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.