Happy Birthday, Tiger

It's her first birthday. We had a big party on Saturday, with lots of presents, balloons, and cake. She wasn't quite sure what to do with the presents at first, but with a bit of prompting she started to warm up.

Tiger did not like the way the cake and frosting felt on her fingers, so she refused to pick it up. If someone felt inclined to put a piece of cake in her mouth, she'd eat it, but she wasn't going to get her fingers sticky!

Later, we went to the Golden Corral for dinner. Tiger ate lots of pears and crackers, but refused anything else. Even though she's perfectly happy eating pureed carrots or green beans that are fed to her, she was not the least bit interested in eating pieces. In fact, when I put carrots in front of her she daintily picked them up and dropped them on the floor. She despised even the very sight of them!

All in all, the party went well, and now Tiger is enjoying all of her new toys.

A Criminal, or Just Misunderstood?

So, Alice Cooper has an evening radio show, and it is quickly becoming my favorite show*. Even though I would be hard-pressed to name any Alice Cooper song, I've found that he is a very funny man with good taste in music. Well, except that at the moment he is playing Peter Frampton, but only because it was requested by a fan.

He plays mostly classic rock, with occassional forays into the 80s and 90s, as well as a few dusty, forgotten old songs per night. It's a great chance to hear some songs you might not have heard in a while, if ever.

Check out his site at http://www.nightswithalicecooper.com to find out if a radio station near you plays his show. He's on 7pm-midnight, Monday through Friday.

*Breakfast With the Beatles on Sunday mornings is still my top favorite.

Motivation and Correction, the Two Halves of Training

Phantom is coming along nicely in his training. I learned two things about him which have helped me make the training regimen more effective. First, he loves to be petted, which makes it a strong motivator for him. Second, when he doesn't understand what he's supposed to do, he shuts down and refuses to do anything. The second thing was why he was refusing to walk: anytime a heel correction showed him what he was NOT supposed to do, he gave up. My solution was to have him stop, sit and be praised/petted anytime he walked a few steps in the proper heel position. Verbally praising him was not enough.

Over the last few days I have been lengthening the amount of time he has to heel properly to get his praise. Consequently I have had far fewer heel corrections as he is actively trying to stay in the proper position to earn his praise. So the frequent praise has kept his motivation high enough that the occasional corrections don't shut him down.

I have also used this technique to build up his confidence when we leave our property. At first he was very leery of walking down the road away from the goats, but this morning he cheerfully heeled to the edge of the property with no visible nervousness. I also took him up the wash, where we have never gone before. Less than a week ago he would have balked at that, but today he handled it beautifully.

Starting in December I want to start taking him on hikes to build up his confidence further. It will give me a chance to work with him in strange environments that don't have a lot of people or other dogs around. Then I will start taking him through urban environments, increasing in intensity as he progresses. One of the final places will probably be PetSmart, because there will be plenty of ill-behaved yet leashed dogs there to test his training.

I'm very pleased with the progress that he has been making. I'm still very much a novice trainer, so it's exciting to be able to see just what I need to do to help him learn effectively. I see a lot of potential in this dog; I think he will be able to learn a lot.

From a Bust of Pallas

Corvus has decided to start his own blog, which he has titled "From a Bust of Pallas, or, the Wisdom of Ravens." You can read it here. Note that he is using the name Sadeq for his blog.

And we're off!

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) began today. The goal is to have 50,000 words of a novel completed by November 30.

I am treating this as a month-long flash challenge. In other words, I have done almost no planning before-hand, and I'll just be following where the story leads me.

I have started with a house that I invented during a Liberty Hall writing exercise based on the words "tarnished walnut panelling." I also have a title, provided by Corvus: "The Pervasive Aroma of Pesto."

So far today I've written around 600 words. I've discovered that my main character's name is Tony, and that his mother has disappeared. There is also crazy Uncle Al and a mysterious embroidered shower curtain that is sure to be the key to everything.

I have a feeling that it will be heading into the realms of urban fantasy very quickly, which is fine by me. I'm looking forward to finding out what's going on, and why Tony's mother disappeared.