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.