I haven’t done a Lola update in a while – because it has been quite a road with our little terrorizer! Last October it was recommended that we see a dog behaviorist and start some new training afterLola was exhibiting some dominanting behavior. She’s such a smart little girl and she really took to the training – but that didn’t stop her bad behavior with other “high-ranking” dogs – I am pretty sure her ego wouldn’t let her back down. Over the Christmas holiday Lola was in a fight at Doggy Daycare and she was the winner. While channeling mike tyson, she sadly nipped a chunk of ear out of fellow inmate – a visla. Mark and I were on our way to Montana – about two hours out of town when we received the call. Lola had been evicted from Daycare/Boarding and we had to turn around and retrieve her. We brought her with us to Montana for the weekend and she knew she had crossed a new line …. (here is the sad dog in the car)


I was pretty nervous (imagine me being anxious) about keeping her with a baby on the way, but we definitely owed it to ourselves and Lola to exhaust all options. We immediately called our behaviorist for another visit. Laurie Buffington was overloaded with Dog bites over the holidays – she believes it was a combination of the amped up holiday parents and the lack of excercise due to the snow. Lola bit Haley (the visla) on the ear which is considered a corrective style bite (not ment to do too much damage) a bite to the leg or chest is more of a kill bite – This didn’t make me feel any better – my dog is a biter! Lola considers herself a high ranking female – she doesn’t have aggression towards people, but she does not tolerate rude dogs.

Laurie (the behaviorist) gave us a few recommendations 1. that we see Lauren Whitmore who does eCollar training – we love everything electronic, why not this and 2. Get Lola into Agility where she has a good outlet for her energy and intelligence!

ECollar training is shock collar training but taken to a different level – instead of using the shock for punishment you use it at the lowest level as a stimulation (like a tap on the shoulder). Lauren worked with us to understand the signs for when Lola snaps – if she is nervous she licks her lips. She definitely responds to the collar. We definitely need to excercise lola, but on top of physical excercise learning new tricks is equally exhausting for her.

Here are a few shots of Lola playing her ultimate treat – FRISBEE in the snow…



We were testing out our new Nikon D80 on our little athlete – check out our shots here.

Here are a few of Lola’s Tricks …

We have also started Lola in Agility Class – she absolutely loves it! Mark is her handler and I am her photographer and general pit crew getting all of her gear ready for the day.

here she is giving mom a pose, while dad learns the trick:

here she is going up (and down) the A frame:

And of course brilliantly looking at dad as she SPROINGS over the jumps:

So now for the big test – how will she interact with a baby and a baby dog? We brought in the big guns – the Johnstons! We were nervous (ok I was the most nervous) – would lola want to eat Niko? Would she get jealous? Turns out she was totally enamoured with him … when niko was sleeping she would sit outside the room, when he was being held, she would sit staring at the boy – she loved him. And she was actually very held back (for a crazy jack russel)


And Sumo … well she just loves sumo! They play so well together.


Yes all of the training is definitely helping – She has even been able to have a few hours of daycare. Our little angel is a lot of work – good practice for the baby – and she is too cute for words (at least we think so).