The Mountain Lion has left! We said goodbye to her Sunday evening and her mom was just so happy to see her again.
Made a little video for her mom!
She got to experience the pool before she left :)
I'm the duck?
Umm...?
And I admit the house feels empty with just 3 dogs! I'm sure Zumi will be enjoying her rest. Zumi put up with a lot from Cougar even with Cougar finally learning to settle down.
Although since she's in the thrones of heat Zumi's not exactly going anywhere.
Xrated!
The boys are still amazing about it. Lance is basically like a monk. I questioned him about his saintness and he just stated that he has no balls, duh. Vito has been doing some flirting back but he's listening super well to my no shenanigans speech. And Zumi is majorly flirting, but also still quite the bitch about changing her mind if he even looks like he's going to take action. I'm hoping she will be done pretty soon.
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We're down to Cougar's last week with us. She's 5.5 months old now and really has been an easy puppy. Laid back, cuddly, and confident with everything. Of course that self confidence does get her in trouble! But Cougar really is starting to "care" and pay heed to our warnings. Our house is never clean and Cougar doesn't pick up objects to chew on as much anymore. She's starting to come the first time she's called. And Cougar did finally tone down the constant wanting to play with Zumi.
Training wise the biggest feat I think I accomplished was getting Cougar to think around food. My first goal with her was getting her to understand that staring at food did not ever cause it to land in her mouth. It was all about moving away from food in order to get it. I have no problems training with her food bowl on the ground anymore and she doesn't get nearly as stuck anymore with shaping. Still a work in progress but I'm happy with her progress in such a short time!
Other tasks trained:
Heelwork: Great pivots on a perch and mostly is pretty good about doing tight pivots off the perch and a bit of side stepping on both my left and right side. Does tend to cheat still at times and that pesky auto sit she had can get in the way. I think I mostly succeeded in breaking that auto sit ;) We tried some heeling backwards but she's not quite ready for that.
Fronts: Lured between my legs to teach her to come close, straight, and do a tucked sit. We are now working on getting her position slightly less between my legs. Cougar is working on angled fronts right now but struggles often.
4 Feet in a box: Something we played with early on but haven't done in a while. A very hard exercise for Cougar!!! We struggled with the big box, finally succeeded and never got the smaller box. Controlling her back legs is hard!
2o2o: Cougar learned that back feet on an object pays. She can back up to 3 feet to get into position but this is a very hard exercise for her and it makes sense considering how hard the 4 feet in exercise was. Cougar has only recently started to learn coming forward into the 2o2o position on her box like she would for beginning agility foundations.
Out around a cone: Cougar is working on distance and can still get stuck staring at a cookie in my hand. Her max is around 8ft but usually we are sticking around 3ft to build more confidence. Just recently I started rear crosses on the cone and sending sometimes to 2 cones before rewarding.
I found it fascinating with Cougar that it has been difficult getting her to run on either the send or the return. Even with me running away or throwing the reward she just happily trots after :)
Beg: Just started this last week! Cougar likes it because she can stare at the cookie.
Reverse through my legs: I started this trick to help with Cougar learning to backup in heel position. Cougar has a solid 1ft backup to end up between my legs and we're working on both distance towards me and maintaining backing up once she's between my legs.
Scootch: Cougar offered backing up in a down her second week with me and I ran with it. We had a short distance built up but I haven't visited it recently.
Retrieve: Here is where we made the least progress. When we first started she of course wouldn't move away from my food hand to interact with an object but we worked through that. Progressed from nose touches (and quite a few paw attempts) to biting. And she was just starting to get tiny holds and then we stalled out. I think her teething played a big role here so I put this on hold.
Moving Downs: Just started! I think yesterday's session was her 2nd introduction to the concept of lying down from a walk. With the help of a food hand to keep her focused and I ended up pushing my hand slightly in towards her chest to get more of a fold back as Cougar wasn't consistently folding the way I liked.
Here is a long video of Tuesday's training session, just edited out the times I went to grab more food.
This weekend the little Mountain Lion went on her first park adventure with my crew. It was a disaster. I forgot that Puma's are wild things and aren't meant to be in captivity. Cougar said it was the moment she had been waiting for. Within 30 seconds of being let free she managed to find something and run around with it. I thought it was a stick. I was wrong. The Mountain Lion found her first catch, although since she is still a cub it was already dispatched for her. Squirrel? Gopher? Something decently sized at least. And Cougar was not going to let anyone near her prize.
The other dogs were good. They all listened and stopped chasing the crazed wild lion and pretty much stood frozen, stunned at her bravery.
Pleading with the lion didn't help, nor did giving the other dogs treats. We almost got her cornered in some thicker brush but alas she scrambled just inches out of reach. It took her quite a while to down her large find as we watched helplessly. I kinda figured she would just lick her lips and we would resume our walk together. But with the taste of blood she realized that didn't need us humans after all and the cub just sauntered away.
Luckily Adam was along so he could stay put with the good dogs. And after I realized she wasn't coming back for nothing and was completely oblivious to all my recall tricks, I took after her. She exited the park completely and while my mind was picturing her being run over by a car, I was also grateful that a lion in suburbia would be easily recognized and could perhaps be tempted to come visit. I lost track of her as I stood in the driveway of the direction she went and then I luckily surprised her as she came around one of the cars and ran straight into my feet, cursing her bad luck.
Since we had really just arrived at the park and it was too hot to leave the wild creature in the car, I reluctantly snapped her leash back on and proceeded to drag her around on our walk. Cougar got to watch the other dogs frolic but I'm pretty sure she didn't regret her decision one bit.
Sunday we visited a smaller park and this time she donned the long line of shame. And she needed it, at first. While I did not use the long line to ever reel her in, her first few recalls she tried to strain at the end of the line. And then she realized she really liked cookies after all.
Slowly she earned a bit of freedom in being allowed to drag her long line.
And really she redeemed herself on day 2. Of course it helped that she didn't find any tasty snacks on our walk this time.
The little Mountain Lion has been here for almost 2 weeks now. She's a pretty easy girl for the most part. Very confident and happy everywhere she goes. Great being crated in new places. And just generally calm and cuddly.
A very rare naughty dog moment.
Mostly extremely patient!
The biggest annoyance factor is despite her being a fairly calm puppy, she doesn't have much of an off switch when it comes to playing with other dogs. Cougar can be absolutely exhausted but if Zumi is around she still wants to latch onto her and play. Zumi is a bit fed up with her constant antics but unfortunately isn't very good at telling her no!
I am not anti dogs playing but I don't like a lot of it inside my house. And it's honestly never been an issue before! Vito really doesn't play with other dogs, especially puppies, and Lance is perfect at playing for just a little bit and then firmly saying he is done. Zumi apparently isn't to that point in her life yet! So I've been trying to interrupt them which Zumi immediately listens and seems grateful for. But then Cougar literally needs forced cuddling time with us to prevent reattachment to Zumi. Or crate time, but I'm reluctant to crate her much during the weekdays since she is crated most of her time at work. I am hoping that the wearing off of the newness factor will help getting things to settle down soon!
Training wise we're just having fun doing whatever I feel like. No real plan or expectations!
Mainly I'm focusing on pivot work because I really love heeling :) Cougar is really starting to get offering pivoting to heel and on the right side I'm still helping her a lot.
She offered some paw movement from her sad trick I taught last week so this week I expanded on that offered movement to get a little bit of scootching backwards.
Getting in a box is something I do with all my puppies to work both on hind leg awareness and to really get the concept of offering behaviors. This remains very hard for Cougar to do on any size less than the full box so we're taking it slow.
Fronts we expanded on this week from full luring between my legs to now seeing if she can start to offer the position from tiny angles. I like between my legs as a foundation as it teaches a tucked sit, straight, and close.
We have also done a few lessons on shaping a retrieve. I know her mom will eventually force fetch her retrieve but I am hoping I can at least get Cougar to the point where she has a small hold and a short retrieve directly to my hand.
Beginning leave it training was started recently as well as learning to work with her bowl on the ground. She is much more obsessive about her bowl!
No she's not mine! But I'm going to be caring for her for the next several weeks. New experiences. Some training. Lots of fun.
Corgi thinks she's alright. But mostly he ignores her because she's already bigger than he is.
Zumi loves her new puppy. And already is getting a bit tired of her at the same time!
And suprisingly, Vito really likes her! Vito never likes puppies. Or really even cares for adult dogs. But he says this one is pretty cool. Lots of awkward and loud playing!
I've had 4 dogs in the house several times before so it's really not that different. But having 3 dogs of the same breed feels quite a bit different. It's liked I crossed the invisible line into crazy. Even when I'm just walking the 3 tollers into a building and don't have the corgi along, it feels completely different than before!
This blog is about life with my 3 dogs. It's mainly to keep track of my training with the dogs and my exploration into the world of competitive obedience, agility, disc dog, and trick training. We reside outside of Minneapolis, MN.
Train With Me!
I offer online private lessons, online group classes, and in person lessons! Find out more by visiting my official training page, Tandem Dog Sports
Fenzi Dog Sport Academy
Lance the Corgi
Lance is my first dog, born April 2007. We faced early retirement due to an injury but Lance enjoyed playing in obedience, rally, and agility. He got me hooked on dog sports.
(photo by Sarah Beth Photography)
Vito the Toller
Vito was born on Halloween 2008. We currently compete in agility and are slowly making our way back to the obedience ring. Vito is making me into a better trainer every step of the way.
(Photo by Great Dane Photography)
Zumi the Duck
Born October 2014, Zumi is adventuring into the agility world and competitive obedience. We are working on some over arousal issues!
Luke the Kitty
Luke is a 10yr old kitty who finds his greatest joy in tormenting Lance. He also loves to wrestle with the fosters, cuddle with his tollers, and steal as much food as possible through trash can raiding and chewing holes in pockets.
