Yep, spring is coming. The world is full of the dirty wet stuff that dogs just looooovvvvveeee to roll around in. There's not a dry non-muddy spot to be found to walk the dogs in. Even though I'm loving the "warmer" (32F +) weather, I've dreading the next month or so while all of our snow melts. I see a lot of baths in my dogs future!

 I'm really dreading Lily's first camping trip. I don't think that she's going to make a good camping dog at all. She is going to freak out at the first kid on a bike she'll see. She is making some progress though. Slowly but surely.

Today, I took the dogs to MSU's ag site where dogs are allow through the end of March. It's a popular unofficial off leash dog spot. Unfortunately, it is also a frisbee golf course. At one point, Lily was circling a frisbee golfer - who was trying to throw his disc - barking at him the entire time *sigh*. I have to give her some credit though, she does listen to "leave it" and "come" but only after she gives a few seconds of scary barking.

Then there's Neiko - who is a frisbee addict lol. You can imagine how that went when he got around the disc golfers! Luckily Neiko is no stranger to disc golfers and left their frisbee's where they landed - but only after the chase.

 So there I was, hoping to visit a *dry* uncrowded doggy area, only to come home humiliated because of my frisbee chasing, wanabee stealing aussie and my super scaredy pants barky aussie and all 3 dogs covered in mud.
 

While at the pet store tonight (it was too cold to walk the dogs so I took them to the pet store instead), I ran in to a man with a 4 yr old GSD. We got to talking and he explained that his GSD was a rescue and was VERY shy when he got her. He said that she was afraid of her own shadow. Interacting with her, I never would have guessed. She's come a LONG long way. That gives me a lot of hope with Lily. Lily isn't nearly as shy or fearful as that dog was so I'm hoping that with all of the socialization I'm giving her that she'll get over her reaction to strangers eventually.

We are already making a lot of progress. After reading Control Unleashed, I've been using "touch" with Lily before she starts to react. I usually recognize her pre-reaction signs so I can tell her to touch before she goes all out freaky. 

I've been taking her every where that I can take dogs and she is getting less and less reactive. Tonight she only reacted to 2 strangers - one was a worker at the pet store who was staring at Lily and the other was a kid. I think what triggers her biggest reactions is people who stare at her or are very still. 

I talked with a trainer there at the pet store and he suggested that I work on "watch me" with her. She already has a good watch me with me. She has no problem at all looking me in the eye. I reward her for doing that, but he thinks that if I really drive it home she may get over that fear of other people staring at her.

So we'll keep on working and hopefully she'll lose her fearful reaction to strange people.

I've tried clicker training Lily once or twice but she hasn't been getting it. I tried it again tonight and she finally got it! Woohoo! I love it when a dog figures out on its own what it is you want.

I started easy. I got the balance ball out and sat it in the middle of the room. I clicked her for sniffing it, looking at it, whatever. It took a good 10 mins for her to make the connection between her interacting with the ball and the clicker/treat. Once she figured it out though, it was the cutest thing! She is so dainty about touching with her nose. That is the complete opposite of my other dogs. Dakota doesn't just touch with her nose, she bites things when I tell her to touch. Neiko will slam his nose in to things with huge enthusiasm. Lily just barely touches the object but she's very deliberate and she does it soooo cute.

Then I rotated the other 2 dogs and had them interact with the balance ball. In no time both dogs were rolling the big balance ball around the room.

I really need to find myself another trick book. I'm running out of ideas! 

I put a lot of time in to training both Dakota and Neiko with varying degrees of success. They are both pretty good, polite dogs to be around but it seems I have forgotten how much work it was to get them where they are today. Getting Lily has brought all of those painful memories to come crashing back.

Today I've taken a real close look at why Lily acts the way she does, why Dakota is acting the way she is and what I'm doing and/or not doing to help the situation along. I went through my training links and found a really good article on teenage dogs which was a really good reminder.

1. Lily is 9 months old - the time when most "pups" reach their peak hyperactivity. This is also the time when most dogs start to challenge their owners and see what they can get away with.
2. Dakota is really annoyed with the teenager antics of this new dog. She's not used to the hyperactivity - even though Neiko is just as hyper. Neiko, however, knows the boundaries that both myself and Dakota laid down. Lily doesn't know those yet and so I am constantly fighting with her to get off furniture and such and Dakota is constantly correcting her for being obnoxious.
   

So, I need to get Lily on a leash at all times in the house and be very clear about what my expectations are. I don't want to put Dakota in the position to have to tell Lily she's being annoying. That is my job.

Starting tonight, I'm going to focus on getting through to her. I know she can be a great dog. I just need to show her how to do that. Thank God we have so many great articles and trainers on the internet.
 

I put Lily's crate in my bedroom because I'm making her sleep in the crate at night. Meanwhile Neiko's crate is still in the bedroom. He's only in that crate while I'm at work. Ever since I brought Lily home, it's obvious that Neiko is very unhappy in his crate in the other room. So last night I moved both crates in to my room and moved my big dresser in to the spare room. Yep, my own bedroom is now a dog kennel. 

I tried to introduce Lily to the doggy drier last night. She completely went in to panic mode. It was very cute though - Neiko is such a softy. He was trying to comfort by giving her licks. It wasn't working though. She HATED that drier. Blah.

I thought my house was crazy before. Now my house is one big hurricane of wiggly, jumping, barking, meowing fur kids. Oy! 

I'll have dog #3 this weekend. I never thought I'd have 3 dogs. Maybe I'm crazy. Getting 2 dogs was a huge step for me in the first place. I had concerns that Dakota would accept another dog in her home but she has come along beautifully. At first it was difficult - managing routines, working out guardy behavior, training, etc. but now everything is great. I will never go back to being a 1 dog household.

How will things change with 3 dogs, I wonder? Will everything go to hell in a hand basket? (What is a hand basket anyway)

This time I'm worried that Neiko won't accept a new dog in the house. Apparently, Dakota has passed on the guard dog torch to him and he takes his job very seriously. So, over the next few days I'm going to be thinking about how I want these dog introductions to go. How I'm going to manage feeding times, training times and so on. Hopefully all will go smoothly and it will hardly register as a bump in the road.

Any words of wisdom from 3 dog owners? 

Wish me luck! 

 Not a good combo. It's a good thing the poor squirrel was dead already. Those aussies sniffed out that carcass so fast you wouldn't believe it. Luckily I was able to call Neiko off it before he picked it up (good boy Neiko!) but the 4 month old pup picked it up and took off running! She was not giving up her prize for nothing. If it hadn't been so disgusting it would have been cute. Thankfully the puppy is not mine so I didn't have the task of getting the dead thing out of her mouth ;)

In other news, I am going to OH at the end of Jan to meet a potential rescue. There's a disc dog competition going on there too. I might enter Neiko and myself in the toss and fetch category to see how we do. I'll probably freak out from nerves though and Neiko will probably notice all of the on lookers and go socialize instead of chasing the disc. I'm going to have to get some good practicing in between now and then. My throwing could use some accuracy training. 

Neiko's well on his way! He catches hard discs now with no problems at all. I got some new competition discs and he can pretty much catch those no matter how awful my throw is. (I keep his kong disc, floppy fliers and other discs for playing at the dog park when other dogs are around).

Recently I've been teaching him to weave through my legs (we've been doing this in the house since it's cold out). Well, today I incorporated a leg weave with a toss and fetch at the park. He did it! He was most excited about it too! He was so proud of himself that when he brought the frisbee back he automatically did a leg weave before dropping the disc lol That took me by surprise! It's so cool to see our hard work paying off :)
 

 Each week I've been working on various tricks using free shaping, a clicker and treats. So far we've done figure 8's through the legs while I'm standing still, weave through legs while I'm walking, show me your belly (pretty much bang but I changed the name because everyone does bang!), get your frisbee and bring it to me, learn toys names, get various toys, wave, shake, other paw, etc.

This week we started on back - having Neiko back up from a standing position. I hope to turn this in to various tricks like weave backwards through my legs and so forth.

I started with the clicker and treats and Neiko did his typical run around the room looking for something I might want him to interact with. Then he threw other behaviors at me like down and such. Sensing his frustration, I gave him a hint by having him stand in front of me and stepping in to him. By me stepping in to him he could do 1 of 2 things, back up or sit down. He tried sit at first but when that didn't work, he backed up ever so slightly. I c/t him for even the simplest movement towards backing up. So it started with him just adjusting his back feet - hardly moving his body at all. Once he figured out it had to do with his feet, he moved all 4 feet (it was really funny watching him shuffle his feet standing still!). I c/t for that. Then I waited him out and he took 1 step backwards - jackpot! He had it figured out after that, good enough so I could add in my body language to the trick. I'm using my foot tilted up to signal to back up. 

I love this free shaping stuff. Neiko loves it too. It helps that he is so eager to learn!
 

In today's news, it was reported that 2 different females had their houses broken in to and were sexually assaulted. The first assault happened when the girl left her front door unlocked. The second happened after the other woman answered a knock on her door. Both of these break ins are just blocks from my house.

This makes me really glad that I have 2 good sized dogs living with me! Dakota has no guardian instincts but she looks threatening. Neiko on the other hand, has a very threatening bark and growl and isn't afraid to use it when something is out of the norm around our house and yard.

Just last night, I let both dogs out to go to the bathroom. Dakota came right back in but Neiko didn't. After a few mins, I heard this very scary growl followed by a really mean bark. It's still hard to believe that comes from Neiko, he's such a soft dog. Anyway, he was looking out over the short side of the privacy fence towards our driveway. Who knows what he was barking at but considering the news reports, I'm glad that he did!

I praised him, said thank you and invited him back in the house to get a treat for his efforts. I am so glad that I got a dog with guardian instincts this time around. 

I've been struggling to give both of my dogs their needed exercise today. We had an ice storm last night and it's been raining/freezing rain all day today - along with lots of fog as the temps warm up a bit. So, I've been doing multiple training sessions with both dogs all day but that's not enough.

Finally, I bundled up in my ski pants, hat, gloves, boots and fleece and took them both for an hour walk. Even that's not enough. That just got them riled up more!

So, now while I sit and try to relax after a long day spent cleaning and trying to entertain 2 dogs, all I get is an aussie grumbling at me as if to say "Come on, let's go out and RUN!" Have you ever heard an aussie grumble? It's pretty amusing but if you laugh, it just encourages it so you have to ignore. Then again, if you ignore, the grumbling turns in to a nose jab (usually to the face)

Geez oh man. I used to say that Neiko had an off button, but I think that off button only gets pushed after 2 hours of hard exercise every day ;p Who wouldn't have an off button after that?

There's this mutt at the dog park that is completely misunderstood. She doesn't get much attention, probably because she's not all that playful or especially friendly with other dogs. She's not mean, she just doesn't tolerate pushy dogs much.

Anyway, I see her there every time I go. She never strays far from her owner but one day she came sniffing around me. I gave her some tentative pets because I sensed that she wasn't big on people that get in her face. She did that shy dog sniff, where they stay just out of reach - I gave her some quiet lovings and she took off tail high.

Next time I saw her, she came up to me again. She was still a bit shy but not as much as before. So, I talked her up quietly and scratched behind her ears.

Pretty soon she was greeting me every day and even trusted me enough to lean up in to my body scratches.

Well, today I went to the dog park for the first time in about a month. When my dogs and I came around the corner of the trail I see this mutt running at me full speed from across the field, tail wagging with the biggest smile on her face I've ever seen. You could tell that she was happy to see me. She left her owner in the dust to run to me. It was way too cute. I gave her all kinds of lovings, body scratches and told her how pretty she looked in her blue jacket.

You just can't help but smile at a dog like that. The recognition and happiness in the dogs face when she saw me was way too cool. What a sweetie. I don't understand why more people don't make an effort to love on this dog. Her owner is very lucky imo!
 

 I realized today how super high energy Neiko is compared to other dogs. Mostly, I don't really notice it because his activity doesn't phase me. I'm used to high energy dogs because Dakota was one her entire life. Today though, I got to look at him through other people's eyes when we met a bunch of other aussie owners at the dog park. Neiko was by far the most active of the bunch (I think there were 7 aussies there).  They are high energy dogs as it is so to have other aussie owners comment on how much energy he has got me thinking! No wonder my family shakes their heads at him. They just don't appreciate his charm ;p

He can certainly go forever though. He runs non stop from the time I let him off the leash until we are ready to go 2 hrs later. I think Neiko's presence made the other aussie owners glad they didn't adopt high drive dogs ;p and it made me glad that I did :) I love to watch him out run 6 dogs! 

It's funny how some things come natural to some dogs and not to others. Those breed traits really stand out some times. For instance, getting Dakota (my husky) to run along with me, or in front of me (pulling) was not hard to do at all. She will run in front of me following the trail without looking back. A natural instinct for husky's, I imagine.

Neiko (my aussie) on the other hand, doesn't get the whole follow the trail and run next to me or in front of me thing. If something is moving, his instinct is to get it to change directions.

So last night I took the dogs to the park to get some quick exercise before the sun went down. I started jogging and as usual, Dakota got a big smile on her face and kept up right along with me. Neiko, on the other hand, would race up in front of me and then leap in to position so that I'd be stopped in my tracks and have to take a step around him. It was funny but frustrating at the same time. He was enjoying himself though. I couldn't help but laugh.

I'm going to have to do some running training with him I guess ;p
 

Neiko's breeder had another set of puppies so I went over today to check them out. They are 6 weeks old and the cutest fuzz balls ever.  Well next to Neiko when he was that age, of course! Here's Neiko as a pupster:

Anyway, I took Neiko with me so that the breeder could see how he grew up. We let Neiko, Neiko's dad and her other male aussie out to romp around the farm and chase frisbees. They are all such athletic dogs! Neiko had a blast. He got along great with his dad (unaltered male even) and they ran around doing the whole herding - neck grabbing thing. His pop is a beautiful tri colored aussie:

See the resemblance? ;p I think he inherited that "contemplating" look from his father.