Gearing Up

We're getting ready to go full-bore into fall now. We'll be starting our homeschooling this week, and AWANA also begins.

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Yesterday I went and got the kids registered for classes at our homeschool co-op. It looks like I'll be helping teach a crocheting/knitting class and helping in a web design class this term, which will be fun.

Ebee will be in the 3-year-olds' preschool class, and AJ and M&M will be taking the same classes for two sessions and be in different classes for the last session. They're taking "Simple Crafts for Girls" the first session and "The 7 C's of History" the second session. The third session M&M will be in "Adding Up the Giggles" (a math class) and AJ is taking Origami.

The girls really wanted to take a science class too, but by the time my number was called to register there weren't many choices left. I think the girls will enjoy all their classes, and of course the other 4 days a week and in the afternoons on co-op days we'll be covering other subjects at home too.

Baby is now named Mira, pronouced like the word miracle. She is picking up on it quickly, and seems to like it fine. I'm enjoying calling her by a name we chose and like; it makes her seem more truly our own dog.

A couple of days ago, as she really got comfortable in our home and with our family, her growling and barking issues escalated significantly. She wasn't barking and growling at us, but basically at any strange person or car she saw through the window or out on a walk.

I contacted the old owner to ask if this was a new behavior for the dog or not, and discovered that Mira had basically been encouraged to act like a guard dog--not biting, but barking and growling at anyone who came near the previous owner or her home. Not good from our perspective.

Thankfully, I have some good resources available to me in the form of newsgroups and a dog trainer.

The trainer had placed an ad saying that he would like to donate some time to helping a shelter, a rescue, or an individual dog from a shelter or rescue. When I contacted him, I found that he uses and trains dogs for seizure alerting and other assistance tasks, as well as teaching basic obedience and rehabilitating aggressive dogs.

He's been incredibly helpful to me already in learning how to refine Mira's alerting behavior, work with her on basic obedience, and deal with the growling. DH and I and the kids are going to meet with him this coming week so he can show us some techniques for handling Mira, but meanwhile he's been giving me a lot of tremendously helpful advice over the phone and e-mail.

Even after just a couple of days of using the techniques we've learned for correcting the growling and barking, Mira is showing huge improvement already. We had our home group Bible study meeting after church this afternoon. I did have to correct Mira for barking and growling at the first person who came in the door, but after that she was perfectly friendly to him and everyone else who came in. She wagged her tail, let everyone pet her, and loved all the extra attention.

She behaved so very well during our meeting. She really wanted to go out and play with all the kids, but since she is still so new to us, I didn't let her go out. She is, after all, a herding dog. With a large group of small children running around the yard shrieking and playing, I wasn't sure if she would try to herd them or not.

I told her to "halt," which is the word I've been teaching her that means she is not to go through a doorway until I give her permission. She stayed inside even when one of the kids would go through the door and leave it open. I only had to correct her and make her come inside once when she misunderstood another command I gave her and thought I told her she could go outside. I was so proud of her.

She never once tried to jump on any of the kids or get overexuberant with them even when they came running through the house or rushed at her to hug her. Several people commented how unusually calm and well-behaved she is for a young 2-year-old dog.

We've been working on commands like "heel" and "leave it" too, and she is doing very well with those--well enough to ignore another dog barking at her, people we meet on our walks, a squirrel, and a car alarm going off right next to her. She started to look at them (and really wanted to chase the squirrel), but when I told her to leave them alone she did.

The whole family is really enjoying her. The one thing we're still really struggling with at the moment is kennel training (teaching her to be OK with being put into the kennel and left alone), but we'll keep working on that and I'm sure she'll get it eventually.