Ole gets the fastest time in class

Today started off pretty normal, walks doggy exercise and ball chasing, breakfast for all.... Then it was house work and organizing for our 8th and last class of the Nosework session. The next class doesn't start again until mid Oct so we will have a vacation of sorts for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow I have to show up for jury duty so I won't be able to get anything done all day and then I have a beginning obedience class to teach tomorrow night so it will be hectic. I had to get all matter of things done today.

20 minutes before I was going to put the dogs in the car and go and pick up Donna and Ginger, my neighbor a few doors down waved me over to her house. She had found an injured dove partially hidden next to her front gate and wanted to ask me (or so I thought ) what SHE should do about it. I told her to put it in a box and take it to Project Wildlife where they would take care of it. I have taken many injured wild birds and animals to them and I always give them a nice donation to help cover the costs. They are terrific and the money actually does go to help the animals, NO JIVE! My neighbor looked at me like I had holes in my head and said ," I can't do that, do you think I should put some water and bird seed next to it and see if it is still alive later on?" I said," well I would hope that if some one found any living creature injured by the side of the road that they would not just give them a sandwich and a glass of water and then leave them there suffering and in pain. I'm on my way to Los Angeles, so I don't have time to do this, can't you take it to Project Wild life? It's the opposite direction from where I have to go but it's only 10 minutes from here." She said," No I can't." No explanation. Now I knew the real reason she called me over. I didn't say another word, I was pissed. I got a small box from my garage, lined it with newspaper , gently placed the dove in the box and didn't look back. I piled everyone in the back of the car , put the dove in the box in the front seat and ambulanced it to Project Wildlife. They took it in and found it had a deep puncture wound in it's back like from a crow or hawk. I gave them a donation and then zoomed off to Donna's house . Everything worked out alright, but it just annoys me when people have that attitude about injured anything and foist the responsibility off on someone else. If it had been a dog or cat, would she have left it there suffering? I was happy to take care of the little bird but I will never really be much impressed with the so called niceness of my neighbor again. Nuff said on that!
In class we did a container search of 20 different types of containers, everything from shopping bags to suitcases, boxes, athletic gear bags soft and hard coolers, you name it . We were timed and Ginger came in first with a less than a minute find for two scents, Elmo had the 2nd fastest nose at an impressive 1 minute and 3 seconds. Monty, the Scotty came in 3nd at 1 minute 4 seconds so it was a close one. Gus the Tibetan Terrier was fastest at the vehicle search , & I can't remember who was fastest at the exterior search. It was the hardest as the find was a single Q-Tip scented with Birch that was wedged into a crack in the concrete in the parking lot and it was covered by what looked like a piece of random tape. Ole and Duncan ( a schnauzer), the two newest dogs to scent work had different areas to search than the the rest of the group as they are both still having their hides paired with treats. Ole beat Duncan in each contest, one was a container search and the other was an interior room search. Duncan thought he had won with his 9 second find in the containers, but Ole trumped him by finding it in only 8 seconds! Way to go Ole. Ole got a bag of treats as his prize and shared one with Duncan . Ole was strutting around and wanted to do more searches.but Alas, we were out of time and had to pack up and head home. No more driving to Tustin for a few weeks!

Hmmmmm, mystery barf

Just another day in the life of a multiple dogs owner! It started out fine, a Sunday with no big requirements out side of meeting all the doggie needs,ie: walk them , feed them , take Ole to the local park for a solid 30 minute game of fetch with his favorite orange and blue ball toys. Abner with Elmo and Shelly showed up after about 20 minutes and all 3 dogs competed over who would get the ball first and bring it back to me. I have to get a head start with Ole on the fetch game because once little Elmo shows up Ole won't compete with him over the ball. Now, Elmo is very fast but I've noticed that Ole hangs back and lets Elmo get every one. Then it was home again for actual breakfast. They enjoy everything, especially seeing their arch enemy stroll by our house. The enemy is a small black and white probably border collie mix of some sort. We've never learned her name as usually her owner is too busy yelling at her to cease and desist as she snarls menacingly at my pack of 3 goof balls. Shelly views her with great distain and Elmo and Ole think it is all great fun. Everyone ate their breakfasts like it was the only food they'd seen in a month except for Shelly , who started off doing real well but after she had eaten 2/3rds lost interest and wandered away from her bowl. The land sharks were circling (Elmo and Ole), and as I did not want Elmo to eat any more (he's gained 2 lbs since Ole got here!) I put the bowl up on the kitchen counter and went about my other morning chores. Abner always worries that Shelly will starve to death if she doesn't eat every morsel in her bowl, so he apparently put the bowl back down and SOMEONE ate it all! I don't think it was Shelly. I was upstairs working when Abner told me he had to go run and errand on his bike. I came down after he left and , There it was...a large pile of dog barf in the middle of my beautiful wool carpet. Yes, I'm glad it wasn't poo but...no one stepped forward to confess the sin saturating my area rug...Expensive area rug I might add with partially digested barf. I have strong suspicions as to who the culprit is but I guess it doesn't matter. All 3 engulfed their dinners tonight so whoever had the upset tummy quickly recovered. While Elmo and Ole are downstairs watching football with Abner ,Shelly and I are upstairs getting ready to do a little reading of one of the Steig Larsson mystery novels.

Ole goes out to dinner

Ole has been meeting up with Luna the 6 year old German Shepherd and her owners at the park by our house every morning for several weeks now. Luna basically ignores Ole and spends all of their time together making sure Ole doesn't get hold of her favorite ball toy. Her owners use one of those plastic ball launchers to toss the ball for Luna and Ole became enamored of not only the type of ball Luna prefers and the ball launcher. This led me to a shopping trip to Target to get him his own special launcher and ball toys. Big success! Ole is hooked on his new toys. We spend about 30 to 45 minutes in the morning chasing and fetching his ball and at least that much time in the evening. In the PM Elmo and Shelly also participate. Elmo is so fast that a lot of the time he scores the ball before Ole can get to it. Elmo then struts around and proudly brings it back to me and lays it at my feet.
Luna and her family live in Phoenix most of the year but also have a vacation home near us for the summers. It's too hot to even go for a walk in Phoenix in the summer so they really enjoy themselves while they are here. It was 108 degrees there yesterday and only got up to around 72 here. We are so lucky to live in San Diego! Anyway, Ole will have to find a new park fetch play mate until Luna comes back.


Last evening we were invited to a friends home in Elfin Forest for dinner. Elfin Forest is about a 50 minute drive from here and we did not want to leave Ole in the crate for what could easily have been 6-7 hours so we asked if he could come along. They are dog people and said yes. Elmo and Shelly stayed home to guard the roost and chew on bones. Our friends, John and Lee, are currently dog-less so Ole got to be the dog de jour. He was such a good boy, didn't get into anything, didn't jump on anyone or goose any one in the private parts. I'm so proud! I took his new ball and launcher with us and he showed off his fetch skills for about 30 or so minutes when we first got there and that tired him out real well. We were treated to a fresh Maine lobster feast by our friends and he was very good about staying on his towel and chewing on his bone while we feasted. He had a small lapse in manners toward the end of our meal ( came over to John and gave him the" surely you won't be needing ALL of that lobster?" look. I made him go lie down and he settled down and left us to our meal.

This morning Ole and I had our last fetcha thon with Luna and her owners as they are heading off to Phoenix for a while. Ole would chase balls thrown by me but preferred to have Luna's dad throw them for him. Some kind of male bonding thing I guess. Today , Shelly gets a bath and Shelly and Elmo will be assisting in puppy class tonight. Yes, I know it's labor day, but some of us have to labor , not all of us get it off.

Ole has a spa day

We started today with a training session in the park by the house. We ran into Tracey and her three pugs on the way there. Her little tribe is looking very good these days all trim and slim. Ole was happy to see them and was particularly intrigued with Bamboo (the tan pug) for some reason or another. I'm just glad Ole likes small dogs so much. It's not pleasant having a big dog that doesn't like small dogs when you live in a crowded area like we do. We then played fetch and leave it and catch the frisby as well as the ball with Ole and then we practiced him staying in a sit and then a down while I hid the ball. Ole had to wait until I came all the way back to him and told him to get it, before he could seek out the ball. He loves all those games. Abner came over to the park with Elmo and Shelly and we finished up the walk together. then everyone got to have their well earned breakfasts.
Today Ole and Elmo had baths at Noahs. Elmo won the dirtiest dog award...made Ole proud. Lots of brown water came off that small guy. I don't know what he's been rolling in but he definitely was the winner. Shelly got a repreive and spent the afternoon helping Abner do work at apartments. Ole probably wished he could either join Shelly or move back to the farm where real dogs splash in the creek instead of getting foo foo baths. He was pretty good in the tub, only semi leaped out of it once. Hannah who works there, was able to help me get him back in and i actually scrubbed him up pretty well. Elmo was as usual, a little gentleman both during his bath and with his blow dry. Ole did not get a blow dry and is proud of it. I got some pretty cute photos of Ole in the tub but I'm too computer stupid to figure out how to post them on this blog. Maybe some day I will figure it out.

Yesterday was Nosework in Tustin day and it was a really fun class. Each dog got at least 4 turns to search which is a lot. There were only 6 dogs in class so it was nice. We also got to practice container searches. In a container search the dogs search a series of suitcases, shopping bags , paper sacks ,totes, kind of like search dogs at airports do when they look for contraband. It was neat to do and to watch. Elmo went first and found the right container in 26 seconds. I was very proud of him. Then Ginger found it in 10 seconds so Donna was the proud one until Shelly beat out Ginger by finding it in 9 seconds! Ole did not get to do the container search because he isn't experienced enough yet with birch scent. He is still searching boxes with scent paired with hot dogs or the scent containers hidden with hot dogs on top of them. He still had a ball. He is so fired up that I can barely hold him back. Peggy and Julie the instructors want me to get him a tracking harness so that I can control him better. He is BIG and STRONG! I got Elmo a little harnass and have him wear it whenever we practice his scent work and at class. The harness to him means "this is serious work not time for play." He gets very excited when I put it on him. Ole will be the same way I know. Shelly is just in this for the mind stimulation. She enjoys it but isn't as serious about it as the boys and little Ginger are.

Ole learns some new tricks

Ole has been concentrating on catching the tennis ball when I throw it to him. He's getting a lot better at it . At first he would wait until it hit him in the face and then grab the ball as it rolled onto the ground. BTW, I wasn't trying to hit him in the face! Now, he is actually catching it. I tell him to "Wait"' then i step away from him and lob the ball to him. He even seemed surprised the first time he caught it but I made such a big fuss over him when he did that now he does a victory lap after he catches it. Cheers and clapping are expected. Yesterday we found an old forgotten Frisby laying on the grass in the park and I started tossing that to him after he had been fetching the ball a few times. He seemed to kind of like it but had a very difficult time picking it up off the grass . He finally figured out that if he pressed down on one end of it the other end would pop up and then he could grab it. After that he had a great time with it. Tonight I alternated getting him to fetch the ball and then get the frisby. Next we played catch the ball. Catch the frisby he doesn't quite have yet. i think I will introduce him to a soft cloth frisby tomorrow and see if he does better with that. We've been meeting up with a female German Shepherd named Luna and her owners every morning and together she and Ole chase tennis balls until their tongues hang almost to the grass. Luna's owners get a big kick out of Ole as he is so careful with his manners around Luna. All Luna has to do is give him a look and he backs way off and gives her as much space around the ball as she wants. Whatever Luna wants, Luna gets!

We met Donna and Ginger today and a local rec center& with all 4 dogs and practiced nose work. For Ole, we hid containers with Birch scent and placed treats on top of them. For Shelly, Ginger, and Elmo we hid 6 different containers, 2 of each of the 3 scents. We picked some bleachers to hide most of the scents around and the dogs did really well. Ginger boldly climbed up and around on the bleachers to get to the hides which is something she never would have done 6 months ago. Her confidence has really soared with nose work. Ole had never seen bleachers before but he willingly climbed all over them to get to his hides. On one of the 3 sets of outdoor bleacher a big old bulldog was laying about 2 steps up the bleachers none of the dogs initially knew he was there but they all handled his presence really well. At most , Ginger and Elmo barked at him once or twice but then went on about their task finding that precious scent. he just lay there and watched them. There were a lot of people walking around , a few bums were crashed on the lawn and a dodge ball game was being played right in front of the bleachers but the dogs ignored all the distractions and stayed on task. All in all it was a good session.

Today was suppose to be dog bath day for Ole and Elmo but I just didn't get to it. I had a private lesson at 10:00 then did a bunch of house work and just couldn't get motivated after that to scrub them up. Tomorrow will have to do I guess.

Ole gets a taste of the farm

We've had a busy few days. Emma , a little 10 month old Brussels Griffon, (all 8 lbs of her) came to stay for 3 days while her owners were away on a trip to the Bay area. Ole was besotted with her and she detested him. Elmo however was just her cup of tea. Elmo was cool and calm with her and she liked his style. Ole kept flinging himself at her feet which would cause her to snap in his face and yap at him which in turn would get him all flustered so that he would pat at her with his plate sized feet. She HATED it and could find nothing at all endearing about his attempts at play. She mostly followed me around like a little shadow or hid under the couch or other pieces of furniture. She actually handled the whole staying with a stranger and 3 unknown dogs very well all things considered and ate really well and was immaculate in her potty habits. She wasn't big on the nightly fireworks shows but didn't completely freak out. I got Ole up extra early every AM and did at least a 40 minute power walk and training session to take the edge off so he would be calmer with Emma. For walks, I did two dog walks combining Shelly and Ole and then Emma with Elmo. It was impossible to walk Ole with Emma as he was too excited about her. She was I think rather happy to get picked up by her owners on Sunday night. I've only done one practice session for nose work since last week. Did 6 hides for Shelly and Elmo, all outside in the alley and then 4 outside hides for Ole on our lot. For Ole I hide the birch scent which is in small containers and put food treats on top of the containers so that when he finds the scent he gets instant rewards. He is still pretty new to scent work so I want to make sure he understands that he has to find the scent right at it's source and that he associates the scent with his reward. I'm going to try to do another training session tomorrow if I have time.
I took all 3 dogs to Fiesta Island today and Ole found a pile of horse manure . He grabbed a mouth ful as a snack before I could stop him...shades of his old life on the farm!

Tonight I had a puppy class to teach and Abner could not watch the dogs while I was at class. The SUV is in the shop so I had to cram all 3 dogs plus my X-Pen and puppy agility tunnel all in the Mini Cooper. It was like clowns in a Shriners tiny car. None of the dogs seemed to mind but I will be glad to get my bigger car back. We have a really cute class of puppies. There is a 10 week old blue merle Great Dane, a cute black chow mix, a labradoodle and a little cattle dog mix. Elmo especially liked the only little girl in the class named Joey who is the cattle dog mix. Elmo is very romantic being that he is 1/3rd poodle.

Ole is at least as tall as Shelly now and you can tell he is going to get probably at least 3 or 4 inches taller than her. I need a bigger car! His ears are staying up now but I think the right ear will always be a little weak and wandering. I love it as it has such personality. He is a very sweet boy.

Ole meets a ghost and Elmo wins a title

It's been a very busy 4 days since last I blogged. Thursday and Friday I spent a good deal of time working on my art piece, made 2 trips to Fiesta Island with the dogs, and Ole spent 4 hours on Thursday at Daycare where they found a flea...DRAT! I had to give him another Comfortis pil on Friday to keep the critters at bayl. I've tried several organic flea repellents but they weren't hacking it apparently, so had to bring out the big guns. We had no flea problem until it finally got a little warmer just a few days ago. At daycare they have a strict no flea policy so they gave Ole a bath. When I came to pick him up he was relaxed and happy. Hiromi said that after his bath Ole ran around in circles to celebrate his flea freedom.

Friday night I spent getting ready for the Canine Nosework Trial in San Pedro. Donna and I had both entered our dogs in the nosework trial1 event on Sunday and had also signed up as volunteers for Saturday morning so that we could both help out and learn the ropes. I left Abner and Elmo and Shelly sound asleep on Saturday morning, none of them even raised their heads. I had to get up at 5:00 AM to get ready and Ole tried to help by also getting up and being as under foot as possible. While Ole was outside doing his AM potty, I came back in the house and bundled up a large sheet that was laying on the floor and placed it just in front of the back door which enters into the garage. When Ole came back in he lay down in the hall in front of the back door to get his morning cookies. All of a sudden he started barking and leaping backwards . I looked and saw the sheet heaped in the corner and quickly ran over and stomped on it till it was dead! Ole wagged his tail kind of sheepishly and then tentitively came over and sniffed the sheet completely relaxed and I praised him for being a big brave German Shepherd that even his dad Rex could be proud of. He is very sweet. He was sure that he would be able to talk me into letting him go also but alas, I was hard hearted and left him home putting him in his crate with some biscuits .

It was a long drive up there with a bit more traffic than we were expecting, but that's LA for you. We had a bit of a problem figuring out which toll exit to take to pay our toll for the 73 toll road which ended out costing us an extra $1.50 in fees but after a few wrong turns we found the place the Trial was being held right about the time we were suppose to be there. Corrine from nosework class was waiting for us and had saved us a spot in the parking lot by some trees. We were real happy to get out of the car and we now knew how to get to the place when we drove up with our dogs on Sunday. We all signed in as volunteers and were given our assignments for the day. Donna was to be the time keeper for the exterior search , I was the time keeper for the interior search, and Corrine was to be the container mover for the container ( suitcases, purses, boxes and bags) search. The trial we assisted in was for the most advanced and experienced handlers and dogs called NSW3 (Nosework 3). There are 4 components to all nosework trials: the container search where the dog handler team must find and alert on 1 or up to 3 odor hides., the interior search which involves the search of 3 rooms with 2 or 3 hides & one of the rooms has no hide in it and the team must find all the hides as well as figure out which room is clear of any hide ( very difficult!), an exterior search which can be in a grassy or concrete surface. It is about 1000 sq feet of marked off space, and the vehicle search which has 3 or 4 vehicles and 1 up to 3 hides. The handlers and dogs must determine which vehicle/s have hides on them , which vehicles are clean and the dog must locate exactly where the hide is and alert near it. The difference between Nosework 1, 2, and 3 is the number of odors the dog must identify and the degree of difficulty of the finds. Each of these searches is given a time in which it must be completed, anywhere from 2 minutes for a container search to 4 minutes for an exterior . In our interior search, the teams had 4 minutes to search each of the 3 rooms ( total of 12 minutes). If they went over 4 minutes in any room they were disqualified. (In nosework 1 only cardboard boxes are used in the container search with no distractions such as food or toys placed in any of the containers like they do in NWS3.) These guys had it tough! We tested 12 dog/handler teams and it took until 2:00 in the afternoon. With me in the interior judging, was the judge,named Nicole, the steward and myself. both the judge and I had stop watches to back each other up on the timing and the steward photographed the search of each of the 3 rooms by each team. It was a tough one and I think only 4 maybe 5 of the dog teams passed this particular part of the test. In order to title in nosework you must pass all 4 elements of the trial with a score of 100 points. In Donna's group(exterior search) only one team passed and in Corrine's group (containers) only one passed! In fact no one passed the NSW3 trial at all and we heard later that only one team passed the NSW2 test which was given after we left to drive back to San Diego at 2:00. Speaking of that drive., the traffic was hideous!!! It took us over 4 hours to do the 2 hour drive back to San Diego and there is only one rest stop between San Pedro and San Diego. Bladders were tested for sure that day.

Sunday was a tough one. I got up at 4:15 AM and quickly got dressed and cleaned up and slugged down my AM breakfast drink. I carried Elmo who was in no way ready to get up, downstairs, put him down to take him outside to potty and he sprinted back upstairs and burrowed under the covers of my bed. He woke Ole up so I had to sneak Elmo back downstairs and put him on the leash . I put everything in the car and made sure Ole was quiet in his sleeping pen and Abner was asleep in bed, before Elmo and I headed off to Donna's house to ride up to San Pedro with her and Miss Ginger. The ride back to San Pedro was much easier this time and we had Donna's husbands pride and joy to ride in , his immaculate1960's ?? volkswagen camper van. We got robbed by the coin machine at the toll road toll booth and had to pay twice to get through the barrier. There were no attendants at 6:00 in the AM on a Sunday. Once we got to the Trial things went a little smoother. Corrine had the shady parking spot saved for us so we set up camp, pulled out the vans awning and set up chairs and dog crates. There were 48 competitors for NSW1. They divided us into 3 groups A,B,&C. Corrine and I were in group B and Donna in C. I was designated as number 7 to do the box drills and then exterior search with Elmo, Corrine and her Tibetan Terrier dog Gus were #8 and poor Donna and Ginger were # 48! That meant she had to wait 4 hours or more before she and Ginger had their 1st turn at boxes and vehicle search. Dog sports in general are like this, hours of waiting for only a few minutes of competition. At least we had a good comfortable place to hang out in between our turns. Elmo was a real little pro and ready to work. As soon as we walked into the auditorium were the 18 boxes were set out for him to search his nose was working. I said "Find It!" and he trotted purposely to the first line of boxes, dismissed them as unimportant and headed to the 2nd line. He hesitated slightly and glanced up at me at the second one from the end but did not alert to it. I thought it was probably the one but that he just wanted a chance to sniff them all and we had a whole 2 minutes for the search so I went with him to the rest of the boxes and as soon as he kind of gave up on them had him take me back to the box of interest and sure enough, he tapped it with his nose,
gave me his AHA! look and sat right next to the box. I called "Alert "to the judge, she said"Yes!" and we had it, our first leg of the trial journey. Elmo got his hotdog pieces at the box and a butt rub and lots of praise and the steward sent us off to the exterior search area. Oh, I forgot to mention that before the trial started they also divided us all into groups of three and each of us in the group had to pick either interior, vehicle or exterior as an element. at the end of the trial the group with the fastest combined scores would be the winning team. Elmo and I selected interior search as our part of the team competition.
At the exterior search area we had to search an area of about 800 sq feet that was located outside between two classroom buildings and was divided in half by some school lockers which had an awning over them. It had a concrete surface and was hedged in the back and sides by shrubbery. Elmo was ready to go! He practically leapt across the start line and immediately checked out the east side of the lockers. as we got to the far edge of the lockers his head snapped to his left because he had caught the odor and he honed in on a picnic table . He circled one end of the table and stood on his hind legs up under the table and tapped the underneath surface with his nose. He then sat right down and gave me his most happy I did it look. I said "Alert" and the judge asked me to tell her where the hide was . I said under the table top next to the metal bar supporting the top. She said "Yes", and Elmo once again got to celebrate his successful find. We were both thrilled to say the least. The interesting thing about this all to me was I was not nervous at all during the whole day, a little excited , but not nervous and I think it helped Elmo because he was the same way. Dogs pick up on their owners energy and tend to mimic it. After that we had to wait until 2:30 for our next turn at the vehicle and interior searches. Corrine and Gus didn't have as much luck as Gus did not alert at all in the box drill but got the exterior search, and Donna, when her turn finally came at 2:00, Ginger aced the box drill but was 4 inches off her find for the vehicle search so did not pass vehicle search. After a late lunch, Elmo and I were up for our vehicle search. Once again I could just feel his confidence rolling up the leash and he found his odor with in 34 seconds no problem. One of the observers said that Elmo made it look easy, and I was amazed at how much he was enjoying the competition. Corrine's dog, Gus had problems with the vehicle search( usually Gus's best event) and did not pass it . Elmo and I were 3 for 3 with interior search to go which was also our team event. I had my fingers crossed that we wouldn't let our team down. Elmo sailed into the room gave his head a flick to the left to check a corner of the room and then (this was our off leash search) zeroed in on a big work table near the center of the room. He seemed very interested in a stool just under the table, stuck his head under it , and Bingo sat and smiled at me. I said" Alert", the judge said "yes", and we had it!!! our first title, NSW1! The long and short of it is , out of 48 teams 17 passed the NSW1 trial and Elmo and I were one of them . Our team won first place in the team event, also a ribbon. Donna and Ginger won everyones hearts with Ginger's determination and work ethic and charm but did not pass the trial this time. They did a great job however and if Ginger had been two inches taller probably would have passed. GInger couldn't reach the exterior search hide to alert properly at it but knew where it was. She worked so hard and with such enthusiasm that the observers all cheered and clapped for her at the finish and she strutted out very proud of herself. She was mentioned several times at the awards ceremony afterwards. It was a long exhausting day and fortunately there was very little traffic on the way home, got there in 1&1/2 hours. Ole was thrilled to see us and is very proud of his big little brother Elmo. He wants to grow up and be just like him , without the girly tail of course.

Ole's ear-do

So for at least a week Ole has had two pretty up right up tight ears....BUT not today. Today his right ear rebelled and went floppy again. I rather like it as it gives him a kind of foppish marmaduke charm. I love the way it bobs up and down as he walks while the left ear stays upright like a unicorn horn.

Monday I was mostly busy in my studio and with a dog trip to Fiesta Island. In the Am, Ole spent some quality play time with one of his girl friends Fiona. Then later Donna and I also did some nosework practice with all the dogs. We didn't have class Monday night and it was nice to have a little time off for a change. Tuesday, I took the dogs to Fiesta again where they had a great time sniffing and running. I saw several rabbits but my not so sauvy dogs missed them and didn't get a chase in. We spent 3 hours at the studio working on the newest art collage then at home ding lots of boring household chores. Jay our plumber came by to take some measurements in the two bathrooms for the remodel and by the time he left, I had to get ready for the Tuesday night beginning obedience class. Elmo came to help with class while Shelly and Ole stayed home with Abner and went for a walk. Donna brought Ginger to class also and we did some odor hides for both dogs on the mail carrier trucks next door to where we taught the class. We let the two dogs practice their odor detection both before everyone arrived for class and after the students had left.

Today(Wednesday ) Ole got to play with his other girlfriend Taz the yorkie /Chihuahua/ MinPinX and he was in Heaven. I swear, as much as he adores Fiona, Taz is really "The ONE". Now those would be weird puppies!. Shelly had a morning monthly chiropractic adjustment and massage appointment. She's doing well for an 11 year old big dog. I brought Ole along also so that I could weigh him. He hasn't really gained much weight and is now 66.6 lbs. His major growth spurt has passed, but judging by the size of the knobby growth plates on his front legs , he's got a bunch more growing to do. His head still looks too big for his body to me, and he's as long and sleek as a snake. From there we went to the studio and did a little more work and then headed home and got to work at the computer answering emails and preparing for nosework class. We also did a major vacuuming job on the SUV so that Donna and Ginger would not be strangled by dog hair on the ride up to Tustin for class. Class was fun tonight , but sadly , our favorite instructor, Desiree is moving out of state to take her dream job in a few weeks so that is great for her but the class will miss her. We did box drills, an interior search, and vehicle searches tonight. Elmo started off a little shaky with the box drill, he didn't seem to be able to concentrate on task at first. Our friend Ann told me to massage his 3rd eye right before a search and he will be more alert. I have to remember to do that on Sunday at the nosework 1 Trial. I guess I better figure out just where that third eye is on him! Elmo got better with each search. Shelly was completely off her game on the box drill but did great with all the other searches. I think she thought some one was going to pop out with a camera and flash it at her at any moment. Ole did great. He is completely focused and enthusiastic and couldn't be any happier than when he is in search mode. He is a joy to watch. Ginger was of course spot on with all her searches. She is a
walking nose, all 7 lbs of her.

Ole gets a Pawticure

Yes, Ole is no longer a farm Shepherd...he enjoys his every 6 weeks pawticure, which he had yesterday. Tess says he is completely relaxed while she files his nails and then massages his pads with lavender oil. He's the most relaxed of my 3 dogs. The Shepherds back at the farm in Wisconsin would be horrified at this I'm sure but you know, Ole likes his comforts.
After our morning training session, Ole got to play with his newwest heart throb, Fiona the Aussie. That kind of made his morning. He enjoys the training session but Fiona was the whipped cream on his sunday! After that I took him home and fed all three dogs and then took the for an off leash hour long run at Fiesta Island. then it was back home where I dropped off Ole and Shelly and then Elmo and I went off to meet Donna and Ginger for some nosework practice at a local mall. We got permission from a pet store manager to hide some scent containers around their store for Ginger and Elmo to find. Some of the hides were a tad difficult but our little troupers found them all. From there I ran Elmo home and dropped him off and picked up Shelly . Shelly and I had a private lesson to attend to at Fiesta Island. From there we went back home , picked up Elmo and Ole and took all three to Noah's for their nail trimming appointments. Busy day!

Today, Sunday, after Ole's morning training and Yes, another play date with the lovely seductive Fiona I packed all the dogs up and we went to my studio for several hours of work on my latest art project. After that , we drove over to the little local mall and met Donna and Ginger for more nosework practice. We ran into one of our old clients and her 7 year old daughter there and talked over old times and introduced her to Ole who she hadn't heard about. Ole was very good and well mannered with them both. Elmo made sure that he got most of the attention by cuddling up to the lady and her daughter. We spent about an hour doing scent work and then Donna headed back to work and I took my guys to Fiesta Island for some R&R. This time I took them down to the fenced area and the shoreline so that they could do a little wading. They had a ball running in and out of the water as we strolled around the island. They got completely filthy so after all that fun I carted them home and immediately closed them in the bathroom and started the dreaded dog baths. I washed Ole first and he wasn't thrilled but enjoyed the toweling off part of the process. Shelly and Elmo were easy as they have done this a hndred times before. By the time Everyone was shiny and clean I was a wet sopping mess and Abner and I had to meet friends for dinner ' so I quickly dried Elmo with the blow drier and then made their dinners and cleaned all dirt out of the car. Abner came home and he and I got cleaned up, we fed them, walked them for a potty trip to our lot and then gave each one a bone( Ole got his in his crate) and off we went to dinner. PHEW I'll sleep well tonight!

Ole says no more lunch

At now 7 months and 66+ lbs, Ole's biggest growth spurt is finished. He will still continue to grow but just not as quickly as he did between 16 weeks and 7 months. He will reach about full height at 10 months and will continue to fill out until around 3 years when mental maturity sets in. His brain will be fully formed at 1 year but he won't have read the users manual until 3 to 3&1/2. His appetite has also slowed. I made him lunch yesterday (the usual 2 cups ) and he wasn't interested in it at all. I had a private lesson to go to and I was only going to take Shelly as my assistant , so I left Elmo loose in the house and put Ole in his crate with a chewy. When we got back from the lesson, Abner had also just gotten home a couple of minutes before us and told me that Elmo didn't even get up to greet him when he got home. I took one look at Elmo and realized that I had forgotten to pick up Ole's bowl before I left. Elmo ate ALL of Ole's lunch!!= 2 cups of food! Elmo weighs (weighed?) 19 lbs . His tummy was so full he could barely get up. No dinner for Elmo last night that was for sure! He was none the worst for wear this morning just his normal cheery self. Probably dreamed all night about his big score at Ole's food bowl. He is Elmo the opportunist for sure.
Ole had his last beginning obedience class last night. He was very good. It was a review class of all we had learned the first 5 weeks and he has improved a lot.....Sit and sit stay, down and down stay, stand, come heel , leave it and lots of eye contact training. At home and at the park we also work a lot with fetch as it is a great not only bonding game but gives him a good work out..

This morning on our morning training walk we met up with one of his girl friends, little Taz the yorkie minpin, chihuahua mix. He is quite taken with her and did everything he knew to get her attention. She would briefly flirt with him and then terrorize him with a quick correction for being so forward. He loved it! After our morning chores, I dropped Ole at daycare and then took Shelly and Elmo to Fiesta Island so that Elmo could run off his huge meal from the day before. Eating all that food did not slow him down at all , he gave Shelly a run for her money. We ran into one of our Mission Beach neighbors who also has 3 dogs. They normally always bark at each other because they always see each other when they are on leash. They were all off leash at Fiesta so no barks just friendly relaxed greetings on neutral ground. Too bad Ole missed out .

I had an appointment so took the dogs home and went to that then on my way home stopped and picked up Ole. he was good in daycare as always but was a little worried apparently when one of the caregivers put on an elephant mask. They gave him treats while wearing the mask and pretty soon he thought the mask was a real good idea. Socialization and desensitization continues , age should not stop it.

I went to my studio and Ole napped while I worked on the new art collage and then we drove over to Dusty Rhodes Park where I met with a client and she got to meet Ole for the first time. I did not take Ole into the dog park. he had done enough socializing for one day and I didn't know any of the dogs that were at the park. We stayed out in the grassy area and Pam and I talked. Then Ole and I went home and I did some house work and then all 3 dogs and I went over to Donna's house and we all walked over to a local rec center where we practiced their nosework homework. Ole was A MANIAC to do his turns. Fortunately as soon as he started working he calmed down and concentrated on the job. They all did well. We're going to practice again tomorrow and Sunday.

Ole still has a lazy right ear

Ole's right ear tends to tip against his left ear. It has become the job of his left ear to hold up his right I think. It doesn't matter however because I like his ear-do...it gives him a charming look, the not so serious German Shepherd. I hope it stays just like it is.
We've done a lot of nosework practice in the past week, at my studio, in a storage garage, in a flower bed under a staircase, in Donna's kitchen and under her diningroom table, in Donna's studio, at Warwick's bookstore,in La Jolla and at a park along the ocean in La Jolla, and a vehicle search of Donna's neighbors car and to top it off, we did a box drill in Donna's drive way, (not all in one day!). The nosework trial is in a week and a half so Elmo and Ginger need all the practice they can get. This afternoon, we had class in Tustin and they really put us through our paces with both indoor and outdoor drills and a 4 vehicle search! I was running from one dog to the next as I brought half the dogs in the class. Ole got his first intro to finding scent in boxes. They put a container with birch and some hot dog pieces in a box in a line of 8 boxes and Ole had to find it. He was fantastic, never missed a one . All 4 dogs did very well and were clear with their alerts. Elmo was impressive and fast. Shelly takes her time more and sometimes will pass by the odor and not indicate it until she has searched the entire area. Ginger is also fast , faster than Elmo and very methodical. Ole is just plain"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" They are a joy to work with and to watch in action.
Ole is going through a barky stage...he has discovered his bark! He especially likes to announce his arrival at Donna's house , class, Ann's house and both Veterinary offices. Today when we got to Donna's house to pick her and Ginger up , they weren't outside yet and Ole stuck his head out the window of the car and started calling them"Woof,woof woof". Translation: " Come on, hurry up, don't you want to go to class? It's where all the fun is!"
Last night, Ole was the class demo dog in beginning obedience. He did a good job and as a reward got to play with Rusty , an adorable chocolate colored Aussie . She is a cute cute pup and well Ole does like the ladies you know!

Yesterday I delivered the art piece to my customer. It looks fantastic in her house and she was thrilled. Actually , so was I. I've now started on a second piece which I think will be as good or better than the first one. It's exciting to see it develop.

Ole does daily training

Now that Ole is almost 7 months old and we have gotten more serious with his training routines. By serious , I don't mean that they aren't fun for him, I just mean I make sure we work on specific behaviors on a daily basis. We've been getting up at 6:00 AM every morning and Ole and I head out to a nearby athletic field and work on all his basic commands: Stay, position changes , Leave it, Come, Heel, and best of all and most favorite , Fetch. I also throw in a few dog tricks so he can wow the tourists with his clever ways. He's getting pretty good at playing dead and we are hard at work on balancing a treat on his nose. After practice we walk home and most of the time we meet up with Ole's 3 girl friends Fiona the Aussie, Millie the Jack Russell and Taz the Yorkie/ min pin mix. Fiona has become a bit possessive of Ole and tries to body block the other two girls from him. Taz treats him like dirt and he is fascinated by her ..Of course! Millie plays come hither and then snaps at him and chases him away. This morning none of his girls were around (we got a late start) but Abner showed up with Elmo and Shelly right after we left the field. Ole was thrilled to see his buds so that was a nice surprise. Later i walked all 3 dogs to my studio. Ole was 100% better on the leash today so maybe just maybe he is getting better...I hope. He didn't lunge at any cars or joggers or skate boarders. I'm so pleased!

Yesterday we did nosework practice at Donna's art studio and in her kitchen and around her dining room table. The day before we did some hides at my studio and under an outdoor staircase and in a storage garage. Elmo has his first nosework trial August 15th so the more practice he gets the better I will be at reading him and the better he will be at it. Shelly and Ole of course also did their searches and thoroughly enjoyed it. Tomorrow Donna and I will take Elmo and Ginger to La Jolla and see if we can get one of the store owners to let us do a couple of searches in their stores. Shelly and Ole will get the day off.

Ole does a lot of manners training

Ole as he goes through his teenage ups and downs has been increasingly more reactive to joggers, bicyclists, skate boarders and skaters. He's basically a very mellow pup but his prey drive goes into high gear around those stimuli. We are putting in at least 3 to 4 training sessions a day working on this problem. He weighs 64.4 lbs now at 6 &1/2 months so it isn't going to get any easier the longer this goes on and the bigger he gets. It's not an untypical adolescent German Shepherd problem...if it moves fast , chase it down and herd it! Maybe we should adopt some sheep. Elmo doesn't want to be the sheep anymore.
I sold my art work today. The lady that bought it was very excited about it which was fun. She gave me a down payment for it when she came to see how it was progressing this afternoon at my studio. Now I just have to finish collaging the sides of the frame and them I will varnish it to keep the colors of the paper from fading. I was almost hoping she wouldn't want it as it would look great in my living room.
Elmo and Shelly were the demo dogs tonight at beginning obedience class in La Jolla. Elmo was at his best. He loves being the center of attention in class. Ole and Abner stayed home and did some training. After I got back, Abner and Elmo and Ole and I walked down to the bayfront Catamaran Hotel to watch the Polinesian dance show that is held once a week on the bayfront. Ole and Elmo were both unfazed by the noises , the music and the fire dancers. Ole however was overly interested in any bicycle that whizzed by him so we had a few problems on the way home. Shelly elected to stay home and guard the house as she doesn't enjoy crowds or loud noises.

Ole skips class

Yes, it's true, Ole played hooky from class Thursday night. He was a little off gastrointestinally speaking on Thursday as were Shelly and Elmo. Abner had given them each a bone the night before and I think the bones were on the verge of going bad. Now considering some of the gross things I have seen Ole put in his mouth, I don't know why a slightly hinkie bone would bother him but it did seem to. Any way, I didn't haul him up to Del Mar to class as I didn't want a repeat on a much larger scale of what Elmo did in the car on Wednesday. Ole got to have a quiet evening / afternoon at home and at my studio instead.

Friday: Ole and Elmo and Miss Shelly seem back in the groove today..NO PROBLEMS! We had a busy day. After morning walks and breakfast, I got Abner to help me walk all 3 dogs to my studio. Ole was a bit hard on the leash but improved after we were almost at the studio. Elmo's leash popped out of my hand when he saw a flock of pigeons on the beach on the way there and he had a great time chasing them all over the beach. Ole wanted to help but we didn't oblige. Elmo came back as soon as the pigeons realized what a tough guy he was and the rest of the walk was pretty uneventful.

We stayed at the studio until 12:30 and I got a lot done. The piece is really shaping up. I'm going to photograph it tomorrow and possibly send the photo to the buyer so she can decide for sure if she wants it. I like it so much that I wouldn't mind if she decides it's not for her. We went back home and I fed Ole lunch and then got ready to go over to Dorie's house to do some scent work with primarily Elmo and Ginger. We drove over and picked up Donna and Ginger and went to Dorie's house. GiGi was thrilled to see her good dog buddies. Kira, Dorie's daughter, was home so she also got to see the dogs do their searches. We put a couple of finds in Dorie's kitchen , one in her downstairs bathroom , one in the alcove leading to the bathroom and two outside. Shelly, Elmo and Ginger got to do those finds and then we did a couple of exterior searches for Ole.. The dogs in between searches chased each other and did a little wrestling..had a great time. Then right before we were to leave GiGi and Ginger gave each other a dirty look and it was a girl fight! Ole and Elmo just stood back and didn't know what to do ,Shelly didn't care and Donna grabbed GiGi and lifted her off the ground. Ginger was not ready to give up so I had to herd her away and then pick her up. Don't really know what it was about but those two were ready to battle. Fortunately , no dog was injured in the making of this battle.. I drove Donna and Ginger home and Dropped Ole and Elmo off with Abner at home and then Shelly and I drove to Clairemont to do a private lesson with Fiona a kind of fearful but sweet dog who needs dog friends. I helped her owners with some door issues and Then we took a long walk with the two dogs doing parallel walking. By 10 minutes into the walk, Fiona was brave enough to sniff Shelly's posterior, and after that, her owner was able to walk both dogs together. Now they just have to find other dogs for Fiona to go on walks with and to become her friends. After that is was home again, dog meals, dog walks and Ole training. Now to bed.

Ole has events all day

This morning Ole and Pack got to go to Fiesta Island for some off leash R&R. It was overcast and lightly misting so was nice and cool and they loved it. We did about a mile and a half walk and then got back in the car and drove over to the studio to do some more work on the art project. Ole and Elmo curled right up and took a nap immediately and Shelly lay down at the door and was the watch dog. After almost 3 hours, Abner came by and walked us back to the car so that he could check the oil in it as we were going to drive to Tustin for class this afternoon. He stayed to do some yard work on the place and we hopped in the car and took it to the gas station to fill it and then to the car wash as we don't like to make Donna ride in a dirty car. We headed home where I fed Ole lunch and gave Elmo his breakfast which he wouldn't eat earlier. Elmo didn't seem very peppy although he had had a blast at Fiesta Island. Abner gave them older bones last night to chew on and I didn't think it had agreed with Elmo.

We drove over and picked up Donna and Ginger and headed for Tustin. Even though it was opening day at the Del Mar Race Track the traffic going past it on our way towards LA wasn't particularly bad. The trouble started with Elmo about the time we were in the thick of traffic in North county, Elmo kept wanting to climb from the back seat to the front and in particular onto the floor at my feet. (I was driving!). Now this was very unusual behavior from Elmo. He generally gets in the car , finds a spot and goes right to sleep. Not so this trip...AND he kept panting. I got Donna to offer him some water but he wouldn't drink it. He just kept moving around and then IT happened! Elmo climbed over the back of the back bench seat onto the two canvas crates I had brought for class and took a GIANT dump!!! P U!!!! PHEW!!! This is when electric windows are a good thing to have. The smell didn't bother the dogs but Donna and I were choking till we got those windows down. Elmo, relieved of his burden, quickly settled down on the floor of the back seat area and promptly went to sleep. Ole and Shelly were oblivious and Donna and I survived the rest of the drive.
When we got to class I got the privilege of cleaning up the mess..along with the warm fuzzies of having pets is the icky poos of cleaning up after them.
Wouldn't you know it, Elmo was brilliant in class tonight. He certainly felt better . Maybe I should have him take a dump in the car right before his nosework trial next month. Actually all 4 dogs did exceptionally well tonight . I think all the practicing we did in a variety of locations really paid off. Ole isn't on scent yet &that won't happen for a few weeks. He's still just on finding his container filled with hot dogs. He is very enthusiastic and just can hardly wait for his turn.

Ole enjoys a trip to F.I.

Ole is getting sooo big! He still hasn't grown into his feet though. I haven't weighed him for a couple of weeks and it would be interesting to know just how much he weighs at this point. When I put all 3 dogs in the Mini Cooper Shelly takes up the whole back seat, Elmo lays on the floor in front of the front passenger seat and Ole wedges himself on the front passenger seat. We must look like a clown car when they all get out.

Today I took all the dogs to Fiesta Island and they had a terrific time running in the sand and investigating all the smells in the brush. Some horses had been there before us so I had to drag Ole away from their left behind poop. He wanted to dine on it...just like at the farm he came from in Wisconsin.

After Fiesta Is. we went to my studio and put in a few hours work on the big art piece. It's starting to look good if I do say so myself! Donna and Ginger came over while we were there and we hid some scent for the dogs to practice their nosework skills with. Ole got to go last and he found a bag of treats several times. He loves his scent work, but then Ginger Elmo and Shelly do to. After Donna and Ginger left I spent 2 hours working on the art piece and then closed up shop and took the dogs home where i fed Ole lunch and Shelly belatedly ate her breakfast. I then put Ole in his crate with a bone for entertainment , turned on the calming dog music tape and left the dogs home while I rode my bicycle back to the studio to work some more. I came back home at 4:30 and got their dinners ready. Abner came home and after feeding and walking the dogs, I packed up Shelly and Elmo and the 3 of use headed off to La Jolla to teach my beginning obedience class. Ole and Abner stayed home and later went for a training walk down Mission Blvd.

My Tuesday night class is a good one. There were 2 Australian Shepherds- Rusty and Oso, a Bull mastiff- Chip, a golden retriever-Tripp, a black standard poodle- Marley, and a lab- ish mix named Sally. All really nice charming dogs with fun owners.

Elmo was the demo dog and he on his game tonight nailed all his commands perfectly. Ole was very happy to see us all when we got home. Apparently he was less than stellar on the first half of his training walk with Abner. He got better as the walk progressed. Leash work takes a lot of time and practice, and Abner wants immediate results. Patience is the name of the game.

Ole gets ready for the birthday party

Friday : Ole went back to daycare today. Donna and I went to her hair salon and ( with prior permission), hid 2 scent containers for Elmo and Ginger. There were about 8 people in the salon , 4 customers and the rest stylists and a manicurist. Ginger and Elmo had a great time searching in a new kind of environment with very different scents to sort through to find their Birch scent. They did pretty well all things considered but the second find was pretty difficult , up inside a pipe under a sink. Elmo could smell it when he jumped up on the chair but had difficulty tracing the scent back to it's source. Ginger did a little better and faster. She is a nose on 4 legs!
At 1:00 I went and picked up Ole. He was napping when I got to daycare but was real happy to see me, probably because he knew me showing up means home for lunch!
The rest of the day was spent working at my studio on the art piece. I got a phone call from Laurie asking me how the piece is coming along and I told her I would photograph it as soon as it looked like something she might like and then she could decide whether she wants it or not.

After dinner Abner and Ole went on a long training walk. Abner said it was good moments mixed with rather bad ones. Work in progress.


Saturday: I took only Shelly to class this morning. Three people were supposed to show up but only one did! I wish people would call and let me know if they are not coming. Oh well..... After class, I sprinted home and put out 3 hides, 2 on a vehicle in my neighbors garage(with his permission) and one stuck to a metal pole in the alley behind the garage.. Donna came over and after my 2 dogs found the finds little Ginger had a go at it. They all did well. Ole did not get to participate as we didn't have time to do a hot dog set up for him. We had to walk all 3 dogs to my friend Patt's house (she also lives on the bay near my house). Her dog Tobey ( a shitz tsu) was being thrown an 11th Birthday party by patt and 7 dogs were invited. I brought half the dogs all by myself! The dogs after greeting each other and Ole in particular after being corrected by both Shelly and Tobey and Ginger, all settled down and took a nap. It was 76 degrees with a light ocean breeze , really comfy. Patt's friend Silver showed up 30 minutes later with her new dog, Sophie a 20 lb terrier mix. It was love at first sight for Ole. Sophie was a bit of a tough girl with him but he was enthralled with her. He likes'um a little on the tough side. All the dogs got doggie ice cream called yoghund and they all really enjoyed it except Tobey who turned his nose up at it. He did get a bunch of edible gifts however which I'm sure he will enjoy after all the other dogs have left. The humanoids enjoyed fresh fruit smoothies made by Patt in her new super blender and around 1:30 I headed home . I dropped off the dogs changed clothes and rode my bike to the studio to work away at my art piece. I can actually say that it is starting to look like something now but I probably need to put around 2 to 3 weeks worth of work into it to finish it up. I hope Laurie will like it.
Tonight I'm taking Ole on a training walk.

Ole's nose knows

Yesterday (Wednesday) I got to spend about 30 minutes trying to get on the email sign up list for the nose work trial next month in San Pedro. It's a first come first serve and there are a limited number of spots so I don't know if Elmo and I will get in or not. I didn't try to sign up Shelly as they photo graph and video tape the whole trial and Shelly shuts down in the presence of cameras. Donna also signed Ginger up but doesn't yet know if she got in or not. Next, Ole and the gang got to go to Dusty Rhodes for 20 minutes with me and then we went over to the studio to do more work on the art piece. After that, the car was very dirty so I took them and it over to the car wash to get it spiffied up. It had been a while since Ole's last trip in the car through the car wash and he was a bit startled at first but quickly relaxed and ignored the whole event. He disliked me vacuuming the car more than going through the wash machine. We went home after that and got packed up for class in Tustin, and then drove over and picked up Donna and little Ginger.

Class was a little stressful tonight for some of the dogs but my three had a good time. Shelly was even happy to be in the training room while other dogs were working didn't get nervous at all. Elmo was confident and happy to work and Ole was a maniac to find his hot dogs. This time, Desiree and Julie (the instructors) did not hide his hot dog container in boxes at all, instead they hid in back inside shelves and under a chair (the container is magnetic so it sticks under the chair) and a couple of other places that I can't remember. Ole was ON! He did not quit until he found the container and I said "Yes!". I then would run over and open the container and give him a handful of hot dogs. He loves his nose work. The more experienced dogs also got to do an exterior search and a vehicle search. Shelly was great found her containers and Q- Tip no problem. Elmo had a little trouble with his exterior search as it was a Q-tip with Birch scent on it and was hidden in the handle of a bucket that was in front of a dumpster. There were a ton of big nasty horse flies buzzing around the area and Elmo decided that it was up to him to rid the planet of them varmints! It took quite a bit of persuasion to get him back on track and searching. I only hope if we get in the trial next month that there are no horse flies!

Today, (Thursday), Elmo and Shelly got massages by Ann and then I did some house work and shopping for dinner and also for class treats and some doggie ice cream for a doggy birthday party that my three dogs got invited to on Saturday morning.

Then we came home and I got ready for a private lesson with Fiona the lab mix and her two owners. Fiona is a bit dog reactive when on leash so we fitted her with one of my old Gentle leaders and walked her around the trouble spots in her neighborhood working on her owners handling techniques. We also worked on interrupting her barking at dogs that walk past her house and redirecting her.

I came home after that and put together a big pot of homemade spaghetti , fed the dogs and then put Ole in the car to go to his beginning obedience class. The trip that usually takes 30 minutes to drive took me 1 hour and 15 minutes to get there. The traffic was hideous. Fortunately I wasn't the only one 30 minutes late for class. Ole loves clss. We worked on coming when called, leash work , stays and attention. He did very well and after class I let him play with Cooper a little pit mix. His owner and I practiced letting them play and then calling them away from each other to us to sit. It was difficult but we got them to do it.

Ole's girl friend goes home

Dorie came over on Monday morning and picked up GiGi& GiGi was over the top happy to see her Mom! GiGi's family had been gone for 11 days so GiGi was beside herself. Ole and Elmo were out for a walk with Abner so did not get a chance to say goodbye. Ole in particular will miss her. I took Ole and Shelly and Elmo to Dusty Rhodes Park after they got home . The park was the way I like it, mostly empty with no over excited over the top dogs. Afterwards we went to my studio where I worked on the big art piece while the gang napped. Then we went home and started getting ready for the start of another 4 week group puppy class. Elmo was the demo dog du jour. Shelly and Ole stayed with Abner and enjoyed their beef bones while Elmo dazzled everyone with his talents in puppy school. We had just 3 puppies this class, a lab, a golden retriever and a little boxer mix. They are all really nice puppies.

Today I once again took all 3 dogs to Dusty Rhodes Park.Ole found a really nice little border collie x and vizsla to play chase the ball with for a few minutes but then spent most of his time running with Elmo. Shelly found a nice warm sunny spot on the grass to roll around on and that was the high light of the trip for her.

We once again headed over to my studio and spent about 2&1/2 hours working on the big art piece. Abner came by to check the progress on it and then the dogs and I went home did some house tidying and then got ready for the start of the latest beginning obedience class in La Jolla. I also set up two different nosework areas for Shelly and Elmo, one upstairs in the office and guest room and the other in an alley near the house. After Shelly and then Elmo successfully found all their hides i set out boxes for Ole in the alley to search for Hot dogs enclosed in a container. The first 2 I hid the container in a box and he found it no problem. the next 3 finds i put the container outside the boxes but in the general vicinity. He had no problem finding those either. I'm so proud of him! Ole has great Work ethic.

Four dogs showed up for the class, a standard poodle, a golden retriever, a cute labish mutt and an australian shepherd. Once again a really good group and nice people and dogs. The class was fun and Elmo got to demo sits with releases, step on the leash and stay as well as proper leash work.

When we got home Ole and Abner met us at the garage door . they were just coming back from a training walk over to the oceanside. Abner said Ole was pretty good with all the skaters and joggers, not real reactive. I told him to keep at it as Ole is definately a work n progress!

Ole models a life vest

This morning I took all 4 dogs to Dusty Rhodes park for some early AM fun. They had a ball. A little young female Samoyed just could not get enough of Ole, she followed him everywhere and kissed him all over his face. He wanted to run and chase and wrestle with GiGi instead. I think his heart belongs to GiGi. She is either really sweet and frisky with him or very corrective and harsh. He loves it all. He will miss her when she goes home tomorrow morning.

After Dusty Rhodes, I took the pups to my studio and worked on a large 60x48" art piece for a couple of hours. They all settled down right away except for GiGi who just had to position herself everywhere I needed to stand to work. I finally blocked her out of the area I was working in and then she lay down and relaxed. She likes to be the center of attention at all times.

We went home and i made lunch for Ole. I noticed that he hasn't wanted quite as much food at mealtimes as before. He probably isn't having a big growth spurt now so i will cut back on his feeding a bit. Everyone else got a raw chicken neck to munch on as a snack. That made them all very happy. I did a little housework and then signed up online for the National Scent Work Association and registered Elmo so that he will be eligible for the Scent Trial that is being held in San Pedro next month. There are a lot of handlers that will be competing for spots in the trial so we don't know if we will get in or not. I won't be trialing with Shelly because all the elements of the trial are photographed and video taped and Shelly is upset by both. I don't want her to have to put up with that, as it ruins the fun for her. Eventually when Ole gets older I will also register him. He will love the trials. He has a big working ethic and Elmo does also.

There are lots of Arizona tourists this year, seems like more than this time last year. Ole has been enjoyed lots of attention from all the little kids that are here . Everyone comments on his changing "ear-do's".

Abner took Ole on a training walk this afternoon and when they came back, Ole was wearing a bright yellow life vest for dogs! One of our neighbors was throwing it out because their German Shepherd did not like riding in their boat. Anyway it is a little big on Ole now but should fit him well in a few months. Abner wants to take Ole out in his Kayak, so now Ole will be ready with his own water wings! The price tag was still on the vest and it looks like it was never used, so Ole scored big time & Abner is proud of himself.

Ole goes back to daycare

Ole and GiGi went to daycare this morning while Shelly and Elmo and I took a little walk around at Fiesta Island. Afterwards we went to my studio for a while and worked on a commissioned piece of art that I am doing for someone who bought one of my other paintings. From there we drove to my private lesson with Mishu the teenage Akita and her owner. Mishu is basically a very good dog except for coming when called so we spent the whole lesson working on that one thing.
We ran some errands after the lesson and then drove over and picked up Ole and GiGi from daycare. When I walked up to their daycare I could see the two of them playing on the deck and just having a great time.
We then drove back to my studio to meet with a lady who was buying one of the painting that I entered in the Fair. After she left I worked on the collage art work some more and then took everyone home where i got a lot of work done and also got ready to teach Ole's beginning obedience class. I had to teach because unfortunately poor Julie had to put down one of her beloved dogs today and was too broken up to teach the class. Donna came along and brought little Ginger and I brought Ole. We met with Laura and her dog Mick a Belguim Teverne. We met a a local park near where we were to teach the class so that Laura could work with her dog who is reactive around some other dogs. Mick was very reactive with Ole and Ginger at first but after about 15 minutes of walking the 3 of them together we were able to let both Ole and Mick off leash together and they were fine, running and chasing.
The class went quite well and Donna and I had fun teaching it. There were 4 dogs, a Cairn terrier, a Maltipoo, a Rodisian Ridgeback/ labX and a really cute lab?/ mix. Ole stayed in the car during class as I couldn't work with him and the students and their dogs at the same time. Ole still is too rough around the edges to be a demo dog all the time. It will come as he matures!

That was yesterday! Today Elmo had his AM massage appointment so While Abner took Ole and Shelly for a walk, I took GiGi and Elmo to Ann's house. Elmo was very sore and tight on his right side so he was in 7th Heaven during his massage. When we came home I rushed around and tidied up as I had to meet with a lady named Betsey who is a bathroom designer. She is probably going to help me fix up all 3 bathrooms. She spent about an hour or so at the house and after she left I packed the dogs up in the car and we drove over to the apartments that Abner was working at and picked him up and we all took a trip to Fiesta Island to do a little doggie walk around . Everyone got to be off leash except GiGi. Her coat just attracts every foxtail on the island so she had to be onleash during the walk so I could keep her on the trail and out of the brush. Even then I found two foxtails embedded in her coat after we got home.

Donna and Ginger and Donna's husband Phil came by this afternoon,(they were on a walk). We invited them in and while Abner and Phil talked manly stuff, Donna and I did the tour of the newly redone master bedroom. Ginger spent most of her time chastising Ole for being too close to her. She weighs 7 lbs and he weighs 60 but she did a good job of letting him know just how disgusted she was with his behavior! I sure am glad He likes small dogs or maybe he fears her FANG.

Ole and his ear-do

Yesterday , took all 4 dogs (GiGi is still with us), to Dusty Rhodes park for a little R&R. We went really early as I didn't want to take them there when there were a lot of dogs, rough dogs in particular. We stayed about 20 minutes which was plenty of time for them to run and chase and sniff. They enjoyed it immensely and were all ready for a nap afterwards. From there we went home to do a few chores and then headed over to one of the local parks in University City to meet with Donna and Ginger to practice box work and scent drills. We needed to get our homework done. Donna and I put out about 12 or so boxes and gave each dog 3 turns at finding scent in the boxes. Then wedid 3 box searches for Ole who had more fun than anyone else...he loves his nosework! Next I hid a single Q-Tip in a crack in the bark of a very large tree about 12" from the ground. Ginger had never searched for a single Q-tip before and kept wanting to mark the tree. Apparently it is a popular tree with all the local male dogs that frequent that park. Donna didn't let her mark and eventually Ginger found her find. so we gave her two more tree finds for practice and she had less trouble. Elmo and Shelly were already use to finding single Q-tips of scent so had no problem with their finds. We then put a canister with hot dog pieces in it on the grass next to a box amongst all the other boxes and Ole found it in just a few passes. Nothing seems to interfere with his concentration when he does his scent work.
Dorie called from New York to check up on GiGi. GiGi got to hear her voice on the phone but didn't seem to like the phone very much. They will be back early next week to pick up their girl GiGi.

We had class in La Jolla last night and Elmo and Shelly came along to assist. Elmo demonstrated emergency handling techniques for when approached by a threatening dog and Shelly helped with stays and leash work. Ole and GiGi stayed home and kept Abner company.

Today, Dusty Rhodes Park was closed for maintenance so i took the pack to Fiesta Island for a good off leash run, all except GiGi who has that kind of poodle coat that attracts all manner of stickers and foxtails . I kept her on leash and stayed on the wider dirt paths that had no for tails. She didn't have as much fun as she would have off leash but then I didn't spend 2 hours afterwards picking burrs and foxtails out of her coat and skin.

Next we went to my studio where i settled them down and spent some time working on a large 60x 48 art collage that i am doing for a lady that recently bought one of my dog paintings. This piece is based on a large poster with a European village design on it.

We then went home and did dreaded housework and car cleaning. At 2:00 I packed everyone up dropped GiGi off with Abner who was working at one of the apartments and then picked up Donna and Ginger and we drove to Tustin for our weekly nosework class. We had a great time at class, all our dogs did very well and Ole of course was in 7th heaven. Everyone commented on Ole's newest" eardo". Currently his left ear stands straight up while his right ear either does the comb over treatment or flops to the side..very charming.

When we got home Abner said that GiGi did not like riding in his old beat up work van! Not too surprising as she is used to the finer things in life...Mercedes and other fancy cars for her rides!

Ole leaves a trail of teeth

I've vacuumed up at least 3 puppy teeth and saved 4 more. I have no real reason to save Ole's used puppy choppers but they just look so small compared to the pearly whites that have replaced them. I know his mouth is tender as his gums look rather red and a bit puffy. I give him ice cubes and sometimes Yoghund ( frozen doggie ice cream cups) when he seems particularly uncomfortable. He's such an easy going nice tempered guy that he really is staying very even tempered through out the teething experience. Last week Thursday he seemed not so perky & wanted to sleep all day and I think that was related to his mouth being uncomfortable.

He has gotten very BIG, weighed 56.4 lbs when I weighed him Friday. I think he weighs more now. He started beginning obedience class last week Thursday in Del Mar. Julie is our instructor and there are 5 dogs total in the class. It was pretty much of a review for us as Julie taught sit and sit hand signal and a release from sit, come to a hand signal name recognition, watch me and wait. I've been working on those since I brought Ole home at 11 weeks but it is good to practice in the distracting environment of an out door class. He did pretty well, was a bit distracted by the other dogs at first but when he realized the possibility of a piece of hot dog for his attention to me , things quickly turned around. I would say his name and then spit a piece of hot dog in his face when he looked at me. He loved it!

GiGi is staying at our house. Her family dropped her off last Wed. night so she's been with us for 5 days now and is doing fine. She is used to being an only dog so tried at first to guard me as a resource from the other dogs. I am not allowing her to do that at all. She gets sent to her bed or has to do push ups or go to her X- Pen if she tries a power play. Ole thinks she is really hot stuff and followers her around like a well... puppy! He's quite enamored of her. She is 2&1/2 and he is 5.5 mos so I guess that makes her a cougar and him her cub.

The 4th of July was fun this year, the crowds were smaller and it didn't get so wild because no alcohol is allowed on the beaches anymore. The beaches and parks were very clean even last night after most of the partying had finished up and people left. Ole sat out and watched the fireworks on the front step, Shelly hid in the bathroom and GiGi and Elmo chilled out in the living room on the couches. I'm glad Ole isn't freaked out by the "bombs in the sky".

This morning after walks and breakfast, I took all 4 dogs to Dusty Rhodes Park so they could do some running. They had a ball. i only took them in the park because there were just a very few dogs there and no rough playing dogs were in the park. We stayed 20 minutes walking around the whole time. Ole met a really cute little 5.5 mo old white female Shepherd mix and the two of them had a great time playing . Shelly monitored everyone and GiGi and Elmo chased and wrestled with each other. We left after a big young lab came in the park and tried to hump Ole. I pulled the lab off and we high tailed it out of there. I didn't want Ole to get bulled by another dog and maybe learn to do that. I also wanted him to see that i protect him and take charge.

Elmo is getting a bath tonight as he has been itching like crazy. I can't find any fleas on him but his skin is flakey and itchy. The bath and then an application of Thayer's Aloe/ witch hazel mix should fix him right up.

Ole 's teeth and the tooth fairy

I was driving ShellyOle and Elmo to Dr. Weingardt's office yesterday and I noticed that Ole kept shaking his head. When I parked the car, I noticed Ole lean over and spit out a tooth on the seat! Another one down for the Tooth Fairy. I weighed Ole and he is 53.4 lbs! After Elmo's appointment I took the 3 of them to Fiesta Island for a celebratory walk. We got out at our usual spot and had walked about 500 yards when I heard the sound of a water rocket being shot off. Shelly has been deathly afraid of rocket and firework sounds for years, goes into a complete panic mode and runs off blindly. I looked over at her and she was calmly sniffing a bush. That was surprising. I almost went over to her to put her leash on just in case, when another water rocket went off and before I could even think 2 more were shot off! Shelly miraculously ignored all of them completely! The only thing I can attribute it to is she must be going deaf to that particular pitch of sound. We continued our walk while probably 30 more rockets were shot off and she enjoyed the walk as much as Elmo and Ole. I was happy and sad at the same time. When we left I drove by a big sandy area on the way out and there must have been 50 people having a water rocket party. I'm sooooo glad Shelly handled it well. All 3 dogs helped with my Tuesday night beginning obedience class. Ole showed how to properly teach a sit and down stay, Elmo demonstrated a 2 games, and Shelly showed everyone how to properly reward a dog for coming when called. They love their work! When they got home everyone got a nice juicy rib bone ...a good day for my dogs.

Wednesday, June 30th: I took the dogs to Fiesta Island this morning and we took a different walk, stayed more in the center of the island. They really enjoyed doing something a little different. The area was farther away from the field where the water rocket people were yesterday so that was partially why I chose it. Afterwards, I came home and did a bunch of house chores and then Abner and I went to the base exchange and bought an area rug for our dining room that we had picked out a couple of weeks ago but weren't positive it was the one at that time. I put the old rug that was in the diningroom in our bedroom and the new rug in it's place. They both look great. Ole decided to help us by laying on the rug when we unrolled it so we had a fun game of roll Ole up in the rug and spin it around. He loved it. Today was nosework class day so we packed up picked up Donna and Ginger and went on up to Tustin for class. Ole did great, he's a natural. Nothing distracts him from the task. We started him on food in a container in the box instead of loose in the box. No problem. He loves it all. Ginger, Elmo ,and Shelly all were good tonight no hesitation. They enjoyed their searches. Ginger has really blossomed because of the nosework. She is so charming when she makes her find and alerts by pawing at it.
When i got home I had 30 minutes to get everyone fed and thenGiGi and her family showed up at my door. GiGi will be staying with us for about 2 weeks while her humanoids go on vacation to their roots in New York City and Conneticutt. GiGi is easy going and very sweet and Elmo and Ole are charmed by her. Shelly actually wags her tail and also lets GiGi lick her . It's quite cute. GiGi'sfamily got lots of sweet greetings from the pack. I hope they have a fun trip East.

Ole tries out a different training collar

We're having a bit of a problem with Ole wanting to lunge at cars that speed by. His regular martingale collar just wasn't doing the trick so a few days ago I ordered a Scruffy Guider collar for him on line. I bought a large knowing that it would be a bit too big but also knowing that he is in a growing spurt stage right now and I didn't want him to out grow it in a couple of weeks. It's an interesting collar made up of two adjustable collar bands that both encircle the neck, one high behind the base of the ears and another lower on the neck. The two bands are connected by twp vertical stablizing bands that keep the collar bands apart and in place. Like a martingale, the collar closes to the size of the dogs neck if they pull on it . I found that it gives me a ton more control over him when he espies a fast moving vehicle of any type and I can much more quickly get his attention and also get him to move away from the distraction much easier. He lost his left upper canine puppy tooth this morning while he was wrestling with Elmo. i found it on the chaise lounge in my bedroom. I don't know what I'm going to do with it but I've got it! All 4 canines are peeking through the gums now. I'll be real happy to see all those sharp little puppy teeth go bye bye. They look so out of place in his mouth , like teeth for a chihuahua. On another note, the room is finished!!!!! Now I can start to decorate it. I actually have slept in my own bed for the past two nights...and it's nice. Next we're going to get some design advice on the two upstairs bath rooms which are tremendously in need of a redo..more angst to come! The house hasn't been updated since 1983 so there's lots more to do. I sold a painting today called Comfort Zone. It is acrylic on canvas of a Golden Retreiver sleeping on a big arm chair with a cat asleep on the top of the chair and a little Schipperke dog ( my old dog Ozzie), asleep on his back on the rug at the foot of the chair. I also worked on a painting while I was at my studio after the buyer left. Elmo and Ole played with each other and Shelly took a nap.

Ole has a play date at daycare

After the morning practice walk I loaded all the dogs in the car as they all had appointments this morning. We dropped Ole off at daycare first and then I drove Elmo and Shelly to Anns house for their massages. It was a lot calmer there this time with out Mr. Ole getting into everything. Ann is dog sitting 4 clients Italian Greyhounds and has 6 of her own so her house was packed to the gills with dogs. Considering that each of the little IG's probably only weighs about 6 to 8 lbs , all 10 in total weight probably equal one Ole-sized puppy!
Both Shelly and Elmo really enjoyed their massages. Elmo practically fell asleep during his and Shelly actually relaxed and didn't try to leave half way through it like she usually does when Ole is along.
We headed home afterwards where I changed cars. I had a 10:30 private lesson and I needed Shelly and Elmo to be mentor dogs for the young dog we were going to train. After that, it was almost time to go and pick up Ole , so we ran some errands and then headed over to pick him up. GiGi had also spent the morning at daycare. It was her first time there so Ole got to help the new kid get adjusted to daycare rules and regs and introduced her to the regulars. I guess she was very happy to have him as her mentor for school. When I got there, she recognized me immediately so I went over and hugged her up a bit. Felt a little sad taking Ole away and leaving her there on her own but she was in good hands. Dori was coming to pick her up in an hour so GiGi would be fine. We drove home and I fed Ole and then Abner and I got to work finishing the last touch ups in the bedroom. We filled in areas on the ceiling near the beams and trimmed off a few places where the beams and the walls connect, put a door stop on the door and touch up painted where needed. Then we did the same in the hall and landing areas outside the bedroom. Phew, what a job. Next we have to reassemble the bed which is going to be a real head scratcher.
After I fed the dogs, we decided to take a training walk to the grocery store. Abner walked Shelly and Elmo who are excellant on the leash and I took Ole who is considerably LESS than excellant. Boy is he ever a work in progress and he is strong and he was in chase mode, ie: chase the car, chase the jogger, chase the skateboard etc. I prevailed but it was defiantely a challenge. I need to walk him down Mission Blvd more often!

Ole the hotdog maniac

This morning on our training walk, Ole and I practiced sit and down stays. I did that after I let him dig a huge pit in the sand to get rid of his pent up energy. Elmo did not want to play the part of road kill for Ole game this morning so was really happy to go off with Abner and Shelly for a more mature dog walk. Ole did well with his sit stay and was able to reluctantly hold it even with bicyclists and joggers speeding by. The rest of the morning until 10:30 was spent caulking the ceiling (finished it!) and then it was off to GiGi's house for a fun play date in her back yard. At one point Ole was chasing GiGi up and down the wooden stairs of her backyard deck when he made an error in judgement and flung himself off 3 steps from the bottom. He landed hard , rolled and started crying like the baby that he is. Even Shelly came over to check him out. I talked calmly to him and made him lie down for a couple of minutes and then he was back to the races NO problem. You'd think he would remember that , but noooooo, 5 minutes later he did it again, this time no tears just limping. So it was time to wrap up the play and head for home before he Kamikazied himself.
Got home fed Ole lunch and headed upstairs to work on the room. Today is nosework class day so at 2:00 I packed everybody up and motored over to Donna's house and picked up her and Miss Ginger. Off to Tustin we headed.
At class we had a substitute teacher , a lady named Peggy who was one of the judges for our ORT's( odor recognition tests). We had a really fun class , both Shelly and Elmo, and Ginger were hot to trot finding their odors and Ole was an absolute maniac searching the boxes set out for him. On his second go around I couldn't get him to leave the ring had to put a trail of hot dogs back to the crate to get him out of there and then he was ticked off and started barking and carrying on like he was being stabbed or something!!! Wow was he ticked off. He I offered him his dinner to calm him down but he wouldn't eat , only wanted at those boxes. Donna videoed all of their searches so they should be fun to watch.

Ole does demos

I swear Ole has grown another 3 inches since last week. I'm going to weigh him at Dr. Keith's office on Thursday when I take Elmo in for his appointment with Dr. Aldridge. Today I practiced sit and down stay with Ole and a bit of Come and wait. Mostly we practiced during his morning walk. Ole met 2 kids this morning during his practice session. An 8 yr old boy and his 5 year old sister came up while we were practicing and asked if they could pet Ole. Ole was good, he sat and was very calm and gentle while the kids rubbed his face and head. He even flopped himself on the grass and rolled over on his back so that they could rub his tummy. He showed no interest in biting at their hair which was a relief after yesterday.
Most of the day was spend slugging away at the bedroom ceiling. The grouting is taking forever.
Tonight I had my La Jolla beginning obedience class to teach and Abner was meeting one of his old Alaska Airline buddies for dinner so I brought all three dogs with me to class. Elmo was the demo dog for heeling on leash and stays using treats on the ground. Ole got his debut as demo dog by demonstrating how to teach stand stay using the OFF command and sit and down stay using body blocking. Shelly stayed in the car and watched but as she is retired did not contribute to the class. Tomorrow is nosework class so she is saving her energy for that.

Ole does homework

For the past couple of days we have been concentrating on Ole's leash manners. Tomorrow I am going to work on his stays. He's growing by leaps and bounds and impulse control is critical with young dogs. He's pretty good with" off" and also with bringing things that he has picked up to me when I call him, but the stays and the walking on a loose leash instead of dragging us like sleds is getting more important every day. He already weighs half my weight and he's only 21 weeks of age. One of his veterinarians told me that he probably won't get as big as his siblings or father due to the raw /grain free diet I'm feeding him. I hope this is true, otherwise I may have to buy a saddle and ride him instead of walk him.
This morning on his local training walk we met 4 little kids in the 6 to 8 age bracket and he was at first very good with them , letting them pet him and generally enjoying their attention. Then one of the little girls who had long hair , flipped her hair right in his face and he of course grabbed at it with his mouth. I instantly stopped him but wouldn't you know it , the other little girl with her started to shake her hair in his face! He kept his cool and I scooted him out and away. Kids do the darndest things!
We were working on the ceiling of our unending remodel of the bedroom today and have the ladders placed on top of a series of blankets to keep the from scratching the new floor. Everytime i would come down the ladder to move it I would find Ole curled up on the blanket directly under the ladder and He did not want to get up. I called him nicely to come off the blanket and he ignored me. Then he tried the passive aggressive approach to get me to leave him be by going limp so I couldn't move him. I didn't fall for his ploy, I just moved the ladder leg into him until he got up and went to his bed which was in the room also. He got a little praise for that. I'll be so glad when this room is done.

Ole has a traveling ear day

Ole's ears took a journey today. It started with his left ear straight up and his right ear folded to the right like an arrow giving you directions or a hitch hikers thumb. They never really came up together today and by early afternoon both were flopped , the right one to the right and the left to the left. It's 10:00PM and that's where they've stayed. It'll be interesting to see where they go tomorrow. I took him on a training walk on his long line this morning on the oceanside board walk. It went pretty well. He's actually more responsive and better behaved on the longline when I walk him than he is on a leash. He only partially lunged once at a jogger, I wasn't quick enough with my distraction and sit signal. We worked on the oceanside for about 20 minutes and then walked back over to the bay where I let him celebrate his good behavior by digging a pit in the sand. Before lunch I did some nosework practice with Shelly and Elmo, hid 5 containers of scents up and down the court outside our fence & next to our house. Then I took 3 q-tips with the Birch scent on them and hid them in the blind alley behind our neighbors house. Elmo and Shelly both did great and found them all quickly. Then i put 8 boxes out in the same alley and took Ole there and did 4 runs for him . He loves box work. But then he loves to eat so finding hot dog pieces in boxes is the best thing on earth to him. He is very focused and gallops from box to box ..such joy! Later after dinner (Ole's) Abner took him on a training walk and said when they got back that he did well so I was happy to hear that.

Ole goes to work

Ole had another busy day today. He did his usual go get the paper and check out the neighborhood walk and then escorted Shelly and Elmo to their therapeutic massage appts with Ann at her house . He was feeling frisky while they were getting worked on and fortunately I had brought a stuffed Kong toy with me . I used it as a diversionary tactic and he finally settled down and worked on it right about half way through Elmo's massage. We went home and got ready for Ole's first private lesson. I had a lesson with a man and his 20 week old female Akita, named Mishu. Mishu hadn't been around any other dogs except the other Akitas at the kennel she was born at. It was up tp Elmo and then Ole to show her that there are other dog breeds in the world besides Akitas and that they are nice. Elmo was first up and she was a little afraid of him, but he is a gentleman and didn't pressure her or try to force her to interact. Within minutes she was following him around and seemed to relax. It was then time for Ole. I brought Ole out into the yard where the two dogs were and he boldly and confidently stepped out into the yard and gave her his best play bow. She ran away and stood behind her owner., so Ole started wandering around the yard picking up toys and dropping them. I threw a ball for them and after a couple of throws Mishu started to run with Elmo and Ole and even did a few submissive paw gestures at Ole. She began to relax and by the time we left all three were laying in the shade and drinking water together. I hope her owner keeps socializing her as fearful dogs can turn into biters and/ or fighters. She is also not too confident with people but better with them than she was initially with Elmo and Ole.
Later in the afternoon all 3 of my dogs had a play date with their good dog friend GiGi at her house. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised to find that Dorie's daughter Kira was also joining us for the play date. GiGi was in top form and led everyone but shelly on a grand chase around their back yard. Elmo found a small squeaky latex ball to focus his attention on , so Ole and GiGi were left to chase and play on their own with minimal help from Elmo. Their next door neighbors dog decided to fence fight so we had to interrupt that a couple of times. I REALLY do not want my dogs doing that. All in all it was a fun time and GiGi may be staying with us for a time in July while Dorie and family go on vacation. We look forward to that. One more dog..what the heck?!, no problem, GiGi is a little doll.

Ole is feeling his oats

Ole was full of it this morning, very frisky and wanted Elmo to wrestle at 6:30 in the morning. Elmo is not that much of a morning person, he hid under the couch. Abner took the 3 of them for a news paper finding walk and after that I fed Ole and then took him on what was suppose to be a training walk while Shelly and Elmo ate. Ole could hardly contain himself. He was jumping and lunging and digging and at 50 lbs it was a bit of a struggle. I felt like hiding under the couch with Elmo. I persisted with him and by about 10 minutes into the walk he was behaving nicely and sitting instead of lunging at various joggers and cyclists. Time Maturity and consistent persistence on my part will be the answer. Also he and I will be starting in a beginning obedience class in a couple of weeks and that will help. I decided to take Ole back to daycare this morning after the walk so that he could play with his friends and give Elmo a break. Abner and I had to put the final and 4th coat on the bedroom floor and I didn't want Ole and all his pent up energy erupting later. I dropped him at day care and took Shelly and Elmo to Fiesta Island for their regular r&r and then home where Abner and I got to work doing the final sanding and clean up of the floor . That took about an hour and then we wiped it down and i rolled on the coating and Abner came behind me with a brush and feathered it in. We didn't get finished until 1:00 so I had to race back to daycare, pick up Ole , feed him in the car, zoom home, and get everything packed up and ready to go to Tustin for our nose work class. We drove over to Donna's house and loaded everything into her car. Once again packed like sardines , we headed to Tustin. Class was more fun this week and the dogs seemed more relaxed. I bought Elmo his own soft sided crate so that Ole wouldn't be chewing on him while he waited his turn at the scent finding and I think it really helped. Elmo really liked having his own spot. Shelly as usual was happy to wait her turn in the car, and Ole had the big crate all to himself. Donna video taped everyone working with their dogs this week so hopefully she will be able to send the tapes to each of us. Ole is really fun to watch , he is enthusiastic to the max and totally focused on finding his hot dog pieces in the special box. He wants to show all the other dogs where their finds are also and gets a bit vocal about it. Very cute!

Ole has recovered

Puppies are so resilient, Ole was up and at'tum this morning, ate all his breakfast with gusto and wanted to wrestle with Elmo. Abscessed tooth? What abscessed tooth? That was yesterday! Life is for living, let's go on an adventure. I took Ole on a separate walk without Elmo and Shelly this morning . We walked down the bayfront and stopped so that he could play with various dogs along the way. He played with Taz, a very tough little Yorkie/ min pin/ Mystery X who weighs all of about 8 lbs to Ole's 49.5 lbs. It was cute to watch. Taz stayed up on a bench the whole time they played to keep the upper paw and lunged and feinted to keep just out of Ole's reach. Ole was throwing play bows left and right at her. He also played with a beautiful black and tan Aussie female who is about a year old. He was quite taken with her and she with him. The rest of the walk we practiced passing joggers and cyclists with out lunging. He did well but is a work in progress. After I brought him home I handed him over to Abner and took Shelly and Elmo out for their own morning power walk. Later around 11:00 ,I took all three to Fiesta Island and put Ole on the long line so that I could make sure he came to me no matter what when I called him. He's reached that time in adolescence where he is starting to ignore me when i call him so I am only calling him when I know I can control whether he comes or not. The long line is helpful in that regard. I use 2 primary rewards when he comes to me (even if i have to tug the line to make it happen), one is praise/touch and the other is , I let him go back to whatever he was doing when I initially called him to me. That way he doesn't think of coming to me as the end of all fun. Occasionally if I happen to have one I give him a treat after I have praised him for coming to me, but that is only occasional. I keep the treat in my pocket until after the praise session because I want to keep him guessing as to whether he'll get the treat or not. No bribes!
Elmo and Shelly came to help at class tonight Ole stayed with Abner and went for a walk.