Decibel - up to new tricks

These days Decibel is like the weather, variable!
Not that spring is not in the air, and so it is with Decibel.  She will be a great dog one day, smart, obedient, willing to learn and please.  Her occasional teenage attitude is short-termed, and often nothing more severe than refusal to hear, or interpretation of the rules.
Mostly she gets scared by her own boldness, and decides to give in, before I even feel a correction is necessary.
The absolute worst thing about her adolescence is trying to keep a straight face when Decibel gets in trouble.  Most of the time, she is too cute, even when she is bad.
We've had some nasty weather following Brownie's death, fog, clammy cold, snow, a little ice, and all that seems entirely proper, since we were a bit gloomy as well.  But staying indoors does not tire out Decibel, and boredom is the root of most of her mischievousness.


Dog home school:

All good students!

So I decided that we needed a 'lesson plan' for nasty days.  The dogs do their sits, downs, shake and other tricks, and since there are cookies to be earned, they do this quite well.
Then we go on to the 'advanced' level:

Magic trick:

All that is needed for magic trick is a plastic container (even clear will work) and a treat.  A dog sits and the treat is placed on the floor, and covered by the plastic container (I call it the "cup", although it is usually a yogurt container).
Now you might think, how hard is that?  The dog was watching the whole time.
But dogs vary in their stage of development.  Some understand that the treat is under the cup.  In my house that is the 'girls' Maggie and Decibel.

This is soo tricky!

The boys are confused.  Where did the cookie go, Mom?  I would like a cookie.  Please, give me a cookie.
When I tell the dog to 'get it', Maggie used her paw, tips the cup over, eats the treat.
No challenge at all.

Decibel will attack the problem with her nose.  She moves the cup around or picks it up with her mouth, then has to spit that out to eat the treat.
Done!

Ralph is sad that the treat disappeared.  With some encouragement he will sniff on the floor for it, and eventually, accidentally dislodge the treat cup combo and think he 'FOUND' a treat!  So cool.  I found a treat!

Skeeter doesn't get it.  He sits, he wags his tail, he is anxious but confused.  He so wants a cookie.

At this point Decibel steps in, steals the cup, exposes the cookie, makes Skeeter's day, and all is well again.
Then I have to call Decibel and have her surrender the cup so we can play the game again.

For a joke I put the treat on top of the inverted container.

Believe it or not, the girls eat the treat, the boys are confused.  It is too funny!

Wipe your nose.

Wipe your nose:

I hold out a kitchen towel and tell Decibel "wipe your nose".  She will do this right away.  She knows "touch" which means touch my hand with your nose, and that is how she interprets the gesture, and since she cannot touch the hand without touching the towel, she obeys.

Blind!

Where's Decibel?

Peek-a-boo!

Peek-a-boo:


The dogs take turns of sitting, and having their heads covered by a towel.













Then I say "peek-a-boo," and they either paw or shake the towel off, and get a treat.













That might not be much of a trick, but it looks really cute.

Another sad day - or why does this happen when Harold is away?

Harold had to go to Washington DC on business, and because this spring is one of sudden snow storms and surprise ice storms, he had quite a bit of trouble making it there. I think all total he was booked on six different flights going there, but ended up on a new set of flights, after using a shuttle bus to Kansas City. While our local airport is trying hard to attract business, they have one of the poorest 'on time' ratings in the industry, and will cancel flights for reasons as stupid as "the flight crew did not get enough sleep".
 Wait, you say, who would want to fly with a pilot that is dog tired? There are good reasons for safety regulations like these.
 Yes, sure there are. The problem was they knew this the night before, more than 12 hours in advance. I don't know anyone who needs to have more than 12 hours of sleep.
But back to the story.
Harold did finally make it to DC, and by this time his phone was nearly depleted and of course he had forgotten the charger at home. Not that this would be a problem, ordinarily. Those who know me that I have no affinity whatsoever for the phone. I plain hate the thing, and loathe to answer it, and won't make a phone call if I can think of any other way of communicating, including smoke signals.

On Wednesday morning I went to do chores, about 10 minutes late. When Harold is away, the dogs won't let me sleep. They think any noise is related to Harold's return. Then they bark to alert each other to this event. Every twenty minutes one of them will hear something that means "Daddy's home!" Still, right now I have no chores that need to be done on time to the minute, the sun was coming up, the day was mild, and I wasn't in too grumpy a mood, only in severe need of some caffeine.
When I got to the horse barn, I heard a horse banging her hooves, which is what they will do when they want to hurry things along. Sweetpea was fine, donkey was waiting by his bowl, and Brownie was standing over her bowl, only covered in dirt, with a scraped up face. I poured her grain, and she pawed at the bowl, ripping it, and spilling the food. Brownie always eats, she lives for that grain. Something was wrong. I got the halter, led her outside where the light was better, got the dirt out of her eye, and noticed that she had been cast, down too close to a wall, and unable to get on her feet, until she had moved her body by flailing around, thus banging her head. It was superficial, unless she had actually hurt her brain, but in Brownie's case, that would hardly rob her of her appetite.
Brownie was very docile, but when I let her go, she pawed the ground, rolled, and looked wrong.
 Colic!
 But why?
 She had not eaten anything bad or too much, and donkey and Sweetpea were fine. I went back to the house, called the vet and fed the dogs. Then I headed back out to the barn to walk Brownie until the vet could come. Colic is a bad belly ache and horses cannot handle pain. They cannot handle much of anything they can't outrun, really. I had nursed several horses through this before, but they had all gotten into the grain, and eaten too much. Anyhow, I got up there and Brownie was lying on her side, looking bloated and dead. She was not dead though, so I got her up, and walked her.
Dr. Ann came, pumped the horse full of analgesics, anti-inflammatory drugs, tubed her, then began pumping water followed by mineral oil into the horse. This should relieve gas pressure and flush out manure. If a horse passes gas or manure, they will likely get better. But Brownie did not.
We waited for a bit, and Brownie still did not want to eat, not even spring grass. I promised to update Dr. Ann by noon, at which time we would have to make a decision. Brownie is an old mare, rather fat, and if her colic was brought about by gas, she would get better, but if it was due to a twisted intestine, she was not even a good candidate for surgery, and that would cost a minimum of $5000 and then would still result in a dead horse, most like.
Horses are not worth anything anymore, because the animal rights idiots have shut down slaughterhouses that will process horses. A dead horse won't even be used for dog food. Your options as an owner are to bury them, burn them, or compost them. We had just gone through that with Chigger.
Anyhow, Brownie did not improve, she got worse. I called and emailed Harold and left messages, then called Dr. Ann again with the bad news. I told her to come whenever she had time, I would be out with Brownie.
Brownie was always Harold's horse. She loved him. He liked her. Together they made a decent pair. Brownie never liked me much, until that last day. She kept coming to me for what minimal comforts I could provide. I walked her, groomed her, cooled her down when she was dripping with sweat.
Dr. Ann returned, checked Brownie over and agreed, euthanasia was the kindest thing. Brownie was in tremendous pain and there was no improvement at all. This was not a trapped fart. We already knew a good spot for the job, so we had Brownie follow chigger. Dr. Ann managed to get Harold on the phone, he had borrowed a cell phone from a colleague. Brownie did not object. Her last day she was the most pleasant horse ever.
Afterward I loaded her with the tractor and brought her to the place where we interred Chigger. Even with that I had no trouble. I am rather good at transporting dead horses now. Not a skill I can brag about.
Sweetpea was screaming and hollering the rest of the day, donkey was quiet. I finally did get hold of Harold again, whose flights back were the ones he had booked, but delayed by a bit. Still, he made it home before the next storm.
I did bake him some brownies in Brownie's honor.

Question to the Briard experts... more teenage woes

A quick question to Decibel's breeders:


At this stage, are the ears purely decorative, or do they have some sort of definable function?



Decibel has selective hearing these days.
Or maybe she is limited as to how much sensory input she can process, for there is surely nothing wrong with her hearing, she can hear a flea on the neighbor's dog fart, when it is necessary.  Only when she is tracking something with her nose, she can not hear me call her.  When she is tasting horse poop, that interferes with her listening skills as well.  This weekend, she did push it a little too far, but she paid for it, so we're good:

Decibel is tracking determinedly in the field, what I do not know.  She can't hear me.  Well, she can, she is just too busy.  So I actually (for the first time) go up to her, and pinch her butt.  I told her that "come" was not optional.  Of course she immediately turns into the sweet girl puddle of mush, so after a few sits and downs, I let her get back to sniffing.  She came the next time, she is not dumb that one, nor deaf neither.

On Sunday we spent a long time with the comb and brush, while Harold was distracting her.  Finally, almost a mat free Briard.  (Well, I didn't do the 'undercarriage').  The sun came out, so we all went for a walk.  Decibel was good, up to the end, when again, she ran after Maggie to hunt rascally squirrel rather than listen to Mom.  She did come, but not until she was completely coated with sticky plant seeds.

Oh Decibel.

Well, I combed her, glad that at least the mats were not making things worse.  She held still, didn't complain much, although I wasn't as careful about tugging, I wanted to get the seeds and stickers off before they worked into the coat, but Decibel knew she needed help.  She couldn't see for one thing, and I kept her head for last, just because.


The thing is, she always makes up for it, and keeps me laughing.





This is how and where she likes to sleep.



Oh, as a PS, Ralph is being ever so good, especially after his surgery, he has been a real happy dog, and there are now times when all dogs play with each other, which is loud, chaotic, but friendly.  He rarely warns Decibel off anymore, and as long as he gets plenty of positive attention from me, he is wonderful with her.  When he is grouchy, it is now uncharacteristically so, and usually at night, after a busy day - he is hurting then, and needs a bit of Metacam, then he feels better.

Ralph the good with a grin to boot!

Decibel the teenager

This morning Decibel showed me just how very smart she really is under all that hair.  We were walking up to the horse barn, and Decibel wanted to play.  I decided this would be a good time to introduce a new command - go ahead, for which I use the German 'voraus'.  I found it easier to teach Harold some German for dog commands than to learn the English ones.  So far so good, only whenever I said that and pointed ahead, Decibel jumped at my arm and lightly mouthed it, which is not ok.

I was just about to scold her for being bad, when the light came on.
Decibel was not being bad at all.  She was being very very smart.

"Aus" is the command for let go, release, drop it.  Whatever is in your mouth, let go of it.  I use it for a tug toy, or when I want the dead thing they are carrying, or when we play with the bite glove.  We practice take-it and "aus" a lot, and Decibel is very, very good at this, because NO BITE (no teeth on skin) is a commandment in my house, and Decibel does not violate that one.  She still thinks that gloves excuse the occasional mouthing, but will cease immediately when I tell her no bite or "aus".

So when I told her "voraus", Decibel saw my arm and thought, let go, but she wasn't mouthing it.  So she jumped up, mouthed it lightly so she could let it go.  How smart is that?

Charge!

I changed the command to 'charge', and tossed a toy, and no more mouthing or trying to get my glove.  Decibel now moves ahead.  Now I just have to train my old brain to use the new command.  I can see it now, we'll be at the farm store, and I say 'charge' to pay and Decibel will try to drag me out the door...



Here we finally had two days of above freezing bright sunshiney weather, so things look great and feel like spring, except for the mud in the kitchen, well, actually, that is a harbinger or spring as well.  I am glad this is a normal year.  Winters used to be like that, with the occasional islands of warmth, so you wouldn't go crazy with all the gloom and doom and cold, but the last three winters were hard, and unrelenting.  This is much better.

Of course Decibel is like the weather too, she changes.  Yesterday was time for classes again, and before we had to stop at the Petco store.  Maggie was along too, and it was Maggie's first time at Petco, for all that, we never did spend much time citifying that girl, she came half grown from a city, knew the leash and such, so it never occurred to us, I guess.  Anyhow, Maggie is very good at dog class, and will obey, so it wasn't a big deal to take her to Petco.  She even sniffed a poodle thing without any aggression, and that was good.  Then she saw the mice and rats under glass, and got very excited, but she didn't eat anyone.

Decibel got noticed too, and except for not walking at heel all that well, she was very good.  She didn't jump and knock people over so I was pleased.

Then we went to class.

Decibel knew nothing.

She wanted to bowl Amelia over, she didn't want to heel, and certainly down was a mystery to her.  We had heeled through the kitchen, automatic sit, down, stand, all perfect, all without a leash, just that day, but in class, NOOO.

What is this down, woman?  What are you talking about?  Oh, hey, there is Daddy!  Hi Daddy, I'm coming to play with you. Hack, ack, that woman is pulling me.  Down?  I don't do Down.  I don't like... cookie?  I like cookie.  She finally downs.  Heel?  What is this heel?  Daddy!  Let's get Daddy!  Long sit?  BOOORRRIIING.  Daddy!

(We trade dogs, and she does the same for Harold, so at least she is an equal opportunity insulter).

Here are some class pictures from that session:

A good start... was deceptive.

Down?  What is this down you speak of?

NICE!  Automatic sit after we did a figure 8 heel around Maggie, the lone dog, and Amelia, the dogless woman.

Long sits?  Booorrrinng.  (Maggie is great!)

A discussion about sit and down.

blah blah blah.

Well, you get the idea.

She did settle in, and she did have to do every single down before we would continue, but she was a hand full.  We get home, and she must have left all her obedience there, because she did every thing flawlessly, even plop down from a stand without the least bit of hesitation.  Thanks, Decibel.


Then I find her in the living room, noodling a rug.  Not quite eating the fringe, but well, she certainly was doing more than think about it.  DECIBEL!  She looks at me with that fake innocence, what mom?  I told her no, about the rug, and she will actually look at it like, how did that get there?  I would never eat the fringe off the rug.  I'm Decibel the good!  Verily!


So I scolded her, took her over to a toy, told her take it, which she did, praised, for that, and showed her the rug again, and she acted like she wouldn't ever touch the thing, but of course that's just a show, she did that last time too.  Worse, all the time I am trying not to crack up, because while she is showing her age, she is never mean or sneaky about it.


Anyhow, we walked a lot, nothing really got chewed, not even her butt, I think the girl will be quite spoiled, but she is so sweet when she is not the teenager that I am not worried.  This same dog comes when I call her, and drops her horse poop treasure at the door, and actually does the leave it, and not steal the eggs out of the basket or eat the cat, just on my say so.  How could I be mad at that?