This is a photo that I took in the pretty little courtyard out behind the Backstreet Pub in Beaufort, NC. I stumbled onto a website called www.pikipimp.com, and found the most painless way to dress up the dog. I only wish that I could animate the snowflakes. I think I will take more pictures of her and do a slideshow of her wearing every one of the pikipimp Christmas hats ... Emma's answer to Lucie and Luckie.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Emma has always zoomed after baths. When she was an only dog, she would tear over all the furniture, rubbing herself against the cushions, often pushing the cushions off the sofa in her zoomie state. Now that she has a buddy, she focuses her zoomie energy on playing with Cub, rather than focusing on taking apart the furniture!
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
We are lucky to have open space behind our house. I've never dog-walked there before, but it's coming in handy now. I can feel confident that the open space will still be there long after we are gone, because it is reserved for expansion of school athletic fields.
Emma is getting along so well with the new guy. I'm so proud of her!
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
I was rather concerned about handling the first meeting of Cub and Emma just right. I had Mark take Emma to work with him today, so that when Cub and I arrived at the house, he wouldn't have Emma flying in his face, being territorial. It's hard to say what she would do, but I have seen her be initially a little nasty to visiting dogs, and I wouldn't take that chance.
Cub got to become acquainted with his new home in peace. He became familiar with Emma's smells before meeting her. Then in the afternoon we drove downtown to the Backstreet Pub, the famous Beaufort dog-friendly watering hole.
Emma has had a period of issues with stranger-dogs. She would lunge at an unfamiliar dog, with some frantic yapping, and then run to hide behind someone's knees. We have been working on turning that behavior around, and I am absolutely amazed at how quickly, and completely, we have changed her behavior. Here you can see her accepting Cub's very large presence with complete equanimity. Mind you, she still doesn't know that he is coming home with us.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
This evening as I was coming out of the post office, I saw a couple walking two Portuguese Water Dogs out onto the city dinghy dock. I followed them out and asked to meet their dogs, who turned out to be Stormy and Zephyr, sailing from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas on the sailing vessel Malolo. Donna, Howard, and I had a great chat on the dock during which first Storm, and then Zephyr, leaned against my legs, then sat on my feet, and finally eased over into my lap!
On Friday, Mark will take Emma to the Backstreet Pub, our dog friendly drinking establishment, and she will get to meet Storm and Zephyr. I'm sorry that I will not be there to see them meet, because I am now on my way to Wisconsin to pick up a two year old Newfoundland dog, Bubba. Bubba is the great grandson of my second Newfoundland, Lola. Lola died 4-1/2 years ago at the ripe old age of 13.
Indeed, for Emma, life as she knows it is about to change.
Kathy (Emma's 2lggd mom)
Today we made a second run to build up our supply of firewood for the winter heating season. On Saturday, Mark went to a friend's property and helped him cut up a large downed branch. Today we went back and helped him fell a tree that was dying. I looked up at the tree and thought, "that's a lot of BTUs." We loaded about half of it into the trailer, and stacked it at the house. About a third of it was already dead and dry. At present we probably have about 4 weeks of heat stored up. Next week we will go to load up the rest of it. There's another tree to fell on the same property, and a downed, cut up tree at another friend's place, so we will soon be in good shape for the winter. If I still had a Newf, perhaps we would use a wagon to move the firewood from the pile to the trailer. Emma is no draft animal. She just supervises.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
The big pecan trees in our yard did not yield much crop last year, but this year is looking very good so far. The nuts on the several trees vary in quality. Some are very small and round, hard to crack, but extremely tasty. I don't bother with them; too much work. Others are large and oblong, papershells that can be easily cracked against eachother in one hand, with large sweet and juicy nut meats inside. These I collect for snacking.
Last weekend was very breezy, and I picked up many nuts off the ground. Tomorrow is forecast to be also very windy, and so the coming weekend should be good for collecting many more. Emma likes to crunch the nuts. I think she goes after the pecans that have already been partially chewed by the squirrels, because she can smell the sweet nut meat inside. Unfortunately, the sharp shells sometimes cause her digestive problems, and I find her barfing little chunks of shell during the night. I try to stop her from eating them, but I know it's quite pointless because the yard where she plays with her friend Buffy is strewn with them.
The cats are very social animals. When we walk around the yard, they keep us company. They are about 18 months old, and have become fairly good at catching mice, shrews, and young rats. They have been practicing stalking squirrels without much success. It takes some time for a cat to become an accomplished hunter, and they are just starting to get the knack. They caught their first squirrel (that I know of) last week. I have given them a pep talk about not letting those darn squirrels munch pecans with impunity. Even if they do not catch a squirrel, they should at least keep them on their toes, don't let them get too complacent. I don't begrudge the squirrels some nuts, really. I will leave all the small hard nuts on the ground for them and take the big papershells for myself, HA!
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Thirteen miles to Merrimon,
Thirteen miles to the setting sun.
I could go east; I could go west.
But I won't go just like the rest.
Mark and I went to a Halloween party at my friend Tia's house in Merrimon. Mark's band, the Jumpin' Mullets, was playing the party, and so we stayed until the bitter end, which was fine with me. I dressed as a she-devil in a hot red dress with a tail and horns.
Tia has two Portuguese Water Dogs. Lily is a very large girl, weighing over 55 pounds and a little long in the body. But she was able to finish her championship in spite of her size. She had a litter of puppies, and they were all spoken for but Popeye's prospective owners changed their minds. They seemed to be worried that his white face would be hard to keep clean. Tia fell for him, and now he is her first "grandchild!"
Saturday was very wet, so Emma stayed home when Mark went out to set up sound equipment. But Sunday when we went back to pick up the equipment, the weather was fine. Lucky Emma got in a nice little playdate. She had been out there before but I don't believe she had ever before met a goat nose-to-nose.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Emma likes to carry things, and has no problem holding stuff on her own terms. Me asking her to hold is another matter. If she brings me something, she wants to drop it at my feet immediately. So we are working on holding, as it is essential for water work
Someone on the Dog Trek group suggested teaching her to take and hold my finger. That didn't work for us. Emma has never been scolded for putting her teeth onto human skin; she grew up with bite inhibition training involving plenty of hand play. But nonetheless, she did not want to take my finger in her mouth. It seemed pointless to try to teach that, so instead I cut a wooden dowel for her to hold.
Emma takes the dowel readily when I ask her to. My touch on her muzzle may appear to be a very firm grip at times, but actually it is not a firm grip, only a light touch to give her the message that I would like her to steady.
Early releases were never punished, just used "uh uh" as an NRM; there's lots of debate about NRMs, and whether they are actually mild punishment, but I do use them some. There is one early drop where you'll hear me say "oops, uh uh." Progressively longer holds were rewarded with a C/T. The click sound I used this time is not the mechanical clicker, but rather a tongue click matching the rhythm of a clicker. Emma made the connection right away several years ago when I began using the tongue click for convenience. She understood right away that the sounds are similar and mean the same thing. It seems to cut through to her brain more reliably than a "bridge word".
I think we made some good progress here. The session was long, but she did not seem to tire of the game. By the time we stopped, she was holding, and letting me repeatedly touch and remove my hand from the dowel before release by the click. She already knows the word give, so it should be easy to add that once the hold is firm.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Although hunting dogs are taught to hold a dummy at the middle of the dummy part, I am teaching Emma to favor picking up a retrieving dummy by the rope.
Most of the items used in PWD water work have ropes on them, and are better taken by the rope for various reasons. The gear bag is required to be dragged by the rope; grasping the fabric in the teeth might cause damage. The bouy ball is too huge and can only be taken by the rope. The floats on the float line will fit in a dog's mouth, but I've heard that too much damage to the floats can result. In the case of the dummy, a dog will get less water in her mouth when retrieving by the rope.
I felt it would be a good idea to teach Emma to take by the rope, but I double checked with a question posted on the PWD Pets group. Everyone who responded confirmed and reinforced this decision as being a good one.
This session is the first time since age 1 year that Emma has worked with a dummy. I used Diamond tiny puppy biscuits, broken in half. She was consciously choosing the rope end by the time we quit. I remember that she had a similar dummy when she was small, and chewed the rope off, so I put it out of reach when we were finished.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Buffy is sort of a Beagle-Jack Russel mix. She has Beagle ears on a JRT head, JRT coloring, and a body somewhere between the two.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Emma was certainly being a little thick at the beach. Finally, after four summers of seeing her happily gallop over to my beach blanket to shake off after each dip in the ocean, I have decided to put "shake off" on cue.
I'm using a combo verbal/hand signal cue. I waited to capture each spontaneous shake-off with a c/t, and a couple of times actually caught her shaking-off away from the blanket. I did in fact try to block her path to the blanket several times, and when I did that, she would either give up and not shake-off, or she would indulge in a sand bath instead.
What on earth goes through their heads??? So many dogs do that; wait until they are right next to people, or their things to shake off.
Eventually, I just gave up and started capturing shake-offs at the blanket. She happily snarfed down biscuits, but she never made the connection. It will take more sessions, but the weather has turned cooler. I don't know how many more beach days we will have this year.
Emma's 2lggd mom
Kathy
I think that I could learn a lot from the ways that hunting dogs are trained. The only problem is that too much of that training involves coercion (shock collars, ear pinches, and so on). Emma and I just do not train that way; I will only use positive motivation. The only things Emma gets punished for are things that are always patently wrong (such as climbing up onto the desk to eat cat food out of the kitties' LeBistro).
Last week I saw a couple of videos of Lindsay Ridgeway working with his Golden Retrievers, Lumi (age 4) and Laddie (age 4 months). Lindsay dislikes coercive training methods just as I do. The "Pinball Drill" shown in these videos is an exercise that Lindsay is using to teach the dogs the "handling" cues to direct them to retrieves in the field. I can see that such fine control to direct the dog at a distance would be just as useful in PWD waterwork. Whether its dead birds, or fishing gear, a retrieve is a retrieve, right?
I joined the Dog Trek group so that I could learn more about this pinball drill, and how Lindsay trained it. He provided an excellent explanation. For me, teaching the whistle sit is the first step. The whistle sit is used to cue the dog to stop and visually check in with the handler for a new directional cue. When the dogs are working in the water, they apparently have no problem translating the "sit" as stop and swim in a tight little circle to check in for another hand signal. I got out the whistle which I once used for teaching sailing to 10 year olds, and we got to work. Right now, I am continuing this work, trying for more distance. At greater distances, Emma has a tendency to want to step toward me before sitting, so we are working on that, reinforcing only the prompt sits, ignoring the traveling sits.
An unanticipated minor problem: now when Emma sees me with the whistle she starts offering uncued sits.
Here are the LL&L videos:
Laddie, at only 4 months then, is astonishing! Such a great testament to clicker training.
And Lumi is such perfection, she is a joy to watch.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Yeah, the minute I start recording, they stop playing and watch me. I so hard to catch those sweet moments when they are happening. Prima and Fina were the two females in a litter of five, and were the first and last born, hence the names.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Some dogs can learn to roll over in a single session. I've seen a number of people teaching dogs to roll over by luring, but, as you can see, that just doesn't work for us. We're not so lucky (or talented). My attempts to lure Emma over just result in her whipping her head around the other way. So we are taking it slow. I'm using a clicker, and Charlee Bears treats. In this session Emma gets down on her side, with a couple of legs waving in the air. I called that a good start for now.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Emma has been clipped short for the summer, only leaving her tail plume and the rasta-do on top of her head. By now however, it's grown a bit. The only part that bothers me is all that moustache and beard. And it gets long enough around her eyes that she loses sight of the ball she's chasing. And the hair gets in her eyes - I mean actually STICKS to her eyeballs. Emma is my first non-shedder. I had no idea that their eyelashes just grow and grow; I never thought about it.
The second video is after trimming Emma's face. Personally, I like her with a neatly clipped face. I don't much care for the beards and moustaches styled on some PWDs. I must say, I think this is the tidiest face job I've ever done. I have an Oster Sculptor rechargeable clipper that I use on Emma's body, but for her face I have been using a Conair beard trimmer that runs on AA batteries. It takes two AA batteries, and I always have lots of rechargeable AAs around. It's lightweight, so its very easy to handle. And while I hate snap-on combs for clipping Emma's body, they don't seem to be a problem on her face. I think the reason it turned out so nice this time is because I removed the comb and blew out the comb and blade so frequently - every 2 or 3 passes. And I kept going back over in different directions. I also scissored around her paws. Tomorrow I will tidy up her earflaps and then start kind of a "creeping lion cut."
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
These pictures from January '04, Emma's about 9 mos. old. Boy George was the friendliest of the boatyard cats. Loved people, but would be owned by no one. Note that Emma is tethered. Boy George willfully entered her perimeter to tease her. Emma's trying hard to figure out how to get this creature to play!
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
I was inspired by Moxie making herself useful on the boat. There's more method to this though. Except for the three-sided ring used for the underwater retrieve, and the courier pouch, all the objects that PWDs carry for water work have ropes. Some of them MUST be held by the rope. Others, carrying by the rope is optional, but perhaps preferred.
This session was the very first time Emma has ever been asked to touch a rope. She's all about picking up the rope. Holding, as usual, will be the hard part though.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Inspired by watching the Movers & Shakers PWD club's Southern Splash Water Trial, I am trying to teach Emma some of the basics. Maybe we will give it a shot in '08. In an earlier session, I already got her touching, and then picking up the sinky-ringy (this is the object used for the underwater retrieve). In this session we are working towards holding it gradually longer periods.
The treats are Charlee Bears. Emma is VERY food motivated, so if I use anything too extremely yummy, she can't focus. My timing is occasionally off, clicking too late so I'm reinforcing dropping the ring instead of holding it. Fortunately, clicker training errors are not difficult to recover from; I just have to get it right MOST of the time. After a while, I added a "negatory" sound when she dropped it too early.
Emma isn't too good at holding things when it's not on her own terms. If I reach my hand towards her, she will drop the item before my hand reaches her mouth. So I won't even go there until she will hold while walking around, while sitting, or while I walk around her.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
PWD Portie Portuguese Water Dog heat sunglasses video
I know there's no way she can get hurt, but it still gives me the willies, the way she flops her tongue out right in front of the fan grill.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
I'd like to have access to a pool to teach Emma to dive! Perhaps I'm wrong, but I imagine it would be easier to learn to swim underwater in fresh water (vis a vis, eye comfort). And I would think visibility would be important too.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
It was too bad I couldn't bring Emma along. Shelley and Bob Plucker would've enjoyed seeing her (she looks really good). I wasn't the only one of their puppy people joining them for dinner that evening. There was another visitor passing through town as well, WITH her dogs. So the yard was full of PWDs. A lovely evening.
Kathy
Emma's 2lggd mom
The Backstreet has a long history as a dog-friendly establishment. Bayfield, Wisconsin used to have a dog-friendly bar, and when that changed it was time to move on. Let's hope that Beaufort and the Backstreet don't change. I don't mind banning the dog-haters; let's not ban the dogs.
When Emma was about 9 months old, she suddenly decided that a big male Golden Retriever named Shack (with whom she had already played) was scary. She hid behind the bar to avoid him, and everyone thought it was so cute that they encouraged that behavior.
Unfortunatly, she later transferred her Shack anxiety to all Golden Retrievers, then Tollers and mixes, then Yellow Labs, then many other dogs, even some small, and some female. I finally, in the recent few months, worked out a strategy which turned this anxiety problem around rather quickly. But that's another story.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Emma has been learning to speak on a hand signal (and shush on a hand signal as well, although that's often more difficult). I just wish I could put that nice roll-over on cue.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
I have given up on the other camcorder. I was told to never buy a camcorder on ebay. Now I will try to resell that one on ebay. I have bought an RCA Small Wonder camcorder and I love it! So simple and inexpensive, and I think the videos are just great.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
Finally, we've got video up here. Emma is crazy for fetching tennis balls. She's so crazy about fetching that she bolts off in a mad dash before the ball is thrown. Mark is asking her to wait, but she can hardly contain herself. The building is the "warehouse" where we are rebuilding our boat. Apologies for the video quality, I still haven't got all the kinks worked out.
Kathy, Emma's 2lggd mom
