Nine Months

Ellie will be nine months of age on Feb 29th. It's been an interesting month in terms of Ellie's behaviour. This month, more than any other to date, she has shown the periods of high energy, which are usually synonymous with the Border Collie breed.

Before this month, we might typically get one period of high-energy per day, at around 20:00 each evening, and she had always been happy to sleep for most of the day. Now, however, she's awake quite a lot during the day, and she has several sessions of high-energy.

I'm sure there are some people who would hold their head in their hands at this prospect, but we love seeing it and openly encourage it. We were starting to think that perhaps Ellie was going to be one of those eternally moody and sedate bitches. However, it's looking like she might just burst yet. I hope so. I love seeing her when she's in 'full-throttle'.

She will now also "bully" us to play with her. This involves jumping up at me when I'm sat at my desk, or dropping balls or other toys at our feet, and then sitting and staring at us until we give in and play with her. Again, I can imagine people arguing that we shouldn't encourage this. However, I believe that it will help to encourage Ellie to be a little more forward - something that she certainly needs - and help overcome her naturally timid nature.

As is typical of the breed, her favourite form of play is anything that involves running and fetching, with a particular passion for Frisbee.

She had her longest session in the crate this month, as we went to our trainer's home for dinner one evening. We also learned that Ellie is not a natural gaurd dog. I had to smash a window to get back into our house, as the lock on the front-door had broken. Did Ellie so much as bark? Not so much as a whimper...

She's begun to offer a little resistance to some things, such as having her claws clipped. I like to correct these things as soon as they surface, and before they become real issues. To counter this, I am now touching her claws with the clippers and clicking/treating, on a daily basis.

Oddly, on one paw, she clips her own claws with her teeth. Yes, she's clipped them perfectly. Apparently, she's not alone. One of Christina's dogs also does this. If she could learn to do both paws, my life would be that little bit easier. :)

We're still awaiting Ellie's first season. Despite showing small behavioural changes which hint at her season coming along, it has yet to surface. She's also still to chew her first object that doesn't already belong to her. I suppose this is perhaps the trade-off we have for not having a more energetic and buzzing dog. Perhaps if she was more energetic, she might also be a chewer too.

Her training is still going well, and she successfully learned the cop-cop move this month, in just under fifteen days. Most training effort is now being focused upon getting her ready for the Kennel Club Good Citizen (Bronze) exam of March 29. Reading through the criteria, we're relatively confident. However, absolutely anything could happen between now and then, and even on the day. You just never know with a dog of Ellie's age. I suppose, if I'm concerned about anything going wrong, it's her getting too enthusiastic when she meets new people. I can already envisage her reaction when she sees the examiner. She just wants to jump up at their legs and get some lovin'.

I read an interesting statement about Border Collies the other day. It stated something along the lines of "Border Collies - the dogs want to be your mates, and the bitches want to be your Mum." How true that seems to be. But you know, we really don't have a single justifiable cause for complaint. So she's a bit more timid than we'd like, but you have to look at the benefits that brings with it. Sure, she's not even the most handsome dog you'll ever see either, but she makes up for that with her loving personality. She's always ready to lay down with you and get some attention, and that makes it all the more worthwhile.

So what are we hoping for by month ten? I'd like to see her continue to become more bouncy, and hey, if we can get a KCGC (Bronze) award in, that would be great too. :)

Eight Months

It's official - Ellie is eight months old today. In one respect, it seems like she's been with us for an age, and yet, in another respect, the time seems to have flown by.

Since the last monthly update, and as Ellie has still not chewed a single thing that doesn't belong to her, we have been leaving the bedroom door open through the night, so that Ellie can have the run of the house if she wants to. The fact is that she just doesn't want to leave the comfort of our bed anyway. Although, saying that, last night, she was determined that she would sleep under the bed. Suffice is to say that she hasn't abused the trust we've placed her in, yet. I just don't believe that she ever will, but we'll see.

She is now eating two meals a day, as opposed to earning her dinners as she had been previously. The reasons are simple enough: for starters, as we demand more and more complex behaviours from her, kibble becomes less and less of a valuable currency in return for those demands, secondly, because she's a naturally very lean dog, it won't harm her at all to earn extra food in addition to her regular meals, and thirdly, she will do many behaviours now for play, as opposed to food.

We've been experimenting with treats a little lately. Liver is cheap, but she's not prepared to work that hard for it. Chicken is a happy-medium. She's eager enough, but it's obviously not at cheap as liver. Now, lamb..... She'll work all day for a bit of lamb, though that is obviously too expensive to use as a regular treat meat.

In terms of training, my main focus at the moment is building her focus and enthusiasm during training sessions. I think she's naturally improving in this area anyway, through daily training sessions, but I'm also doing more to keep her attention as we train too. As yesterday's video shows, she's more than happy to work and focus, as long as you keep it interesting and keep it varied.

The three main new behaviours that she has learned this month are:

Retrieve and present the remote control on command.
Figure-eight around legs.
Jump over raised legs.

We've also just started to introduce her to walking on her back two legs, now that she seems to be more aware of her rear-end, and has improved balance. She can currently hold the position for about five seconds, though her legs obviously tire quite quickly, so she can't do it many times at the moment.

She's still attending formal training classes, pursuing the KCGC Gold award. (See previous posts for reasons as to why she's in the "Gold" class at such an early age, and without passing Bronze or Silver.)

There are still absolutely no problems to report. She doesn't chew, she doesn't pee where she shouldn't, she doesn't run off, she doesn't nuisance bark, she's always ready to work and play, doesn't run around the house like an idiot, and doesn't bite us. People keep telling us that she'll turn and our time will come. I keep looking at them doubtfully.

She is still an extremely loving dog who thrives on being close to us, and yes, she's still a bit of a wuss, though, I must say that I think even that is improving, albeit ever so slightly. I think it fair to say that she's never going to be the most courageous dog around.

I want to test her for Sue Ailsby's Level Three routine in a couple of weeks, to see where we need to focus. I think she will fail on the stand, and I'm really struggling to teach this reliably. I don't find the Sue Ailsby method of teaching it very easy to follow. Most other methods I see aren't concerned about whether the dog walks forward slightly or not as they stand. For the Sue Ailsby levels, it is important that they don't walk forward. It's not a walk, it's a stand. Maybe I need to make more of a concerted effort in this area. I'm 99% sure that once we crack the stand, she will be able to pass level three without any problem.

Both Jan and I are regularly stopped by observers who just want to tell us how impressed they are with Ellie, and with how we work her each and every day, rain or shine. I can't speak for Jan of course, but I think it's a nice thing to have happen from time to time. Though, it's equally important to remember that these people are not competitive judges, and so, just because they are impressed, it should not mean that we can get lazy.

Overall, a really good month, and one where Ellie seems to be a little more comfortable with herself, has increased energy, and a little more balance and rear-end awareness.

Seven Months

Seven months have passed already. Where did they go to?

Dawn, Ellie's original foster-carer, came for the day over the Christmas period. We've stayed in contact with her since we adopted Ellie, sometimes swapping several e-mails in a week, and I know she frequently visits Ellie's blog to see how she's doing and to catch up on her progress. Ellie seemed very happy indeed to see Dawn again, as she hadn't seen her since the Autumn show, earlier in the year. She was happier still when Dawn came loaded with gifts!

Dawn and I took Ellie for a walk in the local field, which gave Dawn an opportunity to test her new camera. Here are a few pics from that day.

We've had to change her food to the Burns Active mix, as she just wasn't putting on enough weight using the standard mix. The "Active" is intended for dogs that have a more active lifestyle, as Ellie does. While she doesn't spend the day chasing sheep, she does do an awful lot of training, walking, and playing each day.

She will begin her formal training classes on January 08, if memory serves me well, and at that time Jan is also becoming a volunteer with the training group. This will give Ellie access to many more dogs and experiences.

We're eagerly awaiting the days of longer daylight. It seems, in these shorts daylight hour days, that we're forever getting up to walk the dog. Not that we'd ever mind walking the dog, but it can make for testing times when you try to schedule other things into your day too.

Ellie now trains much more for play and much less for food. I don't think that she has become any less interested in food, just more interested in play, particularly with tennis balls. It actually makes the training sessions more fun and more random so I'm pleased.

We've also started putting her videos on YouTube. I think they're great for seeing things from a different perspective and for correcting mistakes. You can see her latest video, where she retrieves the post from the doormat, below.



Again, we find ourselves waiting for the terrible period where legend has it that all dogs rip up the house, spit on your shoes, and steal the car. As yet, I have to say, she shows absolutely no signs of rebellion. None whatsoever. I like to believe it's because we ensure that she is never bored and never has too much unspent energy to burn getting into mischief. However, who knows, she may just be luring us into a false sense of security. Personally, I just don't see it happening with her.

If 2007 has been the year where we've introduced her to various training practises, then 2008 is intended to be the year where we start to drill-down and fine tune many of them. She wil walk to heel, for example, but she will often go out wide. We need to start correcting that.

We're still passionate about entering her into local shows, but not until we feel that she is ready. Her time will come.

We are also going to start giving her more freedom as of January 01. We're going to start leaving the bedroom door open at night. I suspect that, despite that, she'll still stay on our bed with us. But we trust her enough now to allow her to venture forth a little.

Her training mission for January is to retrieve the television remote control from a distance of at least two metres away, and return it to the hand.