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.

Ole has a problem tooth

Ole had to go to see Dr. Feinberg today. On Saturday I was checking out his new adult teeth and I noticed that he had an abscess in the root area of his gums above his upper right puppy canine. That particular puppy tooth was chipped off at the tip when I first got him. I think he probably did it at the farm. I had been hoping that his adult tooth would just push it out and it wouldn't be a problem but ALAS, he ended out with an infection due to the bacteria getting into the inside of the tooth. It looked nasty and can't have felt good. Abscesses in a dog or cat's mouth are not good because the infection can pass through their bloodstream to other parts of their organs and bodies and also weakens the immune system. Animals have died from infections in their mouths so it isn't something to mess around with. No daycare today! Dr. Feinberg was swamped with work and surgeries today but had me drop Ole off so that when he had time between patients he could check Ole out. I weighed Ole in the waiting room while we were waiting for someone to take him back to the clinic area. He weighs 49.5 lbs! He's my big little boy. There was a really cute little cattle dog in the waiting room with a full cast on it's right hind leg. It was all painted up and signed. She was .very cute and Ole thought she was especially cute. Dr. Feinberg had not seen Ole yet and in fact did not even know that I had gotten him so i this was Ole's first visit to our regular Veterinarian. Dr. Weingardt is my dog's holistic vet. Do my dogs have it made or what?!!
I had many errands to take care of so I did those and also took Shelly and Elmo to Fiesta Island for some r&r and then headed home. At around 2:30 i got a call from the vet clinic that Ole was finished with his procedure. The Dr had taken out the infected tooth and Ole would be ready to go home when he had recovered his faculties from the anesthetic. When i picked Ole up he was a little wobbly but was doing okay. Dr. Feinberg always does a great job with all my dogs. Ole didn't want food when he got home just wanted to go in his crate and nap. i had puppy class to teach tonight so I left him and Shelly with Abner and Elmo went along as my demo dog. When we got home we found Ole up and around . He had eaten dinner and was a little whinny but doing well. I gave him a Yoghund iced dog yogurt cup to lick and that made him real happy.

Ole does his homework

This morning after "chores", I practiced find it with all 3 dogs. Elmo went first. I hid 6 containers of scent in the yard two of each scent. Elmo did well he had a little trouble finding one of the scent containers that I hid up high at about 4 feet from the ground in a hedge, but overall did a great job. Shelly was on a roll today found all 6 no problem. For Ole , I put out 7 boxes and one box with chicken pieces in it. He was so excited he started practically singing. He got 4 tries and found each box. His enthusiasm was fun to watch. I put the boxes away and played try to catch the frisby with him. He's not very good at it but has a great time running around with it in his mouth. I had a private lesson to go to so I left all three dogs with Abner. The floor hadn't dried enough to put a second coat on it yet and it was a damp morning so we were hoping to get it done in the afternoon. My private lesson was with a lady and her very cute pit bull, Maggie. Maggie has been running the household for a while so we worked on putting her on a learn to earn program. They both did very well. After the lesson I came home and helped Abner try to figure out how to reprogram our garage door remotes. Some one stole the remote from my car so we had to change the code on it. It sounded easy to do but the remote wasn't cooperating as it should. We finally figured out that it needed new batteries. I'm much better with dogs than machines! Ole had already had lunch so I took him out for some long line training in the alley. We worked on easy, wait , come, and sit when cars or other vehicles go by. When we got home I did some( ugh) housework and then packed everyone into the car and took all 3 to north PB where I parked on the street and then walked them down our favorite dirt alleys. Shelly and Elmo got to run around dragging their leashes and Ole practiced some more long line work. We stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home and did a little grocery shopping and then home. After doggie dinners Abner announced that he was taking Ole on a training walk! Music to my ears. They went out and did guy training and Shelly and Elmo and I did some office work and then did a long neighborhood walk and checked out local places being built and remodeled near us. When Ole and Abner got back, Elmo and Ole had a play fest and chased each other all over the house culminating with a wrestling match in the office closet. Then they took a nap while I worked on the computer.

Ole does his nose work

Wednesday: After sanding the floor all morning, i packed up all 3 dogs and Ole's dinner up and drove over to Donna's house. Donna wanted to drive for the next couple of weeks because after that Ole probably won't fit in her car along with Shelly and Elmo and Ginger. As it was we had Shelly on the back seat filling it up , Ole squished into the floor area behind the passenger and driver seats , Elmo at my feet on the floor in front of the passenger seat and Ginger on my lap while Donna drove. Not that the dogs were complaining mind you, they were happy to go for a ride to nose class and settled right in for the 1&1/2 hour drive.

Class was hard for all of them tonight except Ole and another new dog named Duncan (a schnauzer) as both of them are just on boxes finding food. The rest of the dogs easily found 2 of their scents but the 3rd was hard for everyone as the odor container was balanced up high on top of a half door frame in the corner of the room. Even Elmo and Ginger had big problems finding it and they are both whizzes at nosework. Shelly got so frustrated that she tried to quit so the instructors moved the container to a lower location and she found it. Ole was over joyed to search his boxes and was leaping and making the Shepherd squeal until I let him go and "Find It!"

Thursday: Ole went to day care this morning while I went to an appointment and Abner and Shelly went searching for a dehumidifier to dry out the room so we co.uld coat the floor. When I got back home with Ole at 1:00ish, I changed into my work clothes , fed Ole ,pottied him and put him away in his crate. Abner and I got the first coat on the floor in about 2 hours, and then closed off the room and crossed our fingers that it will be dry enough by tomorrow PM to apply the second coat. We had a problem the last time we did this 5 years ago when we polyurethaned the upstairs hallway and office and guest bedroom floors. They didn't dry very quickly because of all the humidity in the air here at the beach. It was very frustrating. Abner had dog duty this evening because I had to go to the Del Mar Fairgrounds with Donna to pick up my award and for Donna to get her's. It was not too bad the award ceremony was brief ( the way I like stuff like this) and we then got to walk around and see the art works displayed and take each other's pictures in front of our prospective pieces. When I got home Ole wanted to play so I played frisby catch with him. He almost peed in the house but I yelled "Outside " and scooted him out the door where he peed on the grass and I praised him. PHEW, close one!

Ole's ears

Ole's ears are like directional beams. Every day they point and flop in different directions. Occasionally they actually stick straight up like standard issue german Shepherd ears. He started the day with his right ear sticking almost straight out to the side of his head while the left ear tipped almost into a comb over across the top of his head. By midday he had his usual cone head configuration interspersed with straight up antenna position. The sleepier he is the floppier his ears get. I don't ever remember my first shepherd puppy having such entertaining ears. Hers went from floppy right into cone head and then straight.
We took a walk to the mail box this morning , all 3 dogs and I. It went pretty well , no one tripped me or tried to pull me off my feet. Walking one dog is science, 2 art ,and 3 mysticism.
No daycare today for Ole. He did get to go to Fiesta Island with the big dogs but he went on his long line. I practiced coming when called , wait and easy with him. From Fiesta I took Shelly to her Chiropractic adjustment appointment with Dr. Keith. Ole got to sit in on Shelly's appointment. I wanted him to watch and see how well behaved Shelly was and that she gets a treat at the end of her appointment. Puppies do learn by observation and seeing how relaxed she is about being handled is good for him. He also got a treat and was impressed .
We went home from there and I fed Ole lunch and Abner and I helped Denny finish installing the bedroom floor mostly by staying out of his way. I was really happy as he was able to follow my instruction/ idea to frame the fireplace hearth like a picture frame around the hearth. The floor is beautiful. Now comes the hard part, Abner and I are going to sand it all down and then polyurethane it. It's the hard part. Well actually the hard part is I haven't been able to sleep in my bed since this started and won't be able to until the floor is done and dry.
I had beginning obedience class tonight. Elmo volunteered to be the demo dog for teaching "go to your mat" and Shelly kept an eye on the proceedings while relaxing in the car and then got out after everyone had left to check the ground for treat fragments. She really isn't interested in demoing anything in class anymore except proper sitting in the car behavior. She does it well. Ole stayed home with Abner , went on a man walk and got a juicy beef rib bone to chew after his dinner.

Ole goes to the skate park

I did some long line training with Ole this morning and worked on come and easy and wait. I also took Shelly and Elmo on a power walk so by 9:00 I felt like it was noon.. I had a private lesson with a client and his two French bulldogs Stewie and Chloe. We did some long line work with them. I came home and put all three dogs in the car and drove over to Ocean Beach to the Skate board park. Ole is reactive to fast moving skates , skate boards and occasionally bikes so i am working on teaching him to sit and watch instead of bark and lunge. We sat outside the fencing around the park. It was hard for him at first but we stayed at it and after about 5 or 10 minutes Ole lost interest in reacting to the skate boards and sighed and plopped down on his side I'll be taking Ole back there a couple of times a week if possible.

Monday: Busy day today. Denny showed up at 8:30 raring and ready to go and I headed off to take Ole to daycare and Shelly and Elmo to Fiesta Island for an off leash jaunt. From there I took Shelly and Elmo home and checked the progress on the floor: 2 thumbs up! I then drove over to my private lesson with Toolie the maltese and her owner. From there I ran some errands and then it was time to pick up Ole and bring him home . Today Hiromi and Suzuki practiced coming when called games with the puppies. Ole was kind of slow at it at first. They said once he warmed up he got better but he wanted to nap today instead of do his class work. They played a game of tag where Ole had to catch up to them and then sit, and another game where he had to run from person to person and let them grab his collar.
Once we got home I fed Ole and checked out floor progress, it was over half way installed , YEH!!! I had lots of office work to do and client emails to return so I got to work on that. Laura emailed me the roster for tonight's puppy class so I also had to get ready for that.
Before class I decided to practice with all 3 dogs for nose work class. I used 7 boxes plus one for food for Ole and one specifically for odor for Shelly and Elmo. Shelly did the first run and had to search the boxes in the front yard and find the one with birch in it and then I substituted Anise and then Clove. She did okay but didn't do as well with finding anise. Elmo did great on all 3 and Ole was wild to find the food box and had no problems. I gave him 3 different searches also. Then I hid 3 different containers with odor for Shelly and Elmo and let them do their finds and lastly Ole got to search boxes again. He didn't want to stop. He loves the nose work games and is extremely focused.
After that I fed them all and packed up the truck for class. We had 4 puppies in class, 2 Australian Shepherd pups, Rusty and Oso and ones Springer spaniel named Charlie and a yorkie named Bella & 8 people also came with the puppies. They are a cute and smart group. Ole and Elmo came to assist, Elmo as mentor dog and Ole as the goofball 19 week old. It was a fun class.

Ole meets the car wash

After all the regular morning routines I took Ole out in front of the house on the beach on the long line. We played fetch with his favorite squeeky ball and did a couple of coming when called practices. A young twenty something girl out running her golden retriever "Clyde" let him drag her over to Ole so we stopped and let the two dogs hang out together. Clyde showed Ole his technique for digging a hole and Ole joined in the fun. They rolled around in the sand together until another jogger with her labX( name unknown) also stopped for a meet and greet. Clyde's owner finally was able to drag him away from Ole and she headed off with him reluctantly sort of following her. He was B I G! and very strong. It's a good thing she was young and strong. She told me he's a nice guy but that he doesn't listen to a thing she says. Actually, she said that as he was dragging her over to another dog a few minutes later. Ole and I continued with our practice of coming when called and added follow me where he had to stay with me as i changed directions and ran away everytime he got interested in something else. After 20 minutes of that we went back in the gate of our house and I got ready for a private lesson with a young lady and her Beagle that won't listen to her and is very cute but spoiled. After I got home , I fed Ole and checked on the progress Abner and Denny were supposedly making on the floor. The room was empty! They were having a late breakfast instead of working. Abner had played volleyball for an hour and Denny had not gotten to our house until 30 minutes before I got home. They both were having a nice relaxing start to the day. I packed up the dogs and told them I hoped to see part of a beautiful floor laid down by the time I got back. They both laughed.....
I had to go to the Fairgrounds and pick up my paintings that didn't get in. I got two in this year and Donna got all 4 of hers accepted . We both won awards so it is exciting. We don't know which paintings we got awards for or what the awards are and won't find out until the awards presentation on Thursday at the Fair. At the Fairgrounds , I picked up my rejects..(.it's soooo cold to be rejected!), and then got the dogs out of the car for a quick walk around. People descended on us like flies to candy. The dogs loved it. They especially liked a young black Marine who was doing volunteer work, carrying paintings for people to their cars. He said he grew up with German Shepherds and loved the breed. His two dogs were back home with his wife as he is at Mira Mar Marine Base and is getting ready to deploy. Anyway, he misses them a lot. I sure hope he makes it back from where ever he is being sent. He is a really nice young man. Elmo tried to tell him that he too is a German Shepherd and could easily fit in his pack. I've never seen my dogs make such a fuss over a stranger. They gushed over him.
From there we went to the Torrey Pines dog park . I hadn't taken Ole to a dog park yet as I don't want some dog taking offense to his rising testosteroney status and beating the crap out of him. There were only 3 dogs in the park and they were all very low key relaxed dogs so I chanced it and sent mine in one at a time, Shelly 1st, then Elmo, and then Ole and I. It went fine , no problems. Everyone just minded their own business. Ole and a young Old English Sheep Dog named Jackson who was rather submissive and gentle played a little bit and then we left as other dogs started to arrive that didn't seem as relaxed. Most dog attacks in dog parks occur when highly excited aroused dogs are brought in to the parks. This park is about an acre in size which is okay for about 8 or 9 well mannered friendly dogs but anything over 12 dogs and tension rises or if one of the 8 or less dogs is an unruly one it isn't good. I prefer play dates like Ole with GiGi at her house or day care that is closely monitored. Dogs can learn to fight by being attacked or traumatized at a dog park. I don't want that to happen to my boy Ole or Elmo or sweet Shelly .
On the way home my car was filthy so I decided to run it through the car wash. I realized that Ole had never ridden in the car when it went through the car wash so I got out some treats and rolled up the windows and well , no big deal, he looked around a bit but then lay down and kind of ignored the whole thing. Good boy Ole I'm amazed at how low key he is.
Hallalujah, got home and about a third of the flooring was in and it is beautiful. Good job Denny. He will start again on Monday as he has golf tomorrow with his buddies.

Ole and the long line

Thursday was not a very exciting day for Ole. He did get to go to daycare so that was good but I had a lot of things to get done in the house before Denny gets started laying down the new bedroom floor. Elmo to the rescue as usual, played nicely with his big galumpus of a puppy. Oh, Ole did get to go back in to Noah's to get his nails buffed. I'm still taking him in freguently to get him use to the whole trim the nails thing. This time , I had Shelly and Elmo sit in the nail room with Ole to help settle him down. They enjoyed because they got some bacon or cream cheese from Tess so apparently he calmed down quickly with his two mentors present and relaxed. I did some leash training with Ole later on and decided to start some serious longline control training with him on Friday.

Friday: I took Ole on an individual walk over to the oceanside this morning. He enjoyed it, got to dig in the sand, chase sand flies and wrestle with clumps of seaweed. He also met a few people and their kids which was what I always hope for. After breakfast I took all 3 dogs to Fiesta Island and put Ole on a 20 foot long leash while Shelly and Elmo got to run off leash. I practiced Easy, Wait , and Come with Ole. For the Easy command I start walking with Ole next to me and drop the long line, as soon as he moves away from me in any direction, I say EASY and then step on the leash. He slows down and I pat my leg and say LET'S GO . I repeat this until he begins to listen to what I am saying and slows down and stays closer to me rather than run off brainlessly. For WAIT, I say WAIT and then pivot in front of him as we are walking to block him from moving forward. My goal is to be able some day to say WAIT when he is 20 yards or more from me and he will stop and wait for my next instruction. For COME, I let him wander away from me and then say OLE, COME. If he comes to me great, lots of praise and fun and a go play as rewards, if no come, I step on the long line and then give it a pretty good tug toward me and drop it , if that doesn't get him moving toward me I repeat until he does what I ask him to do. It is a safety net and teaches him over time that he does have to come to me no matter what. i also played hide and seek with all 3 dogs. After that we went home, had some lunch and then went over to GiGi's house in Point Loma for a , as Dorie called it "Bully stick and water party". No bully sticks were eaten but Ole had a terrific time chasing around after GiGi . Elmo spent most of the time obcessing over a latex squeeky ball and Shelly carefully monitored the situation. Elmo did play but he let GiGi wear out Ole. It was probably a nice break for him. I took some photos but Shelly freaked out at the camera flash so I had to stop.
Once we got home Abner arrived with a van full of the wood planks for our floor ,so Ole got to spend quality nap time in the crate while Abner and I carried all of the wood into the house and stacked it. Denny is starting on the floor tomorrow..YEA!!!
Once the floor is done then we will have to sand it and polyurethane it. Not my favorite job but anything just about is easier than painting ceilings. Hopefully we can move back into the bedroom in 2 weeks if we're lucky . After dinner and bones (for the dogs), I took Ole on another longline training walk down the beach in front of our house. Once again we practiced Easy and Come and he got to meet a couple of young boys and also got to practice sitting to greet a bunch of young 20 something girls. We practiced for about 30 minutes walking around and I also broke it up letting him play and dig. He saw a white plastic chair about 30 feet from him on the beach and started barking at it with his scruff raised. He was concerned about it., so I said nothing just let him investigate it and once he realized it was nothing to be concerned about I briefly and calmly praised him for being so brave. The rule is: If you make a big deal over something that your dog is concerned about , it becomes a big deal.

Ole and his big nose

Yesterday was pretty uneventful Ole-wise. He did get to go to Daycare and play with his buddies, but Abner and I spent most of the day working on the bedroom. We got the painting finished except for the inevitable touch ups that will come later. Ole and Elmo had lots of quality play time and OH, I noticed that he has a couple of more new front teeth! I think that Elmo is his chewy.
Shelly lets Ole sniff her now but she is more than willing to give him the ughly face if he even hints of unapproved activity. There isn't much activity that he does that she does approve of for that matter.
I started a new beginning obedience class LA JOLLA last night. Ole stayed home with Abner and they went for a neighborhood walk and met a lot of tourists staying in the area on vacation. Ole charms everyone with his tippy coney ears. Donna and I had 6 students and their dogs in class. It seems to be a really nice and motivated group. There are 6 dogs , a lab named Dudley, a golden retriever named Kai, a mini Aussie named Teddy, an Aussie X named Kira, Willow the border collie labX and Fiona a lab & maybe Shar Pei- ish X??? All of them could already do a sit and a down so we were favorably impressed with them. Elmo demoed leash work for the group and Shelly came out after class to work a bit with Teddy who needed a bit of the Shelly no nonsense instruction. Ole was real happy to see us when we got home , seemed like he thought he missed out on all the fun.

Wednesday: We were up and att'um early today. Got everyone pottied and walked and fed and walked again all before 8:00...I'm including Abner and myself in that everyone list. I had an appointment to get a therapeutic massage for myself early and boy did I need it. Painting ceilings really is not my idea of fun and my neck was attesting to it. After an excruciating 60 minutes of body work, I felt 100% better and drove home. I was now ready to face removing the 20 year old carpet and pad from the bedroom. We also needed to remove all the tape and paper from the windows doors and beams. Ole proved himself to be a complete detriment to getting anything done so he got to spend some quality time in his crate while Abner and I got to work. We got all of the carpet and pad removed but then the hard part started , the removal of all the staples and the tack boards that held the carpet in place. I was able to get about half of the gazillion staples that there were up but then had to take a break , feed Ole lunch and get his dinner meal ready as i thought I was going to leave him with Abner as Shelly and Elmo and I had nosework class at 4:00 in Tustin. I reminded Abner about the class which he had forgotten about and he said he would just take Ole with him to go and do some work on the apartments. He thought Ole could just sit in the car while he did some plumbing. Picturing Ole chewing up Dog knows what in Abner's work van, I wisely decided to take Ole with us to nosework class. It's an hour and a half drive to class, so I packed Ole's dinner up to feed him there as I knew he would get very distressed if he had to wait until we got home at 7:30 to eat. Donna was as usual a good sport about the whole thing as she was driving and boy did we have a whole passel of dogs in her smallish car. Class was really fun tonight. All the dogs got to do 3 box drills each and then they did chair searches where odor (in a magnitized scent can) was attached to the underneath area of a metal chair. There were about 10 chairs lined up in a row and the dog had to go down the row and find the scent and then alert to it. The odor was moved to a different chair and the search repeated 3 times for each dog. Ginger's alert was to scratch at the chair, Elmo's was to freeze and then stare directly at me and sit, and Shelly's was to freeze and the stare directly at me and hold the stare until I got a clue. She always looks like she is saying" What's wrong with your nose? It's RIGHT HERE!!!" The big surprise was that Ole got invited at the end of class to do 3 intro box drills. HE loved it! Desiree and Julie who teach the class put out a bunch of empty boxes and then one of them came up to Ole with some food and a box and showed him that they were putting it in the box. I kept him on leash and let him watch them put the box down among all the other boxes and move boxes around so that he couldn't tell which box had the food in it. I told him to" find it", and then let him go and stick his head in each box until he found the one with food in it. he did great and found the box with the food pretty quickly. He was excited about it and was raging and ready for the next. He got to do it 2 more times and didn't want to quit. It's always best to leave with your dog successful and wanting to do more, so we stopped it there and I went over to the office and signed him up for the class. So Ole will be going to class each week just like his big little brother and grumpy older sister. I told Donna she will have to buy a bigger car the way Ole is growing to keep up her end of the carpool.