Snowy Daze

We had a nice snowfall at home here. Now, the sun is out and it's just beautiful outside.

Mattie

Can you find the Smithfield Sheepdog in this picture?

Scott - not listening to me again.

Scott got caught with snow on his nose


This looks like an ant to me

Japanese Maple branches

Snowy branches up close

Backyard facing East

Snowy Chicken Yard

Snowy fence - isn't this the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? I love my new fence.

Snowy house.

Snowy neighbor

Snowy road

Snowy spaniel.

Jude's Latest Puppy Lesson

Jude and I had a wonderful lesson with Diane at her farm on the 24th. Perhaps this was Jude's Christmas gift to me - that is, going in both directions around his sheep with ease and listening and cooperating with me!

He is getting a rather reliable 'lie down' on him which came in handy when Diane had me work with him on my own. No longer does he head the sheep and stop moving! Diane shared some tricks of the trade with me to get him going right. I also have to say that I did a pretty good job of working with him. I'm certain that getting to work with some of Diane's own dogs over the last year - from the seasoned 11 y/o professional dog to a young and vivacious 10 month-old, came in handy with getting my timing right and setting my expectation level for Jude.

Now that Jude is getting older and has demonstrated he can take some pressure, Jude will be getting more sheep time - I'm thinking now we'll get him on sheep once a week instead of just once every 2-3 weeks. In early Spring, depending on how things progress, he'll be able to get on sheep twice a week (plus, it will be lighter out and I'll be able to get to the farm after work!).








I was very happy with Jude this past weekend! Yay for the Klondike Bar Dog!

DeltaBluez Jude - Puppy Lesson

Jude had his 7 month birthday on December 18. He is a fairly large dog now. He expresses his enthusiam for life by darting around outside like an idiot, playing fiercely with Mattie, picking on Lucky and getting corrected by Scott. He's also started agility classes with me as I think this is a great outlet to build confidence and strengthen our relationship. He is pretty pushy but also very sensible.

A couple weeks ago, Jude had his 2nd puppy lesson with Karen Child at Fido's Farm in Yelm, WA. Video of his first lesson at age 5 months was posted on my blog a couple months ago.

Now at age 7 months, Jude continues to show keeness on stock. He also shows that he would rather be in a room full of sheep by himself - you can tell at first with Karen that he doesn't really want to bother with the concept of cooperating with her! She had to get into his head a bit - at least as much as a 7 month old dog can handle.

At 5 months, Jude liked to head the sheep. At 7 months, he still wants to do this. Jude prefers the comeby (clockwise) direction and I was very excited to see Karen making some headway in getting Jude to go in the away-to-me (counter-clockwise) direction. And, at age 7 months, he is a lot better with lying down when asked - although this is still pretty hard for him and still needs some reminders!

This session was also the first time a little bit of training pressure was introduced to Jude. At home, it's clear Jude is not overly sensitive when it comes to corrections, so Karen was able to get in some much needed correcting to Jude's sneaky and naughty behaviors. He is a bit of a stubborn, hard headed dog already! For much of his lesson, Jude was also on a long-line with Karen; without the line, Jude was not making much progress. The line offered Karen the ability to shape desired behaviors and gently correct as needed. You can see Jude starting to figure things out with Karen and near the end of the puppy lesson, they actually start to team up a bit - he appears to actually be cooperating!

All in all, I felt that the puppy lesson was a very good one for my dog - I think he learned quite a bit even though the lesson was only 15 minutes and that he is still very much a puppy-spaz!

My friend Wayne filmed Jude's lesson with his HD camera. The loud sounds in the background is the rain hitting the arena's roof - it was a downpour that day!

http://www.youtube.com/user/wseward01#p/a/u/1/Q5TyULhtJCM


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Happy Howlidays 2010

Tis the Season for pet themed ornaments and antlers on your dogs!

Well, some of the dogs are more comfortable in antlers than others...

Mattie likes wearing her antlers. She even has the santa-beard to really emphasize her holiday spirit.

Scott is, er, not a fan of wearing antlers (or dog-back packs, or coats or sweaters). This was the best shot of Scott I could get of him.

I tried to put the antlers on Lucky but he is so gamey, he was trying to rip the antlers out of my hands. For a little dog, he is very driven. Here is a tree ornament that looks like him anyway...

Jude would not sit still. The one picture I got of him (antler-less) does not want to load into blogger, so unfortunately, no festive pictures of the giant Border Collie puppy today.

GiGi, our cat, is a dilute calico. For some reason, the tree ornament makers in China love to make ornaments that look exactly like our cat.

Since I haven't yet found a blue-eyed Border Collie ornament - I guess I need two of these now anyway - I use this steer to represent Scott...

And, for Jude (aka Klondike Bar) - he gets to be repped by this fluffy Suffolk from Switzerland.

I found some chicken ornaments this year. Yes, I know this is a rooster. However, I think Russian Orloff chicken ornaments are even rarer than blue-eyed Border Collie ornaments. Myrtle and Mergatroid the Orloffs will just have to get by with this ornament for now.

This season was also the first time I have successfully grown an Amaryllis. I bought the kit at the end of October and planted it in early November. This thing has gone gangbusters in our living room. So much so in fact, that out of the one bulb planted I actually have two stems that popped out. The stem shown here is about 2.5 feet tall. It's pretty amazing. The other stem (you can see it peaking up on the bottom right in this photo) is well on its way to being as tall as its older sibling.

And, this is a picture of the delicious Swedish baked goodies my dear co-worker Sandy makes each year. I especially look forward to the cookies in this pile that look like Snickerdoodles. But, these are no average Snickerdoodles. These happen to be Swedish Ammonia Cookies. Yep, you read that right, ammonia! Sandy orders this special cooking ammonia from an online Swedish bakery. I can describe this cookie as something that looks like a snickerdoodle, but is crumbly, lightly sweet, airy and has a very slight chewiness, sort of like a homemade meringue. Sandy knows I love these cookies and so she filled up my plate with them along with other Swedish goodies she baked.

Diary of a giant Border Collie puppy

Dear Diary,

I continue to grow.

I am now bigger than Mattie the beardie and taller than my great-uncle Scott.

Although I still don't see the point of running around sheep in a counter-clockwise direction, I discovered this weekend that mom really likes it when I stop running around them when she asks me to.

My dad says my ears - one sticks up and one flops over - give me "character."

I am not sure why mom gets annoyed when I jump on the couch and onto the remote control and turn the TV off or mute it. She does though.

I love cow hooves and beef shank bones. I like cheese and hotdogs too. I am pretty sure I like all food.

I am wearing my cousin Mattie's fancy Coach collar right now because I broke-through my puppy collar while on a walk. Mom says when I stop growing I will get my own special collar with my name on it.

That white stuff all over my yard a couple weeks ago was certainly fun, especially when I pulled my mom across the ice. What isn't fun is getting toenails trimmed.

Oh, and I keep hearing talk about a tree being inside the house soon. Said tree will be on a table though to prevent GiGi the cat and us dogs from destroying it. I don't know, that sounds like a challenge to me.

~ Jude