Happy 4th birthday Scorch!

My heart beat...


...my best friend...


...the dog of a lifetime...


4 years old today. And very happy about it.


Even from puppyhood, he knew how to ham it up for the camera.










He was good company for Dad when things were changing. And he would never judge him for wearing mis-matched socks. :)


He is the best dog I've ever known. And the cutest.


So today, we played ball at the park.


Bryan came too. Those are not my legs


Scorch finally agreed that kiddie pools can be fun.


We followed up with a trip to Petsmart for some toys and treats. I even snuck in a few heeling sessions and drops-on-recall. For fun, we did a few moving stands, which we haven't practiced in a while, and he was fabulous as usual. Then we shared dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger. Scorch VERY MUCH enjoyed his hamburger with mozzarella.


It was a great day, with a great dog, and a great boy. I can't believe 4 years has already flown by from when I first brought the little puffball home. I was watching some videos I took of him at 6 weeks old... already a tugging machine and connected with me. He even still runs exactly the same, just a little more gracefully now.

I love this dog.

Starting scent work & Open prep

Tonight's training was fantastic! My scent articles came last week. I've had to resist really playing with them a whole lot, because I don't want to mess anything up. But Scorch is so visual, we've started to work on teaching him to use his nose. Connie Cleveland has a great technique written up in Front & Finish, July/Aug 2010 and we're trying her technique.

Basically, her method uses metal cookie tins to teach the dog to locate a treat in a scented tin. The articles also get put in the tin, and the dog learns to alert to the correct tin to get treats. Eventually, all the tins get cookies (and articles) but only one is scented; then none of the tins get cookies and the dog is working for scent alone.

This time of year, I'm having some trouble finding tins in the stores; I suppose they're a seasonal item around here. So for now, we're playing with plastic containers. It's really fascinating watch Scorch problem solve. The lightbulb has tentatively gone on a few times, but I don't think the connection has entirely been made. We've only had 3 days of work on this, so I'm pleased.

We're starting Utility class next month, so it'll be nice to at least have a headstart with Scorch understanding that sometimes he can use his nose to work out a solution.

Our broad jump routine right now is about 4 reps of "Jump, *toss treat*, front" followed by a rep of "Jump, *no treat toss*, front". As long as we warm up with treat tosses, he's having perfect broad jumps. We've done some barrier work in the past and he tends to trample right over it, or avoid the jump entirely, so I'm liking this method right now. We'll see if the success continues. We have to make a decision about an October Open debut (under Bob Withers!) by September 21st... I think we'll be alright as long as nothing breaks between now and then.

His drop on recall is having a few blips. When I'm very firm with my "down!" and/or step towards him, he remembers what to do, but obviously I can't be gruff or move in the ring.

His go-out training with the target and PVC box is going great so far! I'm able to send him from farther out, which I think is actually helping him stay straight at the target. He's not tempted to keep an eye on me when I'm farther away.

I've also been asked to teach a tricks class. Which is great, except I haven't really had a "trick dog" since Jack. Wolfie knows "bang" and "wave" and that's it. So I've got to get Scorch working on some tricks if he's going to be my demo dog. All of my competition instructors have told me that tricks would be good stress relief for Scorch at shows too... I'm just always afraid of "breaking" something (obedience-wise).

So for now, we're working on a little "bang!". I'm trying to get him to lift his paw AT ALL for "shake" or "wave"... he thinks I'm testing him on "stay" and holds his feet even tighter to the ground. I've been manually lifting them but I might just work with a target for his foot and then try to take it away. That's one of the first tricks most people teach a pet dog, and all my dogs have known some variation of it... except for Scorch. Oh well. I also might try "take a bow", although I have to come up with a name that doesn't sound like our other commands. Part of me thinks it could help with his drop on recall/stationary drops by reinforcing that the front end goes down first, and part of me is afraid I'll break the behavior.

But there are plenty of people whose dogs known HUNDREDS of commands/tricks and differentiate between them all. My dog is definitely smart enough, *I* just have to be.

My precious boy turns 4 years old next week. It's been an incredible journey and I'm ready for so much more.

Training today

We had a good training day today; short but sweet. Most of what we've been doing has been throughout-the-day-type work: stays at my desk, heel-up while we're walking, random drops, etc. Now it's time to get back to regular sessions.

Willard Bailey, author of two of my favorite dog books, posted on his blog about his method for teaching go-outs. I've never liked the "treat on the ring gate" technique; it's just not for me. I tried it with Jack and he was very focused on the gate itself. While we never got to finish our training or get to Utility, it seemed like searching the gate for food is a behavior that would re-emerge under stress. I've seen it happen to dogs in the ring, and I can absolutely see it happening with my dogs.

I've done some targeted go-out work, and I've worked with boxes and barriers for our straight heels and fronts, but I hadn't ever combined the two. So my challenge to myself is to try Willard's technique and see how it goes. Basically, we're starting with 3-sided PVC box; I put the target and the treat at the far end of the box, and right now, I'm just leading Scorch up to it and telling him to get it. I want to work up to him running to the target in a straight line from a greater distance. When we add the turn-and-sit, the box (plus a long leash) will help get the desired behavior in the desired way. I also like teaching differentiation between "get the cookie" and "turn and sit".

So that's something we're building up to. The toughest thing that has always haunted us is that Scorch turns his body when getting to the target; he prefers to eat the treat while facing sideways. I may have to set up stronger, tighter barriers to work with this. It was a huge problem in agility too.

Anyway. Scorch's dumbbell retrieve was beautiful today. No laying down when returning to me.


The dumbbell is really a bit too big for him, but he's retrieving it happily so we'll stick with it for now.

On the retrieve over the jump, we've hit some snags. He'll happily leap over the jump to get the dumbbell but tended to run around it on the way back, especially if I threw the dumbbell crooked (and if you know me, you know the likelihood of that happening in a trial is about 99.9999%). He's so pressure sensitive that running towards him to intercept was making him hesitant about the whole exercise. Interestingly enough, I talked it over with my training director at work. Now, he comes from a much more... let's say "traditional" mindset when it comes to training. He's the epitome of old school, seeing as he was a K9 handler in the military and law enforcement. I fought tooth and nail to get clicker training into our program at work, and he has really come around to it. We've had some great training discussions.

Anyway, we discussed the jumping problem and he suggested putting Scorch on a retractable lead. Brilliant!

We did a few retrieves without the jump to make sure Scorch was comfortable with the lead. Then we started doing some jump work. He was doing fine until I threw the dumbbell crooked. Scorch starts to veer, leash gets tight...


...Scorch corrects his path immediately!


The next crooked throw needed no correction, and we ended that particular exercise on a high note.


Please excuse my disgustingly overgrown lawn. Our mower broke, and now our weedwacker is leaking gas and oil everywhere. Ugh.

Anyway, Scorch is very space-sensitive; I find it interesting that a light collar pull or pop is much less aversive to him than body pressure.

Another issue we worked on is glove retrieve. He tends to be a bit lazy with holding the glove and lets it sort of hang on his tongue...


I reminded him to hold, put my hand under his chin... much better!


His fronts and finishes were nice today too.


We finished with some broad jump work and out of sight stays. On the broad jump, I think I'm just going to have to toss a cookie or toy about 1000 times to get his muscle memory locked in. I don't feel like his motivation or understanding is quite where I need it to be. We had a great session today... I think now that we have so many things we're working on, training has gotten a lot more exciting for both of us.

Recovery

Well, Scorch has had a few hiccups in his recovery from the dog attack. Not physical, mind you; he is healthy as a horse. But mentally, he has had a few setbacks that we're working on.

Right after the attack, he came to work with me. One of our techs had brought her extremely sweet, very non-threatening female Basset mix. So Scorch had his first strange dog greeting with her, and it went great. I also paraded in a host of strange dogs for board-and-train or dog sitting. All of this, he took in stride.

However, when he started regularly coming to work with me, things changed.

He didn't much care for Bentley, the 6 month old intact male Lab we shared an office with. Ok, yeah, he'd met Bentley when he was 12 weeks old and they were fine together, but now a lot of time has elapsed and Bentley is a teenager, so his intolerance is understasndable. He also didn't care for the boys Hartwell, 10 month old intact Lab, and Hamish, 2 year old intact Golden Retriever. But Scorch has never liked unneutered males, so I let that slide.

But Troy, the long-neutered, friendly, 5-year old Australian Shepherd? He usually LOVES Aussies! Two female Bulldog puppies in class? Why is he growling and snapping at them? The clincher for me though was Duke... the realization finally kicked in that we have some work to do. Duke is a rescued pit bull mix one of my coworkers brings in. He's young, playful, sweet, and neutered. Usually that would be Scorch's ideal playmate.

But we couldn't even walk past their office without Scorch hackling up and making a wide berth, usually while pursing his lips or even showing his teeth. Scorch was afraid of the dog who resembled his attacker, and was going on the offensive. Duke wasn't even bothering to get up when we passed by and Scorch was still freaked out.

So we've been playing the "look at that!" game, taught to us by one of our mentors. I think it comes from Control Unleashed, but I'm not sure. Anyway, every time we'd get near one of the dogs he didn't care for (especially Hamish and Duke), I'd tell Scorch, "Look at that!" When he'd glance at the dog, he'd get a treat. It only took a few repetitions for him to start tolerating their presence.

We have a play yard at work for the pups (heaven!) and while we had a group out there, someone brought Hartwell out. I was worried about Scorch... but I waited it out because Hartwell is such a NICE dog. Sure enough, with some careful supervision, Scorch decided he no longer wanted to eat Hartwell... instead, we got obnoxious, herding-type behavior (barking, heel-biting, increased barking when Hartwell would stop to sniff something), which Hartwell thought was delightful, so we let it go.

Then later, Duke came out to play. Scorch would start to play with him, then would get a little skittish and slink away. Duke, despite his youth, was VERY respectful of this and patiently waited for Scorch to come to him.

So... we're making progress. Scorch doesn't have to like everyone, and border collies are notoriously picky anyway. But I want him to at least ignore dogs he doesn't like; I never want my boy to be afraid ever again.

Breather

So first, the bad news: Scorch and I aren't showing at all this month. We didn't have everything together (money, healing, training) to register for the shows, so I'm not getting my birthday wish. But we can start showing again in October. There aren't any shows in September due to DOCOF so we have a whole bonus month of work.

The good news, however, is that we are back down to three dogs. It was interesting to watch the interactions and reactions of the house dogs. Norman, of course, does not care much for strange interlopers but tolerated some more than others.

1. Mocha, in-law-pooch: 2 year old Chocolate Lab, spayed female. Mocha is a very submissive dog; you could possibly describe her as "wimpy". She has little concept of personal space, as with most Labradors, and insists on cuddling with the collies when she's here.





Norman has decreed himself to be the schoolyard bully when it comes to Mocha. He's the kid that steals her lunch money on the playground. In his mind, Mocha is not allowed to possess ANY toys. He might be willing to let it slide if she's holding a toy that isn't one he plays with often, but generally he'll launch himself off the couch to "correct" her when she decides to pick up a toy. He's gotten better about it as she's finally standing upright and not slinking around him all the time, but he's still a butthead occasionally.

2. Prince: 8-10 week old Golden Retriever puppy, male. Norman's tolerance for him was greater than for previous puppies. He sent Prince "ki-yi-ing" away a total of twice; otherwise, his corrections were appropriate, and Prince was allowed to possess toys. I'm guessing it's because Prince was a confident puppy, respected Norman's signals, and was generally a nice dog.

3. Jessie: 9 month old yellow Labrador, intact female. Now here was a dog Norman actually wanted to play with, probably due to being unspayed. Strangely though, Prince the puppy didn't much care for Jessie; he would play with her, but often got mad when Jessie would crush him with her body weight. Prince never lost his temper with the collies, but I had to pull him off of Jessie's face a few times (Jessie didn't have a clue and didn't seem to much care that there was a puppy angry with her). Norman still didn't want her to have his favorite stuffy, but she was allowed any other toy in the house. Occasionally, he would charge at her, barking and growling... which is his social-idiot way of asking her to play. You just have to know him to hear and see the difference, I suppose. His barks are less serious and he sort of "bounces" off of the other dog's body.

Norman still postures with Wolfie at times, and once even got into it with Scorch while I was out of the house. But generally, the house is at peace. Now that my back has healed up, I've upped his exercise routine again and I'm definitely seeing a difference. Just now, thunder rumbled in the distance and he perked up, then went back to sleep, unconcerned. Yesterday while we walked, thunder started rumbling and he was too busy focusing on his walk to really bother acknowledging it. What a huge improvement.

So. Back to Scorch. My new job promotion involves a lot of driving travel... and Scorch gets to be a road warrior with me. He already gets to come into the office (the first few days, I didn't bring him and was barraged with requests to have him join the "office pooch crew"). We're also taking a trip in September to Atlanta, GA, Nashville, TN, and Northern Alabama. It'll be great having my best buddy with me, and it'll also be good for training and proofing. I'm actually most excited about getting his loose leash walking more under control. On yesterday's walk with Norman, I couldn't find Norm's easy walk harness, so he was on a regular collar. I was really having to work with him and get on him for pulling... so Scorch's loose leash walking was the best it EVER was, due to the constant stop-start and reworks with Norm. I guess I need to start doing that with Scorchie too. DUH!!! Why can't I take my own advice? I have such a blind spot for Scorch I suppose.

I'll bring an actual camera with me... my cell camera is great, but my point and shoot is still better with dim lighting.

Photo time!
Wolfie standing in as demo dog while Scorch was injured.


Attempts at posing Norm and Scorch wearing bandanas my mom gave them... at least one dog likes the camera.






While at Red Fern Canines training center in Pennsylvania, I got to see a picture of a very accomplished Cairn! It's always nice to see people working their Cairns to high levels. If I could focus on Norman... err, and also control his dog aggression... I'm sure he would excel! He already has a great repertoire of commands. Anyway, this Cairn also looks just like my Mugsy.


Speaking of Mugsy, I found a baby picture of her. The Cairn that started it all, my first dog, my baby girl puppy.


And finally, puppy snuggles!

Getting back to work

Sometimes life throws curveballs at you and your dog, and you have to learn to roll with it.


I've been pretty shaken up by the attack on Scorch, but he seems to have recovered well and taken the whole thing in stride. There's something to be learned there. If my little border collie can be brave and move on with his life after a terrible bite from another dog, maybe I can learn to not overreact to things so much...

...yeah, right. I'll let you know how that goes.

On a brighter note, we got the ok to return to training. Scorch limped for one day, had a minor hitch in his step on day two, and by day three he could not understand why he wasn't allowed to romp and play. During that time, Animal Control continued to investigate until they found the owner and fined him heavily. The owner's father also reimbursed me for my vet bills. So there was a happy ending at least.

I'm starting to realize how stellar Scorch's drop on recall has become... and that I really need to work on EVERYTHING as hard as we've worked on that. I'm also trying to "take it on the road" more, but for now, I feel pretty good about it. His heeling has improved somewhat, but when he's excited and anxious, he reverts to his forge-y ways. Gee, excited and anxious, that NEVER happens at a show... -_-

I'm doing better at staying in a straight line and I think that's part of the reason Scorch's heeling has shown an improvement. Heeling works when the dog isn't afraid of being stepped on or bumped.

His broad jump is the fastest thing I've ever seen. I need to get a video of it. He jumps long and low; there's no little "hop" that I see most other dogs do. He flies over it in a way that looks like it's part of his normal stride. Right now, we're mostly working on jumping straight straight straight. I don't know if there's muscle memory involved but since Scorch is the King Anticipator, I've only asked for a front a couple of times. Everything else has been a straight jump for a toy toss.

Speaking of videos, I have an 8 week old Golden puppy living with me right now (he's not mine, he's from work!). We've had to have several incarnations of baby-gate containment because he's very determined to escape. Here is a video of his early efforts:


Note the carpet has some (cleaned) wet spots. He was baby-gated and had finally stopped crying. I was so proud, until I realized he was quietly waiting for me to emerge from the bedroom and play with him. Of course during that time, there were some accidents, but he was actually pretty good considering.

Norman's head is about to explode from all the dogs that have been coming in. Hopefully we'll be back down to 3 for a while... God, I remember when I thought 3 was a lot of dog!

Attacked

Writing this is really hard... we'll see if I can get through it.

First, let me start by saying that Scorch, Norman, and I are ok, and we're going to be ok.

Last night, I took the two dogs (Wolfie is out of town with Bryan) on one of our usual routes. A few dogs barked and charged fences, which provided me a good chance to work on Norman's attention. However, there is one house that contains three boxers and a pit bull. The house is ~600 square feet. There are plywood sheets on the windows (to prevent the dogs from going through them, I've always assumed) and boards over the bottom part of the doorway. The dogs always bark and carry on when we walk by.

As we approached the house, I was paying attention to Norman when I heard a neighbor scream, "Watch out!" I looked up to see the door to the tiny house was open and one of the boxers had almost broken through the boards. Before I had time to think, they were out. I scooped Norman up as the 4 charged us.

The boxers stopped. The pit bull hit Scorch like a mack truck, grabbed his leg, and started shaking it violently.

It's all a blur of hackles, sceaming (mine and Scorch's), kicking, neighbors jumping in. It seemed to last an eternity. One of the neighbors swatted the pit bull with a towel and, shockingly, that stopped the assault (and kicking didn't?). They told me later that the owner (who wasn't home) uses a towel to swat at the dog to break up fights in the house.

Those kind, saintly neighbors corralled the dogs into the house and came to check on us. Scorch was limping badly, although we couldn't find any punctures at the time. Everyone else was unharmed. I gave the neighbors my contact information and walked home.

If that couple had not been outside... I was screaming "HELP!" and no one else came... if they hadn't been there, the consequences would have been far greater. I can't even think about it... the very notion makes me want to vomit.

I have never NOT been able to stop a charging dog before. That dog neatly swerved around me and attacked with more force than I've ever witnessed. To her credit, her aggression is truly dog-directed; she demonstrated none towards myself or my helpers. But it is fierce and deadly. I am a terrier proponent, and a pit bull one at that. But that dog is out of control.

I've had a theory that the owner doesn't even live there full time, but the dogs do. They're fat, underexercised, and understimulated. When I got home, I called the police and filed a report. They sent an ACO to meet me at the emergency clinic, where we found 3 serious punctures and several smaller ones. The ACO went right to the house, where still no one was home. He saw the conditions, so I hope that alone sparks action. I'm sure I'll never see a dime for my vet bills, but I want to hit this guy where it hurts: his wallet. Those dogs are in a dangerous situation and every dog who passes the house is in danger.

Scorch had a rough night on Acepromazine and neither of us got much sleep. He went to work with me today and played the pathetic card VERY well. He was the darling of the campus and garnered sympathy everywhere he went. When people would fawn over him, he would grunt and whine; we joked he was "telling the story". We did a careful intro with a coworker's non-threatening basset hound that went well. I want to make sure he gets slow reintroductions to only submissive, gentle dogs.

This certainly puts a damper in our plans to debut in Open under our favorite judge. That was supposed to happen at the end of this month. Hopefully August isn't out of the question, but the most important thing is that my dog is ok. And also that the asshat owner down the street gets what's coming to him.