Peanut Broke the Half Mile Mark and an Update on Nubs.

This is the day I've been looking forward to for a while now, the day Peanut broke the half mile mark with her tracking, AND had a successful find without any help from me at all.

See, the number one rule in Search and Rescue is TRUST YOUR DOG, can you picture trusting your dog while searching for a child lost in the snow? I'm still only searching for Men or Women that volunteer to go hide in the woods and are in full contact with these people and it's STILL nerve racking to trust your dog. More so when your dog never indicates rather they are on a scent or not.

Peanut LOVES to search. She has a blast doing it, and making her find, but she has no indication at all rather she's on a scent or not. It's always GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOOOOO. I constantly have to ask her if she's still working or not because there is no way to tell if she's still tracking the person we are after. Today for example, there is a fork in the path we use, and our victim can go left or right. There is no way I can know which way they go, I have to trust my dog. Now Peanut has been wrong before, and I have trusted her, and until she came back to me and started playing with me, did I know she wasn't on scent.

Today after 6mins into our track I asked Peanut "Are you SURE you are working?" She just spun around and looked at me with a grin on her face, and kept moving, but she had a dance in her step. Sure enough 20ft away was the guy we were searching for, hiding behind a tree. It was a proud moment for myself and Peanut. Peanut was so excited to find the guy and to get her treat (just one piece of cheese).

Not that amazing? I want you to sniff a person's hat, and then find them in the first half mile of a forest without cheating, only using your nose. Could you do it? I know I can't. So CONGRATULATIONS PEANUT! Shows you even street dogs can do amazing things!

Monday brings Peanut's Spay, so everyone keep her in your thoughts on Monday. This will be the first time she's ever been put under and out of my care in the time she's been with me.
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Well, I wish I could tell you that Nubs was back to his old self and starting to do some work himself, but sadly that's not the case. Nubs tore his ACL/CCL again, this time on the knee that he never had surgery on. For those keeping track that is 3 in under 2 years. Right now I am trying the non-surgical route with crate rest and lots of supplements. Seems to be doing well, this is day 5 of crate rest and besides Nubs going crazy from being in a crate, his leg is showing much improvements. Surgery isn't out of the question for the future, but with my hours being cut down to 17hrs a week (yeah how lovely right?) as long as he's not in pain, we will do this.

Nubs Always Gets What He Wants.

Peanut's crate is right next to my computer, under my computer desk. On nights that I'm on my computer, Nubs lays in Peanut's crate to be close to me while Peanut normally runs in between laying in my computer chair with me or on the love seat staring at me.

Tonight is like every other night. Nubs is curled up in Peanut crate, while Peanut alternates different places. Well at some point tonight, Nubs stands up and grabs a drink of water. All of a sudden I feel Nubs's head on my lap which he does all the time when he wants to be loved on. Not taking my eyes off the computer, I use one hand to pet Nubs and the other on my mouse (multi-tasking FTW!). Just a normal night in this house.

After a few minuets of petting him, he's starting to whine and nudge me even more. So he wants something so I ask him "What's up Nubs?" This is when he turns toward Peanut cage and starts pawing at the bed inside.

Now Peanut has never been much for her crate. She likes her crate, but will not go in to it unless I ask. Even then sometimes I have to make her go into it. She's just not fond of it.

I finally make out a figure in her crate. Peanut, while Nubs was grabbing a drink had taken over her bed, kicking Nubs out of it.

I have to laugh. Silly puppy. Nubs gives up and makes his way to the love seat while Peanut seems content with the new sleeping arrangements. As soon as I hear Nubs crawl up on the couch, Peanut takes off because all she wants to do is cuddle up to Nubs. Two seconds after Peanut runs into the living room, Nubs is hauling tail and again laid claim to Peanut's crate.

Nubs always gets what he wants.

Peanut Takes to the Water

Well, I think I can officially call Peanut a water dog.

Today I took her out to the lakes where she could play and we could do some nice hiking to get some of that pent up energy that she's had for the past few days out. The last time I had her out where she could play in the water was last August when she decided to pull down my suit while there were about 30 guys hanging around :-/

Anyways, We started out hiking though the woods tonight and after a quarter mile came up to a boat launch that was crowded with people. It was pretty hot out today so before we took off to a place where I knew wouldn't be crowded, I let Peanut go take a drink from the lake. As soon as Peanut spotted the water, her eyes grew to the size of a saucer and before I could even stop her she did a dead jump as far into the water as she could get on a 6ft leash.

After I pulled her out of the water, very unhappily, we took off to a group campsite that I knew would be empty on a Sunday. Sure enough there was no one around, and we were far enough away from the main path where we would be undisturbed. As soon as I took off her leash she was GONE and all you could see was her tail sticking up from the water where she dove in.

After a few laps (I've never seen a dog that just enjoyed swimming around that much before) I pulled out a water toy that I brought just for this. She doesn't like playing fetch, but she though this was the BEST GAME EVER! The only time I see her this driven is in her harness on a search or on her Flirt Pole. I think I may have a Dock Dog out of her yet.

Happy Birthday Peanut!

Ok, so I have no actual clue how old Peanut is, but she came to my home on June 23rd and she was roughly 3 months/12 weeks old at that time. Soooo, roughly she is one year of age!

So just lets just take a look at her from the day she came home, to today:

Happy Birthday Peanut! Already in the short amount of time you've been here with me you've come so far. I can't wait to see what this year brings.

Be Careful For What You Wish For

I remember when I first started looking into a second dog with the thought of Search work in the back of my head, I knew I wanted a smart dog that could think on their own yet biddable for what I wanted them to do. They also needed the drive and stamina to work long hours and never want to give up. Sound like a certain dog to you?

Peanut is everything I asked for. Biddable, driven, has stamina that can be up there with a Border Collies, an she's smart. I mean SMART. She's a problem solving dog. I've watched her do amazing things to get what she wants. Today's story goes along these lines.

I've always had issues with Peanut and her NEED to search out all the smells, mostly in the kitchen where I'll be honest I have a bad habit of leaving food out on the stove. Yes it's my bad. Easy way to fix the issue is to just not leave anything on the counter, but I'm as stubborn and bullheaded as my dogs. So it's a daily fight with Peanut on countersurfing. I tried a ton of different things from counter conditioning, to squirt bottles (Found out she LOVES squirt bottles), to loud pots and pans falling on the floor, to even an electronic collar which it didn't take long for that girl to figure out what was going on. Finally I resorted to the final option, mouse traps.

Now I HATED the thought of doing this. I just didn't want to think about hurting my poor, innocent dog. I mean what if it snapped her and hurt her nose? I couldn't do such a thing! Then I thought about it. This is the same dog that rips her paw pad open until it's bloody and never thinks twice about it. This is the dog that keeps ripping open the top of her head because she hasn't learned not to play rough. This is the dog that RIPPED off her own toenail and never even whimpered about it. Yeah, a mouse trap isn't going to do squat to harm this dog. So I tried it.

SUCCESS! It only took a few days before she wasn't surfing counters or the garbage anymore! -does happy dance- The 3rd or 4th time cracked me up because after it went off she walked past me and just gave me the "Peanut Glare" which I didn't realize it then, but now I realize that means, she's on to me.

The other day I'm sitting here when I heard a mouse trap go off. Didn't think much about it until I kept hearing the garbage bag rattle. There was Peanut, body deep into the garbage. What in the world? I give her an ear full, and then go pick up the trash. In the trash was one of Peanut's rope toys. All I could think to myself is "What is that doing in the trash?"

The next day I see Peanut walking past me with that rope toy and I just watched. Peanut walked up to the garbage that was on the floor ready to be taken out with my next trip. She looked at me to see if I was watching her then, no this isn't me pulling your leg, she walks up and TOSSES THE ROPE ON THE MOUSE TRAP!

/bangs head on desk

If she has opposable thumbs, the world would be in a lot of danger.