Two Smooth Collies - Two Border Collies - One Danish-Swedish Farmdog

November 2007Monthly Archives

Angel is Slowing Down

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It is sad, but true. Our sweet girl Angel who we adopted in March of 2002 is really slowing down. We didn’t know how old she was then, and we still don’t know how old she is now. For a while we were guessing she was about 8, and for many years she seemed to just stay 8, so I was hoping she would just always be 8 forever. But now that is not going to happen. :(

She is probably about 11 or 12 now, we are thinking. She still plays with Tatum and Chase, but she lays down a lot, is having a harder time going up and down the stairs, and likes to stay out in the cold more. Which is kinda odd.

It doesn’t matter how old she is. She came into our lives skinny and with a broken leg. She is now fat and happy (not really fat lol) and has warm beds to sleep on and fun walks to go on, and she spent many a night in our canvas tent on camping trips. But still.. I hope she has many years left with us.

Cynthia
November 29, 2007
Uncategorized
23 comments
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Wordless Wednesday

TatumChewBox Wordless Wednesday

Cynthia
November 28, 2007
Tatum
34 comments
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Registration Numbers for Tatum

Getting registration numbers entertains me to no end. :) I don’t know why. Maybe because it represents all the potential fun I will have with the dog I am registering. When I decided to keep Chase I went and got all his registration numbers at once so I didn’t forget any.

I am now doing Tatum’s numbers. The flyball ones are easy, they even let you pay online. UKC I have to send in pictures to prove she is a pure bred collie. DOCNA I have to send a check as I couldn’t see where I could pay online. Her AKC is already done. ASCA I also need to send a check.

I haven’t decided to get her a NADAC one or not, since we don’t have any NADAC around here anymore. And it will be a while before she does any USDAA. We don’t do it much either. There is a trial this weekend we are not doing, mainly because my ankle still hurts (from being sprained).

But, almost all the numbers are done or on their way! Though there are no Ogio numbers that I know of… but then again that is golf. :)

Cynthia
November 27, 2007
Tatum
5 comments
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Tatum’s Training Update

I need a better dog training to down time balance. I am dead tired today. Yesterday I went to puppy class in the morning and flyball in the afternoon. Was going to do obedience in the evening but we had a Thanksgiving party to go to so I went to that. Today I did more obedience training and it was a ton of fun, we went to a great place. And now it’s down time. :)

Anyway, Tatum did really good at puppy class. My trainer said that I need to be more of a leader with her. If I am not, and I baby her like I have been doing, and lots of people baby her, then she’s going to think that all humans are just idiots. LOL. So I am being more of a leader and taking charge and she seems to be responding well. In things like when we go for a walk, instead of coaxing her along and babying her, I just go, and expect her to come. And she comes with.

She is learning her mat very well. She is not quite offering a sit yet but she is learning to. I got her do to a fold back down a couple of times without her backing up too far. We are going to work more on that. She loved playing with the three and four month old puppies in the class. That was her favorite part. We went on a walk over a pedestrian crossing over a very busy 4 lane road, and that scared her. Traffic, I have found out, scares her. So we need to go walk by the busy street every day for 2 minutes and get her over that fear quick. Fortunately she won’t need any drug rehabilitation to get her over that fear!

She is coming along nicely! She is such a cute smooth sable collie girl. I got lots of comments on how pretty she is. :)

Cynthia
November 26, 2007
Tatum
10 comments
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Got a Cliq?

Well I just signed up for CliqIn. And, fun of fun, I started a Cliq, too, because there was none for dog sports. It is a private Cliq and it is designed to share blogs with a similar topic (dog sports, go figure ;) ) So I hope those who find this Cliq will come and join, and we can network together through CliqIn.

I like finding other fun dog sports sites and for some reason I seem to have much luck really finding them! So hopefully you’ll spread the word.

To join this Cliq, Click Here for the Dog Sports Cliq.

Cynthia
November 24, 2007
Uncategorized
0 comments
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Find Sniff

Last night I pulled out the metal spoons and I worked on metal articles with Chase and even Tatum. We start with spoons that have peanut butter on the underside. And Chase is very good at this. He sniffs each spoon and then when he finds the one with the peanut butter, I click and he gets to lick the peanut butter as we move out of the circle of spoons.

My trainer says I can do this 30 times a night because how hard is it, to have them sniff for PB? We didn’t do it 30 but we did it at least 10.

Tatum is still being cautious about working with me on her own. I tried to play with her last night too, to get her energy up a bit and that worked a little bit in the beginning. She is odd because she is not very enthusiastic about the treats. I need to make up some more liver today she likes that better. She is tentative still, and she kinda wanders around and tries to avoid me a bit. I’m sure she is still stressed and showing avoidance behaviors when I am alone with her. With the other dogs around she is fine with me and nips at me and entices me to play quite a bit.

When I play with her I grab at her feet and at her body, I play bow, and I move around silly with her. I try toys too and she usually will bite at my hands instead of the toy, but that’s okay I will redirect to the toys slowly so they are more fun. And she is playing tug with Chase and Angel so toys are becoming good things for her. At the hoarder where she lived for a year I’m sure there were no toys to play with, just other dogs.

My instructor also told me to try mat work with her, and she was really picking up on that. When she walked on the mat she got a click and a treat thrown onto the mat. She was starting to offer that very quickly. With sits and downs she still doesn’t offer very much, and I have to lure her. She starts her avoidance of wandering around the room and she is having a hard time offering behaviors that I can click and shape. I wonder what I can to to get her to feel more comfortable. Maybe I just need to work with her more.

After training is done I put the clicker, spoons, and treats away, some tool storage place would be nice for dog training devices as well. :)

Cynthia
November 24, 2007
Chase, Tatum
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Play With Me!

Tatum can get anyone to play with her. She is amazing. The most amazing collie girl I have met. She’s spry and limber and fast! I swear she’s as fast as Chase, our border collie. My Husband thinks she is faster. Which is amazing. Now, how to harness that speed so she’ll run that fast for me? I want to take her out back and race her against Chase. So that she will learn racing is fun, and flyball is fun! :)

Anyway, the mornings are her biggest play time. She even gets Levi to play, which is amazing since the only other dog he will play with is Lucy. All that energy gets stored up from the night before, and just must be released!

I want to take Levi and Chase jogging today, we will see how my Ankle holds up. I’m sick of not jogging. The worst thing about it is it’s only 21 degrees outside this morning. Ugh. Our temperature just crashed over the last 3 or 4 days. I was liking 65 much better. We keep our house fairly warm, the husband gets too cold too easily. I like it cooler. Even not having much real estate in our house, it still costs a lot to heat the darn thing.

Cynthia
November 24, 2007
Tatum
3 comments
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Talking Dog

Got this from a friend. :)

In Blessing, Texas, a man sees a sign in front of a house: “Talking Dog for Sale.” He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the backyard. The man goes into the backyard and sees a black Lab just sitting there.

“You talk?” he asks.
“Yep,” the Lab replies.

“So, what’s your story?”

The Lab looks up and says, “Well, I discovered this gift pretty young and I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA about my gift, and in no time they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies eight years running. The jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn’t getting any younger and I wanted to settle down. So I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security work, mostly wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings there and was awarded a batch of medals. Had a wife, a mess of puppies, and now I’m just retired.”

The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

The owner says, “Ten dollars.”

The guy says, “This dog is amazing. Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?”

The owner replies, “He’s a liar. He didn’t do any of that shit.”

I wonder if this dog can also get around the house, open the fridge, turn on the delta faucets, and go out the door when he wants!

Cynthia
November 23, 2007
Daily Posts
0 comments