Phoenix's Embark DNA Test! (not sponsored)

I've been waiting 7 years to know what sort of breed mix Phoenix is! We finally decided to run a DNA test through Embark! Embark tests for over 250 breeds and is one of the leading companies in canine genetics. I've had quite a few friends run Embark tests on their dogs and were happy with their results which is another reason we chose this company. You can learn more about them by clicking on the link.

We got our kit around the first of the year and have been waiting three long weeks for her results! We finally got them back and I'm so excited to share them with everyone!

You can find Phoenix Embark profile by going here: Phoenix

Phoenix's results make absolute sense to us. We thought she might have Australian Cattle Dog in her but we weren't sure since we never got the chance to meet her parents.

When Phoenix was young, she had boundless amounts of energy. I used to spend every last free second I had working with her. We'd go to the park when I got off work and spend 3+ hours exercising and training. Then we'd come home and train some more. She was still ready to work  often until bedtime. She is one of the most challenging dogs I've ever worked with or lived with but she has always been 100% worth it. Having a dog that practically reads your mind and wants to do everything you want to do is so much fun. I just love her to pieces and was super excited to get her DNA test.

Have you ever done a DNA test on your dog? Did you get any surprising results?

Alice ~ 8 Weeks Home ~ Update

Alice has been in our home for 8 weeks! It's crazy how time just flies by. I'm happy to report she's doing really well! She's still settling in but we've made a lot of progress in so many areas.

The most important thing that's happened so far is that Zoe has accepted Alice into her life. Zoe has been without the basket muzzle since last month. They are doing really well coexisting. I've been allowing really short play sessions. Zoe and Alice Interacting  Zoe is 30lbs, twice Alice's size and she likes to play pretty rough which isn't really reciprocal. It's a little intimidating for Alice, especially since Zoe has been snarky and crabby with her up until a few weeks ago. I still separate Zoe out when Alice and Phoenix are playing because they are both twice her size and I don't want them ganging up on her.

 

She's also started taking naps all by herself during the day. The first 6 weeks she wouldn't rest on her own without being put into her crate and being "forced" to take a break.  

Last week Alice went on her first official hiking trip. Up until this trip, we had been going to our quiet little spot at the pond for walks and training. This was the first time we took her to a busier place where there would be more dogs. She did really well. I didn't see any reactive behavior, she did get a little excited when a reactive dog passed us and was whining at us but she didn't react back at the dog. 

We've been working on a few tricks, too! She's learning to sit pretty, fetch, roll over and spin. I'm also working on position changes sit to stand to down, etc. She's so smart! 

WALK ME!!!

So far our only real challenge has been potty training and bare with me because it's not what you think. When she was at the rescue, they have volunteers coming in all day, every day and walking the dogs. Previously to that, she was found on the street, so I doubt she was ever taught to potty in one spot. So I've had a hard time convincing Alice that she can go outside and just potty without going for a walk. She doesn't really like pottying in our yard and will hold it forever. I take her out on a long line and she has to share the yard with my neighbors because we live in a townhouse but she's got about a quarter of an acre to roam and find a spot. Often she will try to go to the street, strain against the leash and cry for a walk. I've been working hard on sticking with it so that she learns to go in our yard. It's been tough. She will often get really distracted outside and if you add in some really annoying and nosy neighbors and their barking dogs, it's a recipe for frustration on my part. It's really important that she learn this because I won't always be able to walk her. I feel like she's definitely gotten better but two months later, we're still struggling with it.

If I FITS I SITS

Overall, Alice is a great puppy and I'm super happy with her progress. She's fitting into our lives almost seamlessly. I'm really happy that Zoe has finally accepted her into our family and I love how much Phoenix plays with her. Alice is the perfect friend for Phoenix. They play and cuddle all day in a way that she never did with Zoe. She's brought out so much puppy in Phoenix. It's been so fun to watch them! 

I post a lot of videos over on my instagram, so I would recommend following us there for more frequent updates: @zoepheedogs

Beach, The Happiest Place On Earth!

Hi everyone! Long time, no write! I got really busy, then I got super sick and I lost some motivation to update the blog. I am planning on trying to update it more frequently and I apologize for our absence!

We recently took a much needed vacation at the beach. We spent three days playing fetch and exploring. It was glorious!

Zoe and Phoenix had so much fun. 

Phoenix is always so at peace when we go to the beach. Her peace is my peace. She wants to fetch her ball and play with us. She doesn't care about other dogs being around, she's not reactive at all. She's fearless and she's completely reliable off leash. 

Usually we have to keep Zoe on a leash when we are at the beach. She is so independent and has a tendency to wander too far. This trip we were able to let her off the leash more often and she had a great time running around! She even brought back a few balls!

The beach is definitely our happy place. We always have a great time and I really miss it when we leave. All I want to do is go back!

Do you have a favorite place you go with your dogs?

Wind Blown!

This is what happens to my ears when we have hurricane force winds! 

Happy 5th Gotcha Day to Phoenix!

It was 5 years ago today, that my friend and I went to meet a scared little dog that looked a lot like Zoe! Click here to read her full adoption story: Phoenix's Adoption Story

In 5 years I have learned so much from this dog. At first, I didn't like her that much but she's grown into my heart dog and I'm so thankful to have her in my life!

Phoenix has made so much progress in the last two years and I am so thankful for the opportunities my job has offered us in terms of classes and working with trainers who are well versed in behavior.

If you had told me a year ago that Phoenix would be doing play groups, making her own friends and would be successfully making new friends out in the real world, I would of laughed at you and asked what you were smoking and why aren't you sharing? I never thought she'd ever be able to do play groups, let alone have friends outside of our home.

I am very happy to report that every week she continues to do better and she amazes me with her ability to learn, adjust and be forgiving of my mistakes. I am the luckiest dog mom!

Every birthday girl needs presents, right!? We took Phoenix to the pet store yesterday and she got to pick out a new toy and we got her and Zoe some bully sticks! We have a work meeting today but after, we're going to go get some ice cream. I can't believe I've had her for 5 years!

A Beach Trip!

Peter Iredale Ship Wreck! Check out those wind blown ears!

A while ago, we made it out to the Oregon coast for two fun days of fetch at the beach!

I've been so busy that I haven't been able to post about it until now!

Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach

Zoe managed to have some off leash fun at the beach! 

We generally keep her on the leash for the most part because she saw bunnies one time and never forgot that there might be prey animals to hunt!

We trust Zoe a lot more when she's gotten a little tired. Here they are having a burst of zoomies!

Phoenix is very serious about her ball time! I was so proud of her! She didn't care about any distractions or other dogs at the beach. All she wanted to do was play fetch! She's come a long way!

Oswald West

We visited three different beaches and they had fun on each one!

Overall we had an amazing time! We absolutely love the coast!

Silhouette Sunday!

There's nothing better than a dog getting to do her favorite thing on the beach at sunset!

Summer Water Fun with the Hurtta Life Savior!

It's finally warming up here and one way Phoenix loves to beat the heat is by swimming! She really enjoys fetching things out of the river and she could do this for hours. It's fun to watch her swim and she has a great time but sometimes she gets so into it that it's hard to tell when she's getting tired. Safety in the water is really important to me and we were really excited when one of our favoritge brands offered the perfect solution: Life Savior! 

The Life Savior, is a  new generation streamlined life jacket for dogs, made by Hurtta. This life jacket is ideal for swimming, water rescue, rehabilitation, boating and hunting. The special design of the floats make the jacket very light and ensure a comfortable fit. The light design of the jacket allows for freedom of movement for your dog in water and on land. I love how light weight the jacket is. Our swimming spot is a bit of a trek for us and the light weight design is very helpful. Phoenix can either wear the jacket as we're hiking or I can carry it. Even soaking wet, the jacket is light.

The buoyancy of this life jacket has been thoroughly tested by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. The life jacket has an adjustable belt and front that allow it to fit most breeds of dog. The back of the jacket is fitted with sturdy handle by which the dog can be guided in the water or lifted out. A protective underbelly section distributes the dog's weight over a larger area and keeps the jacket firmly in place. The reflective fabric and 3M reflectors on the back of the jacket provide visibility in the dark.

We had an awesome time testing this life jacket and I noticed a huge difference in Phoenix's confidence in the water. I could tell that the life jacket was helping to make her buoyant and swim more correctly (sometimes her back end sinks). I love the feeling of safety that this life jacket provided me with. Phoenix can now play as much as she wants in the water without me worrying that she might get too tired. I also really love sturdy the handle is on the back of the jacket, I was able to lift her completely out of the water with it. The Life Savior is a very sturdy life jacket and I can tell we will get a lot of use out of it!

If your dog spends a lot of time swimming or near the water, I would highly recommend checking out the Hurtta Life Savior! Life jackets save lives!

Does you dog like playing in the water? 

Don't forget to check out Hurtta out on Facebook and like their page! They often look for product testers and run their own giveaways. The best way of finding out about all the Hurtta news is by liking their page. 

ZoePhee was provided with a Life Savior in exchange for an honest review. We were not monetarily compensated and all opinions are my own. Hurtta is not responsible for the content of this blog post. 

Kitty Snuggles!

Phoenix is such a sweetie! She puts up with all sorts of kitty shenanigans! 

Making Better Choices!

Hi everyone! I hope you're all having a great day. Today I have an update on how Phoenix has been doing. As most of you know, we started Phoenix in play groups at my work back in the beginning of February to try and help her with some of her dog/dog issues. Along the way, we've had some struggles and we've learned so much about her. Phoenix also attends our reactive dog class whenever there is room for her and helps other dogs learn how to be calm around each other, so she's getting some additional counter conditioning on leash with other dogs in a controlled manner. Working my own dog in that class has been really helpful for me and has helped me improve my handling skills which is great for Phoenix and great for all the dog training classes that I help with.

The main thing that Phoenix struggles with is greeting new dogs. She is fearful and face-to-face
 (----> <---) greetings are hard for her. Sometimes a face-to-face greeting can illicit a soft snarl and flash of teeth all the way up to an actual snark with light contact. I say light contact as she has never hurt anybody.

The other issue that we've seen is what we call "breed-specific (hereditary) chasing and nipping. This behavior is very interesting as it seems like something she has a very hard time controlling on her own. It's like some sort of compulsive action that she can't help doing. When she sees a dog moving, her first instinct is to chase them and nip at their butts.

We've also seen some low-level separation anxiety from me. As soon as I would leave the room, she would continually pace and try to figure out where I went or try to get back to me. Transitioning times between employees and dogs were pretty stressful for her.

I'm happy to report that things are going a lot better and it seems like each week she does better. We've been setting her up to win with new dogs by introducing her dead last. That way the new dogs are distracted by the rest of the group and Phoenix is also distracted by the group. She is not able to zero in on a new dog to chase and nip or get snarky upon greeting them. We control the greetings by feeding the other dog so Phoenix can sniff them without conflict. We are very careful and thoughtful on how we do greetings and it's really helping. She's doing amazing outside of my work when we go hiking and meets new dogs on her own without help. We have not seen much snarky behavior in weeks, most of what we see is avoidance or a very low level lift lip. We've even seen her solicit play from new dogs out at the park, which is amazing.

A post shared by Lauren Miller (@zoepheedogs) on May 19, 2017 at 2:19pm PDT

Playing in the water surrounded by new dogs she's never seen before!

The chasing and nipping has gotten much better as well. Today I actually saw her think about **NOT** doing it. She started to do it and then stopped herself, turned around and came back to me. She was SO good!!! I was excited to see her do that. She is also not nipping as much if she does end up chasing and is able to recall off the dogs and come to us. We've also seen some play that did not include chasing with her, actual play bows and jumping around a little. It was so cute!

The separation anxiety and worrying about where I am has gotten much better. My coworkers report that she's doing really well and participating in all the training activities that they've been doing. She's still really worried when the dogs are transitioning to go home but we wait until she's completely calmed down before she's allowed to get back to me, which seems to be helping a lot too!

I'm so happy with her progress and I'm really glad that I stuck with the play groups, even though she had a hard time at first. I'm so thankful that I work with awesome trainers and that my coworkers have been so helpful with her. The support I've gotten has been amazing. I wish everyone had a facility like this to help them.

Note: Our play groups are not in any way close to what you would find at a traditional "Doggie Daycare". Our facility is first and foremost a training facility where we work with the dogs to help them with their issues and understand them better. I do not recommend traditional doggie daycare for dogs who have dog/dog issues, as they can end up flooding a dog and causing more issues. A training facility that understands behavior, does training and careful, thought out introductions is where Phoenix goes and it's the only sort of facility I would ever recommend. Pet owners need to thoroughly vet the places they are taking their dogs. 

 

Things Are Blooming!

Things are starting to bloom around here! Our weather has still been awful though!

Phoenix Does The Tunnel! Training Tuesday

Things are going a lot better the past two weeks at work with Phoenix. We have only had one new dog join the group and she's getting along okay with him. She also learned a new skill this week: Going through the tunnel! 

A post shared by Lauren Miller (@zoepheedogs) on May 16, 2017 at 5:59am PDT

A few years ago, there was no way she would do this. I'm pretty happy with her progress. She's doing really well and she's such a good girl. She's trying really hard to figure out how to dog with other dogs. 

Phoenix's favorite friend from work is Percy, the border collie. We spent some time last week doing agility with all the dogs. They got to do the jump, tunnel and our pause table.

A post shared by Lauren Miller (@zoepheedogs) on May 15, 2017 at 10:45am PDT

As you can see they really like all the training they get to do!

A Work In Progress...

Today we've got a Phoenix update! Phoenix goes to play group once a week on Mondays and she is doing pretty well with our established group. We don't see her playing very often yet but she's able to hang out with the other dogs and she does try to play with a few of her favorites. She's just not sure how it all works yet. "How do I get these dogs to play with me?" (That doesn't involve chasing and nipping or third wheeling.) Attending play group has also helped her with her dog interactions in the real world. She has been doing great when we go to the off leash hiking park. She's even solicited play from some random dogs we've come across out there!

With all the good stuff, Phee still struggles sometimes when she meets new big dogs. Greetings can be stressful and she gets scared. We had three new dogs start yesterday and she had trouble with one of them. I guess one out of three isn't ridiculously horrible but sigh... The greeting was not what we usually do with her, the dog showed up early (new dogs are supposed to come in last) we didn't control our antecedents very well and we had a snarky incident. Nobody was hurt but it wasn't pretty. Then the rest of the session, Phoenix struggled with that dog being in close proximity to her. Eventually everybody did settle down and everything was fine but it was not her best day.

Everyone at my work is very supportive and we think these are issues we can work through with her. There are other dogs that come who used to have way worse issues and they've been worked with and are doing great. I keep trying to remind myself that all dogs have good and bad days, just like us! Training takes time and she is only able to go once a week. My co-workers tell me that she is doing better each week and she also does better when I am not in the room with her.

When things go wrong, it's so much harder when it's your own dog. I can watch other dogs have their grumpy moments all day long but when it's my dog, it really gets me emotional. My boss has given me a mantra to repeat: "Conflict is normal". So I try to remember that shit happens, they're animals. We just do the best we can and that's all we can do.

So that's my Phee training update. She's a work in progress! Overall she's doing well so I'm trying to look at the bigger picture and not let an occasional off day get us down.

I also just wanted to let you guys know that I've been having technical difficulties with my computer and camera so it's been making it hard to blog and visit blogs. So this is why you guys haven't been seeing much of me.

Banana!

The Flooded Rainforest!

This used to be a trail system and a meadow!

We've had a very rainy year! It's been raining pretty much nonstop since October with only 4 days of nice weather. All that rain has to go somewhere and our rivers are overflowing!

This past Thursday, we went to Thousand Acres park for the first time since Phoenix started doing play group at my work. We've been avoiding places where there will be other off leash dogs, while I was integrating Phoenix into our play group because we didn't want her to have any bad dog/dog interactions, trigger stacking or practice bad behavior with other dogs. It's been 4 weeks since I've been out there and the whole park is completely flooded!

The "Seasonal" Pond is now a river and a muddy mess!

It was fascinating to see how high the water was! I've never seen the "seasonal" pond so full! It was it's own river! This was the spot where I taught Phoenix how to swim a couple of years ago because it was shallow and easy for her. Not anymore!!

This spot here used to be a meadow full of green grass and a trail system! 

This is the same exact spot as the photo above. I took this a few months ago! 

They were both super confused as to where the meadow went! It was pretty funny! 

We took a break from the flood so that Phoenix could play a little fetch!

She loves her ball! 

Phoenix has been going to our play groups once a week for the past three weeks and I was so happy with her behavior out at the park! Her dog/dog greetings and interactions where way better than they've been in the past. She was pretty chill for the most part. The terrier directly behind her and to the right was not very nice to her, he snarked at her and was kind of over the top. Phoenix did not snark back. She showed him her teeth when he got in her face but then she moved away from him and let it go. 

My work dogs are really helping her to realize that she can meet dogs and nothing bad or scary happens. They ignore her for the most part and she's able to easily move through them without being scared. She actually tried to play with a couple of them this past week. It's nice to see that what she's learning at my work is being generalized to other dogs! I'm really happy with her progress.