Trying…

Hurro furiends,

It me, Ludo!

Since I last posted I is not been doing so well. My cancer being very annoying and ouchy and not feeling comfortable at all. I is trying to not notice but it getting very hard. I still like to try and go out for walkies but we doesn’t seem to get far and I need to go to the toilet all the time, even though I can’t!

Mum has been trying to help me take my mind off it by playing little games on the floor and rolling the ball to me and we has been doing some tricks and playing find the treats and playing with my ‘brain game’ toys.

Mum and TND help us do them as I doesn’t have the same energy to figure out how to do them by myself.

Like me Arran, not with your feets for this part. You has to pull, push and nudge this one.

I make sure I tell Arran not to come near me when I is doing my treat games. He being a very good little brother at the moment and not being all annoying and sniffing me all the time, like he did be when I first got cancer. I hope Stella forgives me for my very mean face. Hehe! Don’t do worryings, he would not come anywhere near me when I show him my mean face.

We made a video but it not very good as Mum does not really has a proper video recorder! I has fun doing my tricks even though I cas not do some of them so well as I used to. My lump very big now. 😦 I is very happy when we is doing ‘take my mind off it’ things but when we is not I is not quite so happy.

I is going back to the vets someday soon and Mum says that maybe I will see my Auntie Penny. Mum is a bit teary about that but I will try my best to cheer her up!

~Lickies, Ludo!

pee ess: Thank you so much for sticking with us and all your nice comments. Sorry that we haven’t been by to your blogs in a while.

 

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Dancing with the Doggy Stars!

We is taking part in Honey’s competition ‘Dancing with the Doggie Stars‘. So for tricky t-day we posting about that. It a great idea! We mostly been in the thinking and brushing up on my tricks and heelwork stage, but now Mum has started to do the ‘choreography’. Let me tell you she pretty hopeless at this. I doesn’t think she gonna remember it all. We gonna follow Honey’s tips on putting the tricks together to look like a dance. I really like it. I get a bit too excited and barky sometimes and we has to stop cos Mum said even though it a fun thing I get too stressed and you can practically see the adrenaline bulging out of my eyes! My ears stick up like proper sheltie ears. hehe. So we had to choose a more mellow song that didn’t get me too excited because I cas not listen when I is all revved up! So just like with laid back dogs where you has to be super excited with me Mum says I is in a perpetual state of super excitement so she sometimes has to be a bit boring to teach me it good to be calm and focused.

We did a bit of practising of some of the tricks of the routine outside today.

Mum did be talking to me, but you couldn’t hear cos of the wind. You can see me not listening, like when we do go around and I decide to spin. Sometimes when we get the clicker out I jump around and try and do about a hundred tricks at once to get the treat! This all seems great but it can be frustrating for Mum especially when I start doing high pitched barking and biting her hand and sometimes she has to close her eyes and count to three. or walk away all together! It more fun for me when I a bit calmer too. Also, I don’t really like that bit where I has to go backwards to Mum cos I like to look at her face all the time. That also means I crash into things though.

Tricky T-day – hop

Hurro efurryone!
We has not posted or visited for a while cos we has beed enjoying the sunny sunshine here lately!

Here a tricky T-Day for you! I has beed learning hop and we has got to the part where Mum takes her hand away. I kind of want to bite Mum’s hand. I use my mouth to get people hands where I want them to be, like stroking me! So cos her hand’s not where it should be, by my foot, I wants to put it back there. hehe.

Mum has started with the sniffies and sneezies again. She really loves summer, but summer doesn’t love her. Well, the plants at least.

~lickies, Ludo

Tricky T-Day – Hold

So, tRicky inspired us to try working on holding things. I is usually terribly bad at holding things cos you can’t eat treats if you has something in your mouth right? Plus I has a thing about textures, I wont eat something if it feels funny, even if it be delicious! We worked on picking things up at class and giving things into Mum’s hand and I got pretty good at it, so we continues at home holding things and turning around and stuff.

I work better with a soft thing, plus we can only train this in short bursts or I get annoyed. Here the video for you. We think the scarf bit might be a good way to teach rolling in a blanket.

~lickies, Ludo

pee ess: Sorry for the quality!

Tricky T-day – closing doors

This still a work in progress, we doesn’t have the proper cue words in yet and I got a bit confused cos Auntie Penny gets all excited when we go round to grandpawents. But, here me, being helpful.

We started learning this at school. It uses a basic nose touch/target which can be taught pretty easily just by ‘capturing’ ie, marking (with a click, yes, good boy etc) and rewarding (with a treat) touching your nose to something, a hand or piece of paper for example. When you can do that well progress to a wall and lengthen the amount of touching time before you get a treat. For the other version, get your pawson to hold something which you can tug on and they can reward you for doing that. Best not to start on the door right away cos you want your pawson to be able to feel if you is tugging properly and not just trying to actually play tug!

~lickies, Ludo

pee ess: Don’t forget if you wants to come to my pawty in April, get your piccures in to ludovanpup-at-live.co.uk

Tricky T-day!

Time for an update on my barkings! Mum has been putting ‘the plan’ into action over this last week and listening to tips given here. Today I managed to go out the door without even one barking and with Auntie Penny there too! Today when Mum put her socks on I did not bark and only did a little bit of digging on the bed!

Note from Mum: Some people said ‘well, you’re a sheltie, of course you are going to bark’. I’m aware that they are barky, but just like we work on nervousness and excitability I’d like to think I can work on barking needlessly. 😉 I think we are making progress. The biggest result seems to come from just ignoring any unwanted behavior, which as I’m sure you know is hard when they are so high-pitched, or you’re in a hurry to leave. I’ve been putting my coat and his harness on and then just sitting around the house, he’s getting good with that, hardly batting an eyelid now. The perfume part he still goes bonkers at though. TNP wondered why I was wearing perfume and makeup at dog training the other day. lol! I’ve also stopped indulging his games. When I pick up his harness he play bows and runs off. It’s not that he dislikes it, it’s that we allowed it to be a fun game, the same I think with the socks, it’s fun for him to dig about on the bed and me to chase him off. He’s like the kid in the playground that likes to pull your hair. I have adopted a policy of if he does not come calmly to get his lead on it gets put back down, or I stand there stubbornly until he gives up. We did have one set back of barking when I left. He settled down fine, But I forgot something and had to come back in. As I was running late by then I rushed around and he had a mini frenzy as I left again. Ok, back to Ludo.

What a blog hog Mum! OK, for other actual tricky stuff at class we has beed doing a ‘tricks’ class and last night be our last night. I had lots of fun and we gonna go back and do agility and hopefully our silver good citizen award too. I like my new school a whole lot! We also did some more flyball stuff. I got better at catching the ball and worked up to having the ball in the machine thingy a couple of times. I practiced hitting it and running back to Mum in a straight line and going over some jumps too. It a big shame though, not enough peoples want to do it with us and there no other clubs anywhere near us so we can’t do anymore in school just yet.

Here a long and boring video of me doing some freestyle tricks. That where the trainer person not tell you what to do and you decide what tricks to do by yourself. They choose which ones to click though. Sorry for the wonkyness, we still getting the hang of our new camera. The total time gone by be 13 minutes. Can you count how many different tricks I can think of all by myself?

We looking after Penny today. We tooked her to the beach and she has beed very good. Mum got some photos for Reilly’s competition but we will save them for next post.

Happy T-day!
~lickies, Ludo