We Still Live

After a while of being missing in action I return with a video. Of Bella! yay!

To make a long story short, my back is messed up big time again and I have been struggling with work and home life.Physiotherapy, acupuncture and painkillers are some of the things awaiting me. Unfortunately, my doctors are advising me not to walk, jog or bike much if I can avoid it and instead going for a swim. Unfortunate for a person with a dog? EXTREMELY!

However, after feeling very guilty and like the world's worst dog owner I decided to stop grieving and get creative with things to do with Bella. I do try to take her to a field to go frisbee-ing or ball throwing but I am also getting back into more regularly activating her in my home. Mainly with trick training.

When I was pregnant with my son I taught her to pick things up for me, something I have used from time to time. I never got around to actually getting her to drop them into a box like I was planning. Yesterday I finally got around to finding a suitable box and we got going. I took a short video and it's actually only our second training session working on this, ever. I think it's going pretty well already.

With a kid that loves spreading his toys (and the contents of my kitchen) all over the apartment, maybe Bella could still try to impress my fiancé with her tricks.

Even Pirate Dogs Have Weaknesses

Winter continues here in Iceland and the snow has returned. I am continuously sick and it is getting more than a little annoying. During the snow free days this week with perfect weather and me doing alright I had planned on going out for the first bike ride with Bella this year. To my disappointment, the tyre tube exploded and I had no extras. Argh!


Bella is getting the hang of the hind leg pivoting to the point that she has offered the behaviour a few times on her own with no prompting and no object on the floor. She is offering it pretty consistently with a book although she uses it less and less. It is rewarding seeing the work pay off.


At home, Bella is usually calm and quiet. There is however one or two actions here that really get her riled up, I was playing around with the camera around one of the transitions tonight. Below is a picture of Bella right outside the kitchen, watching what is going on there in the hope of getting something edible thrown at her.

Less than a minute later, the signs of distress are clear and she has moved to the living rooms, what's going on Bella...?

"I don't feel so good right now, what do you want with me?"

....

Ding! Ding! Ding! My fiancé cooking with the frying pan. Without a fail, it makes Bella go into hiding. I think it must be the noise or smell that makes her so upset. There was a time where I would try to coax her into being nearby but she still felt really bad so now I just leave her be. She comes back as soon as we stop using it and start eating. She does the same as soon as we start cutting onion. That one I understand well enough.

Finally, one picture of me, my horse and stepdaughter who participated in a costume competition. We found this ridiculously big sword that we just had to buy and she rode like a true skeleton knight.

Magic Shrimp

I took the family to the stables this morning to feed the horses. It's only three horses currently in the stable so it's not a very time consuming job. There's a certain zen about being around feeding horses, the noise of horses munching on hay is the most soothing sound I know of.

After a lazy day watching the wind and snow outside the windows, me and Bella hit a real breakthrough in our hind leg pivot training. We had tiger shrimp for dinner and with bits and pieces left Bella was hard at work earning her bonus meal. I have been struggling to get her to just move her hind end and there was a pattern emerging the past few days. Tonight she moved without me moving and I ended the session after an almost 180 degree turn which was a solid jackpot moment for her. Sometimes a different treat can make all the difference!

The Tricks Continue

I've been putting more effort into the pivot training with Bella the past few days. I'm rather impatient myself so after the initial success which turned into a complete status quo I've been fighting to remain enthusiastic and optimistic about it. As impatient as I am I make up for it by being extremely stubborn. No matter how frustrated about the lack of progress I can get I refuse to give up no matter how much I want to.

However I do believe that me and Bella are now getting to a place where the sideways movements are not just a fluke. I did change the pedestal from a box to a thick book so I have seen a slight setback but not by a lot and we're getting back to where we were. She has offered me a few times in a row some hind leg movement tonight so I'm optimistic again.

Inbetween she lies down and doesn't even twitch as she stares at me wondering why I'm not throwing her treats, or she tries to eat the book. Another thing is the occasional jumping up on me which is a result of me being too slow a few times. That and running off to find something to bring me.

Bella's picking up trick proved to be convenient for me last weekend when we came home and realized that my son's sock was missing. I took Bella with me to search for it as I knew it was somewhere on the way from the car to our doorstep and when I found it I made her pick it up for me and carry it inside. She was so proud. Hurray for useful dog tricks!

Obedience Test

Last Thursday marked the final Clicker-Obedience class. Me and Bella were unfortunate enough to miss three out of six, due to work, Berlin and me being sick. The last class was a series of a few tests and I was doubtful I should show up. I knew I wasn't fully prepared and wouldn't pass all of the tests but this is just for fun so I wasn't going to bail out with a bad excuse.

Bella was really quite good. We passed most of the tests and it was fun. Perhaps the biggest test we are starting to pass most of the time now is the "let's not bark at other dogs all the time if they come close" test. It wasn't a part of this little trial except in the sense that Bella's attention is on me rather than the other scary dogs.

It was a fun night and a nice pressure to do some small exercises as a part of a test to create a better motivation to pass. I'm very pleased with the course and am going to continue with most of the exercises at home. I also want to finish the hind end awareness exercise. I think that's one exercise that will be very useful if we master it. I am getting there slowly, I have been stuck with getting her to realise what the hell she is supposed to do while on the box but during the test she has a small breakthrough and I am working on continuing from there now.

In other news, my horse is coming tomorrow! Yes, I have a horse and he has now had over a year and a half off due to my pregnancy. I am very excited by this, it will be very interesting to see how Bella reacts to him. I probably should be more worried about how my horse reacts to her, he learnt a few years ago how to scare and beat up dogs after striking an ankle biting Border Collie. For a while I was certain he must have broken the dog's jaw, the noise was awful and the dog ran away like lightning. After I tracked it down there was some blood but he was unbroken. The dog didn't go near my horse after that. Smart Border Collie because after that my horse chased all the dogs that were near. The nice Border Collie cross included that wouldn't harm or harass anyone.
It's a good thing Bella is not a herding dog and she is not the type to harass and attempt to chase someone who is much bigger and heavier than she is. I think the two of them might get along. One thing is for sure, I will find out soon enough!

Sick Sick Sick

My household has been down with all kinds of pests since last Wednesday. I thought I was getting better but no, I had to stay at home from work today due to a really bad sore throat that cropped up yesterday. My son had it the worst, his sore throat turned into an infection and on top of that infection he got an ear infection.

I feel really bad for Bella. She's being a good sport but now she's starting to need her exercise. Yesterday I used the opportunity while giftwrapping two Christmas presents (I'm early this year!) and made her help me clean up in the living room. She's actually really good at it. I really ought to find out how to make her drop items into a container. I confess I haven't done it before because I can't decide what kind of a container I want to use for the training. Maybe it's an excuse to be lazy?

On Thursday we missed Obedience class and today we will miss Agility. I'm gutted! I really looked forward to both.

I have a big change coming up at work this month. I have been asked to be in the school unit from December until March to begin with. That means I will drop the shifts during that timeframe. Weekends off and more family friendly work hours.

On Top. Next?

Me and Bella are making progress with our rear end awareness program. As the photo below shows, she is now able to stand on the box and stay. I need to do a bit more refining to make her stay long enough to be able to focus on pivoting but so far so good. It's all going according to plan and even quicker than I expected or hoped for. 



 Here's another photo, this time to display how colour coordinated we are as a family. Bella matches our floor perfectly! She's performing a very devoted LIE-STAY there. She's also able to SIT-STAY a bit now without lying down. Things are going really well now, I also feel that a big part of it is that I am more motivated and commited to the training than I have been for a long time. 

Bella and the Box

After yesterday's obedience class I dug up a green plastic box to practice the rear end awareness exercise. She went straight to sniff and touch it and got her clicks. At that point we moved on with the program and for some reason she thought I was asking her to bite the box. Possibly because I've worked so much on picking objects up.

We got as far as her raising a paw around the box. She can eat the box if she wants as I have others but it's moving in the right direction so far. I also worked on LIE-STAY and just SIT. I will need more time on just sitting as I tried once to do SIT-STAY and she laid down.

The dog walk is tomorrow. I think I'm going to go. Will see.

Sunday on a Saturday

Even though tonight's a Saturday it feels like a Sunday. I have a six day work week ahead of me, a busy shift tomorrow and then a whole week of simulator instructing. My first experience of teaching Air Traffic Control. I am looking forward to the experience and hope it will go well.

Next week also promises to be a doggy week. I am scheduled to start a new clicker-based obedience course on Thursday. I have mentioned my (un)success with clicker training while training Bella to pick objects up for me. In short, she didn't understand the connection and I had to use a different method and haven't used the clicker since. Therefore I am moderately enthusiastic about the clicker aspect. Maybe things will click (he he) for us in the coming weeks. I like the premise of the course and welcome every chance to socialise Bella more. One of the objects of the course is obedience training under distractions, something I am very keen to work on.
The course will also be an intro into rally-obedience. I don't know much about that sport but it might be fun to give it a go.

As well as the weekly obedience on Sunday (tomorrow's class is cancelled, which is convenient as I'm working) there is a dog walk downtown a week from now on Saturday. I believe it is hosted by the FCI approved Icelandic Kennel Club (HRFÍ) but am not sure. Either way it's a nice way to show some doggy support. The rights of dogs and dog owners in Iceland are abysmal. That subject is fodder for later writing.

I'll end this with two photos taken with my mobile (to explain the image quality) earlier this week. This is our most common place to go to, only 5 minute walk from home where Bella can sometimes be loose if there's no traffic.

Brrr, it's cold!

Living in Iceland does not mean a lot of snow anymore in my part of the country. We have in fact had a gorgeous drawn-out autumn this year. Eventually the temperature always drops as it has the past few days.

My fiancé dragged me out the door this afternoon to take Bella out for a run. We live in the outskirts of Reykjavik so not even five minutes from our apartment we can reach nice empty spaces. Now I can't walk far so I've found out that my dog is perfectly happy with me moving like a sloth as long as I just keep moving. Right at the beginning we roused a bird called rjúpa, which a quick internet search indicates is called Ptarmigan in Europe and Partridge in North America. With the exceptional autumn the poor bird stuck out like a sore thumb, all white in a very dark environment.

Having found the bird I decided to edge our way along the edge of the forest (it's more of a bush to tell the truth!) and Bella ran happily back and forth, into the thicket and out again. We found no other birds but it was a nice walk, did both of us a world of good.

At home I've enjoyed a lazy Sunday but I did take some time to try to teach Bella to take and hold an object. I've looked at videos and tried to read about the process but there's some obstacle that makes Bella content at just touching the object, she just won't take it into her mouth. I just can't figure out where I'm going wrong but I refuse to give up.

Another thing I am working on with her is crate training her. We had put off buying a crate because I felt they were just so expensive given I am just going to use it here at home. We finally found a place that sells them for half the price of what we had been looking at. It's going pretty well, I've not really been focusing on it and just strewn her food on the floor for now. Everything gets eaten so no problems there.