Yesterday Bob and I had a training walk with our puppy raising manager Michelle, she needed to make sure Bob was confident enough to take away all his testosterone :) He did great so the appointment is in June - I can't wait!!!! lol. Man hormones = annoying puppy, no man hormones = good puppy :)
So, here is our walk told to you through pictures of course - Michelle was the amazing camera person ;)
The first thing we did was cross the street so Bob had to find the button.
Once we reached the other side, we walked all down the sidewalk making sure Bob wasn't phased by the traffic noise and stuff.. he didn't even notice.. Here Bob is leading me around the cardboard box":)
This was me trying to get Bob to look up at the overhead obstacle.. his face was too cute though so I had to zoom in and crop me out :)
Bob checking out that overhead obstacle - obviously he noticed it - after I shook it of course haha.
Bob and I got really distracted by something - here we are checking it out..
WARNING - IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH DO NOT PUT YOUR MOUSE OVER THE NEXT PICTURE - JUST MOVE ON...
Here is the distraction - sorry if it freaks you out.. If you would like to see the distraction just drag your mouse over the image.
Another overhead obstacle - I got Bob to pay attention to it even with that distraction so close!
About this point in the walk Bob started to get really bored... Michelle told me I need to engage him more and get him paying attention to me and constantly wondering what I'm going to do (not just walking) so here I'm doing puppy push-ups (the wrong way!)
You'll notice my posture - apparently Bob notices it too... and is a butt-head because of it and doesn't do what I tell him to do - Michelle told me I need to stand up straight and be more demanding, but still nice so I need to work on that lol.
Me working on my straight up standing - I keep catching myself now - I'll learn one day lol.
Also, Michelle told me that I need to let Bob have more fun (It's not always work!). I'm too serious on our walks and just need to let him be a happy dog - that way he actually likes to go out and work - this I can do no problem though ;)
Here is Bob finding the next Button - I had him put his nose right up close to it ;)
Me praising him and him working on chewing that treat lol.
Funny story - the lady that is in that white car behind us at the light pole was apparently watching Bob find the button, well her light had turned green and the guy behind her honked at her because she was still watching us lol.
Here is us heading to Petco - he was getting very hot and burned out but still did the step ok (the second time lol) He blows the steps sometimes and goes on before I tell him to so we have to work on that with him. Lucky for me he knows "wait" :)
Bob tired and panting in Petco.
I love this picture! lol.
And him getting a drink - note to self - don't use this water fountain anymore lol.
There's a difference.. a difference between boys and girls, a difference between puppies and adult dogs, a difference between smart dogs and well... smart dogs lol.
Today Bob and Egypt were lolly-gagging around and I called Bob over to get some lovin lol. Well as I call Bob over of course Egypt wants some lovin too, thats normal for our little group. The funny thing was seeing which paths they chose to get to me.. See, the we have a couch that looks like an L, its like a couch connected to a chaise, it also came with an ottoman.. so picture me on the chaise part of the couch, and the ottoman is pressed up against the end of it leaving only about 5 inches of space in between.. in front of the couch part though there is at least 2 feet of space between the couch and the ottoman... ok got it nice and pictured? So, I call Bob and he was standing closer to the chaise part so he went and stood right in front of the 5 inches of space between the couch and ottoman, Egypt had gotten up and was right there with him. So I say "Come here guys" and guess which one charged through pushing the ottoman out of the way and which one simply walked around the ottoman.. lol. Now I can't really decide which one took the better path, Egypt of course, took the path of least resistance and wound up getting to me slower than Bob did, and Bob took the harder yet faster path.. There are sometimes when they will switch those roles (Egypt is really good at moving our furniture) well, I'm not really here to judge I guess I just thought it was funny to see the difference of the two while in the exact same situation...
Solution for next time - get some lovin from each other :)
Can you believe Bob is already 6 months old!!! (Well he turned yesterday but still!) He's still doing great in his training but he's turning into a little turd also... I'm guessing that adolescence starting to set in (yay!) So, here are Bob's 6 things at 6 months.
1. He knows how to find the counter!! He still needs help on it sometimes but this boy has got it :)
2. His doorway and down-step sits are getting really good.. I still have to tell him but he doesn't take forever to do it anymore :)
3. He's as tall as Egypt now.. she kind of hunches though so I'm sure if she just sat up straight she would still be a tiny bit taller lol.
4. He has started drinking A LOT of water.. I'm not really sure why.. started not too long ago, part of me feels like he drinks all the water so Egypt can't get any (he's starting to become the dominant one) but when we fill both bowls with water he still drinks all of it - he's getting really good at holding it though haha.
5. This is one he needs to work on - his walking nicely is getting a bit worse... he used to just walk pretty nicely not getting distracted by much but now he has to investigate anything. He has a walk scheduled for next Thursday though so I'll get some tips then.
6. Everyone loves him!!!!
I only have one new picture and its from a volunteer thing Bob and I did today for GDTx - well this is while we were walking toward the thing haha.. the whole room was dark so I didn't want my flash going off in the background.
It's so bright and so hot but I still gotta work :)
And look what I made - this is Mr. Walrus
I made this one day with some Sculpey - I also made an orange and white cat but it fell off the bookshelf and guess who decided to pick it up and chew on it haha. It only has a few bite marks :/
Also - I'm still working on my painting - don't want to post up any pictures until its done though :)
So yesterday Bob spent his first day away from me. My sister, some friends and I went to Schlitterbahn waterpark, so Bob got to go to a puppy sitter. She said he did pretty good aside for going to the bathroom in her house (oops haha). He also cried randomly a bit but I don't know so much if that is separation anxiety or just him being him... maybe a bit of both because he cries when Egypt isn't around too. He's funny, he'll just sit down look off into space and start whimpering.. not a lot but maybe like 2 cries and then he's fine. He just wants a friend.
On a working dog note he is getting better and better everyday. I suspect half of it maturity and half of it is the Texas heat getting to him.. He's so much more mellow when he's tired and when walking from car to wherever(?) is hot for me so I know its gotta get to him too lol. Today he was actually perfect for the very first time - perfect as in didn't have to be told to sit at the doors and steps and he even settled immediately when we got to the counter (we went to the bank). Everyone at the bank loves him. I haven't made many trips that are too long - outside is getting too hot to do much but there are some days when its overcast and almost rainy where its good to go out. Trips to the store are limited too because right now I'm in the middle of a Maymester (3 weeks long 3 hours a day) Lots of homework! haha. Once that is over then there will me more classes but those (well at least 1) will actually help Bob. It will be a Chemistry lab and because of safety reasons Bob will not be allowed to stay under my work station - don't want to go spilling acid on him lol. So with the teacher's permission (he's a cool guy so wish luck) I will be able to tie him down to the guy's desk.. That will help teach him to stay where he is put and be good until told to do otherwise.. not so different then under the desk but in a way it is.. We'll see how he does. He has had one time to practice with it. He was tied up in a corner while I did a cardio kickboxing class with a friend - he did pretty well but he had a bone to chew on.. now he'll have to do it all on his own :)
Sorry no pictures today but there are a few more mobile uploads if you want to click on the picture up in the top right hand corner of the page :)
Yesterday was GDTX's annual Puppy Splash Day! Where we all go out to the K9 Country Club and let the dogs just be dogs, while we eat hot dogs and hamburgers :) There's not really much news there because all the dogs pretty much just ran around and acted like dogs so here are some pictures :)
Dakota and Ben were there! That dog has way too much fur,
apparently they were taking him to the groomers after this
though, lucky groomers ;)
This was the first time Bob has ever seen this much water..
he was kind of scared of it and didn't want to get in. He just
did laps around the doggy pool.
He got a little bit braver after a while and decided to
check it out.
Well, that was a steep slope and he slipped in - he didn't like
it too much.
He couldn't get out at that spot and he wouldn't move the 2 feet over
to the steps - he just wanted out. Thats Dakota in the corner -
he tried to help :/
Bob doing more laps after his traumatic experience.. I think
he was slipping here lol.
Ben helped him figure out that the water was actually
fun though.
So he slowly ventured out farther.
He finally started to play!
And play some more ;)
Then Alfie Showed up!
Oh and there were some really cute cookies!
I kept getting Bob and Piper mixed up - they are 'siblings'
some how.. maybe same Dad (?) Piper is on the left with the
blue collar.
Celia decided to get into the big tubs that had tons of ice and
drinks - how nice of her - guess the pool wasn't cold enough!
Alfie hid a ball under that ramp - little hoarder!
While all the other dogs were running around Bob went and
got back into the pool.
Alfie stole the foil from the barbecue and pranced around
with it - lol I love his little poodle prance :)
Then he tried to steal Bob's yummy stick - they actually
played tug together for a while - until all the other dogs
saw how much fun it was and then they all chased
each other for that stick - oh fun!
Last little group picture - can you spot the outsider?
If you would like to see more pictures (100 +) from Puppy Splash Day you can check out my Facebook Album (you don't need an account) Click here to get to it :)
So, I have been trying to kick up my photography skills lately and was browsing some blogs when I came across Erin's photography Blog, she is Pompeii's raiser. I knew she was in a photography class and I don't know why I didn't realize she would have a blog about her photography, she has a blog for just about everything else ;) (How many do you have Erin? 4?) haha. Anyways, through my snooping I found another blog called Pixel Perfect and she has little photography competitions so I wanted to enter this one. It's a before and after competition where you edit a photo and give the SOOC (straight out of camera) and then the edited one. So, here is my shot! It's back from spring break at my parents house.
So, I know I'm supposed to be studying and not writing blogs but something happened today that totally blew me away and guess who did it! Mr. Bob did! Haha. Today was the first time I have seen Bob actually "think" I guess haha. Not that he isn't smart, it's just everything he's been doing is commands; you know, sit, down, stay, find the seat/door/whatever. I haven't had much of a chance to do the other things because I have been so focused on finals and my last test (which was on the 2nd to last day of school - who does that?!) That we haven't really been to many stores and such.. where Bob would need to find bathrooms and counters and stuff..
Anyways, point of my excitement - Bob 'guided' me around an obstacle today and once we were past went back to his original 'line'. You must know that we haven't actually come to any obstacles that we have had to work around (except for people I guess) so I was really anxious to see what he would do.
Stopping on a 'curb' it slopes down straight into the street
so these have been a bit tricky for Bob - he got plenty of practice today though ;)
We were walking in Darrell's brother's neighborhood and first came up to a truck that was sticking out onto the side walk a bit. I stopped Bob at it, showed it to him and then I led us around it and that was it. I wanted to see what he would do when we got back to it but just so happened we didn't take that same route back. However there was another car that was completely covering the sidewalk (Ours haha! - I'll have to remember that next time and park on the street lol.) Well, I wasn't really planning on working past our car, the turn into Mike's house is before the car so yeah.. Well, I wanted to see what Bob would do so I kept going and guess what! When we got up to the car he went straight down the driveway onto the street (which was about a foot or two away from the back of the car) and once we had passed it he tried to find a way back onto the sidewalk. What was really interesting was not only did he try and find his original line (the sidewalk) but that he knew not to go back up the driveway to get there. You see there was only about half a foot of driveway in between the car and the grass so instead of trying to go right back up there Bob continued to the next driveway. (Which was only about 2 feet away because Mike lives on a cul-de-sac.) So, we got back on the sidewalk and I praised like crazy - I'm so proud of that smart boy!
Walking on loose leash! Probably because he was
getting tired but still good haha :)
Oh - P.S. he ignored all the fenced in dogs like a pro! The only thing he was getting distracted by was a fire hydrant, which even Egypt had to be corrected at so I'm guessing it smelled really good haha. Well, after I corrected at the first fire hydrant we walked past another, I decided to get a video of this just incase he was good and remembered to 'leave it' haha. So here it is, you can't see the fire hydrant but you can see how the sidewalk curves around it and Bob stuck to the sidewalk like a pro!
A link to the video incase you can't watch it here. Click Me!
You can see how he was getting tired by the end of it. The walk wasn't even that long I think it was just the humidity today - probably the sun too. Both dogs seemed much happier on the way back though while we were walking in the shade haha.
Sorry the video and pictures aren't the best - they were taken on my phone because my camera is out of battery lol.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
