Saturday, September 14, 2013

Little Update On Galla Creek Texas "Piper"
 
Still a little package of dynamite, we took Piper to the vet 2 weeks after her first visit to see if we could get a better flea control. Fleas are really bad around the farm this year. This one did the trick. All fleas gone after a few hours never to return again. In the two weeks since her last visit she went from 3 pounds to 4.1 pounds. Pretty impressive for a two week period from our little girl.
 
Obedience work has been a joy. She's so smart and picks up so easily. We have "here" down well, "sit" was doing great until we introduced "lay down" which seems to confuse her just a tad. Sometime when you say "sit" she will lay down or vise-versa but hey she's just 10 weeks old now and she will learn to distinguish between the two quickly. Gets it right most of the time.
 
She has picked up "speak" pretty dad-gum good to. New to this squirrel dog training but have heard if you can get them to speak on command it will help later when treeing.
 
She's a ball of fire with a very scrappy personality. She's a very tough cookie and doesn't seem to be scared of anything. We tried her outside today around the riding lawnmower. Seems I've had a lot of dogs that didn't care for the mower. She thought nothing of it.
 
I know these dogs are not necessarily meant as retrieving dogs, although I have seem many videos where they do, but we are working at that as well. At 10 weeks of age she is doing as well as any lab I've ever had on retrieving.
 
I have heard that Feist personalities can be more soft than labs or curs and not for sure if force-fetching her later after permanent teeth are in will be a good thing or not. Right now she shows no softness at all when being scolded. Its more like you don't hurt her feelings at all but rather "tick" her off. Sometimes I really have to demonstrate that I am the alpha male to get her to settle down ... but it works.
 
Anyway here are a couple videos of her demonstrating what she's learned so far. You get the good with the bad with my videos. I don't believe there is a perfect puppy at 10 weeks old but I think you'd agree after seeing the videos, this pup is above par. For those of you who disagree with training at such a young age, just keep in mind this pup spends 99% of her life just being a puppy. All we do is play fun teaching games at this point that she enjoys.
 
Oh I must also mention I play games with her and there is constant encouragement for her to look up. I am seeing good signs of this. When in the house or outside she looks up most of the time. Goes by a tree, stops and looks up in the tree, the bush, back of the truck or whatever.
 
She is getting more riding time too. Take her with us whenever we can in the truck.
 
Again, thanks to Mr. & Mrs. Renfroe at Galla Creek for such a great little pup. I look forward to getting a male from them next year.
 
After getting Piper and spending near about a month with her now, I am starting to think there really may be some merit to getting the "runt" of the litter.
 
Enjoy the videos!
 
 
First video is of "here" and "sit"
 

 
Next video is of "speak"
 
 
Retrieving games