This is a photo of the little Red Girl at 3 weeks old. She is probably the most heavily spotted of all the puppies. She especially has lots of spots on her nose. She seems to be everybody's favorite to hold on their lap because she's irresistable and just plain cute. She likes to snuggle, likes heat, and seems to have a calm disposition, but likes to play with her siblings, too. Right now, she strikes me as a bit more sensitive than her siblings.
Here she is again at 4 weeks old. Red Girl is the biggest question mark in my analysis of the puppies. She is now a bit smaller than her sister, she is built a bit more like a tank than her siblings, and her personality alternates between feisty and very mellow. Her tailset seems a bit high, but that may be a growth phase she is going through. I compared her photo to her mom's at that age and they look a lot alike. I also thought her mom's tail was going to be too high and it turned out just fine. At first I didn't like the spotting so much on her nose, but now I find it very striking. She might be the best agility prospect of the bunch because of her attitude, but I think I need to analyze her some more. I noticed that her mom played and disciplined her more than the other puppies this week and it seemed to make a big difference in her ability to accept doing things requested of her. It will be interesting to see how she develops in the next week or so.
Here are a couple of pictures of Red Girl at 5 weeks. I am continuing to watch her conformation development, especially her tailset. She is more immature than the other puppies at this age, and smaller in size. Her coloring, however, is more striking than the other puppies- it is very dark, as are her eyes. She is also a pistol. Nothing seems to bother this little girl with the big attitude. 
7 week photo:
8 week photos:
Well, here she is at 8 weeks, my future performance dog. She, of all the puppies, is the one that needs a real job. If she were a person, she would be smoking, drinking, stealing cars, and on her way to jail by now. I know I am going enjoy working with this little girl. Her tail looks OK when you hold it just right. I hope she develops a tuck-up one of these days.
And now, there is only one puppy left, and it is time to get to work training the wild child. I do miss the activity and interaction of the group. First, crate training. I left the puppy pen up and set up my crate in it to get her used to the smaller space to sleep in. After a couple of days, I will confine her in the crate outside of the pen with a strict schedule to teach her to control her bladder. Second, conformation training. The evening after the last puppy left for his new home, I spent about 5 minutes working with the Red Girl to teach her to stack on 4 short crab cans. The cans are to show where to put each foot and to get her to stand still. We made substantial progress with a long way to go. Standing still is not going to be a strong suit for this puppy. Third, tracking training. I found an old puppy harness and fitted it to her. The harness will allow her to use her nose to follow a scent without restriction like a collar will. After wearing the harness for a few minutes, she seemed pretty at ease with it. Fourth, obedience training. Right after working the conformation stack, we worked stand, sit, and down, using pieces of kibble to lure her into position with my right hand, and using my left hand to show her what I wanted. For the down, for example, I want a "sphinx" down from a stand, meaning she should go backwards on all 4 legs simultaneously. This will be useful later when we teach a signal drop on recall and hand signals for the utility ring. For each position, I use the word I want her to obey when she understands the exercise. Fifth, agility training. After we finished with the position exercises, I started to teach her left and right turns by luring her into a circle in each direction with a piece of kibble. I tried this with her a couple of weeks ago, and she just didn't get it. Now, her turns are nice and tight, but she still must follow food. All of these exercises took about 20 minutes, and that was enough for her now. As soon as she gets the idea of each exercise, I will ask her to do it with just a word, and reward her with a kibble treat. Basically, she is working for her dinner. Next week, we will plan on refining these a bit, and add some target training.
On Friday, Week 10 anniversary, I took her for her first solo long ride in the car and she got car sick like her brother. I think I will have to do some short trips with her until she gets used to the motion. At the destination, though, she met new people at a new location and handled it pretty well. Her tail was wagging and the devil horns did not sprout from her head. When we got home, she was a pretty tired puppy. Tired puppies are a good thing. Tired puppies don't have time to get into (too much) trouble.
Somehow, I seem to have lost a whole month of my life recently, plus a lot of my postings on this page. Being self-employed in this economy, being show chair for my dog club again this year, and trying to somewhat maintain the landscaped portion of my acreage is sometimes time consuming. But I know where my priorities are. It's gotta be the dogs!
So, here's what I have done with Cricket this last month or so. She has been to four agility classes with mom Skookum where I have sequestered her in a mesh crate at the edge of the ring to let her watch and get used to noise and barking and running dogs. She gets excited when her Mom hits the course and calms down when we get back. It will be many months before she is old enough to do serious jumping, but we can continue to work on other things. It's been great here because everyone we practice with goes out of their way to help socialize her and let her meet their dogs, within reason. She has also gone with us to Skookum's obedience practice where she is much calmer and can get used to seeing other dogs do ring work. We also took our first private obedience competition lesson to give us some training goals. We are working on such things as sitting up tall, rocking back on the down, and heeling with attention, which means following food in my left hand. We have even started our left turns, which is the hardest turn for me to do with my bum knee. She also went to a fun match with Skookum, where she had to stay in her crate for a couple of hours with lots of activity going on. While there, I entered her in the Nonsporting Puppy Group, where she won the group and managed to compete for best puppy. Here judges thought she looked very sound, and she was better at showing her teeth the second time. Lastly, we have taken her to visit a couple of friends and relatives who have puppies and smaller dogs so she continues to get used to being around other breeds.
Around the house, things are starting to become a bit more controlled, but we still have a long way to go with puppy manners training. The best thing is, she is learning to relax with the other dogs when I am busy at my desk or maybe watching TV vs always trying to initiate a play session. We have almost no more messes to clean up inside, but every once in awhile when she gets really excited from playing and I am not paying attention, she may still have an accident. She still occasionally will grab at the toilet paper rolls in the bathrooms and loves to bring sticks, pine cones, tree bark, and apples from my little orchard inside where she chews them up into little pieces. I almost need a shop vac to clean the mess up sometimes. However, I am hoping to turn her instinct to carry things into an advantage as we work through our obedience training, so I am willing to put up with that for awhile. She is still a puppy. When she is fed, we are working on making her sit before the bowl hits the floor. She also must sit when getting a treat from out of the hand.
Here are some recent photos of Cricket and Grannie Flojo (sleeping), Cricket in the office dog chair, and Cricket with Mom Skookum (napping). As you can see if you compare her to Skookum, she is growing pretty fast. Just keep in mind that Skookum is a small dalmatian.
Cricket's weight today (9/9/10) at the vet's was 22.2 lbs, and that was after breakfast. She is not yet 4 months old. In comparing her to Skookum's weight at that age, she is only slightly heavier, so she will probably be a smaller-sized girl than the average.
Four months and 7 days, just a few days after we returned from our agility trial, little Cricket lost her appetite and would not eat. She threw up pretty much everything she had eaten Thursday and Friday. Friday morning, I took her to my vet for an xray to see if she had ingested anything life threatening, and they could see nothing, and she didn't have a fever. In the evening, she managed to keep down a little white rice. I followed that with several slices of white bread. Saturday, she had a pretty good attitude, but was still subdued. I tried feeding her white bread, but she was not interested. Saturday night, she did eat a bit of white bread with chicken broth on it. Sunday morning, she was pretty playful, but only ate about 1/4 of her normal kibble. I am very concerned, but it may just be one of those puppy things. We are keeping a close eye on her.
Whew! Between taking care of my mom and a sick puppy, things have been overwhelming. Good news! Little Cricket's appetite returned and she is now back on quality food and gaining weight and height again. It is an old breeder's trick if a dog has ingested something bad for them to feed them white bread (Wonder Bread if you can find it), maybe slick it down with a bit of mineral oil, and then wait for the results. It seems to have worked, although the problem I had was in getting Cricket to eat at all. Finally, a bloody stool came out and she seems to have eliminated whatever it was- string, plastic, or something. Now, even with a limited time schedule right now, we can at least play and get a bit of training started. Here is a recent photo of Cricket at about 5 months. Her tail set looks OK, but it retains a bit of curl in the lower half. I'd also like a bit more forechest, but overall, I think she is going to physically be up to the tasks I will ask of her. It is a joy to watch her running around the yard- she has great speed and her trot is fast and effortless. This is what I wanted from Johnny and I think I got it.
Sixth month photo, taken at Cricket's first show in November by Jerry Vavra:
Update on Cricket's entry into the Rose City show: we entered the Specialty only. At a drop in handling class a few days prior, Cricket was very "squirrelly" and wouldn't stand for a judge's exam like a good puppy, so I went to the show prepared not to enter. I had several folks go over her before we entered the Sweepstakes ring, and she did OK (2nd place), but not great. I asked to be excused from the puppy class because she was acting up and I don't want her to get the idea she can do that at a show. The next couple of days, we hung around the show and agility trial, let lots of people pet her, including a mob of school kids, and she did great. The problem is one on one with a judge, it seems, so we are headed to a regular handling class for more work. Yes, she is trying to be a juvenile delinquent.
BROKEN PUPPY
On February 7th, Cricket was the victim of a freak accident. On returning home that afternoon, I entered the house through my garage and was greeted by my 3-dog welcoming committee. I always proceed to the rec room to let them out through the sliding door. This room is for the dogs and has a couple of stuffed couches for them to lounge on. One couch was sideways to the door and Ms. Cricket proceeded to bounce on it on her way to the door, and then fell to the floor, crying. I could find no blood or broken bones, and she did not want to stand, so off we went to the emergency vet. Examination revealed that she had ruptured her bladder, something that may not have happened if it hadn't been full. She must have hit the frame of the couch in exactly the wrong spot. That midnight, Cricket underwent surgery to repair the bladder and has been recuperating ever since. It is a difficult process for such an active dog to rest and be still, but little Cricket seemed to understand that is what she must do. The vet ordered her not to jump, run, or play. The cone on her head is to prevent her from pulling out the stitches on her tummy. On Tuesday, 2 weeks later, we went for a track out in the fields of North Bend and she did very well, seeming to want something to do. Next week, the stiches should be removed and we can slowly begin training again.
April: We happy to report that Cricket is back in training with a vengeance, having just competed in a couple of conformation classes, and is training for tracking, obedience, and agility. Here is a 10-month photo of our little darlin' staffing the Dalmatian information booth at the March Seattle Kennel Club show. At this point, she was healed from her surgery, but still had some shaved hair here and there from her surgery. I was extremely pleased with how she reacted to the public at the show considering all of her setbacks. She was very friendly and outgoing. The number one problem I have with her is her desire to use her paws for everything and the desire to jump on people. I work with her constantly on this issue and she is getting better and better about keeping those paws on the floor.
Here is a photo of Cricket at just under one year. I believe she is about 19 inches, and weighed about 38 pounds at this time. Like her mom, she thrives when she has a job to do, and is a lot easier to live with. Around the house, she still carries things around, loves to play with her toys, and likes to chew up cardboard out of the recyling bin, and anything plastic. I have lost many pens and pencils from my desk when I leave them unguarded while I am out. She is also a very good hunter and delights in chasing rabbits out in the yard. She has even managed to catch a mole or two. She doesn't mind rain or water, but also loves to lay in the sun. Little by little, she is figuring out the routine around here and becoming a delight to live with. Both she and her mom seem to have soft, shiny coats that shed very little. Believe it or not, she hasn't had a bath yet.
I can't believe it's November. The year has gone by really fast. In June, I injured my knee and spent most of the summer recuperating as far as my doggie activities go. My business has kept me occupied for months at 7 days a week, unfortunately. I continued to train as best I could, but imagine showing up to agility and obedience classes with a cane! Yup, it can be done, within reason. Now, the old creaky knee is functional again and we are training a bit more. I am super pleased with Cricket's progress in obedience, agility, and tracking. Below are some photos of Cricket running a track the last sunny day we had on November 1st. They show her following the scent in a straight line. She is wearing a harness to allow her freedom to use her nose and pulling me along while she follows the track. When she approaches the scented article (a leather glove) left on the track, she lies down in front of it until I reach her. Lastly, she is looking up at me waiting to be rewarded with a treat. Thanks to my tracking partner Kathy for these photos:
