More Catching Up...

From four months on we entered Aubrey into a training course. I had been planning to enter her into a "real" course, but during one of our social ventures we ran into Petsmart's primary trainer. She helped me out with a few things, then talked me into signing up Aubrey for her classes - I relented, figuring it'd be good for socialization if nothing else.

As fate would have it, we managed to run into the only bloody Petsmart employee that actually has a passion for what they do, and knows what they're talking about to boot. So she went through all the classes and, predictably (of course!), was top performer of every one. Now, when I first looked into Shilohs I didn't really take the intelligence level seriously. All breeders say their breed is unnaturally intelligent, after all. So I was pretty blindsided (and thrilled) by how quickly she caught on to every single command. Midway through every class she was bored, and we'd be stuck redoing the same tricks while everyone else caught up! This was during my no pictures phase, so I don't have any to share of her in class.

This is the lovely lady at either five or six months. Once she was big enough to jump on that couch piece herself, she pretty much lived on the darn thing.

Spoiled? Aubrey? Nooo! Perish the thought!

Throughout her little training "career" she was incredibly polite and friendly. This lasted until about 10 months old, when a switch apparently went off and she was the tough kid on the block. Barking, lunging... I suspect she enjoys seeing people freak the heck out and run away.

As I'm sure all giant breed owners know, it's kind of tough to convince someone to work with you when you have 70 pounds of snarling fur and teeth pulling on the lead. Even more so when half the ignorant populace is screaming left and right that your puppy is a big mean wolf. The people that did work with me were saints - once she figured out she couldn't get them to go away, she went back to being the quiet little thing she was prior to the bratty phase. Such people were few and far between, unfortunately. So with very few folks brave or willing enough to help me work out her issues, that left me to find some other ways on stamping out the bad behavior.

Enter the dreaded Gentle Leader. (No pictures of her in it during that time period - I'm sure she's thankful such evidence doesn't exist, anyways.) This would be my only complaint about the trainer we utilized - she was very, very soft in her corrections. In fact, corrections did not exist. If she barked, we turned her around... which was exactly what she wanted anyways. So once that didn't work, I made her watch me. A little success... until she figured out if she barked, waited a second, then looked at me she'd get a treat every time. Okay... now what?

"Now what" turned into seeming dog aggression. It appeared she took her barking fanaticism towards people, and fired it up tenfold whenever she saw a dog. Wonderful! So began again the gentle leader "corrections". Leading away, distractions, stuffing her with treats so she wouldn't get the chance to bark in the first place!

Not a single thing worked. So finally (ie. four months later) I did what I should have done in the first place - asked Laura what I'm doing wrong. I was utterly distraught; somehow I'd managed to ruin this perfectly mannered dog, and didn't even realize how I'd done it!

Turns out Gentle Leaders are a bad thing. Oopsy! So I implore you to take a note from my book - utilize your breeder's knowledge. It makes me sick thinking of all those wasted weeks pulling on my dog's nose when it was only making it worse.

Here's Aubrey at 12 months, roughly. Her coat went from that blotchy black (During which time she was my Ugly Scruffy) to the nicely thinned out coloration she has in the above. I was beyond pleased with the change, and she's only gotten prettier in the last two months!
Can you believe she fit into that tiny airline crate less than a year ago?

Now that we're mostly all caught up, the new entries should be a good deal shorter.

Some Catching Up...

So after much deliberation and missing of tons of photo opportunities, I've finally made a blog for Aubers! Unfortunately I am very much not a "picture person", so pictures of her first year are scarce. Hopefully her following years will have more to gawk over!

I do have some, though, and we'll go ahead and get started with those.

After a 9 month wait, we took a plane ride to Washington to see the LER, and meet Laura and all her dogs. Her facility is amazing! After meeting everyone and watching the LER (I have no idea where all those pictures ended up) we ended up getting Pink Girl - now better known as Aubrey. We took her back to our hotel and she let us know what we'd be dealing with from then on...

She was right at home even then, and ended up sleeping on the hotel bed with us the same night. No accidents, and lots of cuddles! She was a dream on the ~18 hour ride back home, and did nothing but sleep almost the entire way.

We also figured out one of her many mind boggling quirks - turns out our polite little lady absolutely refuses to go potty if she doesn't know the area. Luckily we planned a rest stop with a family member in Oregon, and after about four hours there she finally went to the bathroom. She still hasn't dropped this quirk, which works for me - means I don't have to carry poop bags around!

About two months after getting Aubrey we lost our house out in the country, which meant moving back into the city. This landed us in a duplex about half the size of what we were in, but luckily the yard was about as big as the dog area of our property (and a lot greener) so she didn't seem to mind the change. As seen in this picture, she went through a very light fur phase. As time went on, that stripe on her back got even darker and all of her black fur seemed to originate there as it spread out. Was a pretty cool effect.

That stick was her sole souvenir from Marysville, and lasted about another month before my mom got tired of the bark being everywhere. She was very brokenhearted when we finally offed the thing, but then next day replaced it with her kong toy... Hurrah for small puppy attention spans!



Isn't that just the cutest thing ever? Attentive viewers may note her eyes are open - that's the first time I ever saw her sleep that way, and she's continued it. Kind of creepy at times, but if she wants dried out eyes every morning who am I to stop her? After these pictures I went on a four month strike of taking nothing, so I'll go ahead and round this entry off. 6-10 month pictures next one!