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I think it’s time that Karma finds a new safe zone, since getting in and out of her current one is starting to get a bit tricky, LOL! Photo from July 23, 2011:  Photo from September 29, 2011: 
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As I stand in my kitchen witnessing this doggie power struggle on a VERY regular basis, all I can think of are these modified song lyrics: Pooches all over the world… Join paws… Start a love train, love train…  For nearly a week, I have been trying to capture Karma jumping into the pool with no luck. Whenever we were outside with all the camera equipment, Karma just “didn’t feel like it” that day. The days we didn’t think to lug everything outside, she was a little goldfish. Last week, I managed to capture nearly 30 video clips of her jumping and playing in the pool but couldn’t bring myself to sort through all the footage. Today, I got lucky. I found Orso and Karma in the pool. I IMMEDIATELY grabbed my sports camera with my big lens and ran outside to grab a spot on the other end of the pool. I sat there for almost an hour just watching and snapping away. I took a ton of photos! This little girl was pool crazy today! At just barely 20 weeks of age, she is so confident and trusts us incredibly. There must be something special in that Lionheart blood because this is one courageous little pup! Below are our favorites of the day! Enjoy!       Tonight was a lot of fun at our house! My sister, Yvette, and her three boys, Johnnie (13), Jamie (10) and Jake (6), came over for a night of wine, cheese and homemade pizza. Mike, Yvette’s boyfriend, who is stationed in Iraq right now, was also there with us via Skype! Johnnie went grocery shopping while Yvette and I set up the appetizer spread. Meanwhile, Orso, Karma, Mouse & Luna hung out with all the kids and provided some entertainment for everyone. Orso fell in love with Jake, Mouse fell in love with Jamie and Johnnie demanded all of their respect by dishing out obedience commands like an old pro! All 3 boys helped make 3 pizzas and they also helped me make the dogs’ dinners. The night ended with a couple of rented movies – yes, we still go to Blockbuster around here… Needless to say, I took a whole bunch of photos of everyone hanging out throughout the night, see below! Enjoy!  On Monday night, I came home from a weekend trip to Key West. Despite knowing that they were getting lots of love from Nichelle, their dogsitter extraordinaire, I missed the dogs very much and was eager to get home and spend some time with them. It was the first time I had slept out of the house since Karma came home, so I was happy to come home and make up for our absence by letting everyone play in the pool. Almost immediately, Karma JUMPED into the pool! We were shocked! We hadn’t taught her how to jump in, she just did it on her own. She was standing on the first pool step and would jump out into the middle of the pool like she’d been doing it for years! It caught us by such surprise that we didn’t have a video camera on us to film her. This afternoon, we went outside armed with our camera and big lens AND the video camera, ready to capture Karma’s graceful pool plunges! No such luck! Today she did not feel like jumping in but she did go swimming for a little while with Orso. Below are some cute shots and all the way at the bottom is a 12-second video of Karma swimming around the pool. Enjoy! Here are some cute photos of Orso, Karma, Luna & Mouse all sharing a new tug toy, enjoy! 
 Natural K9 Supplies in South Miami, where we buy all our Orijen dog food (they have the BEST pricing anywhere on this food!!!!), has a monthly photo contest and the winner gets a bunch of awesome doggie goodies. We entered Orso’s photo (below) in the September contest and he won thanks to all the awesome people who voted for Orso’s photo by “liking” it on Facebook! Orso won a box full of lots of goodies that Natural K9 Supplies generously offered as his prize, see photos below! Thanks, Natural K9 Supplies! Photo of Orso that we entered in the contest:  Screen shot of the contest results:  Orso’s goodies & his rare opportunity to not only JUMP on the kitchen counter to investigate his goodies but also destroy the box they came in:  Below are a couple of cute video clips of Mouse – our Doberman rescue – giving Karma some love. This might not seem like anything special, but Mouse is a very particular dog. We rescued him when he was about 4 months old and has always had problems with dog aggression. He also is very timid with people, despite our efforts to socialize him, and doesn’t really understand how to play with the other dogs in the pack. We suspect that he was separated from his momma and the rest of his littermates too early and never learned how to play within a pack. By the time he came to us, he was a wreck! He has come a long way since then – he is turning 6 years old in November. Yay, Mouse!!! Mouse is obsessively in doggie love with Karma. We didn’t expect this at all! He was not very nice to Karma when she first came home and we had to establish her place in the pack for her, since Mouse was being a grouch with her. Now, he doesn’t leave her alone and lets her do anything she wants to him, which is extremely rare for Mouse. For me, it’s awesome to see this interaction and wanted to share it with you. By the way, notice how Orso comes around at the end of each of the 2 videos to run interference. He is very protective of Karma! Sorry the quality is so poor, but it was shot in our family room with no lights on, so it’s pretty grainy. Enjoy! Tonight was great for Team Karma! Dee & Amaris from Applause Your Paws encouraged me to bring Karma to Amaris’ Beginner Obedience class right before Karma’s Puppy class and I did. Karma got to meet new dogs, all of whom were adults (I think, see short video clip below), and interact with new people. She did great! We all took turns working with each other’s dogs so that everyone in the class worked with each dog at least once. Since class was outdoors, I worked on conformation mostly with a little bit of obedience – with Amaris’ blessing, of course – and Karma was awesome! She held a stack for me several times and her gaiting is getting much better! What a success! Between classes, Karma hung out in a flower bed and destroyed some landscaping. What a little princess!    For our puppy class, it was a full house! There were 8 dogs there today! What a wonderful turnout! Karma was pretty tired from the obedience class so she wasn’t as hyper as usual, but she still managed to find some energy to play with the other puppies. We left a little early because Karma was getting really tired, but we still got some fun photos, see below! By the way, all the snarling photos are just play! There was no aggression going on! Enjoy!  Thank you to Jimmy Stanchio of SACCI (Society in America for Cane Corso Italiano) for getting Orso’s Master Champion certificate out to us so promptly!
Tonight, Karma and I went to a group conformation handling class taught by Rosy Harkow of Rosewater Labradors and held at Tracy Hanna’s indoor agility facility, Paws in Motion.
The evening got off to a rocky start when Karma threw up in the Jeep on the way to class. Yay, Karma! When we arrived at Paws in Motion, she refused to pee, so I spent most of class freaking out that she would have an accident indoors, which thank the doggie gods that she didn’t! When I wasn’t stressed about her having a puppy pee-pee accident, I was stressing about her behavior. I know she’s a puppy and it’s only her second conformation class, but it’s not her second time around other dogs. She has been going to puppy class for 6 or 7 weeks already and is accustomed to being around other dogs. Tonight, she was a maniac! She was so enthralled by all these other dogs! It was very frustrating! She would literally be gaiting in one direction and her head was turned completely around! Same with stacking! At least she did stand patiently – kinda, sorta – for examination 2 of the times and held a nice stand 2 or 3 times. I left there very appreciative that Rosy, Tracy and the other class-goers were empathetic that she is so young and still learning! We don’t have this class again for 2 weeks, so it gives Team Karma some time to work on our skills! Stay tuned! Cleo at almost 7 months of age: 
In celebration of Labor Day and today’s gorgeous weather, I loaded the 4 dogs into the Jeep and took off to Grandma Eva & Grandpa Frank’s house for a beach day! Karma has just learned how to swim, so today was going to be her first time in open water! She did awesome! She went right in and frolicked like a madwoman! All 4 of them played for hours and Karma finally felt comfortable enough to go into the deep open water alone to play with Orso and fetch! It was so great to see her so confident in her swimming skills! Since I was in the water most of the time, I didn’t dare take out my camera to take photos. Instead I took over 30 different videos! Below are 3 videos from today. The first one is the absolute best video I have filmed of Orso and Karma interacting. It’s almost 4 continuous minutes long and it shows them playing fetch in open water with a coconut. The second video is about 2 minutes long and shows Orso playing with his JollyBall in the yard. The last one is a video compilation of all the remaining best video clips. It’s set to music and runs almost 5 minutes long. All 3 videos are awesome and well worth the watch! Enjoy! THE ***BEST*** VIDEO EVER OF ORSO & KARMA: Orso and His JollyBall: Compilation – not such great quality because it’s compressed, but still good: This morning, I took Karma to her first group conformation handling class at the home of our friends, David and Carole Baikow. David and Carole have been showing Doberman Pinschers since the 1960s and own Grand Champion Cardav’s Satish. I met them in February in Lakeland for Orso’s very first dog show weekend and we have kept in touch since then.
During a recent phone conversation, David told me that The Doberman Pinscher Club of Florida, for which he is the president, holds conformation handling classes at his home Saturday mornings and invited me to go with Karma. This was great news to me because there is a huge value to learning showmanship from someone like David and his friends, who all show working dogs. When we hired Orso’s show handler, Daniel Sanchez, he explained to us that it’s crucial that a working dog go into a show ring and ACT like a working dog! This was something Orso did not do since he was not trained to show like a working dog and we definitely feel that it hurt him in the ring at times. We did not want to make the same mistake with Karma, so David’s invitation to join his class put us in the right setting to get Karma off on the right paw! Karma and I will also be going to other group handling classes, since we can use all the help we can get, but it’s great to be getting guidance from working dog people so Karma can shine in the ring! Thanks, David and Carole! |
YVONNE
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