Just a reminder that I have a purpose bred companion mix and love mixed breed dogs and doing things with them. Juice is perfect for me and I would not have the perfect dog for me if I had to get a purebred.
Busy man in some tall grass
Busy mans and tall grasses, it's that time
"Now listen: they keep all the most chewable sticks in that pile they call the 'firepit'. If you try to take one when it's burning, all of them will get up to play Chase with you."
Sheltie size is still my favourite thing and these are litter siblings, 28cm and 42cm. Parents are both in-size with conformation champion titles.
My little man! I was walking him and had to stop and sit in the shade bc I got too hot. He came and sat with me instead of exploring on his long line 😭
Look at them!!! Mockingbirds nested on our fence! They're so cute and fluffy, I've been watching them grow for about a week now.
i haven’t been in poodles long (less than a year) but i’m already noticing a really uncomfortable pattern of VERY young dogs getting championships/grand championships, including my own dog. shrike was a UCH at 9/10 months old. he’ll be a GRCH by 14 months. he’s not even done growing, how is he a good representation of the breed’s structure and movement? i just saw a 7 month old UCH. 7. months. that’s insane. that dog will probably look very different when they’re fully mature, in 2 years.
and apparently, poodles are in their “prime” showing window BEFORE THEYRE A YEAR OLD. the most competitive ages for standard poodles is 9-12 MONTHS. is that not ridiculous? that’s like taking a 13 year old human and saying “this is the pinnacle of human body structure. the ideal.”
if the entire point of conformation shows is to demonstrate breeding stock, why are we constantly rewarding very young dogs, who should not be bred yet, with accolades that mark them as good breeding stock? what if that 7 month old UCH bitch grows up to have undesired structural qualities? what if that 16 month old GRCH dog develops concerning temperament or health concerns when he’s 3? what then? in a culture that relies heavily on conformation titles and accolades, it’s more than a little concerning.
i know i’m just one person, a person very new to showing dogs, let alone poodles, but it’s so strange to me that we’re expecting so much of these young dogs, and we’re being rewarded for that. why are these young dogs winning over mature ones? are the mature ones out of standard? does the standard only reward young dogs?
i’m worried that the solution is to only show mature dogs, or at least dogs over a year, which is something that most poodle people would scoff at. it’s a very competitive breed, and the pressure to finish your dog before they’re even a fully grown adult is insane. i should not be worrying about putting a Grand fucking Championship on a dog who isn’t even two years old.
i don’t know. it worries me so much. ideally all future show poodles i own won’t be shown in adult classes until they’re, you know, adults, but i know that i’ll be pressured by the entire community to jump in as soon as possible. and it freaks me out.
Speaking of rats playing hide and seek, do you ever play hide and seek with your dogs? My family's gsd loves it. We usually play with a ball--he does a sit, wait (or if he can't handle that, a kennel, wait) while someone hides the ball, then is released with an "okay! go find it!"--but he will also find a person if someone can hold and distract him while the other person hides.
Sometimes! It's actually a great way to practice getting a great recall for your dog that you can use in an emergency because playing that game teaches the dog that coming to find you is actually an interesting game, not just a signal that everything fun is ending now and you have to stop eating/doing/enjoying whatever was so fun in the first place. I should really play it more often. We did a bunch of it when Benton was a baby, but I haven't played that particular game with Matilda so much.
I've also hidden from my dogs outside the context of my household: Tribble was a little more cavalier than I liked in the giant off-leash dog parks Austin boasts when she was much younger, and several times when she got farther from me than I felt was safe, I deliberately didn't yell to her or show her where I was--I just watched from a hiding space, and I let her realize she didn't know where I was and start worriedly looking for maybe fifteen to thirty seconds. (This was not subtle--she'd start rapidly loping up to people, confirming they were not me, and checking the next person without bothering to interact.) Then I'd walk up and call her and she'd go OH MAN MY HUMAN IS HERE OH GOOD I THOUGHT YOU WERE LOST and I would go HEY MY DOG WHAT A GOOD DOG YOU ARE.
That's not what I would call a fun game from a doggy point of view, but it was a lesson I thought was really important having helped with a few dogs that got separated from their humans on those trails and panicked. I need my dogs to make keeping tabs on my a priority in unfamiliar spaces as a matter of safety, and I think the experience of briefly realizing that I could be lost cued Tribble to keep a closer eye on me in safe off-leash environments than she might otherwise have been inclined to do.
My life has changed a lot since I moved to Minneapolis, and I haven't gone looking for off-leash places for Matilda to explore. All three dogs (particularly the specklies) do love breaking into the basement to find "secret hidden Mo" when @kawuli is working down there. She's been gone on a trip for about a month now and they still occasionally scurry down there and check to see if she's been by. Matilda is also delighted when she jumps the baby gate and gets to find "secret Mo" in her upstairs migraine lair, too--there's something about finding a human that really seems to please the dogs.
I do this with all my dogs in different ways. It is a fantastic training tool and enrichment activity.
I will hide in off leash places just as described above. I usually only need to do it once or twice. I had to do a little more with River as I didn’t do it until she was significantly older and more independent so she was less interested in keeping track of me because historically I kept track of her. I remember having to follow her at a huge off-leash dog park for about a half mile once when she thought I was with a particular group of people and I wasn’t.
I also play two way come in the house to practice recall. The dogs love it. One person hides while the other calls and vise versa. Closets, bathtubs, and behind doors tend to be the hardest but our dogs know all the spots now.
We also play Find the Kong and these days River does proper nosework as an enrichment activity. She loves it!!! Activities that fulfill their natural drives are amazing!
The Spaniels play "go find" with hackey sacks that I keep in a ziplock with herb tea bags for scent (and, after a Learning Experience™️, with all the silica packets that come into the house, *and* they get set out to dry before putting them away).
I tell them "close your eyes and count to ten" (after several repetitions they learned this meant we were about to play), send them to a different area to wait behind a closed door, hide the hackey sacks, and then open the door saying "go find!" I usually hide two or three per dog, it's a little energetic when they're both searching.
They bring me the hackey sacks and get treats, which is perfect for our game but absolutely the wrong thing for dogs who do any kind of competition tracking/scent detection.
I have hidden from Maki at a fog park park before. She got very into some smells and stopped checking on me, so i vanished. She looked up, got worried, and then put her nose to the ground to find me! She's been a tad bit stickerier ever since, she had definitely never even considered that I could get lost.
hi landlady, have you ever thought of making mr j a little frilly collar like this? I think it would be very dashing and some cats don’t seem to mind…
Oh, it's one of the most famous works of Shotei Takahashi! Although I like his cats but I haven't thought to make it... Please give me some weeks...
おまたせしたですよ
Thanks for your waiting
“don’t woof”
“… woof 🙄”
Guess which dog hates the new lawnmower the most….
Lmao I'm dying at his face
reblog to totally annihilate your friends