Thursday, June 9th, 2011:
Hannah and I had our first (of six) Sirius "Puppy I" class tonight, from 6-7 p.m.
It was fun! There were five other puppies there, besides Hannah — a couple of poodle/Labrador mixes, a poodle/Spaniel mix, a German shepherd, and a terrier of some sort. The training mixes play-time for the puppies with brief training sessions (with food treats). Training is done off-leash (in an indoors classroom).
Tonight we learned to use what they call a "Bridge" word (like "Yes!" or "Great!") to signal to the puppies that they've done some behavior correctly and that a treat is coming. We learned to use it when signaling them to sit, stand, down, lie down on their sides. We learned how to teach them to take food gently, and to be relaxed when being handled on all parts of their bodies.
The puppies were all different in personality — most were really playful, one (the German shepherd) was a little shy with all the new dog friends but grew a little less timid by the end of the hour. It was really great to see Hannah having fun with her new puppy friends! She wasn't timid at all and held her own with all those bigger puppies (the only one smaller than Hannah was the terrier, a Maltese, I think).
I think we're going to have a good time with this class!
Friday nights they have what they call "puppy socials," so I think I may just drop in on that tomorrow, to see what it's like. It's just more of a chance for the puppies to socialize with other puppies, with a little bit of training thrown in. They say that being with other puppies is the best way for them to learn bite inhibition, which is really, really important.
TWO NEW DISCOVERIES (this time, though, it's what Hannah has discovered, not me):
Hannah, in the last couple of days, has discovered she can jump up on the couch or loveseat in the living room. Maggie has a cat tree next to the loveseat, and, when Hannah is in a rambunctious mood, she has been jumping on the loveseat to get closer to Maggie, who either ignores her or hisses at her. And, next, Hannah discovered that lying on the couch is really much more comfortable than lying on the floor....so I've found her a few times sneaking up there.
Whenever I do find her there, I am promptly lifting her off, and she is beginning to get the message (I think). She stays off (when I'm there, anyway). I really don't want her to get the idea she can get up there any time she wants. (But I have to admit, I did, last night, invite her up there to snuggle with me while I was watching TV, and she promptly fell asleep!)
Hannah has also lately discovered that it's much more fun if all her toys are outside on the deck, instead of inside, in her toybox where they belong. She has lately taken to dragging all sorts of toys (a basketball, numerous squeaky and stuffed toys), and even non-toys (like my newspaper, a bath towel, my shoes), out through her dog door, which she now races through effortlessly. I'll find her outside playing on the deck, enjoying the sunshine.
Problem is, she never puts her things away. (Bad puppy!!!)
Saturday, June 11th, 2011:
I thought I had pretty much puppy-proofed my house and yard . . . but, no, I guess I was wrong!
Yesterday, I heard a little bit of barking from the back yard, so I went out there to investigate. (It's not a common thing to hear Hannah barking.) I couldn't find Hannah out there, but I did still hear her barking — underneath my feet. Turns out she had somehow managed to get herself under the deck, and she couldn't get herself out!
There were two places where there was no deck skirting, and there was space enough for a little puppy to crawl into. On one long edge of the deck, there was a space that ranged from around 11" high all the way down to 6" high, with a water pipe running the entire length along the edge. And, at the front edge of the basement bulkhead door, there was a 5" high space running about 3 feet. I'm not sure which space she had used to get under the deck . . .
I went to the long open side, where it sounded like she was, and kept calling her to come. She crawled and just managed to squeeze herself through the opening, over the water pipe. I was relieved that she was able to manage it — if worse came to worse, I figured I might have to remove one or more of the decking boards to enable her to get out.
SO . . . Guess what my next home remodeling project was to be???? Yes, you got it right — figuring out a way to close up those open spaces! I didn't want something too complicated or too expensive. I just wanted something cheap and easy. So, off to Home Depot I went.
What I finally ended up doing was just getting a bunch of 5" mending plates and 4 six-feet redwood fencing boards. I just screwed the mending plates to the boards , and then screwed the mending plates to the deck edges. Not pretty, but it does the job.
For the open space at the basement door, I just screwed a couple of leftover decking boards to close up the space. Look below for the results.
Still Saturday . . .
A NEW FRIEND FOR HANNAH????
As I was at work in the back, fixing those open spaces, Hannah (who was sitting watching me work) suddenly started barking again — but this time she was not under the deck! She was staring at that gate you see at the far end of the deck. I went to take a look, and there was a Siberian Husky puppy outside the gate, with a torn nylon leash. I went out to get her, looked around the front for the owner, saw none, and took a took at her tags (luckily she had tags on her collar). She was, fortunately, a friendly, gentle dog (but pretty strong), and she let me take her leash.
Turns out she belonged to a neighbor down at the end of my street. I walked the dog (Cherry) over to the house, but no one was home. I walked around to the back to see if there was any closed-in area I could leave her, but there was none; it was all open.
The next thing I did was take her back to my house, put Hannah upstairs in her crate temporarily, and put Cherry in my back yard, while I tried calling the phone number on the tags. The phone number was out of order. I even tried looking up the owners' names in the phone book and internet, in case there was another number I could call. Couldn't find anything. So...there was nothing to do but to leave a note on the owners' door and wait until they could come to get her.
Within a half hour, the owner did show up at my door, and Cherry was rescued! This certainly added a little variety and excitement to my day!!!
A HANNAH - MAGGIE BREAKTHROUGH (maybe)!!!!!
This afternoon, when I was in Maggie's room (Maggie's my cat and the downstairs bathroom is her room), Maggie was in there, and Hannah came in to visit. Both, at the time, were pretty mellow. They both approached each other slowly. The "breakthrough" was that Maggie actually "head-bumped" Hannah!!!! (If you have a cat, you'll know what this means.) Maybe Maggie actually is starting to like Hannah!!!! Yay!!!!
Monday, June 13th, 2011:
Remember this photo of Emily (my previous dog)?
Well, that's as far as Emily could get into Maggie's room (the downstairs bathroom). However, as I found out just today, this is not the case with Hannah.
Today I heard an especially loud clattering of Maggie's cat door, went over to take a look, and, yep, Hannah had discovered she could get her whole body through the cat door. There she was, in Maggie's room!
Now I have to try to figure out a way to dissuade her from using it, so that Maggie can eat and do her business in peace....at least until Hannah grows enough to be too large to fit through the cat door!!!
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011:
Okay, I am going to try the old "pennies in the can" trick, to try to dissuade Hannah from using the cat door. I put a few pennies in a spare Spam can and taped up the top. Then I hid in Maggie's room, and, when Hannah started nudging the cat door, I quickly shook the can. It did startle her and she started to whimper a tiny bit and went away.
I did this a few times today. We'll see if it will work. . . . .
Saturday, June 18th, 2011:
Well, my "pennies in the Spam can" trick isn't quite working. Hannah won't go into Maggie's room when she knows I'm watching her, but she still sneaks in there when I'm not watching. She goes in and eats Maggie's food. A couple of times she also got into Maggie's litter box (yum, yum, such tasty delicacies in there!!!).
I moved Maggie's food dish into the bathtub, to see if that would deter Hannah, but, no, of course it didn't.
So now Maggie has a new location for her food dish — on top of the refrigerator, where she often likes to sit!!! Hopefully, we won't have to do this too long — hopefully, Hannah will grow quickly to be too big to get through the cat door.....