we had to figure out what to do with all that fur.

Loki stepped up and offered some solutions:

“Does this toupe make me look like a hep dude?”

“How about the ’stash? Does it make me look like a cool cat?”

“Err, Mom? Can you please take me to Dogtor Hilary and have this growth removed?”

For anyone who thinks that all I do is make my dogs work all day, check out the video below of what working dogs do AFTER work! There’s olympic zoomies in the end.

Happy Friday Everyone!

“I have no idea what you are referring to, Mom. I found these shoes like this.”

“Ah Principessa! You’re the “naughty dog” for once! The shoe is on the other foot. Err,  rather its in your bellllaaaay! Tee-hee!”
“Stuff it big boy. Evidence is circumstantial. Nobody saw me do it. That is, if you ever want to see your favorite blankey again, then nobody saw me do it.”

Sigh.For all the shoes that Juno has eaten in our house (honestly, I lost count, but I’m down to 2 pairs of Danskos and I had 5 pairs of them), she really does have some redeeming qualities. And thank DOG for that.

You see, she actually is a rare Siberian. They don’t make Siberians like this one. She actually enjoys training. I swear to Dogs! You’ll have to just see for yourself!

THE FIRST SIBERADOR RETRIEVER

Here she is learning to retrieve! Yes, you read it here first: a Siberian Husky who retrieves! The truth is, Juno actually learned to pick up the dumbbell faster than the dumbbell himself, err, I mean the GS/FMD working dog himself, Loki. She put her mouth around it the first chance she saw it and never stopped learning to take it further. Again, I can’t tell you how hard it is to do a true retrieve with a dog. And to do it with a Siberian, well, it just makes me verklempt!  Here she is first learning to pick up the dumbbell:

Did you see her wagging her tail? She loves this stuff! And unlike Loki when he first learned to bring me an object he’d throw the object at me, Juno instinctively placed it in my hands, gently. One time, she even kissed me before her reward! She must have a bit of Labrador in her. Moosh would have loved her!

And here she is stepping up her game in her retrieve work outside. She starts to pick it up off the ground and bring it to me. Plus, she actually manages to walk away from me to get the item and bring it back to me. A true retrieve!

And finally, here is Juno doing some more off-leash heeling work. You can see the Siberian come out in her here when she decides to offer up other behaviors.  She’s so playful about it, it’s hard not to giggle along and reward her for it!

Hmmm… I wonder if I can get her to retrieve my Danskos? What do you think Internet? Should I be so bold to teach her to put my shoes in her mouth? Or do you think she’s already mastered that part?

This month’s masthead celebrates the weather we seem to be experiencing across the U.S. Even in Northern California, March has rolled in on a week of more rain and storms.

The photo’s of the dogs actually come from the same photo taken in November when Juno was allowed to come home from her 5-day stay in the hospital.  Here she is taunting Loki out of a “down-stay” that i was making him do while she happily ran around. As you can see, she was victorious.

“Hey big boy, Mom says you have to stay down, but can you resist THIS?”

It also is a nice methaphore for how there’s a little bit of the lion and the lamb in both these beasts!

Sigh. Let’s just hope March rolls out like a lamb. I’m actually sick of the rain!

The last few weeks I’ve been working Loki and Juno on different behaviors. Here’s Loki below (in the videos, not the photo!) doing some retrieve, directed jumping and heeling work. For the record, I work Loki and Juno at the same time and switch off. But the videos are edited for each dog. You can see the progression of work in both dogs as their behavior tightens and they become better. I’ll start today with Loki’s videos and bring you Juno’s later this week.

Please excuse the poor editing and lack of music. I’m not as proficient as the easy-to-entertain-relentlessly huge when making my videos. Let me assure you, it took me hours to go through several days of video rolls and piece out the progressions.

“What? Movies on working? Oh the horror! Wake me up when it’s over!”

First Loki learns to pick up different objects. Don’t be fooled. I’ve been working the PVC pipe for a year. It’s very hard to get a dog to pick that up. And because the objects are not toys, and don’t feel good in their mouth, getting a dog to retrieve anything other than food or a toy is very hard! I don’t have any video of him learning to put the object in his mouth, but I do have it of Juno and you’ll see how it progresses when you see her video.

Then Loki actually uses his noodle and puts two totally different tasks together. I nearly dropped dead. At the end, there’s some fun play and obedience work.

Finally, Loki tightens up all his behaviors and shows me sometimes he just has it!

(Yes, I know it’s March. I know I know my header is not updated! I’m getting to it.)