Tatum Tot Spice

I'm Tired Today!

ooo the Mum is a silly Mum. Today the Mum took me to a place called a Dog Training Place called Willow in the Creek. I didn’t see any willows or any creeks but I did see some other dogs and I got to go through a tunnel!

Me and the Mum are having a bit of a disagreement lately. The Mum thinks that I should do things that she wants me to do, when she wants me to do them. Well, I’d rather do what I want to do, when I want to do them!  So today we argued a little bit and.. well, I didn’t really win but I did get to hide in the tunnel and not come out!

There is this grassy place with a fence around and fun agility stuff inside. And the Mum wants me to go over a jump and then get a treat. That’s okay but I’d rather do it how I want to do it. And I’d rather run around and around the place first before I come and get the treat. And the Mum says well… she sometimes takes me by the collar because I’m being a bit stubborn!  And so she brings me to the jump, then I have to touch her hand with my paw, then I get a click and a treat, then I do the jump! Then I get a treat on a plate, then I do another jump and get another treat but I have to sit for it too.

The Mum is making me work so very hard!  I have to do the paw touch and the sit and all that stuff just to get a treat. Hrmph! Well I guess that’s okay ’cause I do love the Mum and it’s fun to go and do stuff, but I do really think I should be boss of it all and not her! But she disagrees. Doesn’t everydog know that smooth sable collie girls are princess and going to be Queens and should get what we want? If I don’t get what I want, I might have to look for motorcycle accident attorneys and slap a lawsuit on the Mum!

So then when the Mum told me to go through the tunnel, after a paw touch and a click, then I ran in as fast as I could and then just stopped and looked out and I laughed and laughed at the Mum and my Aunt Edie!  Bahaaaa!!  I didn’t have to come out!

It made the Mum laugh too and she was rolling on the ground looking at me peeking out of the tunnel.  He he I’m such a smart sneaky collie girl. Then they took the tunnel away, which wasn’t nice of them, so then we tried the teeter totter and I had to do the paw touch first, then I got to go on it and it’s fun too! I think I’m gonna like agilities, as soon as I get the Mum and Aunt Edie trained up so I can do it the way I want to! 

So Yesterday the Mum puts all the other dogs in the kitchen and gets out the phone book and yay! I put my feet on it. The Mum likes that and clicks and gives me a treat when I do. Then she started to move around me and I’m not sure what she is doing.. she said something about ‘rear end awareness’ but I don’t know what that means yet so I just try to move around a bit and get that click and treat.

She also brought out this funny long thing with a yellow ball on the end. And every time I sniffed it she clicked and treated. So that was easy! I touched the ball with my nose and got the click treat!

Then the Mum brought out this weird long thing with high sides and I just kept walking around it. When I did put my foot over it I got the click and treat! So I kept doing that… the Mum said it was a jump and I will get to do it much higher in the future, when we can go and train outside.

Then I got to go in the Kitchen and the Mum got out Muffit. Gah… only I should work with the clicker! But the Mum said that Muffit has to learn this stuff too for flyball.

Wow the Mum wants me to learn so many things! But I am not only beautiful, I am also very smart. I like to touch her hand with my front feet now. When I do, I get the click and the treat to happen. And when I get on my mat, the Mum has made it harder. Now I have to do something else, and I think it’s the lay down but I’m still figuring that one out. Sometimes I’ll stand on my mat for a while before I lay down. Sometimes I paw her and I’m not sure which she wants! But I’m learning fast, and soon I’ll be knowing it all and I will get to teach the Mum.

After the Mum teaches me with the clicker then she teaches my new brother, Muffit! Did I tell you I have a new brother? Well, his name is Muffit. The Mum calls him WhosaMuffit but that’s just weird. I guess he lived here a while a couple of years ago, then went to a new family. But they didn’t end up wanting to let him live there anymore, so they put him in a really icky place, a scary place, and he got really sick until the Dad found out he was there (’cause of some chip thing) and went to get him out.

So now the Dad told the Mum that he’s going to stay! Yay! I like him and he is fun to play with, as you can tell from this picture. And he is not sick anymore which is good, his runny nose was kinda gross.

So the Mum has been doing more clicker stuff with me. It’s so fun I don’t want it to stop. Why does she have to stop? And then work with Muffit, Chase and Levi? She should just always work with me!

I figured out that touching her hand with my foot makes the click! So now I do it a lot. It’s fun. And then she put down this white cardboard thing and I touched it with my foot, and it made the click too! And then the Mum got me a new mat.. it’s a Mutt Matt and it’s neat! And now when I get on it the click doesn’t happen.. so I stand there for a minute and then when I lay down, that makes the click! This collie likes her mat!

It kinda sucks that just standing on the Mutt Mat doesn’t make the click anymore, but I can lay down, too. That is also fun so I’ll just do that now.

The Mum put the white cardboard on the flyball box too, and I would touch it to get the click to happen. But she’s still not sure how to get me up on there with all four feet. So when until she figures that out, I will just eat cookies.

So the Mum finally got home from Los Angeles and the Clicker Expo! She says next time she wants to take me with. I would love to go! She said that I would have to learn to fly on an airplane. Well, I was on an airplane once, and I could do it again. She said that she wants to find ways to make it so I’m not scared. And she wants to get me to be a therapy dog. So she ordered me a vest and she’s gonna start to take me everywhere she can. ‘Cause I still get nervous sometimes at different places.

But it will be fun to learn all this stuff. She wants to take me out every day, but today she is sick so she might not take me anywhere. She even stayed home from work she is so sick! She can’t breathe very well and says her head is all stuffied up.

Well anyway at least I get to be on the laptop again. She also got a new lens for her camera and took this fun picture of me outside. We got a new brother too, that the Dad really wants to keep but then there will be so many of us in the house! So we’ll have to see where that all goes, but he is fun and he’s a border collie like Chase so he likes to run and play with me.

So when my vest comes I’ll have the Mum take a picture of me and post it up!

So the Mum pulled out the clicker today and wanted me to learn something new. Man, so many new things! The Mum said Lucy knows how to do this and she’ll show me later.. but she wanted me to try it first on my own.

So out come the liver treats too.. man those are good. The Mum just bakes them in the oven for a while then cuts them up, and we all stand around and I want to eat them, and sometimes I want the other dogs to go away… oooo the Mum is telling me I am blogging about the chimes, not the liver! Okay well anyway so she led me toward the Chimes with some of the yummy liver and made them ring. And it was kinda freaky I didn’t like the noise much.

So after the Mum put all those Livers on the chime, she walked away and sat on the couch and watched to see what I would do. Well I knew that darn liver was on the chimes.. but when I tried to get it off on my own, it would make funny tinkly noise. And the Mum says that’s the point, but I didn’t really like it. So I wanted the Mum to hold the chime steady so I could just eat the Livers off!

Well after I wouldn’t get the livers off, the Mum let Lucy come out to show me how it was done. Oh My Gosh. Lucy just ran right over there and tinkled all the chimes, not afraid at all, to get the livers off! She would push it with her nose then look at the Mum, and the Mum would give her more livers. And if Lucy didn’t get livers fast enough, she would push at the chimes again and again and make them fly all over the place! Wow Lucy!

I am not as enthusiastic when it’s just me and the Mum like Lucy is. Lucy danced all over wondering what the Mum wants her to do so she can get some livers. But me, I am not so sure about being alone with the Mum yet, and not so sure about what is going on. So I’m a bit more slow and I think more (thus I get a thinking award yay!). But the Mum says it’ll come, I haven’t lived here too long yet, and it’s all good and yummy and fun. And then after I got to play with Chase on the couch and that was super fun!

Oh, the Mum says that she wants me to ring the Chimes to tell me when I need to go out potty when the dog door is closed. Whatever. I just stare at the door, and that works!

Oh, and the Mum is going to Los Angelez tomorrow and taking her computer with her so I won’t be able to blog until she gets back! Boo!