Betsy Adventures

A fun fact about Betsy is that when she notices people brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed she gets up off her dog bed in the living room and quietly wanders downstairs into my office to hop up onto the couch there where she sleeps at night, essentially “putting herself to bed” and it warms my heart every time because she’s so cute and dogs are awesome.

When Betsy was young I had a hard time getting her to stay engaged with tug games. Then I took a Fenzi course with Shade and was told to let Betsy win more and push her body into me during tug. Game changer. As long as I back off and don’t lay on too much body pressure and instead mostly fall back/let her come to me, she loves to tug.

My pretty girl

Note to self: stop clicking so damn much when she gets it right.

First training session with this box.

Goal: get her in the box

Outcome: 15 seconds. Probably need to try something harder.

Betsy is 10 and a half.

This is our first time with an #outwardhound food puzzle. When I brought it home and showed it to Betsy she nosed it, whined in frustration, and stared at me and refused to move, expecting me to solve it for her.

So I went to make dinner and within a minute of being left alone with the puzzle, she figured it all out. This video is her second try at it, about 10 minutes after her first try.

I’ll have to try a harder puzzle next time!!!

#dogsofinstagram #dogs

Betsy and her stuffed rottie

Late night boredom face + random children’s toys mixed with dog toys.

Rest of the family is in bed and we’re just chilling together.

One of the first things I taught Betsy as a puppy was to lie down on the kitchen floor whenever I’m in there preparing food, as a way of preventing counter surfing and begging. It continues to work well to this day… but now with my kids!

Betsy says hi 🙂 10 years old and finally loose leash walking… no thanks to my training efforts, I think she’s just old and chill now.

Dog people love to post “dog and kid videos where the dog looks uncomfortable…” here’s a dog kid video (of Betsy) where I’m pretty sure Betsy is feeling pretty happy to have a small child pet her. ❤️

Cleaned the house today while Betsy supervised. Don’t tell my husband she was on the white rug 🙈

Betsy and I haven't done agility in about four years.

This is her first time seeing weave poles in four years.

I just thought I'd give it a shot to see how she did. (Also yes these are some hella ghetto weave poles, I just scrounged together whatever I could find to make them)

Only four poles because a full set seemed cruel after a 4 year break.

How did she do? Decent! She definitely remembered the overall concept but she needed a bit of help from me to make it without skipping any weaves.

Dogs have crazy good memory!

About to leave for a walk but I made her stop for a photo first.

Betsy's "casual" recall in action. (clicking and whistling - if I wanted to I'd use our "official" recall word and she would (hopefully) respond more quickly & sit at my feet when she reaches me instead of blasting past me)