Rowan's moment of triumph!

All the interesting stuff happens while I'm at work.
(Or maybe I'm just better at managing my animals than my parents.)

My parents cooked a ham last night, and carved too many pieces, so they left two on a plate on the counter.
Somehow, Rowan managed to jump onto the counter unseen while they were eating, grab the two pieces of ham, jump down, and consume most of one piece before being discovered.

I must say she is looking very self satisfied this morning.

The boy was fabulous today!

So, this morning was our first Family Dog 2 class-

Chan got a little "herdy" during playtime before class,
but immediately recalled out of play group,
so interrupting him wasn't a problem.

Despite being a total flake about heeling all week,
he practiced heeling with minimal distractions.

He spent most of his time focused on me,
and it was fairly easy to regain his attention
if it wandered.
I could drop the leash for most exercises.

The only bad part of the night occurred when a thirteen month old golden decided to resource guard one of the other people that was not his owner and flattened a five month old golden puppy during free play. He was quickly grabbed and corrected.

I'm going to have to watch the older golden and encourage Chan to be gentle with the baby.
It'll be interesting to see how the instructor handles play after this incident.

I owe an apology to my cat...

...for almost forgetting her birthday.
I hope she'll buy the excuse that I was very distracted by some of my friends having a crisis with their 16 year old dog. (We wish Mel a quick recovery from her attack of Vestibular Disease.)

So...
Happy birthday Rowan-kitten!
13 years of utter peskiness and cuteness!

Life and the suburban farmdog

My suburban boy decided to chase some "big game" while I was off at work tonight.

Chandler apparently spotted a large perched redtailed hawk at the edge of the woods before my father did, and silently launched himself at it in full charge.
The hawk quickly decided to leave in a low swoop across the yard, and Chan changed direction to chase it.
Then of course, the fun ended as he hit the end of the 28 foot flexi lead. (Poor boy.)

This has me a bit curious. He hasn't been taught or encouraged to chase perched birds, but other members of his breed reportedly do keep birds of prey from swooping down on the chickens and guinea hens. I'm wondering if this an innate English Shepherd behavior of some type, either driven by prey drive, or farmdog sense of "things that should not be here."

Given the difficulty of figuring out what a dog is thinking, I'll probably never know.