One year old

Today is Re's first birthday- this year has flown by!

We started the day with an off-leash run in the cranberry bog.  Remus had a great time running after Uncle Ryan; and, he is finally able to keep up with him.  We were able to go for a walk in our neighborhood after I came home from teaching a couple of private dog training appointments.

Re has been doing fine, although he still gets nervous in various situations.  Today Re saw a stump in the water at the bogs.  He was nervous, looking at it with his tail down, walking closer to it and away from it.  I know that Re wouldn't understand if I told him: Re it's just a stump, it's fine.  So, I told him he's a:  Good Boy Handsome!  Remus come, Good Boy!  Within a few moments, Re was able to walk past the stump and not be worried about it.  His tail came up, he picked up a stick and started to play with Ry.

He is pretty handsome in my opinion; I'm looking forward to seeing how he continues to develop (and fill out) into an adult dog. 

About 5 months old, October 22nd

Watching Uncle Ry running in the marsh.

Barely caught his face.

These past few months have gone by too fast!  Re is fast approaching 6 months.  He's growing into a super nice, smart and obedient boy (with a bit of silliness).  He wants to be in my face unless he is otherwise distracted.  Tonight he wanted my bowl of cereal; I was sitting at the table eating, Re grabbed some papers off the table and while I was picking them up he tried to eat my snack!  I think he had a plan...

5 Months Old

 Super cute and having fun, at least as much as possible!

Not much to report on this month.  Re is starting to look more like an adult dog (a skinny adult dog) every day.  He still has silly puppy behaviors.  He and Ry are getting along great, they would play constantly if I let them.  Clara is even getting into the play though I think she wants to pretend that she's not.  More on Clara later.

 

September 17

How did time move so fast?  I haven't recorded anything in a very long time!

Lily let Ry rest his head on her while she slept, how happy she was with him!

So, a lot has happened since I last wrote about what we have been doing.  Remus has been pretty consistent with his responses to cues, the environment and people.  He still tinkles when he greets someone if he hasn't had a chance to pee first.  (I'm trying to work through this without creating a long lasting problem.)  Ry's (and my) cat Lily passed away at the beginning of September after an almost 2 week battle with kidney failure, infection and blood clots (we're presuming since she had so many problems at the time I had to put her to sleep.)  We miss Lily very much.

Re is 5 months now.  His attention span is much longer than it had been!  Since Lil had gotten sick and then died, I have been slacking a lot with Re's socialization outings.  We had gone to Norris a couple of times but not anywhere else that I can remember.  This month my goal is to venture out of our old places and go to some new ones.  So far, we have gone to Cobb's Corner and Derby Street Shops.  These are great places to venture to since they are big enough that I can take him to different parts and it will be like visiting a new place again! I also noticed that Re may becoming stressed when he sees people when we are out walking.  He sits or starts to lie down when they come close to us while he looks up at them (I'm not 100% sure that he's not staring) and I do not want this to escalate into a reactive behavior.  So, behavior modification it is.  Now whenever we see someone I ask Re for eye contact and attention then reward him for doing so (because really, he doesn't need to say "hi" to every single person he sees.)  I am teaching a reactive dog class with Katrin and have decided to teach Re the emergency cue: Quick so that in the future I have it if I need it.  It's really just a way of getting your dog to follow you immediately to prevent any reactive behavior from happening.

I am so happy with Remus' loose leash walking!  He walks very close to me most of the time (like 50-75%), he does still get distracted and will pull when he decides he needs to sniff.   On the whole though, he is the best at walking on leash of the dogs that I have had.  I was pondering this today- is the way that I teach my dogs to walk on leash getting better or is Re just picking up on it better than the other dogs?  Probably a combination of both.  We click together.  :-)

Monday, August 13th

I was off work today, as usual.  I decided to work on teaching Re that sometimes we go back to bed and sleep longer than 7 or 7:30.  He was fine with that idea, had his breakfast in his crate, played with his toys and was pretty happy until about 8:30 when I started getting ready to get up.  The heat and humidity has been really hard for me to deal with so we have been hanging out indoors a lot!  I had a Dr appointment today, which meant Re had to stay home with the big dogs.  I heard him barking as I walked out to the car, but was quiet when I got home.  I really need to make a point of leaving him home everyday or so to make sure he doesn't develop separation anxiety since he is so attached to me.   Early this evening we drove over to Carol's house to practice leash walking on her street because it's quieter than mine.  Re had a hard time paying attention to me when we first started walking but, on the way back he did much better- able to look up at me for more than one or two seconds, taking treats from my hand, and staying close to me instead of at the end of his leash.  Things were going fine, we met two of Carol's neighbors, they both seemed very nice until one of them told me that "I need to put a different collar on him if I wanted to train him right."  I asked, "do you mean a pinch collar?"  "Yes," he replied.  Long story short, I thanked him for his unsolicited advice and said that I don't use pain to train my dogs.  ("Well, it really doesn't hurt them."  "Then why do they yelp when they get to the end of the leash?")  I should take Ry for a walk over there, excellent leash manners without having used a pinch collar.

I was trying to walk and photograph Ry walking close to me with eye contact.

Close walking on left side without eye contact.

Anyway, on to tonight.  Ryan and I took a walk in the neighborhood where we live.  We were happily walking down the busy street when I saw the cars slow down and stop in both directions, then I saw a very scared dog running between the sides of the road.  I was hoping she would get close enough to Ry and me so that maybe I could lure her to the side of the road and keep her there.  Unfortunately that is not what happened, someone (I'm assuming her owner or a family friend.) jumped out of a pick up truck and chased her into a driveway.  Well, that was a terrible idea since she ran away more scared than before.  I dropped down into a squat to see if I could encourage her to come closer.  Ry was pretty focused on her, which may have kept her at a distance to me.  The poor girl was so frightened.

The reason why I'm posting this on my blog is to remind people to NEVER CHASE A FRIGHTENED DOG!!  Actually, never chase a friendly one either, especially if you want to get closer to it.  If you need to get your dog to come closer to you, jog the opposite direction of where he is.  If you have a puppy, teach it to come when called in a variety of situations using positive reinforcement techniques including food rewards and play.  When Ry was a puppy I started running towards him when I called him and then rewarded him heavily when we reached each other, just in case we were separated and someone else was trying to get him.

August 1st, 2012

Life with Remus is a ton of fun.  He is growing up so fast, it seems like it wasn't that long ago when I brought home that little 10 pound pup (okay, it was only the end of June).  He is growing "like a weed," weighs about 22 pounds and has gotten pretty tall.  I know, pups grow and that the time it takes is pretty short in comparison to other species.  He is still acting like a pup which is the way it's going to be for the next 18 months or so.  Vizsla's seem to take a long time to grow up, at least that was my experience with Ry (and what Patsy has told me), so it's what I am expecting with Remus.  Ry didn't really settle down until last year or so.  Now, he is AWESOME- very reliable with responding to his commands, behaves consistently- I know what to expect from him in a variety of situations and he is able to fall asleep before we actually go to bed (he's asleep on the couch next to me.  And, yes he is allowed on the couch and can also sleep on my bed- and no, he is not asserting any dominance over me with the privileges I have offered him).

I have been continuing with Remus' ongoing socialization experiences- I have brought him to 2 parks for off leash runs, he has gone swimming (sort of, he was retrieving a stick and happened to swim a little) and we are venturing further on our walks when we go to the waterfront.

We are practicing our obedience cues, I am constantly finding that there are not enough hours in the day.  Work has been incredibly busy; it is increasingly more difficult to get 20 to 30 minutes to myself to play and work with Remus.  Today, for example, I only had 15 minutes to eat lunch and had to go immediately back to work.  He only had outings to go potty.  Poor little guy was CRAZY, I'm exaggerating, when we left for home.

Today is the 9th of August, my computer has been down which is why I haven't had a chance to finish this post.  We went to Plymouth last Sunday morning which turned into an outing I had to salvage.  Remus was having a fearful day, he was nervous of my sister which was unusual, when we got to Plymouth he was super distracted, tail down and sniffing like he had never smelled anything before.  We walked for a few minutes (longer than I would have liked to once I realized he was having a problem), caught up to Gary and Carol- much to my surprise, she doesn't normally get up early, and let them know we had to go back.  Remus was pulling on the leash, sniffing, yawning and doing full body "wet dog" shakes.  (Someone was staring at us as we tried to walk along to go back to the car.)

All has been well since then, this morning we walked at the bogs prior to going to work.  That was one of my smartest ideas that I've had in a long time, LOL!  Remus slept all day at work unless he needed to go outside.

Remus watching Uncle Ry in the grass in front of him.

Yep, looks like he's biting a cigar, LOL.  Nope, no smokers here!

Remus swimming for the first time, fetching a stick!!

Sunday, July 22

Remus is 13 weeks old already!  Where has the last month gone?  The summer is flying by, especially since bringing Remus home.

I have been keeping up with Rem's ongoing socialization.  Yesterday we had Puppy Kindergarten, Rem was in a class by himself:  the other puppy couldn't make it :-(  It turned out to be very good for us, though.  We were able to try out the A-frame, walk across the dog walk and the teeter (see-saw).  After we explored those surfaces outside, we went into the basement to walk across an ex-pen that was laying on its side, walk across a round sled, a round balance circle with traction brushes, step onto an aluminum crate pan and on a foil and tarp shade cover- Rem had trouble offering a sit and down on the ex-pen and crate pan.  Next we were able to "play" with some motorized children's toys- the dinosaur was Remus' favorite, he was worried about the police car and thought the "spider" was interesting.  We practiced fetching a metal and a leather obedience dumbbell, he was initially resistant to picking up and carrying the metal one but was happy to after he had carried around the leather one.  Before we left, Katrin demonstrated with Remus how I can teach him to sit straight and not back into it.  We are practicing it and will be for a while...

Today, we had a busy day!  This morning we got up around 6:45, went to breakfast with Gary (my brother-in-law, my sister won't get up early to go for breakfast), then we drove to the Jenny Grist Mill and walked through Bradford Park and just past Plymouth Rock- Remus did great.  He needed to take a few "sniff breaks" then he would happily come back to work with me.  After we walked back to the car we drove to pick up coffees for Gary and me, then we went home and I put Remus in his crate for a nice nap.  (Ryan and I went back to Plymouth and walked the waterfront and to the end of the jetty and back, we stopped at Pebbles to get some water, then walked the rest of the way to the car.  We were soo hot!  I had to turn the a.c. on in the car when I would normally have had the windows open.)  After we got home I put Remus on the tie-down in the living room so that he can learn that he doesn't need to be at my feet all the time.  Initially Remus did not like being tethered, (I don't know that he ever really enjoyed it), but by the time I let him off of it Remus was laying on the dog bed chewing on a toy.  (He chewed on some of the door molding, I thought he was chewing on a toy, hmmn, I was wrong.  OOPS!  Gotta sand and repaint it.)  Tonight, Remus and I went to the elementary school to take a walk, play on the playground equipment and for me to feed him his dinner.  We were able to walk on the sidewalk without any fear of the cars or noises.  Then we walked past the gym where some men were playing basketball, I think Remus wanted to play with them (or the ball).  We finished playing on the playground- Remus walked across some benches, went up some stairs, through a tire a few times AND down the slide!  He walked up to a bouncy horse (supposed to be a rocking horse?), he walked right up to it,  (though, he was a little nervous) sniffed it and turned to walk away and did a whole body shake- Good Boy!

After we got home I let Rem and Ry out in the back yard to run for a minute when much to my shock and surprise the gate was wide open!!  I called Ryan with as little fear in my voice as I could manage since my heart was in my throat and I really wanted to scream "RYAN COME HERE NOW!!"  but called "Ryan Come :-)" and he immediately turned around and came running into the backyard with Remus happily on his heels.  PHEW!  That could have been  a disaster, no collars/ tags, it was completely dark out and our street has very few lights on it.  The boys have been reminded to make sure the gate is always closed.