I Love The Farm!

Everything up here is better than when we're stuck in the little house.  I didn't even cry when they put me in the box last night.

I got to play on the tractor with my great-grandhuman.  I like it.  Marty said she'll teach me to drive it when I'm just a little bigger.

Lyle said my pictures didn't show up on the wildlife cam this week, so I'm hoping for next time.







I worked on training my humans to feed me treats when I go to them.  They're getting pretty good, but they need to give me my treats faster.  This is me waiting for my treat after I ran a LONG WAY to get to Lyle.  Look how nicely I'm sitting to wait!  He should be down at my level with the treat already out.






Lyle thinks it's cute when I crawl like an army guy.  I don't do it for him very often, because I'm not an army dog, I'm a Navy and Marine dog.  But I have to keep trying to get him to offer new behaviors, so I do it every now and then.  This is him giving me a treat after I did it.  (I'd do it more if he'd give me the beer instead!)

No Milkshake

So we're driving to the farm, finally, not in time to go hiking, when Marty realizes she hasn't introduced me to any new people today.  You're not going to believe what she did.  She made Lyle stop at an ice cream place, sent him inside to get milkshakes and walked over a bunch of guy humans and asked them to hold me.  I was so embarrassed.  They all made nice noises about me, and wanted to take me home.  I thought when Lyle came back he would be mad because Marty was sharing me with other humans, but he just laughed and said Marty was old enough to be their mother.

You know what the worst part was?  I didn't even get ice cream!

Now that we're at the farm, things are looking up.  Marty was trying to practice giving me treats for sitting, but I am bored with that, so I started teaching her shake.  That's the trick I have to be able to do for the last week of dog school.  I can already do it, but I'm training her to say the word.

Marty has something to do in the morning, so I'm hanging out with Lyle and my great-grandhuman.  Pretty sure we can find a good way to get into trouble!

Kong Proof

A few of you may have expressed doubts about my willingness to manage a Kong.  Here's proof.  This is video of the first time I emptied every piece of kibble out of one.

Training My Humans

Whoo.  Having humans is hard work!  I finally succeeded in convincing Marty I didn't have to sleep in the box.  She let me sleep on the couch with her last night.  I didn't cry at all, and I wasn't even squirmy until about 6am.  She says this is NOT AN OPTION when I'm a big dog, but I say wait and see.  Added bonus, zombie dog is not allowed downstairs, so I got a night away from his stupidity.

This afternoon I had another playdate, this time with the two dogs that live across the street.  They're close to my size, even though they're already grown up.  I was a little more awake than yesterday with Navidson, but not much.  I really like their human puppy, so I hope they'll still let me play when I'm bigger than them!

Marty made me go to school again tonight.  Lyle didn't go, so I was supposed to ride on the passenger seat.  I like to ride in Marty's lap when we're in the car (even when she's driving).  She said that was OUT OF THE QUESTION during Washington rush hour, so she TIED ME TO THE SEAT!  She said it was "safer".  Does this look safer to you??  Miraculously, I made it there without being strangled.  I don't like this place as much as my Monday night class.  There are a lot more dogs and they're all crazy.  I got to stay with the little dogs tonight, but pretty soon I will be moving out with the really wild ones.  Tonight's goal was to go through some sort of tunnel.  Some of the other dogs went through, but I decided it would be better to watch from under Marty's chair.  By the end of class I did play a little, and Marty says we are going back next week whether I want to or not.  Since we were both traumatized from class, I rode in Marty's lap on the way home.

So remember how I told you I was training Marty and Lyle to tip the Kong up and give me kibble?  They've been getting progressively worse at it, so I've finally given up.  I guess some humans are just not cut out for Kongs.  This means I have to do the Kongs all by myself now.  Maybe I'll try them on sterile beef bones instead.

So, my lazy slug humans like to sit on their couch at night and stare at pretend humans.  They should be playing with me, but they don't.  I think if they're going to ignore me, then at the very least I should be allowed to be on the couch with them.  But no, they keep saying "off" and "four on the floor".  It's ridiculous.  So now we have a new rule.  They have a mat like the one in the box, and when that's on the couch, I can get up.  If it's not, I'm supposed to stay on the floor.  That's their plan anyway.  I'm working on training them to pick me up whenever I sit in front of them and look cute.

Tomorrow we're going back to the farm (finally).  Marty says if it's not too late, we might even go hiking on the way up.  I can't wait!

My First Playdate (or: Napping At Navidson's)

I had my first playdate today.  I met Navidson!  His human is WAY better trained than the crazies.  He already knows how to give Navidson treats for spinning, for sitting by his side, for touching things, and all kinds of stuff!  I'm really looking forward to when I have my humans that well trained.  I went to his house to meet him.  (It smelled vaguely familiar, so I think he may have been in my house before I moved in.)  I got to sniff around his yard a little and then he came out.  His human (his name is Dan) gave him some treats and then we let Marty and Dan take their leashes off.  He wasn't sure I was a dog at first, but Marty and Dan told him I was.  It was too hot to play much outside, so we went back in the house.  Navidson let me have some of his water since Marty didn't bring me any of my own (see what I mean about them needing training?).  I like Navidson, but I was too tired to play much, so I mostly laid on the floor and watched him.  Pretty soon Marty said that if I was going to nap, I could nap at home.  We're going to get together again next week, so I'll try to work on her patience in the meantime.

Party Time! (Nap Time!)

So the crazies had a big party here last night... there were probably about thirty humans over, if you count the puppies.  The crazies were home setting up for a long time, and Joyce and Nita were here doing all the real work, so I was very busy supervising during the day.  By the time the party started, I was really tired, so mostly I napped.

Marty and Lyle are starting to leave me unsupervised while I'm napping.  I'm going to lull them into a false sense of security and then destroy something really good.  I also figured out yesterday that I can go under the baby gate and all the way downstairs while they're not paying attention.  There is a lot of stuff down there that could be greatly improved by some custom chew marks.

Here's a piece of trivia you may or may not know about humans:  They hardly have any fur at all, and so they wear stuff over their skin all the time.  Not just that, but they change the stuff a lot, and they wash all the smells out, so sometimes it's hard to tell if you've met a given human before or not.  Yesterday they finally let me hang out with a human puppy I can remember.  His name is H. Bill and he doesn't bother with that fake fur stuff.  I'm looking forward to hanging out with him again when I'm more awake.

Marty and Lyle seemed a little depressed yesterday, I guess one of their human friends is going away.  (That's why they had the party.)  So I decided to give them a break.  No peeing in the house, and I only cried a little when they put me in the box with zombie dog.  I want them to take me to the farm tonight, but they said "probably not".  However, I'm supposed to have a playdate this afternoon, so at least there's something to look forward to.

School

This was not my best day.  My humans need a LOT of training.

Marty kept me up until after 2am last night, so I was exhausted and was still asleep when the alarm went off at seven.  Their sluggish ways may be contagious.  

Lyle stayed home with me until almost ten, and then I had to take a nap in my box.  Marty came home to have lunch with me about noon, and we worked on training.  Did you know that humans cannot be trusted to stay with you unless you attach a string to them?  Ridiculous!  I put one on Marty for the first time today.  Just to make sure she understood how it worked, I threw some of my best rodeo moves at her, but she managed to hold on.  I think this is probably going to work out, but it sure is a lot of trouble  right now.  

I had to go back in my box after lunch, but then Joyce and Nita came over, so I hung out with them for a while.  Marty came home to get me about 4:30.  Now that I have the string on her, Marty doesn't make me just stay in the stupid rectangle anymore.  That may have something to do with the fact that every time she dumps me in there, I bark at her.  She really doesn't like my barking, so it's an excellent training tool.  While we were walking around, a big truck that played funny music came and some of the human puppies went running to get frozen biscuits.  Marty asked their mom if I could meet them and she said yes.  I liked two of them okay, but one of them was dressed like a big red and blue spider and I DID NOT LIKE that.  Human puppies are weird enough without adding spiders to the mix.  Their mom asked Marty if she was a professional dog trainer.  She should have asked me if I am a professional human trainer.  Obviously, Marty is better trained than I am.

When Lyle got home we had to drive to school.  It's a long drive, and I slept.  My class has four puppies.  Hudson - a ten week old lab puppy.  Murphy - a five month old golden retriever.  LittleFoot - a four month old terrier mix, I think.  And me.  There are also two big dogs.  One is a cocker spaniel, and one is a pit bull/lab mix, but I can't remember their names.  We each get our own little station with a mat and a water bowl and we work with our own people.  I have trained Marty and Lyle to give me a treat every time I put my butt on the ground.  I'm working on getting them to give me a treat for putting my elbows down, but they're having a little more trouble with that.  We practiced those two things for a while, and then we practiced "polite greetings".  This means Miss Jessica comes over and says hello and gives you a treat if you don't jump up.  I am not training Miss Jessica, so I didn't bother getting up.  She tried to give me treats, but I didn't want them.  I mean, the goal of the exercise was not to jump up on her.  I didn't jump up.  I think she should have just moved along to Hudson, who plainly could have used the extra time, but she kept trying to get me to eat her treats.  After that we practiced putting our elbows down some more.  I put my elbows down and took a nap.  School is really boring.  After class there was time for me to play with the other puppies, but I stayed asleep.  Eventually they will learn that Chessies are introverted dogs that just like to be close friends with their own humans.  Labs and Goldens can do enough socializing for the whole class.

We're spending the night at the farm tonight, which is awesome.  I'm making good progress towards teaching Lyle to pee outside, but I need to teach him to aim better.  Tonight when we got here, he almost peed on me!  He did NOT get any chicken for that!