box work

Hey, everyone! Kiri here, waiting for Mom to do some box work with me.



What's box work, you ask? Well, I'll show you!



You know how some folks encourage you to think outside the box?


Well, my Mom encourages me to think on top of the box! Watch this little video clip to see what I mean:

You see, Mom started clicking and rewarding me for putting my two feet up on the box and staying there. Once I got good at that, she went on to the next step, which was clicking and feeding me for moving my hind end while I keep my front feet on the box:

Then she started moving to my side to feed me there after clicking me for moving my butt. She calls this "placement of reinforcement". Phbbbt....I call it having a snack! (I call a LOT of things having a snack....):

That's when I started figuring out that I could just move along with her and get my treats faster that way:

Now, I know you're wondering where this is all going. I'm gonna let my Granny Annie and my brother Apolo show you. Watch how Apolo moves along with Granny Annie and tries to stay right next to her side just because he's watching her and knows where he needs to be:

Here's my friend Tessie showing that she can move with Auntie Christine in both directions on the box. (whoa, advanced stuff!):

Ok, so here's the point of all this. Once we figure out that we need to be in that spot next to our Moms, we can get in the right position to do what Mom calls "heeling". The sheep-moving sisters have told me about "heeling" -- it means moving in unison with your Mom or Dad while staying exactly in position on their left side. Here's Tessie and Auntie Christine doing this "heeling" stuff, while Mom bugs them with directions:

See how Tessie knows to get into that position even when Auntie Christine is doing weird things? That's what Mom's teaching me with the box work!

Ok, enough work, time for some recreation! Maybe today's the day I catch those Wood Ducks by surprise....

See ya!

beauty and the beast

...hmmm, which do you think I am, beauty or the beast?!....

Hey everyone! I wanted to introduce you to my new best pal, Peyton. Isn't he the handsomest??? He's very hairy, and bunches of fun! He's staying with us for a few days while his Mom, Noreen, is on vacation. He says his Mom is an important lady, she runs things called Agility Trials, which Peyton says are doggie obstacle courses. I've heard some of my friends talk about them, too. Anyway, Noreen's business is called Pawprint Trials, and there's a link to her website over on the left there if you want to go check it out. Of course, if you do agility, you already know Noreen!

Anyway, Peyton came to stay for a few days, and we've been having such a great time. Mom says he's a Collie just like Joy and Cheer (two of my sheep-moving sisters), but he sure doesn't look much like them -- so much hair! -- and he doesn't act much like them either -- LIKES to play with me! Joy mostly just likes to yell at me. And I think Cheer mostly laughs at me.


Boy, can that dog run!! The best part is that he loves to play all of my favorite games, like chase...










...and wrestling! He even lets me win some of the time.

We've been having the best time together, but Mom says he needs to go home today. Sigh. THEN who am I gonna play with? At least tonight is a "work" night -- I've got my puppy class (hooray!) and if I'm lucky I'll get to play with Tessie a little bit too.

Better go get in what play I can before Pey has to leave -- see ya!

big enough!

Hey, look! I'm finally big enough to pick up a duck all the way and carry it around!!


You betcha I'm proud!

Now if I could just figure out what to DO with it once I've got it....

Only 6 more months 'til duck season! Think Mom'll take me huntin'? She sure can't expect those silly sheep-moving sisters to help her out in a duck blind....

exercise -- it's not just for athletes!

Hi everyone! I'm over here, in the bushes by the frog pond, see me??

Today I want to talk with you all about what my Mom says is the most important thing to do while raising a puppy -- getting plenty of age-appropriate exercise! Like Mom says "A tired puppy is a good puppy." (By that measure, I guess I'm the best puppy on the planet....)





What exactly IS "age-appropriate" exercise? Well, it's things that exercise puppies' bodies in a way that gives them a good work out and tires us out, but doesn't put too much stress on our growing bones and developing joints. Running around off-leash is perfect for puppies, because we can move around the way we naturally do in play -- running in spurts, lying down, dashing about, sniffing at stuff, scrambling over logs, flopping down in mud puddles. What you wouldn't want to do is to strap a leash on a puppy and take it jogging with you -- that's too much constant wear-and-tear on our little bodies. Dogs make GREAT jogging companions when they are adults and finished growing. For most breeds, that's around 18 months to 2 years of age. By then our soft cartilage has all firmed up and our bones and joints are the size they will be for the rest of our lives. Until then, that type of exercise can really cause problems with our growth plates and damage our cartilage, leading to all sorts of problems.


When we're really little, we don't really need all that much exercise to keep us tired and happy. But as we pups grow, our need for exercise starts to explode. I just turned 4 months old this week, and I have to tell you, I suddenly have SO MUCH energy! I used to take a quick spin around the horse pasture with Mom and be set for the morning, but now I need to go for a good long romp in the forest with the Things every morning, otherwise I would bug them all during their lessons and everyone would get really grouchy with me. But they take me out, no matter what the weather is like, so that I just sleep in the kitchen (or out in my yard on really nice days) while they do whatever it is they do at the dining room table. (There's pencils and paper and crayons and singing and a lot of laughing....who knows, humans are strange....)

Sometimes we bring friends along, too. This is my half-sister Lucy (she's the one that looks like me), and my friend Tessie (who you met in my last post). They are two years old and are just now at the point that, if they didn't get to go for a nice long outing every day, they'd probably be OK and not drive their Moms nuts. But dogs between my age and their age -- whoa. TONS of energy, and that energy needs an outlet, otherwise us dogs will find our own way to use it. And we're very creative. And potentially destructive. Most dogs that wind up at the pound arrive when they are adolescents and have done something atrocious like eating the linoleum in the kitchen. Or jumping through a glass window. Or shredding the furniture. Most of those dogs would have never done such awful stuff if only they'd had enough exercise! It's really hard to be bad if you're sleeping.

Swimming is another great exercise for dogs. Here I am swimming with Tessie and Pip, another Labrador friend. We labs sure do enjoy the water!! My sheep-moving sisters think we're all nuts -- they say water is for drinking, and that's it. I say, no way!! They are SO missing out!!! We can swim after things that are thrown for us in the water, or we can just enjoy swimming around. I like it both ways!

Ah, wrestling! Another perennial favorite of dogs. You can get some good, exhausting wrestling in even in a backyard. This is my friend Solana, and she's about 10 months old and is FULL of energy. Good thing her Mom knows about getting her plenty of exercise!

Ok, so now a note about safety. If you're not the kind of dog that's going to come back when your Mom calls you, you're going to have to stick to areas that are fenced in, like my horse pasture. (If Mom threw me enough tennis balls and sticks in the pasture, I could probably get enough exercise that way, too.) Or you can visit a "dog park" where you can play with other dogs and get tired that way, or find some other friends who have a fenced in yard where you can all wrestle and play. Or your Mom can tie a long piece of rope onto your collar and hold the other end of it while you go out and about into the world -- that way you can't get so far from her that you get yourself in trouble in a road or something.

Even I sometimes drag my leash -- this picture shows that very situation. The leash gives Mom something to step on if a mountain biker or a jeep suddenly comes rushing down the forest road when we're hanging out at the frog pond, now that the winter gates have been opened and cars are allowed on the road there again. It also makes it super-duper easy for her to catch me up when it's time to go. Mom never calls me to her and puts me in my crate in the van -- if I knew she was going to end my fun, I'd never come to her!! Whenever she calls me to come, it's always for petting or treats or to give me something fun to play with, and then she tells me to go right back on playing again. When she's going to put me in the car, she just picks up the leash and then I go nice as can be with her and jump in when she tells me to. (See, it's REALLY easy to be a good dog!)

Here's a couple of other suggestions for good ways to get exercise: play ball with someone! This is my special red tennis ball, isn't it awesome?? And that's Thing 2 playing with me. I have to tell you, I wasn't so sure about these Things when I first moved in with Mom, but they've sure worked out to be good playmates. So rent yourself a couple of Things if you don't have any of your own. I'd be happy to lend you mine for awhile, so long as you return them undamaged.

And here's a really fun game a little girl played with me at a party recently -- popping bubbles!!! She was making these really big ones with this wand thingy, and I chased them all over trying to catch them and pop them myself before they landed and popped on their own. Fun, fun, FUN! And very good exercise even in a really small area.

No matter how you do it, get your humans to get you some exercise! They'll love you much more if they do. And then you too can look like this.

'Til next time, see ya!

luring for condition

Hi again! In my last post I mentioned that Mom and some of her friends are using some lured positions to work on strength and conditioning exercises for their dogs. Mom doesn't do it with me yet, because my positions aren't perfect (or so she says -- I actually think I do it all just fine!). She says that since my 'baby dog' limbs don't necessarily do what they're supposed to do all the time, she'll wait until I'm more mature before she does these with me. Hmpf!

But in the meantime, Auntie Christine and my very good friend Tessie (she's a blond but I love her anyway -- well, that goes both for Tessie AND Auntie Christine!) agreed to show you how it's done:

For the first exercise, Auntie Christine has Tessie sit back (her front legs move, but her back legs don't) and stand forward (again, her front legs move, not her back legs):

When she does this a bunch of times in a row, it works out those muscles in her pelvic area and her back.

After some of those, she switches to sitting forward (tucking her butt in on her sit, so her front feet stay still but her back feet move) and standing back (kicking her back feet out behind her, so again, her front feet stay still). This works on a whole bunch of different muscles in her pelvis and back and buttocks:

Then she has her do some hip rolls: she starts out lying like a sphinx, then rolls over on one hip, back up straight again, and then over on the other. Again, working yet another set of muscles in the pelvis and back!

Phew, looks like quite the workout. I'll leave them to that, and next time I'll show you how a young whipper-snapper like me takes on strength and conditioning! I'll give you a hint, it has a lot less to do with standing still and a whole lot more to do with moving my entire body throughout the woods!

See ya!

a luring topic

Hey everyone! C'mon inside, I wanna show you something!



Mom's getting ready to do some training with me -- see all the treats she's gotten together? Let's see, there's roasted chicken, and ham, and cheese, and hotdogs, and steak, all cut up into teeny tiny little bits. They're small so that she can feed me lots without me getting full, and so I can swallow them right away without spending time chewing them.

And she's got a clicker, too. A clicker is a little box that makes a metal "click" noise when Mom presses it, which tells me that I did something right and will be getting one of the treats. The cool thing about the clicker is that my brain automatically knows I did the right thing without my having to actually think about it -- if Mom just told me I was right instead, my brain would actually have to work to understand that, which would slow down our training a little bit. Cool science stuff, huh?!

Anyway, what I wanted to show you is in this next video clip. Mom calls it "luring". I call it "having a snack". Watch and see what happens:

Look at all those things Mom can get me to do just by letting me follow a piece of food around! She's not really training me to do anything here, she's just letting me eat while she fiddles around with seeing what I'll do if she puts her hand here or there, or if she twists it this way or that way. Depending on where she holds her hand and the treat, she can get me to sit, stand or lie down. That way, when she's ready to train me to do something when she asks for it, she knows how to get me to do what she wants. So once she knows how to get the behavior, she can call it a name (like 'down') and then show me what it is she wants, clicking me for it when I do it right, then giving me a treat. Pretty smart, huh? Plus there's some pretty cool doggy strength and conditioning exercises that Mom and her friends do with their older dogs using these position changes -- maybe I'll show you that in another post. (But this post is all about me!)

Mom can also lure me to do more than just stationary exercises. Look all the different ways she can get me to move using a lure:

Mom can use the lure-in-motion to train me to do things to. As a matter of fact, she did! I learned how to do a "spin" this way:

And I can do it the other direction, too! (Mom calls it a "twirl" when it goes the other way.):

**yawn**

Oh, sorry, all this work has tuckered me out. Me and my Fuzzy Blue Guy are gonna catch some zzzzs. So until next time...

...see ya....

cute lab pictures

Hi everyone! I'm working on a really cool post on an "alluring" topic (he he), but apparently it's taking me too long because I'm getting requests for "more cute lab pictures". So here ya go, Auntie Christine! (Love ya!)


Been busy visiting the frog pond, hunting lily pads. (They're easier to catch than the frogs -- I got that one right after Mom took this picture!)

Been hunting in the woods. Not much out there to find, actually. But at least it keeps a young dog busy! And tired. Whew, I tell you, I spend half my day running around the woods and half of it dead asleep....

Been hanging out with the Things, keeping track of them, playing with them, trying not to push them off the cliff (but I have to tell you, it takes ALL of my self control not to do that....).

'K, gotta run, the Things need my help hunting for some eggs. Smells like rabbit out there....

See ya!

(Oh, p.s., go RedSox!!)