Posts from the ‘Front Porch Musings’ category

It won’t always be like this

Over 7 years ago, when I was in the throes of caring for Karl … 8 months of cancer, not cancer, what is it and the last 3 months outside several times in the night … I thought to myself: “it won’t always be like this”.

And in the last year with Bear and particularly, the last 6 months when he needed help getting up and down and all that went with that, I thought to myself: “it won’t always be like this”.

With both Karl and Bear, it was a fear of what I knew was to be the inevitable loss, but also a wondering if I could physically and mentally go the distance. And even in the not wanting the loss of each of them, wanting “normal” life. But I knew “it won’t always be like this” and that helped me continue on caring for and loving them until it was time to let them go.

So, now … a puppy! Such joy, such love, such cuteness. So much heart healing.

So much attention needed!! It is sometimes nearly overwhelming even with all of the tools at my disposal: crate, pen, work from home …

It won’t always be like this. That makes me both glad and sad. Puppy time is so fleeting! If not for the notes I kept when raising Karl, I would have forgotten many puppy details. My vivid memories of life with Karl are of grown up Karl.

I am so thankful I kept notes. I also bought my first digital camera before I even brought Karl home so I have a LOT of photos. And of Bear. And of Bob and Auggie.

But back to Emmett and puppy days.

Monday, it will be twelve weeks since I brought him home. He is a bit over 4.5 months old. He is looking like a small version of the grown up dog and less like a baby dog. Pee and Poop is happening outside and all of the constant watching and dashing outside is done. Oh, there is still a LOT of puppy in him, but he has outgrown 2 collars and 3 harnesses. The nighttime pen barely contains him. The crate that fits in the Jeep is almost too small. His puppy teeth have been replaced by his permanent teeth!!

Gah!! My baby is growing up.

My personal challenge is to enjoy every day and to be the best human I can to my canine and feline companions … to lead and teach and yet allow them to be dog and cat. To look forward to grown up Emmett while enjoying the remaining puppy time.

There are days when I’d like a time out!! I said that today in the grocery … this is smallish town Montana and I’ve shopped the same grocery for 16 years so there are conversations in the checkout … and walking to the car, I thought … if I had a day without Emmett I’d likely miss him so much that I wouldn’t enjoy it.

Puppy days are intense and full and fun and funny. I love it and I am so grateful I get to experience it with Emmett and Auggie. Auggie remains THE MOST TOLERANT cat! He deserves a medal. I use some of Emmett’s crate time to give Auggie some one on one, but still. Auggie has accepted the changes in our lives and routine better than I could have imagined.

I tell Auggie: “It won’t always be like this!”

The other thing that won’t always be like this is the weather. We have had a perfect Spring and early Summer. Rain and sun and mostly moderate temperatures. The local organic farms, including my own CSA farmer have had wonderful growing conditions in spite of snow on the ground longer than normal.

But we are approaching that time when it is likely to suddenly get hot and dry … and maybe smoky from fires.

So, like puppy days, I am enjoying pleasant days while we have them.

It won’t always be like this.

A very good week

It was a good week all around: work, Auggie and Emmett, weather and food. I have zero complaints!

Emmett is 18 weeks old and has been with Auggie and me for 10 weeks – Unbelievable!

We continue to work on less wrestling, more snuggling … a work in progress!

And in other training news, we started attending a training class at a spot not too far away headed by Will and Andrea Brunz. Will is a Karen Pryor Training Camp alumni, does continuing education and referred me to Laurie Luck’s Smart Dog University site. (with the many videos on clicker training). I am incredibly fortunate to have someone of Will’s expertise and experience to guide me in my training of Emmett AND to have great classes so that we also learn to do things at different places and with a variety of distractions.

The first session was too exciting to do much except absorb the smells and sounds. There were 3 other dogs, all over a year old and all large dogs. All well behaved and nice people. Emmett was beside himself wanting to say hello. Much like the video when he watched the deer, he sat with tail wagging and whole body wiggling. As things got going he walked around but was not interested in treats or the click … too much happening and too much to sniff. Toward the end, we were able to do a few things but primarily I was thrilled that he was so confident and interested – no fear or reluctance at the other dogs or the horses.

He barked at the horses and Will showed me a technique to help him learn not to bark at them. As soon as Emmett stopped for an instant to draw breath, click-treat. I.E. reward the cessation of the unwanted behavior. As we continued, the barking slowed and then I was able to get Emmett’s attention and we turned away.

Normal (adversive) training would have me saying “NO!”, and forcibly turning him away. One of the benefits of the positive reinforcement is that there is almost immediate understanding of the desired behavior – stop barking marked by clicker and reinforced by a treat. With the adversive technique, “does she mean don’t look at that thing, don’t bark, turn around ??? – what is No and what is Ok?” Communication is both quieter and succinct with positive reinforcement (operant conditioning). Everyone is happier with everything and we progress faster.

The technique of marking the instant the undesired behavior stopped was a light bulb moment for me. I’d read about shaping behavior but it was like it didn’t click for other things we are working on: jumping up, grabbing clothing, getting too rough with Auggie. So, a new tool in my training tool box. For jumping up, I was standing still and then click/treat when Emmett sat but he was getting the idea that to get a treat, he jumped up and then sat. So, I changed to click/treat in that moment before the jump which in a few uses, stopped the jumping. I will need to keep watching but there is much improvement.

We went to a second class yesterday and because weather was a bit iffy, we were the only ones there. Emmett was excited as soon as I pulled in to park so good memories. He sniffed around, looked at the horses, some boarding dogs in adjacent yards barked and he sat and watched for a bit and then ignored. We were able to go through the things we learned and also start the official “loose leash walking” and prelude to “walk at heel”. Will explained all the steps and it makes so much sense to me. We are at the beginning but Emmett did the first part very well and we will continue practicing that this week.

I can read and watch videos, but there is nothing like having someone observe, correct timing and technique and explain the progression of steps. I am beyond thrilled. Both Emmett and I have fun, learn and come home ready for naps!

Other items:

The CSA vegetable haul keeps getting better:

The weather alternating between warm sunshine and soft rain has provided perfect growing conditions.

The Fuschia agree!

The view from the road home is spectacular.

A very good week.

***In honor of “Father’s Day”, some photos of Emmett’s father: Connor. Connor and Emmett have very similar markings. I think Emmett will be slightly smaller. Connor is 51 pounds. I’m thinking Emmett will land at 45-48 pounds.

Early June: continuing education

This photo …

It was taken at Flathead Pet ER last Sunday. All is well.

Emmett started with diarrhea Sunday morning, which turned into the squirts getting worse and worse and then some blood so off we went. He was not lethargic at all so I suspected something he ate, but I don’t fool with that kind of thing!

Short story is that was the conclusion and meds immediately got things under control. He had a few squirts after we got home but slept through the night and had no issue with light meals of rice, chicken and pumpkin the next day. We continued through the week, gradually reintroducing kibble.

I am so grateful that we have such a nice pet ER. Coincidentally, the ER vet this round was Dr. Becky Jessup, wife of my regular vet Dr. Scott Smiley. She could read his handwritten notes on Emmett’s vaccination and well check exams :)

Emmett was stellar!

Things started a bit rough. I went into the clinic without him – I always do that because especially at the ER, who knows what might be going on. I’m especially thankful for this habit this visit. Because of his age, even with Dr. Smiley’s records … they immediately told me to touch nothing … they needed to rule out Parvo, which is highly contagious. I understood but it disconcerted me to say the least. A tech came to the car, took a swab and said it would be 10-15 min.

Emmett and I sat in the back of the Jeep and watched the comings and goings at the next door Equine Vet Center. He was calm and interested and shortly the tech came out with the negative for Parvo news. Even though I was 99.9% sure that it could not be Parvo, I had one of those delayed reactions so sat and cried a bit, holding Emmett, who licked my face. Gah.

Then … some difficult things for other animals inside. I was so fortunate that a young woman I know, was there with her dog. She’d had to put down the dog’s sister about the time I had to do the same with Bear. We shared the current ER experience and a few tears. Through all this, Emmett was sitting beside me and eventually lay down with his head on my purse … that is the view in the first photo. He mostly relaxed, sat up when people went by but did not seem at all bothered or anxious. We waited nearly an hour to see the vet and all went well with that. We got the news that a normal recovery was expected, got our meds, paid the bill and came home. Total door to door time was 4 hours.

I didn’t work on Monday. So many things from the ER experience were on my mind and I had not slept well even though Emmett and Auggie did! Anyway, took a day.

For training, we continued but no click-treat for several days until I knew things were really stabilized. This was enlightening because I did “good boy” vs treats and good behavior continued. I also used the crate a bit more as well as the bedroom pen for at least 1 daytime nap.

The best training advance this week is the Emmett and Auggie play. It has become calmer and there are many times when they are in the same area or pass by each other with just a nose touch and no wrestling. Great progress and I am so happy about this! I think Auggie would like to snuggle with Emmett, but Emmett is still a bit wiggly if Auggie gets very close. Auggie is persistent, though as in CATS ARE PERSISTENT!! Also, one evening, when Emmett got to the “overtired/rambunctious” stage, Auggie did something, Emmett yelped … so that gave me some extra confidence that Auggie will say “Enough!” when it needs to be said.

So, Onward!!

I am unsure if it is Auggie’s example or just Emmett, but Emmett feels that he should see what is on top of anything he can get to. Currently, I am doing a low key “off” … but, it is so cute I have a difficult time enforcing…

The lupins, the lupins!!!

I get such a kick out of the serious observation from Beardog Point. Emmett sits “at attention” and watches. Maybe Karl and Bear have been/are whispering in his ear about the duties of the dog in the fambly Summers!

CSA Week 4 – such bounty in NW Montana … the FIRST week of June!

And the wildflowers: a double Mariposa Lily

After a week of sunny and warm-hot (HOT to Auggie, Emmett and me!), we had a whooshy, thunderstorm-y cold front on Saturday. We all love the cool down!

Yea.

The week in review: Emmett, Auggie and Springtime in Montana

I thought about titling this post: What I learned this week.

Boy, I have a LOT to learn.

Earlier in the week on Instagram I wrote that Emmett was in the puppy equivalent of the terrible twos. In retrospect, I got lazy in my observations and training and so allowed the natural progression of boldness to take over rather than me working with it. It took a timeout (for me!) and some rehashing in my mind of what I was doing to shake this out, regroup and move forward.

Oh, and one overreaction to Emmett chasing some deer … not far and right back to me but it surprised me. I made the rookie mistake of repeating his name which only serves to teach him that he can ignore his name. *sigh*

So … future moments of “oh this looks far more interesting than you”, result in me turning, running and sing-songing happy sounds. Emmett follows. Yea – I AM the most fun!!

Still working on toning down the intensity of the Emmett-Auggie wrestling matches but it gets better every day – particularly inside. Emmett KNOWS he is not supposed to be too rough but sometimes puppy-brain gets the upper hand. But as I move to intervene, Emmett backs off and sits.

Leave it: I can now put a treat on the ground or in my open hand with the words leave it and Emmett leaves it, looks at me: click he gets the treat. We’ll work at this level with the treat closer and closer.

Down: so happy with down. Emmett does it when I ask to calm for Auggie interaction and has done it with public distraction.

Sit is solid.

We’ve practiced the leash lightly. Tomorrow a new harness arrives. Emmett grew out of the first, also out of his first collar!

For the record, Emmett was just under 8 pounds when I picked him up 8 weeks ago. Today he is 24 pounds.

Yes – Emmett has been part of the family Summers for 8 weeks! 8 weeks of fun and games and learning and joy.

Meanwhile: Operation Fuschia for the front porch

On a gorgeous Saturday afternoon

Emmett LOVES to help with the watering…

And we stop and smell the Lupins!!

A beautiful Sunday!

See you later!

On Joy, Trust, Teaching and Learning

Puppy days…

Some days are kind of … one day well behaved and on the way to being a grown up dog and the next, it is back to puppy brain :)

Overall though, Emmett’s paying attention to me, his sitting to say “Please” … I am so pleased!!

“Leave it” is still in progress. If you watched the video linked in the last post, we have reliable eye contact. And open hand. But putting a treat on the ground … not there yet. We work on it every day but stop when it becomes frustrating for Emmett or me. And partly, it tends to become a rough game of pounce on my hand so that the learning goes out the window. So I stop and we do something else. This will likely be a months long thing to get to where he will “leave it” re Auggie, treasures in the woods and other very irresistible things.

Drop has recovered from a sometimes keep away game. There was a time of everything goes in the mouth: moss, deer droppings (the messier, the better), mushrooms (GAH! I only know a few for sure), rocks… And he got to know when something was “bad” and would not drop it – particularly a big mouthful of fresh droppings. So we stopped the woods walks. But now he’s gotten past that and drop is currently reliable. Moss and deer droppings – yes, but leaving the other stuff alone. Plus as I write this, he is 6 days past getting his last in the vaccination series, including Rabies. The 2 week mark from that vaccination will be a week from Monday, but he should have some pretty good defense in his system at this point. But like everything else, sometimes the puppy brain “I want it and I know you don’t want me to have it … this is fun!” takes over …

Growing: taller, longer, stronger, heavier. All input and output is great and normal! The Kongs … kind of a life saver. I’d not ever tried them before and after reading that they are a great delivery system of meals for puppies: takes time to eat and is fun – tried them out and WOW! Because I was doing so much click-treat for learning, I was concerned about staying in the range for food volume and the Kongs have relieved that concern. I use a mix of canned food – which is low cal and mostly water – and kibble and so there are meals but I have wiggle room for the click treats. I use primarily his kibble for treats with a bit of the yummy training treats mixed in. And for practicing recall and leash walking … high value hot dog bits!!

But now as in NOW (5/27), I am not click treating for learned behaviors – or at least very seldom: sit to say please, sit for food, go to your bed … those are well known behaviors so my click treat for those is maybe 1/5 of the time. Down is well known but it is so important that I click treat maybe 1/2 time at the moment. Recall … every time a click treat – SO important to me that recall is not an option and happens every single time. At any rate, it is wonderful to see that some of the withdrawal of click-treat has not affected the behavior – it happens!

I’ve often thought about how things were with Karl, my last 8 week old puppy … 17 years ago. We had a tough time with some of puppy-hood. Karl was very mouthy and my arms looked like I had a new kitten, not a new puppy. I read a lot and tried many “physical” corrections. Ultimately, he grew out of it and also ultimately he was a dog of my heart but we had a rough beginning and now I so wish I knew what I know now.

I kept notes of that time raising Karl and that experience is so different than what I’m experiencing with Emmett via the positive reinforcement. Via the notes and my memory and photos – I was hard on myself, hard on Karl … part of that difficult experience was that when I got Karl, I wanted him to immediately take Zack’s place. I lost Zack so suddenly and painfully and I just wanted the same dog life – immediately! Of course, completely unreasonable and eventually I came to understand what I was doing, relaxed and things went better. And now, thankfully, I am NOT doing the same with Emmett.

With Karl, I remember feeling a lot of pressure to be the perfect trainer. I felt that I needed to do everything perfectly, to not let anything get out of hand. And of course, so much was not perfect. And yet, we got to the point of being so close and Karl being so trustworthy. So, with Emmett, while I do want to get things right and certain things: recall and leash walking, have some special pressures (on me!), one of the things that I am aware of is that the building of bond, the learning, the play, the joy – those are all long term things. They do NOT happen in a day or in a week or in a month. We hopefully have years together and the reality is that training is lifelong and the first two YEARS are fairly intense as puppy grows into mature dog.

So, some function of my own age, my own experience, my focus on longer term and on thinking about what I’m doing is making this experience easier for all of us. Every night and every morning, I am grateful for Emmett and Auggie and how we are proceeding. And I think about the day before and what happened: what did I try to teach, what did I actually teach, what do I hope to do different tomorrow. I’ve made many mistakes, but I’ve made more non-mistakes: real teaching and fun and leading.

We are having SO.MUCH.FUN. I might be learning more than Emmett! I think I could write a book: “Life Lessons from my Puppy”.

Ok.

We have been a week with no piddle pads. The week before was just 1 piddle pad. No way would I say house training is complete, i.e. “bullet proof”, but we have a good 10 days of “outside potty” and Emmett knows to go to the door. Plus, at almost 15 weeks he has some “holding” power. I feel confident with leaving him in the gated kitchen-sunroom to shower, do short chores outside and in other parts of the house.

The crate is in the sunroom and the playpen is in the bedroom. My thought is to transition Emmett to sleeping less confined and also give him access to cool floor or soft bed. As it has been warmer, he is often choosing the floor vs one of his fleecy beds.

Auggie and Emmett: still a bit rougher play than I’d like, but Auggie initiates and participates. Still, I’m encouraging and click-treating low key play and occasionally separating them if it seems over the top. Improvement every day … mostly!

Socialization: Men, women, children have visited and Emmett has been stellar. He LOVES visitors and does not seem to have an issue with sex or size. Plus, I now often wear a hat and/or sunglasses outside and those have not affected any behavior – YEA!! Next week, we’ll start meeting some other dogs.

On things not puppy: the yard – GAH!! A mess. I bought grass seed and will try to recoup a little, mainly for dust management. I pretty much gave it up last year in the smoke and heat and taking care of Bear. It shows.

Fuschia: Good grief, this new variety which is Autumnale Fuschia – I LOVE it.

Food: We all eat. I’m baking bread but crackers have been purchased. We are 2 weeks into this year’s CSA and enjoying local, seasonal greens.

Memorial Day Weekend – hard to believe. It has been so far a warm and not too wet Spring.

On we go!