Dehydrated sweet potato

Our first time using the old dehydrator we got a loongg time ago!

The dogs got a bag of dried sweet potato for Christmas, so a couple days ago we figured we'd just try making our own. We let the sweet potato slices dehydrate overnight (from 6pm on Thursday to about 9am yesterday, so about 15 hours), and in the morning they were like this. I admit, they looked a lot more appetizing before they were dehydrated, but at least they'll last a while!

Before

After

Today I'll be dehydrating beef for them. (The beef we got was nice because it was pre-sliced for Chinese fondue, so it's already thin enough to be dehydrated.)

Happy holidays

Merry belated Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

(All of these pictures were taken on Christmas Eve.)

Mika loves her new dog bed, but is wondering why my mom is bugging her with the camera.

"Oh -- I get treats?! Take as many pictures as you want!"

Wall-e gets his share as well.

Shadow opens her presents; a couple cans of two new brands of food, with lots of treats on top!

Montana meet Rudolph before checking out her present.

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!" Except for Shadow, who's still awake and plans to wait for Santa. (She's in the window beside the reflection of the tree :)

Merry (belated) Christmas!

See you next Christmas, Santa

Time to pack up the Christmas stuff, including Santa.

Mika and Wall-e wanted to help, of course!

A year ago today

December 29, which is today, was the last day I blogged last year:

Click here

Wall-e looked so little! (He was 7 months old at the time.)

Reviewing foundation

We just finished doing a lot of foundation review. I set up a couple crates in the basement. that way, Mika and Wall-e could easily take turns.

We mostly did 101 things to do with a box. This was one of the very first things that I did with Wall-e when he came home as a 5 1/2 month old puppy. It was an awesome game for encouraging him to offer behaviours! We did so many shaping games during his initial foundation training that today, Wall-e is VERY operant. Especially with box-like objects...if he sees a box, laundry basket, etc. in the hallway, he'll immediately start interacting with it.

Anyway... The idea is that the dog should interact with a cardboard box (or any other object) and offer different behaviours. When you first start out, you should mark for any behaviours, even repeated ones. When I first started playing this game with Mika a couple years ago, because she wasn't very operant at the time, I marked simply for her looking in the direction of the box. It took many sessions, but finally she offered her first "real" behaviour -- scratching the side of the box with her paw! I can still remember how overjoyed I was. Now, she's very operant!

The biggest difference between Wall-e and Mika is that when I play shaping games with Mika, she'll bark incessantly throughout the entire session, barking louder and louder if she ever gets stuck on a behaviour! (I try not to let that happen :) Wall-e, on the other hand, doesn't make a peep except for an occasional woof if he gets stuck.

Back to today's session. (Why is it that I always get off track when blogging about training sessions?) When Mika had her turn with the 101 things to do with a box game, she didn't even see the box at first. She just got on her hind legs and barked and barked and barked! This dog has SO much attitude, but I love it!! I just inched closer and closer to the box until she finally saw it. Unlike Wall-e, who just jumps right in (literally!) and starts interacting with the object, Mika gradually increases her interaction. She started off by looking at the box, then beginning to sniff it, then pawing it, and eventually putting her two front feet inside. End of session, with a nice jackpot that I always give at the end of a session.

Wall-e had a good session too. First he jumped in the box, then immediately brought his front legs outside of the box and put them on the carpet, keeping his back feet in the box. It was a sort of "2on2off." He did this so fast that he really just had all four feet in the box for a split second before bringing his front feet out and landing them on the carpet. I'm not surprised that the first behaviour he offered was 2o2o...Wall-e loves 2o2o and is generalizing it to everything now! (Aha, Success!) He really liked this behaviour and kept offering it over and over. But when I paused to let him offer a different behaviour, he pulled his front legs back into the box. He offered that a couple more times, and then we ended the session. He looked really cute standing or sitting in that little box (well, fairly little).

Actually, I was using a Clean Run box, that my new books came in! I got 3 books from CR for Christmas: Dogged Pursuit, Control Unleashed (the book, not the DVD), and Canine Massage in Plain English. I'm about a third-way through Dogged Pursuit and it's hilarious!

Also just realized that Wall-e is 19 months old today. Wow.

~Nat

Christmas decorating -- LOTS of it

This house is in the neighbourhood of my grandparents' house. It's impressive! The people living there decorate the house this way every Christmas. It's awesome to see year after year.

Christmas 2009

True to European traditions, we began our Christmas celebrations on Christmas Eve, yesterday. We all gathered in the living room, including Mika, Wall-e, and Shadow the cat of course!

Wall-e just can't wait to get started

Shadow wants to eat the whole bag!

Peeking in somebody else's gift bag

"FINALLY, we get OUR stuff!"

All eyes on the treats

Aaand, the celebrations and excitement is over...time to sleep.

Hope you're all enjoying a great Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Wall-e meets Santa!

Merry belated Christmas!

I know it's a bit late, but -- Merry Christmas everyone!


Ahem, Shadow, move over please, you're standing in front of Mika!


Offended, Shadow walks away to see if there are any more presents for her left under the tree.


Mika chewing a rawhide stick from my aunt.


After all the excitement is over, Mika then settles down in her crate.


Wall-e sleeping on/next to one of my gifts; the Clean Run Special Focus Issue -- Motivation, Drive, and Self-Control.

It was a great Christmas, and I love having no school for a couple of weeks, so I can spend all day with the dogs! Right now Mika and Wall-e are both sleeping, so I finally got a chance to write this post.

Today Wall-e is 7 months old. Wow, does time ever fly!

~Nat

Cute holiday photos

Wall-e's obedience class was cancelled on Sunday because of the weather. Since it's the Christmas holidays (finally!), no more classes until middle of January.


Somebody looks grumpy!










He kind of looks like he's constructing an evil plan!

~Nat