I am an eager beaver.

See how I helped Mother – such dirty, tiring and tedious work! But someone has to do it!

Over the weekend, my pals Ruthie, Reyla, Enzo & Wally celebrated their first birthday at K9 Kulture! We had a fabulous time of course. Me especially so! I was like a moth to Ruthie’s flame. Mother kept slapping her hand to her forehead when I chased her down and tried to show her my moves. She mumbled something about it being a good thing Ruthie wore some pants but not that I knew how to do it anyway. It? What’s It? 

Here are pictures from that day!

Mother decided to buy a whole duck from the market on Sunday. She got a big bag of hearts, livers and gizzards from 8 ducks for free! She says she’s so going back to this butcher. Instead of having to pay for 

livers and other “spare parts”, she can get it for free! Here was my dinner that night. Not for the faint hearted. I’ve decided I don’t like duck as much as other meats tho’. It doesn’t seem to have any smell! 

Mother told me that after she had chopped off the duck’s head, neck and a wing, it quacked. She and Auntie M, our helper stopped and Auntie M asked “Did you hear that?” And Mother was like.. “YEA! FREAKY!” So apparently this duck’s soul is still flying around. Either that or Mother has gone a little quacky!

Mother and Father took half the day off on Monday to run some errands then took me to the Botanical Gardens! I prefer the place when it’s not so crowded. We usually go on a

 Sunday when there are alot of people and dogs all around! Mother put my on a long leash and let me run around. I showed her tho’! I followed wherever she went and listened to her directions and she rewarded me by running through the fields! I love running! I don’t think Mother does tho’. She says she’s allergic to running – her thighs itch and all that.

Me: Mother.. *nudges her face with my nose* Mother wake up.

Mother: *grumble mumble* mm.. nnn..

Me: Hello, Mother! Wakey wakey! *nudges her face again* Mother!

Mother: *mumble* Go away boy.

(repeat above for another 15 minutes)

Me: *more frantic* MOTHER! WAKE UP!

Mother: (no response)

Me: *tries to get off the bed by climbing down the bedside table*

(Something clatters to the floor.)

Mother: What the. *stirs* What do you want Romeo..

Me: MUMMMMMYYYYYYYYY!!!!!! *nudges her face again and looks desperately at the floor from the bed*

(Mother grumbles and airlifts me off the bed onto the floor.)

Me: *runs to the peetray* AAAAaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh. Ooh oh wait wait for it.. *sputter sputter… ploop ploop ploooop* AAAHHHHHHhhhh. Relief at last.

Mother: *stares at the contents that fell out of my body, understanding dawning on her face* Ooohhh. *sheepish* Sorry boy, mummy forgot to give you enough bone with your rich lamb shank dinner. Teehee. Oopsie. Good thing you know not to do it on the bed! How long did you have to control? You didn’t take long to wake me up did you? Heehee.

Me: -.- So. Not. Funny. *punishes Mother by making her wash my furry butt at 5am in the morning*

(The End.)

BOOKS

1. Canine Body Language – Brenda Aloff
2. Aggression in Dogs – Brenda Aloff
3. Shaping the Wolf Within Your Dog – Nathan B. Childs
4. Learning Games – Kay Laurence
5. Dogspeak – Matthew Hoffman
6. The Power of Positive Training – Pat Miller
7. A Dog Who’s Always Welcome – Lorie Long
8. The Dog’s Mind – Dr Bruce Fogle
9. The Dog Listener – Jan Fennell
10. How To Be Your Dog’s Best Friend – The Monks of New Skete
11. Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats – Dr Pitcairn
12. 101 Dog Tricks – Kyra Sundance and Chalcy
13. Click to Calm – Emma Parsons
14. The Other End of the Leash – Patricia McConnell
15. For the Love of a Dog – Patricia McConnell
16. Dog Owner’s Home Veterinary Handbook - Eldridge, Carlson, Carlson, Griffin & Adelman
17. How to Raise a Puppy You Can Live With – Clarice Rutherford & David Neil
18. Dog Training (old book – published 1984) – Ernest Hart (out of print)
19. Excel-erated Learning – Pamela Reid
20. Scaredy Dog! – Ali Brown
21. The Cautious Canine – Patricia McConnell
22. Why Does My Dog Act That Way? – Stanley Coren
23. How to Speak Dog – Stanley Coren
24. How Dogs Think – Stanley Coren
25. Shetland Sheepdogs (old book – published 1990) – Beverly Pisano
26. How to Train Your Shetland Sheepdog – Palika
27. Clicking with your Dog – Peggy Tillman
28. The ABCs of Positive Training – Miriam Fields-Babineau
29. On Talking Terms with Dogs (Calming Signals) – Turid Rugaas
30. Control Unleashed – Leslie McDevitt (currently reading!)
31. After You Get Your Puppy – Ian Dunbar
32. Good Little Dog Book – Ian Dunbar
33. Raw Meaty Bones – Tom Lonsdale
34. First Aid for the Active Dog – Sid Gustafson (shipped! on its way!)

DVDS

1. The Language of Dogs (Understanding Canine Body Language and Other Communication Signals) – Sarah Kalnajs
2. Am I Safe? (The Art & Science of Canine Behaviour Assessments) – Sarah Kalnajs
3. Really Reliable Recall – Leslie Nelson
4. The Dog Whisperer (Season 1) – Cesar Millan
5. Fighting Dominance in a Dog Whispering World – Jean Donaldson & Ian Dunbar
6. Control Unleashed (Foundation Seminar) - Leslie McDevitt (already shipped! yay!)
7. Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months – Ed Frawley (Leerburg)
8. The How of Bow Wow – Virginia Broitman & Sherri Lippman (bought & downloaded from Internet)
9. How to Massage Your Dog – Maria Duthie (shipped! arriving soon!)

“To buy” list:

• Clicker Train Your Own Assistance Dog DVD Set – I think Mother is getting lazier and lazier!
• ABCs of Behaviour Shaping DVD – More training Mother?!
• Tracking DVD - Oh great. Now I must use my nose?? 

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??

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 got this amazing treat making machine! She puts all sorts of thinly sliced meats and liver and tendons in it and they come out dried like chips or jerky! She kept referring to it as a dehydrator. I call it God. Mother went to the wet market (Tekka Market actually) to get me beef liver and beef tendons and a rack of lamb ribs. She haaaaates wet markets and told me she held her breath and tip toed around the entire time! She kept saying “see what Mummy does for you!!” as she snipped up the tendons (oh she hates handling raw meat too. *snigger*). She made liver treats and tendon chewies (just like my favourite ones which she used to buy from the petstores!). She says home made treats are healthier and wants to make some for friends! She’s even made some dried apple slices for herself. I didn’t like those. Ick. For dinner, I was given 2 raw ribs for dinner. LOVED them. I’m happy to hear that Mother will be feeding me raw on weekends! She’s sold on the idea that chewing the bones will keep my teeth cleaned, and she feels this way I’ll get the best of both worlds – home cooked AND raw! I like raw. I feel like the wolf in me emerges. Roowrrrr! Or whatever sounds wolves make.

Sorry I hadn’t been updating my blog much last week. I stepped on a wriggling dying bee and got stung on my paw! Mother kept slapping her forehead saying that only I can get stung on my PAW of all places. She pulled the stinger out for me (she used a tweezer then later realized she shouldn’t have because she could have forced more venom in!!) then applied a paste of baking soda and water to it to neutralize the venom. To relieve the pain she tried to dip my paw in a cup of icy water but soon gave up and let me paw the ice from my bowl instead. Fun! It was like a game! Thankfully my paw didn’t swell up and I had no allergic reaction to the sting (no vomiting, difficulty in breathing, epilepsy, etc). Phew! That’s a picture of the stinger and some of the bee’s butt flesh. It wasn’t terribly big, more like a tiny splinter but STILL!

I’m getting a new trainer! Mother is sick and tired of being pressured at every single training class to put a prong collar on me. She will happily forfeit the $800+ she has spent for my classes if she never has to be told to “let the collar do the talking” ever again. I overheard her conversation with Grandpa where she went “If that’s the case, then I might as well just buy the collar and fire the trainer! Who needs a trainer when all you do it let the collar do its work?? That’s not training! What a load of bullcrap. I don’t need to be told at every single lesson that if I put a prong collar on Romeo he will be more attentive. I already said NO. Which part of that doesn’t he understand?! Stupid fool. Don’t come and tell me you’ve trained hundreds of dogs with a prong collar. For every 100 he’s trained this way, another 100 have been trained using a choke chain. Should I use that too!? And another 100 trained using purely positive methods! If he is such a good trainer then bloody find an alternative solution for me! I should have known. I did see an electric collar on one of his dogs. Poor Jack would yelp and cry out everytime he barked and got zap. He really ought to put in writing that ALL STUDENTS ARE TO USE PRONG COLLARS because really, we’re NOT given a choice at all. If I had known I wouldn’t have signed up. I’m surprised no one other than myself has questioned the need for such collars on their dog. Surely someone must have thought “there has to be a better way”?!?” Mother was super pissed off on Sunday and vowed never to go back to him again. She’s currently looking for another trainer.

I LOVE IT! I’m getting more today apparently. Mother’s been trying to get me to focus more on her so she said she needed something that’ll get my attention (oh boy oh boy!) but which was healthy (she keeps saying I’m fat!). She also went out and bought 2 15 feet long leashes for distance work. We only used one yesterday. She’d at random places, stop and ask me to look at her. Then when she saw dogs in the distance, she would do the same, then wait until they got closer and asked me to look at her again! I know she’s pretty (coughs) but really, there’s just so much of her I can take! She also did the same thing with barking dogs behind gates. We’d go closer and she’d stop and make me watch her. She gets very happy when I staaaaarreee at her.

She trained “come” outdoors where there was some distraction (traffic, a couple of people walking). She said I did good when I bounded to her. Then she trained sitting at a distance from a stand stay using the same 15ft leash. And also standing at a distance from a sit stay, except every time she asks me to stand, 15 ft away, I tend to take one or 2 steps forward too! She’s not liking that! She says she’s going to increase the distance tonight. Then on Sunday, we’re going to take it to the Botanical Gardens – a place with even more distractions! She’s hoping to get a couple of strangers (esp kids) to feed me some treats! I already love children, Mother, but if you want them to feed me, SURE!

Last Saturday morning Mother took me to the Animal Resort! FINALLY! It was bright and sunny and Father drove us to the place. Uncle K was there training his German Shepherd. Mother wanted to go say Hi, but then saw that the GS pup was being trained to attack the training helper’s arm (looked like fun!) and decided against it! She was afraid I’d get mauled. PFFFTT. Please. First of all, Uncle K’s dogs are super well trained AND I can hold my own, thank you very much! So instead, she took me around to meet rabbits, peacocks, goats, cranes, geese (scary!) and a HUGE prehistoric looking bird that is as tall as a short man with a beak as long as a leg! It snapped its beak and I jumped. Father says it reminds him of Mr Burns from the Simpsons.

Sunday was dreary. It rained and rained. When it let up in the afternoon, Mother took me to walk around the neighbourhood. I met my rough collie friend and his ‘brother’ Sparky again! Sparky is so barky. Hurhur. No class on Sunday because there was some agility trials that day. Saturday saw me losing focus. Well, not really, I was totally focussed! Just not on Mother and training, but on Muffy the mongrel from Thailand! Muffy doesn’t really like other dogs and snapped at me when I tried to make my Casanova move which got me abit rattled so I ended up yelling at her in frustration. Pfft. You’ve not experienced anything until you’ve experienced The Romeo! Mother’s also getting increasing pissed off with the trainer coz he keeps pressuring her to put that prong collar on me. Mother’s just about ready to box his ears.

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!

Mother’s been busy but that doesn’t seem to stop her from teaching me things and making sure I do my homework! Everyday before we go for our evening passeggiata (stroll), she would insist that I sit nicely while she puts on my walking garments, a pale blue collar and leash and my new yellow Muttluk boots (which are a tad on the large side). She’s been trying to bribe me with new treats she bought online – freeze dried beef liver. Yum.

Yesterday, I showed off my tracking skills by following this really stinky trail on the road. It led to a squished squirrel. You can still make out the head and actually, the poor dude’s expression as he passed. Poor thing. Mother freaked out of course and refused to let me near it.