Agility Jumps

After playing with agility jumps over the weekend, we decided to make our own. There are lots of plans all over the internet and pvc is pretty cheap. We made two jumps for about $20/each. You could make them for less, but we got threaded joints so that they are easily detachable. Pickles got the hang of it quickly.

He's not supposed to do any real jumping until he's 14 months old and his growth plates are closed. So we're keeping all the jumps low, below shoulder height and only asking him to do a couple jumps at time.

Pretty Pictures

Tricks!

Here is Pickles showing off all the tricks he knows.

Up up - means sit up with a straight back.  We taught this by luring him into the position with a treat.  It took quite a while for him to build up the stomach muscles to be able to do it.  I think we've been working on it off and on for a month.  Over the past week we've been focusing a lot on it and he finally has it!

Spin - turn around clockwise.  This was also a lure with the treat at first.  It didn't take him long to get away from the lure and only need a hand motion, but going from hand motion to only verbal without any hand signal took 2-3 weeks.  Now we're working on twirl which means turn counter clockwise.  I think he's learning it a lot faster, though he does tend to guess and spin if we don't give the hand motion quickly enough after the verbal cue.

Roll Over - he's known this one for quite a while.  Evvie helped us out working on it for the week she was here.  Now that he knows spin though sometimes he gets confused and stands up and spins instead of rolling over.

We're also working on bye bye - which means paw at the air twice, crawl which is crawling along the ground, and look cute which means cock your head to one side.

Another family reunion!

Pickles got to go up to Greeley this past Sunday to play with 4 of his siblings: Marni, Cider, Mia, and Aspen and his dad, Stella.  They have all grown up so much.  Pickles and Mia outlasted the rest of them playing for a solid 2.5 hours straight.  Aspen and Cider are the barkers in the videos.  Aspen has the tail.  Marni is the blue merle.  We also got to play around with Stella's agility equipment.  Hopefully, we will have our own soon.  Pickles went over the jumps easily and even went through the weave poles following a treat a couple times.

Mia, Aspen, Marni, Pickles, Cider (photo taken by Brandy)

 

 

Taking the Plunge

We really really hope that Pickles learns to love water.  So far he will splash along the edge but never go in past where he can stand.  He's spent a lot of time watching other dogs swim at the pond on South Boulder campus.  He runs back and forth along the edge whining because he can't get out to them.

Yesterday, we were up at Boulder Valley Ranch open space walking along a narrow deep creek.  A black lab came up and went straight into the water.  Pickles was standing on a steep bank whining to get to the dog and finally jumped in after him.  Surprisingly for him, the water was over his head, and he swam to the other side.  We called him back across, but he jumped almost the whole way and then clambered up the side.

At the very end of the hike, we came back to the creek.  Mark went around to the other side and called him across.  Pickles tried to run around over the bridge after him but there was a huge bush that he couldn't figure out how to get around so eventually, he swam!!

Playing Frisbee at Davidson Mesa Dog Park

Friday, we had a playdate with Roscoe at the Davidson Mesa Dog Park in Louisville.  The dogs had been somewhat cooped up last week with all the rain so we showed up early to get lots of playing time.  Pickles caught his very first frisbee!

Here's an outtake.

Style

I found a huge piece of pink fleece in the bargain bin and used it to make Pickles a couple of braided fleece rope toys.  The extra turned into a bathrobe and eventually another chew toy.

The Bees are Here

Today, we drove up to Loveland to collect our two colonies of bees.  This is a pretty long post and not all that related to Pickles, but pretty cool and he did get to experience it all with us.

 Mark ordered bees through the Northern Colorado BeeKeeper's Association who drives to California each year to pick up bees for its members.  Here is the truck with all the cases of bees unloaded.

 The new proud parent of 2 x 3 lb packages of Minnesota Hygienic Bees.

 There were quite a few bees outside the package buzzing around the car window;, Pickles was very curious.

 Julie, our bee mentor, came over to help with the installation process.

 Homemade bee suit

 First step was to pry the feeding can out of the top of the box and remove the queen.  Here is the queen, still in her cage surrounded by a mob of attendants.  They isolate the queen in a cage so that they bees don't kill her.  After she spends some time with them (in her cage) they will accept her.  Mark replaced a small cork in the cage with a mini marshmallow, by the time the bees eat through it in a day or two they should accept the queen and she can crawl out and join them.

After the queen (in her cage) is hung in the hive, everyone else needs to go in.  At this point, the normal technique is to bang the box of bees and try to knock as many as possible into the hive.

 Pickles was too enthusiastic about helping so he got tied up and banished to his lawn chair where he watched politely.

 Here are the bees learning to use the door to their new home.

Gardening

This year we have 3 gardens; the one at our house, a community garden plot across Broadway, and Rebecca and Russell's front yard.  Last weekend, when Evvie was here, we planted a bunch of seedlings out in cold frames at R&Rs.  It was actually snowing lightly while we did this.

Over the past week, the temperature has gotten hotter and hotter.  Unfortunately, with this garden being a bike ride away, we let some of our little seedling get fried.

This weekend, the temperature soared into the 80s and it's supposed to stay warm through the extent of the extended forecast so we removed all of our cold frames and planted out the rest of our seedlings.  Mark went to a drip irrigation workshop with Evvie and other Mark a couple weeks ago when they were in town; so this weekend we installed a very expensive but very cool drip system at R&Rs.  Luckily, the city of Boulder if offering 50% back on drip irrigation systems. 

 We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, sunflowers, squashes, and peppers.  We bought the pepper seedlings because ours are still tiny, but everything else we started ourselves from seeds. 

 Pickles helped.

Actually, he was so exhausted from playing with Roscoe all morning that he just slept, didn't even touch his delicious raw meaty bone.

Meet Roscoe

We met Roscoe (and his parents Lauren and Kirk) at Gigi's puppy class.  Over the last several weeks, we've been meeting them once or twice a week for extra play sessions.  Roscoe is a Korean Jindo, a breed originally developed to hunt and kill deer.  Pickles has a ton of fun playing with him.

Dry Creek

Boulder has some amazing trails for dogs. There is a "sight and sound" program that allows you to have your dog off leash on most of the trails if you watch a video and send them $15.  It is supposed to be self regulated.  You should only let your dog off leash if they meet the requirements which are incredibly high.  Your dog needs to come to you anytime you call.  And should not approach any person or dog without your permission (you're supposed to ask the other person if your dog may approach).  Pickles is very good though especially compared to most dogs out there and he has his green sight and sound tag.  So we let him run wild.  Recall training really has paid off though and he comes whenever we call him, usually even when we don't use the special recall word but just call his name or say "let's go".

In the evenings, if we don't have anything planned, we've been taking him to new trails all throughout Boulder that we'd never even known were there.  So far they have all been gorgeous.  We like to stick to flat trails to keep the stress off his growth plates, so everywhere we've been we've found amazing views of the flatirons.  Dry Creek is interesting because it's almost completely fenced in with pastures and prairie dog homes on either side.  The fences must reduce the number of dogs chasing wildlife and livestock (forbidden activities for any dog under voice and sight control).