Get Yours Today !

Breaking News on the Fashion Scene:

Be the first to see the newest hot fashion that will soon be seen on runways everywhere.  Now presenting, the latest edition of:

Designs By Bosley

Bosley says crew necks are out this season so he re-designed this pajama top with a lovely V-neck.  Bosley also added just the right amount of dog slobber to give this design that personalized touch.

The V-neck puts extra emphasis on the two kissing puppies.  Although they are not Bernese puppies, Bosley still thinks that they should be the focal point of this piece.

As well as a keen eye for style, Bosley also has a flair for making sure his designs are comfortable.  A well designed elbow area, provides a little extra ventilation.

What is quickly becoming a Bosley trademark, the elbow hole also allows free range of motion of the arm, so that there are no excuses for not being able to reach across the bed and give your dog a good belly rub during the night.

Bosley is currently working on his next designer masterpiece - matching pajama bottoms.  We are all waiting in anticipation to see what he has up his paw for this next design.

Custom Designs Available By Request

Personalities

I find it interesting  just how different in personality Maggie and Bosley are.  Of course they both have typical Berner traits, but they really are very different.  For example, Maggie is very friendly with everyone and she thinks that everyone should pay attention to her. Maggie has a big personality and she gets very animated when we pass strangers on the street, in an effort to get some pets.  She loves kids and although she has not been around them very often - she is very gentle with them and doesn't mind them crawling on her or poking her.  Bosley, on the other hand, is more reserved with strangers.  He does not seek out attention from people that he does not know (unless they have treats).  He is not a shy dog, he is just not very outgoing when it comes to other people. 

That is their "public image".  At home, Maggie in not a cuddly dog.  She likes to play with us and is constantly trying to engage someone in a game of "tug-o-war" and she will sometimes ask for pets, but she is generally content to lay, by herself, in one of her favorite spots in the house.  Bosley however, is always right at my feet and follows me around constantly.  He always wants to cuddle and to sit in someone's lap.  He always needs to be close to someone and if he had his way would spend the whole day being cuddled and getting belly rubs.

Here is Bosley having some "cuddle time" with Amy.

Very cute!

Bosley sticking his tongue out at Amy.

Something must have been funny; they are both laughing.

Here Bosley has crawled into my lap.  He thinks that there is lots of room for both of us to sit in the chair.  He doesn't seem to realize that he weighs 100 pounds.

. . . and then there were two

I was looking through some pictures and I came across this one.  It is a picture of Bosley on his first day home - he is meeting Maggie for the first time.  Maggie was very interested in him and eager to become friends.  However, Bosley was scared of Maggie (her idea of making friends is bouncing around wildly and barking non-stop) and he would yelp and hide under the kitchen table anytime Maggie came near him.

But, it did not take long and Maggie and Bolsey became buddies.

A Walk In The Park

What a beautiful autumn day we had today.  It was warm, but not too hot for the dogs and not a breath of wind.  I mention the wind, because Lethbridge is notorious for it's wind, especially in the spring and fall,  and for the past few days it has been blowing like crazy.  It is just miserable to go walking when the wind is howling.  Today was perfect!

The dogs and I met up with my friend Janet and her young Bernese boy Tucker. We all enjoyed a nice, long walk along the park trails.  Tucker is 9 months old and is starting to look like a grown-up Bernese.  All his fluffy puppy fur is gone and he is getting his beautiful adult coat and is looking very handsome.

                               Tucker                                Bosley                       Maggie

I love Tuckers "Swiss Cross".  It is often a desired Bernese trait to have a nice, white cross on the chest.  It is not a trait that is in the Bernese standard, rather it goes back to Swiss tradition.  The cross is most noticeable on young dogs, but as the long, heavy coat starts to grow in, the cross is less prominent. 

Can you see the resemblance between Tucker and Bosley?  If you do, it is because Bosley and Tucker are related.  Bosley's Dad and Tucker's Grandmother are littermates.

What a perfect day for a walk in the park with the Berners.

Putting the "Fun" Back in Obedience

Last night, Maggie got to tag along with Bosley and I when we went to Rally Obedience practice.  This was the first time that I have done any obedience with Maggie since our Saskatoon trial, which was about 6 weeks ago  (Maggie has been on an obedience "break" since then).  I gave her a break to try to get some enthusiasm back in her obedience work.  Ever since I put her in the Novice Obedience ring in August (where she had a total ring meltdown) she has not been interested in doing any obedience, even Rally, which she loves.

I love doing obedience with Maggie because she tries really hard and is technically quite good when she is "on".  Last night was a good night for her.  I did a very quick warm up with her and then a fun little Rally course(the rest of the time she had to watch me work with Bosley). I gave her lots of praise and cookies through the whole course and she did great.  She was back to her spunky, fun self.  I sure wish she could be like that in the ring.

This is one of my favorite pictures (taken by Sarah).  It is Maggie and I at our first ever Rally Obedience trial (APDT).  It was such a great day and even though we didn't qualify (I messed up, not Maggie) I was so proud of how Maggie did  our very first time in the ring.

I am going to take my time to try to get Maggie ring ready again.  She needs to know that obedience is fun, even when we are at a trial.  So for now we will do short,fun obedience exercises with lots of rewards and praise and hopefully she will be back to her usual goofy self in no time.

Bernese Shepherd Dogs

What is Maggie so interested in?

What is Bosley so interested in?

Sheep, of course!

This weekend we went out to Scott and Jenny Glen's farm for some herding lessons.  "Bernese herding!?!  Is that possible?", you may ask yourself.  Originally, Bernese were used as all purpose farm dogs in Switzerland.  They are most widely known for pulling the carts of milk to town, but they were also used to help get the cattle to market.  Bernese are known to be 'drovers' rather than 'herders'.  They keep the cattle moving and bring strays back to the group, but do not round up cattle or sheep like a Border Collie will.  Some Bernese have a strong herding instinct while others have very little.  I was curious to see if Maggie and Bosley had any of that instinct.

Maggie was the first to have a lesson.  I knew that she would be interested in the sheep because she has a fairly strong prey drive and will chase down anything that moves.  She was just a little excited to see the sheep.  She really wanted to chase them, but was kept on a leash for her first lesson.  The leash was to protect the sheep from a crazy, untrained dog and to keep Maggie from forming any bad habits.

Scott is carrying a rolled up feed bag.  It is used to get the dog's attention back when they are so focused on the sheep that they are not listening to commands.  Maggie got bonked on the head with the feed bag alot.  Normally, she would be terrified of getting hit on the head with that bag, but she was so focused on the sheep that she barely noticed.

You cannot tell from the pictures, but Maggie was whining and carrying on because she really wanted to get the sheep.

Control is a huge part of herding.  A 'down' gets the dog back under control and focused again.  Maggie acted like she had never heard the word "down" before.

Here is Maggie after getting bonked on the head with the feed bag.  The bag does not hurt the dogs at all - it is just a rolled up paper bag.

Maggie's sheep decided they did not like a big Bernese chasing them and they jumped over the fence to escape.  Maggie went wild when she saw they were running away.

She really wanted to go get those "stray" sheep.

After getting a new set of sheep, it was Bosley's turn.  I was not sure how much interest he would have in the sheep.  This is his first look at the sheep after they came out of the barn.  He was very excited and really wanted to chase them.  I think Scott was surprised at how strong Bosley is.

I know how strong Bosley can be, but it took all my strength to hold him back from taking off after the sheep.

It did not take Bosley long to realize that he could not just go charging after the sheep but rather, just stay behind them at a steady pace.

Here is Bosley going after the sheep that were in a corner.  Scott is not kicking Bosley, he is just trying to keep from tripping over the leash.

Bosley did not get as near as many bonks on the head as Maggie did.  This picture was taken right after Bosley got bonked. Bosley assumed his "Oh no, I did something wrong" position.

Bosley quickly got over it and trotted nicely beside Scott to go get some more sheep.

These sheep were looking at Amanda, who was taking the pictures, as if to say "Help us!  Get us away from these crazy, giant dogs."

I had a lot of fun at our first herding lesson, and I think that the dogs did too.

Catching Up

It is already Tuesday night and I still haven't updated my blog with the weekend's events.  

Saturday

On Saturday, Maggie and I were entered in a one day agility trial in Calgary.  There were only 3 runs scheduled for the day (2 Gamblers and a Standard), so I thought it would be fun.  It was fun, but also frustrating.  

Our first run was great.  It was Advanced Gamblers and Maggie had a great opening sequence, and she collected more than enough points and we were in a good position when the buzzer went to start the closing gamble.  The closing gamble was the dog walk and then a turn off the dog walk and away from me about 15 feet into a tunnel that was parallel to the dog walk.  There were then 2 jumps at a parallel distance of 17 feet away from me to the finish.  Maggie got the turn out to the tunnel but because I had to go past the end of the dogwalk to direct her away from me, I could not get in position to support her over the jump as she came out of the tunnel.  So she pulled off that jump - but otherwise it was a great run and our distance work is definately improving. 

Our next two runs were not so good.  Maggie was very pokey the rest of the day.  In our standard run she stood on top of the A-Frame and took a good look around the arena before she decided to finish the obstacle.  That is very unlike her - she usually loves the A-Frame.  She picked up a bit of speed as we went along, but as we headed to the weaves she decided to avoid them and ducked into a tunnel instead.  After we struggled through the weaves she picked up her pace because she knew she was on the "homestretch".  

The last run of the day was another Gamble.  There was opportunity to get lots of points in the opening, but Maggie was really dragging her butt around and, even though we did get one of the mini-gambles, we did not get enough points in the opening to qualify.  There were weaves in the closing gamble and Maggie got her entrance but then popped out.  She finished the weaves, but we ran out of time.

Maggie at a trial in the summer.

copyright PurrfectPetPortraits

See how happy and spunky she can be.

There were some good things from Maggie's runs.  Her contacts were all good and she had a fast table.

The not so good things were her slowness and her weaves.  I know that she can be fast and I know that she can weave well. 

We have many things to work on and many of them revolve aroung trialing.  She is a totally different dog when we are in class and this frustrates me.  My goal is to make trialing more fun for her. I may need to stop and pull her off in the middle of a course to reward her when she is being spunky and weaving well.  Many trainers pull their dogs off the course when they are out of control or blowing start lines so that their dog is not rewarded for bad behavior.  I am going to have to pull Maggie off because she is being good.  That sounds very weird, but she needs to know that being at a trial can be as fun as being at practice.

Sunday

Sunday we had our last agility fun match of the year.  It was a windy day, but despite all the wind and jumps blowing over, it was a fun morning.  Maggie was in 3 runs and had fun - she even had some fast weaves. 

 Bosley made his fun match debut and did quite well.  He is  much more confident than Maggie (so much so he sometimes thinks that he knows better than me which obstacle should come next).  As I said earlier, it was very windy on Sunday.  As Bosley was going over the dog walk, a big gust of wind came and blew him right off.  I am always scared he is going to fall off the dog walk because he is so big and sometimes he is careless - he just wants to scramble over the obstacles as fast as he can go.  He didn't get hurt in his fall (thankfully) but last night in class he was hesitant to go over the dog walk again.  Bosley had lots of fun in his first fun match and even got second place in his Jumpers run.

Clean Carpets; Happy Dogs

Today we had our carpets cleaned, which makes me very happy.  When you have dogs it does not take too long for the carpets to start to look a little like . . . well . . . you have dogs.  It is easy to understand why having clean carpets make me happy, but the dogs are happy too.  

2 Happy Dogs

They don't really care that the carpets are clean, what they care about is this: 

No furniture in the living room!  Furniture really gets in the way of playing and wrestling.

Right now there is lots of room to wrestle without slamming into the couch or coffee table.

There is room to get a bit wild . . .

. . . get a bit crazy . . .

. . .  and have some fun.

I hope they enjoy it.  Tonight the furniture gets put back where it belongs and the dogs will once again have to wrestle around the furniture (dog forbid they should actually wrestle and play outside).

This is my favorite picture. The dogs' expressions make me laugh. Maggie has her typical "nutty" play expression and Bosley is being his usual goofy self.  Bosley outweighs Maggie by 25 pounds and could really kick Maggie's furry butt.  Instead, he is the first to roll over and always lets Maggie beat him up.

One Of These Is Not Like The Others;

One of these things doesn't belong...

This is a typical scene in the parking lot at any agility trial.  Many campers, vans and SUVs all lined up nicely.  Now which of these vehicles pictured do you think that the Berners get the luxury of riding in?  A nice motorhome?  Nope.  A roomy SUV?  Nope.  A little Mazda?  Correct!  

Yes, it is true.  I usually have one of the smaller cars at any trial, if not the smallest and I usually have some of the biggest dogs.  Believe it or not, I can fit both my dogs, a shade tent, camping chairs, 2 crates plus all the dogs' stuff and everything that I need for a weekend away from home.  I have not yet figured out how to fit Bosley's cart in with us - I guess I will need to rethink my packing plan.

Maggie's Secret to an Agility 'Q'

This weekend, we loaded up the car and headed to Medicine Hat for a fun weekend of agility.

Maggie had a pretty good weekend.  She didn't miss any contacts and only knocked one or two poles all weekend.   She didn't miss one weave entrance (which we have been working on) but her weaves were painfully slow.  Only one time all weekend did she actually weave with any enthusiam.  It was very frustrating because I know she can fly through the weaves, but at trials she acts like she just learned to weave yesterday.  Her table was not so good either, I was surprised at that because in her last couple trials she did not hesitate on the table at all.

Saturday we had 3 standard runs and a jumpers run.  Her standard runs were pretty good - a few rough spots in each of them and some really good spots too.  As the day got warmer, Maggie got slower (it's the end of September, it's not supposed to be hot).  Her last run of the day was novice jumpers.  Jumpers is always a hard course for us (it has all those jumps) and the course time is quite fast.  Maggie is not the fastest dog and jumping is not her strongest feature.  Right before we went into the ring, Amanda helped me hose Maggie down (hosing Maggie is at least a two person job) to help cool her off.  Maggie's jumpers run was very nice - smooth and it felt good and we actually got a 'Q'!  Our very first jumpers 'Q' and Maggie was 9 seconds under time.  This was the last 'Q' we needed for Maggie's Starters Game Title.

Sunday was "games day".  We started with Gamblers.  I picked an opening sequence to run with Maggie but then changed it and then changed it again (with the help and advice of others).  Maggie was flying through the opening sequence, so much so that I ran out of all the obstacles that I had planned to do and then just had to make things up until the whistle blew.  The whistle finally blew so we could start our closing gamble.  The closing gamble was a tire and then two jumps that were all in a straight line.  However, between the line of jumps and the gamble line was the dogwalk.  I sent Maggie to the tire and she flew down the "homestretch", over the second jump and the went to take the last jump and pulled off of it at the last second.  I didn't even care - she ran so great the whole run and her distance from me was great.  I was very pleased - it was probably our best run of the weekend.

Next we had team.  We were paired with Jolayne and Tag.  It took me a long time to enter the team runs, but I really like it.  It is most likely because we have such good team partners.  Tag and Maggie both ran well, but we had a couple of "oops" moments on both our sides, so no team 'Q', but it was lots of fun.  Tag is so fast, I always just watch him in amazement, wishing he could send a wee bit of enthusiasm for the game Maggie's way.

Steeplechase was next.  It was a fun course - very open and fast.  Maggie picked up speed as she went along but she knocked a bar and had some trouble in the weaves.  

Our last run was Snooker.  I am really starting to like Snooker, now that I have the game figured out.  It is fun to watch - I like to see the different strategies and people get very animated as they try to get their dog though the opening sequence without "breaking the rules".  It is also interesting to see people think on their feet when something unexpected happens.  In Maggie's run, I found a path (with Sarah's help) that would be fairly flowing for Maggie.  If we got everything as planned in our opening, I would need to get to the end of 6 in the closing sequence to get a 'Q'.  Right before entering the ring, Maggie got another hose down, and she went in with a lot of pep.  Our opening sequence went smooth and just as planned.  I knew the clock was ticking down so we started our closing and I took off running.  Maggie was feeling good and she ran very well (even getting the weaves). We started the number 6 sequence (a 3 jump pinwheel) and just as Maggie's feet touched down over the 3rd jump, the time buzzer went.  I wasn't sure if we made it in time, but we did - the judge called out the last 6 points we needed to qualify. 

So what is Maggie's secret to an Agility "Q"?  Well, this weekend it was a good soak down with a water hose.  Maggie says she hates being soaked down, but she feels so much better after.  It is like a doggie version of Red Bull - it gives you wings!

Maggie and her "Q" ribbons and her title ribbon!

Hip-Hip Horray!

Maggie jumping - I think this was steeplechase.  

I sure do have "pointy fingers" when I am running.  Even the hand that is not directing Maggie is pointing.  Maybe that is why Maggie sometimes runs so slow.  She is looking at my pointing fingers trying to figure out which pointing hand she should be paying attention to.

Fighting

We have a big, not so friendly dog that lives next door to us.  Bosley does not like her and she apparently feels the same about Bosley.  When she moved in earlier this year, it was everything that I could do to try to keep the two of them from fighting through the fence.  I finally put up a small wire fence to keep Bosley away from the real fence.  This seemed to be working well and diffused most of the conflict.  The other day, part of my wire fence came apart and Bosley got through to the other side and the fight was on.  I fixed the fence but Bosley remembered where the weak spot was.  Today he jumped over the fence at the previously broken spot - not to fight with the dog - but rather to chase a bird that was sitting on the real fence, taunting him.  Well, it didn't take long before the neighbour dog spotted Bosley and ran to the fence barking, and the fight was on . . . again. The other dog is very strong and can push the fence boards until they bow.  If she ever breaks through, it will not be Bosley who wins.  It took all my strength, and a lot of yelling at Bosley, to get him away from the other dog and back over the wire fence and in the house.

This is what Bosley's nose now looks like.  It has stopped bleeding now, but it is all raw from him smashing it against the cedar fence.  I guess I need to figure out a new solution to try to keep the peace between these two dogs.