Thanksgiving From Darby

To Lyric, thank you for the pretty! To Merlin, thank you for the funny! To Helen and Georgiana, thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing Darby Crash to become my heart.

Greyhound obedience starring Becca

Becca continues to work on her obedience training and is into week 6 of her advanced class. She's doing 3-minute sits and 5-minute downs on a long line with distractions--lots of squeaky toys and balls rolling in front and behind her. She's also learning to take and hold a dumb bell. She eagerly anticipates the dumb bell, knowing that a yummy treat will follow!! This class includes a Canine Good Citizen test (CGC) next week so keep your fingers crossed for Donna and Becca!

Greyhounds and Cats

Tanner and Ember

One thing I have always taken pride in is my dogs ability to get along with small dogs and cats. Greyhounds are a prey driven breed and either intentionally or accidently my dogs have run live game. This increases their desire to chase running creatures. Yet they can easily live with my cats. They can walk around the neighborhood, walk in crowded areas with small dogs, compete in obedience next to small dogs without worry.


Pearl and Jazz

Learning to easily co-exist with cats starts early in life. I have always raised my puppies with cats. When they transition to their new homes, cats are common place in their world.




Echo and Homer

Interesting the dogs seem to know their own cats both indoors and outdoors from neighborhood cats. Lyric has by far been the most difficult dog to train to leave cats alone, to accept that they are part of the family. Maybe because I got her as a puppy that had not been around cats. At 4 1/2 yrs she finally is becoming more accepting of her cats.



Whisper and Lacey

All of Lyrics puppies except Becca now live in a cat household.



Darby and Marvin

Tanner Learns Tracking

Tanner and his mom had the opportunity to help teach a beginning tracking class for the Luckiamute Dog Training Club
At the end of the class, everyone got to try baby tracks with their dogs. Tanner also got a turn. He very aptly demonstrated that although he is a categorized as a sighthound, he has a darn good nose too! These pictures taken by Peggy Miller show how Tanner is keeping his nose to the ground to follow the scent trail and find the treats.



He is currently running straight tracks that are aged 30 minutes.
Since he is young, he is very easily distracted. Using some really good food drops every couple of steps keeps him coming back to the track and rewards him for following it. As he improves his ability to
concentrate, the food drops will be spaced farther and farther apart.
He will also learn to find and indicate corners. To earn a TD test, he will need to do be able to follow a 440-500 yd track that incorporates 3-5 turns. The track will be aged 30 minutes to 2 hours. He will also need to learn to indicate articles in such a way that Tamara will know he found an article and can pick it up to show the judges.

Both Tanner's mom, Tamara, and breeder, Helen, are avid trackers and have each earned multiple titles on different dogs. It makes sense that Tanner would enjoy and excel at tracking since both of his parents as well as his granddam have tracking titles too! Most importantly, tracking is a fun sport that requires the dog to take the lead and solve problems with very little help. It is a great way to keep the brain busy and utilize the glorious noses that all dogs are born with.

Ranch Dog 101: Part One

How to be a ranch/farm dog as told by Darby Crash and Lisa:

1. Take every opportunity to get dirty, really really dirty. Anytime you seed dirt dig it, eat it, fling it, lay in it. If it's wet dirt (otherwise known as mud), that's oh so much better.


2. If there isn't any dirt readily available, make some.
)

3. Other substrates are just as fun, if not more, than dirt or mud. Run through them at top speed. Bonus points if the ranch cats have 'utilized' the substrate.


4. Run fast, run hard. Find every piece of farm equipment, every fence post, every stray bit of rock or fencing material to run over or into. Bonus points for breaking something on yourself or the item you ran into/over. Double bonus points for breaking both.
(

5. Help with the farm chores like cleaning stalls, sweeping hay and monitoring the activities of the barn cats.


6. Help with the planting. When the mom-lady digs holes and puts plants in them, help by walking behind her and stomping them into the dirt real hard. It helps the roots. When you get specific instructions shouted at you, help more by sitting down on them, and then roll over on top of them, squirm around and show the mom-lady your dirty feet so she can see how hard you've been working.