How 'Bout 21 Miles In 30 days?

Our 40 Miles In 30 Days Challenge is over. It turned out to be a 21 miles in 30 days challenge. But it was 21 miles we really enjoyed. And a great thanks to everyone who joined or supported us!

One thing I like about the challenges for myself and the girls is that at the end it gives a great chance to look back and evaluate how it went. This time I just got distracted. There are so many things I want to learn and so little time sometimes I have a hard time focusing!

I also found that with the weather getting nicer we were doing many more outside activities, and while not the physical exercise of walking, it is still good time together. Especially the training we are doing out on the yard now.

Its interesting how even the daily life lessons are different now that we are out and about more. A small thing, but very important to me, is the time spent in the garden which has led to a whole new kind of Zen, garden zen. As in, "No Maizey you and the Nellie monster can NOT have the zoomies in my newly planted garden!" Another garden lesson, "go out!" As in, "UGG! Quit rolling in the newly watered seeds and getting all muddy! In fact just GO OUT of the garden!"

Have I mentioned not all Cavaliers are princesses?

And overseeing it all is my serene Meeka, surveying her kingdom.

As for walking challenges? We will do a new one, and maybe next time the miles won't win!

On The Road With Four Busy Legs

We finally did get on the road on Monday. I'm not sure why but it always seems to take me forever to get out the door when we take a trip. For one thing I am a compulsive over packer, especially when it comes to the dogs. Maizey finally put an end to that though. 

 

 "That's enough mom! No more packing!"

So we did finally get the car packed. You know the kind of thing like loading the carseat, making sure we had all of the essentials like treats, clicker, water, travel bowls and it goes on and on . . . and of course we had to explain to Meeka that she had to stay home.

 "Comeon I'm all ready to go!"

"The hugs good crazymomlady but staying home really stinks!"

  

Then the drive commenced. It's less than three hours when you don't have four busy legs pitching a fit 'cause she has decided that today she hates her carseat!

"You are evil and mean for putting me in here!"

If you have that then the drive is oh. . . about 300 hours because then you spend half of the time training carseat zen instead of actually driving. You stop and take 16 walks instead of the normal one walk when you stop to get gas and perhaps one more because crazy mom lady has to "go poddy."LOL

 "Pleeeaaase let me out of this torture chamber!"

But it was all good because I promised myself that no matter what happened on this trip the whole trip was strictly for training. Well and the part where I get to get out of the city and actually breathe in the beauty of color and space. So we took our time and worked with the car seat. She finally went to sleep I thought she had it down.

 Insert crazymomlady having the illusion she actually taught the princessface something.LOL

However I hate to admit that ultimately the busy four legs won and crazymomlady lost. Twenty minutes from our friends house and as soon as I got on the freeway where of course I couldn't pull over easily she actually pulled herself out of her harness and escaped to lay in the back window of the car! 

So car seat zen, park-it and settle are all going to get a lot more work at our house. It's strange she had such an issue with it though because she has traveled in that seat many times before, and we have been working it in the house. But since we can't use a crate in the car we have now we will be working with the car seat some more. Hopefully the drive home will go more smooth!

Mugged By A Herd Of Small Children

We went for a walk this evening. In 25 minutes we made it four houses away.

Not an auspicious start to our "walk X number of miles in 30 days plan." It's X number of miles because I haven't got that far in the plan yet to decide how many miles we'll do.lol Apparently our walking log will look like: Day 1: 400'

Oh well, it was all for a good 4 legged lesson.

So what happened four houses down? We were mugged by herd of children! No, don't be alarmed no one was injured or too permanently traumatized, they were a very nice herd of children. It started with two, then another little girl came out with her mom. That was interesting because the mom says to me, "Can she pet your dog with out getting her face chewed off?" By that point the first two kids were giving the girls treats and pets so I 'm thinking, "I hope so or these two little kids are in some serious trouble!"

Slowly three more little kids trickled out and joined the party. So here is me, Meeka, Maizey and FIVE kids all kneeling down on the side walk. Did I mention I don't have any kids? Yeah, me:no kids. I find when I'm by myself kids really aren't interested in me, apparently I'm pretty boring. But me and my girls? Now that's quality kid entertainment!

It went like this: us walking, Meeka perfect loose leash, Maizey on her new harness being a maniac because we are walking toward a scruffy black dog in a fence. Here comes two little kids, running, of course! I see them, I stop, put Meeka in a sit-stay and the kids of course run right up into the girls space, waving their hands and shouting, "Can we pet your dogs? Can we pet your dogs?"

Now here's is where it get's interesting. Maizey is still boinging  around and shouting at the scruffy black dog, the scruffy black dog is boinging around and shouting back, the kids are boinging around and shouting at me, Meeka is sitting, but wiggling, a lot. Cute girl.

I answer the kids, "You can pet them, but you all have to be nice." I don't think they realized I meant them and the dogs.lol So I told them to ball up their fists, hold them out and put them under the girls noses, then they could pet under their chins. I had to keep reminding Meeka to sit, but she would. Meanwhile. . . Maizey continues her crazy act.(sigh)

So I told the kids to back up two big steps, think "Mother-May-I-" in reverse. It worked! The kids backed up and then I told them to stand still (is that a stand-stay for kids?) and I backed up until Maizey was under threshold and could sit and do a glance "watch". Then I told the kids to come forward very slowly. I kept cuing the girls to sit and marking it w/ a yes/treat. Soon enough the kids were giving the girls the treats and, thank goodness, everyone was a LOT calmer.

By this time the other kids had trickled in so I asked every one to squat down and we played a crazy game of "hand zen". Picture the girls in a sit, and 5 little hands held out palm up just out reach above their heads. I place one treat in each little palm and tell them to immediately close their hand. Then I had them sit still with hands closed and when the girls sat and were calm, not nosing towards the treats, one of the little kids would open their hand and the girls could take the treat. If things started getting too wild (of course they were wild! Five kids, two dogs and a me is not a recipe for calm!lol) but if they started getting too wild I just told every one to close their hand and cued a "leave it" to my girls. They did so good! And they had a blast.

Then the kids wanted to see some tricks so I put Maizey on a sit in the grass and showed them Meeka's wave, and hand shake. That really got them going because then they all wanted to "shake her hand." So I told them to all get in a single-file line and one at a time they came up and put out their hand for a Meeka hand shake and gave her a treat. It was adorable. Meanwhile I was able to keep working Maizey on being calm and maintaining her sit-stay. The kids kept saying, "Can Maizey do tricks?" Little did they know she was learning the hardest trick of all-self control!

All in all we didn't get our walk, but their truly was too many great 4 legged lessons to list. For the pups and kids!

A tired puppy is a happy puppy!

Today I was reminded, again:), just how much happier the dogs are when we work for just a few minutes a day.

We always hear the vital importance of physical exercise for our 4 legged friends, but often neglected is the vital importance of mental exercise, or stimulation. Of course regular physical exercise can't be underestimated, but the truth is I see them just as tired from a few sessions of positive reenforcement training as from a good walk. Combine the two and they'll sack out for hours!LOL

That certainly showed tonight. Today we were in and out much of the day and the girlies entertained themselves (aka snoozed;)). They are fine to be left, never destructive or noisy. But when we got home in the afternoon they were full of energy. Normally this would be a great time for a walk, but that wasn't possible today. So with their dinner I did 3 ten minute sessions w/ Maizey, and basically a longer "play" session w/ Meeka.

Maizey did one session of L2 'down-stay'. She did excellent! Then a while later, as in after I put the dishes away, we worked one session of L2 'go to mat'. It was her first session working that and she really had to think, even though it is something she is familiar with. Then a few minutes later we did one session to practice for her L2 'zen' test. She has this down pat so its more like a fun game, less thinking.

It really just took about 30 minutes total, we both had fun and after that this is what we got:

 

Translation: A tired puppy is happy puppy!

Beginnings

It's true dog training in not something new in our house, but recently we started the Training Levels program by Sue Ailsby. There will be many more details to come, but for today an example in the Levels effectiveness.

One important skill for any dog to have is to know what they can have and when they can have it. Enter the common  'leave it' command. In the Levels program 'leave it' is covered under the skill called Zen. In short it means teaching the 4legged one to have self control. A valuable lesson no doubt, no matter how many legs you have!LOL

Due to the small amount of training we had done w/ 'leave it' Maizey's response was to simply sit down next to whatever undesirable thing she should be turning away from it. So on good advice from the folks who know so much about the Levels I started over following the steps in level 1 Zen and since she had the basic concept she shaped a better 'leave it' quickly.

Tonight she showed me just how well she understood. I was eating an orange, something she LOVES, and she was sitting on my lap, but started getting too close to my food. One 'leave it' and she started to insistently try to jump down. Due to her recent knee surgery she isn't allowed to jump right now so I kept stopping her. But she obviously wanted down so I put her down. Where she immediately took about 3 steps back from me and sat down and looked at me with the "see? I did just what you said, where the heck is my treat?" look.LOL

Due to a turn for the worse w/ her knee we really haven't trained the last two days but the levels help them be so reliable! I'm so pleased to have this great info to teach her!