Bea's New Digs

This evening I set to work building Beatrice a larger cage. In all of the reading I've been doing the past week, I have learned that most pet store type cages are much too small for guinea pigs to be truly happy. GuineaPigCages.com is a great website full of really useful information, so I decided I would follow their advice and build what is called a "C&C cage" ... or "Cubes and Coroplast". The cubes portion are those grid squares that you make utility shelves out of ... you know, you've seen them in utility rooms, laundry rooms, or bathrooms. And coroplast is that corrugated plastic used to make signs. I had a stack of the metal grids donated by the doting "grandparents" and found a great deal on coroplast. Little plug here, for anyone in Saskatoon wanting to get plain coroplast for building one of these babies, check out 77 Signs. They were super helpful and I was able to get what I needed same day for less than $30!

GuineaPigCages.com has really great instructions on how to build a C&C cage, so check them out. I'm writing this only because my methods may have deviated slightly from theirs. Take you pick!

Step 1: Gather materials

• Stack of grids and handful of connectors ... I didn't count, so sue me.
  
• Hammer to "gently persuade" the connectors onto the grids
• Pen
• Exacto knife
• Zip ties - of particular importance!
• Tape
  
• Beer
• 2 helpful Shelties

Step 2a: Take a couple of minutes to figure out how the heck the connectors hook onto the grid squares. Once you figure that out, connect the grids to form the perimeter of the cage based on the size guidelines outlined on GuineaPigCages.com.

Step 2b: Smash the connectors with the hammer, sending them flying across the room and scaring the dogs.

Step 2c: Drink beer and repeat step 2b.

Step 2d: Swear profusely, open the window 'cause it's getting really freakin' hot in here! Return to step 2b and continue.



Step 3a: Place the perimeter frame on the coroplast, in doing so watch as half the connectors and grids fall off.

Step 3b: Curse the damned guinea pig, swearing that she better like this cage or she is becoming dog food and the grids are going in the trash.

Step 3c: Get another beer.

Step 4: Remove all the damned connectors and tie the damned thing together with zip ties.


Step 5: Place back on the coroplast and trace the inside of the frame with a pen.

Step 6: Refer to GuineaPigCages.com for instructions on fancy scoring, cutting, folding ... most of which I just winged anyways.



Step 7: Pray to the god of small furries that the frame fits around the coroplast tray.

Step 8: YAY! Celebrate with beer.



Step 9: Realize that the coroplast tray is wedged so tight into the frame that it holds its rectangular nature and you don't even need a bottom to hold things together. Yeah, I planned that all along. Celebrate with beer.

Step 10: Build cubes with one open side ... is that technically still a cube? About 3 should do it. Use them for building a platform to raise the cage off the ground, thus preventing Sheltie-Guinea Pig Cuddling and/or Reindeer Games. Also serve as storage places for guinea pig food, hay, bedding, etc.


Step 11: Line with towels and fleece (YAY for Dollarama!), stock with food, water, hidey thing, and paper tube that is supposedly a good toy for guinea pigs. Sure.



Step 12: Add guinea pig and watch the frivolity!



Turns out Beatrice really does enjoy her new cage. It is MUCH larger than her original cage, and she spent forever exploring her new digs. I think I even witnessed her first popcorning (which is apparently how a guinea pig expressed their happiness ... sorta like Sheltie zoomies?)

Introducing ... Beatrice!

Sheltie Hair presents to you, our new family member ... Beatrice!

Beatrice was a rehome situation that I heard about this past weekend from a friend. Said friend's sister is moving out of town and having to rehome sweet little Beatrice. I have been contemplating the addition of a small furry non-dog beastie for a while now, so the situation was perfect!

Beatrice is my first guinea pig, so she will likely teach me a lot. But she is super sweet and I'm sure will be a great teacher.

We did the initial meet-n-greet between Bea and the boys, and she handled it VERY well!

Romeo is a little bit terrified of her ...


But her and Gio really seemed to hit it off! Gio is completely fascinated by her, and she seems politely curious about him as well. Gio's already caught on that he has to be in a "down" if he wants to sniff at her, and Bea has started to learn that Gio's tail is a GREAT place to rustle around in.



Romeo will take a little longer to come around, but it will come, I am sure.

For now, Bea just has a small cage, so I will have to work on upgrading her living conditions. Though with how well the introductions went tonight, supervised floor time should be a breeze!

I really don't know much of anything about guinea pigs, so I've been doing a lot of reading online and asking around to friends. If anyone has any idea what sort (breed?) of guinea pig Bea might be, that would be really cool to know!

Green Sleeves

...
My men were clothed all in green,
And they did ever wait on thee;
All this was gallant to be seen,
And yet thou wouldst not love me.

Greensleeves was all my joy
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but my lady greensleeves.
...

The boys helped me mow the lawn this afternoon. Understandably, this process results in MY legs being flecked in green ...

PS. The new-to-me lawn mower and weed whacker, combined price of $20, and my fancy new extension cord, valued at $80 (huh?!) work really well!

But Gio and Romeo are SUCH good helpers that they were adequately green by the end of the event as well.

Low-rider (aka. Romeo) successfully served as a rake, collecting all the wet chopped up bits of grass in his chest fluff. Still haven't figured out how I am going to de-green him in time for his therapy dog visit tomorrow. So far, I am going with the theory that if I leave it alone it will sort itself out.

Between mowing the lawn and our adventures this morning, it's been quite the day for little Romeo.

What? I haven't told you about our adventures from this morning yet?

SHAME! Shame on me!

D&S put on an agility fun match this morning, run in conjunction with the Ebon Stables horse show. It was a small-ish turnout for the fun match, only 15 dogs or so. But just a good size that we could get in about 5 runs. Shirley, the sadist that she is, started us off with a clover leaf game. Yeah, not a good game for Romeo and me. Definitely something we have to work on. Unless of course people will join us in our petition that HIGH score wins ... any takers?!

After that we ran what we've been told is called a helter-skelter. Lots of fun actually, and much more suited for Romeo's and my strengths. It is essentially a large spiral of obstacles inwards, then turn around and do the spiral outwards again. Romeo ROCKED this one, with TWO no fault runs! Would have been faster but I screwed him up on a send out to the tunnel. Darned Shelties have handler focus out the wazoo coupled with eyes on the backs of their heads. Silly me, thinking that if he was turned completely away from me that he wouldn't see if I slightly changed position to get ready for his return through the tunnel. Apparently, all the fluff is concealing another set of eyeballs.

It was a great morning, despite the flashy new sunburn that I am sporting. Lots of fun with a great group of people and dogs!

Gio's Post

Since the last THREE blog posts have been all about Romeo, I am dedicating this whole post to Gio. Only Gio. I won't even mention that Romeo nailed ALL his contacts at agility practice today, including the teeter! Nope, not going to mention that at all, just talk about Gio.

First, an little epilepsy update. This past week we saw a recurrence of the S-monster. Gio had another seizure on Tuesday evening, nearly 2 months to the day since his last seizure. It was a grand mal, but short in duration and he recovered fairly quickly. Even though the seizures have lately been coming in clusters, this was a singleton with no more since then. So maybe my new routine of double dosing him on phenobarb after the first seizure is paying off! He went to the vet on Friday for his routine bloodwork consisting of a chemistry panel, CBC and phenobarbital level check. I don't anticipate anything to be wrong, just a regular check that we do every 4 months or so. We'll get the results back early next week.

Anyways, on to happier news! Down but never out, Gio and I went tracking this afternoon. He is doing really REALLY well on his corners. He was having trouble with them for a while, lacking confidence in deciding which way to go, and then getting frustrated and giving up. We got some tips a couple of months back at a tracking seminar we attended here in town, and they have really been paying off! By rubbing a little bit of food on the sole of my shoes at each corner and then dropping a couple of treats about 5 steps after the corner, it is enough motivation for him to keep trying. I could really see the difference in how he was working today. He would cast out at each corner to figure out which way to turn, and his confidence when he found the correct direction was tangible! I really like that he is willing to cast around when he is less than 100% certain, but quickly runs back to the correct track once he has made up his mind. He's a very thorough worker, that is for sure!

Here are the two tracks we worked today.


I have a horrible sense of distance, so I have no clue how long each track was. Each track had 3 corners and the straight portions were between 30 and 50 steps, "steps" being normal brisk walking steps of a 5'5" person. We aren't really working on aging the tracks yet, just getting his confidence up and increasing the distance. So the tracks were only about 5 minutes old. Gio clearly wants to keep going at the end of the track, often continuing to follow my return path after the final food drop, so I will increase the distance substantially next time. Then work on aging.

Again, these tracks were both laid in a busy park, between two baseball diamonds that are shared play fields for two near by elementary schools. I really like using public fields like this, one because the grass is kept at a really nice length, and two because there is so much "background" scent that it really helps Gio learn to pick out one scent and follow it while ignoring the rest. I'm hoping this will come in handy down the line if we ever get around to trialing. The TD test is done in rural areas without much background contamination (other than wildlife tracks), but the urban tests are all done in public areas like this. I haven't yet laid a track over any other ground covering but grass, but I think next time we go out I will try crossing over the paths in the park to see how he handles brief bits of concrete or gravel.

Here is a video of Gio's second track. Sorry for the "Blair Witch" style, but it's a little hard to keep the camera steady while trotting after a dog on a mission, slapping mosquitos, and trying to pick up all those darned stakes!

Happy Birthday Romeo!

Today is little Romi-Pig's 3rd birthday! Officially a big boy now!

"Grandma" spoiled him with a squeaky squirrel (with lots of "hair", just like he likes 'em) and a basketball for the back yard. In addition to the X-pen, which was originally supposed to be a birthday present for the Romeo ... you just can't hold those grandmas back!

I also made up the boys' favorite Fishy Fudge training treats and we celebrated with my Rally-O class dogs this afternoon. I bought some birthday hats thinking that maybe, just MAYBE, if I acted pathetic enough, my students would humor me enough to pop a party hat on their dogs and let me take a couple of pictures. Turns out they were thrilled with the prospect, and the dogs seemed to really enjoy it as well!

Of course, no one enjoyed the hats like Sophie did. Sophie, a lovely (though somewhat energetic) Labrador Retriever, thought that her birthday hat was the best thing in the world and just had to show it off to everyone. She was quite proud of herself, actually.



Sophie's "brother", Spike, was slightly less thrilled, but humored us all and posed for a picture.


The Afghans, Weasel and Nola, won the fashion and style award with the hip and trendy bed-head bangs peeking from under the hats.



Edgar, a Standard Poodle, celebrated his birthday yesterday, so we had to get a picture of the two birthday boys together* (and Sophie just had to sneak in the background of the picture to show off her fancy hat some more).



Finally, little Gina the Miniature Poodle, was nearly lost in the hat. It was much to big for her, and she was convinced that it was too heavy as well. She's such a trooper!


Then, after a good run in the park, I wrangle the two Shelties together and convinced Gio to pose with Romeo. Though Gio kept trying to steal the spotlight by inching forward to block Romeo out completely.

"Well, what the heck am I supposed to do?! Romeo has been the subject of the past TWO blog posts without even slight mention of ME! What's a dog gotta do to get his handsome mug featured on this blog, eh?!"

Thanks everyone for being an accomplice to my psychosis! It totally made my day! And I would like to think that Romeo might have had a good time as well ... or maybe it was just the Fishy Fudge.

* This picture cracks me up! They both look so somber and serious!

Beautiful Artwork!

I frequent a lovely Sheltie message board, Circle of Sheltie Friends, and on that board they have a feature called Mascot of the Month where two Shelties are named MOTM each and every month. Their story is written up and posted for all to see. Additionally, one of the resident Sheltie-a-holics compiles submitted photos of the MOTM to accompany the story.

Romeo has been chosen as one of the MOTMs for August 2009!

I checked out the board this morning to see that his story has been posted along with some absolutely stunning photos by our resident computer image guru, Mo. I've received permission from Mo to post them here and show off her wonderful work to the world!

Sporty Romeo

Romeo Candids

Raining Cats and Dogs

Okay ... maybe there aren't so many cats around. But dogs, wet dogs, we've got!

Tonight was our regular canine strength and conditioning class and it was raining. Not over cold and not a torrential downpour, so we worked through it. A good idea to get the dogs used to working in the rain anyways, and something Mr. "I'm made of sugar and can't get wet" really needs to practice! He is getting better, and will work in the rain, I just have to pull out the good treats and pile on the encouragement.

Big success of the night (aside from me not falling down or collapsing from lack of oxygen to the brain), Romeo pulled his bag of rocks ... err, I mean highly sophisticated and accurately calibrated doggy weight system ... across the whole field without me having to "help". When I got Romeo, he was overly aware of his leash, to the point that he couldn't even function if, Dog forbid, the leash draped on the wrong side of his body. And don't even THINK about trying to drag the leash behind you! NO WAY! I worked quite hard on desensitizing him to the leash and he is stellar with it now. But we took a couple steps backwards when I then hooked that leash to his harness and added 2lbs of rocks to the end. Back to square one with the training. But he's been doing pretty good, to the point where I just have to "pretend" to hold the leash and he will pull the full weight. Tonight I started him off jogging beside him while holding the leash, and then eased it down so that he was pulling the full weight of the bag, and he kept happily running beside me. YAY! Of course, he only did it one time out of four attempts, but we'll take the small successes!

Afterward, in addition to being tired, we were both also very VERY wet. I would like to think that Romeo looks somewhat more pathetic than I do while doing the drowned rat impression, but I think I might just be flattering myself there. Either way, I'm the one with the thumbs, so I get to stand behind the camera. So here is a very wet and unhappy Romeo.

"Not cool, dude. Definitely not cool."