February News

Truffie makes herself comfortable anywhere. It is really fun having a little dog after all these years of big dogs. Below are a couple pictures of puppy play time at Puppy Kindergarten class. Truff is definitely improving with her barking, and being able to calm down, although she has a ways to go.


Her father Kaffi is the chocolate dog on the left, and Gryla, her mother, on the right.

We had a fire at our studio recently, and that is taking a lot of our concentration at the moment. I'll feel better when the rebuilding starts, and we can see some progress. I will be posting photos at www.stonecropstudio.com as we rebuild.

January Update

Little Miss Truffle is about 4 months old now and about 15 and a half pounds. She has so many engaging behaviors, like burrowing under her crate mat to sleep under it, so if you glance at the crate it doesn’t look like she is in it. Sometimes she sleeps next to her crate rather than in it.

She also likes to lie right by the back door, I think it is cooler. Her favorite game is tug, and luckily she is good with Give, because she has more energy for tug than her humans do.

I am also lucky (in terms of training) that she is very food-motivated. I use her meals as training opportunities, and cut her food up in little pieces and use it to reinforce attention, sits, downs, stays, stand, holding her feet, playing Gotcha (where I jump around and wave my arms and grab her harness and say Gotcha and give her a treat – so that hopefully if/when I ever need to do that in real life she won’t freak out) and teaching her to touch a target. That is all fun and usually she is up for it.

My challenge with her at this point is her intense reactive barking. She is just wired that way, and I want to use positive training and not try to scold/yell/punish/correct/threaten it out of her. I think that would only lead to other unintended problems, because any negative treatment would have to be severe, because this is a strong instinct for her. But I don’t want intense reactive barking to become her ingrained modus operandi! It will be a challenge to see if her human being is smart enough to figure out how to condition her to settle for just a few woof’s in exciting situations. For Truffie, exciting situations are legion: dogs barking in the distance, dogs in sight, cars going by, people walking towards us on the trail, puppy class when she is on leash (off leash she is ok), cows, sheep, horses, squirrels, birds on the feeder, rabbits, and I’m sure many more that I have yet to experience .

The two situations I am focusing on are cars going by and other dogs. Since we live back a long lane, she doesn’t see cars at home, and I was startled to see her strong chase instinct when out and about. We are working on finding situations at a distance from these things where we can work on relaxation and having a little self-control, and hopefully reduce the distances over time.

A great side benefit of getting a puppy around Thanksgiving is that you will be so active you won’t gain as much weight over the holidays! Even going out in the cold has the good side that you burn more calories in the cold!

Here are Viva and Truffie relaxing at Camp Gone to the Dogs...no, wait, that's our living room!

A hawk that landed on our burn pile, working his way over to the bird feeder.

Little Truff enjoying the sun on the stairs.

It's a dog's life.

Truffle at 15 weeks

Truff is just under 15 pounds now, and gaining approximately a pound a week. Her adult weight will probably be around 25 pounds. I'd love for her to stay exactly the size she is now! I can bathe her in the laundry sink, very convenient. She is becoming more dog-like (as opposed to puppy-like) all the time, and goes off to nap in her crate after tiring events (like baths) which is where she is now, and so I have a quiet moment to put up some new pictures. (Click on pictures to see a bigger version.)

We are having lots of fun playing and learning. I am loving the clicker training approach, and am especially impressed with Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed book, so we are trying to apply some of those activities in her daily life. Classes have been on a break for the holiday weeks, so we will get back to that this week.

Her favorite game is tug, although this isn't our preferred toy for that game...

Posing for Miss America:

Unfortunately (from the dogs' viewpoint) the snow is gone for now, so she consoles herself with whatever little ice is left, which she loves to chew on:

"What's for me for Christmas?"

The doggies had stockings, and one day Shadow (GSD, age 10, always a good boy) climbed up on the couch and got the dog stockings off the sill and ate the heel out of one of the stockings and ate a little sample tube of Natural Balance food, plastic and all...oh dear. I see all the things Debby has to go inside dogs for, to get things out of their stomachs and intestines, but this didn't seem to cause any problems.

Sometimes Truffie seems very catlike. She often rubs up against furniture or a tree like a cat would do, and she bats things with her paws like a cat, and she climbs around anywhere -- here she is practicing her balancing skills on the edge of the deck.
Thank goodness we have Viva and Shadow to help us entertain Truffle, because she is nonstop. Luckily all the initial uncertainties of getting along have disappeared, and both the older dogs truly seem to enjoy her and seek her out, and also put up with her energy. Here is Shadow, his displays of teeth and growling totally wasted on Truffle.
Here is the whole Runestone litter, about 14 weeks or so, put together by Joann Secondino, the owner of the father, Kaffi.

December pictures

Truffle is 13 weeks now, and weighs about 12 lbs. 10 ounces. She went to her first puppy kindergarten class this morning, and had a ball. It is in a barn with a concrete floor and hay bales stacked around to make little "rooms" and little tunnels where the puppies can get away from each other if they feel intimidated. Truffle certainly doesn't give the impression of being intimidated, but she did feel most comfortable playing with Bridget, the smallest dog. Towards the end of the class she played some with the big puppies, a GSD and an Old English Sheepdog. She barked at first, but that soon stopped, and I was happy with the class. But outside, there is a flock of about 100 sheep, and other dogs coming and going, and she was barking her head off. All in all, it was fun for everyone.

Here are some December pictures, earliest at the bottom and most recent at the top. Some with Shadow -- I almost put the one with her whole head in his mouth, but I didn't want to alarm anyone :-) Click pictures to enlarge.

First Week of December

Meeting her new vet -- "Gee, haven't I seen you somewhere before?" (For those who don't know, the vet is my sister, Debby.) It is a little blurry but I love the picture.

She was 11 weeks old, 10 and a half pounds. She actually was a little more keyed up at the clinic than I would have preferred, so I took her back the next evening, when I had to go up to the clinic for an hour or two to do some computer work. I let her just hang out in the crate, and put her on the scale and got her to sit quietly, etc.

The best nicest thing that happened this week is that our 7-yr-old female, Viva, seems to have bowed to the inevitable, and decided to accept Truffle. The first few weeks were a little tough. The last two days they have played very nicely.


It amazes us that this little puppy has the dog instinct to bury bones. If she picks one up in the house, she carries it to the door in hopes of going out to bury it. Then she will put her paws up on the window sill, maybe she can go out that way.... She carries them under the deck, or buries them in long grass. This one she found under the deck where she must have taken it, because the others can't fit under there.

Truffle goes in for the leg, and Viva uses the head butt. Truff can get very rough, but so far Viva has put up with it . Viva still gets tense and pushy if Truffle comes to one of us, she wants to herd her away. But I already see progress on that front also.

More snow!

Today we have more snow. Two snows by December 2, rather unusual for eastern PA. Truffle loves it. Almost impossible to get pictures, she is tearing around like a banshee. I am stumbling along in the snow after her, a day late and a dollar short. The second picture is blurry but it gives the effect.

Yesterday (10.5 weeks) we took Truffle to play with Bridget, a Border Terrier puppy about a week older than she is. They spent an hour playing wildly, escalating a few times into snarling matches when we had to take them apart for a cooling-off period. I think it was like kids whose play can flare up into hitting and arguments at times. Both of the puppies are fierce, fast and feisty.

The weather this past week was mostly pleasant. Truffle weighed 9 lbs. 10 oz. on her 10-week anniversary. She is on a varied diet with Natural Balance kibble, raw chicken parts, eggs, leftover turkey and other good stuff. We are starting to work on Sit and Down and Come, with clicker and treats (such as the first half of her meal), and she is actually learning very fast.

Shadow is her buddy, they wander around outside together. He plays a little. If she thinks he's getting rough (which he really doesn't) she goes under the deck where he can't fit.

Micah and Adrienne visited for Thanksgiving, and I didn't focus on taking pictures, I need to get some from Michael and Allison, I think they took more. But Micah and Truffle had lots of fun time together.

9 Weeks

Truffle is 9 weeks old today. She weighs 8 lbs, 4 oz. She had a lovely day, with the gang down at Mom's, everybody wanted to play with her so she got lots of attention, and then snoozed in her crate. Here are some pictures from this morning out in the yard. She loves all the smells, likes to snuffle down under the leaves and find who-knows-what.


Here she heard a flock of geese coming over and paused from snuffling in the dirt to watch them.She likes to get on high places and look around. Luckily I managed to catch this shot, usually she is too quick for me.
Truffle and Shadow are friends, they wander around the yard together. Truffle launches at his tail, he doesn't pay much attention, sometimes he trots after her. He is 10, and very mellow.

Day 3

Truffle surprised us by sleeping through the night the first night, and last night she was just as good. We have 4" of snow, and she looks very funny jumping through it. It is hard to photograph her because she won't stay still. If she hears a noise in the woods, she charges towards it barking -- this little bundle the size of a small toaster, it doesn't seem to occur to her that the noise-maker might be bigger than she is. She reminds me of a wild animal in the way that she freezes like a little statue alerting at sights or noises, and then shoots ahead, then freezes again. Many sudden stops and starts!

On Saturday Holly & Allison drove to Connecticut to pick up 8-week old Runestone Truffle. We had a lovely time playing with the other puppies and meeting everyone. You can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.

Truffle's mother Gryla watches the birds.

A quick pottie stop on the way home.

The day after we brought her back it snowed all day, which was appropriate for an Iceland Sheepdog.

Aunt Margie playing with Truffle in the snow. Truffle is a little bullet, dashing around everywhere with her tail up.