I Can Do Better Than Blogger

Blogger is a horrible platform. It's like Google built it 10 years ago and hasn't touched it since. I picked it because I already store a lot of pictures using Google photos and it is very simple to insert them into the blog from those albums. That's great, but not great enough to put up with all the negatives of Blogger. Anyway, find me here now! http://todoeverything.weebly.com/

WHAT HAVE I DONE?!??!?!!??

Who me?

I am now a proud owner of an extremely demanding yapping chewing biting jumping scratching peeing and pooping furball who has yet to learn to sleep through the night. In fact, I'm not sure if he even slept part of the night. I'm pretty sure he spent all of it either sucking on my fingers while I sat next to his crate, or yapping at me while I didn't. Did I mention I didn't sleep last night? Ok, maybe 30 minutes, but still.

Eying the hair, one of his favorite chew toys

Memo hates it. It's loud and annoying and it doesn't know the rules of adult doggy interaction yet. Memo would like me to please return it to wherever it came from. Promptly. But, tough cookies for Memo, Cusco is here to stay. He's adorable and sweet and smart. He hasn't had a single accident since we got him - he seems to just naturally know that outside is for pottying. I love him, so he stays.

Cusco admiring his favorite toy - daddy's camera

Yesterday I got up at 7:30 and my parents and I were driving by 8:00. About noon we got to IKEA in Orlando. Wow. That place is HUGE!!! I've never been to IKEA before and I was like a kid in a candy store. BUT, I knew that the faster I shopped, the faster I would get my puppy, and I had an exact list of what I needed, complete with aisle and bin numbers. After navigating the IKEA maze we grabbed the stuff and checked out. Everything I needed was in stock, and I'm super excited to build my dream cutting table and sewing machine table. More to come on that later. After IKEA, it was time to get the puppy!

Breeder, me, and Cusco

After many "are we there yets" (to which my dad responded by simply pointing to the GPS), we finally made it to the breeder's house in Bradenton. We were greeted at the door by a beautiful black and white Portie, a very large Chesapeake Bay Retriever, and the sound of four yapping puppies. Upon passing through the baby gate and joining the puppies in the kitchen, my ponytail, jeans, shoe laces, and shirt were all instantly repurposed as a chew toys. Puppies! We spent about an hour at the breeder's house playing with puppies and signing paperwork, then set out to meet my brother for a (very) late lunch. 

At a restaurant with a brand new puppy

Note to future self - don't take a brand new puppy to a restaurant. We sit down and I plop him under the table with a bowl of water. He promptly sticks his paws in the water bowl, turns it over, then starts yapping and howling because he broke his toy. I put a little tension on the leash to try to bring him towards me, at which point he throws a massive (loud) hissy fit, flipping and flailing trying to escape the foreign thing around his neck. I finally pick him up and plop him in my lap, right there at the table. Not good training, but a crowded restaurant is not the place to teach a puppy to manage frustration. Even in my lap though, he continues to complain, so I tell my mom what to order for me and take him down to the beach.

Wave? I can do waves.

He’s a fearless puppy. He was mildly concerned when the water moved under his feet, but got over it as soon as he saw a big shell that looked tasty. He did a few face plants the sand and amused us with his little sandy face. To get pictures, Daddy held the camera down at his level and snapped without looking. Cusco loved the sound the shutter makes on rapid-fire, and chased it while Daddy ran backwards. Dad got some really good pictures like this, some of which are shown here.

Post-faceplant sandy nose

The first night with a new puppy is hard. The puppy is used to sleeping in a pile of puppies, and suddenly he is expected to sleep alone in a new place with new people. I made Cusco a nice little bed and set him in it, then sat down next to the crate. He yapped a little bit, but then quieted down for a sec. I said yes and dropped him a treat. We did that a few times, and he stayed quiet for longer and longer each time until he finally fell asleep. I snuck out on top of the world, thinking I was the best puppy mom ever. I should know better. He woke up an hour and a half later and was NOT happy. That hour and a half was the only peace I got that night, and I slept for maybe 30 minutes of it. After a very long night, my parents woke up and I went and got in their bed on the other side of the house. I stole a few hours of sleep this morning while they handled puppy J

Sandy nose becoming sandy tongue

I introduced Memo and Cusco this afternoon in a neighbor’s yard. Didn’t go great, didn’t go horribly. They met and all was well. Cusco was a little scared, but there wasn’t much interaction. Then Memo walked away and Cusco decided he wanted to play. He chased after Memo, at which point Memo turned around and put him on the ground. It was loud and a little scary for me, but no harm done. I kept them both out for a little while after that, but they had a few tense interactions and I decided to keep them separated for a while. I went to Petsmart with Memo and got an x-pen and they spent the rest of the afternoon/evening interacting through the pen. There weren't any attempts at eating the puppy through the x-pen, but there were some negative interactions initially. I did a little bit of clicker work with Memo, clicking positive interactions with the puppy like sniffing or puppy bowing at him and we made definite progress. By the end of the night, all of Memo's interactions with Cusco throught the x-pen were positive, so I felt a little better. That’s it for tonight. Fingers crossed for more sleep tonight than last night!

All pictures courtesy of my extremely talented father - Find many more at http://www.wlpearce.com/Pets/Cusco-and-Friends/

Cusco's Coming!

“You’re juggling a lot right now, and a puppy’s a pretty big ball”. 

That was my dad's advice when I talked to him about getting a puppy. So why exactly am I getting a puppy right now? Portie puppies are a pain in the butt. If there is any hope of them ever growing up and ceasing to little pain in the butts, they need a lot of work. A whole lot of work. While there is a lot going on in my life right now, I do have 2 months home without school or work. I doubt I’ll get that opportunity again in the near future, so it’s puppy time. 

In honor of puppy coming home tomorrow, here’s a few of my favorite books and websites pertaining to dog training and behavior:

BOOKS:

Training Levels, Sue Ailsby

Sue Ailsby’s blog was the first clicker training blog I found, and I raised Memo by her levels training system. At that time all that was out were the levels posted freely on her website. Since then, she has published (in ebook format only) an updated version of her training levels, which I have purchased and read and plan on following with Cusco. I highly recommend anything and everything she’s written, including her blogs and FREE BOOKS!

How to Raise a Puppy You Can Live With, by Rutherford and Neil

A great book covering the puppy’s first year. Covers the stages of development along with what to teach and look out for in each. Includes crate training, house breaking, and handling sharp puppy teeth.

The Other End of the Leash, by Patricia McConnell

Not a fan on the views on dominance expressed in this book, but I do like how this book focuses on fixing the owner’s behavior rather than on fixing the dog’s behavior. Also contains some good discussion of making use of the dog’s instincts in training. As a side note, I share Sue's take on domininance, found here.

Don’t Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training, by Karen Pryor

Karen Pryor pretty much invented clicker training while working with dolphins early in her career and she explains the foundations of clicker training in this book. This is more of a book on behavior modification than it is a dog training book – it doesn’t teach you how to teach the dog tricks or obedience behaviors, but how to think as a trainer.

BLOGS:

Mind to Mind - Sue Ailsby's blog! My favorite! Sue has several Portuguese Water Dogs and she trains them to become her service dogs. She's a clicker trainer and competes actively in dog sports. She was raising Stitch at about the same time that I got Memo and I read every single word of Stitch's blog, possibly multiple times. She also raises, trains, and shows llamas. 

http://www.sue-eh.ca/

Dog Star Daily - A fun blog written by Dr. Ian Dunbar, also a clicker trainer. He’s a fun writer and is very interested in raising puppies and in utilizing specific periods of brain development for different types of training. He’s a scientist and his writing reflects that. While he’s a great writer and scientist, he can make you think you’ve ruined your dog forever by not doing something at some specific week of development. This is a good blog, just remember that plenty of dogs have grown up to be spectacular pets without following Dunbar’s schedule J

http://www.dogstardaily.com/

Karen Pryor Clicker Training - There’s some good information here, but unfortunately the main purpose of her blog seems to be to sell her products. Her products are great, but none are necessary to raise a fantastic puppy. 

http://www.clickertraining.com/blog

Say Yes! - I was just introduced to this blog by a friend and haven’t gotten to know it very well, but everything I've seen so far is great. The author is currently raising a puppy, so I’ll be following along. There’s a definite focus on positive training, puppy raising, and agility.

Susangarrettdogagility.com

I’m sure there’s more, but that’s all I have for now! Pictures of puppy to come tomorrow!

Cast of Characters

Me: I’m a twenty something year old recent graduate with way too many hobbies/interests to be practical. I enjoy studying computer science and security, international affairs and politics, history (especially Russian), and psychology. Actually, scratch that, if you give me a well written book on any subject, I’ll probably enjoy reading it. To relax, I quilt while binge watching Netflix or go for a run on my treadmill (which I’m moving across the country), also while binge watching Netflix. I’ve also been known to lay down and read for hours at a time. For fun I enjoy hiking, rock climbing, backpacking, and dog training. Starting to understand the name of the blog yet?

Memo: Memo is my 9 year old Portuguese Water Dog. He’s a brat. He’s also insanely smart, and I could swear he has a sense of humor. He’s a pain in the butt, but I love him and he’s taught me more about dog training than I could ever learn from books. While we haven’t competed in anything (competing requires traveling, which requires time and money, neither of which I've had much of in the last 6 years), we’ve done some water work, agility, obedience, and nose work (his favorite). I clicker train, and he loves to work.

Cusco: ????????????????? 

Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone

My 1100 sqft apartment currently sits packed in boxes in my wonderful mother's living room, waiting for the day in June when they'll be loaded into a truck and driven 1,759 miles away to my new home, in New Mexico. A home that, by the way, has yet to be found. Memo, my Portuguese Water Dog, is lying next to me, anxiously waiting for me to close my laptop so he can take its place in my lap. He’s staying close. He knows something is up – all his toys are in several large boxes in the living room. He’s found them of course, and protests periodically by whacking one of the boxes with a big fuzzy paw and staring at me intently.

If all goes as planned (when does that ever happen?), this time next month I’ll be somewhere between Florida and New Mexico, driving across the country with Memo and a new puppy in tow. Yes, I’m moving to New Mexico. No, I don’t know anybody in the entire state, or any of the neighboring states for that

matter. Yes, I’m getting a new puppy in the middle of this. I’m picking him up on Saturday and he’ll be named Cusco. He’s somewhere in that pile down there.

I’m starting this blog in the hope that it will help me stay close my family in Florida and my friends who are dispersing all across the country. I’m sure the topics here will reflect my wide variety of interests, from dog training to backpacking to sewing, it will all be here.