The thing my Mother indulges in the most is shopping online (right now she’s looking for stuff for my birthday party which she is planning – MARCH 22 (Sunday) people! Jot that down in your diaries!).

I asked Mother where she buys stuff from me and she gave me a little list:

1. Trixie + Peanut
2. The Puppy Shop
3. Amazon
4. Coastal Pet Supplies on Amazon.com
5. KV Vet Supply on Amazon.com
6. SitStay – This one only accepts US credit cards but Mother did a wire money transfer through the bank.
7. Haute Hound
8. 2 Hounds Design
9. Clean Run – Alot of agility related stuff
10. Ralph Lauren (Pets) – Mother bought me polo tees so I will look like Father. Sigh.

I think Mother plans on adding more to the list. Stay tuned??

Mother’s been under the weather lately. She says she may have gotten some bug transmitted virus when we went walking near a heavily forested area in our neighbourhood. She keeps pawing at me saying “Romeo, mummy is dying.. dyiiiiinnnngggg” and I quickly scramble to get away from her as fast as I can! The good thing about this tho’ is that she’s been home since Friday last week and will only go back to work on Thursday!

Some more stuff Mother bought online (*rolls eyes*) came in the other day. Her favourites from that package are:

1. a book that teaches dogs play, shaping, exploring, memory skills (I have none), self awareness and puzzle solving;
2. a DVD that is supposed to help her teach me to automatically go to her without thinking when she says “Romeo come!”; and
3. a toy dangling from a nylon rope attached to a plastic stick – looks like a fishing rod.

The book is called Learning Games by Kay Laurence. Mother wants to teach me alot of stuff from there (oh boy)! The games listed in there not only help work the mind but also the body and the steps are described very clearly. There’s a column which details what the dog is to do, another column next to that telling you where to click to mark and a last column which tells you where to reward (eg. throw it somewhere or direct from the hand). It looked complicated at first but I heard Mother saying “Wow! This book is really easy to use!” before she came looking for me to be her guinea pig. Some of the games taught include teaching a dog to walk around a pole at a distance, getting a dog to step onto a brick/book using its 2 back feet only, and teaching a dog how to spot the odd one out. Mother has tried the odd one out game with me using 2 square coasters and a round one. She started off with only one square and one round one and kept clicking and treating when I pawed the round one. Then she brought in the other square coaster. Then she would sneakily move the pieces around, but ha-HA! She couldn’t fool me! I could pick the round one out every time!

The DVD is quite cool. It actually benefited me coz I’ve been getting alot of liver treats after Mother watched it. It’s called “Really Reliable Recall – Train your dog to come when called.. no matter what!” by Leslie Nelson. It’s a video of a seminar this woman gave but the tips were reeeally good. The aim is to get me to automatically turn away from whatever I’m doing and run to her. And the way to do this (amongst other steps) is for Mother to only call me to come when she’s sure that I would, and then reward me for THIRTY SECONDS (yahoo!!) by giving me tiny bits of liver treats over and over (it’s called “fine dining” as opposed to “fast food”, and leaves a more memorable impression). Mother says I’m good at home – I will run down 3 stories when she hollers my name – but no good outdoors where there are other more interesting things.

I looooove the fishing rod toy! I think Mother bought it coz she was getting abit lazy, but it’s actually good fun for me. All she does is stand there and flick her wrist or arm about making the fleece lump at the end of the nylon rope move on the floor or jiggle in the air and I’m off after it! She makes it quite hard for me to get it but I’m SMART. I go for the ROPE. Heheheh. This toy is supposed to help build drive and Mother was amazed when after like 5 minutes of play, I was off running laps around the house like a speed demon!

I tooootally rock I tell you. Mother took out part 2 of the 3 christmas gift puzzles she got me and I had it down faster than you can say my full name! This one consists of small overturned cups with treats underneath on a round wooden plate with special indents for each cup. I’m supposed to lift the cups with my mouth only not paw at it. It didn’t budge anyway when I tried to smack it off. Then when I put my nose/mouth near it Mother cheered and use her hands to clamp my jaw around a cup and helped me lift one off. She did it like 2 more times and I figured it out for myself! I went around removing each cup like a PRO!  She was elated! And kept telling me I’m a smart doggy! The problem however, she says, is that I have no concept of memory. I will always go back to sniff cups I have lifted looking for treats, or go back to the indents in the round wooden plate to look for treats I’ve already eaten. I did the same thing with the sliding tiles puzzle. I would keep sliding the same tiles back only to find NOTHING coz I’ve already eaten the treat!! Mother keeps slapping her forehead and saying things like “just when I think you’re smart, you go do something like that”.

That reminds me of our walk the other night. She was pleased with how I reacted to strangers with dogs and she was telling me how great I am. Then I sort of didn’t see where I was going and one of my hind legs ended up in a gutter hole. Mother howled with laughter (to me) and then went on to comment about how I can be so silly sometimes. When we got home, I chewed her glasses until the lens broke for revenge. Hmpf.

This is going to be a long post, so bear with me puppies. It has been an exciting last 2 weeks!

First off, MERRY CHRISTMAS FUR FRIENDS! Mother put me in a silly santa hat and bribed me with tons of treats to sit still so she can snap a picture. I think out of the 2958 pictures she took, only 2 were usable. *snigger* Guess how many treats I got to eat because I wouldn’t sit still? I’m so smart I can’t believe it sometimes.

It as a nice first Christmas! I love the christmas tree but it was fenced off for fear that I might topple it by playing tug with the branches. My gifts sat beneath the tree until Christmas eve when Mother and her family had their Christmas eve turkey

 dinner (which I was not allowed to partake in – what’s wrong with jumping up on the table to grab a bite – Mother kept making me liedown next to her every time I hopped up to look at (and try to steal) the festive goodies until I got tired and went to get my chew toy and settled down next to her).

That’s me enthusiastically ripping off wrapping paper in front of the mousies (who got to eat the damn turkey). I got some yummy treats from Grandpa and Grandma this Christmas! And 3 annoying toys from Mother. Why couldn’t she get me something I could eat! Instead I got 3 Nina Ottoson puzzles that hide treats which I have to use my Harvard brain to get out. Pffft. Seriously Mother, did you think I can’t get past a couple of sliding tiles to the treats below? Just because I like to scratch at it and chew it and am more proficient in pulling the tiles towards me instead of sliding it away doesn’t mean I can’t get to the treats so stop giving me that “oh my god you did it!” look.

New Year’s day was spent trying not to drown. MOTHER TRIED TO DROWN ME AT CLUB4PAWS! She kept saying “Romeo! Want to go swimming?” What the heck is swimming anyway?? Is it being lured with treats to stand on all fours in shallow water? Or being carried further out into the giant bath tub and let go off to paddle and fling my paws around for dear life?? To be honest, I didn’t have much of a problem with getting into the pool. Just the step that is that leads to the deeper part of the pool. I can get my feet wet, no problemo! But I’m not too keen on this whole paddling in water thing. Mother tried to feed me an entire bag of treats there to make me feel better throughout my whole watery ordeal. She was explaining to Father that this has to be a positive experience for me. I’m not sure she succeeded! But I did get better at the paddling though. I started off looking like a drowning rat throwing my legs out everywhere but after a couple of times of Mother supporting my belly (AND THEN LETTING GO – hmpf) I think I got the whole “swimming” thing. I still swim for dear life towards the steps of course. Maybe after a few more tries I’ll enjoy paddling around the giant tub. That’s me looking like the wet dog that I was.

Speaking of wet, Mother is trying this new shampoo and conditioner, Les Pooch, that she got at my furdressers/manicurists/pedicurists, Petstylist at Holland Grove. It makes me smell really nice and quite manly, if I do say so myself. Mother loves that it makes my fur soft. I suppose that would come in handy when I turn my charm on the ladies. It’s not cheap though and Mother bemoans the fact that I have enough fur to cover a football field and tries to dilute the stuff to make it last just a wee bit longer.

We got a new trainer! From Puppylove! My good friend Taylor is also being trained by her! The trainer is really nice and she doesn’t use methods like leash tugging or force Mother to put a prong collar on me. She uses good old positive reinforcement using the clicker and negative punishment (time outs, ignoring me, etc) as opposed to positive punishment which is actively doing something to punish me (like smacking me or tugging the leash, etc). What I got from the class was lots and lots of treats! We learnt the following things on our first class:

1. Recall / the Name Game

Mother cannot call me to come to her anymore unless she has a delicious treat with her! She is now carrying a small pouch of treats and a clicker with her whenever she’s at home. It’s mostly because she realised she used the “come” command rather often and caught herself doing it a few time then running to the nearest treat jar. Teeheehee. Father also got a shelling from Mother for always asking me to come. It’s too funny! I think their trying to make me think that every time they call me to come, I will always get a treat, so why wouldn’t I want to go to them? That’s pretty smart I have to admit. I don’t mind the treats either!

Mother is also supposed (as homework! She likes homework, or so she says) to play the Name Game with me and other people. All the humans should sit in a circle or something a short distance apart and take turns calling me to come to them. They can only say “Romeo Come!” ONCE. They are not allowed to repeat the command but they can make stupid noises or wave their arms to get my attention and hopefully I’ll go over to them! When I do go to them, I get a treat! Each person will call me to him/her randomly to throw me off apparently so I don’t think there’s a pattern. Mother was told to work in a low distraction area first, like in the house, and slowly widen the distance between the people until she can call me from one end of the house and I’ll come running! Then she is to do it outdoors where there are more people/dogs/distractions and start again with the small circle and work it up until I will come when called from afar. I’m cool with any game where I get tons of treats!

2. Loose leash walking

Mother never actually trained me to do this coz I’m a born gentleman and I don’t drag her down the street and make her totter behind unglamorously. Once in a while when a fresh pile of poop catches my nose I would tug her a little towards it, but that’s as far as I will pull. She tried to stop me from doing that by standing stock still, but she thought that was never very effective with me. Mother thinks that it’s kind of stupid to walk a dog on heel all the time and doesn’t mind that I stop and smell poop and catch up on pee news by the lamp posts, which was why she found the trainer’s method very good – it encourages the dog to walk next to the human but the dog is never punished for enjoying itself a bit by wandering further from the human on the walk.

She was taught during our lesson to click and treat every time I fall in next to her and walk beside her. Mother now imagines that there are 2 boxes on her left and right and if I walk within those boxes, I get rewarded! I also get rewarded every time I look at her while walking. Mother has been diligently practising this since last weekend and she said I’m like a new dog by the 2nd walk we tried this technique! Yes, it’s true. I’m now more inclined to walk right next to Mother, often right past where I would usually stop and sniff and pee. Sometimes I go so close it’s like I’m walking between her legs, hoping that will get me more treats! I also look at her more too. She really likes that. She thinks I’m great! 

3. Targeting

Mother has taught me to nose her palm wherever she puts it. She’ll stick her open hand out and say “Romeo, here!” and I’ll walk right over and put my nose on her palm. She uses it to position me further away from the door for a sit stay so I don’t get hit when she opens it for us to go out. The trainer taught Mother how to get me to target a coaster (any smallish flat thing can be used) with my nose on the first lesson! It was pretty easy for me since I already knew how to do it with Mother’s hand. Mother is hoping I get real good at it then she can try to get me to nose things like light switches or cabinets to close them. That woman is getting real lazy! The trainer said that once I’m really good at nosing the coaster when held up by hand, Mother can try sticking the coaster on walls, etc and add more distance between me and the coaster (making me walk again!).

Can’t wait for our next lesson!

I’m getting real good at jumping up onto Mother’s couch in her room now. Up and down, easy peasy. I can even climb onto the top of the back of the sofa! I really like standing on the sofa and looking out the window and stuff going on downstairs. Mother keeps calling me “kaypoh” which means busybody I think. She was hoping she can save money by letting me use it as my bed but yesterday while I was lying on it with her sitting next to me, I tried to roll over for a belly rub, except my ass rolled off the sofa and Mother had a great big laugh. For that, I’m making her buy me a new bed.

I’m taking this opportunity to say to my buddy Taylor, GET WELL SOON OL’ BOY! He went for The Big Snip on Monday and Mother said his mum was worried but that he’s doing ok. I hope I get to see big brother Taylor at the next Sheltie hook-up!

Mother left me by my lonesome again this weekend. Ok I wasn’t completely along since there were some 4 other people in the house, but it felt pretty boring without Mother around! When she got back on Sunday night she said she’d take me to the Animal Resort on Monday! Whee! I’ve wanted to go there FOREVER! But you know, I must be the most unlucky dog because Monday was nothing but rain rain rain. Mother was mad. She shook her fist at the sky and said some words I didn’t understand that sounded like ‘duck’.

As a consolation, I was given A RAW LAMB SHANK that Mother had bought from the butchers! Mother pinched her nose with one hand and with the other carried the big juicy meaty bone to the dining room and dropped it on the floor. She kept complaining that it smells gross (Mother’s mum said the house smelt like Tekka market) but it was divine to me! I had so much fun chewing and tearing at the flesh and gnawing at the bone! I hope Mother gives me another one! It can rain all week for all I care! So long as I get a raw flesh covered bone!

I’ve been playing with this toy that’s like a rubber ball with 2 flat sides that you squeeze these food/treat discs into. It bounces around and drives me utterly MAD. I keep yelling at the thing to stop moving and to release the discs but nothing happens! It’s called the Everlasting Treat Ball (how apt) by StarMark pet products. Mother loves it because it keeps me occupied while she gets ready for work. I don’t understand why she needs to spend so much time on her makeup and hair. I mean, look at me! I look great and I spend only 15 minutes a day on grooming!

Oh yea. Dear ol’ Mother, impulsive online shopper that she is, has bought stuff which she now wants to sell because (she claims) I’m too fat and can’t fit into them. I think she’s just bitter that she got the sizing wrong. I’m not fat! I’m big boned! I’ll get more information and put it up soon!