Teething, training. digging, and the naughty crate!!

Sorry, I've been lazy with my updating again!! Here's a bit of an update on the last few weeks! In many areas Inko is doing very well - some, we're working on!!

She is looking very cute at the moment (ok I may be a little biased, but I'm a proud mum and think she's beautiful!). We had some professional photos taken at Pets at Home the other week and entered one of them into a competition they were running - we should find out in a few weeks whether she's won. I scanned them onto the computer at work but forgot to send them to myself so have just taken photos of the photos (!) so that I can post them on here - so they aren't as clear as they are in the originals but it was the only way of getting copies.

'Good 'down', Inko!'






'Look mummy and daddy, I'm smiling :)'

Such a cutie! This is the one we've entered into the competition

Teething

Inko is full swing with her teething now and has quite a mix of baby teeth, gaps and new teeth!! Not the neatest of mouths right now but at least there are far fewer of those needle like baby teeth now!! Inko is still doing a lot of chewing (not of furniture....of us!) - not as painful as it was with a full mouth of baby teeth but her jaw is getting very strong now and she has quite a grip which can be painful if one of her teeth manages to dig in!!

Zero tolerance!

This chewing/biting was starting to become a bit of a problem, as was her barking for attention, so we have got a new crate.....a naughty crate!! We are trying to be very good with a new zero tolerance regime, whereby any barking for attention or biting is followed by a firm 'No!' and her being taken into the naughty crate for some time out!! Overall I think this is starting to have a positive effect, although we're not there entirely yet! I think she's definitely got to the stage where she is settled enough here to start seeing how far she can push things and what she can get away with!! We're hoping that by being firm with her will make her realise that barking for attention and biting is not acceptable. Some days she is great (which is a good improvement on this behaviour every day) but as is to be expected there are also some days where she still tries it on quite a bit and there are a few trips to the naughty crate!!

Training

We had our last Heelwork to Music class before Christmas last Sunday. Inko is progressing really well...even if \I'm still getting confused by what way to spin myself etc!! She has now doing (still lured by treats at the moment):

• heel (her walking next to my left hand side)
• close (her walking next to my right hand side)
• spin (her spinning round on my left hand side)
• twist (her spinning round on my right hand side)
• bow
• dart through (her next to me then me twisting round and stepping over her as I do)
• back track (walking backwards)
• over (only going over my legs while I'm sat flat on the floor as she's still too young to do big jumping)
• under
• crawl
• stick around (walking round my legs close to me)
• weave

I must make sure we keep up the training on these over Christmas, not least so that me and Adam don't forget what they all are!! We're also been trying to keep up the stuff we did in obedience class. I've been really working on 'down' with her as she has always been good at this when there is a lure and when I'm putting my hand on the floor in front of her but as it's such a useful command for politeness around people I wanted to make her respond more just to a verbal command. She will now do this which is good (although I'm not sure whether this has actually now just become her default first response to a command for 'something' or whether she genuinely knows the word?). I've also been working on getting her to stay in a down position for more than just a split second by delaying any treating and using the 'wait' comm and which she is quite good at now.

Pulling

An area we've not noticed much improvement in is her loose lease walking, probably due to laziness from us rather than anything else. She is walked on a lead in the mornings before work, but off lead in the evenings. As the morning is a time when we are shorter of time, and we want to ensure she has a decent bit of exercise before we leave her for a bit, we have got lazy and have not been correcting her pulling as consistently has we should have been. This is becoming more noticeable as she gets stronger and stronger! We have ordered a Lupi harness to try so will give that a go and we'll also have to try and get better at doing all the necessary things to try and get her walking better loosely on the lead. Not expecting full 'to heel' walking necessarily, but looser would be nice. She's good when we have a treat in hand, but other than that there are far more interesting things ahead to try and get to!!

Digging

We've also found that her digging has just started up again - we went out the other day to discover a really rather large hole!! Because of the bad weather we can't use her sand pit at the moment....mostly because it turns out the lid is not very water proof and it is now more of a sandy bottomed swimming pool and Inko is not particularly keen on water!! So, after several weeks of no digging and us thinking she'd grown out of that, she has proved us wrong with the big hole! Maybe she thought the flowerbed looked bare and should have a large shrub planted - she's definitely given us a hole big enough to put one in with ease!! Lol. Unfortunately another side effect of her re-learned love of digging is that she is using her 'need to go to the loo' bell as a 'can I go out and dig' bell. We're having to ignore the bell when she first rings and see if she persistently stays there. If she comes away after a bit it seems to be that she wants to dig, and finally gives in, but if she is staying there it tends to mean she needs to loo and we let her out!

But she's still lovely despite all that!

Despite the few ongoing challenges in some areas with her she is such a lovely little thing to have round the house! We are loving all the walks with her (especially the weekend ones where we walk with our friends who also have dogs where she gets really tired out and is sleepy all afternoon afterwards! Lol!). We are also really enjoying the challenge of doing the training with her (the obedience, heelwork and general good behaviour training) as that was one of the reasons for getting a lappy that we knew we'd have to work hard with for the first two years - we wanted a dog that would make us put the effort in!

Can't believe it's only just over a month until she's 6 months old!! Time has flown, although also feels like she's been here so much longer than she has! We must start doing more work on the ringcraft side of things while the classes aren't running over Christmas so that we're getting ourself ready for show number one - that will be the Slough and District open show at the start of February. We're hoping to pick up a show lead for Inky Dink at the Guildford show that we're going to pop over to this afternoon!

Inko has had a good week training wise. We had our first heelwork to music class on Sunday and Inko did very well with stand, bow, spin, twist, close and heel...unfortunately it tested my co-ordination skills somewhat! Then on Monday evening we had our first ringcraft class. We were quite surprised when someone recognised Inko as a Finnish Lapphund - it turns out that she has a 7-year old lappy, Ellie (TabanyaRuu Sello), from Smuu and Tuukka's first litter. Inko did fairly well considering it was her first go, but we need to try and work on getting her to stand without constantly having to be chewing at a treat held in my hand! Sure we'll get there!


Thought I'd add a few pictures to show how much our little girl is growing up! Can't believe she is 4 months old on Sunday. Still such a cutie and she's getting a fantastically big coat! She's also quite chunky - she weighed in at 9.5kg yesterday!

Update

I haven't been very good recently at updating the blog I'm afraid as we seem to have been quite busy (mostly busy being chewed by a small lappy!!), so here is a bit of an update of the last week or so. Bit of a ramble through different things I'm afraid!


Meeting up with Tarmo

Last Saturday Inko got to have a lovely romp around in the woods with her brother, Tarmo. Tarmo lives with Stacey and Shane in Woking, not far from us, so we travelled over to have a catch up walk. We went to Horsell Common and it was great. There is a shallow lake and big sand pit type are in the middle of the woods which both Inko and Tarmo thought was great!! Much bigger than Inko's little sand pit at home!! After much rolling around they both turned from Black Tri lappies into a somewhat orange colour!! Luckily, the wonder that is lappy fur meant that with very little effort after the walk, Inko was quickly looking her usual lovely, fluffy self!!

Paddling!

Nice and coated in sand!

I think maybe Inko was trying to be in disguise!!

Might be all sandy, but still a real cutie!

And here's the lovely Tarmo

My birthday party

The evening after the walk with Tarmo was my 30th birthday party - luckily Inko was quite tired after the walk so was nice and quiet at the party. She got lots of attention from all the guests and was an absolute sweetie all night! None of the guests got chewed or barked at which was great!! Such a good girl! Inko looked somewhat confused when she walked into the back room where people were playing Guitar Hero World Tour on the X-Box 360!! Not sure she was impressed with the singing and instrument playing!! When it got to her bedtime she decided to pack herself off to bed!! Think she was a bit surprised that people were still around at such a time, but she wasn't going to let that get in the way of her bedtime!! She normally gets put to bed at about 10pm but people didn't lave the party till about 12-12.30 so she didn't properly go to bed till much later than normal. Luckily this led to a wake up time of just before 8am - much better than the normal 6.30 wake up call!!

Lappy walk

Inko had a great time at the lappy walk up in Watford last Sunday. It was quite a long walk so I had to carry Inko for a bit of it - she is getting quite heavy now so this was somewhat harder work than it was at the Bath walk last month! Luckily our friends Alison and Mike very kindly assisted with some of the carrying, saving my arms muscles a little. We met an absolutely beautiful husky type dog - think it was a Siberian husky, but I'm not sure - with one blue eye and one brown eye - it was stunning! It was lovely to have a catch up with lots of lappy owners and for Inko to have a good run around with other lappies.

Teething

Inko is still massively chewing - mostly chewing hands, arms and feet!! She seems to have very little interest in toys for long at the moment but is very, very persistent with her chewing of people. Because she still has most of her puppy teeth (she's only lost 3 or 4 of the small front teeth) this is rather painful!! We have tried lots of different things - yelping to let her know it hurts, trying to stuff a toy in her mouth for her to chew instead, and shaking a coin filled plastic jar to try and distract her, but none of these seem to be working! She has also been loving chewing my new slippers so we bought some bitter tasting spray from the pet shop to spray on my slippers (and on the sofas where she chews and digs them), but unfortunately this is not doing much good either - it would appear that the fun of chewing is worth the bitter taste!! We have now taken to popping her into her den area for a bit to calm down when she gets too over the top with her chewing.

We have bought a big bag of frozen carrots to give her to help sooth her gums and she is enjoying eating them, and we're still continuing with ice cubes. We're hoping that the persistent chewing phase stops fairly soon as she has left quite a few scratches on people's hands, which isn't the end of the world when it's just us too, but great when she does this to guests!!

Eating what she shouldn't!

Unfortunately Inko has become quite a fan of eating cow poo and mud! On walks we constantly have to pull her away from cow poo in the fields and in the garden we are constantly having to call her out of the flower beds where she has always got a mouthful of mud! She also keeps bringing mouthfuls of mud into the house - and she seems to have a habit of spitting it out on the sofa! Nice!! This doesn't seem to be doing her much good as she's been sick a couple of times now, bringing up either mud or cow poo that she has eaten before - not sure really how to stop her doing this as, like with the chewing, if it's something she enjoys she is very, very persistent!

Some pictures of one of our favourite walks

On the morning of my birthday on Wednesday Inko and I went out for a lovely walk to one of our favourite places, Hawley Meadows, and it was a beautiful sunny morning. I got some lovely picture of the meadow and a nice one of Inko there too in a rare moment of her standing still. Such a lovelt way to spend the start of my birthday :)

Meeting a parrot

This afternoon Adam, Inko and I went over to see Adam's Nan and Grandad. They have an African Grey Parrot and Inko seemed quite confused by the whistling and talking coming from the cage in the corner. Apart from the odd yap at the parrot, Inko was actually really good and most of the time just watched the parrot climbing around her cage and swinging on her swing bar in the middle! Even when the door was opened up to put a bowl at the bottom for the parrot to have a bath and it was left open Inko was still very well behaved!

The bell

And finally, I thought I'd give a quick update on how Inko is getting on with the bell to go out to the garden - I think she's finally cracked it!! She now goes and sits by the bell whenever she needs to go out and if we haven't noticed she then starts nudging the bell! It is one of those ones like you have on a reception desk at a hotel. She doesn't manage to get it to 'ding' every time, but it makes enough noise with her pushing at it with her paw or her nose that we turn and notice her waiting there! What a clever girl!! However, she has learnt that ringing the bell gets her out in the garden....this means she rings it if she wants a potter and a dig, as well as if she actually needs to go to the loo!! We had been so keen for her to learn it that whenever she pushed it we'd take her out so that she made the association with going out. We are now trying to wait a bit longer before letting her out, whilst keeping an eye on her body language so we quickly take her out if she clearly looks like she needs a wee or poo. This way, if she is just ringing it because she fancies a play outside she generally gives up sitting by the bell after a short while and and wanders back to the room. But if she really needs to go out she will stay there and usually try nudging or ringing it again. People seemed very impressed with this at my party! It's very cute :)

Boxes

Yesterday, in a very uncharacteristic moment of tidiness I decided to sort out a 'toy box' for Inko to stop the rooms looking like a bomb had hit them every moment of the day (knowing in reality that this would never really last with untidy people like me and Adam, and a lappy!). So I hunted out an old cardboard box and popped all her toys in there. All was nice and neat until Inko came out of her den area where she is kept when we're at work. She then proceeded to start systematically removing the toys until she realised it was much quicker to tip it on the side and half get in the box to remove them all!!

Once they were all out she found that actually this new square thing that had been introduced to the room, which had been keeping her toys prisoner, was actually even more exciting than the toys!! So she spent ages last night 'killing' the box!! I managed to get a video of her having so much fun, half in the box most of the time!! It's a bit dark, but the darkness seems to have shown up the devil in our little lappy - notice her normally beautiful brown eyes looking bright red eyes whenever she looks to the camera!! Explains her hooligan behaviour!! You can even catch her red eyes peeping through the hole she has created in the bottom of the box at one point!!

I knew there was a devil in this dog!!!

Think she really enjoyed having a good chew as she definitely seems to be getting to a teething age now - she is extremely 'bite-y' at the moment and we can't walk her to the garden for a wee without nearly losing a toe, despite many efforts at distraction - this lappy is not phased by any loud noise - even the magic red can of Pet Corrector - or by having water sprayed at her! Just have to hope her sharp needle teeth start falling out soon!! She's also started trying to chew our hands and arms quite a lot when we're sat here. She pushes right to the back of her mouth so I think her gums must be sore at the back. She was doing this with the box too - pushing the cardboard right to the back. Have been trying to give her lots of decent chewing toys to try and help (although they appear not to be as fun as hand/arm/toe/ankle/box). Have also been giving her ice cubes regularly which she has been chewing and sucking - think they must be nice and soothing so need to make sure we have a regular supply in the freezer.

We have a busy weekend ahead of dog walks with friends (canine and human), a puppy party, and lots of training for Inko's assessment at puppy class next Wednesday - really want her to pass and get her KC Puppy Foundation certificate!!

Visiting lappies, chewing and moles

We all had a lovely visit to Liphook at the weekend to meet up with some of the lappy lot who were camping there and Inko had a fantastic time on the lovely walk that we had, running round with all the lappies and with Toni's border collie. Thanks loads to Steve and Shelley for the cups of coffee and for letting Inko explore inside your caravan!!


Inko decided to do a bit of decorating while we were at work today. She had been fine all morning and had a lovely play for nearly an hour with my mum and dad at lunch but she must have got a bit bored in the afternoon. We have a wooden radiator cover in her area which is a bit tatty so we weren't going to be too concerned if she nibbled the edges - but it would appear that Inko thinks edges are no fun, and she went for shredding the front of it instead! Guess we must have jinxed things by telling Shelley that we've been lucky so far with Inko not chewing very much of our stuff!!





Last night we went out for a walk to a local meadow that runs alongside a river which is just down the road from us which we often go to. We decided to walk across one of the big fields and Inko started going mad, barking and pouncing at the ground - using the torch (as it was rather dark), we scanned around and noticed lots of mole hills - don't know whether she could hear the moles or smell them, but she definitely seemed to know there was something down there!!

Clocks, snow, and walking to heel

Clocks going back

It is now the 5th morning since the clocks went back and I am yet to be successful in my bid to persuade Inko that she needs to stay in her crate a bit longer in the morning because her body clock is still clearly on British Summer Time? Unfortunately my body clock has now adjusted to the new time so each day the pre-6am starts feel earlier so I feel it's more of a strain getting up (on Sunday and Monday it wasn't too bad as it still felt like BST to me too!). As I still hadn't fully adjusted to getting up some time between 6 and 6.45, this is even more painful!! Although it does give me plenty of time to write this update before I even need to think about getting ready for work!

"I like snow!"

On Tuesday evening we got snow!! Inko seemed to quite like it, trying to eat lumps of it off the ground (she must have thought it was great - liking having one big ice cube to play with!!). Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a decent photo of her outside as it was coming down because I only had my phone camera with me and despite it being a reasonably good camera for one on a phone it was just too dark to get a good pic without a decent camera. I did, however get this picture of her looking like she had rather a bad case of dandruff when we finally got her in!!




On Wednesday morning much of the snow was still on the ground but it had turned rather icy over night so Inko had the very strange experience of the ground crunching under her feet so it was quite slow walk around initially until she got used to it...she quickly discovered that this weird new crunchy stuff also tasted like ice cube so had fun eating some more!! She was rather confused when she wandered over to the lid of her sand pit to have her usual drink out of the swirly grooves in the top which collect rain water (which she likes to use as a nice outdoor drink bowl!) to find that the grooves has disappeared and had been replaced by more cold stuff - rather like a long swirly ice cube!! So she had a lick!

Training update

I was very pleased with Inko's 'stays' last night at training class even with all the distractions of the other dogs who, despite her reluctance to interact with them in the first couple of weeks, are now great fun to play with she thinks!

Our main issue now is walking to heel, or even just consistent loose lease walking - we need to be much better at investing more time in this than we have...we've been too lazy and not always doing as instructed, such as changing direction or stopping every time she pulls. She's quickly learning to walk how she wants, not how we want! We need to get this right, or at least vastly improved on what we've got now if we are going to get the KC puppy foundation certificate at the end of the training class. It would be such a shame not to get this when her other stuff is coming along so well.

I have found that on some walks having a small amount of food in my left hand while walking along helps keep her pretty close to me as long as I am regularly giving her the treats along the way so that she doesn't feel like she's just being teased. I find that when I have done that for bit she will walk with just my left had down at my side without a treat for a little while too so I need to make sure we do more of that, as this seems to show that she is starting to work out that my hand at the side and walking near it is a good thing. Other times she pulls either to the front or occasionally to the back, or weaves in front of me or behind me, nearly tripping me up on occasions. And then other times, when she's really not up for doing as she's told she just won't walk without jumping, barking and chewing at my ankles. I've tried pulling her away with the lead but this is tricky if I want her walking on my left and have the lead in my right so that I can have the treat in my left hand! All very confusing!

I'm wondering whether she is doing this is she needs to go to the loo when she's out. She's really reluctant to poo or wee when out on a walk around the roads. She'll do both fine when off lead (or on lead for that matter) when out in a field or woods as grass is definitely her preferred place to go. I've started taking her out for a short walk up the road as soon as I get her out of her crate so that I know it's a time she'll be desperate to go. I've managed to get her to do a wee on the pavement (well actually in the gutter each time so far - she just steps off the kerb to wee!) but still haven't manage to get her to do a poo. It's after the wee that she actually starts her jumping and nipping. I always take her into the garden when we get back and she usually then does her poo, which does suggest to me that maybe that's a big issue here. Just don't know how to make her do it outside. It's hard to just stand around to allow time for her to give in and just do it on the pavement when she's yapping and barking because I'm not sure it'll endear me to the neighbours having her do that at 5.30am!!!

Paula

New fave snoozing spot

Inko has discovered that a very comfy place to snooze is on top of the cushions of the sofa!

You will have to forgive the utter un-tidiness of our lounge which is revealed in this shot below, but as you can see, she's happy to be sat up on top of the cushions on either sofa!!

Both Inks and I spent quite a bit of time curled up on here this afternoon having a nap after a great walk this morning with some friends, two sprocker spaniels and a labrador! She had sooo much fun running round with the other dogs - she can definitely hold her own with the bigger dogs now - no fear whatsoever!! She had a great time running, or should I say bouncing, though some tall ferns - you could just see this ball of black, white and tan fluff jumping up out of the ferns ever now and then!!

It was somewhat damp this on the walk this morning so I came back with a punk, spiky lappy puppy!! Soon sorted that out with Inko's first experience of the hairdryer!! She was a bit wary at first but soon seemed to get used to it and actually quite enjoyed it on her back (though was less keen when I tried to dry the front of her chest - don't think she liked it blowing in her face!) - soon had a nice dry and fluffy lappy again!!