Let’s see, first of all I caught a cold - had no voice, a head full of stuff, and then it segued into an ear infection, and now I can’t hear. It’s been cold. Or hot. Or raining. There was a bunch of holidays in there too, disrupting any semblance of a “normal” life around here. Though with 10 dogs I’d sure like to know what’s normal. OK, normal for us. Meaning crazy. And then, just to be sure she could just live a slothful life, Joon came in season. So no running in the agility area - might make things a tad distracting for the paying students, ya know - and no training up in the barn - for the same reason.

We do play ball in the dog yard, either with other ball-crazy dogs or alone. We play the Two-Balls game (stop it!!) to encourage retrieving. You know the drill: throw one ball, dog runs off to get it, wanders back and tries to play keep-away, but off goes the second ball, dog drops ball #1 and races off to get the second one. Human grabs ball #1 and the game proceeds. Tires dog out really quickly, but the true purpose of the exercise is to teach the dog to bring the ball back - and the second ball/chase is the reward. Over time, anticipation of the second throw causes the dog to drop the ball before the second one is sent away - and with encouragement perhaps to bring the ball closer to the human. Joon has progressed to bringing the ball to my feet, drops it, and is ready to go. The game can then be played with one ball from this point, but two’s funner.

We also combine this game with sits and downs. She brings the ball, has to sit (or down). Gets released to chase the ball. Exercises in self-control.

But we’re coming back. She’s almost out of season. I really don’t have to hear to train her. Breathing helps, of course, but for now that’s working. Of course, the next interruption will be in a month or so, when the sweet gurl gets spayed.

But stay tuned…

More information is available at http://www.mountainviewdogs.com.

I was raised with the belief that if you bring an animal into your home you should be prepared to care for it for 20 years. The idea of returning an adoptee was foreign to me, yet I really did think about it. I only have room in my life for two dogs. If Tuck wasn’t the right “other” dog there would not be a third. Also I knew he would be well cared for if he was returned. It’s not as if he would be slated for the gas chamber. I just didn’t think I was up for another project dog just yet. I even tried to find another home for him, but at the last minute he turned on the charm, did his most obsequious dog routine and finally started playing with Libby. He was a keeper. He’s staying.

However, he has been turned into a floor dog. Mind you this is completely opposite to what he was born and bred for. He is a lap dog. He loves laps. He sits quietly to be adored, petted, fawned over, etc. His role in life is to adorn laps, chairs, beds and thrones. Unfortunately he needed to be brought down a few rungs on the royal ladder. So now he is a floor dog. He’s not allowed on any furniture. He’s not allowed on my lap. When he was allowed on my lap he thought he ruled the world and could snark at Libby to his heart’s content. WRONG! Thank heavens that floor dog status is made easier by the fact that he’s quite a short boy and can’t get up on things by himself. He’s really a very good floor dog. He sits quietly at my feet when I’m otherwise engaged and is generally quite well behaved. If, at any time Tuck snarks at Libby for coming for attention he is summarily carted off for quality thinking time in the crate. It only took about 5 days before he would allow Libby to come and be petted while he was nearby. He learned the rules. The rules of this house are ‘Always defer to the bitch.’ It doesn’t matter which bitch, but defer to the bitch.

As for regular training, Tuck now has a fairly reliable sit. Well, reliable if there aren’t too many distractions. And if I have food. And if the moon is in the right phase. Obviously we have work to do. Last week I took him out to Mountain View and gave him his first introduction to agility equipment. We went over a very low jump a few times, and I ran him over the low contact trainer a few times as well as running him over some large pvc pipes lying on the ground. He seems to not have any fear issues and generally knows where his feet are, so it’s a good start. Besides, he has a very low center of gravity. He’d have to work to fall.

All of our dogs live in the house. Our house is far too large for Ken and me, but of course we’ve filled it up with all our junk, which is scattered from here to there… and in the spaces, and on all the couches and chairs are THE DOGS. Joon is in a crate. Poor kid.

I started this blog months ago and just let it hang, since I had nothing earthshaking to impart. Well, Joon has inspired me to get this thing going, so already I’m grateful to her.

I hope to use this blog as a training diary, since I’m the world’s worst documenter of anything. Not sure how this will work, but stay with me. Everyone wants to know what I’ve done with my two BCs that are now competing in agility.

Our #1 BC, Jolt, was one of those rare “add a frisbee and stir” BCs that turn on to agility immediately and teach their lucky handler how to do the job. So everything I know about handling a Border collie (and lots of other dogs) I owe to him. What a grand teacher!

Jig, in the sad #2 place, is a budding agility dog. He came to us at 7 months of age, had lived in a boarding kennel his whole life, and had no idea how to learn, how to play with humans, and just wanted to run away and play with his ball. He taught me a lot about how to train a dog. He’s now 2 1/2 years old, and still has a long way to go but he’s well motivated to work with me and loves his agility.

How could I possibly feel equal to taking on a new “project” - a one-year-older with no house training, no play training (”we don’t let them play with balls because we want all their ‘fun’ to come from working with the cows,” I was told. Well, that didn’t work.) I dunno. But she’s cute, and friendly, and mighty thin. She’s hungry. So I know we can motivate her. Let’s see how this works.

I’ll introduce our other dogs to you as we go along.

I plan to post training articles, dog stories, observations, … whatever strikes me. An errant web design article might also appear - since that’s what I do when I’m not enjoying the dogs. So stay tuned - it might just be fun!

And by the way - Comments are welcome! That’s what blogs are about. One fool blathering and others giving their opinions. All comments are subject to my approval, since blogs are known to be infiltrated by the same sort of critters that get into our email and mess it up, but anything constructive or funny - or just plain-vanilla comments - will be posted, regardless of whether I agree or not.