Clicker Expo

My brain is both mush and bursting with inspiration.  Today we returned home after attending Clicker Expo  in San Francisco.  We travelled with a friend and her dog and after much thought and research (and worry!) I opted to fly Stella with us.  We drove down to Seattle and flew direct from there as it was cheaper and the plane on that route was much better for the dogs than the flight out of Vancouver.  I am happy to report that she handled both the flight and hotel life very well.  She was well behaved, friendly and worked wonderfully in the learning labs we participated in.  She was also good at chilling out and relaxing during lectures when needed and giving lots of doggy love to other participants who were missing their own dogs.

We attended lectures and working labs with Michelle Pouliot, Kay Laurence, Cecile Koste and Ken Rameriz.  The key note speaker was the amazing Dr. Susan Friedman.  I will post more on the individual sessions as I digest and process the information.

One of the wonderful things about this event is the feeling of joy throughout.  Attendees (approx 500) range from dog training geeks (me) to shelter workers and professional trainers in a range of fields.  Some of them are massively clicker oriented and others not as much but all participants have a love of positive training techniques that help us respect and communicate with our dogs.  This was my second trip and the ten year anniversary of the expo.

Stella was a great breed ambassador while we were there.  If I got $10 for every comment about how calm she was "for a vizsla" it would have gone a long way to paying for some of the conference fees!   I am proud of my crazy little bean as this was a lot to ask for a young dog and she was awesome.

Heading back to normal

Today as I was shuttling Riley to his morning swim therapy and then back home to take Stella out for a walk I laughed to myself and wondered if this is what a "soccer mom" feels like.   This week Stella had a dog class and Riley has had two swim therapy sessions plus needs his six week vet follow up.  We are also headed up to Whistler on Saturday (1.5 hour drive) to see the dog chiro/acupuncture guru as Stella has been limping on and off for a few weeks.  Life usually revolves around a lot of dog stuff but the changes in routine during Riley's recovery has made things seem busier.

For the last six weeks we have walked Riley on leash  3-4 times per day for 5-10 minutes each time for his potty breaks and allowed exercise.   I suppose that is not a lot of time in a day but putting on harnesses and towelling off wet dog every time has given me a new appreciation for my fenced back yard especially on those cold, rainy late nights.  Stella added to the fun and games by having her second heat and needing her regular daily hike and training time.  Riley has been confined to an X-Pen during recovery and the dogs have been kept mostly separate to prevent play.

This week big steps in the return to "normal" have occurred.  The X-Pens have come down.  We installed a ramp for the back yard so Riley is now allowed monitored access (no running and playing yet) for his potty breaks.   I also purchased a bench/storage unit for the end of our bed so he can easily step up onto the bed instead of jumping so he is allowed upstairs to sleep in our room again.  It's nice to have my morning Riley snuggles again!  Once we get the all clear from my vet we can start to slowly increase exercise levels and soon be able to get both dogs back on the same schedule.

I am pretty happy with the results so far from his surgery.  He still has a bit of ataxia on his right hind leg which was the worst limb prior to surgery but I feel that overall he is as good as he was prior to the surgery.  The goal of the surgery was to prevent further deterioration but I am hopeful that I will continue to see improvement over the next few months.    Most of his symptoms were caused by the spinal cord being compressed so it takes a while for things to settle after the surgery and then hopefully some of the nerves will regenerate.    He has started doing some things that he hasn't done in a very long time such as scratching fully back with all four limbs after a poop.  I know my yard isn't going to like that but it does show increased strength and balance.  He is also way better balanced when he lifts his leg to pee on something and scuffs his toes much less than he did.  I will continue the swim therapy for the next little while as I think it is important to encourage the best possible range of motion as he heals.  He lost a bit of his muscle conditioning so swimming will also help rebuild those core muscles.

I don't mind being the dog mom equivalent of a soccer mom but I'm looking forward to hopefully doing more fun stuff instead of all this stressful and expensive medical stuff.  On that note I am headed for Clicker Expo this month and I'm really looking forward to it!

Riley really wishes his fur would hurry up and grow in a bit faster.

Stella dreams of sunshine.

Year in Review

Another year draws to a close today and as I look back upon my goals for 2012 I am pretty happy with the outcome.  My goal for puppy Stella was "I need to improve my shaping skills and she needs to learn how to work through frustration".  My goals for Riley were "I also want to get Riley's rally excellent at trials in march/april" .

I have really enjoyed working with both dogs this year.  I believe my shaping and handling skills have improved a lot.  Stella still can get frustrated easily but she has improved and I have discovered how valuable play is in our working relationship.  I did not have any real 2012 trial goals in mind for Stella other than gettiing her CGN but we had quite a successful year.  She started with her Canine Good Neighbour (CGN) and then we added a CKC Rally Novice title (RN), CKC Pre-Novice Obedience (PCD) and a CARO Rally Novice Magna Cum Laude (CRN-MCL) to the mix.  We have also dabbled at conformation showing and currently have three points towards her Championship title.   Stella is only 19 months old and I am thrilled with my relationship with this wonderful little girl and look forward to lots more adventures in the year ahead.

Riley completed his CKC Rally Excellent (RE) in spring as well as his CKC Pre-Novice Obedience (PCD).  We had planned to try for our Novice Obedience title but things started going really wrong for him physically so I stopped training and trialing with him in May.  We did xrays in june and that started us down the path that ended with his recent surgery.  He is doing awesome now and is feeling pretty energetic.  Two more weeks of major restrictions and then we get to start increasing his activity levels slowly.  I'm not sure what our training challenges will be in 2013 but I am thinking of aiming for a tracking title and starting nosework with him.  A lot will depend on how the next few months work out physically for him. 

It was a wonderful year of learning for me.  I started with Clicker Expo and also attended wonderful weekend seminars from Michelle Pouliot and Denise Fenzi.  Now I'm hooked on seminars!  I feel that I am really starting to find my "style" but I can also see that learning will never end!

I am happy with our successes this year but the titles really aren't all that important to me except as a way of setting goals and working towards them.  Those goals help me figure out my path and keep some of the procrastination in check :).  I am blessed to have a supportive husband and good friends who understand this strange fascination I have with all things dog.  I truly treasure the "family" vacations and daily adventures with my dogs (and cats!).  That point has been driven home this year with Riley's problems and surgery and I hope for health and happiness for many years ahead. 

Happy New Year!

Here is a video of me skiing this week with Sam (my mother's dog) and Stella.  Watch to the end to see my crazy little wigglebum Stella being her happy self.

Lost and Found

It has been an emotional few weeks for many local dogs and the owners that love them.  Tonight a vizsla that has been missing on Vancouver Island for seventeen days was finally reunited with her family.  Closer to home in the hiking trails of the north shore mountains there have been other lost dogs.  I know the family of one dog lost and helped hike some trails with Stella this week to search.  That dog was actually lost while helping to track another missing dog.  Thankfully both the original missing dog plus the one I know were both found safe thanks to a ton of volunteers and lots of long, cold and scary days and nights for both the dogs and the searchers.  In our same North Vancouver mountains a flat coated retriever was just found after being lost for 6.5 months and a Bernese Mountain Dog needed a search and rescue team with helicopter to be rescued in dangerous snowy mountain terrain after going missing for 13 days while snowshoeing with its owners.

We live in a large city but are lucky enough to be a short ten minute walk to the wonderful trails of the North Shore mountains.  My dogs enjoy lots of off leash freedom on these trails and we generally stick to fairly easy trails.  Both dogs have very good recall and are very attentive about checking in with me but this has gotten me thinking.  It is a risk-reward tradeoff with off leash hiking and it would be my worst nightmare to lose one of my dogs.  My dogs LOVE to run and romp through the woods and I would hate to let my fear of losing them prevent us from enjoying those wonderful hikes we do daily.    I practice and reward recalls heavily but have decided to also start training a whistle recall.  A whistle carries much further than my voice and doesn't get tired or emotional like a human voice can.   Hopefully we will never have a situation where it would be necessary but I feel it is a good tool to have just in case.  I also make sure that both dogs gets to meet all sorts of people regularly so they are very comfortable with strangers.   

Meanwhile Riley has been recovering nicely from surgery.  We went through a variety of xpen configurations before settling on a location that makes him happy.  We had the staples removed last week and had my vet check out a possible seroma (fluid swelling) that was at one end of the incision.  We ended up putting him on a course of antibiotics just in case the fluid was from an infection.  The incision is now a normal size with just a small bit of scar tissue and he is getting stronger every day.  He wasn't happy when he couldn't romp in the snow this week but we are now almost three weeks post op and hope to start swim therapy next week so things are looking up for him :).  Stella is now nearing the end of her heat cycle and is feeling much more like her regular bouncy, happy self.  Her cycle makes her quite sleepy and more nervous/jumpy than normal so we haven't done much (any!) training this month but hope to get some stuff in over the holidays.

Hopefully we will soon be back to these sorts of scenes.