05.22.10
May21st
Happy Birthday to my friend Stefanía!
Oops it’s been awhile, people have been sending me emails to see if I’m alright. I keep thinking I should update but then get busy, sick or sidetracked. Of course when I don’t update I forget what’s been going on or some of it anyway.
We’ve seen progress with our students in the clicker course. Some are a bit discouraged because they are not able to do the exercises in class and are behind the rest in their understanding of the progress. They have to spend the whole hour clicking “look at that” with the other dogs or clicking for calm behaviour, we explain that there is progress that they are not noticing and it’s all a foundation for their training later on and they will be able to do all the exercises at home and most likely before the classes are over. We see some very obvious changes in the dogs and notice that the dogs are actually able to calm themselves for longer periods which they could not do when they started but what we love to see is the progress in the students themselves who are using the clicker without hesitation in exactly the right way in each situation. One of my favourite moments last Wednesday was when I could give a click ticket to the young girl (8 yrs I believe) who owns Tinni. I had let him off leash for a second (he was alone as a demo dog) while I got the leash ready to show and tell. He was busy investigating when I was ready to start and I wanted him to come. Instead of calling him I went to get him but didn’t have my clicker or treats ready, I know bad teacher! 
She saw her chance and without anyone asking her she called his name and gave him the “come” hand target we had taught them and he came straight to her for a click and treat. Talk about proud moments, I’m sure her Dad must have been beaming because I sure was, a great student and future dog trainer!
Two of our canine students. This adorable little Pom just turned 4 months old and is such a happy guy. This beautiful Chihuahua was being clicked for a show self stack that’s being put on cue and I got the photo just as he moved from the stack to get his treat.
We do feel that we need to find a good open spaced area to hold our courses now and then we’d have a much better overview of the students as well as we could have all the dogs in one area. Where we are at the moment is a bit cramped and we have dogs in different rooms and hallways and have to divide our time between them and don’t always see how everyone is getting along with their practice, get caught up with one or the other student and don’t give as much attention to the others. It’s so hard when you are in different rooms to make sure everyone gets equal time. We have a couple students who are so far ahead that we have been adding harder and harder tasks for them while the others are maybe still on the first steps of the exercises. It’s all good though and we are happy with each and every one of their progress.
We gave them a bunch of homework because we have the annual general meeting of HRFÍ next Wednesday so we can’t have our class that night. Hopefully they will all be extremely productive having all this extra training time at home and not put it all off until “next week” and then not get any training in. hehe Isn’t that often the way, especially with the long weekend now which many use to go camping. Nah, they are all going to be amazing next time and earn lots of click tickets.
We’re hoping to get some training done ourselves because there is a fun match of obedience on the 23rd of June that I’d love to take part in. It’s the first time they have tried something like that in HRFÍ (the working dog club is hosting it) and it’s easy exercises based on the obedience trial exercises for Brons. We don’t have Rally here yet and Rúnar, me and one of our students (who is on the board of the working dog club) are all bound and determined that we WILL get Rally obedience here even if we have to start it ourselves! So this is like an in-between type of fun match where people are allowed to talk to and reward their dogs which is of course not allowed in the real trials and they have cut down the staying time and distances to maybe 1/4 of what is needed in an actual obedience trial. I haven’t taught or practiced any of them with Klói but I’ve started a couple of them and he catches on fast. Being that the stays and the distances are not very great then I should be able to teach him that before the match if I can get to practice in difference places. He already knows some of the behaviours just not in that context. Don’t know how he’ll be (or me for that matter) doing them in front of an audience of people and other dogs so we’ll have to work hard on proofing them. A couple of our past students are planning on competing as well so no doubt there will be some well behaved dogs there to make us proud if not ours. hehe I even think that Frigg might enjoy it or Hófi, although for some reason I can never get Hófi to want to walk to heel (she jumps away to the side, I think I accidentally stepped on her feet a bit when she was smaller because she used to be too close to me and I don’t walk very straight, oops). I’ll have to go back to the basics with her if I want her ready whereas I think Frigg can perform all the tasks without much practice because she did compete a little in obedience years ago.
Well, I went and got my hair trimmed yesterday and now I’m kicking myself for not actually getting it cut really short like I intended to do. It was getting nice and long and I haven’t had long hair since I was a kid so wasn’t really excited to get it all cut off at once, I thought to myself that since in a couple years (or sooner) it will no doubt be grey and then I won’t be able to show off the colour at all so I’ll have short hair for many years to come. Now it’s back to the most irritating stage of growth that it’s been most of the time just above the shoulders . But all the split ends got cut off and it’s a bit lighter on my head because it’s got layers. Doh, silly me though today as I was trying to clean the dog poop in the yard I figured out that the reason I wanted it cut was because I can’t see a thing with all the wind we have in Iceland. It’s too short for a ponytail now so it looks like I’m back to being irritated with my hair. It would have been better to spend all that money and have a nice easy to care for style instead. I tell ya. Oh well, I’m going to enjoy it for a little bit and then maybe if I give up I’ll just get Rúnar to use his electric hair trimmer and zzzzziiiippppp. So don’t be surprised if you see a photo of me looking like GI Jane later this summer. Ha Rúnar would never do it!
Expenses lately have been way over budget. Numerous trips into Reykjavík as well as vet bills, doctors bills and Klói and Tinni are entered to the dog show on the 5th of June, Klói has to go for his eye test on the 5th as well. The car still needs fixing too. When it rains it pours.
I went for my eye test the other day and I know a couple were waiting to hear about that. Rúnar did too and his eyesight has changed slightly so he needs a new pair of glasses which he’s going to wait for but he got prescription sunglasses for the summertime because they were on sale. I found out that my eyes are fine, no cataracts or other problems and my vision hasn’t changed in terms of numbers which is a good thing considering it’s been about 4 years since I got them checked last. There is however something happening that is not going to cause me problems apart from the ones I already have he said. Apparently there is a fluid build up at the back of the eyes he showed me a picture to explain and had a name for it but I can’t remember and wouldn’t know what it is in English anyway. The fluid gets worse (I guess collects faster) if I’m stressed or don’t get enough rest, they always needs to drain every once in a while. This means that the blurry vision and spots I see with sometimes pressure on the eyes is because of the eyes draining this fluid. He said I’m very lucky that there has been no damage, sometimes this thing causes tearing in the eye and will separate I guess the cornea or something (I’m so bad at this technical stuff) but I don’t have that and he didn’t expect it to happen to me but he encouraged me to watch my stress levels. It is also an explanation he said of why I am so sensitive to light. I always have to have all the curtains closed in the house and it drives Rúnar up the wall especially when the sun is shining, I’m like a vampire. Hehe I have glasses that turn darker in direct sunlight (not in the car or indoors) and have needed that type of lens for many years but he said I should get a pair of prescription sunglasses that has at least 80% darkness because these lenses don’t get dark enough in the sun or in all situations. So I got a pair of those this week that cost an arm and a leg although thankfully for me I do get a discount because of my disability card. My sight has worsened seeing close to me but I can still see relatively well if I hold things a bit farther away so don’t need reading glasses yet. He said it’s just normal aging and one of the perks of being nearsighted. Boy not the most fun thing to hear when a doctor says you’re getting old and I thought I was managing to cheat this monster quite well.
Speaking of raining…we’ve had some ash falling on us off and on the past little while. Not bad but it still is a bit disturbing. Luckily for us the days it decides to fall on us we usually have rain as well so it’s wet when it touches down instead of being airborne and irritating. They’ve even had some all the way in Reykjavík but their meters have shown extreme pollution from it because they don’t get the rain all the time like we’ve had. So I guess rain can be good too.
We had a little happening a couple days ago. Skella is just starting her heat now as are all the girls and she and Klói are starting to get a bit playful at times, they obviously think they are a “couple” so Birta gets upset when she sees them play and tries to calm them. Unfortunately when the girls are in heat they get a bit more excitable and grumpy with each other and when other dogs walk past the yard. So the other day Klói was barking at the neighbour dog (a male) and Skella got overly excited as well and ran up onto the porch where Birta was sitting calmly admiring her daddy Rúnar. Skella is such a klutz and she ran into Birta’s ribs on her blind side causing Birta to startle which in turn made Skella snap hurting Birta so Birta got defensive and they ended up in a scuffle. Rúnar managed to stop them and afterward we couldn’t see anything but a slight sore in their faces from each other. Klói kept running and sniffing Birta’s right side (the blind side) but Rúnar couldn’t find anything in all the hair.
Birta has been very down the past couple days since it happened and not let any of the other dogs near her. I’ve been convinced she is hurt. After her not being able to sleep well last night then not taking her sad eyes off me and yet not wanting to budge an inch all day and us feeling that she was swollen on her body we decided to take her to the vets. She had a temp of 39.7 and heat radiated from her side, the vet thought it was bruised but found the small hole and plucked a scab off it and as she did that the puss just gushed out! Poor Birta I had to leave the room and could hear how much pain she was in while it was being drained completely. I have never had a dog get an infection from a bite wound so we’re not happy. Of course Skella is totally without wounds from the ordeal except for one long scratch on her one back leg from where Hófi decided she was going to defend Birta. Hófi is also in heat.
It always amazes me how the greatest of friends can get into scuffles over the silliest things. This photo was taken of them today before Rúnar got home from work. Bitches and their heat cycles, it’s a shame they get grumpy at that time.
Speaking of Hófi and her heat, we went to visit her beau a little while ago to make sure we were happy with our choice and here is a sneak preview of them together. Of course they haven’t been mated yet so I don’t want to jinx it by putting it up on the litters page yet.
This guy has only one litter so far, has a great temperament, is not a barker and although he is out of one of the more used lines Hófi is from one of the rare lines so we can use the whole spectrum of dogs on any of the offspring in future and already have some ideas of what we want to use. We have a couple of Skella and Klói’s boys on co-own so who knows! He reminds me a little of Hofi’s father with that awesome long harsh coat. This guy has C hips unfortunately (not sure if it’s one side or both) but he was ex-rayed at a year old and we know of a few ISD’s who have had C at that age and cleared at 2 yrs or older. To us a C is a healthy hip in an ISD and not a reason to exclude too many dogs for. He is a working dog that works for days at a time with no problems but a calm dog in the home. We are hoping to improve on Hófi in terms of a few things like bone and coat. The only thing that we would have liked is if he had a better head to use with Hófi, they are too similar in the head but you can’t have everything. I LOVE the colour although I expect we might get tan dogs with liver (brown) pigment and maybe some piebald pups but you never know it’s a cast of a dice sometimes. He is the dog I had asked to borrow last time but then decided to try Skolli so we’ve decided since Skolli didn’t work out that it just wasn’t meant to be and our first choice must be the better choice. Fingers crossed. We really want a bitch from this litter to co-own, with Hofi’s great temperament and his we have to try to keep one in Iceland since again we think most will leave the country.
What a week it’s been, we’ve hardly been home the past couple days. I was really sick last weekend and the first part of this week, I lost my voice a couple days and had bad coughing, runny nose, head cold, dizziness and you name it. I spent those days on the couch with a comforter and didn’t feel like being on the computer at all. I’m better now apart from my throat feeling scratchy off and on still. Rúnar’s grandmother fell and broke I think her shoulder so can’t get a cast and is in great pain. His grandfather is in a home now so that takes the workload off of his grandmother and mother which is good but always sad to know of family alone in a nursing home. No doubt it’s the best thing for him though and we’ll have to go visit them soon. This long weekend is going to be mostly spent at home to keep an eye on Birta because her small tooth mark turned into a large open wound after the draining and she needs it cleaned and drained a couple times a day over the next few days, she’s on antibiotics and pain meds and has to be kept an eye on so she or the other dogs don’t lick at it.
Well, I better get to bed it’s the 22nd already. Here are a couple photos of my hair before and after…I know NO difference really. Boy do I look wrinkly and old though. I never like how long my face looks with long hair, it accentuates my faults. Hehe Well Rúnar says he thinks I’m cute either way so that’s all that matters.
