The Nose KNOWS

As a birthday present to Decibel and me, we signed up to a 'Nose Games' class, something completely new for us.  Our ulterior motive was to check out another dog school - since, let's face it Decibel is not quite 'finished'.  Sure, she knows her basics, but she rarely gets out of her comfort zone, and that's when it really counts.  And being a Briard - well, she needs a solid foundation to fall back on, when stressed, even in a good way.


What are Nose Games?
The rules are really hard for the handler; basically you have to let the dog do whatever she wants to do.  No correction, no direction, no hints, no praise.  The dog is brought into a room with boxes on the floor, one of which contains real yummy goodies.  After a while the dog figures out to check the boxes for the one with the goodies.  The eventual goal is to develop search dogs that can search rooms, cars, containers and even outside for the scent they are trained to detect, like bomb dogs, or drug dogs or so forth.  But that's only for perfectionists.
All dogs like this game, because a.) they have a nose, and b.) there are goodies in the boxes, you just have to go sniff it out.

The first step was to bring a hungry dog.  Now I cannot simply "forget to feed" Decibel, while three others crunch and munch down their evening meal - so she got half rations, and I fed really early.  Then we had to get out of the door with one and only one dog.  I say we, because Harold had to come.
The game is done with only one dog in the room at a time, and I cannot put my 'little girl' in a crate or - GASP - car by herself for any amount of time.  Also, I figured, if the class is not what we expected, we can make a meet-people-in-town trip out of it, that's always good.
We got there early, and walked Decibel around, and as soon as she met a few admirers, she settled down, and collected accolades with grace and humility.  She was good about being petted, no jumping, no shyness, and then she waited with her 'Dad' for a long time, while I learned what not to do.  There were 9 dogs enrolled, so it took quite a while between run-throughs, but watching how the other dogs (some with experience, some novices) reacted was very informative.
All dogs caught on to the game quickly.

Decibel walked in a bit hesitantly - NEW PLACE - but she did check her boxes and to my surprise she did that rather than find her Daddy, who was watching her run, and usually there is little that will distract her from finding her guy.  By the second time she WANTED to go in, and she did find the box, but she couldn't understand the concept of sticking her head into a partially closed box.  Decibel is too polite to do such a thing as tear things open or be pushy.
She has a human to do that sort of thing for her.
And of course she has been trained NOT to open feed buckets and other containers full of goodies (cat food, pig feed, cattle chow) around the place - and she displayed those good manners.

Naturally she was very tired when we got home, but this morning she ran back to the house, barked at the door until Harold let her in, and demanded breakfast!
She was still hungry, and the few goodies in the boxes hadn't made up for the partial supper the night before.
(This was an absolute first.  Decibel ALWAYS comes with me to do chores in the morning).

I think we will play the Nose Games on rainy days, but for further training I signed her up for an adolescent obedience class, so she can perfect her manners.  That royal wave could use a little refinement...

Braveheart

April is the time for the annual vet visit at our house, and everyone gets their check up, tune up, a few tweaks and adjustments, along with their necessary vaccines.
Dr. Ann comes to our place, since hauling horses, donkey, the cow, and three cats down the road is not really feasible; those cats put us right over the weight limit.

We actually start with the cats - one of course scratched me right away, so I was done with them, and told Harold to take over.  (And then they think I will share some milk with them?  Ungrateful buggers.)
Then we moved on to the 'worthwhile' creatures, actually deserving of Dr. Ann's attention.
Ruby was no trouble, especially since Dr. Ann used the smallest bore needle for her injections, she is a thin-skinned cow with sensitivities after all.

Then came the dogs.
Maggie, Skeeter, and Ralph adore Dr. Ann and we have to hold them back so she can do their exams one at a time without getting kisses and such.

Decibel is a different story.  


Decibel's experience with Dr. Ann goes back to her first booster shots and she had a FIT!

She howled, yodeled, cried, tried to get away, didn't want a cookie, and repeated that with intensified levels for each shot, and she most definitely did not like Dr Ann, or her cookies, or anything after that.
Her subsequent Dr Ann encounters were a little calmer, but she was not convinced that they were necessary.
Big brown accusing eyes, scrambling to get away, followed by the cold shoulder, that was her response.
Not this time!
She took the shot with all the stiff upper lip of a hero facing sure obliteration.

Oh she was so brave!

And she was so obviously proud of herself afterward!

Treating the horses and donkey were downright unremarkable compared to Decibel's bravery in the face of a syringe, even though Molly needed her teeth floated (sharp edges on the teeth get filed off).

New Pigs

This year's pigs are not the normal elite group of super-duper-show pigs, rather they are supposedly 'runts', but Craig was hoping that the milk will help them catch up.  Honestly, they aren't too shabby looking and after a few days on milk, they are beyond catching on, they sure have caught on, and are on their way to catching up.

After the milk they all collapse in a pile and sleep it off.  It is so funny to watch.

                                                                      Milk-induced sleepiness.

One of the pigs has a hernia, which looks disturbing, but seems mostly cosmetic, since it doesn't bother him at all.

Mom spent most of her visit watching the pigs, maybe it smelled better in the barn than in the house?

Spring Fires

While Mom was visiting we showed her some of the local scenery...
 ...in this case some tall grass prairie, but as soon as we stood there, the photographer mentioned something about ticks, and I couldn't hold still.

...which was a pretty hot scene, since it is time to burn the grass.  We were lucky and watched a neighbor burn from start to finish, which was impressive and (except for a short time of smoke on the highway) went very well, without trouble.

The fires were out in less than an hour, for about 80 acres burned. 

March marches on

This month was loaded with... SUNSHINE.

Our trees and flowers are blooming with impressive results, which makes us worry about a late frost.  Well, I worry, Harold has ordered more trees and flowers and stuff from the gardening catalogs, and he is always digging a hole for something, or planting something, or roto-tilling somewhere.
 Apple tree Wisteria
The bees are busy like themselves, and the dogs are bringing us proof that there is always a fly in the ointment, or in their case a tick in the fur.

My Mom visited and while it rained some during her visit (of course) she had a great time hanging out in the pig sty.  Really, every time I turned around Mom was playing with those piggies.  How she never got dirty doing so is beyond me.  I look outside and I get dirty.

 The dogs adored my Mom.  Ralph slept with his head in her lap, whenever she would sit on the couch, Skeeter snuggled with her, Decibel, oh gasp, jumped up on her all the time, and smooched standing up, with is strictly 'verboten' in my house, but Mom 'didn't mind', and what can I do then?

It is difficult enough to resist her smiling face.  

She is a pepper too... she loves playing with empty soda pop bottles.

Guess who's TWO!

Decibel bearing the mantle of maturity as becoming a young princess...

Well, sure.
Of course she is really not there yet.  She still has the occasional puppy moment, or a teenage monster attack, although for a very large part she is settling into being the perfect Decibel:  Active, playful, happy, alert, HELPFUL, oh ever so helpful, smoochy, especially when there is food involved, smart - way way way too smart, and funny.
Her birthday started with her special treat - meat muffin with cheese candles, then of course came the present, and the party.  And it is still morning...

Had to hold her back for the photo...

gulp

yummy

What are those?  For me?

I'll help!

Oh, stuff on the inside!

Maggie is still helping

playtime

Where is Ralph in all this?

Patiently waiting... he can count!

Darn Technology

I used to like our first digital camera - a Kodak, believe it or not - easy to operate, no worries about running out of film, and you just erased the flops, no worries at all, really.  Ok, so that little thing ate lithium batteries like other people eat popcorn, but except for that little flaw, it was almost perfect.  The other problem it had that it was turned on by a little wheel, which invariably turned to 'on' when you put the camera away, so that the batteries would drain even faster.  Still, I liked the camera, and thought it took decent enough pictures.
But Harold felt we should upgrade:
The next generation was a complete flop.  It is nearly impossible to take decent pictures with that piece of technology.  It is made for people with stick fingers, and is too slow.  When I push the button, that is the image I want captured.  Not something a third to half second later.
Now means NOW, as my mother would say.
So I gave up on the camera, when, glory be, Harold brought home yet another technological marvel.  It LOOKS like a SLR camera - old style - and those I can manage, but it only looks like one.  It is heavy too, since it is a metal body, but when it comes to image capture, its functions (and there are many) remain completely obscure to me.
You turn it on and it is set to some crazy setting that makes no sense, and occasionally I can even snap a picture with it, but lately it zooms in, then back out, all while I want it to take a picture not make me dizzy with the zoom.  It doesn't even take the zoomed in picture, so I don't understand the function.  The sad thing is, I cannot find the zoom on it, and often I would really like to get a little closer to my subject, but the camera is set the opposite way.
It has various sorts of focusing laser beams, red and green and shoots those out with incomprehensible logic, but they do not improve the image quality.
On the sports setting it snaps lots of pictures in a row, all blurry and out of focus.  Huh, I don't actually need a setting for that...
For a while it would display what it was looking at on the back screen - then it switched (for no discernible reason) to a display of numbers and stuff I don't understand.
I suppose I am to use the view finder then?
However, Harold pushed a button to make it go back to 'live display', but other things happen when I try that same button.  Also, apparently it is an either or... if you get the view displayed on the screen in the back, you can't use the view finder.  That sucks in bright sunlight, when you can't see anything on the screen, other than dark!  and by the time I push the many buttons available, I end up with a confused camera, and no pictures.

So after that preamble, here are a few more dog pics, in sunlight.

Mo-om I had my eyes shut!

I get the sticks as 'flowers' when Decibel is done with it.