Sunday, May 17, 2009

The new puppy

So, we adopted a puppy because I wanted to try working her in SAR. She is a 6 month old black lab and border collie mix. I'm not sure how well she'll work out though. She loves kids, and loves men, but she's very submissive to women, which concerns me a bit. She listens to both me and C equally, so that's not really an issue, but she just seems to be on guard all the time around women.

So far, she mostly knows 'sit' and is working on 'down' which is coming along. She's pretty good about her recall, although, like any puppy, she isn't really good about it when she's distracted by something (which is true of any of the commands...something we're working on). She is a bit of a jumper, and C and I really have to stop allowing her to jump on us, except when she's given the command 'up.' She's mostly house-trained, but if we don't notice her at the door to go out, she'll pee on the carpet. But she doesn't have a good tell, so it's hard. And annoying.

I go to my first SAR training next Sunday. Well, not first, but first in several years. I'm looking forward to seeing many of the people again. I had gotten out of it when I went to nursing school, because I just didn't have the money to drive all over creation. Plus, they didn't have any provisions for someone who didn't have a dog. Now I have a dog, so we'll just have to see if she passes their evaluations. If not, I'll just have to work as a walker until we move to a bigger house and I can get a dog that will work out.

Of course, we haven't payed for the new puppy yet (her name is Kaylee). I keep trying to get the woman in the rescue organization to email me her address, but she keeps forgetting. I need to call her again.

She and Kobe get along well, except when there is human food involved. But she is getting a bit better about that as well, and there is much less snarling when an event occurs.

Any way, here is a picture of Kaylee, and the bottom one is Kobe.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One of the first commands that we teach is "Touch." This is an easy one to teach a puppy, using treats as a reward initially.

The goal of the command is to get the dog to touch its nose to your hand. Once it is automatic with a treat, then we switch to rewarding with praise (or a clicker if you are so inclined).

The usefulness of the command comes in those "distraction" situations. Once the dog performs the "touch" you have its attention for further commands.

Good luck with the pup, and thank you for rescueing!