Mara was the sensitive puppy in the litter. She is living with Victoria at Turtle Pond Farm..
(Mara had the test for MDR1 genotype and came back mutant/normal).
Here is the thread of emails about Mara’s blossoming puppyhood…
6/2/08 Tonight Mara starts puppy kindergarten. It’s mostly just playing with other puppies with a little “work” thrown in here and there. I think she’ll like it.
More news later….6/4/08 3update of Mara’s first days at school.
She is one of six puppies in the puppy kindergarten and the youngest of the six. There are Mara, Maya, Molly and Max (!) and Roger and Saint. During puppy playtime – offleash mingling supervised – she held her own with older (and bigger!) Siberian and Great Dane puppies but never was aggressive. She can do ‘sit’ and ‘down’ quite easily as well as ‘come’.
On her first day at herding Mara worked with three khaki campbell ducks. Her instructor, Diane, says that Mara has fine instincts. She says Mara did well in that she ran them through a circle and also straight. I think! And she was stronger on the clockwise circle. I’m just learning this so I’m not sure what I was seeing exactly! Mara seemed to really like it. She showed a lot of enthusiasm. It was puppy week there since there had been two others starting this week a Border Collie and something else. Diane remarked that Mara was the most sensitive to sound of all the puppies this week. You did notice already that Mara was a sensitive puppy all around.
6/19/08: Mara is well and growing – 19.3 lbs at 13 weeks old.
I had started her in two separate schools – we decided not to continue with the puppy kindergarten as when we went to the second class two of the puppies barked throughout the class and we were both rattled by the end of the class. I think the instructors should have been able to handle the barking. And I don’t want Mara to be learning excess barking!
The half hour inside doing commands sseemed a little too intense for her at this time. And most importantly we have our wonderful local instructor Diane where Mara does herding/agility/obedience in a private lesson hour. It’s not too hard on Mara because we are outside and she doesn’t have to concentrate on any one thing very long. Lots of critters around. She is so happy when she goes there.
She can do the counter clockwise circle very nicely now with ducks and she is learning to have a lead attached. She loves her ducks. Mara is so agile and fast and curious that I’m feeling she will enjoy doing agility. And most importantly she really seems to enjoy it. We get extra practice on logs and rocks in the forest.
Two puppy issues we are working on are not grabbing clothes and hands while walking – she is trying hard not to do that but sometimes just gets up a lot of puppy steam. Diane says just push her away and don’t accept the behavior. We have the same thing with puppy biting. There too she’s trying and a lot better.
All in all it’s a learning process for the both of us! I worry about doing the right thing – not too severe not too lenient -so to avoid future problems. But I am relaxing with the whole process a lot more and we are good all around. We even have fun!
7/6/08: Mara does well of course. Trainer says she is a very secure and confident puppy (and very bright) – which is why she is already challenging me. Ah joy. We are doing some recalls with distraction so she will be encouraged to come when called. Trainer says puppies she usually sees don’t start with that until about 5-6 months of age. As we all know -come- and -stay- are the hardest. Mara all around learns fast – even though she must check it out a few times “Did you REALLY mean not to go in the street?”