Independence day weekend

December 6th was Finnish Independence Day so we had a long weekend. On Saturday I went to visit a friend of mine and we also did some alert training. Riva's bark alert is coming along nicely but we have not tried victims that lay down on the ground, only standing ones. His alert behavior needs to be very solid before I dare to have victims lying down so that he doesn't harass them (even though it is out of friendliness). In wilderness search the victims can be out in the open so the dog must know how to behave nicely when alerting so it doesn't frighten or hurt people.

On Sunday we did some obedience stuff with my friends and I was very satisfied with Riva. We have not done a lot of training under distractions, it has been mostly at home or private sessions. Still, he did very nicely, we did figure eights around people and small stay excercises with my friends standing around and talking as distraction. Riva would focus nicely while working and waited untill I released him and then visited with people.

And he is still doing well with being loose in the bedroom. He spent three days free last week and I left him free this morning again. I still put him into the pen occasionally for nights etc.

Home alone part 2

Yesterday was the second day Riva spent free in the bedroom with Jambi. Nothing destroyed :-), I left them a couple of rawhide chews to entertain them in the morning.

Big boy priviledges

Yesterday was a big day in our lives. Riva got to spend the day free in the bedroom for the first time. So far he has been in the x-pen to protect both the house and himself but he had wiggled his way out of the pen on both Monday and Tuesday. After that I decided that maybe it is time to let him try being free for the day. He has been spending shorter times free alone but 1.5-2 hours at most.

After work I headed home wondering what is waiting for me when I open the door. Since Karma is in heat, the boys were confined to the bedroom. I was pleasantly surprised, only the newspapers that I had left on the floor (just in case) had been shredded and there were a few teethmarks on the foot of the bed but that's it. Even Jambi didn't look too tormented after spending a whole day with Riva. My puppy's a big boy!

Spooks

I have noticed that Riva has a spook period going on. Before he has been so confident and friendly in all situations but now he is spooked by certain things. Definately nothing serious and I think it will pass without any special attention. The first thing I noticed was that he barked in the parked car at some people walking towards the car. Then we saw the same elf puppet that he had seen outside the crafts shop a couple of weeks earlier and this time he wooffed at it a couple of times before going to check it out and being convinced its harmless. His reactions are still quite mild, a few woofs and a short hesitation before going to examine the target and then he relaxes. But to prevent them from escalating I did a few things. First of all, the crate he rides in the car is now covered so he can't see out. The second thing is a bit of extra effort in taking him to new and different places to desensitize him and if there is something that seems really hard for him, I will use the bar open/bar closed method to get him over it.

We met with Salme again last Wednesday. Things are progressing well with Riva but I have been a bit lazy about training. I must shape up and keep training regularly. The main homework we got from Salme is building time on stays, both sitting and down. Riva is old enough to be able to concentrate on doing things for a bit longer times.

Couple of pictures

These are not exactly new pictures but I just downloaded them for you to see.

First encounter with a dumbbell

During this week there has been quite a lot of discussion about retrieve and its teaching on a mailinglist I'm on and that inspired me to introduce the dumbbell to Riva.

I haven't started a formal retrieve training with him yet but I have been encouraging some behaviors that will help in it in the future. Like carrying things and bringing them to me, either to play with or to exchange to a treat. One of the "rules" is that I will not pick up things from the ground, if Riva wants to play he has to pick the toy up and offer it to me. Then we can play. Another one is that releasing a toy to my hand on cue will (usually) result in tossing another toy for him to play with. This makes teaching him a release cue easy because he is not resenting giving up his fun toy but instead anticipating the continuing of the play. In addition to the release cue ("kiitos") I have been pairing a cue ("ole hyvä") with him taking a toy that I offer into his mouth.

So with this in the background I took out my lightest dumbbell (about 400 g). I held it in my hand and told Riva "ole hyvä" and he took it in his mouth and started to walk around with it all wiggly. I praised him lavishly for carrying the dumbbell, eventhough he didn't really bring it to me just paraded around with it. He dropped the dumbbell a couple of times and I stopped praising him to which he reacted by picking up the dumbbell and I of course continued praising him. Then as he came to me again I took the dumbbell with "kiitos" and we played with his cotton rope toy for a while. The second time I offered the dumbbell to him I started to walk backwards and he followed me with the dumbbell in his mouth. Some more lavish praise and a play with the rope ended the session. I was tempted to try more but I guess I'm learning something since I had the good sense to stop it short and sweet.

I think that's enough for now and for his age. His hold of the dumbbell was good, solid and no chewing. I will continue reinforcing the same things as before and we'll get back to training a formal retrieve after he has grown a bit.

New friends

Last Saturday we met Luffe (Hazelmoor Kalimero). His owners were interested in search and so we headed to the forest together for a bit of training. Riva continued his alert training. This was Luffe's second search training and he is definitely a natural, friendly and outgoing.

After training we people gossiped while the boys (they only have a little over a month difference in age) played. They had a blast, splashing in the ditch, wrestling in the mud and chasing each other. I love watching dogs play.

Training a bark alert

I finally got started with training an alert behaviour for Riva. I started on Saturday and quickly got good barks from him. We played with a toy for a while and then I hid the toy under my hands. Riva tried offering sit and down and some other behaviours we have been training but soon he got frustrated and gave a bark. I tossed the toy for him and then we would play some more. After a couple of repetitions he started to offer the bark as soon as I hid the toy under my hands. That was enough for the first session.

On Sunday we had search training and we continued alert training there with others than me. Katja played with Riva first and then "stole" the toy and hid it under her hands. Again Riva offered a down first (which is not a bad thing at all) but quickly started to offer barking. Then he had a break while we trained some other dogs. Before ending the training he got an other round of alert practice. At this point he only needs to let out one good bark to get the toy but little by little he will have to bark longer and longer before getting his reward. The final alert behaviour will also consist of other elements, not just the barking. That is why I said that him offering a down in alert training is not a bad thing. He is not supposed to jump against or otherwise touch the victim and the easiest way to prevent that is to teach him that alert means (for example) "down, stay there and bark". Or it could be "sit and bark", which ever seems to come naturally.

We also got first snow last night! It propably won't last but it sure looks pretty.

Sorry, no video

I was planning to put a video of Riva's first time on stock here but technology failed me. I borrowed a digital video camera from work, but it turned out that the camera didn't have a cable for downloading video to a computer. I could copy the footage to a regular video tape but not download it to my computer :-(.

Riva's first time on sheep

We went to visit Katja Jyrinki ja Riva had his first real exposure to stock. I have some video of it but I haven't downloaded it yet from the camera.

I SUCK at this. I found myself constantly in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing. If he ever does achieve anything in herding its despite of me.

First round:
Riva pushed the sheep against the round pen fence and insisted that they stay there. No moving sheep allowed. If the sheep tried to slip away from the fence he would circle to the heads barking and stop them. The sheep turned and tried the other way, he would circle to the heads again and stop them. I was totally clueless, the little I had learned earlier with Jambi and Karma escaped my head as soon as we entered the round pen. We were in the pen just a couple of minutes and then I took Riva to the car while some other dogs did their thing.

Second round:
A lot less barking and a lot less pushing the sheep to the fence. Riva started to circle around the sheep. Even I started to get a clue and when a sheep split from the group and Riva would go after it, I was able to push him out a bit and then the sheep would turn back to the group and Riva would circle around quite nicely. He would also respond to my body movements so that he changed the direction around the group. We were able to stop after a few minutes to a very nice moment, calm sheep bunched together at my feet and Riva still eager to go.

In the end Katja told me "you are going to have a very easy time with him, he responds so nicely to you". Yeah, right, if I ever figure out what I'm supposed to do and haven't ruined him before that. I didn't have a stock stick, it really wasn't necessary at this point. If I did have to intervene on what he was doing it was enought to take a step towards him and he would move out. Unfortunately I would frequently take two steps where one would have been enough and would push him completely off stock :-(.

Final puppyhood vaccination

Riva got his final puppy vaccination yesterday and behaved as well as during all the previous times. He was also microchipped and weighed. He's now 17.2 kg (37.9 pounds). He has lost all his puppy teeth and all permanent teeth are in but the canines are still growing. He's starting to look more like an adolescent than a puppy. How fast they grow...

We didn't do anything special last weekend. My uncle had his 60th birthday and we visited there and everybody wanted to see the puppy that I got all the way from United States. Guess how many times I had to answer the question "Couldn't you have gotten one from Finland?". Still, he charmed the pants off of everyone :-D.

We have something quite exciting planned for next weekend but I'll keep you in suspense until then ;-P.

Recount of last weekend

Work has been hell this week, so I haven't had time to write anything about last weekend but here are the highlights.

Saturday
I drove to Jyväskylä to get some dog food and took Riva with me. After picking up the food I took him for a walk dowtown Jyväskylä. It went surprisingly well, considering this was the first time I managed to take him there. We have been going for walks in Lievestuore but there is not much to distract him there... The weather was not very good, it was raining on and off, so there were not that many people out and about which was good for us. At first Riva wanted to go greet all the people walking by but pretty soon he figured out that every time a person was approaching us I had treats to offer and he started to focus more on me. We walked around for a while, I stopped to look at some window displays and he could look at people passing. He also met the big elf-puppet that is often outside a crafts shop. We walked around the corner and the big old thing was right in front of us, Riva went back half a step from surprise, then he went right in to investigate this funny human shaped but not human smelling thingy. I just love how well he recovers from situations :-).

Sunday
Another search training. Riva had again five victims, so called "ghosts". Before I took him to the search are the people walked halfway to their hiding place and then the rest of the way before I sent Riva to find them. He did great. Still teaching him to advance straight ahead in the direction I point. I don't think he really needs any more of this type of exercises. We could do some more of reaction/wind type of exercises to reinforce using scent to locate people and I really need to start training his alert.

Sunday's search training

I didn't have time to write yesterday about our search training on Sunday so here it is.

Riva had five "victims" and I had a person waiting halfway to the search area when I brought him to the center line. After I pointed him to the direction I wanted him to search, the victim would walk a little way to the opposite direction from us and then hide behind a bush or something. Then I would let Riva go and he would run to the victim and get his reward. While Riva was eating the treats from the victim I walk up to them and calmly attached his leash. Then we went back to the centerline together and an other person would be waiting on the other side for a similar excercise. The idea of this excercise is to teach him to go straight forward into the direction I point, there is not much searching involved in this kind of excercise. Riva did well, he advanced to the people who were about 30-40 meters away without hesitation, and I didn't screw up badly either.

I think we will start working on his alert behaviour soon. I'm glad that at least so far it looks like bark alert will suit him very well, he is open, friendly and confident with people in all kinds of situations. I'm not very familiar with bringsel alert and there are some aspects in it that I don't like, mainly the high risk for false alerts.

New Pictures

A few new pictures of Riva in the album.

Outside kennel half finished

The dogs propably thought that this was the most boring weekend for ages. We were building the outside kennels and I had to keep the dogs mostly inside so they wouldn't be in the way. Two truckloads of sand and a truckload of crushed stone went to the bottom of the kennels and the fence posts are up but the fence is not in place yet. There are two kennel runs, one 10x10 meters and a smaller one 3.5x10 meters. The bottom should stay pretty dry, it’s a bit higher than surrounding ground and the crushed stone lets water pass through easily.

After the excavator was gone Riva had a blast running in the open space cleared for the kennels and the soft sand that had been spread on top of the crushed stone.

Training session with Salme

We had an other session with Salme and she was very impressed with Riva's progress. It surprised me because we haven't practiced our "homework" all that much. I told Monica that I'm a lazy trainer and like a dog that doesn't need a lot of repetitions to pick up things :-). I obviously got what I asked for.

His sit is quite good, we have been practicing that already with some distractions and his down is coming along very nicely, he even surprised me by actually downing on verbal cue eventhough I only introduced it a few sessions ago. I just need to have faith on him and start fading lures and physical cues fast so that he doesn't become dependent on them. Salme said he is ready to start learning stand, too, so then we would have all three positions. His front finish is awesome, he comes right in and lays his jaw flat against me, I just need to start fading the lure and hands on that one too. Heeling is still in very early stages but its started.

One thing I noticed during the session is that I need to be more carefull with the in-between-time. He concentrates fully on what we are doing, but if my attention is not 100% on him, he will start exploring and goes to say hi to people etc. He comes right back when I call him but I don't want him to learn that when my attention falters he can do what he wants. So until he is ready to wait under command while I talk to someone or get more treats or something, I hold him by the collar or put him into a lead (we generally train off lead from the start).

I also stayed to watch while two other of Salme's students practiced. You can learn so much by watching other people and dogs work.

Sure footing

I think I have mentioned that Riva likes jumping but he also likes climbing. He's delightfully sure footed and not reckless but he clearly enjoys climbing and balancing in different places. Before he came I had planned that I would build some small obstacles, a ramp, a teeter and such for him to practice safely moving on different sufaces but never got around to it. Well, seems like there is no need for them either, he has been very creative at finding his own strange surfaces to practice on :-). Tilting, slippery, rough, rustling or creaking, you name it, he's fine with everything. Like the shaky pile of old insulation boards that creaked and tilted, moving tarp that I was trying to straighten on the lawn and much more. A very good quality for a future SAR dog I think. We'll have to see if we can do some rubble pile work after all eventhough that is not very likely to be relly needed in our area.

The plans to build an outside kennel are also finally progressing! Dad and I drove to Kuopio on Saturday to go get some posts and chainlink fence and if we can get a excavator for next weekend we'll be putting the fences up. And it only took two years talking about it to my father ;-).

Long time no see

Its been a while since the last entry. Nothing extraordinary has happened, we had a third meeting with Salme and Riva is still progressing nicely in the excercises, I have done a few tracks for Riva, a few search trainings and we train a bit of basic obedience every day but that's it.

One of the few issues we have had with Riva is handling & grooming. He does not appreciate being restrained and in the beginning just picking him up resulted in squirming and mouthing and, if that didn't work, screaming bloody murder. We have been working on this. Clipping nails has actually been the easiest thing and he is getting better with brushing and combing. He is also learning to relax while being held, in the beginning he would barely stay calmly when held sitting in my lap, now he will relax quite well when held on his side and will even accept (though not relax yet) being held on his back. Its funny, because he accepted quite easily being restrained with safety harness but a person holding him is a totally different thing and a lot harder for him. Its a lesson he has to learn though, sometimes there just are situations where you have to be able to restrain or hold your dog (like at the vet's) and you don't want a dog fighting you then.

Vanity fair (or Tervakoski show)

Early Sunday morning I packed Jambi and Riva in to the car, picked up Kirsi (Jambi's breeder) on the way and headed towards Tervakoski. Jambi was entered in veterans and Riva came along for the experience.

My morals crumbled under pressure from Kirsi and Molli and Riva's ears got fixed. All it took was just a little dab of glue to the edge of each ear and a few seconds of holding the ear to set it. Time will tell if this will give enough support to the ears so they won't fold into rose ears later. I'm not proud but I admit I'm vain, I do like them more like this than folded to the side like Hayden's (his father).

Besides fixing ears Riva got to meet and play with plenty of dogs and people, watch all the hustle and bustle of showgrounds and even had his first lessons in gaiting and stacking for the showring.

Gunshots

Our neighbour tested his gun yesterday for the upcoming hunting season and Riva heard gunshots for the first time. I was getting the mail with Jambi and Riva and were just passing the neighbour's house when he fired the gun a couple of times. Riva cocked his head and listened to the sound for a second then continued his way, with his stump of a tail up the whole time. And the shots were really loud, much louder than the 6 or 9 mm starter pistol shots at trials so I don't think we have to worry about sound sensitivy.

16 week vaccinations

It was time to get the second set of boosters for Riva. He weighed 12.9 kg (28.4 pounds) in a rather slim condition. Nothing remarkable about the whole vet trip, he behaved really nicely and calmly in the waiting room and while the vet was examining him. His teeth have not started to change yet but that sould start soon.

Afterwards we went to meet Atlas, a 12-week-old bouvier puppy, and Elvis, a male bouvier who is a bit over a year old. Even Elvis who is huge and has shaggy hair all over wasn't too strange in Riva's opinion.

A week in a puppy's life

We have had a busy week. I went to two obedience trials with Karma, Wednesday and Sunday. Riva of course came along and had a chance to meet new dogs and people and get some training under distractions. He thought the long drives to Kuopio and Pihtipudas (~2 hours) were boring, usually he rides very nicely in his crate but now I heard a few yaps towards the end of the drive. But getting out at the trial grounds was exciting enough to make up for the drive. He is such a nice puppy, not shy or overly excited when in new situations, always polite with strange adult dogs (he gets the message when someone doesn't want to be pestered by a puppy) and happy to meet people. And even with the distractions at the trial he would play with me anytime I invited him to.

He also got his first experience at being at the kennel. My aunt runs a boarding kennel in Kuopio and when we went there for the trial I stayed overnight and Riva was kenneled with Jambi. Jambi knows the ins and outs and doesn't stress about being at the kennel and Riva didn't seem to have any problem being separated from me for one night. It was tougher on me...

Saturday we went to search training and he is really starting to get into it. When I walk him to the forest from the car I can see how he starts to seek scents and can't wait for me to unhook the leash. He has been rewarded with food so far but watching his behaviour, I think he is also rewarded very much by the find itself and the joy of meeting people. After the treats are gone, he is happy to continue hanging around with the victim for petting and praise unlike some dogs I have seen in training. However, after he grows up a bit I think we will be switching to toys as reward to get good drive. He does like food a lot but I think he is a little bit more toy/play driven than food driven.

Did I mention that I don't like motor sports?

Never have and now I have even less reason to like it. The Neste Rally was here this week and the whole Jyväskylä region was packed with rally tourists and traffic jams in the most unexpected places. With all that traffic there is bound to be some accidents and this time it came my way. I was rear-ended on my way home from work Friday. Thank goodness none of the dogs were on board and no-one was hurt in either of the cars. Still, my poor Foord is all busted up in the rear and I just got it three months ago!

What does all this have to do with Riva? Well, he has been learning to ride in the safety harness on the back seat of my mom's Mazda. He accepted the harness surprisingly easily, I thought he could have protested a lot more about being restrained like that.

Dog show

We went to a dog show in Hankasalmi today with Riva, just to visit, he is too young to show. On the first stroll through the show grounds he showed a bit of caution which is quite understandable, hundreds of dogs and people, jostling crowd, barking dogs etc. He's caution was mainly towards the dogs, he wanted to keep a polite distance from strange dogs but he greeted people very openly. After that I took him to the car to rest for a while and we did another walk around the grounds later. Then he was like he had been there forever :-).

Tracking

I made tracks for Riva for the first time. Before I have made food squares but now I thought I'd try actual small tracks. They were only about 10 meters long and on short grass, the first was layed by me and the second by my friend. They still had food on each footstep and the steps very short. Riva did well but its amazing how tiring nosework is for dogs. Two small tracks and he was ready for a good long nap.

Meet Mr Houdini

Yesterday when I came home from work Riva greeted me happily when I opened the bedroom door, he had climbed out of the x-pen. I guess it shouldn't have surprised me, remembering how easily his sister Roana climbed over the x-pen at eight weeks (this one is much higher though, about 90 cm). This is not good :-(, there is just too much dangerous stuff around the house with the renovation to puppy proof it well enough for him to be loose during days. Still, I would hate to start crating him for the day, with the x-pen attached to the crate he at least has a little bit more room. This morning he went to the crate but during the weekend I have to see if I can figure out some way to confine him safely otherwise.

We are actually training!

Yes, we actually went to do some training yesterday, our second meeting with Salme. Riva is progressing very nicely and he impressed my friends, he was so focused and smart. I have to brag a bit too: Salme was wearing one of those raincapes, dark green and flying in the wind but that didn't scare him at all!

Red tape

I got Riva's AKC registration papers yesterday and sent them in today to get him registered in Finnish Kennel Club.

Riva to the rescue!

We went to do a bit of search training yesterday with Päivikki and Tanhu. We did reaction excercises, puppy scale, to encourage them to use their noses in airscenting mode to find humans. One of us would circle around the practice area so as not to leave tracks on the area and lay down in the bush downwind to be the victim. Then the handler and puppy would come to the area and start walking crosswind on a line 3 to 5 meters downwind from the victim. It was so fun watching how Riva got the scent, I could see his little stump of a tail starting to go a mile a minute and, after a fraction of a second consideration, he raced to the victim and of course got his reward, best treats. We could do this with him already at this stage because he has not shown any signs of shyness or reserve towards people, he approaches them very openly and confidently. We will, however, continue also regular socialization excercises to make sure he has a solid foundation for his search motivation. Tanhu did very well too, she had a little longer distances as she has had a few more training sessions before.

The dog-dog relations are also improving, Riva and Karma have started to play a bit, eventhough she is a bit rough. Yesterday I also had all three dogs together out in the yard, before this it has been one-on-one with Riva and one of the big dogs. Everything went well eventhough Riva was run over once when Jambi and Karma started to play rough and he was in the way.

Gardening

I finally got started with cleaning the yard, the lawn was so overgrown that you could not describe it as "grass", it was hay. Its a wonder we don't have any ticks, they love overgrown grass like that. I first put Riva in the puppy pen to watch me mowing and after a while I put the big dogs inside and let him out to check out the mower. Its a sad old thing, its electric so you have to drag an extension cord with you and its designed for much smaller yards. The good thing about is that it doesn't make all that much noise. First I pushed it slowly and if Riva tried to come too close or barked just stopped and waited untill he moved a bit further. After he lost intrest I turned it on and started mowing. He followed me around for a little while from a distance and if he tried to come too close I stopped. After a while he came to the conclusion that this was a really boring thing and went to amuse himself otherwise. Hopefully he will learn to leave the mower alone like the bigger dogs.

I made a food square for him again, he is working very calmly and quite intensely. The driveway to my mom's neighbours was right next to us but when a car stopped there and people came out he just looked up and and went right back to sniffing food.

12-week vaccinations

Riva had his second set of vaccinations today and was a very good boy. He was more intrested in socializing with the vet's assistants and eating the treats I had than about what the vet was doing. He didn't even notice the needle prick in his neck :-). He also got Stronghold in case of heartworms. The vet checked for the microchip but the reader didn't find anything so I guess the chip wasn't compatible after all :-(. Well, I'll have a new chip put in propably when we go get the next set of boosters.

The vet had a proper scale so I got him weighed and he was 9.4 kg (20.7 pounds)! Sounds awful lot but there was also a 12-week-old border collie puppy and he was actually a bit bigger than Riva. He isn't fat but not thin either, I think I'll cut his food down just a little bit. The treats he has been getting in training have been extra but I'll start counting them into his daily rations. That should be enough.

Leaps and bounds

Riva loves jumping and climbing. He conquered the couch the second day home and now he is jumping on and off furniture several times a day. I don't know if I should be worried about it or restrict his jumping but he doesn't have any hesitation. He seems to have a good coordination and the jumps look controlled. Yesterday he climbed on a bench in the kitchen and balanced on his front feet against the back of a chair to investigate where the cat went (he was already on top of the big brick oven). The only restriction that I have been sticking to concerning jumping is that he is not allowed to jump in or out of the car himself, I lift him and later when he is grown up he will have to wait for a permission to do either. Still, some of the jumps he makes on his own are as high or even higher than the jump to the car would be.

We went to meet a local trainer yesterday, she wanted to see Riva after I asked if I could get into her training group with him. Salme is an obedience and agility judge and has competed successfully with her own dogs in obedience, agility and Finnish working trials (not herding, tracking). She also breeds lapponian herders under the affix Tuulenkuun.  Some of my friends have been in her training group and she is very good in coaching handlers and teaching them to use their dogs full potential. That is exactly what I need, someone to look from outside and give me critique about what I'm doing, keeping me from becoming blind to my own manerisms and a regularly meeting group to keep me from slacking.

Salme liked Riva a lot, he played with her very enthusiasticly and did not show any signs of stressing. While we were talking he explored the surroundings and amused himself with pinecones that he found but when called he immediately engaged in interaction with people. According to Salme he is somewhat independent (and I thought he was quite attached to me but hey! its almost ten years since I have had a puppy)  and needs some conscious contact training now, but its good that he still seems to prefer interacting with humans over playing on his own. The training group is on a break now and will continue later in the fall but I got some tips on what to do before it. Can't wait for it to start! And believe me, that's a lot coming from me when talking about obedience training.  ;-P

Riva's photo album

I put some of the pictures I took during the weekend into Riva's new album. They are not very good, just snapshots. 

Puppy days

We met Tanhu, the lapponian herder puppy, and Päivikki, her owner, again today. The puppies played together and also got good practice in distractions, there were a lot more people in the park today. I took some pictures but the digital camera was way too slow for getting good pictures of puppies playing.
 
I introduced the target stick to Riva this weekend. His attention span is still quite short, two sessions with five attempts each is enough training for him at one time. After all, he's not quite three months old so that is plenty. He did get the idea of target stick quickly and started to follow it.
 
Riva did quite good the two days last week when I went back to work but I could see some effect of the long days in him. In the evenings he was wilder and more restless and settling after activities took more time. My father is coming to do some renovations next week so Riva won't have to spend the days alone the whole week.
 

Back to work

Vacation is over and its back to work for me. Sitting at a computer in an office is so high on my list of priorities right now...not. The only good thing is that Riva seems to have adjusted quite easily into being left alone for short periods, he settles down quickly or plays quietly with his own toys. Now the days are just getting longer but hopefully we will find a good rythm soon like with the older dogs. I sometimes used to work at home and thought the dogs would enjoy having me around during the day. I was pretty disappointed when instead of hanging around with me the dogs all retreated to their favorite spots and went to sleep at exactly the time I usually left for work. And if I suggested a walk in the middle of the day they all looked at me like I was seriously disturbing their beauty sleep.

Its funny to see people's reactions at work when they find out what I have been doing during vacation. The idea that someone would travel halfway around the world just to get a dog seems to be quite incomprehensible to many. "Couldn't you have gotten one from Finland?" is a frequent question.

But yesterday was still vacation and we enjoyed every last minute of it. I took Riva for a walk in the woods around my place and it was so wonderful to watch him taking in the World with all of his senses, chasing butterflies, climbing rocks and jumping fallen branches. I took a toy with me and during the walk we played a recall game. I'd whistle the way I use to call my dogs and when he turned to look where the sound came I invited him to play with the toy. After a short play I'd exchange the toy to a treat and let him go exploring again. After a few repetitions he started to race back to me as soon as he heard the whistle. :-)

One of the nicest things about living in the country is that I can give the puppy a lot more freedom than I would if we lived in a more urban setting. I can take him for small walks and I don't have to worry about traffic or strange dogs or people coming to interrupt our little training and learning games.

Riva has also little by little befriended our cat, Lasse. At first the cat didn't want anything to do with this wiggling little puppy but now he will stay still as Riva goes over and sniffs him (very nicely) and then Lasse will rub himself against the puppy. So cute!

A couple of days ago Riva had his first nail trimming in Finland. I don't think he actually noticed at all that someone was doing something to his nails, he was too busy eating the pancakes that I had. I held him in my lap and fed him while my friend cut the nails.

Visitors

We had an exciting day today, two of my friends came to visit us. How come it seems that it is so much longer from the city to my place than from my place to the city? ;-) It's always nice when someone bothers to drive to visit us at home. And I also think it is good for Riva to see that people can also come to our place. He had a blast with my friend's miniature dachshund who is a year-old but actually a few pounds smaller that Riva.

Yesterday Riva also got to meet my friends kids, 4 and 3.

Yesterday we went for a walk again at the center of Lievestuore. Its not much but its something to socialize the rural puppy to a more urban environment.

A more notable event yesterday was Karma and Riva playing together a bit in the evening. She is really warming up to this puppy thing :-).

Today Riva had his first experience of the lake. I took him to the beach and after a few tries of getting his toes wet he waded deeper after me. He was so funny, picking his feet up high on every step. When the fur under his tummy started to get wet he decided that he's had enough of this and headed for the shore. I think it was pretty good for his first "swim".

Encounters

Riva and Karma had their first face-to-face meeting today and everything went great :-). I saw a change in Karma's attitude towards the puppy yesterday evening, she went to check out the puppy in the x-pen and her whole appearance said "I guess you are not quite as disgusting as I first thought". I'm so relieved, she is the kind of dog that first encounters are very important with other dogs. If the first meeting goes well she usually is fine with other dogs later but if it goes badly...

Riva also had his first search training session today. Our search training group has quite a few puppies and other beginner dogs right now and so we had beginners training today. There were Riva 10 weeks, lapponian herder Tanhu 13 weeks, smooth collie Omppu 10 months and miniature snautzer Peppi 6 years. We did basic socialization and greeting people nicely (no jumping etc.), not actual search training yet.

Puppy play

Today we met a friend of mine who has a 13-week-old lapponian herder puppy. We went to the park and the puppies played together for an hour-and-half. After that there were two very tired little puppies.

Settling in

During the past couple of days we have been trying to settle into some kind of routine. Riva sleeps in the living room in an x-pen and settles now quite nicely when I put him in there. This morning he actually let me sleep till seven!

We have also visited a couple of my friend and Riva got to meet some new people and dogs. He has proven to be a very polite puppy, respecting older dogs and so some that are a bit grouchy otherwise have accepted him. Very good boy :-). I also took him with me when I went to do some groceries and we had a little walk in the "center" of Lievestuore. Its a very small place but still there were some people on bicycles, kids on skateboards and cars.

Today I also made a food square for him for the second time, its a very basic exercise for tracking, teaching him to follow the scent of broken ground. He was very focused and thorough, liked that a lot. Later we will do tracking on pavement, to learn tracking human scent without the help of broken ground.

Travelling

We made it home safe and sound around 11.30 Thursday. The plane landed in Helsinki at 5.30 but the 3-and-half hour drive from Helsinki to home took me more like 5 hours. Had to stop and take a nap, I was sooo tired. I slept well into the afternoon the next day, just got up to take Riva out a couple of times. I will introduce him to the big dogs later, figured that it would be better when we all are rested and have had a bit of time to settle.

Riva was like he had been flying forever, he behaved absolutely wonderfully! He fussed a bit while we were waiting to board at Omaha but when we got into the plane he settled down (eventhough it was really cramped under the seat) and didn't let a peep during the whole flight. We didn't have time to go outside and he ended up peeing on the terminal floor, but it was tile and we
just cleaned it up. Then he hung around with me and a lot of people came to pet him and he was very nice to both kids and adults. When we boarded the plane to Frankfurt he quickly settled again. He was _absolutely_fabulous_ the whole 8 hour flight! He didn't pee or poop in his bag, I took him a couple of
times to the toilet and put a pee pad on the floor and took him out of the bag so that he could do his business if he had to. He didn't, he just wanted to socialize. And when I put him back into his bag, he settled down right away, no whining or anything! I was a bit worried about him beeing hot, he panted quite a bit and the ventilation on the floor and in the bag was not as good as
otherwise in the plane. So I offered him some ice to lick instead of water and he seemed to like that.

Finally we got to Frankfurt and off the plane, throught the customs (nobody asked me for any papers or explanations of the two puppies) and met Suzanne at the baggage claim area. She had already found Roana and she seemed to be doing ok. After seeing them united happily we headed out of the terminal so I could
let Riva out for a while. Couldn't find any grassy area but we found a quiet corner where he did his business and played for a while. The last flight to Finland went as well as the others and also the drive home went fine.

All in all, the trip went much better that I expected though, if I ever have to do it again, I hope my budget allows flying in Business/First instead of Economy, it was pretty cramped in there. Kept thinking of that lovely cheesecake Monica made when they served all that horrible airplane food...

I can't that you enought Monica for letting me have this wonderful puppy and taking me into your home for the week.

Off they go!

Rebecca and Sue left with their puppies today, so its just four left. I will be staying for three more days.

Monica showed Sue and I today some of the things she does to start puppies and young dogs on stock. Got to keep her teachings in mind when we get to start herding with Riva.

We found each other!

OK, so I finally made a choice between the puppies and its "Tank", the red male with NBT and most white. Sue, Lisa and Rebecca have also made their choices. Sue picked "Fin", Lisa "Hayden jr." and Rebecca "Luna". Monica had made a prediction of who was going to pick who and it was absolutely right.

Roana might be flying with me and Riva (as Tank is now called) to Frankfurt, we are trying to see if that is possible, so she wouldn't have to fly alone.

Prologue

Here it ends, 7 months of planning and anxiety around getting a new puppy. That's how long it is from the first e-mail to Monica inquiring about the breeding she was planning for her WTCH bitch Ally and asking if she would send a puppy to the northern edge of Europe, to Finland. Or actually this is the ending of an even longer process, I had a severe case of puppy fever three years ago but the time was not right.

Luckily this is not just the end, its also a beginning of something even more exciting...