Archive for ‘September, 2018’

September 16: The week in review

It was a lazy week – see above!

Actually a good week, although not a productive work week due to some domestic items … nothing bad just some things needing doing.

But as always, walks happen and the weather is gorgeous: cool, sunny, blustery Fall weather!

Emmett decided to move his kitchen bed to the office/sunroom, right behind my chair…

Lots of company while I was working, which I love! ***He moved the bed himself!!!

New things this week: a new leash which is thick and soft and I love it. So does Emmett – he took himself for a walk, he loved it so much :)

An orange long line as we begin proofing our recall with distractions. The distractions are deer, Auggie, squirrels and ??? Recall is perfect in the house and in the yard with no distractions so this is the next step.

Emmett is not fooled. He has more freedom on the long line than on leash, but he feels the weight and the one time he started after deer, I slowly applied pressure on the line as I called him. After that, he didn’t venture off the trail. But, this will take time and my plan is that it becomes habit on the long line, then I will use a lighter line which I’ll gradually shorten. I expect it will be Spring before the combination of his maturity and training is fully reliable in the face of wildlife or other very exciting distractions.

BUT, I am very pleased that he does not pull against the line or the leash. Occasionally he will lunge, but then stops. I have the long line as well as any leash attached to a harness so no neck stress. Trainers have differing opinions regarding using a harness. I am going with harness.

Emmett walks nicely on leash with the harness. In new places, he pulls against it, but I just stop. When he returns to me, on we go. We don’t walk when he is at the end of the leash and pulling – pulling gets him nowhere.

I do not do the change of direction thing. We have started some basic “walk to heel” but not at remote (EXCITING) locations. Walk to heel requires his focus on me and a specific position. We do that in the yard but it is too much for exciting places at the moment and right now, the exciting spots are for exploring with the only limits being not pulling and responding to attention noises from me.

Another benefit of working with a trainer and watching other trainers on YouTube is seeing and hearing that all takes time and every dog is unique, so I am working with where Emmett is: his maturity, attention span, experience as well as my own learning experience.

The orange line is very silky and does not get hung up on branches, rocks, grasses – YEA! It is also easy to see. So far, so good!

Auggie gets in on the action, also!

The vegetables took a decided turn to Fall: pie pumpkins! Delicata squash joined tomatoes and lemon cucumber plus cucumber slicers to make an Autumn vegetable “bouquet bowl”…

And that bouquet bowl made a nice backdrop to Saturday morning’s dough shaping…

…for Sunday morning’s Cranberry Sourdough.

Sunday morning in the woods…

And later at Wayfarer’s Park on Flathead Lake.

A Good Week!

Into September: Emmett at 7 Months, some food and some weather

30 weeks old tomorrow and 7 months old on 9/12/2018.

So much fun, in so many ways.

My dream of all of us on the little sofa in the kitchen just keeps getting better!

Training continues, of course. There are stellar days and days when Emmett pretends he never heard the word “Sit”. I have learned to switch things up with fun, fast paced training of things I know he likes to do: touch, follow, left paw, right paw. All of the training is short sessions: some 2-3 minutes, some 5-10 minutes if things are going very well. When I see that he is “done” we either do sprinkler (see video at the end!) or fetch. If we’re inside, I sit on the floor and we have a play/snuggle session to end things.

What I continue to see is an increasing bond of trust interspersed with some fun/funny naughtiness. For the naughty, I leave the area, the fun stops and I do some chore elsewhere for a few minutes. All calm, no one yelled – no drama. He waits by the pet gate and we have a nice greeting when I return.

The other thing I’ve taken from the Kikopup’s training videos is to think about teaching in a way that allows Emmett to do the behavior, or the first part of the full behavior … in a successful way, i.e. setting him up for success and building on that. It requires that I use MY brain so win-win for all of us!

We’ve worked a lot on attention and focus. When on our woods walks, I will occasionally make my attention noise: kissy sound, squeaky toy, cough/sneeze. When he looks, I get all excited, click and if he comes to me: treat, treat, treat!! The idea is that I stay more fun than anything else. Mostly this works :)

So, squeaky toys.

This is the latest. Actually, it is a puzzle toy which is why I bought it. Emmett, an English Shepherd, is a very smart dog that is good at problem solving and seems happiest with things that engage his mind: training, snuffle mat, kong, playing chase with Auggie …

This toy is a hollow log and comes with 6 little squirrels. All of the squirrels have squeakers.

… It seemed like a good idea at the time :)

Actually it is!

Even with 6 little squeaky squirrels, it is a fun toy for Emmett. Not only does he have a good time removing the squirrels, but he stashes them around and plays with them.

PLUS, they are small enough that I can put 1 or 2 in my pocket when we walk and thus have a squeaky toy for attention getting and proof that I am WAY more fun than deer, etc.

One of the keys to positive reinforcement training is to teach in a way that allows the animal to make good choices because those choices are beneficial to him and so it is easy for him to decide to make the good choice. Yelling “NO”, as well as other “punishment” serve to make the animal afraid and unsure. I’ve SEEN the difference in both Emmett and Auggie as I’ve trained with this method. I do some click-treat with Auggie in tandem with Emmett to calm them both if play gets out of hand. I’ve also taught Auggie a hand signal if he wants to walk past Emmett … it is a signal that says that I have control of Emmett and Auggie can proceed without a chase.

Is that a “Thank you” from Auggie ??? Well, maybe not, but at least he does have a retreat!

On to food!

Only 3 more weeks of CSA :(

But this week, we headed into Fall bounty:

And after making Mel’s Kitchen Café Amazing Romaine Salad which required making candied nuts … GREAT salad, but those nuts!

Looking for other ways to make the nuts, I found: these cayenne spicy-sweet nuts . YOWZA! If you like a hot-sweet vibe, this is a recipe to try.

I made a double batch … munched on some and added the rest to vanilla ice cream …

… with David Lebovitz’s Salted Butter Caramel Sauce . I subbed cashew cream for the heavy cream – no calorie savings, but my caramel sauce has protein and fiber!!!

Next up is weather.

We have mostly turned the corner to Fall (Autumn).

HOO RAH!!

1 of 3 A/C units put away on August 26.

Help and supervision by Emmett and Auggie.

I put the other 2 away as well as fans that same day.

With the exception of 3 days last week, we’ve been smoke free and cool.

It is wonderful.

Overall, it was not the worst summer ever. And we are likely to have some warm days still, but I really think the worst is behind us. Fires continue and we need a fire-ending weather event. The loss of historic structures is heart breaking. And the animals.

But, to end on a fun note … a video. As usual, my video skills leave a lot to be desired. I am completely in awe of people who video pets and themselves while walking, playing, etc. The only thing I can say for myself is that I am slightly better at editing so mostly have edited out the wild camera swings to the sky and my feet. Emmett is the star and for myself, at least I did not talk “baby talk”…