Wintery Wordless Wednesday

A Walk in the Park

Today, for the first time in a couple of weeks, we had some sunshine!  It was lovely for a change!  So we took the dogs for a wee wander in a local park.  This park is particularly special to me (Helen), as before it was turned into a park, I used to keep and ride horses here - so it has many memories!
Noel-John's been practicing Rocky's loose leash walking, as far as puppies go, Rocky is very excitable - he's taking a while to get the loose leash walking perfected.  Anyway, Rocky hadn't had a walk with Snoopy yet (only by himself), so today was a bit of a test.  He was pretty good really!  Sure, he'd still get to the end of the leash and have to be reminded what he's supposed to be doing (which you will see at the end of this video), but we're making progress.
Here's a wee video of Noel-John and Rocky practicing loose leash walking today at the park. (with a little bit of heel work in there too)

Oh I've been a slack blogger lately!!

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately, I don't really have a good excuse either, just not a lot exciting to blog about!

Here's a recent pic (taken yesterday) of the terrible two, they got to come to work with me and had a great day in the office.  There were lots of visitors here, including Melinda Merck from the States - she's a veterinary forensic specialist, and was here doing training with other SPCA inspectors from across New Zealand.  Both dogs got a lot of attention and love, and it was great for Rocky to be in a new environment (lots of people, food, noise etc) - he took it all in his stride and LOVED all the attention.

At lunchtime I took them for a walk at a local park, the autumn trees and leaves are so pretty at the moment.  I got them to pose for a photo - tho they were more interested in watching a lovely rottwieler playing ball.

As you can see, Rocky is growing like a weed, he has nearly doubled in weight since we adopted him (nearly four months ago now), on Tuesday he weighed 19.2kg, when we adopted him he weighed 9.8kg!  He will be eight months old next week- wow, time flies!
His training has been a bit stop-start unfortunately, but he learns so quickly!
I've made a deal with my husband (Rocky is supposed to be HIS dog) for him to train Rocky, he's got a timeframe in mind, and the faster he reaches the goal we've set, the better.  He's got a monetary 'reward' for him to go and buy some toys for himself, that will depreciate each week that it takes him longer to get there.  We'll see if this motivates him ;-)

Snoopy's agility is going okay, we're supposed to be aiming for a competition on the 9th June... I'm not sure, as our last attempt at a competition failed so miserably, that said, it was a year ago now. (wow, didn't realise it was that long ago....)
We're definitely not doing fabulously by any stretch of the imagination though, we seem to be somewhat slow in the learning department!  how embarrassing!

Jerry's becoming even lazier now that the weather is cooling down, he's enjoying snuggling up on the bed with us at night, and not wanting to wake up in the mornings!

A fun walk on Friday, with some friends

 On Friday, I had the day off work, as I had a friend's wedding to go to in the afternoon.

So, in the morning, Snoopy, Rocky and I met up with Jasper, Lexi, their human Laura, two of their friends' dogs Bailey and Reid.

We originally planned to go for a walk at our favourite dog beach, but stupidly I forgot to check the tides and it was high tide - so no room for dogs to run!  Instead, we decided to go to Bethells Beach, but when we got there we saw that there were people with horses preparing to go for a ride on the beach... as we weren't sure what Rocky and Jasper would do with the horses (probably just want to play, and scare the horses!), we decided to back track and go for a walk down the stream towards Lake Wainamu.  Lake Wainamu is surrounded by dense bush on three sides, and HUGE sand dunes on the other side, so our walk down the stream had bush on one side and the dunes on the other.  If it hadn't been so sunny, we could have gone straight over the dunes, but the black iron sand gets much too hot for any dog's feet! 
I'd been there many times as a girl, but never with the dogs....

Whoops, we got halfway along the stream and found a NO DOGS sign!!  then the park ranger drove past us, and waved at us and our SIX DOGS (he had his own dog on the back of his ute).  So we decided maybe it didn't matter that we were there after all.

Anyway, the dogs had great fun!  Snoopy had too much fun hunting for bunnies and rats, that she was banished to leash walking for 3/4 of our walk, as she decided it was more fun to chase things than to listen and come back when called!

It was Rocky's first walk in a pack, his first time meeting Great Danes, and his first time meeting a Chihuahua.  He was very good!

I've stolen a few photos from Laura's facebook, I'm sure she won't mind me sharing them on here

Rocky zooming down the shallow creek

 Rocky trying his best to keep up with Jasper and Reid

Jasper and Reid's bottoms, and Rocky's pitiful face! haha!  he didn't want sandy watery muddy stuff in his face!

the five of them posing (less Bailey the Chihuahua)... Snoopy the poopy didn't want to sit in the water!  grrr!!  She was being a right madam on the weekend!

A Very Surprising Obedience Class!

Tonight after work, I took Rocky to his very first formal obedience training class.  The only other class he had been to was his puppy preschool - which was VERY basic!

We went back to the club where we used to take Snoopy and Arrow (which was over a year ago now!), called All Breeds, which is only 10 or 15 minutes from our house.
There were a lot of firsts for Rocky tonight!  It was his first outing when we left home in the dark (he has been to agility with Snoopy and I to watch before, but that was before daylight savings finished), his first time working in a group of dogs outdoors, his first encounter with a train (!! The club grounds is right next door to the railway, so three trains whizzed past within 20 metres of us!) - he was very good!

Now for the surprise... When we arrived, I went and paid and signed up, and then went and found where the 'first timers' go.  Though after walking one circle with Rocky paying perfect attention to me, we were promoted up TWO more classes into the first competition class!
Which was a nice surprise, there were only two other people in that class, so there wasn't lots of standing around doing nothing.
Rocky learned to properly 'heel' (not to be confused with loose lead walking), ie- him to be stuck to my leg with his head up looking at me - bribed by treats at this stage.  We did a few sit-stays (though he was tired by then and wanted to do down-stays!), and some 'proper' recalls.
So, we have come home with plenty of homework.

I either need to figure out how to train Noel-John too, or just take Rocky along on Monday nights to obedience, then Noel-John can take over a bit later on, once it has all gelled in place in Rocky's head, and Noel-John's not so busy at work.
I'll work on the homework exactly the same with Snoopy too, a little extra training on top of her agility homework, won't hurt :-)

I've also learned that brain work tires Rocky out an awful lot faster than just physical exercise. 
If we take him for a walk on the beach and he just runs around or chases a ball, he'll get home and still be wanting to play with Snoopy - even if it's an hour long walk!
If I do some full on training (loose lead walking, clicker shaping, or like tonight, 45min of obedience class), when we get home he is knackered!
He ate his dinner (half size, since he had lots of food treats at obedience training) and went straight to sleep on the bed he shares inside with Snoopy:

Yep - he's getting big, weigh-day again tomorrow (I'm weighing him weekly, just for curiosity's sake).

A walking success

I think finally we are making progress with Rocky's loose leash walking!

I'm now walking him with a pocket full of treats and the clicker (very full hands!). Tonight was the second walk in this fashion and i managed to walk about 1/3 of the way around the block successfully with me clicking and treating him every so often.

Feels so good to finally be getting somewhere!

Easter Weekend - lots of pics!

I did a bit of sewing, as it's now dark after work, (in anticipation for when Rocky will walk on lead well enough around the block), as Rocky is such a dark colour, I thought some hi-vis vests for the dogs would be wise.  Here they are modelling them

Today we went for a drive up north, to visit Noel-John's parents.   Rocky's first ride in the big car, not in his crate - he no longer fits in it!  As you can see, he thought it was most interesting being able to see out of the back windscreen:

 On the way we stopped at Stanmore Bay for a walk to burn off some of Rocky's energy before our lunch at the inlaws, and to make the most of the amazing autumn weather we've had all Easter weekend!
Rocky found some seaweed:

 Posed for a picture:

Chased his ball:

Snoopy took in the view from atop some rock pools:

After lunch, we went for a walk at Arkles Bay - the beach down the road from Noel-John's parents house, with his family and their elderly Border Collie called Glory.

Rocky really wanted to be friends and play with Glory:

 Obligatory photo of Snoopy:

Pretty Glory and her stick

Rocky had a go at playing soccer with the balls, he soon got a hang of the game, he had to get to the ball before one of the boys, he got pretty good at tackling it off them: