Good Citizens

Ahh, misting fan is perfect for hot CGC tests! 

Our annual summer Canine Good Citizen test was last weekend. It was a great success! We had plenty of fabulous people come to act as the milling crowd, to provide dogs (for both the reaction to another dog test and for the milling crowd test), to hold dogs for the supervised separation, to check people in and just to help set the yard up for the hustle of Saturday mornings! The picture above shows the pre-CGC walk through to get everyone on the same page and let the helpers pick their jobs.

When 9:00 am rolled around, there was already a line of dogs waiting to sign up. We were happy to see so many Applewoods students give the test a try. Before we started testing, we had Rugby demonstrate the test items so they could see how the test was being run. Our photographer was working hard and got some great shots of the CGC test in action. A sampling of the pictures are below.

 

This was our largest Canine Good Citizen test yet! Thank you very much to everyone who came to help, and to everyone that came to test their dogs. We will be having another test later in the fall. Stay tuned. 

Sherpa and the turtle!

Sherpa and I are taking the Retrieve Class, and in trying to prepare Sherpa for any distractions that we might encounter (out in the real world or worse, whatever Margot brings to class!) I'm having her retrieve around more and more interesting things.

We started near another dog,

then my dinner (no video, sorry),

and this time near a turtle named Squirt. 

Working around distractions like this teach Sherpa to have emotional self control, so when I really need her to focus and listen to me I don't have to worry what she's going to do.   Now if I could only get those ducks across the street to hold still...

Play it again

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Franny and the Cheerleader

Today was a bee-u-tee-ful day to be at Applewoods! The sun was shining, the air was dry and the temp made it to around 70 degrees.

Two weeks ago, I brought a red rough Brussels Griffon puppy named Francine back from our National specialty. She's from the same breeder as Cabot, and she was originally supposed to go live in France.... Hence her name. And her tail. Tail docking is illegal overseas, and in order for her to have been shown there she needed to keep her tail.

She's now very happy answering to Franny, and she's living at Applewoods for a few weeks.

Today was her first day out in the yard with the big dogs, under very close supervision, and with very specifically chosen dogs. We often call Sandy and Holly "the Cheerleaders" because of their blonde hair and sunny dispositions. You can see Sandy's smile here in this photo!

Franny had no experience with large sized toys before coming to Maryland. The ball she is holding is rubber and made by http://www.kongcompany.com/. It weighs quite a bit, especially considering that Franny might only weigh 10 lbs! She paraded all over the yard with it today, and this was one of the few chances I had to capture her standing still.

I think I'll have to get some of those balls for my house!

Staying cool

It's starting to get hot already, which means the pool comes out and everyone learns where all the cool spots to sleep are (including the basement where a few of the dogs are more than happy to follow me into so they can nap in one of the kennels). 

Piper and JoJo wrestling in the pool.

Finding some shade during a break from working and playing.

Hello!

Hello!  I'm Mike, the new apprentice at Applewoods.  If you see an English Mastiff running around the yard, that's my pup Sherpa.  We went through Margot's Boot Camp a year and a half ago when Sherpa decided she should start trying to eat other dogs.  She's come a long way since then and now she gets to spend most of her days running around the yard with all the day care dogs. 

Here's some pictures I took of JoJo, one of our board and train dogs, hanging around the yard on Saturday.  I still can't believe I took them with my iPhone!  Makes me wonder about spending all that money on my DSLR...

 Being a distraction for Red while she worked on retrieving

 Chomping on sticks with Sherpa

 Nice drool Sherpa...

 Place!

"I'm not sure why I'm holding this but everyone else seems to be OK with it."

A tail of 4 dogs

One afternoon 2 Dobes and their Ninja Yorkie taking time out for a nap.

All is well until the great beast enters the room and then what happened to the 2 Dobes and their Yorkie?  Somehow there just wasn't any room for them.  Were they, perchance, eaten?  Only the Shadow knows what lurks around the corner.