~ Plain Courage ~

Bye bye Blogger!

2007-12-07T15:41:00.000+02:00

You can find us now at:
http://merike.wordpress.com/

New trial brag

2007-09-27T14:36:00.001+03:00

Riva and I got our first Q in a search trial last weekend and Riva got his HK1 title. :-)

The Finnish working trial system has different diciplines: tracking, search, messenger dog, "combo" and IPO/schutzhund. All diciplines include an obedience part which is the same as in the international IPO trials, its max. 100 points. There are three levels. In the first level search trials a dog has to find three people from an area of 100 by 100 meters in 10 minutes (max. 170 p.) and one article out of three in a 50 by 50 meter area in 5 minutes (max. 30 p.), so 200 points together. To earn a title you must get min. 70/100 in obedience and 150/200 p. in search. Riva and I scored 82/100 in obedience and 162+30=192/200 in search and placed second. Riva is a joy to trial, I can concentrate on doing my bit as handler as well as I can and he takes care of the rest. With Karma trialing was always quite stressful because I had to be very careful she didn't get out of control especially in obedience but with Riva I can actually enjoy myself :-).

Our next trial (level 2) is planned late October and I'm considering entering him to a SAR certification test in early November. The SAR certification test and lever 3 trials are roughly equal in requirements but certification test is graded on pass/fail basis, not scored.

Vacation

2007-07-25T12:50:00.000+03:00

My summer vacation is over and its back to the office :-(

During the vacation Riva and I had a chance to go work stock at a new place. They have both sheep and goats and so Riva has had his first experience working goats. I don't know if he noticed any difference, the goats are supposed to be a bit more independet and to challenge a dog more easily than sheep but at least so far none of them have thought about challenging Riva :-). However, the greatest thing about the new place is that we have a chance to train with larger flocks, 30-40 head at a time and even larger once all of their animals come home from summer pastures. Definately requires the dog to figure out how to keep the whole group under control. And hopefully helps us to find some steps between stop and 100 mps speed, which is at the moment the biggest thing holding back our progress. I think I have already seen some slowing down also at home...

Not really a topic for this blog but my smooth collie, Bardi, has also turned on and is working sheep. He's VERY different from Riva, working wiiide and nicely, no biting. He could have some more power though, my own sheep don't take any notice of him but with lighter sheep he is showing some quite nice moves, flanking wide, staying at balance and nice sense of group. We'll see how much he gains confidence and authority with experience.

We have also continued search training with Riva and I really need to get him to a trial sometime this year. Riva has been working really good, his motivation is back better than ever. I think at least some of our problems were caused by too easy practices, he was just too bored to give it his best. Now every time I set up something new and more demanding the challenge just makes him work better :-).

ASCA stockdog trial at Kitee

2007-06-04T13:21:00.001+03:00

We had entered for two duck runs in started and two sheep runs in open. Weekends total was one qualifying score on ducks and one on sheep. The judge was Dana Mackenzie.

On Saturday the ducks were very uncooperative, every single run had at least one, some more, ducks that decided to play dead no matter what the dog did. I was not taking any chances and our run was more obedience than herding. On Sunday I trusted him a bit more and let him do more and we managed the course and got 70 points and a qualifying score. Nothing very spectacular but what can you expect when Riva has seen ducks a total of three times in his life, including these two trial runs?

The sheep were very light and we have been only working my sheep that are very heavy and stubborn. On Saturday we got to a rough start on sheep, I let Riva go into the take pen too fast and the sheep pelted out and I lost control of him. After I got things back under control and set up for the drive we managed quite nicely through the first and second obstacles and after a bit of negotiation even got the sheep through the center chute. I felt miserable because of the start but I guess the rest of the run was pretty good and we got 90,5 points and qualified! On Sunday I was determined to do a better take pen and we did, it was near perfect :-). The rest of the run didn't go so well. At some point the sheep decided that they want to hang around with the human and Riva went to fetch mode and I couldn't get things set up so that we could progress nicely on the course.

Videos

2007-05-11T15:00:00.000+03:00

A couple of videos of Riva doing obedience and article search. You can't really see much on the article search video, because I didn't have anybody handling the camera, I just set it up and let it roll.

Heeling, sit and down from heeling and recall
Retrieves
Article search

FIN CH!

2007-01-19T08:52:00.000+02:00

Riva finished his Finnish Champion title last weekeend :-)

2006-12-21T09:51:00.000+02:00

Butterball puppy and Winner-06 show

2006-12-20T15:51:00.000+02:00

Riva and Lissu finally got one puppy December 5th, a BIG girl. You can see some pictures of the little butterball at the Ghosteye's page. She was a big puppy already at birth and being the only puppy and her mother's pride and joy, she is thriving. Actually so well that the vet suggested that her feeding is restricted a bit.

Meanwhile I went to the Winner-06 show with Riva and Bardi. Riva placed third in open class with EXC, which was all I was hoping for since everybody in Finnish aussies was there.

A couple of pictures from the show:
Riva from left © Iris Yliräisänen
Riva from right © Maija Eskola

We have been having a very strange fall/winter. Snow and frost came, and went and after that it has been very warm, no ice and snow. Inspired by that, I have been tracking with both boys an a regular basis until now. Both are doing well and I was quite surprised by Riva. I haven't done tracking with all that much, some food squares when he was a puppy but that is all. He is a natural tracker!

Life as usual

2006-11-01T15:01:00.001+02:00

I'm keeping a blog in Finnish these days, so this one has been quite neglected. Life goes on as usual with its ups and downs.

Riva and I hit a wall in search training in July. Somewhere along the way he lost the passion for search work and then one time the exercise I had planned for him was too much. He refused to work and I lost my temper (which is quite unlike me), basically I told him to go find that victim or else... Not the best way to deal with the situation. After I cooled down I had the sense to sit down and think what and when had gone wrong in our training.

So we started fresh with a clean slate and to make a long story short, we are doing better than ever. I intentionally say WE, because the trouble we had wasn't all his fault and search work is always teamwork, both of us needed to shape up. You don't bring a dog back up from a dead end like that in a flash, but now he has his motivation back and is progressing faster than the six months before. And I am much more aware of what we are doing and where each step is taking us.

There have been some happier events, too. Riva got a girlfriend and puppies are due in late November. She is a very nice bitch, very accomplished in several venues (obedience champion, performance champion in tracking, show champion and competes in agility at the highest level), a true versatile aussie. She also has some young offspring that are also doing very well in different dog sports. I couldn't have hoped a better mate for Riva's first litter.

Right now the dogs are enjoying the first snow of the year.

Letter from ASCA

2006-08-09T10:41:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I got a letter from ASCA bringing our STDs title certificate :-). So now its official, Riva is BH Roanoaks Plain Courage STDs.

Second herding trial

2006-06-19T09:54:00.000+03:00

We were at our second ASCA herding trial last Saturday. Same location (Kitee) as the first one in May, judge Shannon Oxford. 79 points, a qualifying run and first place in started sheep.

Video of our run

Aussie Open 2006

2006-05-24T16:16:00.000+03:00

We were at the Aussie Open last Saturday. Riva won the red dogs (12 dogs in the class) under judge Melinda Gann (After All aussies).

Pictures of almost all entered aussies by Hansu Laitala: Aussie Open 2006.

Trial and other pictures

2006-05-17T16:44:00.000+03:00

Photos © Hansu Laitala

ASCA Trial, Kitee
Aussies in action
Aussies posing

Video evidence

2006-05-15T20:48:00.000+03:00

Riva's qualifying sheep run

First stockdog trial

2006-05-15T12:30:00.000+03:00

Riva and I qualified in our very first Started sheep trial! The judge was Becky Beckman (she breeds working aussies and border collies under the kennel name Rising Sun) and our score was 74, not a very high score, but I was told that she was a very strict judge. There were only a few qualified runs during the whole weekend and on Sunday none of the Advanced or Open dogs Q'd. And since Riva and I won the Started sheep class Sunday, he was also Most Promising Started Aussie and High In Trial :-) We went home with some of the fanciest rosettes I have ever won and the first Q leg towards our STDs.

Here's the blow-by-blow:
The sheep were _a lot_ lighter than the ones that we have practiced on and there was a strong draw towards the take and re-pens, a lot of handlers and dogs lost the sheep either between the first and the second obstacle or right after the second when the sheep wanted to run to their buddies at the other end of the arena. We had a bit of a blunder at the take pen, Riva brought the sheep out in a rush, I downed him while I closed the gate and during that time the sheep had drifted almost to the first obstacle. When we went to take them back into control they split, they were quite skittish after being rushed out of the pen, and I could see Riva thinking Yehaa!. I managed to down him and let the sheep get back together and we started again. Now we got to a better start and made our way to the first obstacle with the sheep huddled (tightly) at my feet, Riva was pushing them a bit too much. We made it through the first obstacle and Riva was very worried about not loosing the sheep and started to circle a lot. I considered downing him to calm things a bit but came to the conclusion that I'm not a good enough handler to do that without loosing the sheep and decided to let him handle the situation his way (funny how many thoughts can flash through your mind in just a few seconds...). We made it through the second obstacle and started towards the re-pen, I still let Riva deal with keeping the sheep with me his way even though it wasn't very stylish, still a lot of circling. We got to re-pen, I downed him, opened the gate, the sheep went in, closed the gate and we were finished. Judges comments after the trial: he was the only dog that was able to control the sheep from the second obstacle all the way to the re-pen. She also complimented on his focus and intensity, no sniffing or eating sheep poop, and his obedience, when I told him to down he did it immediately.

You just got to love that dog :-).

Other news

2006-05-12T12:31:00.000+03:00

I have been a bit lazy with updates, so here are some other recent events.

On Saturday, May 6th, we attended a BH-test in Nokia and passed. Riva is now offcially BH Roanoaks Plain Courage.

On May 1st I picked up my sheep for this summer and we have started herding practice with Riva again. I was prepared to go back to the basics with, to work on distance and rate and square flanks, but boy did he surprise me! He has really matured over the winter and worked wonderfully, very nice distance and rating and very responsive to my directions. So I went and entered him to the ASCA traial in Kitee on May 14th :-O.

And he passed his health exams with flying colours, hips B, elbows 0/0 and eyes clear :-).

First search training this spring

2006-05-12T11:21:00.000+03:00

Riva has definately matured over the winter. I saw it right away in the first herding sessions we did in the beginning on May but its evident in search also. Everybody commented how his alerts had a whole new "sound" to them, more intense and confident. We did a couple of motivation raising exercises with alerts, I let him see the victim going off to the forest and sent him after right away. This was just to remind him how much fun search is, we have had almost six months break over the winter.

Spring is here

2006-04-26T08:34:00.000+03:00

Spring is finally here and we have come out from the winter hibernation. Snow is almost gone and soon we will start search training and herding and all other fun stuff.

I have been getting ready with Riva for our first official test, the BH-test on May 6th. It is required before you can enter any trial or SAR certification test. (BH is something like CGC, a bit of obedience and a behaviour test with normal urban situations like passing bicycles and other dogs on leash and people coming up to talk to you.)

New email

2006-03-24T13:19:00.000+02:00

My email changes and the new one is active from Monday, March 27. In the future you can reach me at:

Health checks

2006-03-23T16:14:00.000+02:00

Riva is going in for his health check (hips, elbows and eyes) next Thursday.

New friends

2006-01-16T16:51:00.000+02:00

We met Anneli and Sissi last Saturday. Sissi is a sweet little red merle aussie girl, about a month older than Bardi.

Big brother duties

2005-12-19T15:48:00.000+02:00

A couple of days ago we got a new family member, a smooth collie puppy. His name is Bardi and he is a son of my old smooth, Jambi. Both Jambi and Riva have accepted him well, Karma hasn't made up her mind yet but the cat has decided he is mostly harmless.

Riva is enjoying being the big brother :-).

Trying obedience

2005-10-20T09:24:00.000+03:00

We went to a obedience fun match Tuesday night with Riva. We finished at 4/6 but I was pretty happy with our performance. Riva did everything he has been taught to do exactly as in training and even managed to pull through a couple of exercises he hasn't actually been taught. I guess I should teach him the stand command... now we managed the couple of exercises that included a stand on command with a verbal cue "wait" and a hand signal, which took some points off, but he did stop standing. I also messed up the recall so he broke the sit stay and came after me on the first try. The judge said the recall itself was perfect and we would have gotten full marks if it hadn't been for that first broken stay. And he broke the down stay just a second or two before the time was up *argh*, it was so close!

But his heeling is _just_awesome_ and he worked the whole time very happily and intensely despite the distractions and didn't get the least bit confused or unsure even when we did exercises differently than in training or something that we hadn't trained at all. And the judge was quite impressed at how he didn't break his contact at any point. I was a bit worried when we were waiting for our turn, though, my country boy did appear quite a bit distracted by all the dogs and people around the ring but when we went in and started to do our thing he was completely focused :-). It was kinda funny, he went so completely and quickly from just-hanging-around to all-work in just a second.

He is going to be a cool dog to trial when we get there :-).

Riva is rating stock!

2005-09-16T13:56:00.000+03:00

August and beginning of September has been very busy and I haven't worked Riva much with sheep, which shows, he's rearing to go any time I pick up the crook and head to the sheep pen. Its not easy training a dog and trying to learn yourself at the same time, especially if you have a dog with plenty of drive. Trying to train my first herding dog, sometimes the progress has felt more backwards that forwards. This week I have worked him already a couple of times, more than in the last three weeks together. However, last night we took a big step forward :-).

I took Riva and we worked the sheep for a while again, it didn't go particularly well but wasn't a disaster either. Riva was still pretty "hot" and needed to run off a bit of steam before we really got to working. Luckily me and the sheep didn't have to run and after a while I could see Riva was ready to listen instead of just running full tilt and barking. Basic stuff, flanking to both directions, keeping the correct distance, a little bit of fetch. Then I left the sheep to graze for a while and we went inside with Riva. His tongue was hanging but he still would have wanted to go on.

Later when the sheep were done with the grazing I thought I would take Riva with me to help in putting the sheep into their pen for the night. I let him go to the other side of the sheep and started backing up towards the pen, realized he was working real nice and calm fetching the sheep to me and RATING, the sheep were not on top of me but following calmly about three feet behind me. I turned around and started walking forwards and let Riva take care of bringing the sheep after me. We went all the way to the pen, about 60 meters, still nice and calm and put the sheep in. I was so happy I just couldn't leave it at that (had to tempt faith...), so we took the sheep out of the pen, still nice and calm, did a little walkabout with Riva fetching the sheep after me and me walking forwards (watching him from the corner of my eye), Riva still rating & balancing nicely behind the sheep, and finally put the sheep back into the pen.

Wow, he can really do it! I guess he just needs to be worked more to get him to settle...

NTF-1 deployment news

2005-09-01T09:01:00.000+03:00

A couple of news articles from the Lincoln Journal Star about the deployment of Nebraska Task Force-1.

Lincoln search and rescue team prepares for deployment
Lincoln search and rescue team on the way

First rubble training

2005-08-31T16:50:00.000+03:00

We had our first rubble training yesterday. We started easy, building up motivation and the exercises were familiar to Riva so it was really easy for him. Still, the environment was new and I was really pleased to see how comfortable he was moving on the rubble right from the start.

I also got a message yesterday that the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue task force Monica and Zima, Riva's grandmother, belong to had been deployed because of hurricane Katrina. We wish for a safe trip to them!

Herding pictures

2005-08-18T15:41:00.000+03:00

Hansu put up some herding pictures on her homepage. These were taken in May and that was Riva's first exposure to ducks... and they survived it ;-). The other dog in the pictures is Xena, you can read more about her at Snowtime's pages.

Riva & Xena herding

Thanks Hansu!

Massage by Minna

2005-08-05T13:24:00.000+03:00

Riva had an appointment with a physical therapist on Wednesday. I suspected that there might be something wrong because he was so one sided in flanking around the sheep and sure enough, his right side was a lot tighter than the left. This is consistent with his trouble in flanking to the counterclockwise direction where he would have to flex his right side. The probable cause for the soreness is Karma, who likes to play rough and to tackle other dogs at full speed :-(. The good news is that the problem had not had time to develop into very bad. Riva seems to have responded well to the massage therapy and seems more relaxed now. I'm curious to see how much difference this makes in working sheep to the more difficult direction.

I got intructions on how to stretch him after more strenuous exercise to prevent similar problems in the future. We are lucky, a friend is a professional animal massage therapist and a very good one, too. She has also worked with the Finnish agility world championship team.

Herding clinic with Maarten Walter at Kalajoki

2005-07-26T13:44:00.000+03:00

The second week in July we attended a five day herding clinic with Maarten Walter. I like his way of teaching, it has helped me understand a lot of what herding is and how it works. It helps to understand what you are looking for, especially after you have to start training by yourself without the instructor next to you... Maarten concentrates in training the handler to train their dog, not on training the dog itself.

You also learn so much from watching other people and dogs work. It also helps a lot if you can get yourself on video and can later see how it went, where you did a mistake and where you had your timing right. While you are in there with your dog and sheep, there is usually plenty to do so you don't have much time to think, even following someone else's instructions is sometimes hard ;-). Watching myself from the video, there was a time when I counted Maarten repeating an instruction three times before it registered in my brain and I followed it.

Riva did good and I was especially impressed with how he dealt with the training pressure, he kept on going even when I messed up and put to much pressure or pressured him at the wrong time. Also, five days of training without any time to digest all the new stuff was a lot for a started dog. Anyway, when I got my act together he did really nice, responded nicely to pressure when necessary but did have some natural distance in his flanks so didn't need that much pushing out and even showed some square flanks. He was a bit worried about losing his stock so he was overwearing in fetch a bit and didn't settle at the balance point but that should come with some experience and training.

The first couple of days went into getting ME to learn what to do. The third day I had a clue but I tried to force things too much and it wasn't pretty and it wasn't fun. On Thursday, the fourth day, the pieces suddenly fell into their place, I was at the right place at the right time. It felt incredible! The sheep, the dog and me doing this dance where everybody knew their steps. For the first three days Riva had been pretty one sided, he circled only to the clockwise direction (I never remember which is away-to-me and which is come-bye). The most he had been going in the counterclockwise direction was 1/8 of a circle (I checked from the video). On Thursday he suddenly went to the counterclockwise side several times pretty effortlessly. I had already started to suspect that he has some kind of a back problem going only to one direction but I guess it was me who was one-sided... Still, the counterclockwise direction is our weaker side so we will have to work on that.

Friday went along the same lines, making sure I had the basics figured out. I even learned to see the way he dipped his shoulder on his flanks when he was going to dive in for a bit of a grab and even got my timing right in putting pressure on him just when he was going to do that and push him back out to his flank. I was pretty proud of that :-D. He wasn't bad about the biting but he did try to do some, he definitely wanted to hit the sheep's heels and I also saw him going in at the heads a couple of times, but no wool pulling or biting the sides of the sheep. I also saw more tendency to dive in for a nip in the counterclockwise direction which is the weaker side so I would expect him to stop doing it when he gets more comfortable when working.

I have most of it on video and will post clips, sometime. (I still haven't edited all of the videos that I have from May...)

Before the clinic I had made arrangements to finally get some sheep, something that I have been planning to do for three years now. They came the week after the clinic, three Finn sheep wethers. So far they have mostly been clearing the bush that has been growing on my lot (I'm not that much into gardening) but when I get some proper fences we will start working.

Weekend activities

2005-05-30T13:54:00.000+03:00

Boy its been a long time since the last update...

We had a busy weekend. Saturday we had the third and last show of our "grand May show tour" . There were 14 aussies entered and Riva was the second best male :-). I showed him myself and he behaved very nicely. He was the third best male two weeks ago in his previous show but then I didn't get to show him myself because, at the last moment, I was asked to work as judge's secretary. So a friend of mine showed him. In the first show, three weeks ago, the judge liked him a lot but we got excused and didn't place, because I couldn't get him to gait properly during judging, he was pacing (like a camel). As soon as the judge excused us and I was walking out of the ring he changed to a perfect, clean trot....

Anyway, after the show we headed straight to Savonlinna (a small town in eastern Finland) to visit a friend. The younger of her two dogs, Tanhu the lapponian herder, and Riva are puppyhood friends but haven't seen for over six months. Still, they were instantly on the same wavelength when they saw each other. You can see some pictures at http://tanhu.myphotoalbum.com. The dogs got to play to their hearts content and we owners got to gossip. All too soon it was time to continue out trip and on Sunday we headed to Kitee (an even smaller place even further east). We had a committee meeting and after that Pia invited us to work on their sheep and ducks. So Riva had his second time on sheep and between the couple of "yehaa" moments I think he did pretty good for a young dog. He worked quite wide, I can see Hayden's influence. There was quite a bit of barking, propably a sign of insecurity but I would expect that to lessen when he gets more exposure. In the beginning he was also distracted, eating sheep poop etc. but the longer he worked, the less he went "off". Then we headed to the duck pen, eventhough I was a bit sceptical. Riva's speed and ducks sounded like a disaster... Anyway, we went in and first Riva was on leash. Surprisingly, he approached the ducks very calmly and went around keeping his distance. Then we tried it off leash and he kept working really nicely, keeping his distance. A couple of barks but not nearly as much as with sheep and he responded nicely to pressure also, eventhough he really didn't need much pushing out as he was naturally wider than some. I have it on digital video, I'll try to get it downloaded and edited as soon as possible.

Can it be this easy?

2005-04-09T21:48:00.000+03:00

Its been a while again...

We have been training formal retrieve in obedience lately. All I can say: can it be this easy? If things keep progressing like this, Riva is going to have super obedience scores :-).

I have mostly been working on the retrieve with a clicker but I did cut a few corners. When we were practicing holding the dumbell and after I had clicked him to take the dumbell into his mouth, I helped him by putting a couple of fingers under his jaw so he would hold it a few seconds. And after we were far enough to put the dumbell a couple of meters away and he wanted to go off running and playing by himself before bringing the dumbell to me, I put him to a light long lead. When he noticed he could not take off, he started to bring the dumbell straight to me.

Winter pictures

2005-02-25T09:58:00.000+02:00

We had a photo session with Mataleena Pesonen (www.matsku.net) last weekend. Pictures turned out really good :-).

Here's a preview, I'll update our own album as soon as I can.

Measuring estimates

2005-02-09T13:18:00.000+02:00

After weighing Riva at the vet's I decided it was time to measure him also. Propably not a very exact measurement, without a proper wicket, but an estimate. So, equipped with a tape measure and a ruler, my mom did the measuring while I stacked Riva and tried to hold him still. The measurements averaged around 55 cm (21.6 inches). I hope he stops growing pretty soon.

At the vet's

2005-02-04T16:19:00.000+02:00

Today we had Riva's first real visit to the vet's, he has a bit of an eye infection and we went in to show that. I also weighed him on the good scale and was a bit surprised to find out that he weights 25 kg (55 pounds)! Not a gram of extra fat but he is just built pretty solid.

First Show

2005-02-04T16:17:00.000+02:00

Riva's first show was finally last Saturday. He went BOB Puppy under judge Sharon Frances from Canada. He showed himself very nicely in the ring and took all the hustle and bustle of show grounds in stride. What a great boy!

Bath

2005-01-16T19:01:00.000+02:00

Preparing for his approaching show debut it was time for a bath. Actually, his first since leaving Monica's. Propably doesn't rank very high on his list of favorite things but he took it like a man :-D, much better than brushing which he detests.

Match Show

2005-01-07T13:32:00.000+02:00

Riva and I went to a match show yesterday (January 6th is a public holiday in Finland). It was his first real show experience, he came along to a couple of shows last summer, but he wasn't shown. This time we were in the ring and testing the things that we have been practicing for his conformation debut at the end of January.

The show was in a big supermarket parking garage and full with people and dogs. Eventhough he was a bit overwhelmed in the beginning, he wasn't really afraid and after a while he was quite comfortable despite of the crowd and noise. I have always liked his very polite and appropriate manner of approaching strange dogs and he showed that it hasn't changed. He doesn't go rushing to a strange dog but greets very politely and if the other seems to be likeminded, is ready to strike up some play. But it the other is less friendly, he is smart enough to just let them be.

He also performed quite nicely in the ring. Stacking didn't go quite as well as in practice but reasonably, he stood very nicely when the judge examined him and we managed a pretty nice gaiting routine around and back and forth. I got some good showing tips from a couple of more experienced handler friends but I still have things to learn in how to show him to his advantage, he's a very different dog from my smooth.

Long silence

2005-01-07T13:15:00.000+02:00

Well, we have been just living a regular life = nothing special to report. Riva has now been spending days loose in the bedroom for over a month and has still behaved, mostly. A few new teethmarks have appeared in the handles of my two dressers (easily replaced) and he shredded the foam matress I put for him (he prefers to sleep on the floor, apparently he is hot) but apart from that he has behaved himself.

I have started to see a more serious side of him that reminds of his mother Ally. He is not a happy-go-lucky, goofball puppy anymore. He has learned that inside you are supposed to settle down and rest, he doesn't try to entice Jambi into playing inside anymore, like he did when he was smaller. Outside they still have a blast. And he is starting to stand up for his rights. The other day I gave the dogs rawhide chews and, as usual, Jambi finished his in record time and started to skirt Riva and his chew, just in case he could steal it. Riva lifted his lip to tell Jambi "this is mine and I will defend it" and at that point I told Jambi to get out of the room to let Riva finish his in peace. Jambi is a maniac when it comes to anything edible... Riva doesn't defend food or chews or even real bones from me, though.

Independence day weekend

2004-12-07T15:28:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-03T14:01:00.000+02:00

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

2004-12-02T13:00:00.000+02:00

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

2004-11-26T15:44:00.000+02:00

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

2004-11-17T13:42:00.000+02:00

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

First encounter with a dumbbell

2004-11-13T10:57:00.000+02:00

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

2004-11-08T16:42:00.000+02:00

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

2004-11-01T13:44:00.000+02:00

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

2004-10-29T13:40:00.000+03:00

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

2004-10-11T11:05:00.000+03:00

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

2004-10-05T10:08:00.000+03:00

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

2004-09-30T13:13:00.000+03:00

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

2004-09-21T14:41:00.000+03:00

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

2004-09-20T13:13:00.000+03:00

A few new pictures of Riva in the album.

Outside kennel half finished

2004-09-13T10:56:00.000+03:00

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

2004-09-10T11:09:00.000+03:00

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

2004-09-06T15:41:00.000+03:00

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

2004-09-03T15:45:00.000+03:00

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)

2004-08-23T10:25:00.000+03:00

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

2004-08-20T18:20:00.000+03:00

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

2004-08-18T13:55:00.000+03:00

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

2004-08-16T14:42:00.000+03:00

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?

2004-08-08T18:05:00.000+03:00

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

2004-08-01T20:22:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-31T19:29:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-30T10:30:00.000+03:00

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!

2004-07-29T12:23:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-28T15:25:00.000+03:00

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!

2004-07-26T09:44:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-24T19:14:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-23T10:38:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-23T01:22:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-19T10:33:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-18T18:06:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-15T13:24:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-13T18:47:00.000+03:00

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.

2004-07-11T18:30:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-09T19:42:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-08T16:42:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-07T19:34:00.000+03:00

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

2004-07-04T18:14:00.000+03:00

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!

2004-06-28T02:16:00.000+03:00

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!

2004-06-25T18:02:00.000+03:00

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

2004-06-23T08:02:00.000+03:00

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...