After checking into the hotel, we pulled into Gayle and Andy's driveway, announced by Una, Dreamer, Risk and Corey. Ms. Raspberry (Page) was alone in the puppy pen, sitting on an elevated bed. As Gayle walked out to greet me, Ms. Raspberry started in with lonely barks, ending in a pitiful wail. Gayle chuckled, and I asked if she was the last orphaned puppy that no one wanted (which was the furthest thing from the truth, talk about a drama queen!). Apparently that's what she thought when all the Game Birds flew away, including Lise and Drake (Mr. Red) that morning. Page had been barking and protesting her alone-ness by even putting her teeth on the expen and pulling on it!
We decided to take Page and Devon on a short woods walk to hopefully give me some sleep and stretch Devon's legs. Devon promptly took a time out to take care of some private business, but Page wanted to meet her new friend. The look Devon gave Gayle and I clearly communicated, "Seriously, I'm trying to have a private moment here, can one of you DO something about this?" After that pit stop, Devon promptly ran off ignoring Page completely. Instead, she stuck by Gayle and I as we walked and talked "strategy" for how I was to train this new little one in my life. I'm so lucky for all the wealth of information Gayle has from training with so many of the dogs she's bred. Those insights are invaluable. Of course, I think the email lines to Donna to ask questions about Bizzy will be hot! Everyone says Page is similar to her mother's personality.
Devon did decide to play bow at Page toward the end of the walk, causing Page to drop to the ground and show her belly. Devon tried again with similar results; both girls acting totally appropriately. Then it was off to give Devon dinner and warm Page up inside as Gayle and I did paperwork and chatted.
As we loaded Page and her food into the SUV, the look on Devon's face isn't fit to reproduce in words! Devon was NOT amused that the small fur ball was coming with us. This was NOT in her plans! Gayle could only chuckle as she said goodbye to both her girls and wished Devon good luck.
At the hotel, Page got used to walking on her leash with us and did a great job of pottying outside. I had treats and a clicker with me, so we did a couple of short sessions of clicker work. Boy, this was grand fun for Page! She go a piece of cheese every time she looked at me! She was so impressed by the cheese in just a couple of short sessions, she was sitting and giving me eye contact. What a smart girl! Devon also got cheese for staying on the bed and quietly watching the session.
After some play time, primarily by herself since Devon still wasn't acknowledging her presence, we headed to bed. I put Page's crate on the second bed in the room, facing mine. Since it was still pretty early, I decided to wait Page out for barking in the crate, knowing this would be a problem. Once the lights were out and I was still in bed, she only barked for about 1 minute before giving up and going to sleep. Round 1 to me!
Page slept for about 3.5 hours, then woke up and entertained herself in her crate for another 30 minutes. She started to whine, and since it had been 4.5 hours since her last out, I took her outside where we had success. Now for the dilemma: it was not 1:30 a.m., and I didn't think my neighbors in the hotel would like me letting Page bark. The "earthquake" method of shaking the crate to get her to stop barking was creating a nice game of her being successful with negative reinforcement. What were we going to do?
Then, I had a brainstorm. I turned out the lights and laid down in bed. When she started to bark, I took a bed pillow and softly "thunked" it against the crate (I didn't throw it 90 mph at her). The barking stopped and the pillow fell back at me. She started barking again, "thunk" and a pause in the barking. A third time she started to bark, "thunk" and this time after a pause, she mumbled and laid down in her crate and slept until 6:30 a.m. Yippee!! Round 2 to me!
Here's a video of her first meal of raw food, prepared by me!
1 comment:
I didn't know you fed raw! That's awesome! Me too. And the more people I talk to, the more people I'm finding you do it too. So what happened to the name IMA Busy Snow goose? I like this one too but was just surprised by the change.
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