Today the Service Dog community mourns the tragic loss of one of their own.

Grace, handler of the three-legged Border Collie and Service Dog extraordinaire, John, passed away on January 26, 2012.

Her death was believed to be caused by a blood clot that traveled to her lungs.

She was just twenty-two years old. Today would have been her birthday.

While I never had the privilage of meeting Grace in person, we became friends via the online Service Dog community. She helped me grow in so many ways, taught me a lot from Service Dog handling, to hemp jewelry making. She supported me in times of trouble, and I did my best to return the favor. My mom had offered her and John a place with us had she needed it.

She was smart, funny, tough as nails, and an incredibly kind, thoughtful person who was always there for help and support.

She will be missed by all, and remembered by all who knew her.

Grace we love you, we miss you. Thank you for all the knowledge you shared while you were here. That time was far too short.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the Sun shine warm upon your face,
And until we meet again,
May the Moon and Stars guide and guard you.

Take care dear friend.

Kat, Holly & Brigantia

My excuse for the past month of black-out-worthy silence? School. I may go to an online school, but let’s just say that’s not always a good thing. My semester just finished and between the crazy weather, numerous finals, and master-level procrastination skills I’ve had a lot of non-dog related things on my plate.

Family and friends. Dozer, Holly, Riley and Bri.

Holly is, as always, my stellar Coonie-hound. She’s been getting on beautifully, if rather irritated that she’s not the sole reciever of attention anymore. We’re preparing for her first Rally trial in late February. We’re also enrolling in a reactive dog class at Ahimsa. She’s been pretty good about other dogs, but practice with an amazing trainer can’t hurt. I’m also hoping that taking this class will give us a base to move on to the new agility and Control Unleashed classes that Ahimsa just started offering.

From early January when Belle came over for a visit with the Dozer Meister and Riley of the Noble Brow. There's Lady Holly and Bri of the Long Tongue.

 Bri is growing up really quickly. She’s just a few inches shorter than Holly now, and I suspect she weighs about the same as my regal Coonie.

Her training is coming along quite well. She’s rock solid about sounds and strange moving objects, something Holly was never fond of. She’s becoming very fond of people and other dogs, but she’s not sure about little children. They are the only things that still scare her. We’re working very hard on that, as it’s something that could certainly pose a huge problem in the future. With the progress she’s making I think I can safely say that in a month or so she’ll be starting her Public Access training.

Task training really has been a breeze. She’s got a solid automatic wait at curbs. In fact she’s more solid than Holly ever was and that’s saying something. Her retrieve is great, I never had to teach it to her she just picked it up. Her “take it” cue is great, now holding onto said object… needs some work, but the idea is there. Finding the house is doing beautifully, not the car yet, but that comes later. There are a number of tasks that will come later, such as bracing, guiding, and blocking. Her basic cues are perfect, she’s great on leash, and goes potty on cue.

She’s also just a giant goofball. She loved the snow we got last week.

Say what? Cold?? Pssh!

Bri's got some serious Professional Puppy Eyes.

So on the dog front all is well.

I’m also doing quite wonderfully. Shortly before the new year I decided to try something new. You may have heard of the Raw Food diet, if not I strongly encourage you to check it out. Basically you don’t eat or drink any processed foods or drinks. Or anything that has been heated over 108 degrees Farenheit. Some people find it rather absurd, but I’ve been doing it for almost a month and have never felt healthier in my life! Shedding excess pounds I’ve had for years, more energy, fewer eczema problems (life long problem), think more clearly, and just feeling better all around. I don’t see stopping any time soon.

I’ve also been working quite hard with my instruments. I play the recorder, Soprano mostly, but also Alto. Wooden so they don’t sound like nails on a blackboard. It’s a pretty easy instrument, so keeping up with it isn’t hard. However, I also took up the Bodhran about a year ago.

The Bodhran is a type of hand drum. Now I know that most drums seem easy to play, I can assure you, the Bodhran takes loooots of practice. It’s one of those that sounds stunning when played well, but is royal hell on the ears when played badly. If you haven’t ever heard or seen them look them up on youtube. They are just spectacular!

Hope that everyone is doing well!

Until Later,

Kat, Holly & Brigantia

We took an unofficial blogging break over Christmas, mostly because all the other stuff needed doing, and blogging was last on the list and therefore, didn’t happen.

Waiting for me to bring their presents to them on Christmas morning.

The beasts had a wonderful Chirstmas, their stockings were full to bursting, and they even had a few presents under the wreath. My younger sister was gone to my Dad’s on Christmas, and my Mom was headed out to a family gathering (which I did not attend because I didn’t want to leave Bri alone in her crate for 6-7 hours) so they got to open all their presents first.

Waiting for the okay to dig in.

They both got some giant rib bones from my dad, who seems to have embraced his role as doggy granddad.

They also got some more bones from me, a roll of Natural Balance food for treats, some canned food from my sister, and some rawhides from a friend and client of mine.

I thought that was all for them, but nope! In a lovely present from a friend they also got some amazing (and very fancy) sun dried, grass fed, beef liver treats, which they loooove.

Practicing self control. (The treats are on their paws.)

They also got a whole boatload of toys and some treats from one of my relatives.

Yay!

Holly just ate the edible puppy Nylabone, but Bri loved all the toys. Especially the rope toys, even though one of them was meant for a Lab sized puppy, not a 55-60lb hulk.

Then she just got so excited about all the new toys and treats that she had a little happiness meltdown, complete with zoomies afterward.

After all this the beasts settled in and we had a lovely, peaceful, quiet Christmas, blessedly free of any drama.

Hope you and your pups all had wonderful Christmases and are looking forward to the New Year!

Until Later!

Kat, Holly & Brigantia

Also, we made a weekend of watching the Eukanuba dog show, intersperced with several walks to keep us all sane. I’m infinitely pleased to say that Snazzy, Bri’s Sire, took 3rd Award of Excellence! Yay Snazzy!!!

During the weekend, the pups and I trekked over to a local park so Holly and I could work on her Rally cues with distractions. She was fantastic, despite the fact that there was a German Shepherd playing ball only about ten feet away from us.

On the way back, we stopped by a particularly lit up house to take a picture.

All the gorgeous lights!

We’re also dog-sitting a little albino Chihuahua. As awful as it sounds, I’m not a huge fan of the breed, I’ve only ever met one who was really a nice little dog. This one is definitely not a good ambassador.

He has decided that he hates Bri’s guts, and Holly’s only a little less. He spends most of his time in my sister’s room.

Bri's so crushed that he doesn't like her.

Ah yes, and we are not getting a Christmas tree this year. *sigh* So instead we hung up a gigantic wreath and decorated that instead. It looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

Not too bad looking!

This little corner is not the easiest spot to get good pictures in.

Our Ahimsa classes are going fantastically! We’ve dropped in on a few of them, each and every one is spectacular!! I’m getting rather addicted to them, and really want to get some for Holly, but finances are a little tight right now, so Holly has to wait.

Turns out Bri is a bit of a peace maker. When other pups start playing really rough, she saunters over to them and kind of wedges her way in between so they can’t get too worked up. The instructors love her. She’s also figured out how to sucker up to other people for treats. So whenever there’s a playtime she makes a few rounds to the other people and sits right in front of them with this big grin. Usually she gets what she wants.

What a cute little mug...

Hope everyone’s having a wonderful Christmas season!

Until Later!

Kat, Holly & Brigantia

Holly wouldn't need me to get in wherever she wanted. She's just a charmer.

See, there’s something that many people do not understand about the SD community. To put it bluntly, we get along about as well as a bag of angry cats.

I honestly have no idea why this is, but for one reason or the other, there seems to be this tendency to pick a fight that doesn’t exist. I suppose the sparring has something to do with pent up frustration over (a) the lack of common sense among the general public. (yes, you see the patch, how it says “Do Not Pet” In big bold letters with a crossed out hand? Yes? Well, it’s not just for show, it means Do. Not. Touch. The. Dog.) (b) and pent up frustration over disabilities.

Most of you probably haven’t seen this, but it’s there. No group trusts or likes the other. Fights are picked over stupid little things that would be better off left alone since they don’t effect anyone other than the original poster. (I’m thinking things like food debates, interesting, but not really something to get bloodthirsty over.) People who are part of several different communities are few, far between.

I could go on about that, but I’ll leave that ramble for another day.

Public Access training.

Good gosh, this is one of The Great Debates in the SD community.

It is a hot, HOT topic for many reasons, but mainly because there are so many different angles on it, and no one owner trainer, or organization does it the same way.

I’ll start out with the Owner Trainer (OT) perspective.

A quote that is gospel among the OT group is:

“Slow is fast.”

The general consensus among OTs is that exposure to the hectic daily life of a SD must be built up over time. A bond needs to be established between handler and dog before any PA training is even thought about. When a pup has time to get used to their surroundings, be a pup, adapt to life, and learns to work with their handler it better sets them up to be good, stable working dogs later in life.

Puppy must be a puppy!

What seems to happen when this doesn’t happen, and dog is pushed too far too fast, the pup may be solid at first, but as they mature they become more jumpy. They didn’t have the necessary time to learn to trust their handler, have time to develop emotionally, and have a stable start to life.

With a stable temperment and strong bond in place, the rest tends to fall into line. A strong bond that aids training and makes it easy to teach the life saving taks a SD performs. The stable temperment is incredibly important, with a stable temperament socialization is easy, new things are quickly accepted, and eventually ignored.

I am a strong believer in this line of thinking. I see no need to push Bri now. I don’t even know her that well yet. She’s a puppy, not a machine. She needs to have time to bond to me and learn the ins and outs of just being a good dog before she can go on to being a good SD.

Then, there is the other line of thought, which is usually seen more among the programs.

Programs are just that, programs. Unlike OTers they do not have as much freedom to work with each individual dog. They breed, or are given many puppies every year. The pups are not normally placed with their potential handlers, the focus seems to be more on exposing them to as much as possible while they’re quite young.

I think it’s also important to note that many groups have their own breeding program going on. The temperaments seem to be a bit different than those of many “normal” puppies. For example, fear periods are less obvious, and many program-bred pups don’t even seem to go through them. Program pups seem to be more resilient to exposures that would make a non-program dog more wary. Definitely not the case in every dog, but it seems to hold true for many of them.

As ridiculous and petty as it may seem, the disagreement between methods of raising stems from the wash-out percentage.

Programs have lots and lots of dogs to work with. If a large percent wash out they find them good homes, and keep moving. OTers do not have that freedom. Unlike programs we cannot be objective observers of our dogs. To put years of work, thousands of dollars, and your heart and soul into a dog only to have to wash them out and start again, is hard.

In fact, it’s not only hard, it’s exhausting, emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially.

Many cannot afford to keep a wash-out, so they face the decision of re-homing, or going without a SD that would improve their quality of life. I didn’t even consider re-homing Holly, but the decision to wash her out was incredibly difficult.

So, I think that there is a certain amount of caution that goes into OTing a SD. A handler will do anythiing and everything to make sure that their candidate will succeed. Even if it means taking things very, very slowly.

I also rather suspect that there is a little resentment there as well. To OTers programs seem to have an inexhaustible amount of support and supplies. They are sponsored, pups are from the best of  SD potential parents, their puppies are raised by caring families, should they wash out they have loving homes awaiting them.

To OT is hard. Really, really hard. You put blood, sweat, and tears into your dog. Every single step is difficult, in addition to keeping yourself together, you’re also effectively baby-sitting a two year old, except that you get far more unsolicited attention. Many OTed SDs are cross-trained, mobility and psychiatric, guide and mobility, alert and counter-balance. These dogs are always on task, they’re superbly trained.

However, it’s not all good. Programs often have reason to look down on OTing as well.

Unfortunately, OTing is facing impending doom. How many times have you seen the “SD” Fifi licking the fruit in the produce isle of the store? If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky. There are of course, the fakers who use that excuse to their advantage, but more dangerous still are those with a legitimate disablity, who know just enough of the law to use it to their advantage, but they don’t understand the use of things like tasks.

They get a cute little vest for Fluffy and take him everywhere with them. Fluffy sniffs the ground, licks things, solicits attention. It doesn’t even need to be really bad things like lunging, barking, or peeing. It is the unprofessional behavior. A SD should not be virtually invisible. No sniffing, no acting out, no licking, no noises. Of course, there will be lapses, dogs aren’t robots. But the handler shouldn’t be allow these things and if the dog exhibits inappropriate behaviors the handler should be working to refocus the dog, or should not be there. An ill-behaved dog is a dog that was pushed too fast. It is never the dog’s fault, they will do what they have been trained to do.

The group of people, both from programs and OTers who actually know the laws and hold their dogs to very high expectations, and train for those expectations, seem to be sadly few and far between. Whether you are a puppy raiser, or an OT, or a handler of a program dog, thorough knowledge of the law is a must, must, must.

So there is something of an analysis of the two predominant thoughts towards PA training.

Hopefully you enjoyed the ramble, and learned something from it! Maybe one of these days SD people will stop trying to claw each other’s eyes out long enough to make a change in the perception of the SD community as a whole.

Program or OT, our goals are still the same. Bri and Riley demonstrate friendship despite different training, breeds, and methods.

Until Later!

Kat, Holly & Brigantia

Holly in ivy, borrowing the neighbors decorations for a photo op.

We’re one of those strange families that doesn’t really remember it’s Christmas season until about a week before the big day. We go out, possibly just half a week before Christmas and haggle the tree salesman down to $10 for a tree. Then cover the poor thing in strange ornaments that leave the usually raggedy specimen drooping and barely visible.

Being as it’s only a week before Christmas I figured it was about time to get our first photos.

Holly got back from Christmas shopping for her doggy friends. She looks like such a diva!

I borrowed one of our neighbor’s decorations. It was singing, so it doubled as a socialization opportunity for Bri. She was curious, but definitely not fearful, high tail and a happy face, but she kept turning around the check out the lights. Goofy kid.

I think she rather enjoyed the flashing lights though.

Ah, the horrors I force my dogs to endure…

Hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season!

The Baby Bear in the ivy collar.

On a side note, Bri’s Sire, Snazzy, is competing in the Eukanuba National Championships this weekend! Goooo Snazzy, we’re watching the live streaming starting tomorrow morning at five! If you’re even remotely interested check out the link, Here.

Until Later!

Kat, Holly & Brigantia

I’ve also been feeling incredibly guilty because she hasn’t been getting as much attention since Bri came and I’ve been working nonstop with her. So this last week I put my mind to finding her a job.

The Pretty Princess needs a job.

I thought about drafting, since she enjoys it. Unfortunately the breed clubs don’t have very many events and it doesn’t seem like the events are open for mixed breeds.

I looked at recreational hunting for a (very) brief period of time. Not my thing, at all. Electronic collars, letting your dog off to run after prey, possibly never see them again, shock them for trailing anything that isn’t what you want… eh, not really my style. I even had a bird dog hunter tell me he’d never want to Coon hunt because the dogs often don’t come back. After that I threw it to the wind.

Nosework and tracking sounded really fun, and that’s on my “want to” list. For now though, not going to happen. Classes are expensive and far away, and since Holly’s a mix she can’t compete for any titles with the AKC. Yes, I’ll admit it, I’m very attracted to the idea of competing for a big shiny ribbon and the titles.

Agility, another one on my list, but I don’t know much about it, and it’s another thing you have to take classes for. Classes are expensive, so again, it’ll have to wait. Hopefully we’ll be able to do it in the future!

Obedience sounded fun, but intense. I’ve got a dog buddy who works her Duck Toller in obedience, and judging by their shows it is hard. Maybe later if Holly enjoys competing enough and we get that precise, but we’re doing this for fun.

This all led to Rally being our sport, for now.

I’ve decided that come next February we’ll go to our first Rally show and see how it goes!

I ran Holly through the list of cues used in Rally Novice, and she was perfect! A few things need tightening up on, like her moving down, and we’ll slowly have to fade out the treats and rewards, but other than that she’s a star! I was really surprised at just how good at it she was, I thought there would be a bunch of things that needed teaching, but nope, just perfecting!

I plan on tightening everything up at home, and then slowly working her in more and more distracting environments. After all, we’ve got until February before there are any shows around here. She’ll be golden by the time that rolls around!

Until Later!

Kat, Holly & Brigantia

The current crew of Belle and I.

It started with a Chocolate Lab named Alki. He was very, very dog reactive. He was a short term foster and returned to his owner after several months. However, in that short time we were introdued to Cesar Millan and his “rehabilitation” methods. The stage was set for a disaster.

Several years, and my parent’s divorce, later Belle and I both got into dogs again. This time we fed off of each other, obbsessive like only young teens can be, we covered every aspect of dogs. Every dog book in our libraries has our grubby fingerprints all over it. I (stupid child that I was) introduced her to Cesar Millan.

We scorned those “positive people” who had to use treats to bribe their dogs. (Never mind the fact that neither of us actually owned a dog, let alone had successfully trained one.) Swearing up and down that we’d never have to do that with our dogs.

Ha!

When I was fourteen we had a sleepover, the highlight of which was a trip to the Humane Society.

My Mom had put her foot down on getting a dog several years ago, but after this trip I begged, wheedled, and pleaded until at last, she agreed.

We went the next week and picked up Holly. She wasn’t my first choice, in fact she wasn’t even a breed that I really wanted, but somehow I got her.

Sweet Holly, taken late last year.

At first Holly was (almost) everything I wanted. She loved people and dogs. Granted she jumped at every sound, wouldn’t look you in the eye, was terrified of sticks, and wouldn’t wag her tail at anyone. To me she seemed perfect.

Then it started. She started reacting to other dogs, mildly at first, then barking and lunging if she met them head on. I went running back to Cesar Millan and his books.

It only got worse. I corrected for staring at other dogs, lunging, or barking at other dogs. It only escalated to the point where Holly was actually getting in fights. Everything got worse. I switched to a prong collar and walked Holly nine miles a day to tire her out. None of it helped. Holly enjoyed the exercise, but the corrections and exercise did nothing to help her reactivity.

So ensued a year or so of stupidity. Everything Holly did was out of “dominance” I corrected her for everything wrong, never praised her for anything right, used alpha rolls, prong collars, and verbal corrections.

Poor, poor Holly. Looking back on it I’m surprised she didn’t take my arm, or at least a few fingers off. I completely deserved it.

Instead my sweet girl just shut down. She was terrified of me. She worked for me, but slowly and out of fear. The only times she really came alive were for meals. It was an awful time, made all the worse because I didn’t understand anything about what was going on or what I was doing.

Enter Dozer.

Belle got him about six months after I got Holly. He and Holly were best buds at first sight. I was so jealous, he was a perfect dog, he listened, heeled, was “submissive” and had no issues at all. It made me more determined than ever to get Holly to be “calm and submissive”, so she could be a good girl.

Dozer and Holly, best buddies.

I continued using harsh methods. Holly didn’t trust me, she was afraid of me, she didn’t really like me. Quite honestly she was terrified of me.

Finally, one day I wanted to teach her something that couldn’t be taught using corrections. Something she wouldn’t do on her own.

I wanted to teach her to carry things in her mouth, and to retrieve.

Stupid child that I was I actually did try force to get her to hold things. It worked about as well as writing on water. That is to say, it didn’t. Finally one day, out of options on the correction based front, I dug out the clicker that I had been given over 5 years before.

I tried it.

Five minutes later Holly was eagerly picking up the object I had decided to work with and practically throwing it in my lap, her ears up and her tail going a mile a minute.

A regular retriever!

It was at this point a switch was thrown in my mind.

If Holly had caught on so quickly to that, why not other things? Doors were opening.

I’ll continue this in my next post. I hope it’s not too dry and boring.

Until Later!

Kat, Holly & Brigantia

In tribute to her Sire, Snazzy Story, Bri’s registered name was to be “Avalon Bey’s I Shall Wear Midnight”. Which (except for the kennel name) is the title of a fantastic book by Terry Pratchett about Witches, Rough Music, Common Sense, and of course, the Nac Mac Feegle (Crivens!). I’m not going to explain, you’ll have to read it yourselves.

Much to my shock and horror I recieved Bri’s papers a few days ago to find that it was not the fantastic name I had written down, but “Avalon Bey’s L Shall Wear Midnight”.

Nooooo!

This isn’t the first time there have been name problems with the AKC.

My real name is quite long and arduous for strangers to write, in fact it’s such a pain that spelling it out after saying it has become habit, complete with an “M, as in Michael.” On Holly’s CGC certificate they left off the last few letters of my last name leaving it cruelly mutilated, which I honestly didn’t mind so long as most of it was there.

Let’s not even get started on how poor Dozer became Dozen on his CGC certificate.

Poor Dozer, definitely not a Dozen...

Thankfully, this time around all will be well. I called the AKC and while they maintain that it was written “L” rather than “I” they have corrected it and are sending me the new paperwork free of charge.

Hopefully we won’t have to play the name game again for a while!

Until Later!

Kat, Holly & Brigantia

Bri’s father, “Cypress Bay JL Snazzy Story at Avalon Bey” or Snazzy, has made it to the astounding spot of 2nd best Newfoundland in the country National/Regional Specialty winners! (Not quite sure exactly what that all means, but I assume it’s really good.)

Snazzy, such a handsome boy!

Furthermore, he’s been invited to the 2012 Westminster Dog Show!

We hippie-types don’t have a television, so the pack and I will (hopefully) be migrating over to my neighbor/friend/employer’s place for the big show. With a little luck Bri will get to see her Daddy strut the catwalk of dogdom!

I rather think that beautiful Bri resembles her incredibly handsome father.

Holly will most likely amuse herself by just playing with my neighbor’s dogs who she’s good friends with.

So, root for Snazzy and keep an eye out for him in this coming Westminster Show!

Congrats to Snazzy, his breeder, and Laura for their amazing work with him!

Until Later!

Kat, Holly & Brigantia