What we have been up to the last few days...

Miss Cricket is really settling in and acting like she is right at home-which she is! She is tugging with Lizzie, and Lizzie is the perfect doggie puppy raiser, she tugs with her but does not pull too hard and lets little Cricket know when she is getting out of line. Lizzie taught Cricket to jump into the rocking chair then jump to Skyler's crate so she can look out the window, I can not believe she figured that out. Cricket has a new little game where she grabs all the toys she can find and takes them under the rocking chair and then sits and plays, it is too cute, but of course she picked the rocking chair which means everyone has to be careful not to rock when she is there.

The other place everyone looks for the toys now is the Xpen which has been set up as a playpen in the kitchen for when I can not watch her for a few minutes or if we leave the house. I have a crate without the door in there and I try to put the chew toys that are really not for the other dogs, and she gets some good bones to chew on if she has to be in there while we leave, and that is where we feed her, so of course that is on every dogs list of places to look for treasures now. This morning I put Cricket in the xpen and went to take a shower, I heard a lot of playing and I thought hummm, those dogs are having a good time, who is that? I thought for a second and sure enough I had let the others outside, so....I opened the shower curtain and there was CRICKET. She was sooo proud of herself, and so happy she had got out of the xpen (which she knows was just a terrible mistake that she got latched into there, and she was so happy she could fix that problem). So now there are snap locks that have to go on the xpen if we are going out, LOL. Little monkey had figured out how to bounce against the side in the right area and that unlocks the bottom enough that she can get an opening to get through.

These are some of the cutest things Crickie is doing. I just could watch her all day, she is so cute... she carries around toys, she always wants a toy in her mouth, none of my dogs have done that before and I think it is sooo cute. She just wants to follow me around everywhere, she sure makes me feel wanted. A new thing that is happening is Crick's ears move around a lot the last few days, I was trying to get a picture but I have not been able to catch them-sometimes they are way high on her head and half up, and sometimes way over on the side hanging down, rarely are both ears doing the same thing, so her face just looks so different depending on where her ears are at the moment. Another thing she is doing is she makes this whooo hoooo roooo sound ALL THE TIME. Since she is feeling more comfy she makes those noises when ever she is at all excited, and she can do the sounds with the toys in her mouth. Another thing I really notice about her is that she is climbing on EVERYTHING. She has no fear, and thinks the place Breeze usually lays on the couch is hers, when she goes out back the first thing she does is go climb on all the toys, baby dog walk, boards, anything she can find. It is like she loves being high up, or exploring???

We are working on the behaviors from the last training level, increasing the difficulty, we added in GO OUT, which we are using a trash can, and she is doing that really well in my bedroom on command but she was confused once I moved that to the living room. Our first totally shaped trick is going to the mat and laying down -she is doing that really well, and I am putting a command on that. That trick I have been able to move that around to some different places, and we are working on our first trick-waving her foot.



I took Cricket to Liz class on Monday night for some socialization and she wanted to say HI to everyone and was a very good girl, except when I went to run Liz, of course Cricket has already decided there is no reason for any other dog to work with me, so she started fussing and digging-poor girl got put into her crate with a cover over it when she almost dug out of the xpen at class. Liz says not only can baby dogs do tricks, she has been working on one:



So Cricket is not the only dog working around here. Liz did her class on Monday night and we ran an ISC course. ISC courses are courses that people run to qualify for the world teams, they are courses that are designed more like the European agility courses. So this was a course with a lot of speed, tons of speed. Liz is getting sooo fast, I totally did not have a great plan because I underestimated how fast she would be, and when I fell behind at the end it really frustrated Liz and she took off-like left the course, ahhhh, Lizzie. The amazing thing was I was able to get her back working, but she has such a low frustration threshold and when she left the course she ran over to sniff, just totally a stressed behavior.