The second group lesson

I took Sophie out for a second group lesson this weekend to get more input from the group and get help moving her along in training.  Overall the review was good.  Joe felt like I was being appropriate in moving her along slowly in terms of yardwork and she's all about retrieving in terms of fieldwork.  We gave her 6 marks over the course of the few hours that I was there in between her and the other dogs working.  There were a couple other labs as well as a couple goldens working on Saturday.  He felt like we can give her a little pressure in terms of using the pinch collar, but we have to be careful not to over-correct.  Today we did some yardwork in the field behind the house and then gave her a few marks with Dawn being my gunner.  

I love the fact that she's only four months old and she gets locked in when we're throwing marks.  When she hears the training pistol she's looking for something in the air and when somethings is in the air she's off like a shot.  It took no time at all for her to get excited about "the game".  She loves retrieving the bumpers, not so much giving them up.

Saturday afternoon she helped me clean up the closet and bag my duck decoys in the more protective bags I recently got after they were backordered for what seemed like eternity.

The problems we've dealt with so far

I thought I'd do a quick post on some of the issues we've dealt with so far.  While I've had dogs in the past,

Zach- The black lab that my family had when I was very young.  Unfortunately ran away when I mistakenly let him out of the house at our brand new home when I was 2 years old.
Tramp- The cocker spaniel that we had from when I was +/- 2 to 12.  Great family dog.  I still have a thing for spaniels and we considered an english springer before choosing a lab.
Jake- The started GSP we got at 1 1/2 years old when I was in 10th grade.  Awesome dog.  Big, friendly with an great nose.  Some of my greatest memories of my high school years are hunting north-central PA stockies with that dog and Jim Slusarick.

...this is the first time that I've had a dog from puppyhood on where I'm the primary owner doing most of the training.

The biggest issues in raising her so far have been potty training, keeping her off the furniture, jumping up, and play biting.

1. Keeping her off the furniture was one of the problems we've essentially solved.  She doesn't do it anymore, or at least hasn't for 2 1/2-3 weeks.  As soon as she was big enough to jump up a little she was putting her front legs on the chairs and sofa.  With a leather sofa that was a big no-no.  Our first tactic was simple correction with a loud no.  That worked for about an hour before she wasn't listening to that. Then we started pushing her off the furniture and while it got her off the furniture it seemed like she started to challenge us and would bark a little and jump back up.  This ongoing issue is how we ended up with the earlier detailed injury, which thank goodness ended up ok, but could've been catastrophic.  Finally we took a tin can and put 8-10 pennies in it and now shake it when she jumps up on the furniture.  That worked like a charm.  Problem solved.  At first I was reluctant to do it because I thought she might associate the loud noise in general with bad things (not good for a gun dog).  However, we're just using the can in the house and it hasn't crossed over at all.  She's still looking great at the crack of the training pistol.

2.  Jumping up.  Still an issue, but I think its getting better.  Again, starting with "no" I'm now bumping into her more when she jumps up.  Not kneeing her, but just stepping forward so she gets a little off balance.  A little scary after the injury, but its the best I can think of at this point.  When the green can is around we're using that, but its hard to keep that on you at all times.

3. Play biting.  I think its largely our fault for how we were playing with her from the time we got her, but we're now trying to correct this issue and I think its getting solved fairly quickly.  Its really only an issue when we're on the ground playing with her, never when we're standing.  When we play with her she thinks our hands are her toys and nibbles a little.  I'm sure its not helped by the fact that she's teething. To prevent this I'm now pushing her lip into and under her teeth when she's doing this nibbling so that whenever she's biting me she's biting herself at the same time.  Its taking time through multiple sessions, but with each session she only has to do it one or two times before she goes to do it, but hesitates and licks or moves to the other hand.  She's got a bit of an attitude and doesn't like that she doesn't get her way, but we're working on it.

4. Potty training.  The big one.  Still working on it, but day by day things are getting better.  We've never had much of an issue with #2 in the house.  There've been a couple episodes mostly when we had her in the first couple weeks, but she does the potty dance well enough that we figured out when she had to go out for the deuce.  The worst episode was when she had a bit of diarrhea adjusting to a different food.  Now #1... thats a different story.  It seems like she has psychogenic polydipsia sometimes (look it up).  Its so hard because sometimes it seems like she has to go every 45 minutes and we're thinking you can't have to go because you just went.  I don't know how many of these types of accidents there have been, don't think I (or Dawn) want to know.  I think that its hard because it at the same time we're trying to teach her to signal us, its a matter of us learning what her signals are, and the worst part on our end is our sometimes rotating schedule.  It makes it very difficult to have her on a regular schedule.  Now at 4 months old I think we have it nailed down.  I say that now after 2 months hoping there's no more surprises.  The most frustrating part is that she can't seem to hold her bladder for any amount of time outside of the kennel, but has no issue holding it inside of the kennel for reasonable amounts of time.  It was easy enough to make her learn that going outside is good and she totally understands that.  Now she knows that going inside the house is bad, but she still has to go allll the time.

First training lesson

Sophie's been gaining weight and growing at a rapid pace.  I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but, last week at her vet visit she checked in at 30 pounds and 3 weeks before that I believe she checked in at 25.  

With her healed and having energy to burn I took her out to Joe Eschert's place in Franklinville for a first lesson 1 1/2 weeks ago.  Joe is the owner of 4 chocolate lab master hunters and is also the president of Pinelands Retriever Club, which I joined this year.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to make the years first meeting due to working overnights, but several members of the club were at his place for the lesson.  He runs training clinics 4-5 days a week for several hours working with dogs of all ages.  

The first time out went well and I fully realize that I need to be trained as much as she does.  The lesson was good for socialization and a bit of beginning homework that is actually yardwork for the dog and I.  She did get a couple throws in and fetched great.  It seems like force fetch is going to be some work with the way she holds onto the bumpers once she gets back to me, but she is all about whatever is thrown for her and has no fear of the gun at this point.  I think that her yardwork will be harder than the fieldwork.  

We're working on good citizenship and mixing in a few throws here and there.  We're making headway with some simple important things like keeping her off the cough, decreasing the amount of jumping and play biting.  There is still an occasional accident in the house, which is frustrating, but we're sticking with it and tackling the problems one at a time.

I also registered her with the AKC and she's officially titled "Dillon's Dark and Stormy by Lamborn's".  Not bad, I like the ring it has.  

After the injury we also got insurance with PetPlan.  I looked at a couple other places and what they provided, but with the care plan that we already have with Banfield the best option was PetPlan because of the price and what they covered.  

This weekend coming up is another lesson.  I got some training supplies from Gun Dog Supply online.  I liked their selection and pricing a lot.  For anyone shopping around I reccomend it.  The website is good and my order came with a handwritten "Thanks for the order" from someone at the company.

The weeks after the injury

So the two weeks after the injury on the 31st were difficulty.

On the first 2 days she was lame and refused to use the left rear leg for that limited time we had her out of the kennel to go to the bathroom.  The first thing to return on the 3rd day was her spirit and it made it hard to keep her in the kennel all the time because she wanted to be outside.  Over the next 4-5 days when she was out to go to the bathroom she was just put down the leg so that the toes touched and wouldn't walk on it.  The 2nd week she would walk gingerly and by the end of the second week the only noticeable difference was that when she was eat or drink she would kind of hold that leg up a little.

Over the course of the 3rd week maybe just a little fatigue with very short walks and after that and into now she's been fine.

On the next vet visit, which I believe was at the end of the second week he couldn't notice anything and gave her a clean bill of health.  In terms of differential diagnosis with the recovery she's had and the exam from the vet CCL tear (partial or full) or strain was pretty much ruled out.  The vet said it could've been a simple strain or that maybe she twisted her kneecap a bit.

Good stuff for as bad as it could've been and if you saw her now you'd never guess she'd had any injury.

I'm starting the catch up process...

I know I know.  I'm way behind. I'll make several entries over the next few days to get caught up to where we are now with Sophie.  Until I sat down to catch up I didn't realize how long it had been since I blogged.  At the end of this one I'll include some photos that were taken at the end of January.  I haven't taken many recent photos and videos so I'll have to catch up.

First for the bad news.  On 1/31/11 we were at home an in that previous week she had been jumping up and putting her front legs on the couch.  To correct her we were saying "Off" and then pulling her off the couch by her collar.

Unfortunately on the 31st she jumped up onto the Ottoman and when we went to correct her she yelped out and came up lame with her left rear leg.  She refused to use it and was crying.

I ended up taking her to the Swedesboro veterinary ED.  They did rear leg x-rays which were negative except for what appeared to be some inflammatory signs at the left knee.  The good and the bad of that was that while there was no evidence of fracture or dislocation it didn't make a diagnosis.  Still on the table were anything from a simple muscle strain all the way to a catastrophic craniate crucial liagment full tear (ACL tear).  It would just be a matter of time until we knew what the significance of the injury was. In the end I was given 3 days of Meloxicam and 5-6 of Tramadol for pain relief and told to follow her closely and restrict all activities for the next two weeks with only time out for potty.