Resq TailsThe trials and triumphs of rescued dogs

All the boarding dogs have arrived for the weekend. The kennel is pretty packed. I even had to set up an ex-pen as a temporary kennel for a dog coming in just for the day. I had to turn down three more dogs for this weekend. I hate to do that. It always makes me feel bad, but I guess it’s not my fault that they don’t call to make arrangements for their pets until the day before they are leaving, right?

Anyway, this evening my husband will be taking over the boarding dogs, while I go up to the farm to take care of my parents place for the weekend. I probably won’t have access to the internet, unless I come home at some point, so I’ll just have to catch up on everybody’s blogs when I get back. I just love the farm. It’s so quiet and peaceful out there. I look forward to getting away, even for just a day or two.

Here’s some pictures of the animals we’ll be sharing the farm with…

I’ll have to make sure I charge up the batteries for the cameras, and make sure I’ve got a video card with me this weekend. Should be fun!

I’m going to post a bit early because this week is going to get crazy with the holiday weekend and the boarding kennel starting this afternoon.  I was determined to do better at the training challenge this week.  So, I started off on Monday.  Dare and ran to town first thing Monday morning to return the posthole digger that we’d rented.  I decided to go to a park that we’ve never been to before.  When they first built and opened this park it was supposed to be a kind of more exclusive little park (catering to a new subdivision).  Well, since then the poor little park has just gone down hill.  I don’t even know if the waterfall type decoration thing in the front even still runs now.  Anyway….we went there.

It was early, but we didn’t need any Kichler lighting to see where we were going. Because it was early, the only people we saw were some maintenance guys checking on one of the buildings.  Probably for the best though, since this park, (like all the rest in our county), say that dogs aren’t allowed.  Even on leash!  Isn’t that crazy?  There are a couple of parks that we’ve talked to the mayors about and gotten permission to use while training, and the rest we just kind of watch and then claim ignorance if there’s anyone that complains.  Most of the time, people are really glad to see dogs out training. 

Sorry, again I seem to be straying from my point.  LOL  Dare did just fine working at this park.  We did some obedience.  A little heelwork, a few recalls, and then I wanted to do some stays.  She did well, though other than it being a new place, there weren’t really any big distractions to deal with.   I’ve been working at increasing her stay duration.  I want the 1 minute sit for her Novice Obedience to be a no brainer for her.  So, it was a good outing for us both.  I would have liked to have seen more people, but I don’t know that this park is ever busy really.

Yesterday, we met with our friend and trained with her at the park we have trained at before.  We couldn’t have asked for more distractions if had tried. LOL There were groups of kids everywhere.  Apparently, they were organized into different sections and they all seemed to be practicing different things for the 4th of July celebrations this weekend.  So, the normal part of the park was a zoo of activity.  We actually didn’t have room to set up anything, so we crossed over to the other side of the park where the baseball diamond and the small skate park is.  That worked well.  We still had all the noise and commotion around us, but a bit more space.  We had several groups of kids stop by to see what we were up to and want to visit with the dogs.  The maintenance people were out on our side mowing the lawns and restriping the ball field, so we still had lots of things to serve as distractions.  Again, everyone did fine.  We did some beginning work on “marking” for the glove exercise in, some retrieval of the dumbell over a jump, a little heeling, and some one jump work for agility thrown in for good measure.  LOL  I did get some video of the one jump work, I’ll post on Dare’s blog.  (I know, I know, I promised to post last week on her blog and I never got around to it).  I’ll try to do better this time around. 

Here’s what I’ve noticed about the training challenge this month.  I think that I need to get comfortable training in new places even more so than the dogs do.  In fact sometimes, I think my nerves about going somewhere new are worse than the dog’s distractions at being in a new place.  I find myself in a comfortable rut and I seem to like it there.  LOL  It’s a great challenge to get packed into the car and then as Ricky pointed out, to go somewhere, set everything up and train for a short while only to pack up and go back home.  I have noticed benefits to doing this challenge though.  I think not only are the dogs better in new places, but I am not feeling as apprehensive about going new places.  Note that I said, “as apprehensive”.  I still get really nervous about setting up in new places and stuff.  But I think it’s getting better.  I am going to keep trying to make it a goal to get out and about with the dogs each week, even though the challenge is over for the month.

Thanks to Ricky for keeping us company on this training challenge and for encouraging us to keep going!

The fence is done! Well, for all practical purposes anyway. We still have some dirt to haul in around some places and one of the gates won’t be in till Thurs. and we still have rocks to move back into place…but for the most part, it’s done! The dogs temporary prison yard is gone, and they have full run of the place again.

I am looking around now for somone that can cut me some sillhouettes of Shelties out of metal that could be welded onto the fence gates to make the fence a little fancier. I was thinking some vines would climb really nicely on this fence too, so I may look into getting something planted. It’s pretty plain compared to what we had before. I guess plain is fine, since the dogs aren’t able to escape now. That’s the really important thing. Anyway, here’s a picture of the finished fence.

I don’t know why this dumb program only lets me post pictures in such a small format. It’s really annoying. If you want to see the fence better you’ll have to double click the photo. Sorry!

Well, back to my normal work of weed control and then some weave and jump training with Dare later this afternoon. No time to look for cheap auto insurance today. Too many other things to take care of while the weather is nice.

So, my training challenge for this week has almost fallen by the wayside. We have been working on the fence and time has just gotten away from me. I did get out once with Dare to a park with a friend of mine and her puppies. I set up a few jumps for Dare, and I’ll try to get video of that posted on her blog later tonight or tomorrow sometime. That was my only real outing with the dogs. I went to another friend’s place who teaches an obedience class this morning and worked with Dare there, but that’s hardly a new place. Next week, I’m really going to have to try harder. Sorry Ricky, we are just terrible role models on this training challenge this week!

As for the fence…I do have good news. It’s starting to look like there might be hopes of the dogs escaping from their small “prison yard”. The post holes have all been dug and the posts are now set. We started putting up panels tonight, and hopefully most of them will be finished tomorrow. It’s been really hot and even thought I love the heat and the sunshine, my husband does not. He’s been a real trooper throughout this whole process. Anyway, here’s a couple pictures of the progress so far.

As for the misc. stuff, Zoe turned 10. I just can’t believe my girl is 10! She sure doesn’t act like it, which is a consolation to me, but I still hate the thoughts that she’s in the double digits now. I wish I could freeze her in time at about 5 or 6. Oh well, I’m not going to dwell on it too much. She’s not ready to be shopping around for portable oxygen concentrators just yet.

In other misc. stuff, I’ve had two puppies boarding in the kennel all week. They have been a lot of work. I have to say that while I have loved my own puppies, I don’t really enjoy all the work that goes into caring for someone else’s puppies. LOL These two are about 3 months old. They are just a total handful. Everytime I turn around they have destroyed something, or pooped or peed. It’s really hard to keep the kennel looking nice with them here. I’ll be really glad to see their people come to pick them up on Monday.

This week has been somewhat of a blur. I’m really not sure where it went. On Monday I did take Dare to park in town and we did some obedience. She did pretty well. We worked on her heeling, and I’m trying to increase the amounts of time she can work in between rewards now. She did really good. We also did some sit stays.

On Tues., Zoe got to go with me to another Stacy Peardot-Goudy workshop. I don’t know if it counted as part of our challenge or not, because Zoe has never had trouble training or competing in different places. Nevertheless, it was a new place for Zoe to do agility, and she did great. I as usual am the one that needs improvement so I guess that’s why it’s good for me to go to these handling workshops. I always have a good time at the Stacy Days, she is so good at making you move out of your comfort zone, even when you don’t feel like it. She has a real talent for putting you at ease, so you can learn. I’m going to miss the next date in July, but I’ll be back on schedule for the next one.

Thurs. I took Twist and Dare to another park…it’s the same one that we went to a couple weeks ago, but the people are always different, so I think it counts. Plus there always seem to be new loose, unaccompanied dogs at this park, and this was no exception. This time was a really cute little terrier mix. He just hung out quietly and was a nice distraction. Twist had a hard time concentrating on anything though. He was distracted by the kids playing ball, and by our friend’s puppies and pretty much anything else he could see. He’s a goofy boy. Dare didn’t do much better. Although for her, it wasn’t the surroundings that were so interesting, it was just the bowls that our friend was using for targeting her puppies. LOL It’s so funny what captures each dog’s attention. So, if nothing else, we got some information of things to work on for next time we go out.

Today was an agility funmatch in Parowan. Raven, Zoe and Dare were entered. They all did such a good job! I was really proud of Dare since this was her first time doing a full course away from home. Even at home I haven’t worked on full courses, we’re just sequencing mainly. I’ll post her videos later tonight on her blog. Raven and Zoe were just a blast to run. It was a fun relaxing day for everybody.

Oh and just a fun little thing. One of our friends had found a dog lifejacket and it didn’t fit their dog. So, we tried it out on Dare, and if fit just right. The only things that’s funny is that since I rarely, (if ever) dress my dogs in clothes, coats or costumes, so I think Dare thought I’d lost my mind when I put it on her. Good thing she’s not like Zoe. Zoe would have been shooting me looks to kill for dressing her. LOL Dare just thought it was odd, and then was fine.

Now for the fence…It looks exactly the same. My husband didn’t reserve the posthole digger for the weekend, and so it was gone when he went to get it. So, all that’s getting done is that we are still breaking the cement off the wrought iron posts. UGH! It’s driving me crazy. Hopefully next weekend we’ll see some progress.

My husband got a lot of work done on the fence project this last weekend. All the wrought iron has to be cut into manageable sized pieces and then the posts that were set in cement have to come out. It’s pretty tedious work to say the least. Here are some pictures of the fence before we started this project…

You can see that it’s not high enough to pose much of an obstacle to Lucy. She can about clear it flat-footed. Or maybe you can’t see that, since the pictures are posting really small for some reason tonight. Sorry!

You can also see the other “fixes” we’ve attempted to keep the smaller dogs from just walking through the spaces in the fence. I’m not going to be sad to never have to try to keep chicken wire up and attached to a fence again.

Here is what the yard looks like today…

You can see that he’s got the one side and the front completely cut and taken out, the temporary fence up, and he’s now finished cutting the remaining sides of the fence into pieces. Now we just have to take them out and break off all that darn cement. Bleh.

And some very unhappy dogs with their new “temporary yard”. It’s way too small for their liking. LOL They are hoping to have their old stomping grounds back as soon as possible.

As planned we went somewhere different to train on Friday. Not part of the plan was the rain. So, Dare and Raven got to do some agility in the rain, and the good news is that none of us melted even though we got pretty wet. LOL Actually I think the dogs liked it being a little cool. Dare has been to this place before, but just as an observer when Layla was working at the agility field. Raven has never been to this site. Both took it in stride. I was really happy with them both.

I do have to say that even though it was a new location for the girls…I don’t think it was a huge challenge, because the only other person there was a friend of ours. I think for Raven especially I still should try to get to more typical park settings, with new people milling around and kids, etc.

Today was the UKI funmatch. Raven was the only one entered. It was held at a place she’s never been, but again she did well. Her biggest issues where not with the new location, but with the judge moving in closer to be able to see her contacts. Raven came to a near standstill on both the A-frame and the dogwalk. I think it’s just a matter of getting her used to someone else being out on the course with us. Definitely one of the disadvantages to training alone a lot. Other than the space issues with the judge though Raven did a really nice job. I didn’t get any video. Sorry!

We were going to let Dare meet some sheep today, but the person with the sheep was sick. So, that will have to wait for another day. We did have a good lesson with our obedience instructor yesterday though.

There is also progress on the fence project. I’ll try to get some pictures tomorrow.

As usual, I’m about 4 or 5 days behind in posting pictures or video. We had friends here visiting last week, and we went on a really fun walk on Sat., but I’m just getting around to posting now. We didn’t go as far across the country or anything, just up the mountains nearby. That’s probably good though, because we didn’t find ourselves needing any Chicago auto repair for this trip.

Here is a picture of Layla, Dare and Maizey enjoying the perfect weather and gorgeous trails.

The girls had a great time. We all had a great time really, except for the snake, (which reminded me of Diana and Miley), and the cockle burrs. The girls all managed to find the bush of cockle burrs and poor Maizey had to sit for quite a long time while we patiently tried to free them from her pretty ears. Dare kept grabbing brushes out of the bag and bringing them to us, like, “Will this help?” “Do you want to try this brush?” Eventually she gave up on the brushes and started bringing us poop bags. LOL Maybe she thought we could use them to throw the burrs away. She’s such a nut!

Here’s a picture of the three pretty girls, before the cockle burr incident.

After a nice relaxing walk, we all piled back in my car, not the Toyota Corolla that needs a water pump and came back home. It was lots of fun. Thanks to Maizey and her mom for joining us on our walk!

The fence materials should be coming in either tomorrow or Thurs. My husband won’t actually be able to work on cutting the wrought iron fence out and getting the post holes dug for the new posts till Friday after work. In the meantime though, I’m trying to do little stuff to help get ready. We’ve got about half the rocks moved away from the base of the existing fence. I also got about half the chicken wire taken off the fence today too. I think I can get the rest of the rocks moved and chicken wire removed tomorrow. That would give us Thurs. to try to figure out a temporary fence before we start taking this old one out. I think it’s going to be a couple weekends before we have the new one up and functional.

I haven’t forgotten about my training challenge either…I have plans to go on Friday to a new place with some friends to train. Should be fun!

This is a long overdue project. When we moved into this house, the yard was not totally fenced in. On two sides, it did have a fence. A chain link fence across the front and on the south side of the yard, there was field fencing. That left the North and West side open. Obviously, that wouldn’t work. So when we came across an ad for someone selling their wrought iron fence, we jumped at the opportunity. The only problem, (well, not the only problem), is that it’s only 3 feet high. In Lucy’s eyes, it’s really nothing more than a speed bump when she decides to jump. Twist showed us another problem. The wrought iron isn’t spaced exactly, so there are slight variations and when one is a little bigger, he can slip right through. So, we put up chicken wire on the inside of the fence and that helped with Twist’s escape. It has only had so/so success. The bottom line is that we need a new fence.

So far, we have the fence material ordered. It’s not going to be a gorgeous fence, but it should be very practical. It will be the welded fence panels and log posts like on the other side of the driveway for the boarding kennel field. The only difference is that instead of getting the 4″x4″ squares, we’re getting the 2″x4″ for our dogs. It will be 5 feet high, so hopefully even agile Lucy will not be able to clear it. I’m pretty excited, except for all the work that it’s going to take to get the old fence out and to move the rocks inside the perimeter of the yard away from the fence so the new one can be put in. I better remember to take my vitamins so I have plenty of energy. I think we are going to shoot for trying to get the old fence out next weekend. I don’t know if the new one will be up that quickly or not, but we’ll have something temporary in the meantime. I’ll keep you all posted.