Tag Archives: Puppy

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Slow And Steady Progress

There’s really not a lot to report. Hilda actually took me to the back door to go out this afternoon, and she’s parking fairly reliably outside. She still makes a considerable racket when she’s put in the crate, although eventually, and by eventually I mean anything from 10 minutes to a half hour, she’ll quiet down, at least for a little while. Today she enjoyed a midday nap, which was helpful. I waited for her to fall asleep, then put her in the crate. Of course, she tried valiantly to stay awake and bark and yowl her displeasure, but eventually, sleep won. Tossing in a couple treats a couple times when she was quiet also may have helped. I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never heard a dog whine while eating at the same time, but Hilda will, if she’s eating in the crate. It appears, then, that food isn’t enough of a motivator as compared to not being within easy reach of me or, well, whatever it is she wants to be in easy reach of. Probably me. She still follows me if I walk off without her leash. There are definite teeth marks in this leash, too. This is the leash I got with Chet, so it’s been around the block a little bit.

The really great news is that I can sleep through the night, or mostly through. She quieted down nicely, and woke me up around 2:30 in the morning to go out to park. This she did in fairly short order, and we went back to sleep for a while.

A couple people have asked for audio. I have some. I finally have a recording of Leno’s bark. Much of the barking in the recordings that will show up eventually is Fiona, some Leno, and some Hilda. Lots of Fiona.

There was one tiny mishap early this afternoon. Hilda got her tail closed in the back door. Guess she wasn’t all the way out the door. No worries, I checked her tail, and it seems to be all in one piece, no breaks, no swelling, no squashed tail bits, and it doesn’t seem to bother her after the first few minutes. I’ll keep an eye on it anyway.

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Vet Visit

Well, off to the vet we went. She got a clean bill of health, her nine week shots (a few days early), scheduled for her three month shots. We talked about spaying, and Dr. P. agrees that spaying at closer to a year old is probably best. So that’s my plan.

As for weight, Sharon estimated around 8 pounds. I thought that seemed a bit light, and thought more like 10. It turns out we were both light. She’s 13 pounds, 12 ounces.

She’s also beautiful. I got several unsolicited compliments on her. As well as someone asking about certifying a service dog. I was sure to stress that there was no such thing, but that the dog had to be trained to specifically do tasks to mitigate a disability. No, its mere calming presence to help your agoraphobia is not enough. And, sorry, I have no clue what task you can teach a three pound (at maturity) dog. Can you even call that a dog?

She’s got brains and beauty. She really is starting to pick up on sit, and maybe even down. she walks on leash, and when we’re out in the back, she pulls to get back in. Steps right out in front. I think guiding isn’t going to be a problem when the time comes.

Today, along with the vet people, she met someone who came to finish up with getting Alena on a county program. I had to run across the room for something, dropped her leash as she was just lying there, and walked off. And do you know, she followed me? All on her own.

I’ve also never met a more cooperative pup. Seriously, I can do anything with this dog. Tickle her toes, wiggle her ears, stick my fingers in her mouth, whatever, she doesn’t care. Also not at all possessive of food or toys. No problem with loud, sudden noises either. Dropped a metal feed pan on the floor, not a peep. There was, I forget what it was, but it was a sound, while she was asleep, there was this sound, she startled a bit, then recovered as if nothing had happened. Yep. I think this dog has, and will have, nerves of steel.

We’ve also had nice long quiet spells in the crate, after initial yowling. And lots of parks outside. All good.

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Yesterday and this morning

In case you were wondering, the answer to “How long can a puppy bark and howl?” is “Half the bloody freakin’ night”.

At least I think she’s starting to relax and figure out she lives here, anyway. She’s now following along with me on leash with only little encouragement.

Anyway, putting all three of the dogs in the crate together yesterday morning seems to have helped with Hilda’s barking a little, but that was because Leno and Fiona were barking instead. Yes, Leno. Mr. Barks Once a month whether he needs to or not is now barking at the puppy. Even more this morning. I think he’s telling her, “Back off, junior.”

Anyway, I tried something with the crate, both downstairs and the second half of the night after I moved the crate to next to my bed. As I slipped on some ice yesterday and was a little sore from that, I didn’t really think lying on the floor again would be a good idea. Anyway, string cheese. I didn’t have proper training treats, I will have tomorrow, so I used tiny pieces of string cheese. When she was quiet, or remained quiet for a while, i fed her tiny pieces of string cheese through the closed crate door. Now, she seems to be mostly fine if I’m within string cheese distance. I reckon this is progress. BTW, it isn’t just the crate. It’s also tie down. I had to put her on tie down to clean up when she peed in the big communal crate this morning. At least that’s easy to clean, but she peed in there yesterday while I was feeding and parking Leno, and Alena cleaned but did not spray the crate floor. So this morning, she walked in and peed before I could stop her. So had to put her on a tie down to go get paper towels and clean it up, and she made her usual ruckus. It might be that she doesn’t like me getting too far away. It might be she doesn’t like being confined, although I think it’s more the former than the latter, since she only barks and howls like that when confined *and* she perceives I’m somehow out of reach. If she’s frustrated at not being able to go further than the end of the leash, she whines and grumbles a bit, but that’s it.

I also yesterday made the mistake of letting her off leash to play with a ball. I think she wasn’t quite comfortable getting it into her mouth, because she ran after it, then ran back to me without it. Then when I threw it again, she ran off and took a dump in a couple places. Which got cleaned up of course.

Yesterday and this morning, we started to introduce “sit” and “down”. Just with a lure of a toy. Down got at least introduced this morning, when she just plopped down to get the toy as I moved it. I think she’ll pick up on both just fine.

We also started to introduce lying down by my chair at the table, just by putting her on a short leash and stepping on the leash. No big deal there, except maybe this morning she’s a bit more wound up.

We’re also trying to get her to not bite on things. Mostly nothings like me. Mostly by yowling in pain and then giving her a bone or other chew. Or, in the case of the leash, carpet, whatever, taking it away and then giving her an appropriate thing to chew.

She actually rolled over for a belly rub this morning.

One thing they don’t tell you in the books is how you’re supposed to deal with the following two mutually exclusive things.

Thing #1: Always keep your puppy attached to you, in a confined small area, or in a crate.

Thing #2: While crate training, start with short sessions and work your way up to longer ones.

OK, I can do thing #2 I reckon. But during the times I can’t have her attached or with me, then what? Because you can’t just wait to stick her in the crate until you can have a nice controlled set of short sessions.

I’m glad, or at least hopeful, that puppies are resilient. Because I’m sure I’ll get something wrong and have to fix it later.

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First Day And Night

As arranged, Hilda did come on Friday morning. Sharon dropped her by around 11 in the morning. Instant love! Followed, of course, by the inevitable, “What have I done?!” Of course, I know what I’ve done, it’s likely total insanity, but it will be OK.

This is a huge adjustment for her. None of the other critters around here are too upset. Even Jasper came down to say hello. She barked at one or another of them a couple times, but no one seems to mind. Which is kind of amazing really, seeing how intimidated Jasper is by Fiona. I think maybe Hilda and Fiona will be buds. So long as Hilda leaves Fiona’s favorite ball alone maybe. Leno, of course, takes everything in stride.

We had a couple accidents already, though mostly, she’s parked outside. She did, however, pee right after I took her out late in the evening. I mean right after. I can’t exactly blame her for not wanting to go on all this cold snow and ice (it’s pretty much all there is around here at the moment). But i know this too shall pass. Both the ice and snow and the illegal parking.

She has had very little trouble with adjusting to having a collar and leash attached. She has scratched a bit at the collar, but nothing major. Only some attempted leash chewing, but again, nothing that she hasn’t been willing to give up on pretty quickly.

Our biggest problem is the crate. Unfortunately, the only crates we have that don’t belong to Fiona are huge, at least huge as far as she’s concerned. The problem appears to be that she just doesn’t like closed doors. She’ll bark and whine and raise a ruckus if the door closes for any length of time. I’m sure this is something we’ll have to build up to. The trouble is, I have to put her somewhere when, for example, I have to take Leno out or feed him or deal with our own meal preparations. And has she got a set of lungs on her! They probably heard her the next block over.

She is getting adjusted though. She likes to fall asleep in my lap. Right now she’s stretched out next to my chair, with her head just sort of barely under.

For sleeping, we had a bit of a compromise, but I really don’t think I can do that for awfully long. She was fine in the crate so long as the door was open. Close the door, howling, whining, and barking commences. So to preserve a bit of domestic tranquility, I left the crate door open and slept on the floor in front of the crate. That way, if she decided to go on walkabout, she’d have to walk over me, thus waking me up. That worked out OK, and she only left the crate twice. Once to go outside in the middle of the night when I took her, and once to snuggle up next to me. Then she got put back in after a while and quieted down. Because, you know, the door was open.

I’m sure she’ll be fine once things settle down and she figures out that she lives here now. Once that happens and she can focus on something other than whatever it is she’s thinking about now, I think we’ll be OK.

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Tomorrow, She Comes

The original plan was for Hilda to come on the 28th, but Sharon’s schedule changed a bit, and she says she can bring Hilda by tomorrow sometime instead. I’m terribly excited about this. None of the collars and leashes and what not i’ve ordered for her has showed up. OK, the name tag showed up, but that’s it so far. Really, it’s all right, I should be able to get something together in the way of a collar and leash until hers get here. I’m interested to see how much she’s grown in the past four weeks. I knew that at four weeks, they’d be tiny, and they were, but to see that in real life is a lot different from knowing intellectually that they’re going to be tiny. To think that a critter about the size of a small cat, seriously, 5 pounds or so, is going to grow up to be around 60-65 pounds, just amazes me.

So far, of the eight pups, two have gone on to their new homes. We’ve got a pretty good idea that all of those changes are at first confusing to them. New people, new smells, new sounds, no brothers and sisters, nothing familiar to them. But what about the pups that are left behind? you really have to wonder what they’re thinking as they see their brothers and sisters disappearing one by one. I’m sure they maybe don’t think about it like we would, but still, do they wonder? Where’d that brother of mine go? He hasn’t come back. How strange. What’s at the top of those stairs that go on forever and ever? (Well…if they go on forever and ever, is there a top? Those people who come to visit have to come from somewhere…?)

OK…there was no actual point to any of this, sorry.

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Introducing Hilda

Welcome to this new chapter in our lives.

For the past while, certainly since the end of Chet’s working career in 2009, I have been thinking about owner training some future guide. Seriously, I’ve given it a lot of thought. I’ve talked to owner trainers informally about it, and I’ve read a lot of accounts of owner training. And then, I decided that I’d go back to The Seeing Eye, which Idid, and i got Leno. Well, strictly speaking, I didn’t “go back”, as Leno was a home placement, but he was trained at the Eye, and he is a real, honest to goshness Seeing Eye® dog. But I really wanted to try my hand at dog training. I thought, well, maybe I could do something about a service dog for Melanie, but she didn’t want one.

And then, I finally decided, what the hell? I’m going to do this thing. Not, you understand, that Leno is in any danger of wanting to retire. He isn’t. Four years in and he’s still happy to get into harness and go. But I know these guys don’t run forever, and Chet and Karl before him both worked something like six and a half years each. If Leno holds to pattern, he’ll be thinking about it sometime late next year. Even if he isn’t, nothing says he can’t ease into a retirement, or go sometimes while another dog goes other times. Anyway, I didn’t want to start a new dog too close to current dog’s retirement, because I hope that Leno will help in the new pup’s training, even if only by providing a great example to follow in how to behave in public and around the house.

And so, in Summer 2014, the search began. I decided, perhaps arbitrarily, that I wanted a German Shepherd Dog. I’ve always admired them, or anyway, I have, as long as I’ve known enough to admire them. The funny thing is, Karl was a Golden, and I loved Goldens and had fond memories of at least one. I was overjoyed to be partnered with a Golden. I’ve loved both of my Labradors, too. But there was something about the GSD. My aunt had a GSD, and we had a GSD/collie mix for a little while, and both were fantastic. Every GSD guide I’d interacted with at any length, I really enjoyed (of course, most dogs I rather like anyway). While in class with Chet, we got to interact with several dogs, and I really fell in love with the quiet, no nonsense way the GSD I got to work with did what was asked of her. Anyway, arbitrary or not, I decided I wanted a GSD. I looked at breeder web sites. A friend of mine told me that another friend of mine got her dog from a local breeder, she was a very nice dog, and I should get in touch. So, Heidi introduced me to Sharon, and I went to meet her and her three dogs back in July or August. Well, late July or early August, I forget, but it was definitely a Saturday.

To make an already long story interesting, I loved her dogs, especially Grischa. Granit, the male, kept bringing his outside ball in to play, and CC, the other female, was in and out a lot. But Grischa came over and laid down right next to me and stayed there for the better part of my visit. I definitely felt a connection with her, and I enjoyed her calm presence. Sharon also felt that one of Grischa’s pups would match well with me, and we tentatively planned for me to obtain one of Grischa’s next litter, which was planned, as it turned out, to be ready about when it turned out to be ready. I wasn’t in a hurry, as you might imagine, since Leno wasn’t ready to retire. I had a lot of time to work with. A January pup, that is, born in January, would mean that she’d turn two right about when Leno might be thinking about retirement, if, as I said, he holds to pattern. All things being equal, and of course things are never equal, I reckoned if this training thing worked out, we’d be ready to go about then.

In the months between August and the birth of Grischa’s January litter, I probably sent Sharon more stuff to look over than she wanted to see, but she saved it all and gave some thought to what I was looking for in a pup. With the personality characteristics I had in mind and she had in mind, she looked at the pups in the litter, and picked out a little girl pup. We met her when she was four weeks old, and she’ll be coming to stay just a day after eight weeks. In these past few months, I’ve been reading a lot. An awful lot. Reading, and trying to separate agenda from useful stuff, and find what aligned with my beliefs and experiences with training and handling. Believe me, none of this is very straightforward.

I’m sure some people wonder why I’m doing this when I could get a perfectly good dog from a school. I sure could. I have, three times. I think that the guide dog schools do a fantastic job, and none do a better job, certainly in traffic training, than the Seeing Eye does. I don’t believe I will approach their traffic work by a long shot, but I don’t think any of the other schools approach traffic as thoroughly as the seeing Eye does. I believe I will have a dog that works safely around traffic, as all the schools do, and I believe that, if I manage to do this thing, I’ll have a safe and effective guide dog at the end of it, assuming she’s willing and able to do the work. Really, for me, this is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. That is to say, I want the experience of raising and training my own guide dog. If it works out, that’s great! If it doesn’t and I end up being a lousy trainer, or she just would rather do something else, that’s fine too. I will have had the experience at least once, and really, that’s why I’m doing it–to have the experience. If I do this thing once and never again, I will call it a success. If I do this once and it doesn’t work out as planned, it’s still a success, because it really is about the journey for me. The end, having a trained guide dog that I managed to convince to guide me, is icing on the cake. I know, that probably sounds strange. Maybe it is, but if it is, I’m OK with that.