Guido & Titan & Gigi’s Blog

**Updated** Pictures have been posted to the gallery…

Since I apparently have nothing of value to say that isn’t dog related, I won’t fight it and will just post about Titan again. I’m behind in the checkbook. I haven’t called the people I need to call. I need to take my bike to the shop. I need to go grocery shopping. But the dog is walked twice every day. He’s got plenty of food. He’s brushed consistently. The yard is clear and the house is cleaned regularly to keep it from being nasty with dog stuff. He’s taken to training and activities. He’s played with a lot and petted so much I think he’s getting addicted to it. So in short, I’m slacking on many of my duties because the doggie takes so much time to take care of and play with. It’s amazing how he’s integrated into the house.

Saturday was absolutely beautiful. It was 72-82 degrees around the Puget Sound area, and we lucked out for it because now it’s back to 50’s and rain. Anyway, Saturday was the Bernese Club’s Herding Day down at Ewe-Topia. Ewe-Topia is a sheep farm, and they train dogs to herd sheep & ducks, plus they have a large dog park and also teach obedience and have a problem dog make-over class. Jen takes Duncan there all the time, but it’s rather far away and I’ve never been so this was a good day to get out and see what Titan could do. There were 55 Berners there, and considering the size of Berners, that was over 2 tons of doggies waiting to herd sheep.

Titan was excited as soon as he got out of the car. He met Dave immediately but didn’t recognize him right away. He growled a bit, then he got a good sniff and suddenly BAM!! IT’S DAVE!! From that moment on he was super excito-spazzola dog. Then he saw Shirley and his good buddy Bart the Berner. Of course, the puppy in him is stronger than his manners, so he was all up in Bart’s grill, which Bart doesn’t appreciate so he growled a bit. Joe, the owner of Ewe-Topia, kinda pissed me off with his “that dog has no social skills” comment without knowing the context. Scuze me fatboy, but you get separated from your brother suddenly without warning then magically see him somewhere else, and let’s see you restrain yourself with joy to see him. I understand he’s a trainer and all that, but I wonder who else might need some social skills to know not to offend a new person at your place? Hmmm… Anyway… it’s not a big deal and I like Joe and how he handles the dogs so all of that is fine, but it pissed me off at the moment. Titan liked him too. Titan got to romp in the field with the other Berners and got along quite well with most of them all, but there was a couple smaller mix types that he didn’t like much at all.

I didn’t know what to expect from Titan in the sheep pen. I figured he’d be afraid of the sheep since he’s so timid, or just disinterested in the sheep and more interested in smelling everything and eating poo. WRONG! That’s the funny thing about instinct. It’s there even if you don’t see it. He knew what to do. He didn’t need much correction, but he did need some encouragement to get rolling with chasing the sheep. He likes to chase, so even if he wasn’t herding exactly, he was good at chasing the sheep and keeping them together when they’d break, which I guess is basically herding. He had a great time in the pen, chasing sheep, barking, romping around, being a big puppy. Joe said he did very well for his first time, but Titan’s a bit unsure about the pole he uses. After his first run any time we were sitting close to the pen he was fixated on the sheep and wanted to go play. He’d try to lunge towards the fence when they’d get close, he’d whimper/walrus a bit. He likey the sheep.

Later in the day he had a second run and was going much better this time with his fundamentals, but he was getting tired from all the excitement so his attention wasn’t as tight. Then he was chasing one sheep around an obstacle and whacked his paw pretty hard on it and came up quite gimpy. He stood there with his paw up and looking at me like “Ow! Ow! Ow!” so I checked him out and we walked it off. But that took the fun out it, so he wasn’t into it that much afterwards. We finished up and left the pen, but he still did quite well. Everyone was impressed.

I can blather on more about his herding skeelz, but why not watch the video! (if the embedded video doesn’t work, look here) Pictures will be available on the pictures page later when I get them all from Dave.

He earned his Herding Instinct Certificate. Hooray for puppy!

The rest of the day Titan was a zombie. Too much excitement & exercise makes a very tired doggie. He was definately sore afterwards. Not his paw, that was fine, but just all over. Like you are when you go out and do a lot of work and use muscles you don’t normally use. So, he had a lazy weekend until we went to his “Better Manners” training class at Ahimsa. He did well, and we have a little clicker and tons of homework to work on this week.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 7:30 am and is filed under Titan, Gigi, & Doggies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.