rough's life

not so good way to wake up.....

2010-01-16T23:45:00.000-08:00

The fun thing about being a parent.... well lets see.... there is ........well....you get to....... hmmm.... well quite frankly it sucks. You never get to act childish again or selfish. Unless you get a rare opportunity which in my case is quite small and generally always comes back to bite me in the ass.

Take my morning... I generally use to love Sundays. It was my morning to sleep in. My husband would be forced out of bed to make breakfast for me and the kids and lovingly bring it me in bed around 10 am. (I did do the same for him on Saturday mornings) However over the years that has started to fade as most the kids can now get their own breakfasts. So this morning as I am sleeping in bed my daughter tells me "don't worry mom I am taking Zorro for his morning walk." in my mind I say "ahhhh..... another 30 minutes to sleep." snuggle up a little further under the blanket only to receive SLAP on my cheek followed VERY quickly by another SLAP again and hearing my two year old say "MOMMY!!!!..... GET UP!" so much for the sleep in... mom is up and feeding animals at 8:45. Thanks a lot Noah....

Then as I am slowly starting to function Petteri (my husband) announces Phoenix (our cat) broke my favorite expensive to replace wine pitcher. Thanks a lot Phoenix.... See there is no point for moms to sleep in.. you have 10 times more problems when you do! But have you ever noticed when its the hubby's morning to sleep in you keep the kids quite and under control so he can manage to sleep until 11?? yeah... that's how it is in our house too!

As for my lovely boy Zorro he is doing GREAT! I have a friend coming next week to take some top quality photos of him that will be posted on his web page. He is such a lovely boy... I wish I could get him to perk his ears up for shows... well.... we shall see. When he sees other dogs they tend to go up nicely! I just need to find a show close by.

He sure is my lovely boy!

Well off now to finish my coffee and start showering for my husband's aunt's 80th birthday! Take care!!

2010-01-12T08:34:00.001-08:00

I did want to post these those!!

2010-01-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

Here are a few cakes I have made for my kids on their birthdays. I love doing this!

I have made many more, but have lost a lot when the computer crashed. Here is also a lovely photo of my Zorro!!!

7 months.... welll......

2010-01-12T07:57:00.000-08:00

Well, so I am not good with this stuff. :) I use face book ect to show off my stuff....

Since its been 7 months there is a lot that needs to be told. First off I have finished school and now hold a bachelors in International Business. Whoop Whoop... and like everyone cant find a job... yeah SHOCKING! My husband found a job YAY! only to be promoted to Director of Sales DOUBLE YAY!

Kids are doing well! I am home now with Noah and Erica... and trying to figure out what to do with myself. I have decided to start making things. I love doing stuff creative. So I am thinking of a few things to do at least.

As for our animals... sadly.... Miuku passed away. The vet thought it was CRF or she was in a severe accident which caused her kidneys to shut down. But since there were fracture marks, broken bones ect he thought CRF... We brought her home and she is laying under our flower garden by the fence she would always jump over.

Shortly after her passing we brought home another little kitty named Flora. She is now 7 months and a doll baby! We adore her to bits! Her and our big boy Phoenix get along just wonderfully!

As for Zorro he is at the moment at a friends house. It was getting so insane here with the kids, remodeling the house trying to get it ready for selling that Zorro was being left a lot. So he is staying with a friend a few times a month and then comes back home. He will be coming home this weekend and the kids and I already have a HUGE list of things to do with him! Starting off with baking some cookies just for Zorro!!!

Tomorrow I will write more! With a few pictures of my fur babies, things I make and a few favorite recipes!

Almost a year??

2009-06-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

Geez... I didn't realize how much time had past.. I knew it was awhile but MAN!

So this is what has been going on with the Jurvelin Family and of course my beloved dog.

I decided to go and finish my studies which was a good choice! I realized once I had started I only needed 63 credits to graduate! I started and completed my Bachelor's thesis and have only 5 credits remaining!! Can you believe it!? With 5 kids, 2 cats and Zorro I managed to finish my thesis!! whoop whoop for me!!!

Kids are doing great! Miia has made great strides in dealing with her dysphasia and the school is expecting her to start at a normal school possibly in two years. Next spring she will attend the "normal" school for about 3 weeks and if she handles it okay she will possibly be given a chance to try it in the fall. We will see! Nico is still having some difficulties, but not much. He is happy where he is at and so are we! Emma will start 1st grade right on cue and shows no signs of dysphasia. Erica is doing great and a total NUT!!! Noah....... well...... Noah is something we have never experienced before. He has tempertantrums that are INSANE, he is so physical that he literally bounces off of the walls, I can't put him in his car seat because he doesn't want to go and I can't hold him down long enough to buckle him so Pete has to. Everyone tells me he is a typical boy. Maybe because Nicolas was calm I don't know how to handle it.

Petteri is good. He lost his job 2 days before Christmas Eve and has had a hard time finding new work. Hopefully something comes soon. I am starting to get really nervous about this! I am desperate to move as our house is just to small for all of us. Petteri and I came to an agreement that since we wont move to U.S. and wont move outside of Oulu area he needs to compromise and move to the country side with me! I can't wait!!! Once we move (someday years away I am sure) I am going to take another dog.... when kids are older... and I have more time.... and more money....

Our cats are good! Miuku has turned a bit stand offish lately which is troubling to me, but maybe it is just the summer time. Phoenix is doing good. He is a fat little thing who loves everyone except Noah. Noah adores him though so we have to watch them quite closely as Noah is always want to "pet" him which is more of slapping.. I try to show him, but yeah.... sometimes .......

Zorro is great! He is a happy dog and is VERY happy to have me home and totally able to focus on him and the kids. I think everyone is happy mommy is on summer holiday! I don't know what to do with Zorro. I would love to take him to trainings but he just doesn't seem to have any fun there. I would love to take him shows, but I dont have a car, license or money since most are so far away. God knows Pete wont help with driving so .... what do I do?? So Zorro is a pet I guess. One that is truely loved that is for sure!!

August 8th, 2008

2008-08-08T22:21:00.000-07:00

08.08.2008

Well the past week has sucked. Really just sucked. We picked up Miuku last Thursday and while we were driving we noticed our baby Noah was a bit sick. We got home got everything settled and realised he was REALLY sick. Five days later with a fever peaking 40 and nothing breaking it I took him to the doctors. His doctor checked him and took a quick infection rate blood sample. They came back about 5 minutes and told me we needed to take him to the hospital because there machine only showed a CRP (infection rate) up to 160 and he was passed it. Once we got to the hospital they admitted us and hooked Noah up to an IV in his head and started him antibiotics for his pneumonia (straight translation from Finnish is lung fever) and that his CRP was actually up to 251. I think the normal level for a healthy person is about 20 or 30? Luckily for us the medication worked really fast and we were able to go home the next day. When I got home we got everything settled and WHAM! Erica gets sick. Luckily for us and for her it was only a bit of a flu and nothing severe. Than our daughter Emma noticed her ankle (where the big scab is from her accident) was smelling really badly and we took her into the doctors. She is also on antibiotics for 10 days and is going everyday to get it cleaned out by the doctors because it is infected..... And now I developed some sort of a rash all over my left side of my face thanks to some sort of allergic reaction to the pillow or something there.....Thank heavens the school is starting soon!!!

Miuku is doing good. She loves all of us and is slowly adjusting to Zorro. Zorro sees her as a new playmate but he is learning that he cant chase after her or she gets angry. She has adapted well and really likes her spot in our room. She is very playful and loves to cuddle which we were hoping for. We were affraid if we got another Hyper but luckily she is very calm. She has started to make her way down the stairs and I think when she is ready she will come on her own. She has come a few times. If Zorro is laying by the stairs she meows hoping someone will pick her up and carry her past him, but we dont. She needs to learn Zorro isnt going to rush her everytime she walks past him. Zorro is terrified to walk past her becasue she hisses everytime he does. He is such a big chicken! But I think that in a few more weeks everything will be fine.

Phoenix comes home next week. I had thought they would let us take him yesterday but nope. They decided to keep him one more week. Fine.... we just need to wait for our boy a bit longer.

July 30th, 2008

2008-07-30T23:44:00.000-07:00

30.07.2008

Well after fighting with Emma all morning how she wants to run away because she hates us all things have started to settle down. I am watching High School Musical 2 for the 3rd THIS morning.... I really hate Disney.

Zorro is in desperate need of a good long walk. He hasnt had one in two days and you can tell. We tried to take him to the beach the other day, but the one that was recommended we couldnt find a safe place to take him into the water. Well unless we walked through about 6 feet of mud. No thanks!

Tomorro life changes here for Zorro!!! Princess Miuku comes home! We will do the introductions slowly but I have a feeling Zorro is going to be mighty happy to have a friend. He seems so lonely during the days with no one to play with. We still need to pick up their play gym at our friends house.

The weather doesnt seem to be sooo nice today so maybe just maybe we can get the rest of the upstairs painted. I hope so! I am so sick of it being like that!

July 28th,2008

2008-07-28T04:05:00.000-07:00

28.07.2008

Finally the upstairs floor is done and now all we need to do are the walls. Zorro is pleased it has gotten a bit more quite in the house!! He has been enjoying the past few days with the weather being warmer and all the kids outside. He has taken up protecting our yard from all things that move. It is getting a bit annoying when it is neighbors or their kids that he is not familar with and he goes running at the gate barking like a crazy dog, but that is part of having a dog that loves his family I guess. I was planning on taking Zorro to some more training lessons, but now with all the remodeling going on I dont know if we will have time or money to do it. Sad it would have been fun. But for now we are still doing our "little stuff" which keeps him and I both sane. Today we plan on taking him to a beach so he can go swimming, but first we need to find one that is ment for dogs... always a bit tricky.

We had a funny little oooops the other day with the kids. We decided to go to get the girls walls for their rooms. On the way to that store we stopped off at another store and picked up a 9 liter container of white paint and a big chocolate bar. Petteri put the white paint on the floor by our Emma's feet. (Did I mention that this was a PLASTIC container with an easily broken top?) I was passing a piece of chocolate over the seat to give to Emma and when I accidentally hit the ceiling of the car. Petteri FREAKED on me how "this is why we dont eat in the car!" "you are ruining the car" "it will never come out" "huff huff puff puff" He is giving me a lecture for about 5 minutes as if I am a small child. We pull into the next store (by this time I am highly annoyed!) and as I am pulling Noah from his car seat I hear Petteri scream "VOI VITTU!!!" Now my husband hardly ever swears. Than I hear the ALL TIME BAD ONE that he NEVER says!! As he says this word I see him hold up Emma's shoe COVERED in white paint! Seems Emma accidentally stepped on the lid, broke the seal and tipped the paint over. Mean while I am about to DIE of laughter! As he is swearing and freaking because we now have about 3 liters of white paint ALL OVER the floor of our black interior car Miia and I are giggling in the parking lot. We decided to skip the store and drive to his mom's house who lives close by to clean the car out. HE IS FUMING!!! Now I am not an evil person but I do believe in Karma.... so I HAD TO SAY IT

"why didnt you put the paint in the trunk? Well at least now while we scrub the white paint out of the car we can clean that nasty little chocolate mark off the ceiling!"

July 23rd, 2008

2008-07-23T01:37:00.000-07:00

23.07.2008

Poor Zorro. He hates noise and today the re-modeling guy has come to fix our moldy hallway. It is soooo noisey here! Zorro has been kept outside since everytime he comes in he runs upstairs to investigate. I dont think this guy really likes dogs.... he seems annoyed everytime Zorro heads for the stairs. I have a feeling this project is going to end badly. As he was striping our floor he found more mold coming from behind the shower room wall.... yikes we will have to see what that is about now too..

Zorro has also a lovely "new do". We have started to repaint the hallway since everything else is being re-done and Zorro is now the lovely owner of a "white stripe" along his side. He decided that since the walls smelled so great he was going to run his side along the wet wall... seriously!

He has been enjoying the summer and our trainings in the evening. He is coming along with them but we do it for fun. I dont see us doing any competing at all. Maybe a few more shows if we can get some locally or close by and than we will consider the casteration. We have been discussing it, but I am not sure when the right time is. So far it isnt now. He has been getting on so well with his RAW diet and he LOVES his evening bones. The pet store where I buy most of his things has become a favorite spot of ours. He comes with usually and will wait outside quitely. But as soon as I come out he is all over his bag. Even when I go without him he can tell. I had tried to hide the bag so he could wait until his bone had defrosted but he followed me around for 2 hours so I gave in and gave him his frozen bone.

We are getting ready for our kittens. We have decided the boy is "Phoenix" and the girl is "Bloom" however Petteri and I will try to convince the girls that it is best till they come home and we see their personalities before naming them. I hope Zorro and them get on well. But I have been researching how to introduce them to each other so it should be okay. Fingers crossed on this one!!

July 15th, 2008

2008-07-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

15.07.2008

Well the day has not started out well at all. It was SUPPOSE to be my morning to sleep in but once again the darling "Mr." wouldnt get his butt out of bed. So here I am again..... up with kids, tired as all get out. Needless to say the "Mr." will be getting the silent treatment for the day.

Yesterday we spent most of the day at home. It was quite sunny so we were able to stay outside and play with Zorro. He was happier for it! It didnt last long as our oldest daughter came flying into the house screaming our middle daughter had been in a bad accident and was bleeding everywhere and you could see her bone. Luckily it turned out not to be the bone, just looked like since the cut was quite bad. We took her to x-ray and luckily again nothing was broken. She does a have bad sprain and some torn ligaments but otherwise is good. It is pretty swollen and there are REALLY big pieces missing out of her leg.

I had hoped to take Zorro for a nice long walk but it is raining again.... God this weather is crud! I really just like one beautiful sunny day!!! We will start practising with Zorro again the TOKO today. We have been working with him to get him use to jumping over things. Now he is a bit better. At the inital practise with the trainer we had to drag him over the hurdle!

Well that is it for now. Hopefully today we dont have any accidents, but in my experience those bad things always come in three's. Lets hope not.....

July 13th, 2008

2008-07-13T23:42:00.000-07:00

13.07.2008

Where or where is summer???

Well the kids have been home now for over a month... truely I am exhausted. I am taking Zorro out as much as I can but with this rainy, (lets face it and call it what it is) SHITTY weather it is impossible to do anything!!! Petteri has started his holiday so instead of 5 kids and a dog to clean up after I have 5 kids, a dog and a husband......

Zorro and I have taken a break from the TOKO for the time being since I have been quite busy re-modeling our house. Our daughter's flooded our upstairs hallway so badly we had to pull up our tiles on the floor..... guess what we found? MOLD totally freaked! So we are fixing that luckily for us it was surface damage and our insurance is paying it!

Zorro is now totally adjusted to the RAW diet! He is eating bones every evening and loving it! He is soooo much happier dog! He "blew" his coat which I thought would make him look so little since the first blow left him a bit empty... well he slightly shed after that and still looks like a full rough collie.... kinda bummed I didnt enter him into the dog show now...

Rough's life blog will be taking a bit of a turn now.... see remember me mentioning how hubby wanted a cat instead of a dog... well umm.... we adopted TWO kittens who will be coming home in about 5 weeks. I have to say they really stole my heart. So we have both been researching researching researching everything we need to know about cats, care, their behaviorism, their personalities...everything! Hubby only wanted one, but I have been researching cats since Christmas (so about 7 months) and every book, newpaper article, e-article, cat forums and cat help groups said "Take two kittens less behavioral problems" soooo we took two. We were only going to take our lovely cream tabby boy, but we found this lovely silver/blue tabby girl (my husbands favorite colored cat) so he melted so easily and reserved her for us! Needless to say Zorro's life just got a bit "rougher".

June 24th, 2008

2008-06-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

24. 06.2008

We had Zorro's final training tonight.. well actually not. We missed last week since I was feeling unwell so we have a make-up next Monday. Zorro has been doing good however he was not wanting to jump over the bar at all. He kept trying to go around it. I had to jump with him the first and second time, pull him over the third and fouth time and finally on the fifth time he managed to jump himself... silly dog! Towards the end he was not listening but it was because he needed to poop. Poor guy he was just trying not to poop in the rink. We have managed to accomplish one thing that I am very proud of! He plays after the trainings!!! This has been a big task for me and he is getting the hang of it very well. I am so pleased!

Zorro has been a bit stressed as we have some friends staying with us and their two children. The house is extra crowded but he is managing it ok. He has been shedding like crazy and but somehow he is still VERY full of coat. Now I wish I had entered him into the Oulu show in July. Oh well there is one in August in Kuopio. In July we will be going to a cat show instead to watch. Petteri and I have been thinking of to take an Egyptian Mau or not and I wanted to go to the shows to see if there is any. According to one of the two breeders in Finland most likely there will not be, but we will see. Petteri is hoping I think more to take an Egyptian Mau over another collie but I am pushing for the collie.

Well now I must go. My God-daughter is visiting to us and I want to see her as much as I can!!!

June 13th, 2008

2008-06-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

13.06.2008

It seems everytime I get him FINALLY doing one thing he forgets to do another. But I am guessing this is very normal. ;) I practised and practised a perfect "close" and "foot" and now his "maahan" and "here" are lacking..... So we are working on that today. But we are making progress! I look back at to what we were doing just 4 weeks ago and I think Zorro and I have come quite away. There were things I thought he will never pick up (for instance the butt bumping) but he has picked them up quickly and doing ok. I dont see us competing for awhile but he is doing ok....

I have realised I have created a monster! My oldest daughter Miia has decided it is her great joy to train Zorro. She is making him do all his commands and showing them to all her friends (just like her mother did when she was that age....) and now she is training my youngest daughter Erica to do them too. I looked outside yesterday to see my 2 year old putting Zorro in a "close" position and "maahan". At least that explains why he feels he can lay with his body crooked and still get a treat! I guess I have to teach them not to do that. So technically I am not training just my dog, I am also going to have to train my kids too! ;) A mother's work is never done!

We really need to work on our "maahan" (down in finnish) he was doing so good but now he goes half down. He is such a stinker! But we are having such a good time!

Zorro seems to be melting the husbands icey interior where dogs are concerned too. The other night as we were going to bed we walked into our room to see Zorro laying on our bed. A BIGGGG no no in Petteri's book. But I just rolled him over to Pete's side and went to bed. Pete comes back in the room after checking on the baby and says "oh sure!!!! now he is on my side!" So Petteri rolls him over into the middle of the bed and climbs on in. I quick put my arm around Zorro and say "he will leave in a minute" Pete gives him this look like "ruddy dog....took my spot" and Zorro licks his nose. To my utter amazement Pete says "ahhh it's okay, he can stay" I know deep down Petteri really likes this dog but cant admit now that he has spent so much time telling everyone he is not a "dog person" This I find very funny as last Saturday as Petteri was suffering terribly from a hang over he spent all day in bed with the dog right next to him. When I finally went up to tell him to get his butt out of bed he asked "do you think he can really tell that I dont feel good? Or is it something people just say??" I reassured him "no darling he knows"

June 10th, 2008

2008-06-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

10.06.2008

This week has been hectic and full of news...... I had hoped our family would be bringing another collie into our home around December, but it seems that will no longer be possible. It is quite heart breaking for me, but I am a firm believer everything happens for a reason and our other collie will come when the time is right.

Zorro has been shedding LIKE CRAZY so I decided (against my better judgement) not to enter him into next months dog show here in Oulu. He has NEVER lost his full coat before, but I figured that with the luck I have been having he would this time. After one week of losing his coat he is looking a bit "empty" in the fuffy department and his back end has rusted out pretty bad. So maybe it was a good idea not to enter him.

We had our 4th TOKO training today. He was VERY excited about going! As soon as he smelled the meat balls in my pocket he started crying... he jumped straight into the car and hardly made a peep on the way there. He did well. It still amazes me how can do SO GREAT at home when we are training but as soon as we go to the training place he does everything half assed.... His sits are to slow or off to the side, he doesnt stay when he should, his down is always with half his body off... very frustrating

He still doesnt play.... ever. Very frustrating today when we got there he was playing playing playing and as soon as the teacher said "ok!!" he stopped.... she said play with your dog give the command place, praise and play again. Zorro looked at me like "WHAT??? We already did that!?" Seriously what should be done with this boy! He was getting better... but not today. He had a good time though and so did I so I know it is worth going! He loves getting out there and it is nice for me to be able to work with him without all my kids around saying "I want to do it too!" "let me have a turn" I am very excited to finish my last two lessons. There will be a lot of work ahead to get him ready for competing and I doubt if we ever do REALLY great, but still it is fun!!!

Oh well.. now it is of to put kids to bed and than hopefully clean my house and feed Zorro!

June 4th

2008-06-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

04.06.2008

Busy busy! Kids have started summer holiday so we are totally running on CRAZY here at the moment! Zorro and I had our TOKO yesterday and all went ok. He still wont play with me while training, but Minna suggested that when we are at home and playing give a quick little command and "Good boy! YAY!" and play some more. That should start getting him to incorporate into training.

We practised our down and staying as we walked away. Zorro is still leaning to the one side with his butt... That is really annoying I have to say! But for the most he did good with that. We have practised it a lot so he is doing okay and I am happy.

We also have started to learn how to make him "bump his butt" (sorry dont know how else to discribe that.) It is for when I want Zorro in "place" and he scootches his butt to my side instead of going all the way around. He doesnt HAVE to but it looks nicer and the dog looks more eager. Zorro doesnt get that. I tried today and he just layed down after I said place for the 3rd time and moved a bit for him to scootch a bit more. Kind of like SCREW YOU!

Now he is resting. He has had a long walk and spent most of the day outside with me gardening. He was playing with the kids and the neighbors kids too so he is pooped. We didnt do any heavy training today. I have noticed if it goes longer that 30 minutes he gets slow and not so responisve and everyday is not good.

His stomach is adjusting to the RAW. Bones are still not the best, cow stomach is still toughy but everything else is fine... Veggies and the meat have given us no problems and he seems much better! Couldnt be happier and neither could Zorro!

May 28th

2008-05-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

28.05.08

eww.. been awhile. Had TOKO training yesterday with Zorro. We had practised quite hard all week, but for some reason when we went there he was sitting there like "ha?? what?? what are you doing?" Very frustrating. So today we didnt practise. I think he is a bit bored and needs a break for a day or two. We also seriously need to figure out how to play with this dog. He doest fetch, like squeeky toys nothing, except of course tug of war. Problem is at class we are to do a comman and then play. But Zorro knows I have food in my pocket and wont play. He sits down and looks at me like "give me the food lady!"

Zorro's RAW diet is going okay. I notice he has a hard time with cow stomach. I thought it would start to adjust except that it has been two weeks and he still is a bit yucky tummy. I think I will start putting the Pimä in his food for awhile again to see if it helps. It is weird. He always seems to do good for three weeks and than he starts getting yucky tummies and problems... VERY frustrating!

May 23rd

2008-05-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

23.05.2008

Well today was not so good... but I figured this would happen. He started to get a bit bored, wanted to see if he could get away with a sloppy "place" slow "maahan" and wide "foot" so tomorrow we take a break and have a fun day to just relax and play and take the kids to the park. (he is my extra eyes and ears and does a great job at it.)

He started off great but after about 10 minutes he got a bit... "come on mom!!! something new ANYTHING!" Also now when I tell him to come he goes right to place which I dont think is a good thing. So we were working on his "come" and sitting in front of me where he should be. So all the work on "place" just screwed up the "come" but I was expecting this too. I know enough through friends and readings that just when you think "YES! We got it!" a little something comes along to remind you ..."ummmmm...not yet dear!"

Tomorrow we will pick up another bone for him to practise a few minutes on and that should be the start of him taking bones. He needs to start cause his breath is awful and no amount of brushing helps! YUCKKKY! Also we are trying turkey meat tonight to see if it sits better than the cow meat. The cow meat is fine, but with the training maybe he needs a bit less fat?

Looking forward to another training class on Tuesday. My girls love this as they go to a co-workers with Petteri who have a HUGE trampoline, cat and a turtle who likes to eat Petteri's socks!

May 22nd

2008-05-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

22.05.2008

I think we had success today! Zorro started to go to "place" very well and with a lot of accuracy in his placement. I dont even need to take a step back anymore! WOO HOO!! His "foot" work is still okay, but he gets distracted easily and sometimes doesnt move right with me from the get go. But I know this will come with practise too!

We had a huge turning point with "maahan" too! I was able to put him in "place" "foot" and "maahan" while I was still walking and when I turned around he was laying down!! I was standing there with my mouth hanging open as I figured he would be sitting or coming towards me but nope he was there looking at me like "what?"

He is still wide butt when I put him in "maahan" so that will be but we work on tomorrow. But even that I have seen improvement! His pace is getting faster and I think for a "pretty dog" he is showing a good amount of enjoyment in working with me!

My biggest concern now is his excitement. When we are done (or at least I think we should stop) he wants to keep going and wont play with me afterwards. He likes his food and just wants to keep getting the treats. He isnt big on playing. He never has been.... hopefully he doesnt get bored with the trainings. I stop when he is happy and I am getting bored putting him in the same things over and over again. I have even started to try different commands that he doesnt know just to keep it interesting and enjoyable for us both.

We have had other great success with Zorro too! His stomach! We switched him to a RAW diet and most of his stomach issues are getting better! He still cant handle bones but I found a way to get that going with out much upset. He will get another one today for 2 minutes, tomorrow for 3 minutes ect until he is able to eat the whole bone.

May 21st

2008-05-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

21.05.2008

Yesterday was a good day! Well if you dont count in that my two youngest kids are sick again and Noah the baby is having some issue with mommy not holding him all the time... The kids and I took Zorro out for his daily morning walk and ran into another new neighbor and her 7 month old collie girl Vivi. I believe this now makes about 11 collies in a 3 minute walk, radius of our place. Her collie girl is a BEAUTIFUL sable girl who has great ears.... oh I wish Petteri would let me take another collie someday! I love my Zorro but I dont see him doing so great in sports as his enjoyment for it isnt really there, but I am enjoying working with him and he is so easy to train that it is good practise for me even if we dont succeed in competitions.

We seem to be making progress on his "place." With the aid of our kitchen counter Zorro started to realise that he needs to be right next to me when I say "place." However he still needs to be directed to move there as when I say "place" he just looks at me like "ha?? food??, where is the food?" We practised with the counter for about 5 minutes and than I took him outside to practise. I would say without the aid of the counter to get him where he needs to be he is accurate with body placement about 80% of the time while being directed to go there. We also practise "foot" (heel) "maahan" (down) and "istu" (sit) I found it easier to use some Finnish commands as it is easier for me to sound "peppy!"

Zorro's "foot" is ok, it isnt a huge concern for me at the moment. His "maahan" he does the same as he does with "istu" it is half body cocked. We will work more on this tomorrow. Also I would like to get him to start going down while walking. We started it yesterday but I was working more on his excitment to go down. We are making progress there too. Everything comes in time. I just dont want to go to class next week and have it look like we didnt do any training!

As we were practising the neighbor lady came out with her two collies and commented how well our training was going. I have no idea if she trains with hers but the compliment was quite nice!We practised for about a total 30 minutes. I dont know if this is long enough but I know Zorro goes stubborn quickly when he gets bored so we will see what tomorrow brings!

May 20th, 2008 (start of TOKO training)

2008-05-20T21:10:00.001-07:00

20.05.2008

Zorro and I started our TOKO training today. It went quite well considering. (Zorro had been ill the whole day with upset tummy thanks to his owner being a total nutter and giving him his bone before I had time to sit down and monitor how much he ate. I went back five minutes later and he ate it all up... now we both are paying for it.)

Our lessons started with getting our dogs to play for one minute. Zorro looked at me like "lady screw the toy and GIVE ME THE FOOD!!" Zorro is not one for playing unless it is a good tug-of-war which he didnt feel up to at all!

Following that we were to get our dogs to be in their "place" at our side. This is not a strong area for Zorro and I and as usual he sat with his butt off to the side and his nose in my goodie pocket! But our lovely trainer suggested up against the wall and it worked better. So we will be doing our "place" command in the kitchen until he gets it.

Next we worked on greetings. Our trainer Minna came up to see all the dogs in their sitting positions and as usual Zorro got up to greet her. I didnt know what was going on at this point as she had been explaining in Finnish and as she approached me she was explaining in English so I didnt get a chance to tell Zorro to stay. I think he might have, but who knows with that one!

Following that we did some heel work. Zorro did good once Minna pointed out my treat is held in the wrong hand. I hold it always in the right where it should be in left. As soon as I held it in the left he was right where he should be. (Like I said Zorro and I both have so much to learn!) But for the most I was VERY proud of Zorro's heeling as this is such a problem for him and I usually. But I think putting the treat in the other hand helped a lot.

After that we put the dogs in a "place" and "down" position. Zorro is generally quite good with his down and when he sees a big treat he doesnt lay down he jumps down and slams his tummy on the ground. Which he was doing... After this we put the three together. We put our dogs in "place" "heel" "down" and took a few steps past our dog, turned around, went back to our dog and then she said "too pat him and tell him what a good boy he is and get him excited" which I did but he looked at me like "screw you where is THE FOOD!?" After a few times doing this with him I got kinda excited as he started to get and I started to grow more confident in getting him in his "place" He still needed to be lured there but he was sitting next to me without his butt off to the side more often. However everytime I told him "down" that butt when ploop to the side.

Over all I think for our first time it went really well! I am really looking forward to going again next week and I know Zorro is as he still wanted to do commands when we got home. We didnt though, I didnt want to over do them until he got bored but we will be doing them today in the kitchen so his butt stops doing that ploop thing!

Zorro's big day

2008-05-20T21:06:00.000-07:00

Sunday May 18th, I took Zorro to a match show. It was the first time either had been in a ring and he did great! He wanted to play NON STOP except as soon as we entered the ring he was like "I am a PRO dont mess with me!" I was SO PROUD OF MY DOG!!!! We competed first against one other dog and we were awarded the red tag. (I didnt know that red was the better of the two until a friend called me and I asked) After waiting another hour in the cold rain we went to compete with the other Redders and we came 3rd! It was a great way to end the 28th year of my life as I turned the dreaded 29 the day after.