It has been a fun-filled and happy Easter Sunday!
The day began as every day does — with clicker training. Happy to report their progress continues. I’ll save boring you with the day-by-day and will do a progress video periodically.
So grateful that we got to spend the morning back at Y-Knott Ranch with our good friend, Billie Richardson. The puppies got their first introduction to sheep today. Though our original plan was to use the round pen, our balmy weather conditions of late made it unusable and unsafe with standing water… and so we improvised and used the big field and the whole flock.
The point here was to introduce them to the livestock and see what kind of moxie did the puppies have as a group. This is not an instinct test or even an evaluation at this point in their age. We were looking for some general things…
- Do the puppies tuck tail and run?
- Do they stand up to the pressure of it all?
- Do they continue with forward momentum or retreat?
- Do they show any interest or engagement at all?
- Do they avoid the situation entirely?
I was super happy with the overall experience for all of them. There are behaviours in the highlight reel that actually amaze me. Around 0:40 in the video while Barry holds his own against a couple ornery sheep, Billie walks into the middle of the flock followed by Tony… who then proceeds to turn the sheep and find balance! There are a few other such moments that got captured on video and many that didn’t. We will be back weekly as I feel that this was a huge confidence building exercise for the entire litter… plus, they got completely filthy and what puppy doesn’t love THAT?!
BTW, I was also so glad to be able to give the big dogs a good run today as well. I saw Peaches re-engaging in playing with Lucky for the first time since December when their flirting ended in this breeding. Since then Peaches was very proper and reserved with Lucky. I think she caught him delightfully off guard today as she playfully put the run on him several times… including a couple of full body-check roll-over take-outs! They have been very closely bonded, playing constantly until 3.5 months ago… I’m so glad to see it resuming back to their normal groove. There was not one ounce of retaliation from Lucky either… I think he was glad to have “his woman” back!
Though Easter Sunday was about a resurrection not a baptism, today the boys also had their first bath! Given their visits with chickens, horses and sheep over the past three days, it seemed like a good idea. I had hoped to accomplish the spa tasks before my Mom arrived for dinner, but it did not happen. This worked out great though as it ended up being fabulous having an extra set of hands on the delivery of suitable eat-your-feelings food rewards or having the towel open and ready.
Though I have a high power canine blow dryer, it’s far too much for the puppies to cope with at this age. Instead, I pulled out the human hair dryer at first to sniff, then to hear blow the other way, and eventually to blow cool air on them a bit as they tolerated it. The blow dryer portion of the show was 30-60 seconds depending on the puppy. Again, not so much about actually drying the puppies so much as just conditioning for future experiences at a Pet-Wash Center near you.
Again, everyone tolerated the experience and showed resiliency. They were back playing and wrestling within 2 minutes of being released. No screaming or serious struggling throughout the experience. No big negative short or long term effects… if anything the puppies expressed some annoyance at being pulled from their current play experience more so than the bath itself.
After dinner, the whole family did some more “laps” in the 2/3 wet grass back yard as there’s still some snow to go. I’m looking forward to the last of the melting to be done this week which gives us a larger exercise space to work with. Though our after dinner jaunt dirtied up the clean, fluffy puppies a little, such is the welcome season of spring! I’ll take a tired, happy, slightly dirty puppy over an obnoxious, clean one any day!
Our last task for the day was yet another nail trim. I feel that it was somewhat like their bath experience — they were annoyed with the inconvenient change in their Puppy Day-Planner, but fine with it in the long run as long as I’m pretty quick about it.
I hope everyone experienced some blessings this Easter Weekend – I certainly did. Between the two-leggeds and four-leggeds I’m surround by, there’s little to complain about.