Pandora goes to Hollywood

There’s actually a lot to tell since the last time, but I’ll stick to one subject.

Model casting
Four weeks ago, I was called by a woman, Melanie, who was casting animals for films.
She asked me if Pandora could act as a wolf in an art movie.
I was very honest and didn’t promise much about Pandora’s skills. After a little talk back and forth, Melanie decided to come and meet Pandora, and see if we could persuade her – Pandora – to do different things, such as barking on command.
Melanie also wanted Pandora to ‘stand’ on a command made from a distance.
Good luck with that, I thought.
Two weeks ago, Melanie came by and we worked with Pandora for a couple of hours.
Honestly? Not too promising. She couldn’t stand when asked, she couldn’t even do that at our training hours so why should she this day?
Barking on command was hopeless. Actually the film folks wanted her to howl like a wolf, but although she often howls, it’s always little ‘give me attention’ howls and not the humongous ‘give me the moon’ kinda thing.
Anyway, Melanie prepared the film crew that they would NOT get a Labrador, they would get a wolf, with all the difficulties included.
And they accepted that.

Surprise
Two days after Melanie had visited us, Pandora barked on command for the first time. I tell you, I was sooo proud. Hell, I still am.
And two days before we went to record the film, she was able to ‘stand’ on command with the order given from a distance.

‘Hollywood‘
Last Monday we, Pandora and I, went to Melanie’s home on Zealand (Sjælland). Here we met her dogs, and Pandora had a very weird reaction to a bearded collie.  I’ll write about that in the next blog.
We stayed overnight, and went to the film set early the next morning. We got out of bed at 6 o’clock in the morning. At 9 o’clock we met the film folks at a small filming area near an old air base.
Pandora was let free and she went from one person to the next to say hello. She like and accepted every one, and they were all very kind to her. Several of them said: Wow it crazy how much she looks like a wolf. They were really impressed with her looks.

Pandora watching the camera crew and their equipment

Treadmill and green screen
And then we started filming. Pandora’s first task was to walk and run on a treadmill. I had thought she could do that easily, as she tried that last summer. The difference was that last year it was a treadmill specifically made for dogs. This was an old conveyor belt, probably one of those used at the check-out in the supermarket. And it was painted green. Actually a lot of the recordings were made with green screen, and the treadmill had to fall into the background.
It took perhaps 30 minutes. Then Pandora could use the treadmill alone with no no one helping her or holding her (me or Melanie). She could walk and she could run. The recording was made.
Luckily the film people, especially the producer, was very patient with us, so I never felt any rush or stress.
After that, Pandora had to run through the green screen area. No problem. Then she had to jump in the green screen area. First she jumped about 60 cm. Her own height. Then she jumped 1 meter and they were very impressed with the height she could jump. Watching the jump in slowmotion afterwards was actually pretty impressing.

Pandora on the set

Blood
On our way to meet the film crew, we went by a butcher and picked up 15 litres of lams blood.
After the green screen recordings, Pandora was going to be recorded in a natural environment. We moved the location to some high grass. Melanie laid out a blood trail in the hope that Pandora would follow it. The crew wanted to film Pandora form the behind, running. I don’t think they ever got the good shot; she was far gone every time she was let loose.
Then she had to eat an animal.
The crew had got three minks. The first was soaked in blood and looked very dramatic. Pandora took one look at it and said: Predators don’t eat predators (Carnivore carnivore), and she never gained any interest in the mink. Clever enough, I had brought a lot of her food with me from home, so the raw turkey neck and the tripe was then soaked in blood to make her interested and make it look dramatic. (Thank god she’s a BARF dog).
At that time she hadn’t eaten in 48 hours.
I knew I had to starve her to be able to control her just a little during the recordings. It had worked so far.
She ate all right, but not too enthusiastic. Melanie took blood in her hands and put it on Pandora’s snout to make her look dangerous and evil. At first Pandora accepted it, in the end she hated the blood. I could see that she felt dirty and wanted to clean herself. But she accepted our mistreating of her in a way that almost made me feel guilty.
This red-faced wolfdog being unable to clean herself, unable to get away from the cameras that she saw as five huge, black aliens, staring at her with their one eyed faces.
But in the end, she also resigned to that, laid down and ate her food with cameras up her nose.

Blood blood and more blood

The final shots was Pandora staring into the camera, no problem.
Pandora running towards the camera, no problem.
Pandora looking evil. Problem! Pandora isn’t evil.
But the camera man had some good ideas and made her look fabulous.
Final shot was Pandora walking through water to record her paw and footsteps through the water. It  looked amazing.

The movie
The movie, well I don’t know what it’ll be about exactly. It will be previewed the 3rd of September at an art gallery called Gl. Strand on Zealand (Sjælland).
I expect to get access to the final film, which will probably also be put on YouTube, and I’ll post it as soon as possible.
There were also camera people from hour national TV attending the film set. They were making a ‘movie behind the movie’. And perhaps they will air the result in September, too.

Pandora van Goverwelle

Experience
But so far, my girl is a movie star. She has always been a star in my life, so that changes nothing, but I learned a lot.
We usually train obedience for 1 ½ hours and agility 1 ½ hour every week. This Tuesday Pandora was working approximately 7 hours. We were on the set from 9 am to 5 pm with only one break.
Tricking her, luring her, I could make her do stuff I’d never thought she’d accept.
She worked so hard, and though she left the set a few times, it was ok. She came back and did the job.
Training intensively had paid off. I’ll never again say that she cannot learn fast, ‘cos she can.
I have even gained hope that we will attend some competitions this autumn.
Pandora is fantastic. She’s a constant surprise and my expectations are often too low.
Sorry Pandora, you are fabulous!

Tweenager

Pandora: 63 cm, 32 kg, 23 month old

My girl has grown up
She is sneaky and smart and funny and crazy … and very neat.
Just by coincidence did I see her discreetly licking the floor and then herself. By luck I found out that she was in heat!
My little puppy is no longer a little puppy.
Now I have to protect her from all the big, bad, ugly boys out there.
She hasn’t seen uncomfortable up to her heat or anything. I mean, Pandora always act a little silly and unpredictable. So it has not affected her much.
If you think I’m a little crazy here, I can tell with my old dog I always knew when she was getting in heat. She seemed in pain and unhappy a couple of weeks before.

Big, bad boy kissing my girl!

BARF
As Pandora is weighing a little too much, we talked to our BARF advisor in the barf shop about it. He suggested that we tried to feed Pandora every other day instead of every day. She would then have to have the double amount of food, but chances were that she would start to burn off fat from her body.
It didn’t work very well and the change in her everyday life made her uncomfortable. That was when she took another bite of the new sofa.
She seems to be a little autistic when it comes to major changes in her life.
So we went back to the old way. She is just getting an even smaller amount of food every day. Unfortunately she also gets a lot of goodies as we train so much, but I’ve found my bike in the back of the barn, we train obedience and agility now, so perhaps we can get her (and our self) more fit.

Insecure or deaf
A change was actually five steps backward.
During the winter she got so good at the call back commands. It felt almost like an ordinary dog, y’know Labradors and Shepherds. The breeds that stick around and find their human interesting.
Now it’s spring. The snow is finally gone and all the great smells are back, birds are twittering and nature is calling. Calling a lot louder than me, ‘cos it gets harder and harder to call Pandora back when we are out for a walk. For half a year we have been training with other dogs and her ‘escape when you can attitude’ was almost gone. Well, now it’s back.
She chases birds, deer, hares and catches mice, worms and what-have you. And she give a … whether we call or not.
And then I had an experience.
Last time we went training she had to do a ‘search’ for a man.
The guy stood in the rim of a small forest and I send Pandora forward with a ‘search’.
The goal is to make her bark, and I don’t have to tell you that barking is not a wolfdog’s preferred language, so she didn’t bark.
He tried to tease her with some goodies, but didn’t give her any. I stood ten meters away, and then Pandora turned her head looking at me as if she needed help. I wasn’t fast enough so she looked at me again. Insecure of what this strange man wanted from her. Too late I walked towards her. She gave up on me and on him, like she was thinking: I can’t trust my mom, she won’t help. I leave!
And that was exactly what she did.
Ran off. It took half an hour to get her back. All the time she was like five meters away from us, but didn’t react to me offering goodies, smacking my lips, turning my back to her, fiddling with toys, trying to look like I just caught a rabbit. Nothing. She stared at me like I was an idiot.
We got hold of her because she wanted to play with another dog and the owner grabbed her.
Was she disappointed in me?! Lousy leader, I was, letting her down like that.
And I learned that though she is a tough little one, she’s not that tough at all.
I know it from when I get angry at her in the house. I point my mouth and open my eyes wide and stare at her. Not a sound is uttered, and she gets very submissive. I just never thought of her insecurity out in the field.

Agility
But she has good days too. And there are more of them than bad once.
Remember in the beginning when she was coming 20-30 % of the time? Now she’s coming 85-90 % of the time.
Last week we started at agility again.
Pandora wasn’t at all as crazy when we met with the other dogs as she was last autumn.
A small dog , about half of Pandora’s size, quite cute, is a little aggressive. Emma, her name is, would very much like to be the queen of the team. And she was last autumn. Last autumn, Pandora would have laid herself flat on the grass in submissive attitude. But not this spring.
Pandora took a look at Emma, sticking her nose to Emma’s nose and said: Yeah, you might wanna be in control, but you won’t control me.
No aggressiveness, no growling, snarling or anything. Just Pandora’s self-awareness and self-confident attitude. Then Pandora turned her back to Emma, and the ‘never spoke again’.
The trainer looked at Pandora and said: Wauw has she matured since last autumn.
And she has, of course.

To the story comes, that last summer, our wonderful breeders, van Goverwelle, warned us that a mature female wolfdog, can change temper severely. A wolfdog who’s been kind and sweet can become a very aggressive grown up female.
We have feared Pandora changing her gentle disposition, but now I don’t think it’ll happen. She must be in her most vulnerable stage right now been in heat.
The agility field wasn’t very difficult, and too easy means too boring, to Pandora.
She did the first run perfectly, the next she skipped a few jumps. Then we tried to run from the other end. Twice she skipped a few things. But I knew she could do the field, so it was okay.
And yes she did it without a leash. And yes she ran away once, and hey! I could call her back! With goodies and a luring voice she came back within a minute.
– Wauw has she matured, the trainer said again.
Pandora will never be a fast agility runner, but when it comes to intelligence, she might be the cleverest.
The challenges in the agility sport is very much her style.
—

I promised pictures of the toothpaste sessions. Here they are.

Hey man, can I join ya?

This taste good, dad, real good!

… a great taste in shoes

It’s a long time since I wrote last time.
Summer is over, so no more swimming in the lakes and soon we’ll have to keep the door shut if we shouldn’t let the heat out. But for now the weather is still fine, and the door is open all day so Pandora can go in and out. And for the last two months, she hasn’t been wearing the long leash that used to keep her in the garden.
Now she can go free and she doesn’t jump the fence to escape or anything. We are very proud of her. The fence is so low (60 cm/24 inches) that it is no challenge for her to jump. But she doesn’t. Great!

Training camp
Pandora is a teenager and that means: rebuilding the top floor.
Some days she trains perfectly. She is clever and learns a lot. The next day I can’t get her attention at all.
Most of the things she learns right now, stays in her head, though.
And that’s a relief.
Two days ago I went training with her near by. Just me and her at a huge football lane. She was very good. First we trained all the sit, stand, lay down-things and afterwards I took off her leash and did all the same things again and she did so fine.
The goodies theses days are chicken cubes which she likes very much, but soon we’ll have to learn to train without as many goodies.
Now we have been training obedience in the new club for 6 weeks. The 7th November we are going to a ‘test test’. Meaning we should try what it’s like to go to at competition. Hence the intensive training these days.
I did that a lot many years ago so I am familiar with it, but it’s good to try again.

Agility
Three weeks ago I said: No more agility after this season.
She understands all the obstacles but she is not interested in doing the exercises fast.
She is slow, curious about the objects and takes her time to do stuff.

The tunnel for instance.
She had been running through it four or five times, but then she decided that it was boring.
She stopped in the middle of it to examine the material, the smells and ‘what is in this tunnel for ME’.
This made the tunnel roll sideways. That seemed to frustrate her.
She left the tunnel, but after that, she didn’t want to go back in. She wasn’t afraid but it was like she said: I’ve been there, it’s not for me.
I managed to get her through a couple of times but she was reluctant, as if I had tried to feed her with fruit instead of meat.
I don’t need to tell that the Labrador, the Border collie and the German Shepherds are doing very well. But Pandora is neither, so it takes a lot of patience.
I need to tell myself that she’s doing well for a Czechoslovakian Wolfdog. Sometimes I forget that I have trained German Shepherds and it was a lot easier. And if I compare Pandora with other CsW’s I’m sure she’s doing excellent, actually.

The last few times she has been doing better and better. At the final lesson for this season she was so clever and could do things I didn’t she could.
She did a whole ‘beginners’ field and didn’t run away or try to avoid any of the obstacles. She did it perfectly twice. Then she ran away, but came back and did it very well one more time.
So wolfish, actually.
The season is now over. No more agility before spring.

Right now I don’t know if we’ll join the team again, but after much consideration I think we will. Not because we want to go to competitions, but because it was very good for Pandora’s obedience skills, too. The agility taught her to work on ‘her own’, several meters from me. And that was quite amazing to see her graduating from ‘running away’ dog to ‘I can do this if I like’ girl.

 

Pandora agility training, A board

 

 

Pandora agility training, jump

 

 

Pandora agility training, the tunnel

 

Talking wolfish
Pandora is a fresh little one. Especially as we go to bed in the evening, she wants to play, bite our hands and won’t go to sleep.

Here’s the trick:
Tummy rubbing
I cuddle and caress Pandora in a calm, slow and gently way on the bare skin on her tummy. That relaxes her a lot.

Mommy sounds
I also make small, squeaking sounds like if you are really satisfied or pleased, like lying in a wonderful soft bed. These sounds remind the dog of the mother comforting the puppy and it works very well on Pandora.

Alone at home
Pandora is still home alone the first three hours a day. And sometimes she still bites things to pieces.
If she has been playing or training hard the evening before, she doesn’t.
If she had a quiet and a little too boring day the day before, she will find stuff to bite in.
Now my husband makes a little treasure hunt every morning by wrapping some goodies in a cardboard box and put it somewhere in the house for Pandora to find.
It is shredded when we come home and it obviously keeps her occupied, as we no longer find any other things bitten and torn apart anymore.

Girls like shoes
A have a little riddle here:
Who’s walking with shoes but do not wear them? Well you guess.
About the eating things stuff, Pandora has managed to ruin at least 5 pair of shoes this summer.
The shoes stand on the floor in our utility room. Once in a while, she has stolen a single shoe and brought it to the lawn at the back of the house for further examination. She enjoys the dissection of the leather.
It’s our own fault if we forget to remove the shoes out of her reach.
But the weirdest part is that last month she stole a shoe (I didn’t see it, though) and now it’s gone. Completely gone. We usually find the shoe or pieces of it, but this shoe is gone. Vanished.
I wonder if I’ll find it next summer buried somewhere between the roses and the lavender.

Holiday, sheep, water and stuff

Farewell Thor – old guy

Farewell Thor

First a farewell to Pandora’s friend, Thor, the 13 year old White Swiss shepherd.
He left this world the 21. July.

We are all happy we got to know you, sweet boy.

Holiday’s over
We began our official holiday almost four weeks ago.The holiday has been extremely active for Pandora and it’s been great.

Lets begin at the beginning

Holland
Day 1.
The 22. July we started the car in the early morning and drove to Holland.
It’s approximately 800 kilometres and we arrived in a little town called Gronningen in the early afternoon.
Here we stopped to eat dinner, watch the beautiful wooden ships in the canal and stretch our legs.
We had only had a few shorter stops on the way.
After the break we continued and arrived at our destination Mercure Hotel in Zwolle.
Let me just say that if you’re ever going to Zwolle with you dog, use Mercure Hotel!
The were so welcoming and Pandora was allowed to join us in the restaurant at breakfast, lunch and dinner, they even served her water as we were dining.
After dinner we walked in the surroundings which were green lawns, trees, a quiet road and very country-like.

Pandora in Groningen watching ships

Pandora behaved perfectly. As we were eating, she was sleeping next to us, and in the night, she just slept through and never made any trouble.
(Don’t tell anyone that she slept in the bed, of course.)

Day 2. Mom and dad
This was what we all came for.
We went to BG Hall where Letty and Koos from Kennel Goverwelle lives.
We were very excited about what they would say to the beautiful girl.
And they loved her.
Letty said she was a big girl. Not as in ‘fat’ but as in ‘tall’.
Then Koos brought Pandora’s father, Elan, from the kennels boxes and Pandora liked him from the first second.
I don’t think they had the slightest clue that they were each others flesh and blood, but Pandora like Elan and kissed him a lot.
She was almost as tall as him, and we went for a little walk in the nearest forest.

Elan Spod Dumbiera, Pandoras father

In the afternoon we went to see a small vintage village nearby, and when we came back, Letty picked up Kahjah, Pandoras mother.
She was a lot darker than Pandora, and a lot smaller. Okay, Pandora is a big girl.
The two dogs licked each others lips as greetings, and they sniffed a little to each others tales, ears and mouths.
Then a small plastic can fell to the ground with a noisy sound – and all hell broke loose.
The two dog attacked each other, probably thinking that the other one had coursed the noise.
We got them separated but Pandora never fell in love with her mother.
This was only the second dog in her life that didn’t just love her.

Kahjah von Goverwelle, Pandoras mom

After all we had a wonderful day with Letty and Koos, and it was so great to talk to them again.
We left them in the evening after many laughs, hugs and picture-takings of Pandora.

Day 3. Amsterdam.
We went to Amsterdam and enjoyed 4-5 hours in this gorgeous city.
Pandora behaved fantastic, and we decided to take a boat trip on the canals.
Pandora didn’t mind the sailing at all, but she hated the queue we had to wait in to get on the boat.

We arrived at our hotel in the evening and had a quiet dinner at the restaurant.

Pandora sailing on the canals of Amsterdam

Next day, we drove home.
It took 12 hours as we ran into several queues at the highway and it was one tired wolfdog we brought home Sunday late evening.

Denmark, Rømø
For four days we went to the Northern Sea at a little island called Rømø.
Here we have been many times as it’s such a good place for swimming and also a good place to bring a dog.
This was the first time Pandora really got the chance to swim in an ocean instead of a lake.
The first day she swam out, but had to struggle to swim.
The waves in the Northern Sea can be very big. And at one second the water is knee high, the next wave rolls over you head. Swimming is very hard. And PAndora got scared of the big waves. Perhaps she was swimming for 10 minutes, then she was so tired, we had to go back in.
The swimming really wore her out.
The next day the waves were small and the water low, and then she had no problem swimming for half an hour or so.

Legoland
We went to Legoland shortly last weekend and it wasn’t really a trip minded on Pandora, I just want to tell that she managed all the children so well.
She wasn’t fearful or reserved to them. She really would have loved to play with the kids running around the fountain, or tasted a little boys ice cream, but what she got was a big hug from a little girl and she repaid with a long tongue kiss.

A wolf in sheep skin?
Vibeke, the owner of deceased Thor, Cirkeline and Arthur invited us on a visit after we came home from Holland.
She had a surprise for us.
We were invited to a farm where a man had specialised in teaching herding.
So now it was Pandora’s time. The wolfdog should try to herd sheep.

The first time round we went into a meadow with Pandora in a leash.
She had no idea of what was expected from her.
She had fun though.
The guy who taught us said that Pandora should try to herd without a leash.
I said to him, that I would take no responsibility of his sheep. He just laughed and said she was ready!
So we went into a smaller fenced area and let the dog loose.
And see, she actually began to figure out what it was all about.
She wasn’t too hard on the sheep and she actually managed to round up the sheep a couple of times and she never got aggressive or ‘hungry’ for the sheep.
I think we shall try herding again.

Pandora herding

Pandora herding a little more

Pandora still herding

A little ekstra note:
Two women saw Pandora and said: “Are you really gonna let that dog loose with the sheep??”
Another woman said: “She’ll be tired the rest of the day!”, but Pandora was tired for half an hour, then she was on top again.
Recall: As Pandora’s recall is only 20% stable, I was a little frightened to let her herd if I couldn’t make her come, but in the end she was so tired, I could just go to her and put the leash back on.

Agility
Last Thursday we went to our first agility lesson.
After half a year of waiting, we finally had a place in a team.
The trainer was a very capable woman who had two Border Collies herself.
She was very good at teaching the attendants stuff, and Pandora learned to: jump over small obstacles, going through the tube and going through the tunnel. And she did all the things without any hesitation.
After an hour she was pretty tired (for 20 minutes), but she had learned a lot.
The trainer asked if we had ever trained agility or any other thing, and I told her that Pandora had been herding the week before.
She look very surprised and said: Why on earth would you wanna her with her?
And I told her it was just a test and for fun.
I’m sure she thought we were a little crazy. Especially because she had the Border Collies which are made for herding. They are so good at it.

Training
Last monday as we went to training (the ordinary obedience), and we were told, that we had been ‘upgraded’, meaning next time, we’ll have to train with the ‘big’ dogs.
It’s a little annoying as we just had a very good trainer on the beginners team.
But it’s also funny to see Pandora now can sit, lay down, walk in leash perfectly, with goodies she can walk without the leash, too. She can come back on recall as long as we’re in the training area and she can stand, show teeth and behave nicely.

In the end
This was a lot of information, but it has been a lovely holiday with Pandora. All in all we are so proud that we can bring her to a restaurant and she just lays down and sleep, or we can walk in the city with a lot of people and she won’t pay attention to anyone.
These days she also seams more mature and grown. She is more calm, though not low in energy, but she seams more confident with herself.
She’s relaxed and forthcoming but if she’s not let loose to burn off some steam, she literally protests with her wolf howl and an offended look in her eyes.

Pandora and Cirkeline kissing or ...

Next time:
I don’t know when I’ll have the time to write again, so I think Pandora will write the next blog

Rescue 911

Facts: 64 cm. 32.5 kg. 11 months old

Rescue dog
Last Wednesday we went to an information meeting about rescue dogs.
I have considered taking the entrance examination with Pandora, to see if that would be an appropriate way to train her. Her ability to climb and tracking are great, but her liking to bite a little and her lack of will to bark is not so good.
The test is next week and I’m not sure if I’ll go. I’m pretty sure she will fail.
Another thing is: I’m not actually ready to sacrifice my dog in a potential dangerous situation.

Exhibition
Sunday we went to Køge, Denmark to attend the exhibition there.
Pandoras first ‘Junior’ approach was paid with an ‘Excellent’.
Unfortunately she didn’t get a top 4 in ‘Best In Opposite Sex’ or ‘Best Junior’.
Never mind that, she’s still beautiful.

The best part of the day was her meeting her best friends Uno and Xtreme.
I just really like these dog days together with other ‘nerds’ (sorry Rolf) and the sheer joy of watching the dogs play and interact. These wolfdogs internal language is so special, and it is so good for Pandora to be a part of that, once in a while.
Do I have to tell that it was one tired Wolfdog we brought with us home on the train?

Pandora bites Xtreme and Uno is watching

Training
Monday evening we went training in the boxer club again. We now train two evenings per week instead of once on Saturdays.
It’s so great that the snow is finally gone and the sun brings a little warm light to us.
Well, the training went pretty good. Pandora is now among the best of the puppies. She can walk nicely in the leach.  I can walk a few steps away as she sits or lay down, recall is very good if we use the tugger, and Monday evening she was as always very excited to play with the other dogs, but I could calm her to just sit down and be excited in stead of jumping around.
Whether it was because of the good treats and the amount of them or because of her being stimulated with the dogs the day before, I don’t know, but I could just feel this change.
It was her 5. training session.
Goodies: I use ham cubes (processed though we barf) and sometimes cheese or small sausages.
The pieces have to be very small so it takes no time to chew (or swallow) them.

Health
Monday we also went to the vet to get the results of the rabies test. It was very fine (above 0,5 – whatever that is?), and at the same time we brought a urine sample as Pandora has piddled inside three times lately and one day we thought we saw a little pus or secretion in the. The vet assured that it was very likely because she would soon come in heat. It’s normal to see pus leak from the dogs virgina as they mature.

Pandora resting in between fights

Guarded
Spring also means that we are fencing in our whole garden.
It takes a while, but hopefully Pandora is no longer able to do her ‘invisibility trick’ from the coming weekend.
It would be so nice to be able to let her out without keeping an eye on her or force her be tied up in a leach all the time.

Pandoras Box

Pandora has a box.
She ’must have’, right?
Actually she’s got two.
In the boxes, all kinds of good stuff are waiting to be picked up by Pandora. The boxes are filled with goodies like dried pigs ear, dried lounges, salmon chips and so on.
Problem?
The fur kid doesn’t want any of it.
Sometimes she takes an ear, starts to walk around in the house. Frustrated and unhappy.
She is whining and complaining.
Then she wants to go out, and outside she’ll dig a hole, put the treat in it and cover it again.
What she cannot eat, she stores until another day (when a green, bad-smelling ear is delicious).
Sometimes she stores raw meet in the corner of the sofa!

The bone yard
These mornings it’s getting light outside earlier and earlier. Pandora rises with the sun, and sometimes I can hear her, in my light sleep, that she is chewing a bone somewhere in the house.
This morning as I got up and went to the kitchen, Pandora had collected all her accessible bones and spread them on the kitchen floor. I’m impressed. She has never done that before, but she must have had a great time finding them.

(She has approximately 117 more in the Pandora Boxes).

Pandoras boneyard

Training
We have been to the training lessons three times now in the boxer club.
We have also been training a little in between and it is obvious now that she has learned stuff.
Sit, walk in leach and following in all directions, slow walking, running, stand.
All these things are getting so much better by the day.

Tracking
Two days ago when I came home from work I laid a track with some cat food. We discovered by coincident that cat food was perfect for recall, so why not use it now and then.
The only problem is that she is barfing and mainly eats raw meat and I don’t want to ruin her stomach.

Pandora's tracking

Jinxing
I hope I don’t jinx anything, but I have a vague feeling of her recall improving.
I cannot call her in if I’m standing upwards and bend over, reaching for her.
But if I sit on my knees she puts down her ears, smacks her lips, eyes get small and she comes.
Big thing.
All signs of subjecting are there which in the end should also go away and be replaced by a self-confident dog.

Holiday and a new car
Next week it is Easter holiday.
This will give us time to fence the entire ground to stop the out-breaking dog from … breaking out!
Wednesday next week, will go get a new car with room for the fur kid in the back. It’s going to be so nice to have a car where the ceiling ain’t eaten

Supernatural – or Sweet child of mine

Pet names
When we should decide Pandora’s name (she-dog with a P-name) we chose Pandora and swore that we would NEVER call her Dora.
If we should shortened down it would be Panda.
And so it is. Panda is used now and then.
Pandora is mainly used when she has done a not-so-good-things.
This is a little difficult to write in English as pet names are often made in your mothers tongue.
But I’ll try.

Here are her daily names:
Troll troll (Well, just as a troll. And said in English, too. Our favourite pet name I guess.)
Troll Hansen (Crazy! Troll with a surname)
Panduser
Pandutten (a dut is a kind of a gismo in Danish)
Panduttelut (real rubbish)
Panditten (associated with her friend Bandit, also called Banditten (or Bandiddy by me))
Ulves (like Wolfish)
Ulvepige (wolf girl)
Hund’pi’ (dog’girl)

Apart from that she is of course: Beauty, baby, darling, honey and all that.

I’m sure, more will come.
I have never had a dog that did not have a pet name. It’s weird, and sometimes the names travel from one word to another, and in the end the original meaning is completely lost.

Pandora in our frozen pond

Supernatural dog
Pandora has her invisibility moments. Oh yes. It’s true!
Do you recognise this?

The awful, disobeying, self-righteous little b… has run to the neighbours garden.
I hurry into my not-so-weatherproof indoor shoes, run out of the door, step in to the muddy pool next to the front door and run like crazy while I’m screaming the dogs’ name.
“PANDORA come here. Now!”
I can see her ignoring me at the neighbour’s lawn, watching their rabbits or what ever.
“PANDORA!”
Now I can’t see her any more.
I get a little worried that she might cross the street and get hit by a car. (Not that there’s any in sight.)
“PANDORA!”
No sign of the “#&?&”%%# dog.
“PAN-DO-RA! NOW!”
I turn around, and right behind me is the dog watching me curiously with the head slightly tilted.
“Why is that human shouting like an idiot? I’m right here, and I’m not deaf.”

Do you recognise it?
Pandora does it all the time.

My will
2-3 months ago we bought the most cool and useful harness for Pandora.
She hates it!
We have two harnesses. This good one and one that is softer with furry lining.
She hates them both.
When we have our walks in the evening, we (my husband and I) get dressed for the cold outside. Pandora is watching until she sees what kind of equipment she is going to wear.
If it is the harness, she runs away. Into the living room hiding under the table, trying to be invisible (No supernatural abilities here!)
I have to catch her to make her wear the harness. And then she walks like someone with a real bad stomach pain.
On the other hand, if I just show her the chain collar instead of the harness, she comes straight to me to get it on. No problem.
The lady has her own opinions.
Unfortunately the chain collar is taking a hard time on her fur so the hair strands are cut and worn on the right side of her neck.

Training
From the 1st April we’ll stop ring training and concentrate on the obedience training which will change from Saturdays to Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Last night we went ring training, but right before that we had a little session (half an hour) with obedience training. Walk in leach, sit, lie down and recall.
After we came home from ring training she slept the rest of the evening and the entire night, too.
Obedience training makes her tired.

Socialisation or jumping up
We also now have to train that she cannot jump up on people. We have always prioritized her socialisation before the ‘not jumping up’ issue and we have gotten at very happy and kind dog.
We didn’t want to say NO! when she wanted to greet people.
Now it’s time.
She is mentally strong enough to understand a NO! and still be kind and gentle from a ‘down on the ground’ position.
And she is doing fine.

Pandora observing the neighbours ground

Spring, finally

The snow is melting and I have been reassured that grass is actually green. I’ve almost forgotten.
It’s still cold at night and there is still a lot of old, dirty snow laying around, but in the weekend we saw the first Snowdrop flowers.
It’s been the longest winter in Denmark for many many years.

Pandora observing ducks

Busy schedule
Pandora has had a hard but good week.
Last Saturday we started training in a Boxer hound Club.
Obedience (yes, I know, I’ve said it before – I hate that word), later we’ll train track and defence work.
Pandora was somewhat restless and curious the firs 15 minutes. She wanted to play with the other dogs. But after the worst energy was burned off, she could actually walk straight in the leach.
The instructor thought she was very clever. I tried to tell him that she normally walks very fine in leach. It’s the presence of other dogs that causes hearing problems.

Anyway, we should also rehearse recall. And anyone who has read this blog knows that ‘recall’ is still a foreign and very exotic language to this dog.
It took several minutes to catch her after I released her, but what the heck. So did to all the others.
This was puppy training so it was so NICE that all the other dog owners had the exact same problem 
We’ll return to training next Saturday.

Sunday we went to the dog forest for the third time.
Pandora enjoys it so much. All these doggy friends and without the leach. Superb!
She is so sweet and forthcoming to all the other dogs that she immediately gets new friends every time.
Two male dogs tried to jump her. I wonder if she is coming into heat soon.
1 ½ an hour there and we had a very tired dog.

Alone at home – again
Monday she has been alone at home for 45 minutes.
She has been taken care of full time for more than a month now, because of her accident where she cut her paw. But now it’s over.
She must learn it again, and it’s hard.
This first day she has torn down a shelf with kitchen aids. It’s spread all over the floor but luckily she has not been hurt.
It is very difficult to foresee what she might destroy next time.
This shelf is probably fallen down because she has stood on her hind leg with thr forepaws on the shelf and it has broken down because of her weight.
The last two days she hasn’t ripped anything apart.

Sometimes she’ll jump the windowsill just to look out of the windows.
We have no curtains anywhere as she eats them.
Everything is moved, like books, remote controls, glasses, paper towels and so on, but there is often something we haven’t foreseen.
Like a shelf.

This poor shoe was alone with Pandora for 5 minutes

Swimming
Wednesday we’ll go swimming again. It has also been delayed because of her wounded paw.
In a few months we’ll hopefully be able swim in the lake instead of the swimming pool.

Ring training
We still ring train on Tuesdays and last time she was a lot more calm than usual.
I must say that the visits to the dog forest is helping her to burn out energy and to overcome the needs of ‘kissing’ and playing with the other dogs.

Admired
She is often admired for her wolfy look.
In the dog forest there is always some people who things she is the most beautiful creature in the world.
Now that she is 10 months old, I can actually begin to explain why she is different from other dogs.
Her stubbornness, her body language and her sounds and noises.
Luckily the trainer in the Boxer club was full of understanding to the fact that she is different and not the ordinary ’slave’.

Bark at the moon

Facts: 55 cm, 17.8 kg, 4.5 month old

Lost 2 teeth this week

Stars shining
I think I mentioned it last time. In the morning Pandora always has at least 10 stars in her ‘book’ and sometimes she looses them all half an hour before we go to bed. But not this week.

She seems to be more and more competent at: being alone, not peeing in the house, in our beds or where ever.
She’s been very good.

Growing fast – loosing teeth
To my big surprise I measured her Monday evening and discovered that she had grown 3 cm in one week! That’s crazy. But I’m certain that as I look at her last weekend she suddenly looked like an almost grown up dog. Her features were suddenly matured and her chest had broadened. And I was right. 3 cm is quite a lot in such a short time and I started to get a little anxious that she could be in pain. Sunday morning she seamed a little tired and worn out. That was also when I discovered that one of her teeth was very loose, so she didn’t want to eat her own ‘hard’ food. We gave her a little boiled chicken and raw salmon. In the evening she lost the tooth. We heard her playing with it at the wooden kitchen floor, so we actually found it.
After that, she could eat her normal food again and she brightened.
Yesterday she lost one more. Now she looks a little silly as one of her canine teeth is missing.

Rabies vaccination
Wednesday we went to the vet to get her second and last Rabies vaccination. In 120 days (not less!) she’ll have take a blood test to see if the anti bodies are in her blood.

Explanation: Rabies and worms
To go to Sweden a dog has to be rabies vaccinated. After the vaccine it has to be confirmed that the antibodies are in the blood. Sometimes the first vaccine can be a little too weak, and therefore our vet (most vets I guess) vaccinates the dogs twice, to be sure that it’ll make anti bodies.  After the second vaccination there has to be 120 days before the anti body confirmation. NOT 119 days but could be 125 days, it’s ok. The vaccination will be written into Pandoras passport so that she can go with us to Sweden next spring.
Just before we go, she’ll have to have a worm treatment also as Denmark has a sort of worm that Sweden does not have.

Over exercising
I walk 6-10 km once every week. I’d started to bring Pandora with me as her fitness level is increasing, but suddenly I got afraid that I might have overrated her ability to walk 6 km. Now I’ve talked to friends, vets and pet letterboxes and they all seem to agree that 6 km is a little too long, but if we are careful and she doesn’t jump too much it’s ok.
As she was vaccinated, the vet also tested her joints to see if she felt any pain but she didn’t. There were no reactions what so ever.

By the way she loves to climb big stones and she spends a lot of time examining water. All kinds of water.

Clicker training
This week I bought a clicker to use for training.
I’ve heard a lot of good and bad about clicker training. I understand the different opinions. Clicker training is only for people who know exactly what they are doing or are guided by an experienced trainer.
The clicker is used to guide the dog in the exact moment she does the right thing, but first she’ll have to connect the clicking sound with something positive, so all Saturday and Sunday she ate sausages and listened to clicks. Yesterday I accidently pushed the clicker and Pandora came to me for sausage, so the training worked. I haven’t done much into it yet, but I’ll tell more as we use it more. I think it’s good training for her. Especially because she’s having trouble with ‘COME HERE’ commands. And with the clicker I can guide her the instant she’s doing the right thing.

Little wolf by the lake

Pandora at the stream next to our house