The Aussie Posse
Fleet is already 5 months old!? Well, really- closer to 5.5. Wow.
She had her first swim yesterday. She's already more of a water dog than her mother (yay!) though not as fanatical about swimming as Gam.. yet..
I'm pretty sure all of her puppy teeth are gone and now her big adult teeth are coming in. She's so adult in so many ways. She's just n easy puppy.. I love her demanding but *very* cuddly ways. She loves to play bitey face with my hands but as soon as I squeak, she insists on appeasment kisses before she'll resume play (happily and with the same enthusiasm as before). She's picking up sit/down discriminations quickly and easily without any real training sessions to proof it (my bad). She pretty much never chews on anything that's not hers- except for paper. She loves to rip up a piece of paper. But she trades me for anything happily. She keeps up with Gam and Khy in speed and outdoes them in endurance. She is just a happy, sweet, thinking puppy that loves to play and cuddle. She's rocking our trips to home depot and Jax (outdoors type store) and could care less about new people. When some people approach her the same way as the person in the specific incidences, she can get barky but quickly recovers and goes back to default not caring about new people. She's got a great work ethic, awesome dog skills, easy going life skills, and is just a great little puppy. She is more reserved than impulsive, so we're working on rewarding impulsive behavior and minimizing ItsYerChoice in most settings (she generalizes EXTEREMELY fast). Gam is the king of impulsiveness so she gets to be paired with him for field trips and play stuff. Really, overall.. she's just a very very good puppy. She sleeps with me at night still- her insistance and if she gets up in the middle of the night, always comes to cuddle with me from the time Wes gets up until I get up. She's a very good cuddler. Touchy without being pushy about it.
She definitely goes to head more than heel- I'm excited to see if that holds true on stock as well.
Not to forget about the older aussies...
Khy is intermittantly lame at the moment, so her running trips have been drastically reduced until she can get in to see the PT. She thinks that's stupid so we've been doing lots of shaping which is her crack anyway. It seems like it's her toe or shoulder and it takes a lot of running to really be able to see the tiny little hitch in her movement every 4th-5th step.
Gam is my playful, pushy, fast (you never realize *how* fast your dog is until you see them run on video or with a better handler.. holy cow.) monsterman. He may get to have babies at the end of the year! There's someone interested in using him for their girl. I think he's got a lot to bring to the table with that cross. I'm super excited about that if it all works out. He's got to go through the battery of tests first. OFAs were this past weekend and I couldn't be happier with his hips. The vet's guess is good to excellent. I think they're excellent without considering his age, but if that comes into play then definitely excellent. They're nicer than Khys- even if her positioning was better, they're still better than hers. She was rated Good. I'm not sure how to read elbows but the vet (my favorite vet ever) said they were nice with no sign of DJD. That's a worry for me as his dam has DJD in one elbow. I guess we'll see! Pending those coming back happily, then we move on to the 5+ swabs for the dna testing. The plan is to also finish out Khy's 2 tests and then wait and if those are clear, test Fleet for the only 2 things she's not cleared by parentage for (PRA and MDR1).
He loved his swimming trip yesterday. "Throw. The. Damn. Stick."
Everyone is starting private lessons with Sarah next week- work on foundation stuff for Fleet, go back to foundation stuff for Gam, possibly start rally/obedience foundation for Gam and Khy. Fleet just finished her second round of performance puppy classes today and starts another round next week which will be focused toward a lot of trick training (yay!). Gam is taking Khy's agility class during the week so he gets practice on Tuesday and Wednesday nights after the 2x2 and Handling Skills classes I assist with. Every class, I fall in love with him more and didn't think that was possible.
Back to the real world now- 2 more agility classes and Flame is due any hour now (aka.. yesterday) and it looks like she's got another 10 puppies in her. She's nothing if not fertile!