggs)

And I even put it in a little heart shaped pan (awe...gag me!) My mother forced a 'staged' photo with the cake and flowers.

Somewhere along the line I ended up with a small bag of carob powder, so mix some of that with some parve margarine and cream cheese and look at that- Dog Safe "Chocolate" Frosting!

Niche says- "Mmmm, CAKE!" "Why must you torment me with this photo stuff? I'm being soooo good, can't I just have MY cake?"

End result- Very Happy Dogs!

Monty would like to know how come HE was the only one tourtured with a party hat on HIS birthday?! Niche just gets cake and a fun monkey toy! NO Hat! What gives?!

My answer was Monty has ears that would support a hat, Niche does not, his are floppy (and in desperate need of a trimming with the thinning shears, I am embarassed to post his photo these days)

Does Maturity come at 4?

2008-03-19T12:18:00.002-04:00

Happy birthday to Nichey! Yes the little off the walls nut case bouncy brown boy is 4 years old today!

Rather amazed he has survived this long relatively unscathed considering how kamakazi he can be!

Niche is of the philosophy that life is best approached at 110MPH, grin on your face, spring in your step (quite literally, "bounce" is his favorite cue), wag in your tail and a toy, must have a toy!

He loves his doggies friends and loves his mum. If he could crawl under my skin, many days I think he would.

So here's to the wack-0-quako life long puppy boy. Maybe I'll grant his never ending wish take take the duck out of the freeze and let him retrieve it. The swim in the pond will have to wait until it's not raining/sleeting/spitting snow out, sorry pal.

Gross

2008-03-19T09:50:00.003-04:00

My dogs eat raw, they get bones in their crates in the morning. Monty has this disgusting habit of licking any meat remnants off of Niche's feet once they have finished eating and are back upstairs.

It is GROSS.

The sound alone of him licking, licking, licking is enough to make me gag.

Niche loves it. He lays there, eyes half-shut, so content.

I think if Monty wasn't so noisy with his toungue when he was repedetively licking Niche's feet it wouldn't bother me so much, but that sound is horrible.

It doesn't even help if I wash Niche's feet or wipe them off. Monty still has to lick them.

Guess I should be glad that Mont only does it to Niche and none of the others have picked up the habit. And it doesn't go all day, just about an hour in the morning.

Steeplechase

2008-03-18T12:01:00.005-04:00

So because this morning I wasn't moving great, and Li was tired as were Carol & Marie & Claudia, we decided to forego setting up the dog walk and teeter, and I had a semi-coherent moment of- "Why don't we do a steeplechase?" seeing how we haven't done the a-frame or 12 weaves in ages and ages. So that's what I set up. I 'borrowed' parts if it from the run that Sarah posted about she did with her pups in Canada last weekend, since all I was able to see was the video, I have no idea if it is even remotely like what they did up there (the parts I 'borrowed' that is, the other parts are pretty much NOT remotely like it) since it could be set on the floor completely differently, and I was working off memory when I started putting jump bars out today, but we had fun this morning on it regardless!

Steeplechase is a course seen in the US only in USDAA I believe. I know we don't have it in NADAC and AKC doesn't have it, but I'm not sure about CPE or the other newer venues. The premise is- SPEED. On it there are jumps and tunnels and always an a-frame and set of 12 weaves. Depending on the course set by the judge you will either do 2 a-frames and 1 weaves or 2 weaves and 1 a-frame. Last I recall, you never had 2 a-frames AND 2 weaves, it's always 2 and 1. I think (not really recalling for sure though) that there is only 1 level for Steeplechase, you don't have Starters or Advanced or Masters Steeplechase, but I will let Cat or someone else who better knows USDAA rules than I at this point, clarify that one.

The boys being silly

2008-03-17T10:11:00.003-04:00

Photos from our tug inside cuz it's raining and yucky out games last week! (I promise Niche really is NOT demonic in reality! Monty takes the cake on that one!)

Give me the damn toy! (he's just about to bark- see the puckered lips??)

We're going on Vacation

2008-03-14T09:11:00.004-04:00

James is coming with me.

Monty's going to go visit his Aunt Julie.

And poor Niche doesn't really get much of a vacation, he's stuck staying here with my parents, BUT Cat did say she was planning on stopping in a few times to take him on an outing and let him play with Strata (who idolizes Niche, makes him feel special)

Hopefully Julie will still have hair (and be married), when I pick Monty up. Would be nice if she still wants a Cardigan by that point as well too, LOL. And hopefully Niche will still be alive (and my father too) when I get back as well.

If I could take the other 2 with me, I would, but I'm flying to Seattle and they would have to be in cargo which I don't like and it's too expensive. James flys in cabin since he is my service dog, he just curls up right where my feet are supposed to go (so as a bonus I have my very own foot rest, he's not really thrilled about that, but he deals).

So end of the month, we're all getting a break. Much needed break. Which will be nice.

P.S. Might have a new friend come back with us too. :-)

Lord I was born a Gamblin' Man...

2008-03-09T16:35:00.004-04:00

"Trying to make a living and doing the best I can...."

(ok, ok, I know it's ramblin' but anyway)

You've got it this week is Gamblers on Tuesday!!! WhooHoo!!!

To refresh memories on how it is played please read:

http://montystrainingdiary.blogspot.com/2007/12/gamblers.html

And for the course here you go:

http://montystrainingdiary.blogspot.com/2007/12/tonights-gamblers-course.html

And yes it is a repeat course from December but I'm claiming I' tired and rather brain fried and you probably don't remember the course anyway, so, we're doing it again.

For your listening pleasure :-)

Swings

2008-03-07T23:16:00.004-05:00

Last night I took Monty for a walk down to the play ground. I don't think I've taken him down there before. At least not by himself, at least not at night, at least not having walked there. Usually if he's on an outing it's with the other dogs, or we get there in the car, or we're at agility or something. I don't tend to go out walking as much as I use to anymore. For a miriad of reasons.

But anyway.

The things I like to do at the playground are to swing on the swings and run the sand through my fingers. (And yes I am 24, and yes I like to do these things, if you have a problem with it, get over it.) I'm pretty sure at this point those 2 things are rather high on Monty's list of good things to do at the playground now too. Though rather than run sand through his fingers he prefers to dig. But hey, similar vein I think.

I was rather suprised at how good he was when I was swinging. He is usually very motion herdy barky nutty to things like the vacuum cleaner, the lawn mower, cars, etc so I figured he might be the same about the swings.

He start off a little barky but then he started to just be silly and goofy. When I swung back, he'd run in under neath and look up at me, I'd tell him he'd better move quick or he'd get hit by accident. He'd wait until the last second as I came back down and then back up as fast as he could, sort of backwards leaping out of the way. Then as I went back again, he race under again. It was really quite amusing. He was having a blast. Smiling his silly grin, laughing. We were laughing together. It was good.

He's a good little dog. A very good little dog.

Variations on a Theme

2008-03-04T15:29:00.000-05:00

You tell me what this theme is? (ie see last week)

My little alert corgi

2008-03-03T08:33:00.002-05:00

So I'm a forgetful flake. I admit it. I have things in place to help, but I am still a person who will forget that she put the dryer on and leave the house. Put the tea kettle on to boil and not come back until the water is all gone and the only reason I went back in the kitchen was chance, not because I remembered I put the water on. If a dog needs to go out in the middle of the night, I will let him out then forget he is out there. I will forget to refill water dishes. I will forget to turn the oven off. Etc, etc, etc.

I also, if I am engrossed in a project don't hear the timer going off, or the buzzer, or the dog barking or am not able (quite literally) to figure out what that really, really loud and annoying sound is (ie the FIRE ALARM!), so yeah, it can be rather dangerous.

That is until Super Monty has come along!

Actually, James has taken care of most of this for the past 5 years, but I think Monty does a better (or at least more obvious) job of it and I rather think that J is enjoying the reprieve from being on alert to a house burning down.

Monty never forgets his brothers, so if they are in the basement or outside and he is in, when they want to come in, Monty comes and gets me and doesn't stop pesering me until I get up and try to figure out what he wants, then he takes me to the correct door.

He also knows that timers mean FOOD. So if the oven buzzer, or the microwave or the toaster 'ding' he comes and gets me and takes me to the noise in hopes that maybe, just maybe he'll get a bite too! (yes sometimes he does)

Somewhere along the lines, he learned that burning is NOT a good smell, so if I forget that I put the kettle on or the toaster is starting to smoulder or something in the oven is burning, he does the same thing, comes and pesteres me until I get up and figure out what he wants.

He also brings me the water dish or the food bowl when he wants something. The water dish I will fill anytime, but the food one, if I filled that every time he brought it too me I'd have a tick instead of a corgi!

So hey, he's a keeper this little boy. And I guess if I ever go deaf, I'll be all set now won't I :-)

I redeem myself as a handler

2008-02-28T09:50:00.002-05:00

But of course with the more experienced dog that I have had a 4yr relationship with....(except I keep dropping my arm. Ugh!)

My corgi, he is Done.

2008-02-27T12:32:00.000-05:00

Amusement for the day

2008-02-26T07:27:00.002-05:00

Sent to me by Ann. I got a chuckle out of it. From the 1st list I have been known to say #1-3. #4 not so sure about as I don't really believe that. The 2nd list, I am rather getting a kick out of #11, and I don't even have any bitches! Just some boys who would be love-em and leave-em boys if ever given the chance, haha.

To All Non-Pet Owners Who Visit & Like to Complain About Our Pets:
1. They live here. You don't.
2. If you don't want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture.
(That's why they call it "fur"niture.)
3. I like my pets a lot better than I like most people.
4. To you, it's an animal. To me, he/she is an adopted son/daughter who is short, hairy, walks on all fours and doesn't speak clearly.

Remember: In many > ways, dogs and cats are better than kids because they:
1. Eat less
2. Don't ask for money all the time
3. Are easier to train
4. Normally come when called
5. Never ask to drive the car
6. Don't hang out with drug-using friends
7. Don't smoke or drink
8. Don't have to buy the latest fashions
9. Don't want to wear your clothes
10. Don't need a "gazillion" dollars for college.
And finally,
11. If they get pregnant, you can sell their children.

When is a serpentine not a serpentine

2008-02-25T18:43:00.002-05:00

Seeing how the class where we were supposed to do this course we had the snow storm, we get to play with it this week (as long as no more snow!)

Feeeeeed Meeee!!!!!

2008-02-24T10:28:00.004-05:00

That's Niche's title of today's blog post: Feeeeeeed Meeeeeee!!!!!

Niche is ALWAYS hungry. ALWAYS. He knows when meal time is to the second and constantly tries to push it forward in the day. This time of year it gets even worse when the sunrises at 6am or before. Daylight savings? Please? Or room darkening shades? Please?

My saving grace is, knock on wood, that he only eats things he is given to eat. So he has never (to date, and hopefully never will) stolen food off a counter or table, never eaten any foreign objects, doesn't steal from the other dogs, etc.

BUT he is also very much "meal time literal" so if you feed him dinner in the middle of the kitchen in a bowl, rather than in the basement, in his crate, in the bowl, he does not believe he has had dinner! And therefore will still bug and bug and bug you for food! Thankfully he only does this at the house, when we are traveling he is happy to consider meals where ever, when ever and not bug excessively. (hmm does that say I need to go back to traveling more?)

Niche eats a TON of food. This time of year, about 2x what the recommended calory intake is for a dog of his size. In the summer when he is more active, about 3x. And he still barely tips the scales at 58# on a good day. He's about 23" tall at the withers. He carries no extra body fat.

He is also my "allergy dog from hell" so can't have anything with chicken or turkey in it (no eggs, meat, flavoring, nothing), too much beef or bison/buffalo (his system can handle mod amounts of beef for up to 4 consecutive days then needs a 2-3 day break), and certain grains (white potatos, corn, white rice, wheat, he can have sweet potatos). So, yeah, he's on a raw diet.

I need to get in cahoots with a deer and duck hunter and convince them to give me their bounty. Niche can eat venison and he can eat duck. I just can't shoot for shit. BUT Niche is field trained, he could go and retrieve the ducks if someone could shoot them for him. Please?! Any takers??!! He'll even carry a sign- Will retrieve for food.

So back to Niche's "Feeeed Meeeee!!!!" post.

In an effort to get him to stop demanding food earlier and earlier, and hopefully help satiate his appetite. Well, actually its not so that he will stop demanding food earlier and earlier, I am actually somewhat rewarding that, it is to stop him from getting all of the other dogs so worked up and then have all FOUR demanding food hours before it is due. I mean, he's going to be 4yrs old on March 19th. This has been a 4 yr issue. I have tried ignoring it, I have tried no rewarding it, I have tried negatively reinforcing it to some degree, I have tried rewarding better behavior (ie not barking), nothing is effective, he feels that he is STARVING.

So, now what I am doing is in addition to his 2 reguar meals (bones in the AM and meat/veggies in the PM), I am giving him 2-3 small meals of 1/2 can of canned pumpkin or squash per day. Both of those are high in carbs, high in fiber, which can quickly fill a dog up with a relatively small amount.

This has been the new tactic for the past 3 days. This morning I realize it was working. I forgot to give him is 10pm small pumpkin meal last night, he had me up at 6am begging for food. I put him off until 7:30am.

The previous 2 mornings, he was perfectly content waiting to get me up until about 6:45 or 7am. Then after going out, waited rather patiently for food until 7:30am when *I* decided to feed them.

Same thing in the afternoons. He usually started begging for dinner about 1 or 2pm. He is usually fed dinner around 3 or 4pm. So I started giving him a small meal about 1:30pm. Now I'm not getting harassed for dinner until about 5pm.

Nice thing is, he is also very willing to take his small meal in a dish in the middle of the kitchen. So I do not have to go up and down the basement stairs 4+ times per day. Thank heavens!

So the experiment seems to be working!

ed 2/25/08 A rep from Nature's Variety e-mailed me, she says they have not changed the raw patty ingredient list, that there were always chicken eggs in their raw patties. I have always liked Nature's Variety food products, was just rather frustrated as I didn't think there had been chicken eggs in the food previously and the owner of the pet store had told me they had changed the recipie, we were misinformted. I appreciate the time the rep took to send me a note.

World Most Inconsistent Handler

2008-02-22T08:18:00.006-05:00

Why does my dog even keep trying? I am an idiot human. Watching the below video, I couldn't even tell what I was trying to get Monty to do (for the record in my head I was trying to work on 'wait' with him). Even I couldn't tell what I was reinforcing. What my criteria was. Cuz what I see in the video and therefore what my dog sees, sure ain't what I thought I was doing when I was doing it. And that whole concept of- dog learning something new, keep a high rate of reinforcement- seemed to have gone out the window last night. Yet look at him- he doesn't quit on me! Monty- you are a saint. I would have given up on me long ago if I were you. (the clip is nearly 7minutes long, I highly doubt you will be able to stomach my idiocy for that long, please don't subject yourself to it for that long)

In this one, I am a bit better I think. Wasn't working on 'wait' but more 'go'. Though I still royally suck as a handler.

Awe...

2008-02-20T08:29:00.003-05:00

I am having an "Awe....Cute puppy" moment:

That is Axel. Susan's new Bedlington Terrier puppy from Sweden. I just met him yesterday and he is adorable! In the photo above, he had just had a bath. I think he looks like a little stuffed toy- all fluffy and huggable. He is very huggable. :-)

This is to offset the fact that Niche started our day puking and has the dreaded vomiting and diarrhea dog bug that is going around. Blech.

Damn It

2008-02-19T21:49:00.004-05:00

They're getting to that age.

Tilly
Rosie
Regal
Seeber

All of them gone. On Friday Re will have been gone a year. Last Sunday Seeber lost his battle with osteo. Rosie was the day after Christmas this past year. And Tilly was about 3 years ago from histo.

Known still doing well and having fun- Cooper & Maddie

Unknown- 2 liver boys here in New England that neither I nor Sandee can get in touch with.

Born July 21, 1998. The "time of day" litter. The last litter to carry the C-City prefix.

Not enough time.

Damn it.

More Agility Fun

2008-02-19T11:59:00.004-05:00

This is a close approximation, distances in some places are a bit shorter than I think I got them on the map. Lots of 'cross at tunnel' opportunities and some fun call offs.

I brought Monty to the barn this morning and played with im on this course. Overall I think he did excellent for the lack of training I have put into this! He let me back cross at the tunnels, did NOT knock ANY bars and did his weaves (with the gates on them, I haven't actually taught him weaves at this point, that's on the docket for April).

We played some with landing side front crosses at the 3-4-5 jump sequence with the cross after 5 into 6 (tunnel) and he did really, really well with that!

I really need to start cracking down and teaching him a 'wait' though at the start line and on his dog walk & a-frame contacts. His teeter is Awesome, but else where he likes to try to fly, which is not good. He's also so fast (my little Turbo dog) that I need to start enforcing a start line stay or I'll have another Regal on my hands (ie steering a freight train from behind, eeek!)

He listened really well to my shoulders when I was using them to pull him towards me and the closer obstacle like at 10-11 and his out was very nice as well.

So overall I was very pleased with Mr Mont this morning. Though he is very much NOT thrilled with the idea of having to wait his turn! He gets very vocal with his displeasure of the situation.

Preview

2008-02-13T12:38:00.002-05:00

Of Monty's Painting

And, um, anyone good at Photoshop??!! Please?!

I am SUCH a New Englander (and a dork!)

2008-02-12T17:45:00.000-05:00

Also known as "Weather? What weather? I stuck my hand out the window and it didn't get wet! It's not bad weather!"

It took 1 student "hint" e-mail, and another out right phone call to say, "Um, Katrin, in about a 1/2 hr we're supposed to get hit with an 1" per hour for 6 hours snow storm, do you really want to have class tonight?"

Then, of course, I had to go look up the weather radar on www.noaa.gov and see that oh jeeze, wow, that's a HUGE nasty looking storm about an 1/8" away from my town. Hmm, guess I should probably cancel class so that no one gets stuck in the UNheated indoor arena at the bottom of a hill.

Damn it! What did we all do before the internet or TV to tell us about these storms? Oh, right, all you've got to say around here is- 1978.

Tonights Docket

2008-02-12T14:13:00.000-05:00

On tonight's docket for Continuing On, more gates & cones and some table stuff, the clips from this morning are currently loading on the video site. And the below course aka "when is a serpentine NOT a serpentine" is probably what we'll do in Comp Class, unless something else comes up.

On the Job

2008-02-08T16:06:00.000-05:00

I'm taking the poll for a painting I am planning:

http://iamnotwrong.blogspot.com/2008/02/on-job.html

Monty Time

2008-02-07T14:47:00.000-05:00

Since there have been scarce "Monty Related" posts as of late and this is after all MONTY'S Training Diary, here is a post on the Termite.

Monty and I have a morning ritual. It's called "Monty Time." He usually finishes his breakfast 1st, seeing how the other 2 have these huge honking lamb bones and he just has 2 or 3 chicken wings, it really isn't a wonder why. So he comes up from the basement, I let him out, then I go and sit in my recliner and he hops in my lap. So is "Monty Time" or time he spends snuggling in my lap getting told he's the best little turbo dog ever and such a wonderful boy and exceptional and brilliant and perfect. Always perfect.

If for some reason I am not really wanting "Monty Time" and have the computer in my lap, he usually says to me, "Too bad! It's MONTY Time!" and jumps in my lap on top of the computer and pins my hands down so I can't type. I then have to bargan with him- Let my hands go so that I can move the computer and then I promise I will pet you and tell you that you are perfect. If he believes me, he does as I ask. If he doesn't, then my hands stay pined and we bargan some more. To date, he always eventually says Ok and I can once again move my hands.

We have Monty Time for about 10 minutes until James barks saying he's done with his breakfast and wants to come up (they get fed in the basement) and then go out. And so the day goes on.

"Bloat" makes me irrational

2008-02-02T07:43:00.000-05:00

Especially at 3am when James gets up and starts the 'hack, hack' and acts like he's puking and nothing comes up. 4 times.

I start to get VERY irrational.

Ususally a dog pukes in the middle of the night, I semi-wake up, hear them start to eat it again (yeah, I know, gross, but hey most of the work is already done!) and roll over and go back to sleep.

Not last night. He kept hacking, nothing. I asked him if he was ok, I got a stort of tail wag that said, "I'm trying really hard to be ok, but it's not really working" then he curled up in a little ball on the dog bed and said he didn't feel good.

I become VERY irrational.

So I got up, turned on a light (at 3am, ugh) he looked sort of like it could be bloat. But I'm thinking, why at 3am?! He ate at 5pm. And it wasn't anything that would typically expand, no kibble, no grains. Had some water around 6. That's it! He didn't run around like crazy. He had a very quiet evening. Why at 3am?!

So I took them all outside and he was able to pee and poop, so I became somewhat less irrational, as a dog with a twisted stomach usually can't vomit and can't deficate. And since he wasn't acting like all the bloat dogs I've seen act- pacing, can't settle down, very much uncomfortable when you touch their belly, etc. Instead he was very much able to settle down and sleep. I said, ok I won't take you to the emergency vet at 3am.

Instead I stayed awake, worrying until about 5:30am. After which I dozed off. When I woke up at about 7am, all seemed back to normal in James Land. Typical goofy, bouncy flat-coat self.

Gave him just some veggies this morning, figure the fiber would be a good thing and no bones in case it was part of an undigested bone that was causing him to be so weird at 3am. So will just see how he does.

But for those that would like to learn just WHY bloat makes me irrational, check out this site and the ones it links to (actually it's from seeing bloat dogs 1st hand when working in the veterinary field that makes me irrational about the thought of it, but since I am going to guess few to none of you reading this will ever have that experience, check out the links):

http://www.globalspan.net/bloat.htm

It's raining, It's pouring

2008-02-01T22:10:00.000-05:00

And I'm watching an 11 month old Vizsla in a the midde of a fear period in a thunder storm.........She's not too happy......

Turning off computer NOW to prevent possibly power frying if power outage.

Priceless Quotes

2008-01-30T16:26:00.001-05:00

Last night there were 3 priceless quotes said in agility class which I just have to pass on to others.

1st was the "Human Lure". I was trying to get a handler (who shall remaind nameless) to work on 'get out' and was talking about how and where to reward the dog for his 'out'. And she said, "Oh so I can't be a Human Lure then?" I laughed and said, "No you can't be a Human Lure!" HaHaHa!

2nd was the "Variable Speed Dog" same handler as the "Human Lure" and I were talking about how her dog isn't necessarily always fast or always slow, and I said, "He's a Variable Speed Dog" and she laughed and said, "He's a VSD!" HaHaHa!

3rd was another team is a husband and wife and their young dog. The husband was running the dog in this specific exercise (they switch off during class) and I said something and the wife says, "Well yeah, out there you get stupid." It was hysterical because it's so true!

Today's Class

2008-01-29T08:12:00.000-05:00

Today we are going to focus on the little fact that should be well known, but which many folks seem to forget of- you don't need fancy equipment to do agility! Which means, you've got it, I'm bringing out the gates and the cones!

So we'll be working on lots of "Foundational" skills that seem to get sacrificed for doing the "Fun Stuff" i.e. contacts and weaves and tunnels and jumps and such- Go, Get Out, Switch, Tight, and Here.

Of course working up to SPEED with these and challenges of discriminations and such.

I will also drag out the Teeter (as long as the back door to the indoor isn't frozen shut) as we haven't done that in a while and all the dogs could probably use a referesher as the people. Here is your reminder with the teeter: FOUR on the BOARD when the BOARD hits the ground! (I really need to get a little tape recording with that. If I didn't think it would frighten the dogs I would use my nice Boston Police Bullhorn that a wonderful student's significant other bestowed on me, thanks John! :-) and for those of you who keep telling me, "But he did it!", when he clearly hasn't, I am bringing the video camera, digital doesn't lie...)

And maybe if you're good I'll reward the humans with allowing some tunnels......

See you tonight!

The Contest

2008-01-26T13:10:00.000-05:00

Our Esteemed Judge Ena
The List:
Plate #1: Greek Olive, Polish Dill Pickle, Garlic Olive & Lemon Wedge with Peel
Plate #2: Sour gummy worm, Salted Pretzel, Honey Mustard Pretzel, Cranberry Mustard
Plate #3: Grapefruit wedge, Orange Peel, Whole Okra, Sliced Ginger
The Contestants: Clara & Monty

Clara says "Mmm Good! Come on give me something TOUGH!"

After contest photos: Clara won by a landslide!!! Monty refused to eat the lemon wedge, the orange peel and he wanted to ROLL in the Okra! Clara ate EVERYTHING with GUSTO!!

Fun time had by all!!! Our best contest to date!

Lisa & Clara our most adventurous food friends!!

New Contest!

2008-01-23T18:34:00.000-05:00

We are having a Monty vs Clara "Corgi Trash Disposal" Contest on Saturday. "We" being Li & me. And guess it isn't so much "trash disposal" as just "weird foods you didn't think you could get ANY dog to ever eat voluntarily!" contest as Monty & Clara will eat or try to eat just about anything ever put in front of them. (actually very, very scary, this afternoon Monty decided to bring me a safety razor out of the bathroom. Well 'bring it to me' was after I noticed he had gone up stairs, alone, came back down with something, hopped on the bed and was starting to munch it and I said, "Hey Mont, what cha got? Can I see?" And he happily said, "Sure Mum!" At which, after seeing what it was, I said, "Wow, bud, how about you give that to me and chew your nice nylabone instead?" trying to keep the panic out of my voice. He obliged, thankfully...and later let me check is mouth and feet to make sure he hadn't gotten cut, he hadn't, luckily)

So far we have a miriad of fruits and veggies including Dikon (japanese root), Parsley, different citrus with lemon, orange and grapefruit, mushrooms (the safe kind they sell in the supermarket here folks! We don't need any hallucinating corgis racing around that would just be plain dangerous!), spinach, okra, kale, celery. Also on the docket are some things with spices like cinnamon, cloves, ginger (actually have some straight ginger on the list as well). Pickles are there too. And different pretzels.

Pretty much anything we can find that is non-toxic to dogs (and yes we will be double, triple checking EVERYTHING) and won't make either of them violently ill (crossing fingers on that one there, my reason for ok-ing this is Li is a vet tech who has a large number of cell #s of different local vets in her easily accessable possesion) and can be given in rather small amounts.

The 1st corgi to refuse something for sure, looses. And then gets lots of hugs and kisses and dog cookies!

We are debating on the specific rules. Like can a 'normal' thing a dog likes to eat be given between 'strange' things to keep them thinking the next thing might be 'normal' as well or is it all just strange, strange, strange until one walks away? Or can other dogs be present watching, or would the competition "the other dog might steal it!" factor an unfair factor and cause gobbling long after it would otherwise? Or does the dog's owner get to choose the order of foods for their specific dog, or to both dogs get the same food in the same order? Or does the dog have to eat it off a plate or bowl, or can the owner hand it/feed it to the dog, thereby incuring a more likelyhood of snarfing the hand that feeds it and eating the strange food? Decisions, decisions. (Yeah I know, some of your a probably shaking your heads at the absurdity of the things we contemplate over here during the New England winters...)

Saturday should be fun, though I may be regretting it by Sunday morning after a night spent taking the corgi out numerous times...