Bye-bye to the year 2009

I can't believe another year is coming to end. I feel like the year started only a few months ago!

Cookie & Cinnamon's first walk in the year, 1st Jan 2009

I started blogging in January this year, and when I started it I was not sure what it was going to be like, especially because the day I published my very first post Cinnamon was hospitalised for a mysterious illness.

However, despite my concern, Cinnamon recovered well from the illness, and blogging has opened our world so much that we now have friends all over the world! Also, friends who we met through blogs have taught us so many things. Among other things, who would have imagined that we would take on dog dancing as well as making a debut in agility trials! Also, thanks to valuable advice from our blog friends, especially Honey the Great Dane, Cinnamon has become much more obedient. She looks like a different dog!

Cinnamon's first Clear Round, 20th Jun 2009

On the other hand, there was a sad thing as you all know. Cookie left us to cross the rainbow bridge this month. He had always been a great company for us since he came to our house a year after we moved to New Zealand. He brought us lots of happiness and opportunities to meet new people.

Cookie & Cinnamon at Hound Racing, 5th Apr 2009

Finally, we wish you all the best for the year 2010!!

See you in the New Year!!

Belated Christmas presents

On Boxing Day, the 26th December, Cinnamon finally got her belated Christmas presents.

When I was driving out of the carpark of a grocery shop, I spotted a "Boxing Day Sale" sign of a pet shop that shares the carpark with the grocery shop. Then, looking behind to make sure there was no car after mine, I reversed and parked in front of the pet shop.

Look at these!

They were both half price! The stuffed bear, which I thought was a stuffed monkey when I bought it, is called Christmas Bear, but what makes it Christmas is the red hat and jacket only, so it looks like just a bear in red.

There is a reason I bought a new bed for Cinnamon. Until Cookie went, Cinnamon and Cookie slept in their own crates in a small room. But once she lost the comforting company of Cookie, Cinnamon started to bark in her crate at night and didn't stop. In the end, we gave in and allowed her to sleep with us in our bed. But ideally I want her to sleep on her own bedding, so I bought this comfortable looking bed for her. What I have to do next is teach her to sleep alone on this one. Training never ends!!

P.S.
After I wrote this post I realised what I should do with her barking at night is teach her to sleep in her crate alone, quietly... Then, why did I buy a new bed? Never mind...it's pretty anyway.

Happy Holidays!!

Our Christmas day turned out to be perfect holiday weather here in Auckland!!

The temperature has risen to nearly 25 degrees Celsius (about 77 degrees Fahrenheit), but it feels much hotter outside because of the strong sun with few cloud in the sky above us.

Striking red flowers are in full bloom on Pohutukawa trees, often called "New Zealand Christmas Trees."

Well, here is a present from Cinnamon to all our blog friends and readers! We hope you will enjoy it!!

We hope Cookie will be enjoying watching this video too, as he loved practising tricks with Cinnamon.

This is our Christmas

Being non-Christian and having no family in the country, our Christmas is usually very quiet. We sometimes have Christmas parties with our friends but not always.

This year our Christmas season started like this.

My husband decorated the kitchen window with colourful Christmas decoration that my friend from Japan had given us when she visited us on her trip to New Zealand.

I made a Christmas robe for Cinnamon, using a red felt gift bag and a hair band with an angel's ring that I had got from a $2 shop, and some white fake fur I had bought from a craft shop.

Two pleasant walks in one day

We had pleasant walks yesterday.

In the morning we went to the Domain. When we arrived there the sun was still very low and drawing long shadows.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum was celebrating its 80th birthday.

From the Domain you can see the Sky Tower, a landmark in the centre of the city.

In late afternoon we went to St Heliers. We hadn't been to the suburb along St Heliers Beach for a long time since some dogs died from eating sea slugs that contained toxin found in blowfish when walking on beaches around Hauraki Gulf. The beaches were still closed for the dogs, so we had a walk on Tamaki Drive and in a park called Vellenoweth Green.

Who do you think we met in the park? We met Chloe the Beagle and her human by chance!! Chloe is a member of the Hound Racing Club and always ran with Cookie at demos in dog events like Discover Dogs and Pet Expo. We hadn't seen them for a long time, because there was no coursing in winter and when the coursing started again in September Cinnamon was being treated for her hip problem and Cookie was unwell.

What a lovely day it was!! We had two pleasant special walks in one day!

Progress in Cinnamon's obedience training

To start with, I am sorry for not visiting your blogs for a long time. I promise I will catch up shortly!!

Today I would like to report how Cinnamon's obedience (no barking) training is going. She still sometimes barks at other dogs she sees in her walks, but it is becoming less and less frequent. Now she almost never barks at dogs on the other side of the road or off leash in the park. She only barks at dogs on the lead in a short distance, and sometimes she even greets such dogs nicely without barking. When she barks, it is often my fault rather than hers. For example, being eager to see her behaving nicely voluntarily, I often make a mistake of delaying the Heel command, which I now use to make Cinnamon busy doing something so that she doesn't have to worry about other dogs. If my correction is too late, it becomes hard to keep Cinnamon in a calm state.

Marge's human, Sam, has kindly suggested referring to Leslie McDevitt's book "Control Unleashed" in her comment on my previous post about my struggle to correct Cinnamon's barking problem. Thanks, Sam. Yes, I bought a copy of the book in September and read a third of the book during my flights to and from Japan, but the book has been left untouched on a sideboard since then. As my husband points out, I have a bad habit of buying a book and leaving it after browsing some pages. I like reading books with stories like novels, but I often find it hard to read a whole reference book. Without a story, it is hard to pick up the points that the writer wants to tell. I know that I should take notes of what I have read and learned, but I am so lazy that I usually don't bother to do that and I forget what I have read pretty soon. But I am going to take up the book again, this time to read through to the end.

Going back to the progress of Cinnamon's obedience training, I have been doing "Stay" exercises with Cinnamon as well as "Heel" exercises, following advice from a professional dog trainer who we had a training session with in late November and our great mentor, Honey the Great Dane's human Hsin-Yi. "Stay" is something Cinnamon was no good at. When we were doing agility, I always had to start as soon as releasing Cinnamon's collar from my hand in the agility ring, because she couldn't stay at all when she was very excited. But, after doing "Stay" exercises in our daily walks everyday for a couple of weeks, her Stay is improving gradually. Now she can wait in front of a bakery without barking while I buy bread, although she can't stay lying for a long time.

In fact I am seeing a significant improvement in her general behaviour. For example, together with Cookie she always used to try to steal food from the table before, so we always used lidded containers when we wanted to have food at a coffee table. But, now we can use ordinary dishes, as Cinnamon never tries to steal anything from the table as long as we humans are around. Also, when we go out for a walk, Cinnamon sits at the gate voluntarily before I open it. But, what I am happy about most is that her picking up food from the ground has become much less.

Overall I am happy with Cinnamon's progress. Keeping doing something regularly and continuously is something I am very good at. So, I will keep at it until Cinnamon becomes a well-behaved dog.

Heeling

Staying

Cookie returns home

Thank you very much for all your warm messages to Cookie and us!!

Today he came back to us in a casket, so now he is with us again.

Strangely I don't feel as sad as I thought I would become. I feel like he is still napping somewhere in the house, maybe because Cookie was always gentle and quiet and loved having a nap in a comfortable place in peace.

Cinnamon is coping without Cookie well although she sticks to me more than before and follows me around wherever I go in the house.

After Cookie left us, we received a lot of love from our friends and family. Firstly I didn't think so many blog friends who had never met Cookie or us in person would send their thoughts to him and us. Also, if I tell my neighbours about Cookie's departure when they see me only with Cinnamon and ask me how the other dog is doing, everyone, including those who we know only because we meet in our daily walks, gives me a hug.

Cookie's last walk was at New Zealand Kennel Club Ardmore Grounds on Tuesday last week.

Cinnamon often goes to Cookie's bed and stays laying on it like this. When she is doing that, she looks much more mature than before.

I love you, Cookie, forever...

Cookie went over the rainbow bridge this morning. He was eight years and seven months old.

Cookie (1 May 2001 - 5 December 2009)

As some of you may be aware of, Cookie had not been well since he started showing some pain in July. But, we didn't know the real cause of the pain and his progressive wobbliness until he had an MRI scan in late September, which revealed that he had an inoperable brain tumor with hydrocephalus and syringomyelia.

At that time we were told that Cookie didn't have much time left, but he bravely fought a good fight against the illnesses for the next two months, being on medication with Tramal (pain reliever) and Prednison (synthetic corticosteroid). He lost his appetite a little a couple of times in October, but, otherwise, he was eating very well and could walk around in the house and garden on his own with a wobbly gait.

However, last night he deteriorated dramatically. He bawled every time I touched him to adjust his pillow. He clenched his jaw and didn't open his month at all when I tried to help him drink or eat.

We were worried about him so much that all of us, including Cinnamon, slept in the living room together as we didn't want to put him in further pain by moving him. Cookie kept shivering from pain throughout the night, and in the morning he still couldn't move at all. So, we made the most difficult decision to let him go. We thought he had suffered enough and he should be let free from his pain.

His last moment was serene. He went in my arms. Cookie, we will never forget about you. You will live forever in our heart.

Hmmm ... not yet ...

Only two days after I reported that Cinnamon had been doing well with her training not to bark at other dogs in the street, she barked at other dogs again this morning!! Once in a dog exercise area, when we had just started walking with her leash back on after doing some trick exercise off leash, and once on a footpath when she met her friend, Bertie the Standard Poodle.

When Cinnamon started barking at a golden retriever that I hadn't realised was coming into the park, I told her to sit, as I thought it might be easier for her than heeling, because she had just stood up from the sitting position. But, it seems that was a bad call. She completely ignored me and kept barking without sitting down. In the end, I gave it up and started walking with Cinnamon to leave the park. Once she was out of the park, she stopped barking.

When we met Bertie, I should have told Cinnamon to heel and kept walking without stopping to say hello to Bertie and her human. But, again I told Cinnamon to sit, as I wanted to talk to Bertie's human, who is my good friend. Then, both Cinnamon and Bertie started barking at each other from excitment. This time Cinnamon did sit with her mouth shut after a while, but I should have focused on the training, telling them to ignore us.

Phew...it seems there is still a long way to go...

Are we finally tackling Cinnamon's barking problem successfully?

As many of you know, I have long been trying to correct Cinnamon's barking problem.

Cinnamon is a happy dog who loves people and dogs alike. But, perhaps because of her excitable nature, she can't resist barking at other dogs she meets on the street. Although I tried many different techniques to correct her behaviour, such as saying 'No' firmly, drawing her attention to me by saying 'Look at me' or showing a treat or toy, and frightening her using a can with pebbles in it or a water gun, nothing really worked.

Being unsuccessful with all these efforts, I decided to ask a professional dog trainer for help. The solution he suggested was to teach her to heel properly. And ... tell you what! It worked almost instantly!! I can't believe it myself, but it really did!!

Now you may think that Cinnamon should have known how to heel already at the age of two. But, it turned out that a real problem had existed in my fear of making too many mistakes. Because I didn't want to fail when I made Cinnamon heel, I had told her to heel only when I was certain that she was going to do it successfully; in other words, only when there were no dogs around, she was giving her attention to me, and I carried some food in my hand or pocket.

Since we had a one hour training session with the trainer a week ago, Cinnamon has NEVER barked at other dogs on the street!! Now, as soon as I see another dog coming, I tell Cinnamon to heel. Although I now use a check chain on her, I seldom need to give it a tug. Simply by saying 'Heel', which I often need to repeat though, I have been able to make Cinnamon control herself successfully. It's amazing, isn't it?

Cinnamon practising heeling in a training session with a professional dog trainer

* The photos have been extracted from videos Honey the Great Dane's human, Hsin-Yi, kindly filmed for us. Thanks, Honey and Hsin-Yi!!

Cinnamon's dancing lesson #1

Cinnamon started practising dancing at beginner Heelwork to Music class about a month ago. I wrote about her first class in a previous post. Today I would like to report how her training is going.

In the first lesson Cinnamon learned some basic skills, such as touching/following my hand and standing in front of me face to face, and in the three subsequent lessens she learned several other basic skills, such as turning/spinning, weaving through and around my legs, bowing, shaking hands/paws, and going through my legs forward and backward.

The following video filmed in the fourth lesson last week shows some of the moves she has learned so far.



We are still practising simple moves only, but I think consolidating basic skills is always important no matter what your are learning.

Cinnamon's meal manners

As I wrote in the last post, Cinnamon and I went to Honey's birthday party and had a great time last weekend. One of the most memorable moments during the party was what Honey calls Cinnamon's "Jaws" moment. Although in my post I wrote something like only Cinnamon had got a second piece of the birthday cake, it seems all the doggies there got seconds, which I didn't realise because I had to keep an eye on Cinnamon around food and I couldn't see what other dogs were doing.

For those who haven't seen the shots of the scene on Honey's blog, here are some photos Honey's human has kindly sent to us (Thank you, Honey and Hsin-Yi!!).

But, I think, for the sake of Cinnamon, I should show you how she usually eats her meals. She sits nicely and patiently in front of her meal bowl, shakes hands/paws, and waits until I say "OK". Here is the proof.

Walk at racecourse and Honey's birthday party

We had a great weekend full of fun activities.

On Saturday morning, after doing the laundry, we went to Ellerslie Racecourse for a walk. It was a pleasant walk thanks to the beautiful spring weather with the blue sky and some cloud.

At the racecourse we watched people doing golf on a short golf course in the infield of the racecourse for a while. It was really an ideal weather for playing golf.

At first we were walking together peacefully, but all of sudden Cinnamon made a dash and was gone far away in the next moment. Although I was a little worried whether she would come back soon or not, she turned around and came back to us after exploring the field for a few minutes.

Back at home, being exhausted from a lot of running at the racecourse, Cinnamon fell in sleep on the deck.

In the afternoon, Cinnamon and I went to our friend Honey the Great Dane's 6th birthday party and had a great time with other dogs and dog lovers, while Cookie stayed home with his dad.

Cinnamon enjoyed playing with a four-month-old Great Dane puppy called Lexi. They looked like really good playmates.

We did some games, including Ian Dunbar's K9 Games, musical chairs and doggy dash.

In the musical chairs we were out after the first round, but it doesn't mean that Cinnamon couldn't sit and stay long enough. We were just unlucky with the timing that she stood up from the sitting position.

In the doggy dash, she beat a Shetland Sheepdog called Finnegan in the first round, but in the second round she was beaten by a German Shepherd called Kira by microseconds. Cinnamon ran very fast, but Kira was just too fast. In this sprint race, the dogs had to sit as soon as they reached the goal where their owners were waiting, and Cinnamon did it beautifully, which I am very proud of.

We also did egg and spoon race and champagne race. In both races, humans, with their dog's lead tied to their wrist, ran a course with their dogs. Something hilarious happened in the egg and spoon race, but I am not writing about it here as perhaps Honey is going to tell you all about it! In the champagne race, a nice cute boy volunteered to be the handler of Cinnamon, while his sister handled Honey. What a lucky girl Cinnamon was!

After all the fun games, dogs shared Honey's birthday cake, which her humans had made.

Actually Cinnamon got the biggest share of it, because everyone was so amused by how Cinnamon ate a big piece of cake at a mouthful that she was given a second piece. In fact, while big dogs were breaking their cake into small pieces and eating them one by one, Cinnamon was chewing up a whole big piece given to her in her mouth without dropping a crumb!

After that, people there were even more excited to see how Cinnamon was cleaning up all the cake crumbs on the floor like a vacuum, although it was nothing unusual to me as I see her doing that every day at home.

It was a really great party!! Thank you for inviting us, Honey!!

The source of Cinnamon's secret treats

Since late September, Cinnamon has been very busy finding and eating something in the garden whenever she is out there.



I had seen Cookie doing something similar before. At that time he was eating cherries from our flowering cherry trees, but now it is too early for Cinnamon to start picking up cherries, as the cherry trees in our garden are just finishing flowering. And besides, the stuff Cinnamon has been eating looks like some kind of nuts.



At first, I thought they might come from a Titoki tree, as Cinnamon was picking up the nuts in the area around the tree. But, according to a reference book, Titoki bears a different type of berries. Then, where do they come from?

I went to Palmers Garden Centre and asked a botanist there what those nuts came from. He said "They are seeds of big palm trees." As soon as I heard it, it struck a chord! There IS a big palm tree in our nextdoor neighour's garden!



Come to think of it, we have been seeing many birds flying over our garden with the seeds in their beak. I just hope they won't harm Cinnamon's stomach as it is hard to stop her eating them. At least it seems she can't digest the seeds, as they always come out with her poo (You can see a photo of it by clicking here).

This is one of the culprits who have been scattering palm seeds around our garden.



In the meantime, Cookie doesn't bother to look for the palm seeds. He would rather lie down in the sun and have a pleasant nap.

Scent of Roses

There was Parnell Festival of Roses at Parnell Rose Garden (formally called Dove-Myer Robinson Park) on the weekend. This was the place Cookie went to in his first walk ever, but unfortunately we couldn't see any flowers then in July, as the roses had just been pruned.

Cookie's very first walk

The garden looks like this at this time of year
(Sorry it's an old photo from year 2000)

Yes, that's right. Roses are most beautiful at this time of year here down under! Roses are in bloom in our garden too.

Cinnamon and Roses

Cinnamon is appreciating the beauty and scent of roses

She wants to have a closer look, doesn't she?

Oh, no, Cinnamon!!

“One Lovely Blog Award,” and THE BOOK arrived!!

Our blog friend Chrissy, who has a Beagle called Bernie, has given Cookie and Cinnamon a sweet award! Thanks, Chrissy! I always enjoy reading your blog.

The rules of the “One Lovely Blog Award” are:

• Accept the award
• Post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
• Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
• Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

As 15 blogs are too many, we would like to pass this award to the following three friends:

Honey, who's inspired us to take on dancing.
Marge, who's making her agility trial debut soon.
River, who's been doing a wonderful job, helping so many rescued dogs.


This morning 'the book' I had preordered finally arrived!! You may want to ask what book it is. It is a book titled "Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats" (Author: Bradley Trevor Greive, Photographer: Rachael Hale), which our friend Honey the Great Dane is in. I will sneakily show you one of the pages she is on. Every dog in the book is so beautiful, but, Honey, you really stand out!

I think this full-colour book is a great value for the price. I haven't read the stories in the book yet, but I look forward to reading them on the deck in summer.


Note: Although Honey and her friends' photoshooting was done here in Auckland, New Zealand, the book "Why Dogs Are Better Than Cats" was published in the US. So, I ordered it from Amazon.com and had it delivered from the US to New Zealand.

One Sunday morning

In the change of season Cookie sheds so much that his fur is all over our clothes every time we pet him on our laps. This morning we FURminated him again, and even more loose fur came out than the last time! Comparing to Cookie, Cinnamon doesn't shed much.

I love this...

Soooo gooood...

A big pile of removed fur

Hay, Cookie.

Stop tickling me, Mum.

Mum, I said 'Stop.'

Hmm. Not too bad after all.