Making Progress

Woot! and Yea! No more calling Mariko and finding her on her bed or in her kennel in the morning when I'm ready to go to work. This is our new "normal" in the morning before we run out the door.

Now, she just needs to look as happy as she is when we are heading out the door for a walk (well, maybe not quite that happy).

Mariko, you are an AWESOME puppy.

We're Back to Work

WOW, where did last week go. I was off to Florida again and Mariko got to stay with Uncle John and Aunt Wendy (who she loves more than meat treat!).

While in Florida I was able to watch a K9 demonstration that was -- AMAZING -- to say the least. When I came home, Mariko had a little retraining and catching up to do, but she had so much fun. (For the record, I know for a fact that it is my children that allow this puppy to get away with bad behaviors, but we've got her back in check now.)

Look how focused the dog is on the trainer.

This was such a fun game for this dog.

What?????? She got in so much trouble. I think she wanted to see what I would do.

We were home one day then off to a trial . . . Bailey did great!

Hmmm, what's up here?

Oh man . . . I really want to play in the water!

I missed my Ginger.

Life after a walk.

Life before a walk.

Tough life.

Such a happy girl, ha ha.

Training

So, it occurred to me that this big bundle of fur has been training, really since we got her almost 8 months ago and we haven't posted any pictures of her in training, so, this last Monday while we were doing some obedience training (mainly working on stay with distractions). I quickly snapped a few pictures.

Practicing while I am out of sight.

Reinforcing stay.

Watching other dogs work while Mariko and Zeke practice stay.

Okay, totally bored with all this stay practice.

I'm tired, but I missed my Ginger.

What a Fun, Crazy Week

What a fun week we had. I was actually in town all week, but busy preparing for the weekends activities (two day event where our agility club partnered with the local humane society for fun, games and adoptions). Monday was a holiday, Tuesday had us baking gourmet dog treats, Wednesday we were bagging these delectable goodies, Thursday night we started setting up canopies and marking off vendor booths and the agility ring. Friday started early in the morning setting up agility equipment and putting the finale touches on our gourmet booth.

First Annual Animal Fair and PoochPalooza

Everything came together nicely, however, by Saturday evening, we were all VERY tired.

She didn't move for 11 hours.

Very tired puppies :-)

Bailey was snoozing in her kennel.

Anyway, this blog is about Mariko and she was just awesome. We let her try out the agility equipment and I am so excited to get another month behind us (we don't want to start jumping the dogs until they are at least 10 months of age) so that I can get her going in agility. She will be great with this sport as well.

Sunday was a "catch up on our energy" kind of day. I also needed to catch up on nail trimming. We usually start with cradle and massage, and yesterday, this was how we finished:

Scobby Doo, where are you!

My arm got tired before she decided to wake up.

Look how relaxed those back legs are :-)

She is such a goof!

It's off for some obedience training tonight and hopefully a week where we are getting close to being back to normal. We ran into one of the other class participants from our Saturday class and he reported that training was different without "Super Dog" being there, ha ha. Yes Mariko, you rock!

Next week I'm off to Florida, so she will get some more practice time at home and in the kennel.

Another Busy Week

It was great to be home after traveling last week. I was able to visit beautiful Lake County Florida, and see a little bit of what Isaac can cause (hurricane warning and LOTS of rain). I did have the opportunity to stay in a beautiful bed and breakfast in Mt. Dora, however.

First day back to work was Thursday; however, I was visiting a sister school in Kaysville, so Mariko got to enjoy another day without working. Friday was her first day back to work (and her only day to work) and she was feeling a little picked on, so Aunt Wendy came over to make sure she felt loved and missed.

Don't you feel sorry for this poor working dog?

We did hit obedience training for about 90 minutes on Saturday, this was the end result:

After lots of fun and games for most of the weekend (since it was a three day weekend), she decided that she was going to be good and practice bed Monday evening:

I often wonder what is going on in that amazing brain of hers when I catch her "zoning off" like this. Maybe she is envisioning being a super dog and helping someone achieve their independence!