May Garden

The May garden photos have been uploaded to flickr (link bottom of the left sidebar).

Yesterday we had gorgous sunshine but huge winds and we lost our power for several hours in the afternoon because wires were down. We did the library run, played croquet with Hugo's new croquet set, and fished in the stream (with, you guessed it, Hugo's new fishing rod).

Lucky was getting in touch with her inner puppy yesterday - I let her out into the side garden which was fenced in by the previous owners for their poodles. The rest of the property can't be fenced all around because of the creek and so they had this little spot of grass & a gravel run which is accessible from the deck. She went out there while we were playing croquet and it was clear she enjoyed it very much. She ran up and down all by herself several times, and then rolled around in the grass.

Today I worked a bit on teaching her to fetch. Got her to chase a bouncy ball, but the tennis one which I have in a sock (for safety, as dogs this size can get a ball lodged in their throat if they jump for it), she ignored completely. She's also working on sit, down, and come, all reinforced with tons of yummy treats.

I am using ideas from Dima's Dog School and the Monks of New Skete.

We are very fortunate that she is an easy dog to walk and heel is coming very easily to her.

Now we need to focus mostly on establishing our bond and trust - primarily through training her through the basic commands, and then we will work on exposing her to dogs while she's on leash. It could be that by then she'll have settled enough that it will no longer be a huge issue. The thinking from the trainer is that this is mostly fear based leash behaviour - she's not used to dealing with dogs while she's on a leash and doesn't know how to respond appropriately.

She's lost her husky coat completely - no Elizabethan ruff anymore - & now she looks like a shepherd girl with a husky tail.


Here she is enjoying a laze in the sunshine.