koalathebear

wuffles: Haha. It might have felt hotter because I was wearing my hoody in expectation that it was going to be a cool morning. Yay! All the ads show dogs leaping up and playing with it enthusiastically ... I can't imagine they'd sell many if they used Elbie as the model with his half-hearted nose-nudge Hopefully Ava will prove a good endorsement for the product. One thing - that ball is supposed to be for medium sized dogs so I'm not sure how Satch will find it? Niques: I think everyone has one of those days now and then when it feels like Obedient Dog has been replaced by Devil Dog ... There was one class in beginners when OH wanted to go home because Elbie just wasn't listening at all and last week, one of the owners was so frustrated with her dog she wanted to leave and the instructor had to talk her into staying. Yesterday, our practice with Elbie was going very badly - his focus was non-existent and my OH who is normally very patient with Elbie got really frustrated and walked off on him. I think the better behaved our dogs can be, the more frustrating it is when they go spazzy because we know what they can do when they're well-behaved. I know what you mean about class composition ... there are a few very dedicated, nerdy owners like us who show up week after week regardless of the weather but there are days when I look at the weather or how my week's been and think: "Maybe I'll sleep in today." Call me crazy, though - we're enrolling Elbie in a second set of obedience classes so that he gets extra stimulation and socialisation. Plus the classes always make him a little bit tired so that's a plus - also we want him to try his paw at herding again. We are becoming total Nerdy Dog Owners. James is such a clever and responsive pup - I wonder if the more clever they are, the more headstrong and naughty they can be? ;)

You've never heard of the Giant Japanese Poodle???? From Okinawa, they grow somewhat ahem larger than their European cousins...ANKC registration pending ... It's a bit like how my cat-loving OH likes to insist that Elbie's actually a cat ... A large, slightly spastic cat ... ETA: Also, on a serious note - you are right to be concerned about the heat. OH was saying today that the guys who did assessment on Thursday night probably had a slightly easier time of it because the temperature in the evening would have been a lot better. Today, we were baking in the sun during the assessment itself and there was also a LOT of waiting in the sun as we queued up for the various activities. I'm going to have to wear a hat from now on and we'll probably want to keep water handy for Elbie - there were a lot of very thirsty, hot dogs out there today.

Thanks for the congratulations. We're very relieved but will have to work harder with Elbie's heel-work greetings/sitting for pats for silver. G's defiance must be frustrating for your husband. We have an interesting dynamic in our house. To try to reduce confusion, my OH has always been Elbie's handler during obedience class even though outside of class we both train with him/practise what we've learned. When I had to do obedience with him for the two weeks he was overseas, I was a bit worried about how Elbie would be but fortunately he was very responsive and well-behaved - but he could very easily have gone the other way. OH spends a lot more time with Elbie but I'm usually the sterner one ... for instance, we've had disagreements about how to handle Elbie's car barking. While OH was away I took advantage of his absence to make Elbie be quiet OH was quite shocked at how well-behaved Elbie is in the car now. Good luck with establishing the domestic household dynamic! It's so complicated! What will happen when Wee Wizzle comes along?

I thought that Kuma could pass for a lab when he wanted ... Or you could say Kuma was a Giant Japanese Poodle ... We were lucky with Elbie. The instructor who took his beginners class bred border collies so had a soft spot for working dogs, particularly borders (she ignored the kelpie bit :D. You'll find that the bronze instructors (at least the two that we had) are very breed-neutral. That was lucky given what a motley assortment of doggies we had in our classes - a wide range of purebreds and an even broader range of muttleys like Elbie. One of the instructors today (who owns a kelpie x) said that Elbie might not become calm until he's two years old because of his kelpishness. wuffles: Did your dad mind or did he: "ho ho ho"? It reminds me of my poor uncle in New York. He's very tall and lanky - he is well-fed but just never puts on any weight. One day he was standing at a corner holding his cup of coffee. A passer-by thought that he was a beggar or something and walked past and dropped coins into his coffee cup. Poor uncle and his spoiled coffee

Thanks KA! By the way, was your instructor for beginners the guy that looks a bit like Santa Claus? We encountered him this morning and he did not like Elbie at ALL because Elbie was so hyper and OH was saying: "Oh gosh I hope he isn't one of the examiners - he really does not like Elbie!" O the woes of having a naughty puppy - I wish he was placid like Kuma

We taught Elbie to speak by woofing at him and saying 'speak' and doing a hand signal. He now speaks on command. Other people capture the behaviour i.e. when their dog barks, they praise it. That being said, my dog doesn't tend to bark very much, though but to be honest I'm not really sure that the quiet/shhh/no barking command is all that useful. Any ideas why he is barking? Birds/bored/sound of other dogs/sound of neighbours? It might be good to identify the cause rather than relying on 'quiet' which is a somewhat shaky defence

Beautiful photos and beautiful doggies. Happy birthday to the boys. The collars are lovely - they look as though they're about to attend a black tie event!

Thanks! A good day all 'round. We weren't sure how Elbie would be given the recent changes in handler and that sort of thing. I really hope that Elbie can improve in silver. Ava's so incredibly calm now - she looked so chilled out for her on the mat exercise! But are the silver people nice??? Oh ... that's interesting. The home alone ball is the same as the tucker ball and the hole is in the same place - I was guessing it was supposed to be for very tuggy dogs that might pull it sideways .. which unfortunately Elbie never did I hope it helps a little bit!! That photo of Ava is awesome. There was no way I was going to get Elbie to pose with BOTH his certificate and ribbon. lilli_star: thank you!!!

Elbie squeaked through and passed his bronze obedience class today ;) More about it in the Elbie & Friends post here. The lovely Ava sailed through silver and is now going to be in gold class!! Huge congrats to wuffles :D

So ... to the surprise of all, Elborino passed bronze obedience today. Here is his certificate. Here is Elbie himself - he wasn't very happy posing with the ribbon ;) He went well in all the categories except the following: he failed in his heeling because while he walked nicely and was focussed - his sits were too far forward of my OH i.e. he should have been sitting directly to OH's left he failed miserably in the sit steady for pats as we knew he would he failed the sit stay for 60 seconds but passed the drop stay for 60 seconds. To be honest, because it was a very hot day, a lot of the dogs in his group were dropping rather than sitting. His trick went well as did his formal recall. His "to the mat" and mealtime manners (wait for for food for 20 seconds) went well as did his loose-lead walking. With the obstacle course (loose-lead walking), our hearts sank because in the past the 'distractions' have been barking dogs, tethered dogs, motorcycle helmet, ball etc - things that don't tend to faze Elbie. Today, they had a juice bottle right near the start and he LOVES juice bottles. Funnily enough, he sailed through the loose leash walking well and wasn't distracted at all. Unfortunately I couldn't take photos because I would have had to get closer and I was afraid of distracting Elbie. In our class, Rogue the Husky x, Shelly the delicate whippet, Callie the German Shepherd all passed. I think Dot the JRT and Harry the Westie both failed unfortunately, which is a shame. Dot's owner in particular is someone I enjoy chatting with in class. When Elbie failed the heeling, we seriously thought he had failed the whole thing and that we would have to repeat bronze but he has squeaked through. Silver might be more appropriate for him to repeat because it has more offlead work but hopefully with a bit of time passing, he will be a lot calmer in the controlled greeting and the sit for pats and his heelwork will be more polished! During our mealtime manners session while the dogs were sitting there, one of the silver dogs broke her 'to the mat' and started tearing around the field with her toy in her mouth. Very cute but I guess kind of embarrassing for the owner. Big congratulations to Ava who is onto Gold Class now! She did beautifully in her exercises today.

Yes .. something gets me about the fact that elephants can make irrational but extremely emotional decisions out of love. What a tragic thing to happen At least the railways have shut down the track for now - because apparently lots of elephants are coming to mourn/say goodbye.

It's one of those articles that I'm sure that most/all dog lovers would feel a bit of heartache over. Article is here but the text is below given that there is one upsetting photo in the article in The Australian. * There is something so tragic at the thought of those massive beautiful creatures seeing a train coming and deliberately standing in its path to protect the two calves ... Some of them not even their own! More articles on the topic here.

Ahhhh ....

wuffles: Heh heh - that destruction isn't too bad! Do you come home and find your doggies have dusty/dirty snouts that make you think: "What have you been doing????" I'm impressed by the pergola shelf - that takes some real planning!! Also, OH retrieved the Home Alone ball tonight ... turned out that Elbie had been so disinterested in it that it was full of mouldy kibble I spent the evening smashing the kibble and extracting it, with my father and OH warning me about Lung Fungus. Now the home alone ball is in the laundry sink soaking in boiling water and detergent ... I will rinse it out again tomorrow and dry it before giving it to you on Sunday but you may want to rinse it again You bringing a camera on Sunday? kumaakita: so glad you guys arrived safe and sound! Poor posties - so many dogs including mine bark at 'em

No fair!!! We shared ours! I've had a gruelling week and require Funny Photos to make me laugh

Oh he is absolutely adorable. What a sweetheart! Awesome name, too.

Very cute. How much does he weigh now? What a happy grin he has Thanks for the update!

Thank you so much for the explanation. I had absolutely no idea it was a real technical term!!!

what does that mean? I was also wondering ... it doesn't sound like a training term.

I am still cooing over this photo How cute is that? Such concentration! We still have some plants in the garden but there was one that made Elbie threw up so OH dug it up and chucked it out. The ones that remain all appear to be dog-safe. With the wobbler, it has room for about half a cup of kibble and it does empty quite quickly after Elbie figured out how to use it, but because it wobbles around crazily, Elbie seems quite entertained by it even when it’s empty. It spins, tips and jolts around and so he dabs at it with his paw and it gives him a similar enjoyment to that of the juice bottle but hopefully it’s more durable than a juice bottle is The yard was an interesting issue for us. When we first went house-hunting, both of us agreed we wanted a tiny yard because neither of us are out-doorsy people and we have zero interest in gardening or mowing the lawn. We concentrated most of our house-hunting efforts out in Gungahlin where the houses are newer and the yards are smaller. After we got a dog, we looked back in the older suburbs – not so much because of the yard size issue but because there’s more of a distance between houses. What this means for us is that the neighbours can be out and about in their yard and it doesn’t really affect us etc. We liked the grass for Elbie – it’s not as large as it might have been because it’s terraced … apparently the house wasn’t attractive to people with young kids because of safety fears, but it was fine for Elbie because he’s quite sensible about going around and not just jumping down. In any case, even when Elbie has access to a huge yard (like my father’s), he doesn’t actually go and play in it unless we’re with him. When we’re not around, he lolls around near the back door – it’s a bit weird, really. Also, we seem to have the dog suited to our sluggish ways – he only gets a walk every two days or so – 30 minutes if it’s me, 45 minutes if it’s my OH, other days he gets a lot of obedience training and playing fetch etc but he doesn’t appear to be frustrated or turn destructive. He doesn’t bark too much, unless he’s left in a dark yard and no one’s home and we forget to leave the back light on. I was a bit upset with him yesterday because he chewed a hole in his dog futon and there was fluff EVERYWHERE. The hole was easily stitched up but grrrr!

Clastic: about the lawn - Elbie likes to dig but doesn't seem to dig a lot and he is happy to do most of his digging in he permitted dig zone. As to greenness - we never water the lawn of course but we have had soooo much rain recently!

Here is a video of Elbie and his latest toy. The video is .

Yes! It's so cute when they do that. i wish I could have seen the ice cream container licking - G always looks like a quivering bundle of energy and having her quivering inside an ice cream container would have been a hoot. Awesome video! G looks so happy to see your OH again. Gosh she's getting all grown up OK, my contribution for today to the thread is a video of Elbie and his latest toy. My OH got back from Canada today and brought a Kong Wobbler back with him. Here is the official blurb: The video is . Elbie loves it. Sometimes it frustrates him and he barks at it, but sometimes he looks like a little boxer - darting in and out and avoiding the wobbles ;)

Yes ... those are the poor badger's eyes ... such horror and violence! I don't know where the things come from!!! When we were at our rental, we thought we puppy-proofed the yard but there must have been a secret cache of weird stuff somewhere in the yard because EVERYTIME we left Elbie at home alone, when we got back he would have found something new - a strange dog toy, a Simba the lion etc. My father's hard was worse because there's a public path on the other side of his fence so people are always throwing rubbish over and Elbie was finding it! I'm just so relieved he seems content to retrieve and kind of gnaw on it rather than try to devour it all ... As to the toys ... Poor elephant ... It's so sad when favourite toys become shredded like that :'( There was a time when every time Elbie saw Dog Toy, he started thrusting and humping the air automatically - even though he'd already been desexed. It was really weird ... Those photos of James are sooooooooooooooo cute - particularly the one of him devouring the plant. So much love ... such a cute little face.

Love it so much! Way to go Harvey! :rolleyes: