Definitely NOT a Dog Essential!

Over the past little while, I've come across a few odd, weird, strange, and/or 'interesting' items for dogs. Here definitely the oddest by far:

Dog Sex Doll

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25857046-401,00.html

Puppy Preschool

Although Maple was a bit of a bully (see post below) at the puppy preschool (pps) last night, I thought that it was actually fairly well run.

We went to the pps at the local vet clinic. Amy, (the instructor) was one of the vet nurses who is also a certified animal behaviouralist and dog trainer. Because I had done a lot of research prior to getting Maple, and because we have had her for 3.5 weeks prior to starting pps, there wasn't very much information that was new to me last night. I thought that Amy presented the information quite well, and it was good for my kids to hear the information from an expert rather than mum.

When we got to the pps, chairs were set around in a large open ended oval, with a small dish of treats and a stuffed kong at each pair of chairs. Amy even had a kong stuffed with chicken only for Maple. (Maple had been to the vet earlier in the day to get clearance to attend pps due to loose stools).

While Amy was presenting the info she was watching each of the pups carefully. She explained some dog psychology regarding obedience such as look, come, sit, down, drop etc and then demonstrated how to teach the dog how to do it. She also introduced the class to clicker training, and was pleased when I pulled out my clicker and said that we had already been doing that with Maple. During about 3/4 of the time we were at pps there was a background tape playing to help desensitize the pups to various noises such as drums, fireworks, thunder etc.

When it was time for the pups to have a play Amy asked that everyone put their pups up on their laps, and only the pups that she selected were to be let off their leashes. Maple was in the first group, and was paired up with the jack russell, who was very placid. It was a good pairing and Maple did not show any aggression to him at all. Amy then asked the lab puppy to join Maple and the jack russell. All the groupings of pups playing went well, except when Maple tried to dominate the lab puppy. When it was Maple's turn to sit on our lap she wasn't too happy and wanted down to play. The kids wanted to hold Maple on their laps during this time and were not happy when we said no, as I was having a hard enough time holding the determined, wriggly pup that I couldn't imagine that a 9 or 6 year old would be able to hold and control her.

Towards the end of the pps session Maple was calmer and happy to lay on her blanket, so we did end on a good note.

Class Bully

Maple was the class bully at puppy preschool tonight.

The class consisted of 2 blue heelers, a rough jack russell, a black lab, a smooth coat koolie, a boxer, and a catahoulan cross. So most of the dogs, except the jack russell, were a similar size to Maple.

Maple growled and snapped at the boxer and one of the heelers, and tried to dominate the boxer by standing over her and pushing her down.

I guess we need to work harder at socializing her with other dogs.

Hopefully next week will go better.

A Rather Overdue Update

Now that Maple is 12 weeks old she is no longer the wonderful, adorable, well behaved puppy.

Yes, she is still wonderful, and adorable, and yes, even well behaved, it is just that she is no longer all three things concurrently, unless she is sleeping.

She has a new nickname - Ninja Puppy. This is from the way she lurks, then runs a convoluted course, then jumps up and attacks Gromit and then immediately runs off again. Gromit takes it all in stride. He is really good with her and will allow her to tackle him down to the ground occasionally in order to humour her. I no longer hear Gromit yelp in pain when Maple bites his ears, so I think that Maple has learned how to either bite softly or just mouth Gromit as she still does like to bite not just his ears, but any part of him, including tail, legs, mouth, cheeks, collar etc. I think Gromit is glad that he is allowed into parts of the house that Maple is not so he can have some peace and quiet.

Today Maple discovered that if she really stretches, and someone leaves something overhanging the kitchen counter, that she can pull it down. So now the dining table and kitchen counter are no longer safe places to leave things out of Maple's reach. Like most puppies, Maple sees anything that is left within her reach as a new toy, so we are being kept on our toes.

Last week she discovered that she can easily jump up onto the sofa. So now our 2 sofas have dining room chairs laying sideways on them when they are vacant of people.

Maple is no longer a quiet puppy. Whether it is because she has learned from Gromit, or whether it is because she has matured slightly, she now play growls when she plays with Gromit. And she has also started, on rare occasions, to bark at him. It is a very odd bark for a puppy as it seems to be rather deep. Of course, she whines, yips, yodels and howls when she is in her crate against her wishes. Thankfully this is not too often. As soon as I say "kennel up!" to her, she happily trots into her crate.

Maple starts puppy pre-school tomorrow night. We are a bit late getting Maple into the class, as unfortunately we had just missed out on one class when Maple arrived home and had to wait for the next class to start. The class is being held at the vet's clinic, so I will weight her when we go in as I am sure that she has grown considerably since she was last there 2 weeks ago.

Recent MRCCR meet

Hi We were lucky enough to get Maple and Gromit to a gathering of MRCCRs in NE Vic. As you can see from the footage a great time was had by all.

A Few More Small Updates

1. Maple now sits reliably. She knows to sit before coming into the house, before she gets her food, and when I call her to me.

2. She is starting to get the hang of toileting outside. Last night she had a poop, and then looked at me all expectantly waiting for me to click the clicker and tell her she was a good girl.

3. She finally understands the hand signal for drop and I no longer need to lead her down into position with a treat.

4. She is starting to be happy being outside when I am inside. She will happily play with Gromit outside, but usually once she realizes that I have snuck into the house, she is at the door whining to come in. But yesterday and today she will give a quick whine, and then run back out to play with Gromit for a while. Right now she is very happy outside and has not asked to come in at all yet - probably because Gromit has deigned to allow Maple to lay on his sack bed with him, albeit at his backside and facing the opposite direction.

5. The 9 yo daughter took Maple to school for news this morning. She was a huge hit with the class and played up her cuteness by squiggling in daughter's lap to get in a position to be able to lick daughter's face and nibble on her ear. Next week sometime 6yo son will probably get to take Maple to school for his classroom news.

6. Pictures to be uploaded later this afternoon or evening.

She Definitely Likes Her Food

I took Maple into the vet today for her vaccination. She weighed 7.5 kg, so in about 10 days she has gained 1.5kg. The vet is not concerned and said that Maple is in good condition.

Unfortunately, Maple will need a 3rd vaccination, which will be done in a months time. So that means that we have another 5 weeks minimum before we can start taking Maple out for walks etc.

Murray River Curly Coated Retriever circa 1893

This was posted on an Australian dog breeders forum on this page.

A Few Observations

Murray River Curly Coated Retrievers have the softest fur I have ever felt on a dog. There is no undercoat, and Maple's fur is still quite short given that she is only 9 weeks old, so I can't bury my hands into her coat, but it feels so nice to pet her.

Maple seems to have dry skin or something similar. She scratches quite frequently, yet she does not have fleas. We are trying to feed her some more oily type foods like sardines occassionally and mixing a teaspoon of cooking oil into her food so hopefully she has some relief soon.

MRCCRs seems to be a very intelligent breed. Training Maple is going extremely well. She knows sit, come, stay, drop, and is learning give. Of course, she only can do these commands as long as there are no distractions which are more interesting. She knows she needs to sit for her food, and automatically sits down in front of me when I call her to come to me. She tries very hard to please us.

Maple loves to chew on rocks. We have lots of driveway size stone in our yard, so we need to contantly supervise. She also likes to chew on the corner of the brick walls on the outside of the house.

She has fantastic eyesight and can find anything new on the floor or in the yard that shouldn't be there and will pick it up in her mouth.

Maple is growing quickly. I weighed her on the bathroom scale yesterday and she was up to 16lbs (approx 7.27 kg), but I am not sure how accurate that is compared to the vet's scale from last friday. She is defnitely taller and longer than she was a week ago.

She Slept the Whole Night Through

We took Maple to bed last night at around 10:30pm. She went happily into her crate and went straight to sleep without a whimper.

This morning when we got up at 6:15 we had to encourage Maple to get up to go out for a pee - she was too snug and warm in her crate to want to go out in the cold frosty dark early morning.

The crate was dry, so we didn't sleep through her needing a middle of the night pee. Yea!

Some Pics

We've Had a Few Breakthroughs!

Yesterday and this morning things have suddenly started to click with both Maple and Gromit.

Maple is starting to go to the door to indicate when she needs to pee and poop.

Last night she slept through from 10:00pm to 5:00am. At 5:00am I took her out for toileting. It took a half hour to convince her to do her business on the cold, frosty grass, but finally she did. When she came back into the house, she happily crawled back into her crate and went back to sleep without a whimper. And she didn't want to get up until 7:00am when Gromit was agitating to go out. I think the training we did just before bed time helped to tire her out.

She can now come and sit on command. She can nearly drop on command, but still needs the encouragement of following the treat down to the floor from sit.

Maple is doing quite well with learning bite inhibition. She is not a nippy dog so this makes teaching bite inhibition quite easy.

Gromit is allowing Maple to play and even rough house with him.

Gromit allowed Maple to share his bed for a couple of minutes this morning.

More pictures to follow soon.

Day 3 at Home with Maple

So far, Maple is doing well. We took her to the vet on friday for a quick check up and to be microchipped. She weighed in at 6.0 kg (13.2 lbs), so she is not a small girl, but she is a very healthy one! It is very hard to take a good picture of Maple. Either she is moving, so the pic is blurry, or the light is not right, and with her dark colouring the picture turns out not very good. We'll keep working on it though.

Maple and Gromit have sorted out all their dominance issues. Maple is having a hard time understanding that a 12 year old male dog is not a maternal sort, nor one that wants to rough house with a puppy. But Gromit has accepted Maple into the pack fairly well. He does allow her to jump on him occassionally when they are outside, and several times when Gromit has been playing with us and one of his rubber bones, he has purposely given the bone to Maple to play with for a few minutes, before very gently taking it away from her again. He has even allowed her to scavenge in his food bowl once he has finished eating.

She is starting to learn that peeing is something that should be done outside. Last night she awoke at 4:00am needing a pee. I took her outside, but Maple did not like the cold, wet grass and constantly ran back to the door. I knew that if I let her back in she would run to the newspapers for a pee, so I persevered by taking her back out to the grass. I even went and got some newspapers and put them out on the grass, and then patio, but to no avail, she just wanted in again. So, after 1/2 an hour I woke up the Bored Dad and asked him to come outside and have a pee to show Maple what to do. She was quite interested, and after watching and then sniffing the area where Bored Dad peed, Maple immediately began sniffing around for a good spot, and went pee herself. We rewarded her with a treat, lots of praise, and of course the main prize for having a pee was being allowed back into the nice, warm, dry house!

We have started clicker training with her. As soon as she hears us pick up the clicker she runs over. She is getting fairly reliable with sit and come when there are no distractions. We will start her in puppy pre-school very soon

We haven't yet started retriever training with her. She will chase after a toy, but does not yet bring it back to us, so this is something that we will work on soon. Her favourite toy is a stuffed mallard duck, so we will work on playing fetch with that for the start of training retrieving.

Here She Is!

We picked Maple up this afternoon at the airport. She cried for about 2 minutes in her crate in the car, and then settled down and slept most of the way home.

Once we got home she was very timid and it took a bit of time to coax her out of her crate. She was sticking to us all very closely, and looking cuddles from everyone.

After about an hour she is now much more comfortable at home. She is trying to engage Gromit in play, and playing with some of her toys.

It is proving very hard to take a good picture of Maple, however, as she thinks that the camera is a toy and as soon as she sees it in my hand she runs over to try to play with it, grabbing the strap and trying to grab the actual camera itself.