Author: PiperMcPants

Piper meets her cousins

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One of my favorite things about this summer has been having my sister and her family around.  My sister lives in Arkansas so I only get to see her and the gang about once a year.  This year, we were lucky enough to have my sis and her three kiddos stay with us for two weeks.

I wasn’t quite sure how Piper would do with the youngsters.  She’s been around our other nieces and nephew during visits, but we’ve kept those interactions short.  Piper is, after all, 70 lbs of young Labrador energy.

Soooooo…how did it go?

Better than I could have hoped!  Piper was SO gentle* with the kids, and they loved playing with her and bossing her around.  My sister was initially hesitant about the newcomer (she’s extremely loyal to our calm 13-year-old Lab, Rylie), but Pips ended up winning her over in the end.

All four cousins had fun playing on the slip-n-slide.  Uncle Ben may or may not have fractured two ribs while attempting to join them, but thems the breaks.  Hehe. Sorry Ben, but I couldn’t help myself 😉

The kids also looooooved “training” Piper.  We taught them Piper’s basic commands (wait, off, sit, down, stay, up, drop it) and they used them with gusto.  I got more than a few chuckles out of 5 y/o Ken booming “ZWOP IT!” when playing fetch with Pips.  She also was partial to leading Piper around by the collar for reasons known only to herself.  7 y/o Peej, a gentle soul, brought out the calmer side of Piper.  She enjoyed sitting at his feet, stretching across his lap for belly rubs, and giving him soft kisses.  He was the first one to develop a strong training voice, so he was the first one she obeyed consistently.  Abs, who is almost 9 y/o, went a step above and used the advice in the book 101 Dog Tricks – Kids Edition to play some new games with Piper.  Kid-in-a-box was my personal favorite:

It took Piper awhile to get used to sharing the couch, but she eventually figured it out.  Or, I suppose, everyone finally decided to just share their seats with her 🙂

At the end of two weeks, it was hard to say goodbye.

Two people and a Labrador hugging

Person hugging Black Labrador

We may have slacked a bit on Piper’s nosework training for these two weeks, but the socialization she got with her cousins was well worth it!

*The kids enjoyed making Piper jump on command, which is NOT a trick we encourage.  As a result, they sustained a few chest and back scratches from over-exuberant “ZUMP”s.

CCLRC Dock Diving/Barn Hunt Fun Day

Dock Diving

On Sunday, we took Piper to the Central California Labrador Retriever Club’s second-annual Dock Dive/Barn Hunt Fun Day. Piper likes jumping in the pool at her Pop and Grandma’s, so we thought she might enjoy this dog event.  Boy did she ever!

The event was held at the Doggone Dirty Dog Sports facility in Hollister, CA, which is AMAZING!  Dock diving pool?  Check.

Dock diving pool

Giant doggie exercise area?  Check.

Man and dog in front of a gate with a sign that reads "Pet Exercise Area"

Permanent potty space?  Check.

Man and dog on grass in front of a fence. Dog is sniffing grass.

Lots of parking, shade, and seating? Check.

Man sitting on bench, holding a pink leash with a dog on it

Fun backdrops to take pictures in front of?  Bonus!

Black Labrador on hay bale in front of American-flag themed backdrop

It’s a fantastic facility and Rhonna Dias is a great host.

The low-key atmosphere made for a perfect opportunity to try out a new activity.  Many CCLRC members brought puppies, so Piper wasn’t the only one working on her manners.  In fact, this is the first event we’ve been to with primarily Labradors.  I often make the mistake of comparing her obedience skills to older dogs of different breeds, and that’s a losing proposition.  It was nice to see that she’s working on the exact same things (pulling on the lead, whining, jumping) that other Labs the same age are working on.

Most importantly, though, Piper loved dock diving!  We started her on the exit ramp to try and get her used to entering the pool, and after just two throws there she was ready to try the big platform.  She didn’t jump immediately on the first platform toss, so we retrieved the tri-bumper with a pool skimmer and tried again.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, was all it took!  Pips jumped on every jump after that, and each one was a little farther and with a little bit less hesitation at launch.  Between her first round and second round, she was even whining to get back into the pool!  To demonstrate her growth between jumps, here’s a video from her first round, followed by one from the second round:

All-in-all, this was a super fun day with a friendly group of humans and some absolutely gorgeous Labradors.  Special thanks to Katy Bazurto w/CCLRC for coordinating such a great event, and to Rhonna Dias for hosting guiding us through the activity.

Pip’s first dog event

Scent Work

My baby is growing up!

On Saturday June 2nd, Ben and I loaded up Piper and headed to an ORT in Davis, CA. An ORT is an odor recognition test that dogs competing in nose work through the National Association of Canine Scent Work (NACSW) have to pass before competing in a trial.

Yikes, that last paragraph is still pretty technical; let me break is down.  K9 nose work (also called scent work) is a dog sport where dogs use their nose to find particular scents.  It’s a fun activity that uses a dog’s natural ability (sniffing) in a methodical way. It’s based on the type of training that narcotics- and bomb-sniffing dogs go through. However, instead of sniffing for drugs or explosives, scent work dogs search for essential oils.

You heard that right: essential oils.  The stuff you make homemade cleaners out of.  The stuff that you diffuse into the air to make your home smell good.  The stuff you rub on your chest to reduce congestion during a cold.  Good ol’ essential oils!  So, basically I’m teaching my dog to find a tiny Q-tip of essential oil (in birch, anise, or clove scent) hidden in a large area inside, outside, on a vehicle, underground, or in a closed container.  In competition, I won’t know where the scent is hidden so I have to trust Piper’s nose to lead us to it and tell me exactly where it is.

But we’re not ready for a trial yet, so let me get back to the ORT.  In this test, a Q-tip of the selected scent is hidden in one of twelve identical closed boxes and the dog has to tell it’s handler which box it’s in.  The handler then calls an alert (literally just says the word “alert”) to the judge in the room to indicate the correct box.  Was the handler right and within the 3 minute timeframe?  Great!  You passed the ORT for that scent.  Wrong?  Too bad, so sad, try again on another day.

Soooooooo…how did Piper do?  She did fan-friggin-tastic!  She found birch immediately, which was the scent she needed to find to begin competing at the novice level.  Yaaaaaaaay!  I was so proud of my girl.  Here’s a video of her birch test (side note: I definitely need to work on my handling posture):

Then, just for the hell of it, we signed her up to test for anise and clove too.  Even though she doesn’t need to recognize those until she’s ready for more advanced competition, we figured we were making the drive so we might as well try.  She did not find anise, which was a teeny tiny bummer. She looked pretty sleepy and unmotivated, and she false alerted on the box next to the correct one. Here’s the video of her anise run:

So based on our miss on anise (love that they call it a “miss” rather than a “fail”), I tried a few different things for clove.  Piper was still pretty sleepy, so I worked on jazzing her up.  There’s a Bloodhound in our nose work/scent work training class named Wanda who is super low energy, so her owner/handler Lisa has to talk in a high voice, jog with her, and generally convey a sense of excitement to get Wanda to want to work.  So, I imagined I was handling Wanda and turned the clove test into a paaaaaaaar-tay!  I also waited to call an alert until the second time Pips indicated the same box.  I know this is a controversial tactic (it indicates I don’t trust her), but honestly, I didn’t trust her after that anise run.  And…she did it!  We got clove, which you can see in this video:

So, all-in-all, this ORT was a great experience.  We met some nice people, Piper got used to a dog-event environment, and we accomplished our most important goal: passing birch.  I count that as a pretty successful day!

Five adults standing under a canopy

Pic: The Good Dog Dog Training contingent at the Davis ORT.  Donna wasn’t physically there, but we all heard her voice echoing advice and reminders in our heads 🙂

What’s in a name?

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Too much pressure, that’s what!

Piper is the first well-bred dog we’ve owned, so the prospect of picking her registered name and call name was suuuuuuuper daunting. The only requirement from her breeder was to keep their kennel name (HySpire) as the first part of her registered name. There was no naming theme to the litter, but Judy from HySpire mentioned that we could look at the names of her sire (“Rapper” – GCH Hyspire Bohemian Rhapsody From Breckin) and dam (“Peri” – CH Ch Picadilly Hyspire Hidden Paradise) to see if we were inspired by anything there.

Since word play is totally my jam, Ben and I played around with legacy names for a few days. We scoured the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody and briefly considered HySpire Anyway The Wind Blows with the call name “Windy.” Meh. We loved HySpire Paradise RhapCity, but the only call name we could come up with was “Rose” (for Axl Rose) and that never sounded right. Boo.

So then we decided to reverse engineer the process and pick a call name first. After all, this is the name that we’re going to use every single day. We knew we weren’t going to breed the pup (she’s on a limited registration), and we weren’t currently active in any dog events, so her registered name was way less important.

So then I did what I always do when I can’t make a decision and I researched the heck out of call names. I found some good advice about picking something with two syllables and staying away from names that sound like commands.  I knew from our 13 y/o Lab Rylie that traditional spellings (like Riley) are always better than cutesy ones (oops!). At the end of the process, I was most inspired by the article “How To Pick The Absolutely Perfect Name For Your Pup” by Lo Lankford at BarkPost. The advice “Name Based on Looks” combined with “Pick Something From Your Childhood” led to a clear winner: “Piper” – Hyspire the Charmed One.

Wait, what? Oh, I skipped a few steps there? Let me make the connection. Pips is a female black Lab, so we thought a witchy name would fit her well.  I LOVED all things witches growing up, so Ben and I started going through the names of famous women accused of witchcraft. This was…um…a bit of a bummer, so we moved on to fictional witches which is where we struck paydirt. Watching episodes of the late 90’s TV show Charmed was my reward for making progress on my Masters thesis, and Piper Halliwell was my favorite of the three (eventually four) sisters, collectively referred to as “The Charmed Ones.” And that is how Piper got her call name and her registered name.

Fun fact: I found out later, while researching Piper’s 5-generation pedigree in more detail, that there was one bitch who was very accomplished in performance sports (as opposed to conformation, because everyone else in the line is uber-pretty). That bitch’s official name was SHR UACH GRCH Endeavor Piccadilly Pipe Dream JH NA NAJ RN WC CGC. What was her call name? You guessed it: Piper. If that’s not meant to be, I don’t know what is.

Happy Birthday, Pippa!

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Today is Piper McPant’s very first birthday.  Or, as our niece Evelynn explains it, she changes from being 0 years old to 1 year old.

I’d write that time flies, but often it crawls very very slowly when you’re raising a Lab puppy.  From the potty training to the chewing to the barking to the jumping to the counter surfing, that first year is no walk in the park.  Oh yeah, I forgot to include walking in the park on the list of challenges.

However, we know that the work we put in during the first year makes a huge impact on the adult Piper will become.  So here’s to the sleepless nights, the ear drops, the gallons of ECOS, the holes in our Sanuks, the spots on the carpet, and the endless black hair.  Here’s to the sweetest pupper we could imagine, and all the doggo adventures to come.

-Ben and Les