A few days ago Drina tried her hand at chicken herding. I saw her troting down the driveway towards the truck(for those of you who do not know my driveway is 1300 feet and the property is fully fenced). I noticed that one of the young cockerals was on the other side of the drive checking out a paper bag. Well sure enough, Drina stayed on the near side of the driveway until she was past the cockeral, turned around to his side and herded him right back towards me. Drina put on just enough pressure to get him walking back up the drive, never once did that cockeral ruffle his feathers or break into a trot. I do not know what possesed her to think that the bird was not supposed to be down there, but what a good girl for bringing him back.
Coming off of that sucess Drina decided that the 2 chickens that snuck into the feedroom needed to be herded out. She went one way around the desk as they went the other. If they had been sheep instead of chickens they would have headed right back the way they came. Being chickens the hen kept...
In this last week I have had two incidents with loose dogs that I will say has made me angry, but my anger is based on fear. Yes, I was raging with anger, but that anger is pure fear for the safety of my dogs.
Let me tell you about the two incidents and then I’ll explain my fears.
The first incident happened a week ago at a local lake. I had taken two dogs there to let them play in the water. When I got to the spot I like to go because there are usually very few people that went there, I found that the parking area was full. I took both my dogs out on long lines that were wrapped up short to walk to the water. I then chose an area a good distance way from were the other people were swimming so that my dogs in no way could disturb them. I let my dogs play only right in front of me, again because I did not want to bother anyone and I respect that many people fear dogs and others just do not like them. Suddenly both my dogs tensed up staring towards the people. I...
Yesterday I took Ari over to Black Butte Lake, just outside of Orland. He was so excited.
Though he has been around water a lot and loves it, he has never had much chance to actually swim. So here he is just running around chest deep when he ran off a underwater ledge, head first underwater. He scared himself just a bit, and was over cautious about swiming after that.
Boy, did he turn me into a muddy mess though running in and out chasing anything that moved. The ground out there is very slippery when it gets wet and with Ari displacing tons of water, the ground got very wet.
Ari was definitly tired when we got through. Though he didn't want to leave the lake and kept trying to take me back, once he got in the van he was out cold. Last night everytime he came to check on me, he was so tired he could hardly keep his head up.
Today I took Uzo out to the lake for the first time. Well, before he would even look at the water he had to check out everything around it very methodically. Once he decided to see...
Getting the Right Start: Tips on dog selection, training and care is done.
July 30, 2011
Well, I finally have the book done and in hand. It is on CD in PDF form. The cover design came out great.
Getting the Right Start: Tips on dog selection, training and care is exactly that a book of tips to help people pick the right dog for them and to get the right start to have a great companion. The care section has information what is normal for your dog and when to call the veterinarian.
I will be selling them for $8 each + shipping(if shipped). Tell your friends or order a couple for your family.
Jax is featured on the CD design as well as through out the training section. He looks very good. He is also doing very very well, he is one amazing little dog. There is not much he does wrong and he always wants to please. He is so happy that it is impossible to see the tip of his tail unless you hold on to his tail. He needs some more offleash heel work and his stay is only solid for 5 minutes, so he needs some more work, but he is fearless and loveing and gets along with every dog...
A few more days to the 4th of July, vacation, picnics, fireworks all to celebrate the founding of this nation.
The fireworks on the 4th will not be a problem for some dogs, I have had two that thought they were fun.
But many dogs think the fireworks are going to hunt them down and kill them. For these dogs their only thought it to run, but every were they run the sound and the lights are all around them, so they run harder. Many of these dogs die each year because they are running in such a panic that they do not see other dangers. Running into streets in front of cars is most common, but some have been known to try to swim across lakes and drown or get hung up in fences and strangle. Many just run so far that they cannot find their way home.
If you have a puppy or a dog that is new to you now is the time to start watching them carefully. In many areas people start setting off illegal fireworks a few days before the 4th.
A few more days to the 4th of July, vacation, picnics, fireworks all to celebrate the founding of this nation.
The fireworks on the 4th will not be a problem for some dogs, I have had two that thought they were fun.
But many dogs think the fireworks are going to hunt them down and kill them. For these dogs their only thought it to run, but every were they run the sound and the lights are all around them, so they run harder. Many of these dogs die each year because they are running in such a panic that they do not see other dangers. Running into streets in front of cars is most common, but some have been known to try to swim across lakes and drown or get hung up in fences and strangle. Many just run so far that they cannot find their way home.
If you have a puppy or a dog that is new to you now is the time to start watching them carefully. In many areas people start setting off illegal fireworks a few days before the 4th.
Jax got to really play with Drina one on one for the first time today. Anytime they had tried to play before there were other dogs out, which was a bit overwhelming for Jax.
Once Jax, 30 pounds, realized that Drina, 60 pounds, was very careful about their size difference and was not going to ram into him and hurt him, he relaxed and had a blast.
They ran, wrestled and played tug of war. When they got tired they both came and curled up against me and each other until they would catch their breath and then off they would go again.
Day 17
Jax did it again. It seems he amazes me every day.
Two days ago I started Jax on stay. This was another very hard thing for him. He was great when I was right next to him and maybe one step away, but once I started to take that second step, no way. I could see that he was trying to figure out what I wanted but he did not want me to leave either. I gave him some wins by only taking a half a step and holding it for a few...
This post is a little off topic but I wanted to express how proud I am of all the Glenn County 4H dog project kids that showed.
This year started with 16 kids and dogs working every Saturday morning. By the show there were 8 ready to go.
On the morning of the show a few parents and I got to the fairgrounds a bit early to set up a real ring and sign up table. When the kids arrived we were ready for them to check in and get their numbers like a regular show.
When it was time to go into the ring all the kids were right there and ready to go when it was their turn. All of them listened to directions and were very respectful and polite to the judge. Though they were all very nervious, for most of them it was their first show, they all kept it together and when they made mistakes they fixed their mistake and went on.
Each and every one gave 100% when they were in the ring.
That afternoon I was asked to judge the dog portion of the small animal round robin. In the small animal round robin...
A few days gap I know, but there wasn’t much to report, Jax is just coming along great.
Today was the first day he was the demo dog while I was giving an obedience class. Alright so he is not quite ready to be the demo dog, but it was a great opportunity to see how he was going to work around strange people and dogs, add kids running around and it was a very good test to see where he is at.
As seems to be the norm for Jax, he did great. Every once in a while he wanted to go see other dogs.
He was able to heel around the other dogs while giving me his full attention. Even when passing by the dogs or kids he never tried to look, very confident that the other dogs and people were not going to harm him.
He had very good automatic sits. Almost every time I stopped he sat without being told, but when he did forget it only took a very quiet ‘sit’ to remind him and boy would he sit fast.
I started him on left turns to show one student how to do them, it...
Down is starting to come along better. Jax was able on multiple times to down with just me pointing to the ground and saying ‘down’ without a treat being present.
Down is still going to be a long process for Jax, he hates it. First he hates holding still, and second being down takes him farther away from what he wants either the treat or to lick my face.
Tomorrow I will be asking Jax to down before I open his crate or kennel.
If you have any questions or comments please e-mail or call donna@dragoncrestgsd.com (530)865-4014
