It's A Long One...

This one took me a long time to post, partly because it took a while to get through the 400 pictures I took the Sunday it snowed. There are only a few pictures here, relatively speaking...

The three pups and I left early Christmas Eve morning, heading west to see the family. Lunch was with Mom, Ronnie, and Josh and his crew. Kodiak stayed in his crate while he was in the house, and looked like this for most of the visit.


Kodiak did go outside and enjoy his semi-freedom at the end of a 30 foot leash, although he really didn't know what to do about the fact that my niece was often holding the other end.

Dinner was with Dad, Krysti, Ganna, Aunt Merrill, and Josh and his crew. The pups all enjoyed the chance to run around the pasture for a bit. I only let Kodiak run free for a few minutes before putting him back on the long lead. I still don't trust his recall, and I didn't want to risk losing him in the woods.

Christmas Eve was very stressful for Kodiak, but he must have realized he wasn't going to die, because he was much more relaxed Christmas Day. We had a romp in the woods (Kodiak on the long lead) before breakfast, and then headed out before 8am to get back to Raleigh. For the first time, Kodiak actually sat up and watched the world around him, rather than curling into a ball on the passenger seat. He wasn't thrilled when we passed big trucks, but he was much better than he'd been the day before. He even walked a few steps at the rest stop, rather than completely shutting down.

Prior to Christmas, I'd apparently lost my mind and agreed to babysit (for a fee) a dog from the 26th through the 30th. I ended up getting Daisy after work on the 25th because of the bad weather. Daisy didn't seem to appreciate the humor, but I thought Reyna's initial response was pretty funny. She bounced up to Daisy, obviously doing the "Hi, my name's Reyna, and this is MY HOUSE" routine, right before she put Daisy on the ground. Luckily for everyone, Daisy was a very submissive 35lb girl, and was content to spend most of her visit hiding in her crate. She did try to play a few times, but she was very unhappy when she discovered that she couldn't outrun Duncan. Kodiak harassed her quite a bit, but by the last day, they were playing like good buddies. As long as Duncan and Reyna didn't get involved.

I had to work Sunday morning (and did not enjoy the slow crawl to the kennel before daylight), but it was still snowing when I got home. We ended up with 7 inches by the time it finally finished Sunday afternoon. The pups and I had a great time playing in the snow, and I just loved watching Kodiak bound through drifts that were higher than his stomach. I particularly like this photo, because even though the pups aren't grouped together, I think it gives a pretty decent idea of the conditions.


To make life a bit easier on me, I grouped the photos together, rather than keeping them in the order taken.

Here are a few of the pack playing together.





Reyna playing with Kodiak.



Duncan playing with Kodiak (love the one with all the teeth).






Reyna and Duncan playing together.






Moving on to the individual shots...

This is Daisy, our visitor.


Reyna...










Duncan...










And the freakish cuteness named Kodiak. The poor pup was covered in snow balls every time he came inside.













The snow was fun, but we were all happy to see it go. After we'd packed it down pretty good, it basically turned the yard into a sheet of ice. Not nearly as much fun as the soft, powdery snow.

Reyna And Duncan Go To Europe!

Earlier this month, a board member of the Flemish (Belgian) Breed Association of German Shepherds (V.V.D.H.) contacted me and asked if he could use a picture of Reyna and Duncan with Santa as one of the photo options for the e-cards that can be sent from the association's website. Naturally, I said yes. Who am I to deny the Belgians the joy of Reyna and Duncan?

If you want to check out the e-card, click here, then choose the first option in the drop-down box, and then click the "step 2" button. My beautiful pups are the third option along the top. I'm sure it will come as no surprise when I say that I sent myself an e-card....

And if you can't be bothered with all of that, here's the image:

Pick A Card, Any Card

Reyna has been working on learning tricks for the last few weeks, and I'm planning to have her try for her Intermediate Trick Dog title sometime next month. She's been working on things like "paws up" and "say your prayers," along with "where's the cookie" and the "shell game."

A couple of cute pictures from training, working on getting both paws on the board...




And here's an example of the fun we have playing "pick a card." Or not. Really depends on the mood she's in. Let me tell you, she can get really silly with this stuff.

Kodiak

Yes, I'm finally getting around to posting an update on Kodiak. He's doing very well - packing on some weight now that he's eating properly, and I've seen definite improvements in his behavior. He absolutely loves Reyna and Duncan, plays with them as much as possible, and gains a ton of confidence from them.


He's slowly getting better on the leash. He's not as frightened at seeing and feeling someone holding to the other end as he was a week ago. Kodiak doesn't like to walk towards the road end of the cul-de-sac, but he's mostly okay with walking away from the road.


Kodiak is also getting better with people. I've had several folks pop in to visit, and he's less likely to run and hide each time. This morning, in fact, he joined Reyna and Duncan in barking at the visitor. For a few seconds, anyway. I realized today that my visitors have all been female, so I called John and asked him to come by sometime this week. That'll give me a good idea of how he responds to men, and if there's going to be any real trouble there.


New places still shut him down pretty fast, but after multiple trips to the same location, he does show improvement. It helps to have Reyna or Duncan around to show him that the new place is fun.


Kodiak definitely still has some issues to work through. Loud noises frighten him (even ones he's heard several times), and sudden movement worries him quite a bit. He still only comes to me about 75% of the time I call him. The rest of the time, he hides or runs away. I've not figured out what worries him those times that doesn't bother him the rest. He's also still afraid of the dog door, but we've made some progress with that. Until he gets comfortable with it, I'm taking him out every couple of hours. He's decided that he refuses to use the pee pads in his crate, but he'll hold it for several hours if he's confined. The other issue we're working through is an odd one - he'll be fine with something one day, and then terrified of it the next for no reason that I can see. Of course, just because I didn't see what caused the trouble doesn't mean his little puppy brain didn't register something frightening.


Overall, though, I'm really pleased with how far he's come over the last couple of weeks. I'd say he's well on the way to being ready for adoption early next year.


Being a puppy, his cuteness knows no bounds. He has a typical German Shepherd thing going on right now - one ear will stand up, then the other, then they're both up, then one flops, then they both flop. He also bounces like a complete lunatic when he's excited, with his head and his butt both going as fast as possible and with no coordination whatsoever. So cute! Another thing he does is moan and bark when he plays with squeaky toys. Here's proof...

And here's a clip that shows just how patient Reyna is with him. All the noise is Reyna, but she's tolerating everything Kodiak does. Near the end of the clip, Kodiak is actually tugging at her ear, and she doesn't even try to eat him in retaliation.

Rally-O!

Duncan had another Rally trial this past weekend (the last one of the year!). Thankfully, this one was in Morrisville, so it was nice and close. Duncan did a great job – he scored a 95 Saturday and a 97 Sunday.

I was pleased with Saturday’s run. The points we lost were for position, but that didn’t surprise me. Duncan seemed a little off to me, and I figured that was due to the high noise level (there were soccer games going on in the arena beside the trial). We actually had the same judge that we’d had for our second run at the trial in November, and I knew she liked to take points for bad position. Even with that, its really hard to complain about a 95 for an Advanced run, and taking 4th place against a whole lot of dogs. In fact, Duncan’s score earned him Reserve High in Rally Trial German Shepherd (he was the GSD with the second highest score for the Rally trial).

Sunday’s run was something else altogether. I know we got a higher score, but I swear it felt like we earned something a lot lower. We fought for every bit of that score. The judge admitted it was a hard course, but that wasn’t really our problem. Duncan was just having an exceptionally bad day. He couldn’t seem to focus on me at all, and he kept wandering off mentally (and a bit physically). It was bad enough that someone who met him the day before commented on how different he was, and two ladies who met us at the trial last weekend also said they could tell he was really off. One said that she couldn’t tell anything wrong the day before, but it was really obvious Sunday. I don’t know what it was, but I hope it never happens again. Regardless of how I felt, though, the judge obviously thought we deserved the score. And that 97 earned Duncan another 4th place and High in Rally Trial German Shepherd, which was pretty cool.

Here we are with the judge who awarded the 97, which also gave Duncan his Rally Advanced title.


Duncan got a lot of loot from this trial. He got two green qualifying ribbons, two white 4th place rosettes, two boxes of cookies and two tug ropes (part of the placement award), a small GSD figure for the Reserve award, and a GSD picture frame for the High Score award.


I'm so proud of my boy for all he's accomplished in the last two months.

The Direct Result Of Clean Sheets

Rally-O!

Duncan and I had a Rally trial in Winston-Salem this weekend. I was up at 4:00 both days, as we had to be there early. Duncan wasn't too happy about his early morning wake-up calls, but at least he got to nap on the drive. Lucky pup.

We were scheduled to run Novice courses both days, but I was hoping Duncan might qualify on Saturday and earn his Novice title. If that happened, I planned to bump us up to Advanced for Sunday. In anticipation, we'd been practicing Advanced exercises, especially the 90 degree left pivots, jumps, and any that required a lot of sits in a short time.

Duncan totally surpassed my expectations. Not only did he qualify on Saturday (third leg, so that gave us a title), but he qualified with a perfect score of 100! That definitely got him some extra puppy crack. We ended up taking second place for that trial, as there was another dog that also got a score of 100. For tie-breakers, they use the course time, and the other dog ran his course faster than we did, so he took first. But you know what? Thats perfectly fine, because Duncan still got a perfect score!

Here we are with the judge after awards were handed out.


Before we left Saturday, I made sure the show secretary put us in the Advanced group for Sunday. We stopped for lunch on the way home, and I got Duncan a well-deserved cheeseburger. And then he slept the rest of the way. Lucky pup.

Back in Winston-Salem early Sunday morning, we discovered the the Advanced group had been pushed back half an hour. Sigh. After seeing the course, several of us started commiserating about how difficult it was - a 90 degree left pivot, a 180 left pivot, a solid jump (which Duncan had never seen), and, of course, several other exercises. I was most worried about those darn pivots, because its difficult for Duncan to get his large self up and turned around in a really tight space. I told him that if he'd just get some air under his butt, I'd be perfectly happy. He did the 180 pivot just fine, and he got air under his butt for the 90. That meant we only lost three points for that exercise, rather than ten. And he sailed over that solid jump like he'd been doing it for years. For his first ever attempt at an Advanced course, Duncan scored a 95 and took second place (and another cheeseburger on the way home). I'm so proud of him!

Here's Duncan with his loot from this trial - two second place ribbons, two qualifying ribbons, and two toys.


And here he is with his ribbons from the trial in Mebane last month. There was a problem with the ribbons at the show, so they had to mail corrected ribbons to everyone and ours arrived a few days ago. Two first place ribbons and two qualifying ribbons. He also got a place mat and a rope toys as his prizes, but they didn't make it into the picture.


Duncan has another trial coming up this weekend. Thankfully, its in Morrisville and we're not scheduled to run until about 10am, so we'll be able to wake up at a reasonable hour. Paws crossed, Duncan'll qualify both days and earn his Advanced title!

Kodiak

After getting several suggestions for names, its decided - Fluffernutter's new name is Kodiak.

Kodiak is really settling in nicely, and he definitely enjoys playing with Reyna and Duncan. I can tell that they worry him a bit occasionally, particularly when they both run over to him. He gives as good as he gets, though, and he loves to jump up and lick their faces. Duncan's a bit jealous of him, of course, but Reyna is being extremely tolerant of him. They certainly like Kodiak a lot more than they did Gus.

Mary came over to crop today, and Kodiak got to spend about 6 hours on the couch, wrapped up in Mary's jacket. No, he's not going to be spoiled at all.

I got a few pictures of him yesterday, before and during the snow.



Not sure if Duncan is offering to show Kodiak the ropes or telling him he'd better behave....


These pictures were taken in the late afternoon, but they're still a lot darker than I hoped.


I love this one - Kodiak fell in the snow and got quite a bit stuck in his hair.





Kodiak is still people-shy, and he likes to find a spot to hide when its time to come inside. His favorite place is under the honeysuckle vines along the back fence.

Snow!

I can't believe it, but it actually snowed yesterday. We ended up with over an inch.

Early afternoon....



Late afternoon...



I'm ready for the snow to be gone now.