Following Phoenix.......

What great pictures Julie, thank you for sharing. Still laughing about that position in her bed!! Nice impression too.

My neck hurts just looking at her power nap! Puppies are a riot!

Just to tired to move another muscle. Cute.

Phoenix and the big dogs are starting to get along a little better after a long weekend in the yard and nightly walks with the wolf pack.

Hunter finally noticed me!!!!!!!

There's got to be something good under here!

Lexy: "OK little one...rule number one...don't believe anything that the shorthair twins tell you!"

This message was edited Jun 9, 2009 1:39 PM

Phoenix: "Worked all day and went for a long glorious walk when we got home. Would have been absolutely perfect if the shorthair twins hadn't thrown me in the pond. At least after a nice bath, I got to end the day loungin with Dad." (We are on restrictions about posting pics of Dad when "he is in scruffy mode" now, so we are posting legs only!)

This message was edited Jun 9, 2009 1:40 PM

This is the look I get every time I put her in the cat carrier to go to and from work. She is not really fond of it, and I am glad that we will only be doing this wrestling match for one more week! I will miss my puppy hugs during the day, but she is getting to be a big ball of energy for the office!

This was her first sneaky chewing (that I have discovered). Mom was closing up the back shop at work last night, and Phoenix was doing her commentary on our office magazine selection. Apparently this one was tasty.

That last pic is a real pin-up picture. Love those feet. I love the smell of dogs feet.

Julie, I have enjoyed all the Pic's Of Phoenix. She is just a sweetie! Her fur reminds me of velvet!
Chocolate velvet! Yum!

magazines and books are the best!!

Look at those innocent eyes!

This message was edited Jun 9, 2009 10:06 PM

I got a chance to catch Julie resting after a very hard day in the garden. Phoenix, however, was on guard over Mommie.

Reminds me of a verse in the Mercedes Lackey song Threes...."Trust three things above all else: the horse on which you ride, the beast that guards your sleeping and the shieldmate at your side."

We had guests last night that left the back room door open. Couldn't find the pup when I got out of the shower this morning....she had nestled into the middle of the clean laundry pile.

Can we play horsey Bonnie? Huh? Can we?

What are we gonna do today Miss Lexy???

She and Lexy look like they have an understanding. Lexy is sooooo sweet.

I think you're just lucky that she didn't demolish that delicious shoe sitting right there next to her . . .

Kathy, we are learning a lot about shoes being "NO's". As a matter of fact, we have been learning that almost anything fun is probably a NO....and we are starting to think that our name just may be NO PHOENIX NO.

I was off yesterday, so Phoenix got to spend the day in the garden with the gang. She is fitting in quite nicely!

Funny thing....we really crash hard after a long day in the garden!

And it's a good thing that this will be Phoenix's last day as a working girl as she is getting a bit big for her "work bed".

Hey Julie -

I use NO a lot, more than I should.

I would recommend teaching "Leave It" or even remapping the behavior to a retrieval behavior "Bring it Here". It's much better long term for people and animals to hear positive direction rather than negative direction; i.e., constantly telling them what you want them to do rather than constantly telling them to stop whatever they're doing.

Doing the command correctly promotes interaction and listening to you and self esteem. Hearing "NO" a lot can damage self-esteem, introduce "learned helplessness" (I can't ever do anything right, so I'll stop trying), and eventually lead to a sneaky dog. A dog successfuly performing "Leave It" over and over learns the benefits of doing the right thing and bonds with her owner more quickly.

You can start by rewarding the "Leave It" with a better alternative. Then when she understands what "Leave It" means, you can do it without providing her the alternative. She feels smart and starts to learn to learn, which catapults her into a whole new realm of realizing that what comes out of your mouth might just be worth listening to in order to feel good.

Just food for thought.

Kathy

We really miss our sweet Maggie May. She is the chocolate lab and the Scottie who has since past too is Gandolf. He was my wedding ring. Long story made short, went looking for an antiques setting and found a scottie instead.
I still don't have a wedding ring. heheh

Kathy,

You make a wonderful point, and I will try your suggestion. I am afraid that it may be a difficult transition for Mama as my first instinct when I see something like one of my seedling packs running in the other direction is to yell NO as I am giving chase....might be a hard habbit to break! :) I would much rather give positive reinforcement than negative...especially when I look into that sweet little face.......

Gourdbeader...Beautiful pups. They made a very striking pair! It is so hard when they leave us, and you will always miss them. We have a family pet cemetary shared by our three families, and what it's memory stone says is so true: Death leaves a heartache that nothing can heal, but Love leaves a memory that no one can steal. I absolutely love your ring story!

RJ - I do so understand. I try to reformulate my thinking into "giving instruction" mode, rather than into "resolving crisis" mode. I think that people tend to feel bossy when they practice communicating with their dogs and don't like being that way (how many times have I heard people say, "he knows better"?). But then, at some point, we all hit our threshhold and can't ignore what they're doing and the only tool we have is 'No'.

My little Sahara wanted to be top girl here and didn't know how to go about it. She also has a tendency to hyperfocus when she's stressed (happily or unhappily). That resulted in a few episodes with my older female Vana, the last one being pinning Vana to the ground when they were all excited about the neighbor being at the front door. Vana freaked out because she thought Sahara was insane, (this wasn't appropriate dominant behavior) and so, rather than submit, she just thrashed around screaming. I actually had to lift Sahara off of Vana and put her in her crate because she couldn't hear me.

After much thought and observation, I decided that I needed to find a way to break Sahara's train of thought when she started to hyperfocus. That meant that every time she did so much as look at Vana, I would have to tell her to "Leave it". And in order for that to work, we had to be really solid on what "Leave it" meant. I basically would boss Sahara around so much in the house (come here, sit, down, stay, okay, leave it, okay, come here down, okay . . . at random times over and over again) that she started to look at me first every time she had a thought about what she was going to do next. It was great for both of us and actually strengthened our bond. I think it made her less insecure and we bonded with it. Those days were tedious and tiring; thank goodness we don't have to do that anymore.

We haven't done it in awhile, but if I feel I need to, we can always slip back into it with no problem. Sahara will always have this hyperfocus issue, which can be tough when combined with her fears, but at least now we have some tools to deal with it BEFORE Sahara gets herself in trouble.

And Sahara so doesn't mind being bossed around nearly as much as she does being in trouble (which was my point, even though I took awhile to get here).

Human translation..Tough Love and Time outs!

That Phoenix and her sleeping positions! Could anyone do that besides a baby?

Rarejem, I absolutely love the sentiment on the headstone. I hope you don't mind if I keep that thought and maybe use it in a cross stich for someone special that needs and uplifting thought in a tough time.
Jan

Bea, Yup, tough love and timeouts. But tough love is so hard when you just want to pick them up and snuggle them! Have to keep at it now though, when her little teeth don't do much damage, otherwise I will have created a monster!

Willow, I agree on the sleeping positions...only a baby! I just find them all so adorable, and she is so funny, because when she is out, she is OUT! Best not count on her chasing deer if she is in serious nap mode!

I think that every puppy should have a matching leather accessory!

We started our morning playing a game of snapperface with Gigit over coffee.

There is a morning treat ritual at each house. At Mom2's house, it is Old Roy at coffee time. When all dogs are present and accounted for, it is kind of a wild event. We were missing Ginger this morning (still napping on the pillow in the garage). Phoenix is making her game plan as to how to participate without getting run over.....

And she's in the fray!

Just so everyone knows, that is MY treatbucket but only TWO of those dogs are mine!
Fortunately, this is only a weekend occurence or I would go even broker buying dog food. (When Phoenix comes to visit, the first thing she does is head for Gigit's food dish.) And Bonnie, Hunter and Lexy all know what time the 'thunder twins' get their eveing meal, with treats here! I have to feed them on the top of the covered hot tub or they would probably starve half to death.

Well, I was thinking more of setting her up for success and then rewarding the success so there wouldn't need to be as many timeouts...

I love the picture of everybody doing his/her best trick. That's a little what it looks like here at treat time, too.

I just love to watch kids and puppies sleeping. They seem to go-go-go, and then they're out-out-out.

Kathy

Thank goodness about the OUT OUT!

I really enjoy this thread. Since I don't have a dog, these are my virtual pets... no cleaning up after them either. I feel like I should at least contribute some treats for them!

OMG, she just gets cuter every day!! The poses are precious. The treat shots are really cute, she has that 'lift your bottom off the ground just a little' down pat, just like the big ones. I have a neighbor with a new puppie that is using the 'leave it' command. Now when you say 'leave it' she heads for the treat dish!! LOL

I have always used 'leave it' on my poodles. They always repond well to it whether it is something smelly or the cat. Never any treats involved though.

Lynn, They will settle for Luvs next time you visit!

So we spend most of our time outside when I am at home, and I have been hauling an old moving blanket around the yard with me so that Phoenix knows where it is OK to nap when she is helping Mom. At the end of the day yesterday, Phoenix was sharing her blanket with Lexy and it was adorable.

This was the first morning that I went to work and left Phoenix at home with her Dad. I knew that there was going to be some seperation anxiety....but I expected it to be coming from the puppy and not Momma! They were just fine when I left.......didn't miss me at all!