Smooth Collies, Border Collies, Danish-Swedish Farmdog

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Quiet Before Tatum

We used to have such a quiet house. I could work from home, and the dogs would be mellow and snooze through the day. Waking up in the evening to get dinner, some chew bones, and play. Or training, of course, always training.

But now, with Tatum the Wild Child, there isn’t as much quiet. She will quiet down, but mostly she entices the other dogs to play. They run amok in the yard, run around like maniacs, and bark too, unfortunately for the neighbors.

Angel has a stick outside now, and even Tony is playing with Tatum out back. It’s cold out there, I can feel the cold come in from the dog door. But if I close it, the silly dogs will barrel head first into the closed door and maybe hurt themselves. So a little cold it will be.

Ah… I do love the excitement of Tatum, though. She is such a doll!

Cynthia
January 30, 2008
Daily Posts, Tatum
5 comments
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Learning to Play

All Six It’s strange, teaching a dog how to play with humans. It’s so natural for them when they are puppies. But if it’s not nurtured and encouraged, appropriately, it can fade. Or if it has been a bad experience for them, they will avoid it.

Chase just naturally plays with people. And he loves tug. I didn’t have to teach him how to play. But Tatum… well, she knows how to play with other dogs, but she isn’t, still, quite sure how to play with me.

Today I was putting some dog toys a friend of mine made off the freezer, and onto a chair for a bit. Well Tatum thought it was a great pile and picked out her favorite and ran outside with it. First thing I think is great training and playing opportunity. So I go outside with her, but then all the other five dogs follow us out. So I get the toy, and bring Tatum downstairs and leave the rest upstairs.

She was still being playful so that was great. I squiggled the toy around and she chased it. I even threw it and she brought it back, because it’s more fun when it moves around. But she still won’t give a good grip on it and just full-out tug like Chase does! So we are working on that. Hopefully it’ll come!

She really is super fun to play with, that goofy collie girl.

Cynthia
January 23, 2008
Chase, Tatum, Training
29 comments
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USDAA for Chase

Fun Playing Well I’ve made a decision today. Usually my main agility venue focus is AKC. And the only reason that is, is because there are more AKC trials around me than any other venue. However, the other venues are getting more popular and there are more of them.

Plus, a few people now have commented to me that Chase would be a great USDAA dog. And so, I’m going to start entering him in USDAA trials.

Though my clip on earrings might fall off when I run him… so I should leave those at home. :) I am going to see about running him in USDAA. There is a local trial here in April I plan on entering him in.

Now.. I’ll have to hope that I don’t get sick. For some reason I seem to catch a cold during USDAA trials! I have done so now for 3 of them, I think. In four years. And I don’t like loosing money if I can’t go.

It was fun running him in Snooker and he does have a Snooker leg. I did run him at 22″ though, when I ran him. He measures 21.5″ when AKC judges measure him, which makes him jump 26″ in USDAA if I go for full height. And while I know he can jump that, it just seems so tall for him. We have never jumped that high and would have to practice it before hand.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to doing USDAA with Chase. Levi will stay home, he’s not really built for it, and I’m going to keep concentrating on his AKC. I may not enter Chase in AKC for a bit in the summer, as it’s very hard for me to run both dogs in the same trial because they are so different. But I’ve already entered them both in the February AKC trial, we’ll see how that goes.

Cynthia
January 20, 2008
Agility, Chase
20 comments
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Animal Planet and Petfinder

I got an email from Petfinder today about a new Animal Planet TV show. It’s all about Petfinder animals. I found this interesting article about it too.

I guess they are going to follow some Petfinder dogs through the adoption process and as they are placed into new homes. How fun. I’m interested in seeing what sorts of training methods they will use. And hopefully they will find responsible people for these animals.

The more awareness there is about companion animal adoption the better! I believe it is set to premer February 9th on Animal Planet. I gotta go set my dish to record.

Cynthia
January 18, 2008
Daily Posts
1 comment
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Pack Play

The Pack Playing And so I went out with the playing pack a bit and took some action shots with the new camera. I’m not getting pictures as clear as I would like. I sped the shutter speed up to about 340 (did some 500 but not sure which this is). And it got nice action stills but they are not as clear as I would like.

Taking off my diamond pendants before I go out with the dogs so as not to loose them, I crouched down and snapped a bunch of quick shots. And I’m adjusting the brightness a bit, because they were pretty dark. Maybe I need to learn about ISO. There is so much to learn!

Anyway, so here’s a pic for today! Oooo, I should do a wordless wednesday… LOL.

Cynthia
January 16, 2008
Daily Posts
11 comments
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The Boys

Levi Being Cute
Okay here are the last couple for the day. I’m using this WordPress Flickr plugin that I like so far, but I think Flickr might be a bit limited. I will have to play with it for a while. Anyone use Flickr and can give me some tips?
Chase Being Cute Clicking on these images it will take you to the Flickr web page where you can see them full size. You can see very good detail on Chase (the black border collie) including his current lack of coat on his legs and stomach. His coat doesn’t look good, but the picture does!

And Levi is being cute. Nice action shot of him barking. My sweet blue smooth collie boy, he’s such a goof. This is a typical pose for him. He likes to woof!

Cynthia
January 15, 2008
Chase, Daily Posts
10 comments
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Flyball on the Couch

Well tonight we did some fun flyball training. As I want to start Tatum off right. I want her to have a super nice box turn. And I want to do drive shaping with her, so she can get high, and still be in control and think, and come down quickly when she needs to. Important for both flyball and agility. And even obedience, really.

So I took a break from moving hosts and looking at cables and worked with the dogs a bit. I also want Chase to have a better box turn. So I stuck the tug toy up on the couch and played with Chase, jumping up on the couch, grabbing the toy, and jumping back off to me. Hopefully fast! With him I’ll eventually move this onto the wall, I think he’ll be great at, literally, bouncing off the wall. :)

And Tatum was all wound up at that point, so I got her out too and put Chase away. And she will follow the tug toy with me, and she is even starting to tug! She does have a good amount of prey drive and I’m tapping into that. So she followed the tug up onto the couch, then off. And we did that a few times and she had a great time! She’s gonna be a great flyball collie. There are not many collies in flyball. Last check there were only 3 (Tatum included) in U-FLI.

So the beginnings of flyball training for her. And some flyball fun during the cold winter days.

Cynthia
January 7, 2008
Chase, Daily Posts, Tatum
10 comments
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Lucy and Tatum and Hosting

Just a brief mention of the server change. It seems we had a bit of a hiccup for a while and Tip Tail was not displaying. Hopefully that is fixed and will remain so. As I go along and move the other blogs and sites I have to remember to keep checking the ones I have already moved, so that I haven’t screwed anything up! And, outgoing email isn’t working right, so you won’t be getting comment replies until that is worked out. Sorry!

Now about Lucy and Tatum… it seems Tatum is starting to really settle in, now. We’ve had her since the beginning of September 2007, and that collie girl is becoming a handful. She is sassy, typical of collie girls. And Lucy, too, is sassy. Lucy has been pack marm in our house since she arrived, even as a puppy.

Tatum, now, is challenging that.

And after four months, it usually takes that long for a dog to really relax, it’s coming out. I think I’m going to have to start up the NILIF program with her. She respects, me, though. But her and Lucy have been fighting. About food, mostly. And man, they hold grudges. They can be cranky at each other for an hour or so afterwards.

So we will have to keep them separate or supervised together for a while. Lucy is going to be 9 in February. As she ages, I’m sure Tatum will take her place. Sadly enough… I love Lucy and she is my baby girl. But such is life in the dog world.

So, as the dog world turns…. :)

Cynthia
January 4, 2008
Daily Posts, Tatum
28 comments
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