Happy Holidays to all!!!

Elbereth celebrated 9 months on X-mas eve. She got her perfect gift; lots and lots of new, fluffy, white snow to play in. Click here to see Elbereth play in the snow.

In the evening, our traditional Yuletide family feast kept her on her toes almost all night. As the evening wore on, she started nodding in our midst, but wasn't able to give in to sleep until around ten o'clock. After all the guest had left, we went for an after midnight stroll along almost empty roads while Elbereth jumped around our legs trying to catch our frozen breaths. This morning we woke up to even more snow and the sound of dogs on the road, it will be fun holidays for us all.

We wish all our friends happy holidays and a wonderful midwinter feast!!!

December brings better moods

The last Sunday in November, Elbereth's knee was finally up to longer walks again, and we went for a long walk in the woods along paths new to us. All the while thinking of our Picard-familiy in Germany who were attending their traditional Advent-spaziergang the same day.  We felt a little alone, but the trees were frosted and the woods seemed enchanted and bore tidings of better weather the coming month - that lifted our spirits.

That same evening, snow started to fall and the next morning the world was wintery again. After work I took Elbereth out for a walk, and decided I needed to try walking her along the roads. I have mostly avoided this  because of the way she has behaved towards passing cars since we got her. The first she did when we came out the door was to bark at her favorite neighbor - she absolutely adores him, but this time he was holding a dangerous snow shuffle and she obviously doesn't see well in the dark. After she realized who it was, she crawled over to him to be scratched under her chin.

We then proceeded down to the main road which had a lot of passing cars at this time of night. Up until this time I had not had one walk with Elbereth ignoring passing cars, but this walk was the turning point for me. She sniffed her way along the pavement only occasionally looking at a car, but no barking and no pulling. We were almost home again when she barked for the second time on this walk. It was a really scary stone, the size of a shoebox, with a hat of snow on top. :-) I was so relieved after this walk and it was another reminder to be patient and peristent and remember that Things Take Time.

November - that awful month

The second day of November Elbereth hurt her knee. We are not sure how, as we think it must have happened indoor while none of us were present, but we suspect a combination of a passing cat and a slippery hard wood floor has some of the blame. We were off to the vet's in a matter of minutes when we disovered she was walking on three legs. After drugging and examing her, the vet concluded with a hurt knee (some relief) and prescribed pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory drugs and rest. Walking only on leash for ten days. :-(

Already the next morning Elbereth starting putting her hurt leg on the floor again, but she favored the leg for at least a month. Our walks in the woods became short and rare. As the weather was typically for the month, cold - wet - dark - awful, it didn't matter much. And it gave us the push we needed to work on Elbereth's behavior towards passing cars and people. We took her to the city (if Drammen can be called such) and walked the most popular route.  Tom also started walking her more alone along the trafficated roads in our area. And he reported progress.

Elbereth is now on YouTube

2009-10-31 Elbereth on her Halloween-hike

Elbereth has recently started to perch on top of rocks in the forest. She is obviously aware that I like her doing that, because she jumps onto every suitable rock and stares expectantly at me. And of course I immediately give her a treat.

 

My new camera allows me to record film and I have started experimenting with it. The quality is not very good yet, I move to much and do other stupid stuff, but under are links to the best three from october.  

NB! When the video page opens, you should hit pause immediately and wait for the whole movie to upload before pressing Play again. Then the whole thing will play more smoothely.

• Youtube-movie: 2009-10-11 Elbereth and the sand quarry
• YouTube-movie 2009-10-14 Elbereth and ice on the puddles
• YouTube-move: 2009-10-31 Elbereth on ice (not quite Bambi, but...)

Elbereth - the nose

Today Elebereth has been tracking in the woods for the first time.  She has of course followed scent trails on her own initiative many times before, but this time we practised with Kjersti from Klikkerglede.com.

Kjersti started the first trail by dragging one of Elbereth's toys behind her. She went out of sight for a little while and then reappeared from another direction. When she came back to us, she showed Elbereth her empty hands - no toy - and Tom put Elbereth on the trail. She needed no instructions, put her nose to the ground and went ahead - a little to fast and then suddenly she had lost the trail and had to sniff around a few seconds before she was on it again. Tom was instructed to make sure she couldn't go so fast. She then sniffed her way to the toy, barely nodded her head at it and continued to track Kjersti's trail back to the starting point. Then it was my turn making a trail. No problems this time, except that she again didn't stop at the point we defined as the end of the trail. The toy didn't interest her, and when I left a little heap of food, she didn't care for that either. She just went on following my trail back to the start and it seemed that she had great fun.

Kjersti was impressed with Elbereth - that she figured out right ahead what she was excpected to do - and told us to go right ahead with longer trails the next time. We will, maybe already this evening. :-)

Elbereth and Kjersti
after the third trail was successfully completed.

Coughing and training

Elbereth was coughing enough on Friday evening that we decided to take her to the wet on Saturday morning. She would cough and vomit water all over the house. The vet examined her - she seemed fine to us except for the coughing - and said it probably was a virus. No medicine - just let her take it a little bit easy and keep an eye out for worsening symptoms. So, we stopped using her collar when walking her, we put on her harness instead, and took only a short stroll in the woods yesterday and a slightly longer one today. She seems to be coughing much less already, and we are confident she will be fine.

We are taking three private lessons with a dog trainer with emphasis on clicker training and tracking. The clicker training is fun. The first week we worked on teaching Elbereth to bite and paw at a cardboard box. :-) Now we work on getting her to offer the same behavior several times in a row. Last Friday we also learned how to teach her to follow a manmade trail on a lawn. We will be having our last lesson next Saturday and learn how to lay out a trail in the woods. Looking forward to it - I'm sure tracking is an activity both Elbereth and we will enjoy.

Our hike today took us to a sand quarry.

Elbereth was intriged by the gravel rolling down the slope.

Frost 1 and 2

Frost I

Frost is Elbereth's sweetheart. He is a German Shepherd who is only two weeks younger than her. They usually meet every Thursday evening at the area's dog club where we go for socializing and training now that Elbereth has completed her second class in "dog school" (we will not talk about her "grades" yet, she was the youngest in her class and we continue to work).

Frost and Elbereth are obviously very happy to see each other. When allowed to get together, they will mostly wrestle on the ground without making a sound. Last Thursday we all went together to Frost's home after obedience training. Frost is very lucky. He lives on a farm, with large fields surrounding the house and the woods with elk and deer at the edge of the fields. Elbereth and Frost ran happily chasing each other over the fields in the dark.

It is not easy to get good pictures of these two as
they move constantly. These are from September 5th.

Frost II
Yesterday was a beautiful day, the clear blue autumn sky a magnificent backdrop to the wonderful colors in the woods. Elbereth and I took a long hike along some of our favorite paths. The first touch of frost had put a thin crust of ice on the puddles along our way, and Elbereth was at first carefully exploring this hard water. She seemed a little puzzled, then startled as the ice crackled at her touch. Then she got bolder and stepped on it, only to be sceptic to the moving air bubbles under the ice. She had to growl and bark a little at them. In the end, she lifted herself up on her hind legs, better to be able to smash her front paws into the puddle and scatter the ice. Joy and happiness. Now I'm looking forward to her first experience with snow.

Forgot my camera yesterday. This is from Steinarvannene, October 1th