Better think of a good excuse...

Mmm, as I said before mum has gone away and left dad, the hens and me all alone. Very unthoughtful if you ask me, but that's another topic... There has been a new development in this dramatic story... I have found pictures, photographs to be precise. And it's not looking good! Mum seems to be travelling about wherever she is... She's taken some big cows in picture, very moo-ving...

Then she seems to have been mixing with other chickens. Need to show the hens, they'll be mad and very put off by that outrageous behaviour. And there was even some roosters there!! Gosh, we'll never stop hearing about it, sure the girls will be cackling on it over and over...

And worst of all, the treachery!! Look what she did!! I don't know how I can forgive her really... She'll need to get me some very convincing explanations for this and extra special presents when she comes back, if she ever does... HOW COULD SHE!!!!

Eggs yet??

The girls are growing big now, so I'm keeping an eye on them... They are quite sneaky and I'm waiting for my promised omelette... They somehow succeeded to get two houses at the moment, I need to make sure they don't get more space than I do!!

I'm being good but they're moving!!!

Bit of retrieve...

Been having a lot of fun with dad. Been practising my retrieving skills and I think I'm getting pretty good :) I can find my little dummies even if dad sneakily throws them with me looking the other way or in the dark! And we've been doing work on two at the same time. It's really a lot of fun!

But all that running is tiring on the paws though, so I do need to take a bit of a breather sometimes, even though there seems to be paparazzi around...

I just keep chewing on my Hi Bounce ball and enjoy the sun, so nice with those colder months closing in!

Mommy, come back!

I'm being a very good boy with dad, and I got a present just for you. Please come back mummy, I promise I won't do crazy GSP runs anymore when you try to run me on the agility course!!!

Where is she???

So I'm waiting and working my nose... Mum made some big bags on the week end after washing the content of the house several times over. I tried to help getting everything fitting in there, checked what she was putting in there. I even tried to sneak in one of her bag, but she found me when she had to weight the bag to check a limit...

Later on, we all went in the car and mum got out at the train station with all of her bags but dad and I didn't?? We both went to our training and did some agility. Then when we came back home later, mum wasn't there. I checked again and again, but even next morning I couldn't find her on her side of the bed. I miss my mummy :(
I'm trying to find some clues of were she is from the pictures appearing from her phone, but it's all weird things I don't know! There was a pic from a big machine through a window.

Then I found a picture of a place, that's more helpful for me to track her. Haven't seen that place before, but I'm keeping the pic in mind and will keep an eye open and my nose to the ground when we go on a walk with dad. Maybe it's on the south side of Sydney harbour?

Mmmmm, I hope I will find her soon because I need a mummy cuddle and she always tuck me to bed well so I'm not cold in the evening. Dad doesn't tuck me in properly...

Need to take those nose work lessons...

Sorry guys, I've been very busy since the week end. I'm on a mission, t'is very serious!! Mum has disappeared!!! But I'll tell you all about it in the next post. I'll tell you what we've done this weekend.
We went to agility training on saturday and there was only a few of us. Apparently there was a whole lot of things happening. There was some seminar where pups were getting their handlers to learn some funky agility moves from One Mind Dogs (need to get the thoughts on this from mum who went to the lecture last week). And there was also a trial at the Easter show. We didn't go to that one and I'm a bit relieved because I'm not sure I want to do  trial dressed as the easter bunny!! That's what you have to do for the Easter show, no?
Anyway as there was a few people only we did a lot of training and running. It was great, I even busted a big GSP crazy run at the beginning when mum tried to do our first run. She didn't look impressed but I thought it was pretty cool. Oh gosh do you think that could be why she's disappeared?? Cause she wasn't happy about me going for my crazy run and not answering her? mmmm.... but we did a lot of training, mum ended up running with funny boy Monty. All of us were quite pooped by the end. And then something funny happened. The minions exchanged their cars cause dad was going to see Grandpa Frank in South Sydney, but he left with mum's car without leaving the keys to the other car to us! BOL!! Once again mum wasn't impressed... I get to think she's never happy with what we do... She was waving frantically to her phone and looking everywhere in the car, tsehehe! And then dad came back to give us the keys. Mum and I went back home and had a funny play and then I decided to conserve my energy so lazied on my bed for the rest of the day, while scrolling through my twitter.

On Sunday we didn't do anything particularly out of the ordinary. Big run with dad in the morning, wash of the feet etc.
But the minions did a lot of gardening and obviously did my best to help, though I have the definite feeling, my help was once again not appreciated and valued! What does a little pup's got to do round here?
Mum also kept washing the whole content of the house, I think she must have done it at least twice with the amount of washing she did... for sure!

And that was approximately it, offered to help with the chickens but my offer got rejected, meanly I shall add, et voila!
Now I need to turn my nose to solve the problem of mum's disappearance...

Running!

Uh oh! Dad's got a new idea... That can be either great or terrible... I like to run a lot, well I'm a GSP! Big surprise there... I have also occasionally been known to pull a tad when walking, just a little bit! But I'm pretty good these days. Now the idea is related to a a cool thing called Joring. There are a lot of different types of Joring adapted with dogs, such as a rapidly growing sport called Canicross. It's basically jog-joring! The idea is the minion and I are somehow attached with a special lead/harness and we go for a jog, I pull my little heart out and get the jogging minion behind me going a bit faster than their traditional snail pace. Now that sounds cool to me, but apparently mum isn't convinced. She has images of being dragged behind a supercharged turbo tractor. As if I would drag my minions in the mud... Now maybe I should learn how to fly a kite... yup feel like flying some kites....

doesn't that look fun
(tis not me, I poached it from the t'internet
but can't remember the site!)

Pwease mommy...

Come on mum, please, can I come and snuggle on the big bed with you? Look my bed is all small! And it's getting cold, you wouldn't want me to get sick would you?! Come ooooon... I promise I won't take much space... *begging puppy eyes* 

A bit more colour

I told you last time that the minions had got a few more little hens for me to play with... :P

The minions like a bit of diversity, so they looked to get different breeds that they were happy with and also with a range of colours. Look the multicolours are still quite small!

And while the new girls grow, the older hens are getting treated to strawberries in their palace! And I didn't even get one... The world has gone mad.

Trick and Treat Tuesday: Bye Bye Mum

Oh well done mum! She wrote a trick and treat tuesday training and she forgets to post it... *sigh* I got to do everything in this house!

As you might have noticed by now, we like to get Mawson to do some funny, sometimes silly... tricks!

Sometimes they say... sometimes... they only just want to laugh at me!

It is always a very "serious" and safe training to engage his brain, but if you can get him to perform tasks that are cute and fun, that's a bonus to give a smile. For example the paw shake might be benign enough, but it has been a great help to get Mawson interacting with stranger on his own term and reduce his anxiety towards unknown people. So much so that he now offers a paw shake to people first. In his mind it gets hands away from the top of his head, which he can find scary from some people, they also look at his paw instead of staring him in the eyes (again less frightening) and he usually gets a good giggle and treats (bingo!).  So what is our silly trick of today? Well it is a bit of an extension of the paw shake, but it can be taught totally independently.

Today's trick is getting your pup to wave you goodbye! Now I don't get Mawson to do that to me every morning, because he is usually pushing me out of the door so he can finally get his treats. However, we occasionally do that on appropriate circumstances ;P

So how do you go about it, I hear you enquire! Well I'll tell you then :)

As usual, arm yourselves with a lot of treats, an immeasurable amount of patience and a good sense of humour!

As for the paw shake, it's easier if you get pup sitting in front of you. You want to get pup to lift his paw, hence, you need to get a trigger in your hand, usually it works best with little bits of food. Show it to the pup then close your hand palm down, enclosing the food without letting pup get to it. Any puppy or dog will nose it and try to access the yumminess, and they will certainly fairly quickly get their paw up and tap your hand. When that happens, get the cue reward you use, either "yes" or click from the clicker and give the treat. Do not say anything else at that point. Make sure you keep your hand approximately at the pup's shoulder height, i.e. not too high or too low, that will help you getting a nice natural motion out of your little monster. Repeat the action a few times, trying to make sure that pup makes a swift paw action touching your hand lightly with his paw and then go onto something else. That is the first part of the trick is very similar to the paw shake, you will need to repeat this for a few days to get pup to refine the paw action. 

The following step is to get pup to lift the paw but not touching your hand, slowly getting your hand away. I will tell you there is the possibility of a bit of an awkward phase where your hand "might"... ok... is highly likely be scratched a tad :S but keep going! Keep pup sitting without forward motion of his body except from his leg, get your treat in your hand and pup to lift his paw, then gradually add a bit of distance, just 5 centimetres to start with. At that stage where your hand gets a bit too far, mostly for less stable younger pups there will be a temptation to creep forward to be able to touch your hand with the paw. Keep rewarding and treating pup for lifting his paw towards your hand but staying still on their bum. When the distance gets a little too much, pup will try touching your hand miss and lift his paw again. This is the action you want, straight away give a big yes/click and a reward coming swiftly back closer. Starting with just one "missed" paw action and adding the big happy reward will help solidifying the behaviour and prevent creeping. It lowers the frustration of not getting the treat and it lets pup know that this is what you want. 

When this is getting nice and regular, stay away a little bit longer, adding time for a second paw lift. Again straight away give a big yes/click and a reward coming swiftly back closer. Then you just need to continue on and add a third lift and as many as you want after that following the same method.

My waving goodbye is constituted of 3 waves of the paw from Mawson. He doesn't "do" long goodbyes ;P 

So far you have the treat in the hand you are offering, slowly phase the treat out of coming from that hand. At the beginning it might be easier to get treats in both hands. Get the paw lifts towards one hand and reward from the other. Slowly you can then remove the treat from your "signal cue" hand and keep rewarding from your other hand. When three (or as many as you want...!) paw lift become nice and regular, start adding your cue word after the action. When that word gets associated, start moving the word earlier and use it as the trigger for the action.

You can even start adding a bit of a hand waving as your hand cue signal just to complete the trick :)

Now you can do some dramatic movie style goodbyes to your heart contempt! Well at least if pup wants to say bye... Never know, it might get handy someday soon!

I don't want to say bye I want my treats...

Monday dramas

There was too much confusion yesterday, I can't take it!

First mum did the morning walk when it's normally dad who takes me for my morning fun. Then she didn't come back to take me to RallyO training! But, dad got ready and went to training with me! What is that all about?!?! Dad doesn't know any of the steps. Monday is my time with mum :(
We had to go in the baby side and do drills with the signs isolated... I'm sulking that's it. I'm not even going to tell him that I had fun, we also did some crazy retrieving in the dark. We couldn't see each there and I'm not even speaking about the dummy that dad threw... Luckily they both smell *sniggers*
But I'm still not telling him, I'll keep crying loudly...

And when we came back home, mum was still not there! What's going on?!?!
Turns out she has been at a European Agility method lecture from OMD, and WITHOUT me! What's the use of doing agility stuff without me, hey? She says she got some cool ideas for training, but I don't care, I am very offended... and sulking...

All that change to my routine, and the added outrage of mum doing some sneaky agility is too much for me to bear. I am going to ignore her and not talk to the minions... unless they give me treats, then I'll just get the treat and ignore them, yup. Or unless they call me, yeah I have to come then, but... Ok I'm not sure when I'll ignore them, but don't you worry! I will!!!

A little misunderstanding

We had a very late night yesterday with the minions. We were just about to go to bed, all sleepy and then, BAM!! A nasty sneaky fly. Doesn't sound bad? Well it was! We all had a battle to catch that VERY loud fly, obviously I joined in ;P 

We ended up getting it but it lasted a while... The good thing that came out of this is that I had another little pre-bedtime next to dad. But they both fell asleep, so instead of being in my crate overnight, I was freeeeeee in the bedroom :)

And luckily! Because in the morning I had to wake the minions up. They where just staying in bed forever! When I went to try and move them they kept shooing me away, mumbling and rolling back the other way in bed. 

I insisted a bit, it was so late... it was... oh?! 5.30am? Ahhhhhh, that's what they were mumbling!! Day light saving, ooops my bad! Oh well now you're awake, might as well go have fun :P mwahaha

Bit of house work

As I said earlier this week it was mum's Birthday. Dad had the best romantic present ever for her... He got her a beautiful petrol hedge trimmer... I know...

Both the minions played with it today, but all I know is that it's noisy!

Then I helped dad tidying a bit the garage, we had to fold the gazebo roof top that had been packed up dodgilly since the last trial. But weirdly I don't think he appreciated my help...

But then after that dad had the idea of cleaning the gutters, because well... there was some plant growing out of them! So I guess it was sort of needed...

But I really didn't like that idea!! Was so dangerous, daddy went on the roof with a rickety ladder. I tried to tell them but they didn't listen. So I had to really tell them louder *sniggers*

But still they continued, I was looking all like that: 

All that work and worry make me a little bit unwell I think... I'm not really feeling good, and I am also pretty sure that I have symptoms already, look at the colour my tongue has become and it's split in two!! I hope I will make it, sounds really bad, I might need extra treats...

Hi daddy....

Daddy, I know I just had my dinner... but are you sure you are really going to finish all that milk and that biscuit?? You know I can give you a hand if you feel a bit full, or a mouth. Wouldn't want you to be too full and not be able to run tomorrow. And you could do with cutting those biscuits a bit...
Daddy..... are you listening? Daddy......

Lots of dog years!

It was mum's Birthday yesterday. She was a lot of dog years, I can't count on my paws,I get confused with the amount!! But even though she's got older, she still had to go to work :( 

However when she came back home, I took her for a treat: a walk with me!! Now that's a present isn't it?! I also added a few big licks and some mad tail wagging with it :P

It was a lovely walk too, even if it was a bit hot and humid. Played on the kids play ground and did a bit of seesaw! Tried to run up the slide but I kept sliding backward on the metal slope, so I gave up after a while... Dunno why mum was giggling, t'is serious business!!

Then I decided that we needed to do some selfies! Now mum doesn't like pics of herself, but I do!! so I just had to be quick. Took her new phone and snap, took a shot before she could run out!

We came back home for a celebratory pizza afterwards. Mum still had to make fun of me... I let it slide because it was her Birthday but really? The whole pack of mince needed to balance on my head? really?!?!? I know it was for my treats but could have just made them without all that malarkey

At least today she did make the effort! I even have two types of home made treats, my "traditional" beef mince loaf (got carrots in it!) and these special steak-egg-tuna bones: YUMMY!! Can't wait to try them in the morning!

Time for some more post Birthday cuddle now. See you next time :)

The new girls are not better than the old ones...

Well I told you last time that the chicks were needy and taking mum's time. Well now the 3 have grown a lot and moved to their house. But the minions decided that the house was big, so they went and got 3 more!! Different ones... They were 2 Dark Barred Plymouth Rocks and a Barnevelder before and now they got a Coronation Sussex, a Buff Sussex and a Silver-Grey Dorking... At least those ones are not in MY house, they are in a separate quarantine enclosure outside before they all go together. But they are not much better than the previous girls. Minions thought that, as they were older there would be less drama. Oh no, not the sneaky hens! They must have passed each other messages to get sick, so that mum spends ALL her time with them and neglects ME! They are doing it on purpose to looks all miserable *grump*

What is that all about, to be syringe feeding chicks and all that for ages, while I am here all cuddle-less!! That will not do at all!!!

Hope they will sort out all that disease faking so that things get back to their normal state: spoiling me, me and me! At least the minions said that if I was patient those time-sucking meanies would find me some eggs for an omelette just for me. Ok I'll wait then...

a v. bad pic of the 3 new girls

Coronation Sussex dinosaure 

the big girls trying to have a dirt bath...

I am a bit tired... but not really!

All right so now for the "piece de resistance" of the weekend! On Sunday morning, something really weird happened: dad's alarm went off! Daaaad!!! It's Sunday!!! And the something weirder happened: mum got up... Don't want to say, but if mum gets up at 6.10am on a Sunday, something's definitely going on... And they started running around and packing stuff, guess what? There was a trial on, woohoo!

A full day of agility fun. It was the Springwood trial which had been postponed from the end of last year due to the awful fires that took place in the Blue Mountains around where the club is. This time it got also moved but due to flooding from the large amount of rain we've had over the past weeks! But everybody soldiered on and made it to the right place. Started early in the morning and the judging itself got on the way at 9am, so no lazy Sunday lie-in.

Minions had overdone themselves... They got us a mat for our gazebo, much more comfy than the muddy wet ground :)

Our first event was the open jumping (JDO) judged by Pat Walsh. Even though did a bit of exercise

Really clumsy mum...

So as I was telling you on the last post, when we came back from training, mum let me in the pool to play with her while dad mowed the loan.
Started normally, but after while mum was trying to get me to walk on the little edge of the pool (not keen!) so she was on the other side being all silly. Next thing I see is mum jumping in the pool! All dressed, with her shoes... and then she just jumped back out with a lot of words that I won't repeat here! I had to cover my ears with my paws... And she starts patting her legs and take out her phone...
And then she tries to get dad's attention waving and shouting and dripping... Nope dad's in full mowing trance.
I was just so embarrassed by her gaucheness that I could only stare at her from the other side. Really can't take her anywhere, lucky I hadn't invited mates over.
Mum was grumbling that she could die in that swimming pool and nobody would notice her little dead body floating. She was a bit grim and overreacting really... I would have jumped on her for a play!! :P
But dad did really not see her for a good while. I would say more than 5 minutes of her pestering and dripping all over the place *giggles*
With all her dramatic arm waving she's fine, I don't see her issue with the fact she went in the pool really! I had been in at least 10 times before her and I didn't make such a fuss, but what do you want... However, I don't think her phone liked it very much... It's looking a bit lifeless...
How am I going to do all my blogging and tweeting now?! I'll have to share the computer with mum, and gosh she is so slow to type... I'll never be able to do anything... That's why I'm so much behind in my blogging!

fairly accurate representation
of mum...

A study on Snooker

Gosh been a bit mad lately with the minions work, mum being sick and clumsy and a whole lot of other dramas! And on top, we had yet again another week end of agility madness and other fun :)

We started on Saturday morning with some training at the club. This time it was a bit special as Pat Walsh who is an agility judge came round and setup a great game course. It was a Snooker course, not something we do very often at all. Only did it once a long time ago at the Bathurst trial and even though I came third, it was the only run were I had a bit of a wander...
The idea of Snooker is that you have a set of jumps "the reds" and other obstacle "the colours". On the first part of the course you have to get a minimum amount of points. You jump a "red" (1pts), then if you cleared it you can attempt a "colour" (variable points). If you missed the "red" you have to go direct to another "red" and cannot go to the "colour". You have to jump a max of 3 reds but need to accumulate more points depending of the level you run (novice 10, excellent 15, master 20). Then you have a closing sequence to do, which is more like a normal agility course set up by the judge. All that within a set time of course!! We all had a lot of fun and lots of peeps got lost around on the course, tsehehe! Hopefully that will become a monthly thing :)

After that, I thought the minions were going to be boring and want to go back home but no!! We stayed and we met Ray and Cody to train a bit on my retrieving skills. Ray ran us through the exercises necessary for a RATG trial (mostly dad cause he's the one who needs help, I'm a natural of course ;P) and Cody showed us his moves, it was really cool! And now the minions are doing a lot more fun things since we did the workshop. I love it!

Then we all went back home, was quite late and hot so mum let me in the pool for a bit of a swim and a play while dad was giving in to his addiction... mowing the loan... again... I'll have a good one to tell you about that later but back to the week end of agility madness...

After mum's little swim, the minions went on their mundane occupations for the rest of the afternoon, but they seemed to be doing some weird preparations and packing. They also went to play with the chicks without me... not fair... but I didn't care, I just stayed there and did as if I was snoring...