Weekend Wrap Up

I didn't get around to posting yesterday, so today I'll finish filling in for the weekend. Firstly, here are the course maps from Saturday:

Saturday with Ruthie went really well. We had a couple of friends over to meet her and Ruthie was eating it up. We did a gentle introduction of her to the danes individually through the small chain link portion of our fence. Heffner was first and was mostly okay with her. Not entirely thrilled about her, but with the option of earning a yummy cookie or barking at the little dog, he usually chose the cookie. Bess didn't care at all. We actually let them both out in the back yard together and neither one was bothered by the other. Two thumbs up!

The first time that we put Ruthie in her crate, she was a little pissed. We kept the danes gated up stairs. For the first bit, every time Heffner heard her make a noise from her crate (and frenchies can make some seriously bizarre noises!) he would sound off. I'm pretty sure he though there was a demon down in that crate. I brought up some treats and we started treating him every time she made a noise and he didn't respond to it. After a bit he was able to lie down and mostly relax. By the next day he could walk past her in her crate squawking and not react. Slow progress, but progress.

As for Sunday, I had a nice late ring time with Bess, so I got to hang about the house for a bit and got Adam set up to start primin the clicker for Ruthie. We used Cheerios because Jill had mentioned using them with one of her frenchies when she first got him. They're really a great treat. No excess sugars or what not. Low in calories. And the perfect size for a small dog. Needless to say, she likes the clicker.;0)

As for conformation, Bess got second out of three. Her half sister Mia won the class again and went on to win Winners Bitch and now only needs one point to finish. Yes, it would be really nice to be in that position.

After I got home and did some relaxing, I was able to catch a cute picture of Adam and Ruthie taking a little nap on our ghetto porch couch! :0)
I took the danes out for a little hike so that they could stretch their legs and Adam could hang out in the house with Ruthie and let her explore the rest of it.

This morning I got up a little earlier than normal. Ruthie hasn't figured out our routine as of yet and likes to wake up a little earlier than I do. I packed all three dogs up and we headed out to a local field to do some obedience work with the intent to ramp up the excitement for the work and the individual exercises by using toys. Heffner was HIGH! It took me a while to find a toy that Bess would actually do much of anything with. I finally got some response from a rabbit fur tug/treat pouch. Otherwise, toys she isn't much interested in. Ruthie had a blast doing some lovely off leash heeling all over the place and never left my side.

Then later today we had an obedience lesson and I brought Ruthie along mostly because I didn't want to leave her all alone at the house. I ended up working her a bit towards the end and even though we haven't done very much in the three whole days that we've had her, she did really well! She's doing a nice tuck sit. And she had some beautiful fronts where she came in nice and straight and went right into a sit!! I've totally got an obedience frenchie in the making!! I told Jill that I need to enter her in an obedience trial right now before she gets independent and getting her attention actually takes work.

And that brings us up to now. Aside from having to go into the dentist's to get a cavity filled, it's been a pretty nice day!