Picking a long distance hiking trail...

With me adopting Gina I knew I had to pick a hiking trail. On the one hand it's something I've really been missing in past decade. At first my ex wasn't exactly to motivate to go on a long distance hike and then when I moved back to Austria Daisy was just getting too old to take her on a long distance hike. But with Gina being 3 years old, so basically a young dog and with tons of energy picking a long distance trail seemed to be the perfect choice. It certainly will give her the experience to be a real working dog and it comes close what dogs are meant to do...it's to travel on foot with their pack.
There are about 80 long distance hiking trails I know of in Austria. But I took only 3 into serious consideration. Most of the others are located in western Austria and some in southern Austria. So that's not exactly very practicable when you're going to start out with day hikes and hiking weekends. So here are the 3 trails that were left.

The 02 or Trans-Alpine. It's a hiking trail about 900 miles and goes from Vienna through Austria until it reaches Austria's border with Germany and Switzerland. While I would love to do that trail, it has a lot of very rugged and exposed terrain and I'm not sure it would be the best pick to take Gina on her first long distance hike. For that trail I will have to do some hiking in the mountains with her first. So I pretty much discarded that trail for now.

So I was left with the following trails:

The 05 or North-South. I absolutely would love to go on that trail. It's something Gina definitely should be able to handle. The terrain is way less rugged and it takes over 200 miles of hiking before you actually reach the mountains. This trails goes from Austria's border with the Czech Republic to the border with Italy. Downside of this trail is that the part of Austria's norther border is not exactly easy to reach by public transportation. The best way to do the most northern part is to take a week off and hike it. But in the middle of winter that's just not an option. Too much snow and too much damage from the past couple of winter storms.

The 04 or Voraplen. This trail starts in Vienna and runs west to Austria's border with Bavaria. And it even has the added option that you can continue on the Maximiliam Trail trough southern Bavaria to    Austria's border with Switzerland. The Voralpen is a way better choice. Much easier to reach with with public transportation for day hikes and hiking weekends. And of course it's not really rugged especially the parts in Vienna and Lower Austria. And I think that's really a good trail to start Gina on a long distance hiking trail and see how things work with her. You pretty much have no winter limitation, since you can hike most parts in Vienna and Lower Austria year round.
So in the end I went with the Voralpen long distance hiking trail. And I actually plan to start out with Gina in Mid-February always depending on the weather and snow pack. It's really exciting since I get to pick some new hiking gear and also a doggy back pack for Gina. As I said in the beginning we're going to start out with day hikes and hiking weekends. But down the road the idea is to take a week or 2 weeks off and do real back country hiking. And that means carrying all the stuff you need camping out in nature in tent and only occasionally staying in town in a motel. It's something I'm really looking forward to and it will be great experience for Gina as well. And of course it will give me the choice to take great pix and great video of this endeavor.

Joining a Alpine Association...

Well I've been thinking about joining a chapter of a Alpine Association since I moved back from the States. At first I was too busy getting my life back on track and then Daisy was no longer in a condition where you could have taken her for long hikes. So that never happened. But of course day hikes and hiking weekends with overnight stays at mountain huts is something that I really missed. But being a good doggie daddy...Daisy was just way more important than my hiking desire.
When I adopted Gina I knew very quickly that she would be a great hiking buddy. She has the drive and the energy for that and it will be very beneficial for her as well. It will get her out of the city and introduce her to new environments and will give her a really great workout.
At first I wasn't entirely sure which chapter to join. But I gave it some thorough thought. It's not very likely that I will start to climbing any time soon and it's not very likely that I will do only stuff on glaciers. So joining the long distance hiking chapter seems the best choice and works best at this stage of my life and will work perfectly for Gina as well. Besides the getting up to date information there are a lot of benefits when staying overnight on alpine huts or using one of the many gondolas. So today I submitted my application and it will cost me about 60 bucks per year. That's money I think is very well spent. Especially since I plan to start day trips with Gina on a long distance hiking trail that starts right within the city limits of Vienna. But I will explain that all about that in a separate blog post.

Finding Gina's triggering point...

Up till now I haven't been doing bad with Gina's training at all. But I didn't really manage to convey what I real wanted to do her. All the tools that worked with Daisy only seem to be partially successful with Gina. On the one hand she is certainly not Daisy at all on the other hand she is a couple of hers younger. Her prey drive is stronger and so is her play drive.
It's not like that she is a silly dog. The opposite is true. Gina is highly intelligent and tries to figure out what I want form her. But today I realized something particular. She is much easier to handle with all distraction when I get her in a working mode. And this dog loves to work for rewards. If she thinks she did something right, well she pretty much expects some kind of reward. So far voice commands have only been partially successful. But that was all going to change today. This afternoon we had a particular successful training session. And I realized that combing a voice command with a physical clue makes Gina go. I managed to establish a physical clue that makes her come back to me, wait and sit down. With that being said, it works about 80 percent of the time. And it will take lots of repetitions for her to retain the knowledge. But it's definitely a step in the right direction. And yes I'm aware of the fact that for a 3 year old Aussie being 3 hours out on walks doesn't really tire her out. Pretty soon that's going to change as well...especially on weekends.
But with those new clues I made quite some progress ins stopping her form pulling on the leash like a freight train and she slowly seems to grasp the concept of walking on the short leash. In the beginning in need to call her back frequently, but once she gets into the mode she does fairly good. Considering the fact that nobody has taught walking on the short leash. So yes, I'm pretty happy about the success. But I have to admit that I sometimes get a little impatient with her, when she just doesn't do what she is supposed to do. And encounters with unbalanced dogs in the city are particularly difficult for Gina. And boy there are a lot of them. I still have yet to figure out the perfect way how to redirect her reaction towards unbalanced dogs.
I will keep you guys posted on the progress.

VET appointment - Round 2...

Today I head to go back with Gina to the VET to have her eye checked. And that was something I wasn't particularly looking forward to. I wasn't sure how cooperative she would be in letting the VET check her eye. We got to the VET around 5.30 pm and settled into the waiting room. Gina really didn't care too much for the place. But she wasn't super hectic either. As soon as she the VET calling in the guys before us, she hid immediately on the side of the couch. As it was our turn it was not that easy to convince her to come with me. But there was no way around it. In the VET's office I let her walk around by herself dragging the leash behind her. I talked to the VET and I really wanted to get a blue passport for Gina. But for that one she needs her rabies shot. And without the rabies shot and the blue passport I can't take her across the Austria's borders. So the VET started to prepare the pet passport. Next up was the eye exam. This time Gina let me put her up on the exam table without any problems. Lots of body contact and some petting helped and she actually let the VET exam her eye. And the conjunctivitis ist almost gone. I'm very happy about that. Next up was the first rabies shot. Gina had no problem with that. Not sure if she even realized that she had gotten a shot. After that I put her back on the floor and let her have quite number of goodies. As soon as the goods were gone, she hid under a chair. So she still hasn't forgotten the first eye exam she got at the place. The VET then finished up the passport. And we will have to go back for round two of the rabies shot at the beginning of February. And back home we went and poor Gina couldn't get out of the office quick enough.

Gina's first day with the dog sitter...

Today was Gina's first day with the dog sitter. Of course I was kinda nervous. I took her for the usual 1 hour walk in the mooring had breakfast and then headed out to work. It was a pretty uneventful day at work. But maybe that's just how you feel when your dog has her first outing with the sitter all by herself and you can't watch it. We had agreed that Gina would be picked up between noon and 2 pm and taken for a 1 hour walk. We also agreed on what they should work with her on and what can wait. Guess all dog parents go through that nervous phase. But there is no way around it.
Around 2 pm I got a text message from the sitter. And she told me that everything went great and that they both had a great time. I was very happy and quite relieved to hear that. And gave me a good feeling that I chose that dog sitter. But of course I barely could wait to get home to hang with my girl. When I got home I was greeted by a very excited and happy girl jumping all over me. Of course I know that this is something that needs to be worked on. But all in good time. At this point I was just happy that Gina was so happy and apparently had fun. That makes me feel much less guilty for my rather long work schedule.

Visiting my Sis...

Today I was going to visit with my Sis to celebrate my nephews birthday. This was going to be the first time that I would bring along Gina. Up till now I haven't had any visitors. Really wanted to give Gina the time to settle into the place without any added distraction. So I figured it would be a great idea to take her out for a long walk. We did our usual walk in the neighborhood. Usually lats a little over 1 hour. After getting back to my apartment I had a little snack before heading out. By that time I was already running about 10 minutes behind my schedule. But there's nothing I could do about that. We got to the tram station and waited for the tram to arrive. There were no problems with Gina. We got into the tram and Gina found herself a place unter the chair. No problems at all. At Schottentor we had to get off to take a second tram. This was a good time to teach Gina the use of the escalator. And she is a natural when it comes to that. We took the second tram to my Sis. Walked up the hill and shortly before reaching her place I put the muzzle back on her, since I was not sure how Gina would react to the kids and to my Sis cats. Come to find out that the cats stayed that day somewhere else. And meeting my brother-in-law and my nephews went fairly well. Yes Gina did jump up on my brother-in-law and yes I do know that this is not perfect doggy etiquette. But she is still young and excited and so I let her get away with it. We settled into the my Sis living room and after some time Gina calmed down. It was the first time that my Mom got to see Gina as well, and she assumed that Gina would be a smaller dog than she actually is. Gina is roughly about Daisy's size. Got to share new from work with my family and got to share Gina's adoption story as well. Gina did fairly well and I even put the muzzle off her after she was calm enough. The only thing was that Gina wanted to have the birthday cake really badly. And yes, that's going to be an ongoing battle...this dog is a little obsessed with human food. But with goodies it's fairly easy to redirect her. We celebrated my nephews birthday. After my parents had left I stayed and let Gina walk around the living room and that worked without any problems. And it gave me time to catch up my Sis and my bother-in -law, since I haven't seen them in about 7 month. I really wish I would see them more frequently. But with all of us having busy schedules and with Daisy's health declining it was just better that way. But we did agree that we that we should be hanging out in the future more frequently.
By 5.30 pm I left with Gina and headed back home. All in all it was a great outing for Gina and went much better than I imagined.

VET visit..

This was going to be my first VET visit with Gina at my regular VET. Knowing that Gina really doesn't like the VET at all, I wasn't sure how that meeting was going to go. But there was no way around it. After all Gina and the VET had to get to know each other, and this VET was doing very good with Daisy. Before I had my VET appointment I took Gina for an 1 hour long walk. I figured that giving her a good work out might make it easier. Getting to VET office and waiting was no problem at all. Gina even got to meet 2 cats there. From what I could see she was interested in them. Not sure how far that interest would go. And knowing the way Gina likes to play, that would have probably been a rough play session. So I just kept her close to me.
Once we got called into the VET office Gina was still fine. the VET took her weight and she weighs about 18 kg (about 36 lbs) and that's a couple of lbs too much. At least if you believe the in the breed standard. He made a physical exam and everything checked out fine. Gina even let him look at her teeth, without showing the VET her teeth. Then came the thing I went to the VET with Gina in the first place. I wanted to have the VET take a look at her eyes, as she had been rubbing them and her eyes were too red for my taste. Turns out the one thing that Gina had brought home from the shelter was a conjunctivitis. It's not a super bad inflammation of the eye, but it's obviously bothering her. She did let the VET examine her eye, but she wasn't a happy camper. But putting the the ointment in her eye was anything but easy. Without muzzle there was no way that this was going to work. The first eye was already difficult, but with the second eye...well this was almost a paramilitary operation and Gina was so not happy. Once the ordeal was over she did take the goodies from the VET. We got back home and she got lots of praise and goodies. The fun part is going be, that I have to put the ointment into Gina's eyes twice a day. Lucky me!

Finding a dog sitter...

I really didn't need Wednesday's accident to know that Gina needed a dog sitter/dog walker during the day. She can stay alone for about 8 hours. Anything more than that is really pushing it. And I really don't want to do that to her. So finding a good dog walker was more important than ever. And with my work schedule it's just not realistic that I will be back form work in under 8 hours. I had already had a meeting with one dog sitter yesterday and I really did like her. And Gina and her really got along pretty good. Today I had another appointment with a dog sitter. It went fairly well. But I just had the feeling that Gina and yesterday's dog sitter had the better connection. So after the meeting with the second dog sitter I gave the first one a call and they were going to come over for a second visit and we would be signing the paperwork at that time as well. Again the dig sitter and Gina got along good. We signed the paperwork and arranged that Gina would be taking for a 1 hour walk between the noon and 2 pm. That way she won't be by herself for longer than 6 hours. And I think that's a good compromise. Of course it's gonna cost me money but the 60 bucks I've to pay per week is money well spent. Never had that issue with Daisy, as me former Aussie CattleDog used to be exceptional when it came to staying alone and holding it. With Daisy 12 hours were no problem at all.
So starting Monday Gina will be having her first outing with the dog sitter.

Someone had an accident...

This morning when I took Gina out for her morning walk, I just couldn't get her to poop. Although we were out for 1 hour. No luck at all. So I did have a bad feeling about that. But there's nothing I could do to change that. Up until now gina never ever had a problem pooling during her morning walk. But I even took here for one round around the block before heading into work. But no luck either. While at work I had a bad feeling and was prepared that she was going to have an accident while I was at work. I got back from work in less that 8 hours. Usually 8 hours are no problem for Gina. When I got home I knew something was up. Gina didn't jump up on me and her tail was nervously wagging back and forth. So I went to investigate. And pretty quickly I found the source of her being nervous. She had made a pile. Pretty much what I figured. But at least she did it on the tiles in the bathroom. Before starting with the clean up I gave her some petting and special attention and assured her that I wasn't mad. Accidents do happen. After that I cleaned up the mess. Sprayed the tiles with cleaning solution and washed them up. Once that was accomplished I went with Gina for a long walk. While out on the walk I knew that finding a dog sitter would be really urgent. I don't want a repeat of that and it's something that isn't a good experience for a dog either.

Going back to work...

Today was the first dray I had to go back to work after my XMAS vacation. I wasn't particularly looking forward to that. On the one hand I haven't been enjoying my job that much lately on the other hand it would be the first time that Gina had to be by herself for a whole day. I've tried to leave her alone for a couple of hours and there was no problem with that. No destructive behavior no whining. Just the occasional barking at noises that are unfamiliar or unexpected to her.
So I left fairly late and got to work by 9.30 am. That's much later than I usually start. But I figured the first day Gina shouldn't be to long alone. Since I was interested to see what Gina is up to I let m video cam roll and to make her not feel too alone I left my iPod running in the dock. That should help with unfamiliar and unexpected noises as well. On my first workday I really didn't do much. Just putting stuff away and getting all my boxes from the warehouse. This was the first day anyone of the accounting department was there since the big remodel of the office. The point of the remodel was to reduce the noise level and to divide the office into teams. Well the might have reduced the noise level somewhat. And they managed to dived the office into teams, but you can still hear an considerable amount of noise. And that's no particularly helpful for the accounting department. So all in all it wasn't a particular productive day. I did set up my desk and put most stuff away and got things ready to actually start working again.
I left work about a quarter to five and headed back home. Stopped by at the local grocery store to pick up some supplies, since the next day was a public holiday. And yes, I was very curious what I would find when getting home. This time I walked up the stairs and didn't use the elevator. But I didn't hear any barking and no whining. Opened the door and Gina came up to me right away and of course she was super excited to see me. So it really didn't bother me that she was jumping up on me. Gave here some loving and took her for her 1 hour evening walk. And for having been alone by herself that long, she did fairly well.
Once I got home I actually inspected the apartment. No damage and she didn't have an accident either. Just grabbed an old towel from the bath tub and apparently played with it. Next I watched the video. To make a long story short. No signs of separation anxiety, no barking and no whining at all. Gina just changed place to sleep. She slept on the couch, than wandered to her doggie bed in the living room, then took a nap in front of the patio door, then walked into the bathroom, before returning to the couch again.
So all in all a very good day for being alone for the entire day. Of course I'm still looking for the right dog walker to take Gina out during the day, since I really don't want her to be alone for that long.

The big Towel fight...

Todays walk with Gina was pretty uneventful. But since we had gotten some sleet over night everything was wet and dirty again. Can't say that I'm a fan of that. So when we got back I had to clean off Ginas feet and she isn't a particular fan of that. She thinks that this is more of a game. And of course she was all wilded up and all that energy had to go somewhere. The 1 minute video shows what she was doing for the next 10 minutes.

Leash training...

Well today is a knew day. We all know that and it is especially true for dogs. They live in the present and you have a chance to start every day fresh over again.
Like the last few days the first part of the walk went pretty good. Not many problems there. When it came to the second part, Gina started the same way as the day before as soon as it went uphill. But this time I had an different approach planned. After all you don't want to train a dog by intimidation. So I got her to sit and got some high quality goodies ready. In Gina's case that are pieces of Knackwurst. So she got a goodie when she was walking by my side without pulling. And for most parts that worked. Not only for short distances but for longer distances as well. I have to admit there weren't that many distractions around. And of course she can smell the goodies in my hand. And I used that fact to add a verbal cue to it. Every time when Gina started to pull away just calling her be her name was enough to get her focus on my and she then did walk next to me again. Of course I rewarded that behavior. I think she got the the basic principle of it.But by no means do I believe she has learned it. That will take time and it will take many repetitions. But for the first try with that exercise...I'm very happy with that.

Gina's training progress so far...

Well, all in all Gina's training progress has been pretty steep. At least considering the fact that we've been training for under 3 weeks. Looking back I accomplished with purely positive reinforcement training a lot. And when I compare it to Daisy's progress, Gina has accomplished that in 3 weeks what I accomplished with Daisy in almost 6 month.
The progress with getting her used to other dogs is slow. But I expected that much. It all depends on the dog. Those with fairly balanced energy are usually no problem. But those who are unbalanced to begin with and those who bark crazy at Gina are the ones that cause problems. And she reacts always the same way. Getting ready to attack and launching at them. That's a pattern she has learned and it's nit going to be easy to break that pattern. And currently her security distance are about 15 feet. With that distance she doesn't react without me having to redirect her with goodies. I rather not want to use force to redirect as that is counterproductive  as far as I'm concerned and it's exactly how people did it in the past to her.
But today a particular odd behavior surfaced. She walks pretty OK on the leash. And at this point I don't expect her walk right next to me. As long as she doesn't pull like a freight train, it's good as far as I'm concerned at that point. And when we start the walk it works with no problem. There are 2 intersections where she wants to go into the opposite direction that I want to go and she doesn't pay attention where I'm walking. But that's a minor problem. Of course I give here plenty of time to check out the cents and yes loud and strange noises still scare her. But I can get her off those pretty quickly. But after about 1/2 of the walk she starts pulling more and more on the leash. For me there is no apparent reason to that. The only thing I can think of is the fact that the second half of the walk is uphill. But even if I increase my walking speed significantly...that doesn't change a thing. And today it was particularly bad. And at a certain point I just lost it and yanked her back on the leash. That did get her down a little. But not for too long. And I did it actually twice. I just lost patience. After that I was mad at myself. And I made a promise to myself that I would stop that and go back to a purely positive reinforcement approach.
Thinking about the entire incident made me realize how much work I had actually done with Daisy and it took about 1 1/2 to 2 years back then. But that's something I've gotten used to. So guess I will have to remember how slow Daisy training progress was in the beginning. And I've made good progress with Gina so far. Putting on the muzzle is very little of a problem. You just have to use a 2 step approach. First she gets a couple of goodies. Then I put the muzzle just around her neck and let her eat another couple of goodies out of the muzzle, before putting the muzzle on. And it's very little problem. Yes, she doesn't particularly enjoy it. But no more showing of teeth and no more growling. Leaving her alone for a couple of hours...no problem at all. She just jumps onto the couch and sleeps where I'm usually chilling when watching TV. No whining, no barking...nothing and yes leaving the TV or my iPod dock on certainly helps.
When I take all that into consideration I really have to reevaluate my own position when it comes to positive reinforcement vs the methods like the ones pushed by a Ceasar Milan.