Kaylee update!

[Kayleegator]

We're baaack...

 

I haven't posted here for 5-6 months, and just want to check in. My Kaylee is now 20 months old, and a fine, sensitive, funny, busy, b/w girl. She's still quirky, but she's smart and loving and generally well-behaved now: we've survived the worst of her adolescence and are doing fine. I see there are a lot of darlin' new puppies on here, and they are all going to be little dickenses. You new BC owners, you are in the right place. I got so much good counsel from this list last year!

 

Kaylee's most concerning quirk has been her shadow-chasing, which she developed when she was about six months old. Word to the wise: don't EVER play with your BC with laser light toys! BCs are so visually acute, it's just asking for trouble. Kaylee lost it with ONE session. She's obsessed with any kind of sparkle or moving shadow, and it got so bad I finally went to the vet for an assessment. She'd be so addled she'd stare for hours if I let her, or try to bite or dig at the wall or floor, or the deck outside. She's been on doggie Prozac now for about six months, and it has helped A LOT. She'll still fixate on shadows or sunbeams, but can easily be called out of it now. I've noted that she resorts to staring at shadows in very stimulating situations, i.e. when she's on leash around a lot of people: she needs to behave, but she needs to be busy: it's a self-comforting behavior. It helps that I am more accepting, too, less obsessed with her obsessing!

 

She still goes into insane greetings of her favorite people, but gets over it within a minute or two. It amuses me to see how hard she tries, she really tries! to settle down when she's so frantically happy to see her friends.

 

She's well-socialized with other dogs, and loves to outrun them. She's a very fast runner, and proud of it.

 

She's fun to hike with. I've been letting her hike off-leash for months now: she's biddable, will recall right away if I ask it, no matter how interesting the woods are. Of course running water is SPARKLY, and she can get a little nutty about it. She can still obsess about swimming, too, but we've learned to manage that: we just walk on. But it's so important to rescue pieces of wood from drowning! They are just not SAFE, floating out there!

 

Car-fixating is not an issue anymore. On leash, every time she began to slink and fixate on a moving car, I asked her to Sit. Over and over. It broke her concentration just enough. She doesn't ignore all cars at this point, but she doesn't fixate or try to lunge at them at all. Snow tires, now, they make a weird noise: I still make her Sit, and give her no opportunity to be off-leash around cars.

 

We've pretty much stopped using her crate except for the rare time-out. She began to balk at bedtime after going straight to her crate on command for a year, to the point that she'd go hide. I thought about that, and decided to just try letting her sleep beside my bed on the liner from her crate. That's all she wanted.

 

We no longer use the crate in the car: the parked car has 'become' a crate. She has never been destructive, never barks, never gets into groceries. I've noted with amusement that she's a great navigator. She recognizes the routes we take to friends' houses, to the dog park, to the closer trailheads, and will 'chuff' with approval if we're getting close to a favorite destination.

 

Cats. We have three old-lady cats. They are still very interesting to Kaylee, who had a kitten to play with at her first home. She will 'escort' them all over the house if they leave their sleeping spots. Sometimes she'll give a little bounce at one, to see if she can get a hiss or a paw swipe, by way of entertainment. We have consistently and sternly told her NO CAT, and she knows very well that she shouldn't bother them. But they're SO interesting! They move, they react, and they 'play chess', watching and waiting for an opening, so they can cruise down the hall. We're still working on this.

 

Play. We play a lot, indoors and out. Frisbee is big these days, although she wants more complex games than just returning the frisbee to have it thrown, i.e: I'll hold the stick out at shoulder level for her to leap for, and then throw the frisbee again. I need to be trained in some fancier tricks, huh! There's only one agility class offered in our area, in summer: hopefully we can get her in when it comes around again. One toy that she loves is a tetherball hung from a big tree branch. She'll tug the rope and shake the ball fiercely, ride the ball with a frisbee in her mouth, etc.

 

This winter we are working on indoor tricks and games: will work for popcorn. The latest trick is "BANG!": she falls down and plays dead... charming!

 

We both need more training, but we're doing much better.

[beachdogz]

thank you for the update.

Your story could be inspiration for our new puppy people! I hope they read it!!