Border Collie Insanity

Starting off with the youngest...

Well Riot is three months old now and she's come a long way from the first week she started her new life here. I feel like we are now somewhat bonding and she's starting to seek me out.
Of course now when I have food and she knows it, she's all over me, 100% attention. That's OK, I just make a point to always have pockets full of goodies when she's not in her xpen alone.
In the mornings now, she knows to check in in the kitchen where she ALWAYS gets a cookie. I think she now recognizes the sound of a baggie with cookies or the cookie jar lid .... he he he.

Thanksgiving Treat

Getting Clean for a Family Dinner

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, when I was at home for four days, we did a lot of stuff. First it was the dinner with family where she got to meet new people, visit a new place and meet two maltese. Then we got to train agility for three days in a row, in different places and flyball on Sunday. Riot did great with all the activities and dogs around her. When it was time to work, she was all on me. YEY!

For those who are not friends on Facebook here's a video of Riot's first flyball practice for your enjoyment.

There are so many things to teach a puppy. We have been working on some heeling and shadow handling; left side and right side and crosses. Nose touches to hand are her favorite so far, but I started to teach her spin to the left. One time she got so excited she tried to grab her tail when she noticed it trailing behind on one of her spins. So funny. I am not putting a lot of behaviors on queue just yet, simply because I don't see her being very responsive to voice. She sits by default, for a cookie, for food, for the door to open, etc. I am insisting on her understanding the 'OK' release though.

So innocent ...

Recalls are getting better and better. One time she was playing with Daniel, the cattle dog, while Cinch, the baby bc puppy was trying to get a quiet moment in the corner of the yard to do some business. Well both Daniel and Riot desperately wanted to play with Cinch. So at one time they both ran up to her clear across the field. I called Riot from almost 100 feet away. She spun around and took few steps in my direction, then the urge to jump on Cinch's head was just too great and she started to head back. I called 'Ah ah, Riot here', she whipped around and raced full speed toward me. I couldn't believe it. That was just awesome given how hard of a call off that was for her and honestly I shouldn't have expected her to be able to perform like that just yet, not with her 'love' for me.

At three months

Although she's a project in the making and has been a challenge that I did not expect at first, she's been the easiest puppy to take care of and has learned house manners beautifully.
Except for the first night, she's slept through the night without a peep, often wanting to sleep in as well ;-)
She's great in the xpen and crates, no fuss no whine, except when she needs to potty. We had one accident on the carpet, ONE, and that was totally my fault. It was right after a bath and I didn't want her to go out in the cold so quickly. Guess, she needed to go real bad after a warm bath. I did catch her in the act and directed her to the back door to which she ran as fast as her little legs could carry her. She went again on grass so she really had to go. She now also understands 'go potty' and focuses on the task very nicely :-)

Another ongoing project has been playing on our wooden deck on the front porch every night as she seems to be quite terrified of it and the three steps leading to the front door. Amazingly though, she can scale ten steps to the back door up and down with no hesitation. Hmmm... But, nothing that some chicken or cheese wouldn't fix. We are down to the first resistance of getting on the deck, after that she's quite happy now to run around on it and do some tricks. She has been to pet stores twice and has had an initial fear of entering through the door. But then she warms up to it once we get passed. Same thing happened at my sister's in law place where she had to walk three cement stairs to the front door. She splatted flat on the pathway and wouldn't budge. I had to put her on my lap while sitting on the stairs for her to settle down and stop being afraid. Next will be steps to our rooms downstairs, which right now is closed off, but when I opened the baby gate and invited her to come with me, she took one look down and ran off. Our dogs are generally not allowed to go downstairs, except when invited to play pool, so there is no rush at pushing her to get over that fear just yet.

In Other News

As the temps drop Grommit gets a little stiffer. But he's still up and around, enjoying a good run.
Banshee's hip seems to have stopped bothering her at the moment. Maybe it's because we started going more regularly to the golf course and she's been running more and not laying around. The geese are trying to come back and settle in for the winter. Our golf course running is now intensified and with a purpose. Both Blink and Banshee pretty much know where the geese like to hang out and take off in that direction immediately. It's fun to see how excited they get when the geese finally take off, it's almost as if they know they got the job done and cleaned up the place. Riot comes with us occasionally as well. It's a great practice for long distance recalls. With all this open space she's absolutely fantastic. She practically stopped chasing the dogs now, checking in with me quite often.She now prefers just running around as opposed to getting in their faces. I have tested her recalls in different situations at different distraction levels and rarely do I have to call her name twice. Even now, when the dogs run off in one direction and I turn away and walk in the other, she follows me. That's such an improvement from couple weeks ago. It's almost as if she reached a new maturity level in a weekend.

All the dogs enjoyed lamb or beef bones on Thanksgiving.

The cats are finding warm and cozy places to sleep now that the temperatures have been dropping below freezing. The girls still have spats and hissy fits with Bix, but generally they coexist pretty well. Bix is annoying as usual monopolizing my lap, however he did discover recently a stuffed dog on the back of the couch and has taken a liking to hanging out there, just behind my head. Probably cause he also got tired of being stepped on and crushed by Blink, who pretty much has no space concept and lands on my lap regardless whether it is already occupied or not.