Tag Archives: puppy in training

Z’s First Week

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Zodiac

What a difference a week can make! Zodiac has made so much progress in the past week. The first few days were really rough, especially on the relieving.  But the first few days Zodiac peed and poop more in the house than he did outside. One thing he catch on to really fast was peeing in the kennel. He only did that once.Zodiac is now fairly reliable at relieving when you take him outside. He only has a problem when he doesn’t get taken out often enough or gets more freedom than he is ready for.

Zodiac in an x-pen

I like to use x-pens with puppies. They are bigger than kennel so pups are more likely to have accidents in them and we have carpet downstairs so we have a piece of plexiglass that we put under the x-pen to help with clean-up. I hate to haul kennels up and down the stairs so we use x-pens downstairs where I spend most of my time during the day. I like the x-pens too because it restricts their activity but given them a bit of freedom. I know they can’t get into anything and I can step out of the room for a minute and not worry. When they are older we use the x-pens restrict their access to a room or area of the house. I took Zodiac out before I started this post and he relieved perfectly. Now I want to give him some freedom but not too much so I’ve blocked off the area around my desk. He enjoys have more space and I know where he is. With each puppy we have found more ways to use the x-pens. I’d really like to find a couple more panels.

Actually relieving covers most the challenges were are having with Zodiac. Which is really good. He does struggle with whining and barking but as long as you don’t reward it that stuff takes care of its self. The first few days its was whining. Then when that didn’t get him what he wanted he tried barking. He started to bark saying, “hurry up with my food, I’m starving”. Each day it gets better so no real worries there.

Zodiac and Yakira playing in the backyard

We are really pleased with Zodiac. I think that Yakira has been a good mentor and he is learning the rules quickly. He seems to have a good middle of the road temperament and his stubborn side has not been a problem. We are looking forward to raising him and seeing how he grows up. At this early stage it looks like he will be a great dog.

Girl Scouts

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Yakira and the Girl Scouts

On Thursday, Yakira and I went to talk with a Girl Scout group about service dogs. Yakira was a good girls, as usual and she had a fun time playing tug with the girls. We talked about the kinds of service dogs and the breeds of dogs that are most often used for service dogs. The girls asked a few questions but their leaders had lots more questions. I think some of the girls were a little shy. One of the girls took a photo of her and Yakira while Yakira was giving her a kisses. It was a good experience and we will probably get more opportunities like it in the future.

Raising Skyler Video

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I love the power that images and music have together. One of the things I want to learn how to do is videos. The closest thing I’ve done was in college. I took a class on what was then called multimedia. We put together slides with music using multiple slide projectors and special equipment that kept the slides and music synchronized. It was awesome. Today we use computers and software to do a similar thing. So when I saw this effective video a few days ago I knew I wanted to feature it here on my blog.

This video brings tears to my eyes every time I watch it. I’m sure that part of the impact on me is because I relate to it as a puppy raiser. When it comes to sharing stories emotion is a big part of the impact. Stephanie did a great job combining the photos and the music to tell Skyler’s story. Here is Stephanie’s advice on how she put together this video;

I used Photostory to create this.  You import the photos into Photostory and then customize motion, choose the slide speed, add music and you are done.  I think the key to something like this is the music and the speed in which the slides switch making sure it fits with the music. And of course, good pictures 🙂

Stephanie makes this sound so doable. Now I’ve got to download Photostory and learn how to use this software. I can’t wait. Have you every done a video? What software do you do and what advice do you have for a beginner?

50 for 50 #19 – A New Puppy

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All four of us on Zodiac’s puppy day – photo by Lisa Monson

My plan was to get a new puppy in August but when the opportunity came to get a “Z” boy this past Friday I somehow couldn’t say no. So the 19th thing that I did to celebrate turning 50 years old is getting a new puppy.

Zodiac is a fun mix of stubbornness and adventurer, with a bit of unexpected caution thrown in. He is happiest when he gets some freedom to explore his surroundings. Most of his complaining has been about being kept from learning about his surroundings. I told you about his stubbornness in last Friday’s post introducing Zodiac. Then there is his fear of his food bowl. It is stainless steel and when Zodiac is about 3/4 of the way through eating he has a tendency to step on the edge of the bowl, which flips it. This scares him so he backs off from the bowl. It is funny to watch him. He wants to go back to his food but he doesn’t trust the bowl to stay put. It helps to understand that in the puppy kennels they eat from a doughnut-shaped dish that they can step into. If you we hold the bowl he comes back to finish his meal. Such a silly boy.

puppies from the Tito/Denisha litter – Guide Dogs for the Blind flickr site

The first few days with a new puppy are the hardest. The whole relieving outside is new to them and puppies don’t have a clue what you are trying to teach them. But it gets better quickly once they start to catch on. In the meantime, I am getting up several times a night and making lots of trips out during the day. And there are still more accidents to clean-up than it seems possible.

A really bright spot is how well Yakira and Zodiac are getting along. She is being a good mentor and learning to play to his level. They are so very cute together. What a fun way to celebrate turning 50!

Late-breaking Puppy News

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Last night I got a call from our puppy club leader telling me they had a puppy for us if we wanted it. The plan was to wait until August but this black lab male became available at the last-minute. We had until this morning to decide and the answer is yes, we will take a puppy now!

The puppy truck comes on Friday! I thought she said a “V” puppy and this morning I found out he is actually a “Z” puppy. I’m so excited. I was hoping for a “Z” puppy to continue the pattern: A (Apex), B (Banta), C (Casey) – then we skip to the end – W (Waffle), no X – GDB has never had an X litter, Y (Yakira) and now Z! I know that it is silly but it makes me giddy with delight.

Here is a short video from a couple of years ago of the puppy truck getting loaded up in San Rafael, California. I think tomorrow they will be loading up our little Z-boy. One thing that has changed is that they pups are micro-chipped now instead of having tattoos in their ears. So as they load them on the truck tomorrow they will us a hand-held scanner to see which pup is which instead of checking the tatoo.

Any guesses about what his name will be? For those who are new to this, each litter has a letter for all the names to begin with. The other complication is that the name can’t duplicate any working dog from GDB or current puppy in training or breeder dog. That group is about 3,000 dogs. That means the names sometimes get very creative.

Here is a list of Z names for babies.

Some of the guesses so far are:

  • Zee
  • Zachary
  • Zach
  • Zane
  • Zebra
  • Zaire
  • Zorro
  • Zale
  • Zesty
  • Zip
  • Zoomer
  • Zeke
  • Zanto

 

Time-lapse Project

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Last week I came across this cool time-lapse project via Design Mom and Things Change by Frans Hofmeester. He films his daughter every week and now he has a video that shows her from birth to 12 years old in less that 3 minutes. I want to do this with our next puppy. When I told Bill about it, he suggested that it would be good to practice with Yakira first to get some of the kinks figured out before trying it with an 8 week old puppy. So I picked a spot yesterday to try this out but my camera battery was dead. Today Yakira is off to work with Bill, so I have no puppy to test it on. I’ll put it on my list for tomorrow.

This idea seems like such a fun way to document and tell the story of growing up. I have to give it a try to see what happens. Besides with a puppy it doesn’t take 12 plus years to grow up, a year does wonders. Have you ever done a time-lapse project before? I wonder if it would be possible to do something with still photos that have already been taken to show the process of growing up effectively. Who or what would you like to capture with a time-lapse video?

50 for 50 #18 – Japan Festival

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Japan Festival - Salt Lake City

Today we took Trax downtown to the Japan Festival. It was sunny but cool and the festival was very crowded. In 1985 I went to got to Kobe, Japan to play volleyball in the World University Games. We just missed getting a medal by taking 4th place. That was a long time ago and it feels like another lifetime too. There wasn’t much of today’s festival that reminded me of that trip but I’m glad we went.

Yakira and the CCI dog

balloon artist with samurai warrior hat

As we got off Trax about a block from the festival we started to notice the costumes. Some people were dress in traditional Japanese dress. But more common were young people dressed in all kinds of fanciful ways, with cat ears, tails and other kinds of animals. There were a couple of booths about anime so we think that the costumes were from Japanese cartoons. Most of one side of the street were food booths. The other side of the street had booths with merchandise. The most popular items were colorful umbrellas and samurai swords. We saw several dogs including a working dog from CCI (Canine Companions for Independence). The CCI dog was a yellow lab, who showed interest in Yakira but was not distracted by her.They also had an open house at the local Buddhist temple, so we walked around it for a bit.

My favorite thing was a balloon artist. He had this amazing samurai warrior made of balloons on his head. There were also two stages with Japanese entertainment. One on each end of the street. It was too crowded for my comfort so we didn’t stay very long. Yakira didn’t love the crowds but she handled them just fine.

Trouble with Blossoms

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Yakira with a flower petal stuck to her nose

With spring comes blossoms and we have lots of spring blooming trees near our house. Add that to Riverton’s famous wind (did you know that South Jordan, that is just to the north of us, was originally called Gale, for its wind?) and sometimes it looks like it is snowing with all the petals blowing around. Yakira goes through spurts of wanting to chase after stuff that is flying around on the ground and other times she does great. So a few days ago when Bill took Yakira out for her last relieving of the night she couldn’t help herself from investigating a petal on the driveway, but then it disappeared and she couldn’t find it. When I saw her I started to laugh and ran to grab my camera. The petal had stuck to her nose! The really funny part was that it was perfectly center so it looked like it belonged there. I think she could tell that something was wrong with her nose but she couldn’t figure out what it was. Poor girl! She wasn’t in misery long though because soon the petal dried out and fell of her nose. We sure had a good laugh about it.

Yakira trying to look at the flower petal on her nose

Has your dog ever gotten anything stuck on his nose? Or what does your dog do that makes you laugh?

 

50 for 50 #17 – Volleyball Game

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Smith Fieldhouse - BYU vs Long Beach State

This week as I was deciding what to do to celebrate my 50th year I investigated going to a volleyball game. When I check the BYU Men’s team schedule I discovered that they had finished the regular season but they were playing Long Beach on Saturday. So I called Bill to see if he would be interested in going down to Provo to the game. He said that sounded great. A couple of days later my friend, Tricia called and I mentioned about the game and she wanted to go to. Then later in the week she picked up tickets for all of us in the reserved section. This was really nice because today we were slow getting clean-up from yard work and getting on the road. But even though we were late for the game we still had good seats.

Tricia and Raelyn at BYU volleyball game

BYU won the first two games and then lost the next two. It brought back so many memories of long drawn out games in the Smith Fieldhouse back in the early 80’s when I played at BYU. Some of those games we didn’t come out on top but tonight BYU got the momentum in the 5th game and won easily. It was fun to have Tricia there too. She has been really busy the last month and we haven’t gotten together since early February.

Yakira curled up at my feet - BYU vs Long Beach volleyball game

We also ended up with two puppies in training at the game. Our puppy club leader was evaluating a dog from another club and had too many dogs at her house so her puppy in training, Hallie came for the weekend. It was a great socializing experience for Yakira and Hallie with all the noise and all the people. They both adjusted to the new situation and slept through most of the game. They even did good with all the people who kept going in and out of their seat and so they had to climb over the pups every time.

It is interesting all the rule changes that have happened over the years since I played. The down official was one who refereed when I played. He has gray hair now. Another thing that shows the passage of time was to see Chris McGown coaching with his dad, Carl as one of his assistants. Carl was instrumental in teaching me how to play volleyball. I remember Chris coming by when he was just a little kid and hanging out at two a day practices or volleyball camps. Chris’s team is doing a lot of nice things. They had some amazing blocks. You can watch the game here.

BYU vs Long Beach State

Clifford and Yakira

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Yakira and Clifford

On Sunday, before Pierre’s family picked him up we had another lab join us for a few days. Clifford was here with us until Wednesday night. Then my parents picked him up and took him back to my sister’s house. They got home from Disneyland late Thursday night. Yakira had so much fun and Clifford was even easier than Pierre, mostly because he is older and has a more laid back temperament. I didn’t have to spend as much time preventing too much playtime between Clifford and Yakira.

On Monday we took Clifford with us to puppy class because we were going outside. Plus Clifford’s raiser, Karen was there, so she got to hang out with Clifford for a little while.

On Tuesday I took both pups for a walk. I don’t usually take two dogs at a time but these two did great together. The only challenge was that Clifford’s pace was slower than Yakira’s. So several times I ended up with Yakira out in front with her retractable fully extended while Clifford,s taking his time smelling, was behind me with his retractable at its max. After the walk they shared a bowl of ice cubes to cool them off. The weather had been perfect for several days.

Wednesday Clifford had to stay home while Yakira and I went to the local elementary to read with some kids. Then my parents came and my Mom, Yakira and I went to the last NAMI “Family to Family” class. My Dad said that Clifford didn’t seem to know what to do with himself while we were gone. Yakira was tired so she didn’t mind Clifford being gone on Wednesday night.

Thursday morning was quiet but we took a walk before lunch. By 3:00 p.m. Yakira got restless. She had almost two weeks with a playmate and I just didn’t cut it. She drove me a little crazy but we made it through the day and I took her with me to Round Table for Cub Scouting last night.

Today she is off at work with Bill and the house is extra quiet as it always is when Yakira isn’t around. It has been a good week and Yakira will be 8 months old on Monday! We don’t have any big plans for tomorrow so it will be a quiet weekend getting things done around the house. We probably better get out and do some errands so Yakira doesn’t get to bored.

Do you prefer to have one dog in your household or do you like it better when there are more?