August 2011
1 post
Help Yourself To A Bag!
I have been doing a little geurrilla marketing for Creature Comforts…I would really like 3 more daily walk clients…and I thought a fun and useful idea would be to release some baggie dispensers into the wilds of places people like to walk dogs in Lexington. These are ziplock bags with a corner cut off, containing 3 recycled plastic shopping bags some of which have business cards with...
July 2011
1 post
Brit/Jellybean Redux
Sorry for the blatant blog neglect. As most of you know, I have two dogs who do not get along:
Bonanza Jellybean about whom most of the posts on this blog have centered: 5 year old, presumed genetically fearful, female Australian Cattle Dog. Jellybean’s fear issues are centered on new people and at this point she presents as a completely normal dog right up until the instant anyone...
April 2011
17 posts
Ooops
Dogs did get worked today: Crate Games and IYC for everyone and Tug, sit, tug with Tintin and Brit. I just totally fell down on recordkeeping today despite having had a long conversation with a friend last night about the importance of it. On the good side, IYC and looking for good decisions to reward are becoming part of every day life at Casa Barrie :-)
February 2011
1 post
Walkie Way
I am not endorsing this product nor do I suggest that anyone use this with a dog who needs to be physically controlled by a leash. I found the product via twitter and I think that it will be useful to me in terms of having a way to quickly be “street legal” with a bunch of dogs running around off lead playing ball in a public area. I see that the free with shipping offer is now gone...
November 2010
1 post
September 2010
1 post
http://comfortablecreatures.com/puppy.html →
My recap of last night’s Puppy Party at Sheabel Pet Care Center. Look how many of my tweeps helped me with information to include in the Puppy Packets!
August 2010
3 posts
Just call him Pinpin
After the eyes, Geppetto made the nose, which began to stretch as soon as finished. It stretched and stretched and stretched till it became so long, it seemed endless.
Malinois fetch. They do other things, but they absolutely fetch. A malinois who doesn’t fetch is simply a brown dog with a black face, big ears and a long tail. One could go as far as to say that a malinois who...
Tintin can SWIM!
Today I took Tintin and Butter over to Izzy’s mom’s house so Butter could swim which as a Labrador Retriever is her most favorite thing to do in the whole world! I know this because she has told me ;-)
The rescue Tintin came from specifically said that he was afraid of water. I’ve had him in a couple of creeks, he jumps in my baby pool and I’ve given him a bath but I did...
6 tags
Creature Comforts Playtime for ACTIVE Dogs!!!
This is a pretty typical day for some of my daily walk crew. Who wouldn’t want this for their dogs’ midday exercise?? Obviously Butter is a bit older and less active than the Belgian Malinois and Jack Russell Terrier but she putters around the creek and gets plenty of treats and petting :-)
June 2010
4 posts
Splish Splash!
I have this very fun, new thing for my daily walk dogs:
A pool!
If you are not local then you might not know how terribly hot this summer has been, especially the last couple of weeks but here in Lexington, Kentucky it has been in the mid-nineties all week which is just hard as anything on the poor dogs especially dogs who need their midday exercise. What an outstanding solution...
Fun with Food Puzzles!
I love food puzzle toys. I love them almost as much as my dogs love them. Here is a video of Jellybean (Australian Cattle Dog), Britney (Jack Russell Terrier) and Blue (ACD/JRT mix) having breakfast on my freshly mopped kitchen floor this morning.
Brit has my original favorite kibble dispensing food puzzle: The Atomic Treatball. Blue is knocking around a pink Treatstik which was...
Jellybean Update
Jellybean had quite the day yesterday. First, I had my daily walk crew and Jellybean out at a local park which was absolutely full of teenage boys taking the last day of school as a ditch day apparently. Every single boy had a wheeled object of some sort from skateboards and scooters to actual motor bikes. One of the kids was walking down the sidewalk and stopped to pet a client’s dog and...
Change is good!
Jellybean has a new ride fully equipped as the ultimate in dog transportation.
Here, my favorite Belgian Malinois clients model the rear cargo area. The beautiful, if block-headed, boy on the right is in what I refer to as the imaginary crate ;-)
Above, Butter is in the imaginary crate while @mnewtz ‘s Neopolitan Mastiff, Izzy, is just barely visible in the green Vari Kennel.
Last,...
April 2010
1 post
New Starting Point
I just read this sentence in a post from the Clicker Solutions Yahoo group: Sometimes with fearful dogs you wind up with a new starting point.
I have been rather halfheartedly attempting to get Jellybean (my own fearful dog) to use a balance ball for quite a while now, even before I saw Kay Laurence’s super cool session at Clicker Expo in March where I learned the new (to me) $5 word...
March 2010
2 posts
New Training Project
I want to take Brit to this local disc dog competition in April for Toss and Fetch but between my throwing and her size, we are generally lucky if Brit catches one in 4 or 5 throws in the air. BUT, while having her out playing with the two malinois daily clients I’ve added to my group, I have discovered that she will almost always (4 out of 5 times) catch the disc way up in the air when she...
February 2010
2 posts
Thinking, thinking, thinking...
I joked with someone that my poor little brain is actually leaking information it got so overstuffed at the Susan Garrett seminar but honestly I think there is just too much information up there for me to handle right at this moment.
The one thing that absolutely resonated with me at the seminar was not anything that Susan actually said but the way she said something I already knew:
If you have...
Jellybean is a Whiz!
My twitter friend, Nancy, started a trick training challenge that has overtaken Twitter and been just a LOT of fun!
I started the challenge with Brit
But then I switched to Jellybean after my amazing two days with Susan Garrett at Advances In Dog Training
Honestly it was one of the top ten most incredible experiences of my life thus far! I am not kidding. Susan Garrett is truly that...
December 2009
2 posts
Jellybean's New Trick
So that is the trick and it came about quite accidentally. Brit is usually the last one out at night and one night I was watching the last few minutes of something on TV and Brit was having a hissy fit wanting back inside. I turned to Jellybean and said, “you know, you could go open the door and let her back in for me so I don’t have to pause this with less than two minutes...
That was fun!
I took two of my daily dogs and Jellybean for a walk around the path at Kirklevington Park today. The last few times we’ve walked at Kirklevington I’ve had a dog other than a regular with me which has made the walk stressful in getting across the basic rules to the newcomer or dealing with Max’s pulling issues and I’ve been a bit embarrassed walking the dogs doing a little...
November 2009
6 posts
“PLEASE TELL US! Several people wrote in with sad stories of clear problems that...”
– Trouble Brewing, II » TheOtherEndOfTheLeash
That would be a cute trick!
(Man angrily shakes finger at dog, while dog happily wags tail at man.) at The Cartoon Bank
I’ve been working with Jellybean wagging her tail on cue but Brit just ALWAYS wags her tail so how cute if she were to do it when I was saying, “no no bad dog” and shaking my finger at her?
Jellybean's Tarot Reading
I have a friend who is very into tarot and various spiritual pursuits and he asked me this morning when we were IMing if he could do a tarot reading on Jellybean. I copied and pasted most of the conversation into a post with his permission just because, although I do not believe in tarot readings or horoscopes (although I do check mine regularly!) or whatnot, I did find it an interesting way to...
New BAT Video
This is a BAT session with Jellybean going to my mother who is a relatively “safe” person for Jellybean with the reward being bacon and chest rubs.
Sorry I had the camera set for indoor lighting so the video is hideously overexposed but in general I feel very good about this session! I feel like I was relaxed and kept Jellybean well under threshold and she had a positive experience -...
Go To Bed
Someone on the Clicker Solutions Yahoo Group was having trouble teaching her dog to go to a mat and I said I would do a video with Max, the German Shepherd Dog currently living at my house - Max is a lovely, neutered six year old dog who really needs a person of his own if anyone is interested in adopting him! It seems that her issues with the go to mat were resolved yesterday with a Kay Laurence...
Sundays are for....
….training.
Sundays are the perfect day to teach your dog a silly or useful or fun behavior. You have the entire day to yourself. I stopped by Home Depot this morning while I was out doing a pet sit and picked up a light switch for 75 cents to work on teaching Jellybean to turn specifically my bedroom light off and on.
I don’t usually finish my Sunday training projects. I...
October 2009
6 posts
Boo!
I did not quite get the photo I wanted from this photo session. I did not have the thought to put Brit in the pot on top of the stove until the last minute. I forgot that Heidi won’t wear a hat and Jellybean knocked the celery and carrots down into the roasting pan so you can’t see them and then Abby’s hat blocked Jellybean anyway.
I actually cleaned my oven just for this...
When I am an old lady...
I am not going to wear red hats with purple. I am going to clicker train beautiful, soothing Koi that don’t bark or need fetch sessions or to be walked :-)
The Bubble Blog » Halfway Hoop
Jellybean got Brit last night but no blood so I only count those incidents as 1/2 a fight (I keep track on my calendar and we’ve had one other 1/2 fight a few weeks ago but no blood since...
Silly Games
Sometimes I forget how fun it is to just goof off with the dogs for 1/2 an hour or so. I have a friend’s German Shepherd Dog staying with me right now for seriously remedial leash walking but I have discovered what I believe to be as the root of the issue: he never ever looks at your face. Ever.
Before I can fix the leash walking issues I need this dog to make some kind of connection with...
A Review: The Amazing Treat Machine
I was VERY excited when I came home on Friday and found my Amazing Treat Machine (TAMT) had arrived! I read about TATM on the Raise a Green Dog Blog (RAGDB) but now re-reading that post I am wondering if the writer had actually set up and used it personally.
The RAGDB is primarily about the eco friendlyness of products and on that front I would rate TAMT a 10 out of 10. TAMT is also a very...
Third BAT Session
I have a serious love/hate thing going with video. Every time I tried to convert the .mov file it screwed up the audio so that what I was babbling about did not even remotely match what was happening. I finally just decided to upload the raw .mov file. I should really get a flip ultra at the very least since I am using my digital still camera for the videos I do.
I also both love and hate how...
Ideas and Slacking
I have only done two instances of BAT with Jellybean at the vet clinic despite the fact that my vet would let me come in to work on it every day if I wanted to do so.
I haven’t even started the Bridge and Target training with Jellybean despite the fact that I borrowed a broken stethoscope and an extra lab coat from my vet almost two weeks ago. My idea is to use the cue of the stethoscope...
September 2009
6 posts
Touched by a Cattle Dog
Most important news: It has been 34 days (and counting) since Brit and Jellybean last fought…yay us! I am not counting that project as done. I think the two of them will have to go a year or more with no fighting before I trust that they are not going to suddenly erupt but this is definitely progress!
I had a new kitchen floor put down on Friday and Jellybean was quite upset about having...
