Sheltiefun again

This Sunday was big Sheltie funday again - Kristina and Kendzi and Joker came to visit us. It's one thing to meet on the evening in town, when it's dark and not many good possibilities to let the dogs run free. And another at daytime on country, where dogs can run free as they want.

Puppies started playing on the moment they met, they were running happily chasing each other. Later we took a long walk in forest. The nature there was really wild and so were dogs :o). It came out, that teenage is contagious. At least was Kendzi as eager to go hunting as Lucky. And so they had to walk on leach. But they had opportunities to run free too, enough, that at home, after puppies playing some more, all dogs slept nicely. And sleeping sheepdog, as we all know, is a good sheepdog :o) (just a joke, they are very, very good all time).

Here's some pictures of our walk

Joker looking video of himself and Lucky playing :o)

And here's the link to video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdK0XyVp4kA

Teenage...

... has hit our Lucky :o). Very hard :o)

When walking in forests at weekends, I have looked for opportunities to hide from him - so he would know it's his problem not to get lost. And it has worked very well - he really is concerned if he thinks he has lost me. Well - was. Now the company of his hormones seems to be quite enough for him :o).

On weekend he found a track of deer and went to trace it. He seemed so excited by what he was doing, that I was afraid he would go too far before he would even notice he had lost us. So instead of hiding, I tried every way to get him coming back. The best arguments (like steady-ready- Rocco let's escape :o) or calling his friend kitty), that always work, just got him bark, but not return. Well, finally of course he did return. But considering that about a month ago we saw a deer in about 50 m distance and he didn't go after it, this was not a nice surprise.

Similar case was on monday evening, when we went for a walk to our beach and as Kelli was with us, ended up on childrens play ground. There's a lot of different attractions and usually I'll be somewhere near and train some tricks with dogs. But as there wasn't anybody else then us, we joined Kelli. Climbing and sliding on chute was fun, but next to that, there's so many opportunities to use the attractions for dog training too. Like sandbox border as agility dog walk and with the help of clicker Lucky learned climbing on stepladder. He was cooperating so well, but then a dog appeared and gone he was. And only way to get him coming back was to catch him. So in future, he can enjoy only very limited freedom.

And I would very much appreciate, if you would tell me your suggestions how to get his attention back.

Steady, ready, GO!!!

I just wanted to share a trick that has been very useful for us - steady, ready, GO! I first found it out years ago with Rocco, when we were going to swim. He just loves swimming and to make it even more fun we made this competition - with both of us looking at direction of lake, I held him back with my arms and told him with excited voice - steady-ready and on GO we both raced to water. He learned to love it very fast. Later we used it for our agility-games and in what ever situation - steady-ready gets him alert and quick. Now, with Lucky, I found out that our trainer uses the same method. So now Lucky too knows the meaning of it. And it works so well. Steady-ready-come is the best way to get him coming very-very fast. Steady-ready-sit/down don't work so well yet, as he starts barking and doesn't listen for the real command, but usually tries to quess what I want form him next :o).

And another trick that's very useful in everyday life, is running around different obstacles. We use it with Lucky for our forest-agility :o). There's not very many opportunities for him to run fast, if he doesn't have another puppy to play with (I'm snail-slow compared to him:o) ). So we pick a group of 4-5 trees with enough distance from each-other to be our agility-obstacles and run 8-s and rounds between them. As Lucky just loves action, he learned very fast to go to direction I show him and he is fast and barking happily :o).

I'm not sure if my english is good enough to explain what I ment, so I'll try to have someone to take a clip of it if I have camera and trees and light and someone at the same time :o)

New "era" in obedience training :o)

For 2 weeks now, our obedience trainings have been held indoors. It probably sounds like nothing special for readers abroad, but here dog sports is not so popular. It's a little better with agility, but for obedience we haven't been able to afford this before.

It's sooooo good we are not depending of weather any more. And fingers are not frozen after the training.

Changes in blog settings...

... I removed the demand of logging in with google account to post the comment in our blog. So please, write your comments. We looooove letters and it's more interesting for other readers too.

Lucky is 8 months old

Lucky's weight is 5,5 kg and height somewhere between 36-37 cm.

From the most wonderful puppy he has grown to most wonderful, wild and free teenager. So positive and soooo energetic.

To celebrate his birthday we took a walk with friends and Lucky was happy to play and run in snow. It was too dark outside to take the pictures, so back at home, I tried to agree with Lucky that we would make the birthday card for his sister and brothers and he was supposed to pose for me with flower :o)

Lucky of course if always happy to get a new toy and instead of posing with it, game of tug seemed much nicer to him. Or eating it :-). So we tried and tried, but as there's not much vitamines in this kind of flower...

... we finally had to ask Rocco for help in handing over the flower:

Happy birthday, Foxy, Isac, Max and Shadow!

Energiser

I work for a company very much related to Norway. This autumn, interesting activity was presented to promote healty livingstyle - a virtual journey from Oslo to Hammerfest. We can log any physical activity and then it's calculated to points, that take us further on our route. So I am now registrating our walks with Rocco and Lucky and it's very interesting to see where we would be when we would have been walking on Lucky's home country.

We are quite far - we have walked from Oslo trough Stavanger, Bergen, Kristiansund to Stjordal, even a little bit further, and not directly, but visiting some locations on sea too :o). As there's about month to go, we have good chance to get to Hammerfest by that time.

It's not about hard sport for us. Lucky is still very young, we don't walk very long distances yet. And as my dear little daughter is with us very often, we can't walk very fast then too. We just go out to play and walk and run and train some tricks - just have fun. And that all gives a lot of positive energy for sure!

But it's time to go for new energy in 5 hours, so we all go to sleep now:

Lucky's first snow

It started snowing on Friday!!! First real snow this autumn!!! Snowing started on the morning and it was real torture to look from office window, how it got more and more beautiful outside. But every workingday ends finally and on the evening we went to our country home. Although it was dark already, it was the real winter wonderland outside, even the trees were covered with snow. Lucky was not so surprised about the white thing on the ground, but sure found it to be fun. We took a walk as usual and it was really-really beautiful. The moon was behind the clouds but still there was enough light outside even to walk in forest. On the morning instead of winter wonderland it was childrens wonderland outside. The snow was melting and then of course there's only one option how to spend the day if you ask from a 5-years old :o) :

We built our snow house, which later turned to snowdog and played snow-war until all our clothes were wet. And on the evening took a walk in forest again. Today it was still a little snow left so we could honour our daddy on fathers day with a snow-war :o) (not only, he got a gift and cake too of course) and had another walk :o). Tomorrow morning it will probably be hard to find any wonders from the mud instead the snow outside, but we'll try :o)

Hi Linda and Foxy!

We got a great surprise some days ago - a mail from Lucky's sister Foxy and her ovner Linda! I'm so glad to hear news of Lucky's sister and brothers. As we live so far from them, at least we can be friends via internet. Linda tells that Foxy is loving, playful and easy learning - just as our Lucky. And that she is a little lady. I hope I can soon add a picture of them too and we wish all the best to Linda and Foxy in all their plans.

Sunny Sunday

After for about a month of rain it was sun outside this weekend! I was already afraid I have to buy underwater camera to be able to take pictures outside :o) but fortunately rain did stop at last. Well, as it comes to pictures, still all I have to present is some snapshots. I had a plan to try to take some well posed photos, but dogs were running around so happily, that looking at them the was bigger joy then would have been having pictures of well behaving dogs. I try to find opportunities for Lucky to run off leach every day, but was it the sun, or place or having his all family out with him; he was running around us just out of pure joy of running. Even Rocco, who usually cooperates very well, showed in every possible way he doesn't have time for posing :o)

All souls' day

Today it's All souls' day in Estonian national calendar. It's the day, where on windows of most homes candles are lit to honour the dear ones who are not with us any more.

At our home, next to candle lit for the dear people we miss, one candle is lit for the furry friends, who have played important role in our lives.

Here's a picture of Rally, my first dog. Still miss you, dear little friend.