It´s raining again really heavily. It was difficult to drive because of the rain. It did not rain when we left from home so Simo did not have an umbrella with him. We were all wet just from running across the street to the car. It can be like this until Christmas. After that I hope the rain will come down as snow. If we are lucky we will get a white snowy Christmas time, but lately the winter has really come only in February and lasted for about 6 weeks. But winter can wait – now it´s the rain period. We have had now heavy rains. Usually end of October and November are very rainy. But I think your rain is heavier than ours. But last weekend for example it was a real storm. It was raining cats and dogs and the wind has been blowing so hard that some trees had fallen on streets and in many places the electricity was off for a while because some trees had fallen on the electricity wires. And guess who had to go out with the doggies in that weather! Brrrr…. Even the dogs seemed to refuse going out in the beginning. For the first 100 meters or so they tried to turn around and go home. When they realized they had no choice they came with me, but on the other half they were pulling so much that I had difficulties. They were in such a hurry to get quickly back home. How spoiled pets

… So the deep autumn has come now. Some of the trees have already lost their leaves today during the storm. I love the early autumn (because of the colours) until the leaves fall. After that it looks so naked everywhere. Then it´s just waiting for the spring again. Some people love winter, but I must say that i never was a winter-person. Winter is always hard work because even to get the kids ready for school takes a lot of time, because I must put on tehm so many layers of clothes. It´s much better in summer. Spring and autumn are ok as well, but if I could decide I would cancel winter Of course we hope for snow for Christmas, because it´s beautiful, but I don´t like the extra work that winter means and it´s too cold.

Simo (10 years) went for the first time all alone for a walk with Wilma (Welsh springer spaniel, 3 years, 18 kg). They had been ok. Kalle was with Dilbert at rescue training and while Simo was walking Wilma I took Samu to the scouts, loaded my bus card and went shopping for groceries. Now trying to clean up the mess at home….

It´s been some time already since our doggy dancing contest, but now since I just registered us for another competition that will be held November the 2nd in Janakkala, 2 hours from us, I thought I could write a bit about the previous competition. It was quite an experience I must say At first I was not planning to attend at all but then my dog school teacher started to talk to me about it. She would also come and some other dogs& their people from our training group. I did absolutely not feel ready for it yet, but all the more she talked to us about it, the more also felt tempted to give it a try and so I made the crucial phone call and our name was on the list. We started with doggy dancing last March so we´d been training once a week for 6 months, though I must say that for the most time we have not been training at all at home during the weeks. In the beginning we did, but when summer came we just went to the training group without having done anything at all at home. We also could not make it every Saturday during then summer, because we were gone quite a lot during our summer holidays.

…but then it was September suddenly and our teacher just blurted this out to me: “If you won´t register to the contest with Wilma, I will! We had really not been training almost at all during the summer, but now we had a good reason to continue. We made a simple coreography to this music that we had chosen, but it took for a quite long time to decide which movements we would make – how I shall move and what Wilma will do, so actually our program was ready only one week before the contest. During the last week we practiced quite a lot and I was afraid that it was a bit too much for Wilma, because on Saturday evening she refused to do anything! She is so used to getting a reward (a piece of sth delicious, like a piece of mince meat balls or a little piece of sausage) after every movement that she had difficulties understanding I want her to do the whole programm with a big reward only at the end and nothing before that. She was protesting the evening before and already in the beginning of the song she was just standing there and staring at me when I did my best to motivate her to do her part even if I could not give her anything. She must have thought “This is criminal – why does she not give me ANYTHING!” I did not feel too encouraged after the last training. I don´t know what happened during the night ( I did pray though, but don´t know if God is interested in doggy dancing competitions, he he) – but the day after she was like another dog at the competition. She could not have been happier. Whatever the reason is, she was gorgeous. She did absolutely everything I asked her to do and quickly and with such a joy. Her tail was wagging so much that it looked like it is the tail that is wagging the dog and not vice versa She clearly enjoyed the loud music and she was on a good mood. And after she had done so well, at least 5 people from our dog training school (who had been in the audience) including the teacher rushed to Wilma hugging her and petting her and praising her. She got so much positive attention that she must have felt like a queen. And I am 100% sure she sensed the atmosphere and knew exactly how great she had just been. You should have seen her tail then… By the way the dog school teacher also was competing on the same level as we – they became 3rd. Come to think of it, we were not so much behind them and she is my TEACHER. I´m so proud of Wilma.

In doggy dancing there are 4 levels – this was just the beginners´ level. But since we got so high points we will now have to move one level up so next time the quality of other competitors is higher – and no, I don´t feel ready for that. This is so funny, I would never have imagined that I will end up dancing with my dog. It was the last hobby that I can think of inside the dog training field. Reason: I cannot dance myself! And I definitely do not look like a dancer. But since Wilma was so good I must give her another chance – And I must say it was so much fun being there. The atmosphere was good. Absolutely everybody were encouraging other competitors and it didn´t feel so serious situation, but it was possible just to go there and have fun with the dog. Some were very good – some dogs started sniffing around in the middle of their programme (I was sure Wilma would do this but she didn´t), but I saw some really good dogs too. On upper levels there were some that were just awesome. One starts really asking how on earth a dog can learn such things and how much do they practise…

In the meanwhile while they were away I took Wilma out. Dilbert was at a rescue dog training in the forest with Kalle and some other teams, so I had the privilege to be with Wilma. She is lovely indeed, so beautiful and so sweet – and so easy! What a pleasant walk even though it was raining. I don´t really mind the rain. If have have rain clothes and rubber boots on like yesterday evening, I actually even enjoy being out in the rain.

This morning as we woke up it was still raining. It´s a hard work getting the kids out to school in a weather like this. They need so many layers of clothes. The risk is also high that they will forget someof the clothes to school.

…But gotta go now. The kids need their breakfast and I need to get myself ready for work too. Have a good day, world!

On Friday when I came from work I got a ride from my collegue so I was at home a bit earlier. The dogs seem to know when I come – now they were not waiting for me yet. My son Simo had come home before me and let the dogs out to the garden. Our yard is narrow and long and the house is at the other end. When I came to the gate I saw Wilma sitting in front of the house, but she did not notice me. I called her name. When she heard me she started running, running, running all that she could. She is a Welsh springer spaniel with red and white a bit longer hair, with long hanging ears and she looks so sweet when she is running. This time it was more flying though. Her paws nearly not touched the ground because she was in such a hurry to get to me. I went down on my knees to receive her and from a distance of at least 2 if not 3 meters she jumped up in my arms with all her 18 kilos and licked my face all wet. She was so glad that her tail was wagging the rest of the body – not vice versa  These doggies are one of the biggest blessings there has ever been in my life and I hope we will be able to get at least one more dog in future. We´ve been talking about that from time to time. It won´t happen until Dilbert´s rescue dog training is ready, but after that it is fully possible. Maybe in 1,5 years or 2,5 years?

I got to go now. Samu is sitting next to me and would so much like to play with the computer. I´ll write more another day.

This is Wilma, my other paw therapist jumping through an agility ring:

Red cremlings

The kittens have grown so much, too. They were just about 700 gr as they arrived and now they are 2,5 kg. They are wild dropping everything down from the bookshelves they can and have broken several plates etc. But so cute. This morning when I woke up I had a kitten in my bed

Lately I´ve been thinking whether I should delete this blog or start writing again. I came to the conclusion that I don´t want to delete this. I want to keep the stories I´ve written here about my dear Dilbert. So I decided to change the aspect of the blog and continue writing it as my English blog – generally about life, not only about dogs but about the whole colorful life including all the areas that have separate blogs in Finnish. I won´t be writing every day, since I keep already so many blogs in Finnish but I´ll write every now and then, since it would be nice to keep also some international friends up-to-date on what is going on in my life. It will be lovely to blog in English again.

]]> http://hanninski.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/btw-isn%c2%b4t-he-just-adorable-2/feed/ 1 hanninski http://hanninski.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/training-for-the-august-dog-show/ http://hanninski.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/training-for-the-august-dog-show/#comments Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:06:36 +0000 hanninski http://hanninski.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/training-for-the-august-dog-show/ ]]> Had just enough time to take Dilbert for a quick walk this afternoon and do 20 minutes training for the dog show. We had in our training programm the following things:

1. trotting straight forward (goes ok, when he has sth to look at at the other end- if not, he tends to look at me)
2. trotting straight forward, turning around and trotting back (I leave a treat on the ground when we leave. When trotting straight forward, Dilbert sometimes looks a bit at me almost like asking “could we not turn back and get my candy…?”, he turns nicely and stays trotting. I try to teach him a word for turning so he knows that we are going to change the direction. He trots back to the candy so nicely looking all the time straight forward.)

2. trotting a triangle (I am learning to remember to tell Dilbert when we take a turn, Dilbert is learning to trot not looking at me. Especially in the corners he tends to make an eye contact. I think that is allowed, but he should remember to turn his eyes away from me afterwards.)

3.  standing still in the show position (We´ve made some progress with this one. He can actually stand still nowadays, but needs a treat on the ground to motivate him. Another thing is that I don´t really know in what position he should stand.  When I stretch him and put him to stand “nicely” he allows me to do it and stays in the position, but he looks very helpless.)

Darling Dilbert´s summer has been lazier than I thought it would be. I had been planning to be active and train him a lot, but I don´t know how I was so lazy with that myself… and even a bigger problem was Dilbert´s ability to tolerate the heat! Whenever we went out and I tried to get him excited just about anything, he refused to do anything but sleep in a shadow. Poor Dilbert. This problem belongs to the disadvantages of a black dog: in summer they only work after 11 pm.

Yet we have kept up attending dog school several times a week. I´ve been to 3 different courses: one course in advantaged obedience, one in basic obedience and one in agility. Kalle has been to search and rescue trainings twice a week, too. Dilbert´s second obstinate age is also over, thank God! So now it´s easier and he is willing to co-operate again and responds better to commands. This means that we´ve got a better control of him now than last spring.

We´ve not made as great progress with Dilbert´s obedience training for obedience test this summer though. It´s because Dilbert has been so unwilling to work when it´s been so hot outside. And I have to admit, that after the evening promenade at 11 pm I am not so terribly active anymore, so many days have gone without any real training except attending the courses. Agility has been this summer´s best thing though. What a great hobby! Dilbert clearly enjoys every moment of it. We´ve already progressed to the level, where we can actually combine some obstacles and do some “real” agility instead of single obstacles. Due to Dilbert´s heavy structure, he is not as quick as smaller lighter dogs, but I enjoy seeing him having so much dun. Yesterday he was just about to freak out when another dog was working and flying over the obstacles and Dilbert had to wait for his turn!

Another thing that is new for this summer is a dog show in August. We´ll see how it goes. We´ve had no training for that ver and now we´re quickly trying to learn some basic things about how to stand and how to run so that Dilbert looks as good as he can on the 4rd of August.

We´ve just had Dilbert´s best friend Ilona for a visit over night and we´ve just kept noticing over and over again how much Dilbert would benefit from a friend. When he has another dog in the house to play with, he does not jump on kids at all. He needs another dog to play with and get rid of his extra energy. It´s so easy with another dog in the house, because the kids and the dogs can all play together outside even without constant monitoring. Maybe we should get the other dog sooner than next summer… I wonder if Kalle would accept it.

I´ve made some nice photos of Dilbert during the summer. I blog some of them here now and will put some good photos in Flickr later.

In the last photo I can almost hear Dilbert saying: “Isn´t it enough with photos now so I can go back to my business and continue sniffing around?”

What a lovely evening out in the nature with Dilbert. Dilbert enjoys summer and rests in the middle of a flower field. Hoping this summer will be warm an nice but in the same time cool enough for Dilbet to be able to enjoy the summer days.

I´m looking forward to a summer with a lot of photographying, dog activities and hiking in the nature with the whole family.

“My paws are cold and so are my ears. I can´t lift my head, feel neither like chasing the cats nor saying hi to dad at the door when he came home. My tail does not seem to move and I do not want to eat. I did not even manage to climb to the bed, but mum had to help me. I feel miserable – and all because of some pictures. Right now I can´t see much point in knowing I´ve got excellent hips.”

24.00: Still feeling weak and tired, but got up to eat and then climbed on the sofa next to us.

Dilbert´s birthday brings closer also the possibility to get another dog. The original plan was to buy a second puppy when Dilbert gets 3 and it´s just one more year to go before that. Lately I´ve used a lot of time to get to know as many dog breeds as possible. Still looking for the perfect match.. A pity that Dilbert cannot say what kind of friend he would like to have. Our trainer recommended us an Entlebucher Sennenhund (also called Entlebucher Mountain dog or Entlebuch cattle dog) and even though I first thought I´d like to have a dog with a little bit more hair, I´m starting to get excited about this breed. It has such a wonderful character. More about the breed here.

We also tried cycling today. It was just a short route, only 1 km. Dilbert was running so nicely next to the bicycle. There were absolutely no problems after the first minute. Well, Dilbert tried to attack the bicycle twice in the beginning, but that behaviour came to the end very soon thanks to the lemon collar.

Thankful for the hint that I should go to see a physio therapist with Dilbert. She said that if we had not come now, there would have been major problems in 6 months.

Yesterday we also took a baby squarrel to the home for lost animals. He was sleeping all alone in the middle of our yard and no squarrel mother came to rescue him. We couldn´t leave him there anymore. I hope he will survive.

Kalle told me about a rabbit that had passed by Dilbert while Dilbert was in the middle of searching. After the incedent with the ice creamvan, I would have been pretty sure that Dilbert will not be able to resist the temptation of starting to chase the rabbit. But Dilbert had continued his search and ignored the rabbit. Wow! It is a good sign if a search dog- to-be feels it´s more exciting to go on with the search and find the targit man than to start chasing the rabbit especially when we know he is extremely interested in rabbits.

Otherwise the weekend has been full of action. I have been working on Dilbert´s drive with variable results. Sometimes he is more excited, sometimes less.

On Sunday I noticed a red itchy spot on Dilbert´s stomach and he was licking it quite a lot so we went to show it to the vet yesterday. It was harmless – propably something has scratched him in the forest or it is possible an insect bite and since Dilbert has been licking it, it has become sore and red. He got some cream that we must put on the spot twice a day until next weekend. And it´s much better already. At the veterinary Dilbert and I saw a little puppy and Dilbert was wonderful with him. He made himself as small as possible. I could almost hear him say: “Look how small I am. I am really very harmless. Come little one.” …and he came and almost climbed on Dilbert´s head and he did not even move.

I made an appointment for Dilbert with a physio therapist for next Friday. She will check that everything is ok after Dilbert´s accident with the ice cream van.

By the way, we heard today, that the dog that came to our yard last Saturday is with his own family again

Lately Kalle has been helping to find a lost cat with one other person. They´ve been setting food traps for her everywhere around the area where she had run away from her owners for 2 weeks ago and they have been taking food and blankets to the place. Once Kalle even saw the cat, but she wouldn´t let Kalle catch her. Tonight as we were watching tv, Kalle got an sms saying that the lost cat is now happily back with her owners. The owners had driven 500 km back to Turku once they heard their cat had been seen and is alive. They were hoping the cat would come out from her hiding place when she hears her own people call her and it worked! Such a happy end to the tragedy

The day before yesterday in the evening I drove to the pet store to buy a new dummy. It was twice as big as the previous one that Dilbert destroyed and this one should last a little bit longer. I´ve been a bit slow to write here, because I have needed some time to get the Finnish speaking training diary going. I wanted to do sth in Finnish, too, because it seems that some people who don´t know enough English to understand this text here, would want to know how it is going with the training.

I have a lovely photo to blog Yesterday evening Dilbert had been trying to make me play with him. Finally he gave up and I had decided that´s when I first start playing! I went inside to get the dummy and the training collar. The photo is of Dilbert waiting for me to return:

“Shall we play now? You could send me to go to the square – or I could fetch this thing instead of a dumbbell!”

He was waiting like a statue for a long time just holding the thing in his mouth. Then he saw me dropping the dummy and the very same moment he rushed to get it. Once he got a grip of it, he made sure I wouldn´t catch him. He stayed just a meter away whatever I did. Suddenly I wanted to try something and see how much he really likes our training moments. I took the training collar and held it with two hands so that it forms a circle. I said with a glad voice: “Let´s train!” Indeed it worked. Dilbert rushed towards the collar, put his head through it and brought the dummy towards me so I could get a grip of it. Lovely! If he is willing to change the stolen dummy to a moment of training together, he really likes what we are doing.

(Check the Finnish speaking training blog www.treenit.wordpress.com for anything that has to do with daily training.)

I will keep this “general Dilbert blog” in English and this will cover all kind of dog-related things from our life – there will be things also about training, but not only like in the new training diary. The Finnish speaking training diary is more about training for obediance test at the time, but there will be reports about progress in other hobbies that Dilbert has as well. if you speak Finnish, do visit that page, too

The project this weekend (and actually this whole summer I guess) is to build Dilbert´s drive. When I got Dilbert, I thought that the way working dogs are being trained does not suit us. I somehow got the picture it is hard training with no fun for the dog. How wrong I was! Little did I know about the difference there is between how to train a working dog vs. how pet owners raise their dogs and I´m only learning now. I have now realized, that since I obviously have a dog, that has been blessed with a degree of drive, he should be entitled to be trained in the way that inspires him most, so that he can use the gifts God has placed in him. So it´s all about building drive and grip now and I´m focusing everything I can on prey work and playing with him as much as I can. I can see this is what Dilbert was created for. Because of Dilbert´s size, it´s hard work for me at this stage, but it´s really great fun for both of us and I enjoy seeing Dilbert so excited! Dilbert has tons of prey drive and explosive energy hidden inside of him and if I manage to train him to use this drive in obedience, he will be working in a wonderful way. He just lights up whenever he sees or hears me taking any toy or the training collar in my hand and gets really wild and hot during the playing. He is growling and his grip is powerful and deep and he gives a nice strong backward tugging motion. The funniest thing that happened today was that Dilbert tore his new dummy to shreds within the 30 first seconds of tugging. He is even stronger than I thought. Most of the days I also feel like having been on an aerobics lesson. I hope this will help me to loose some weight.

What we are training now, is normally trained already with puppies. It is easier then, because the puppies are smaller and weigh less. When this kind of drive training starts, it can make the dog a bit uncontrollable in the start. Dilbert´s size makes changing the training method at this stage challenging. For example Dilbert trying to catch the dummy, that is fleeing away, strikes often his claws into my hands instead of the dummy, so I need to wear gloves. Otherwise there will be bruises. It takes also time before he understands, that he only gets to play when the initiative comes from me and by jumping on me, he will not get me playing with him at all! When we get our next dog (hopefully in spring/summer 2008) , I´ll start this kind of training with her already when she is very young.

There is also the following problem we need to work on: Dilbert´s focus on me and the game that is going on. Now it can occure that when the neighbours come home and step out of the car, Dilbert runs out to the edge of the grass with his tail wagging straight up wanting to inspect. He would so much love to go and say hi to them. People are still more interesting than toys, even though we are at last playing in the way he really loves and that makes him eager and excited. But his ability to concentrate will grow with experience and age.

So these are interesting times for someone who has her very first own dog of a working dog breed but has been so far doing obedience with him only by rewarding him with sausages. This “working dog method” is opening a whole new world for us, but it makes us so dependent on the trainer, who is teaching this to us. I´m deeply thankful to her for all the help and guidance we´ve got lately in person and by email, since I know nothing about training in this way. Someone has been warning me about this kind of drive work, because Dilbert might get difficult to control, so this is in one sence really like taking a leap into darkness without knowing what you are going to encounter. But isn´t life like that anyway! It´s always about taking risks and steps of faith and sometimes just trusting someone sho has more experience than you. Of course we could stay for ever in “slow obediane” – or take the risk of loosing the control for a while a bit and maybe get tons of energy directed into obediece work. And if it does not work we can always go back to our previous trainig methods. I think it´s worth taking the risk!

Today´s photo is of Dilbert chewing a stick. I love the way he is holding his paw on the stick.

Friday, at last! The time really flies during the weeks and I get so little done at home and have quite little time for the family – and Dilbert. So I´m basicly living for weekends. Lovely, that it´s Friday again!

We had a lazy evening yesterday. The dog first aid evening was postponed. We´ll get the training on My 8th instead, which is even better, because this week has been really busy. We´ve been every night somewhere and I would really like to go to a concert tonight, so it was good that I had the possibility to be at home yesterday evening.

On Wednesday evening Dilbert did so well on Koirakondis´ training lesson. We went to the railway station and did all kind on things there. At last I get the feeling that Dilbert actually can concentrate and often chooses me before other attractions. A lovely feeling. That course seems almost a bit too easy for us now, whereas in autumn a similar course was a stress, because Dilbert always wanted to sniff all other dogs and was was not so interested in what I want him to do. He has made some real progress in the meanwhile

Have a nice weekend!

Hanne: Look how delicious the dumbbell looks! It´s waiting for you. Go and get it!

Dilbert: Is it enough that I sniff it? Will I still get my treat?

Hanne: No, you must bring it to me.

Dilbert: No way! I´ll take the smaller one.

Hanne: You don´t have an option like that now.

Dilbert: Wuf! If you make me retrieve the bigger dumbbell, I´ll drop it on your TOES!

Dilbert hates the bigger dumbbell. At the end I managed to get a picture of him with the bigger one, but he does not feel comfortable with it and prefers to drop it on my toes, so we´ll continue practising with the smaller one for now.

Dilbert was such a rascal on tonight´s lesson. He demanded me to play with him by jumping on me, would not take a no, and then at the end when we were supposed to play, he ran off from me and took somebody else´s sausages. The lady was preparing a track in the forest and Dilbert was overdelighted to find sausages on the ground. Well… this kind of evenings remind me of the fact that Dilbert is an animal after all – and I am maybe a bit unexperienced sometimes. He behaved like an angel afterwards when we were back home.

Happy homecoming

My son Simo came home from school an hour ago. As soon as Dilbert saw him approaching the gate, he ran all that he could to meet him with big kisses. Simo´s face was all wet and Dilbert´s tail was wagging faster than any other time today.

Dilbert goes to school

In the evening I´ll go with Dilbert to Pinserella´s lesson. This week is really busy: yesterday rescue training, today Pinserella´s lesson, tomorrow lesson with KoiraKondis, the day after tomorrow first aid evening for dog owners and we need Dilbert with us. A lot to do, but it´s fun!

A really warm day. Our thermometer showed + 18 degrees (Celcius) and the sun was shining. You could go out in a t-shirt.

Dilbert makes a good watch dog. He does not bark much (or for a long time), but when he does, it is a sound that gets respected. Today he suddenly heard something in the forest behing our house and the whole neighbourhood definitely heard that there had been someone close to our house.

In the afternoon we were playing in the garden. He carried me all his toys one after another, but nothing was as dear to him as his ball. Here in the picture he is reaching up as high as he can to catch it flying. Look how tall he is! The next moment he is passing by me again and again as fast and as near as he can hoping I would run after him. He keeps the distance small enough so I just might get a hold of him, but also big enough to enable him to escape from my hand. Very clever indeed!

Kalle went to search & rescue training with Dilbert tonight. I´m eagerly waiting for news about how it went today. This search and rescue thing is what we have been dreaming of ever since we decided we would get a dog for two years ago. Dilbert has been using his nose in a great way in the forest. For 2 weeks ago Kalle had been told, that Dilbert has made so good progress already, that they can start with the phase 2 in May: training Dilbert how to tell Kalle about a person that he has found in the forest.

—

Update in the midnight: Dilbert had done really well tonight. He had been behaving well (even others had praised him for that) had worked very eagerly and he had found all people hiding in the woods. Well done, my Darling!

Today was the first day after Dilbert´s accident that we went for a long 2 hour walk with him and played rough games afterwards. Only with the difference that we did not let him run off the leash in the forest today. There were so many rabbits around. Even I with my human eyes saw some.

Dilbert went all mad in the afternoon when I took the rope, that we use to play tug of war, from the cupboard. He was barking at me and the rope (which he NEVER does) and jumping on me trying to take the rope from me no matter what. I could see from his reactions, that there had been a playing deficit, but at that time he was too hyper to play with and demonstrated so rough behaviour, that I put the rope back and we would take it again later. This photo has been taken in the evening when the sun was already going down and I took Dilbert out in the garden to play. This time it went better and we both enjoyed it. Dilbert was over-delighted, but this time he did not flip out

Please check pictures, that were taken today, at Flickr. There are pictures there both from the walk in the forest, of some gentle moments with Dilbert afterwards and of our tug-of-war-game.

Btw, Dilbert is refusing to take the new big dumbbell in his mouth. If he takes it, he almost certainly drops it on my toes. Ouch! I guess we must go back to training with the smaller one.

“Look in my eyes and deny it: No human could love you as much I do. “

I created a flickr account for Dilbert today so now I can post the best Dilbert photos there. It also makes easier blogging the best photos. This is a test to see how it works to send photos to this blog from flickr.

This photo was made in Alavus near my mum´s place during the Easter holidays. The water was calm and it was a very special moment. Dilbert was clearly enjoying the peace and the beautiful scene made me want to arrest the time and stay there for hours.

The best news today:

Dilbert´s front paw is completely healed!

This goes so well together with a Bible verse that I read the other night in The Message (Bible in contemporary English), that I have to share it here. It was the night when Dilbert had rushed after the rabbit and had been hit by a van. I was having a pity party at home and I happened to come accross with the following words:

Keep watch over me and keep me out of trouble;
Don´t let me down when I run to you.
Use all your skill to put me together;
I wait to see your finished product [...]
Make sure I´m fit inside and out
so I never lose sight of your love,
But keep in step with you,
never missing a beat.
(Ps. 25:20-21, 26:2-3)

Of course these words are psalmist´s words to God, but seeing them on that night my first thought was that those words could as well have been Dilbert´s thoughts:

• “Keep watch over me and keep me out of trouble.” – Yes, that´s our job. If we don´t teach him to keep out of trouble, then no-one will.
• “Don´t let me down when I run to you.” – Could I be angry at Dilbert when he runs to me after whatever he has been up to? Being angry that very moment would not do any good. I have to teach him not to run after them in the first place. By being angry at Dilbert when he runs back to me I would indeed let him down.
• If we´ll use all our skills and make sure he is fit in all ways,
• he will “never lose sight of our love, but keep in step with us, never missing a beat.

Oh I know, the connection between this verse and Dilbert is very thin, but Holbrook Jackson´s quote made me want to blog this verse. The thought that the Bible could talk to me about raising and training a dog had never crossed my mind. What a versatile book

A new dumbbell!

This week we´ve been training retrieving and especially getting the dumbbell from Dilbert once he has retrieved it. The other night I found information about dumbbell weights in the internet and realized that the one we´ve been using with Dilbert so far is far too light to be used in working dog circles, where the minimum weight of a dumbbell is 650g. So Dilbert got a new one today. Beware Darling Dilbert – there will be a lot of training tonight!

I registered yesterday on an additional Pinserella´s dog training course with Dilbert. This one is about deepening the basic obediance skills. I think we need this kind of course right now. Even though Dilbert has made some real progress in basic obediance during this winter and behaves really well at home and in leash, obviously we need more practise and advice in this area to get Dilbert´s ears open for a call also under heavy disturbance when not in leash. Looking forward to that course. It will start some time in May.

Later in the evening we attended an obedience class at Pinserella´s dog training school. The topic for today was retrieving and Dilbert did pretty well. He often drops the dumbbell a little bit too early though and sits sometimes in a slightly wrong position in front of me when he gives the dumbbell back to me. So we have something to train for the next time.

But then the nightmare started: Kalle took Dilbert for a walk in the evening. They went to a near by forest and Dilbert was walking off the leash – as always during their evening walks. Suddenly a big rabbit left from behind a tree just one meter away from Dilbert and it was too close for him to not to react. He chased the rabbit all the way out from the forest down to the parking lot, crossed it and continued towards the street. He did neither hear nor see anything else than the rabbit. There was not much traffic at the time, but a lonely ice cream car turned into the street at the very crucial moment. The driver saw the bunny, hit the breaks and the speed dropped luckily before the car hit Dilbert. Kalle took him to the vet immediately and only his right front paw was hurt. No bones were broken. There must have been an angel wing between Dilbert and the car.

In the morning he welcomed us into a new day with a wagging tail and a wet tongue, so he will be ok. Only peaceful short walks and no chasing games for a week. He will get pain killers until the paw is completely healed. The future challenge is to teach Dilbert to respond to a call also in this kind of situations.

The following day we went to the river again. Dilbert was clearly rejoicing. He was making huge leaps over the ditches and once in a while he ran to me and wagging his tail he licked my hands all over. Two swans flew off the river bench. Dilbert realized soon they flew too high for him to reach them. Same with the rabbit: he was just a little bit too quick!

When we got back to my mum´s, Dilbert´s face was clearly smiling and he was covered with mud. It had been an extreamly good day.

Today in the morning we found the last snow covered fields in the shadow of a small forest and Dilbert rushed into the snow and was rolling about for a long time. I bet it was the last chance to do that before next winter.

I couldn´t help thinking how much he would enjoy living in the countryside. Even though we take Dilbert to a forest nearly every day, you could see in his eyes, that this weekend had been something special for him.

I captured some of these precious moments with my camera. Visit my Flickr album to see them!