Oh Yeah, You Blend

Conewango Valley Kennel Club AKC show in Dunkirk. In 2019 Orbit and Alice won their first majors, and won BOB and BOS every day to take the majors every day for three days. Then it was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 for obvious reasons.

This year it was back, smaller and only 2 days, but back. And what an incredible weekend it was!

I am so thankful to have such amazing puppy buyers and co-owners to share my dogs with.

Mel (and Rick) and Enzo (Alkemi Desperado LT RATN TKN): he went Reserve on Sunday and shows better and better each time, Mel is working really hard and it’s paying off, the boys take a long time to mature.

Nichole (and Chris) and Jovie (Alkemi Daydream LT): she went Reserve to the major on Saturday and took Winners Bitch on Sunday for her third major. She is looking gorgeous.

Ruth (and Jim) with Orbit (GCH CH Alkemi Cosmic Curiosity LT RI): what can I say? This was a dream weekend. BOB both days for 5 point majors each time. Saturday OH group 4 and regular GROUP THREE. And SUNDAY?!?! OH group 1, regular GROUP 1!! And then?!?! OWNER HANDLER BEST IN FREAKING SHOW!!!

Kat (and Tim) and Ellie (Alkemi Elise At Kleinhaus LT) made her AKC show debut and showed wonderfully in BPUP.

Alice (CH Alkemi Clear Air Turbulence LT OA OAJ NAP NJP XF XFP) won BOS both days for 5 point majors each day towards her GCH.

And Evie (Alkemi Evija LT) realized that showing is a job, and remembered she is a working dog, and rose to the challenge. She showed AMAZINGLY well, and won Beginner Puppy BEST IN SHOW on Saturday.

Orbit Herding Group 1:

Orbit OHBIS Judging:

Orbit OH Best in Show!!:

Evie Best Beginner Puppy in Show (and AKC show debut):

What an awesome weekend! We don’t do much UKC but we do try to attend this show when it’s held twice a year. Alice is in hopefully-pregnant bubblewrap lockdown so I didn’t show a single dog all weekend and STILL had an awesome time!

Enzo (Alkemi Desperado LT TKN RATN) and Melanie made their show debut and did AMAZING! Enzo took Best of Winners at all four shows, and got Best of Breed in Show 2 on Saturday and went on to take a Group 3! Not bad for a gangly adolescent who just turned 1. I am thrilled with how he is growing up so far, and it’s so awesome that Melanie is showing him!

Ruth and Orbit (U-CH CH Alkemi Cosmic Curiosity LT RN) had two group placements (a second and a first), and as always Ruth showed him perfectly.

Saturday Show 1: Orbit BOB, Group 2, Enzo BOW. Judge Stanely Matsumoto

Saturday Show 2: Enzo BOB, Group 3. Judge Matthew K. Proctor (who told Melanie that Enzo was the “nicest Vallhund he’d ever seen”)

PLUS, in Canada, Enzo’s sister Daisy (Alkemi Daisy Bell LT), who is owned by Lynda Morgan in Prince Edward Island, took Best of Breed over a class bitch and a DOG SPECIAL (a dog who’s the only Vallhund ever to win a Best in Show for that matter!) under Judge Jeremy Browne and THEN went on to take a GROUP 3!!!

Sunday Show 1: Orbit BOB, Group 1, Enzo BOW

Sunday Show 2: Orbit BOB, Enzo BOW

As always, the most important thing is that my puppies have great homes with owners who love them. But I’m so grateful to have people who are willing to co-own with me, so I don’t lose these dogs to my breeding program. And who also go above and beyond to help prove how awesome their dogs are!

What an amazing weekend!

I have so many pictures and videos and things to post, the last couple of weeks have been crazy and I really have had to just neglect the blog in favor of work and getting the puppies home.

Unsurprisingly, I have some thoughts about the last couple of weeks here.

Choosing homes for puppies is one of the best and one of the worst things about breeding. Some breeders just let people choose a puppy and it’s all good. That works for them. That isn’t what works for me. The way I do things doesn’t work for everyone and that’s ok. I use an application, talk to people, and see if there’s a puppy who seems like a good fit once their personalities come out and once I’ve done their structural evaluations at 8 weeks. My obligation is to my puppies, and I hope people realize that I’m doing my best to find the best home for the puppy AND the right puppy for the owner. And that making a bad match does neither party any favors.

There was a lot of frantic, last minute running around this week and COVID makes everything more difficult (I mean, obviously most difficult for those who are sick or who’ve lost someone to the virus, but it’s amazing how many things you never even think about are harder because of it). And obviously the background level of stress and anxiety is so much higher, so it’s unsurprising that the usually-stressful time of sending the puppies out into the world to start their lives was even worse this time.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the homes for this litter. I always hope I did a good enough job raising them. Both parents are stellar dogs with great temperaments, the puppies all seem like great dogs. But you always worry. Will their owners love them as much as they deserve? Will they love them as much as we do? Will they kiss them on the nose the way that puppy loves? Will they play tug the way that THAT puppy loves? Will they talk to them in the stupid squeaky voice that makes their faces light up and their tails wag? Will they blow on that puppy’s face the way that makes her crazy happy? Will they realize what an amazing being they have to share their lives with now? Will they realize that they are about to become that dog’s whole world?

Letting go is hard. Packing up and putting away the puppy stuff is bittersweet. Going back to normal life is comforting. Planning the next litter is exciting.

I don’t know that people who haven’t raised a litter understand just how much work it is. It’s a labor of love for sure and it’s so gratifying and so fun. But it’s also work. SO much laundry, SO much poop, SO many days you just want to come home from a hard day at work and sit on the couch and veg out and you can’t. But so worth it to see them out there starting their lives and learning about their new people.

Red girl Alfa is now named Mimic and is living in Canada with her great aunt (Grandma Zhora’s sister). She will learn to play agility and probably already knows ten tricks.

Orange boy Bravo is now named Timber and is living in Canada with a lovely couple who are first time puppy/Vallhund owners and who did everything right from research to networking and were so excited to get him it makes me smile every time. It does your heart good.

Yellow girl Charlie is now named Valkyrie (Kyrie) and is living in Vermont with a lovely family who’ve had a Vallhund before. She will learn agility and will go kayaking!

Green boy Delta is now named Whiskey and is living in Canada in an experienced dog home. He will learn agility!

Blue boy Echo is now named Enzo and is co-owned by me and a lovely couple who are friends of mine. He will learn Barn Hunt and will hopefully be a show dog too!

Purple girl Foxtrot is now named Daisy and is living in beautiful Prince Edward Island where she will hopefully be a show dog and will definitely play on the beach!

Pink girl Golf is now named Jovie and is co-owned by me and a wonderful couple who also have Jovie’s great uncle (Zhora’s brother). She is their third Vallhund from me and if that’s not an enormous and humbling compliment I don’t know what is. She will learn agility, hopefully be a show dog, and will go some way towards healing hearts broken by the untimely loss of their oldest dog.

Have wonderful lives my D litter. We will miss you.

Here are the puppies “manding”, or sitting politely in order to ask for something (in this case, be picked up). This is not so much about training them to sit, but rather to teach them that they can communicate their needs (and “you give me something I want, I give you something you want”):

So I made a video about how to play this game. I didn’t invent the game but it’s a super useful way to train your dog to come when called!

This is classical conditioning (like Pavlov): you are teaching the dog to associate their name with something good. They don’t have to DO anything to get the reward, they just have to hear their name, and then eat a cookie!

Here’s how I play this:

• choose a boring (to the dog) and small room in your house (the bathroom is perfect)
• take a handful of kibble or treats (literally no more than 10-15 per session is enough)
• take the puppy and the food into the room and close the door
• say the puppy’s name, feed a treat
• say the puppy’s name, feed a treat
• not “come”, not “sit”, not “down”, this isn’t teaching the dog a command, it’s simply building an association between their name and something good
• do this twice a day for two or three weeks, until you can tell the dog is looking for the treat when they hear you call them
• periodically just walk up to the dog, call their name, feed a treat (I still do this with my 13.5 year old dog!), this keeps putting money in the bank that the one time you really REALLY need them to come when you call them, they’ll think it’s worth their while
• try your best not to “poison” their name by using it for negative things (baths, nail trims, end of playtime, just go get them).
• occasionally call your dog to you, take their collar, feed a treat, and let them go back to what they were doing (so they learn that coming when called doesn’t mean playtime is over necessarily, sometimes it means snacks!)
• it is NEVER a bad idea to play this game at ANY point in your dog’s life!

I have Orange boy Timber on my lap for this video, but in a bathroom you can just let the puppy wander around (remember, he doesn’t have to come to you, he just has to hear his name and eat a treat, even if you have to follow him around and say his name and feed him like a crazy person!)

Here are the stacked pictures, taken Sunday (ideal time for assessing structure is 8 weeks +/- a day, they turned 8 weeks on Monday). I made my dear friend and mentor Ulla Gamberg get on the phone with me and assess them with me (overall I was extremely pleased with this litter!):

Red girl Alfa:

Orange boy Bravo (now called Timber):

Yellow girl Charlie:

Green boy Delta:

Blue boy Echo (now called Enzo):

Purple girl Foxtrot (now called Daisy):

Pink girl Golf (now called Jovie):

My timing isn’t great (video is unforgiving), but they are getting the idea.

Yesterday was affirmation of why I have started sending them home at 10 weeks instead of 8 weeks. Yellow girl Charlie and red girl Alfa, who’ve both been happy and confident all along, were worried about the paper bag I gave them to play with. Fear period. Today they are almost back to normal, but pink girl Golf, who’s consistently been one of the bravest of them all (and who was a maniac with the paper bag just yesterday), is worried about things today. Fear period.

Fear periods are very normal and can come and go quite quickly, but the wrong thing at the wrong time during a fear period can be a problem sometimes. Much better not to upend their entire world when there’s a statistically higher risk of a fear period! You can see pink being quite cautious and subdued in her clicker video below, when she was perfectly happy and reckless as is her usual personality yesterday. Fear periods can happen throughout their first two years according to some behaviorists. We used to think you should work through them but now most think you should just ignore them and they should normally just go away (and the risk of what’s called “single event learning”, which is where one bad experience can cause a significant and lasting issue, is higher during a fear period).

The paper bag:

You will see in pink girl’s clicker video that she is quite subdued, this is NOT normal for her, as anyone who’s been to visit them will attest, she’s normally an absolute lunatic (and look at her in the paper bag video taken just yesterday). Purple girl and red girl are also a little quieter than normal.

Red girl:

Orange boy:

Yellow girl:

Green boy:

Blue boy:

Purple girl:

Pink girl:

Excuse the horrifying carpet, puppies running around means accidents!

We repeated the barrier challenge today with the puppy having to leave the food to get around the barrier, you can really see some of them thinking hard and then the light bulb going on. This time it was stinky canned tripe, which they’d never had before, so they were pretty interested in it!

Alfa:

Bravo:

Charlie:

Delta:

Echo:

Foxtrot:

Golf:

Echo attacked Jim’s slippers:

So far the whole litter has really nice toy/tug drive:

We are also in the middle of a lake effect snowstorm so they went outside and played in the snow! It is quite cold but like true Vallhunds, they didn’t really care!

I am finalizing my planning for their evaluations next weekend, we will do temperament and structure. After that I will have a pretty good idea of who is likely going to fit best where. I can’t believe they’ll be seven weeks old on Monday already! The time flies by.

We videoed their barrier challenges today. This helps them with frustration and problem solving. The first video for each has the puppy and the food very close to the same end of the barrier (the puppy can see and smell through the barrier). The second video has the puppy farther away from the food. Later we will place both the puppy and the food far away from the way around the barrier.

Alfa barrier challenge 1:

Alfa barrier challenge 2:

Bravo barrier challenge 1:

Bravo barrier challenge 2:

Charlie barrier challenge 1:

Charlie barrier challenge 2:

Delta barrier challenge 1:

Delta barrier challenge 2:

Echo barrier challenge 1:

Echo barrier challenge 2:

Foxtrot barrier challenge 1:

Foxtrot barrier challenge 2:

Golf barrier challenge 1:

Golf barrier challenge 2:

What a busy week! Here’s what we did:

• continued to have at least one new enrichment item every day (including an empty pop bottle, new toys, and an especially poignant toy – a present from Riley‘s family which was a new version of Riley’s favorite toy)
• met new people including a very active toddler and a man with a huge beard
• started working on a conditioned emotional response to nail grinding (feeding the puppies baby food, which they love, while they listen to and then feel the Dremel), they did spectacularly well at this! Nobody was too worried about it and everyone loved the baby food more than they cared about the Dremel
• experienced SNOW!

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