Horse riding!

In Australia, they say "horse riding", not "horseback riding". Somehow it makes a lot of sense but has sounded very weird for a long time.

Anyway, this past weekend I got to ride one of Pauleen's horses! His name is Aurum (I'm actually not sure how it's spelled - maybe Oram?) and he's a beautiful teenage Palomino. I originally went over to Pauleen's place on Sunday to meet her friend Cheryl, who wanted to see the discrimination training we've been doing with Pauleen's Lagottos. We spent a little time demonstrating the training and convinced Cheryl that she wants to be one of our study participants and train her super smart dog Gilbert. In the afternoon, we had some free time and decided that I should spend some time doing round pen work with Aurum to start building a relationship before I ever got on him. He's the absolute sweetest old man and apparently has been showed and used do a lot with his previous owner but hasn't been ridden hardly at all for the last three years (twice, actually, including yesterday). I got to feel like a fool round penning him and trying to figure out how to get him to turn away from the fence towards me to change direction, then getting him to yield his front and rear, and flexing his neck (which we called the half-tap position at Mustang Camp). He was super patient and was absolutely wonderful, even though I was giving all sorts of terrible mixed signals. (we ended up watching the Clinton Anderson DVD on round penning that evening so I'm more hopeful about next time!)

After a good session of ground work, Pauleen went and got the saddle and we did the same thing again, with his saddle on. Shortly after, she said "do you want to ride him today?" - um YES? We just did some walking and trotting around the round yard and I got to try and feel where his front feet were so I could go up on the outside leg - which was easy one way around but really hard the other way! We'll get there though. Pauleen says she's happy to teach me and I'm so excited to get real lessons and finally learn to ride!

I feel like the luckiest person ever. I've come to Australia, been given a puppy to play with,  a horse to ride, and someone is paying me to be here! Of course real work is still happening...just mostly late at night when the world is quiet :)

Meet Miss Charlotte

So...I've been hiding a secret. There is a puppy cuter than Audrey.

Please enjoy:

Words cannot even.

Charlotte with her mommy Molly

Beating up a newly short-haired Miss Audrey

Puppies playing is the best thing ever.

Watch out Audrey!

ATTACK!!!

Audrey is so good with the puppy...I'm a proud mummy!

Mid-winter haircuts

Today Audrey got her first major hair cut for her 7 month birthday. She's had two semi-haircuts so far, but this time I chopped everything off, including her beautiful golden mustache. Nick, one of our honours students, was not pleased -- but it's OK, it will grow back!

Here she is mid-haircut:

















All finished! She is adorable in a jacket...

Next week, Pauleen is off to New York for a conference. She's actually been on leave from the university since last week, although with us coming over three days a week to train dogs, we haven't really let her be on a 'real' holiday. Later this week she and Ron are taking a day trip and I will help take care of the dogs for the day.

Back to SPARCS...

Two years ago, I created this blog after an inspiring weekend in Redmond, Washington at the very first annual conference hosted by the Society for Promotion of Applied Research in Canine Science. I actually was encouraged to attend this conference by Dr. Yin, who offered to cover my conference registration.

It was a life-changing experience. Not so much in the sense that I suddenly decided to go into the field of canine research (that had already happened - ha!), but it was actually the first time I had to pretend to be a real adult all by myself. I was more than likely the only undergraduate student there and felt completely out of my comfort zone. My awkwardness around and preferred avoidance of strangers certainly didn't help. Luckily everyone I met was super supportive and encouraging and all of the researchers were happy to chat with me (after I managed to work up the courage to approach any of them).

I learned so much that weekend at SPARCS 2013. Actually, ever since then, I've compared how nervous I am feeling in any setting to how I felt that weekend. Nothing ever comes even close to comparing, and since I survived SPARCS, I can survive just about anything!

Every year, SPARCS shares the event as a FREE livestream event, making the content accessible to anyone with an internet access. This year, tuning in to SPARCS has required a bit more dedication than usual... Because of the time difference, the very reasonable 9am - 6pm schedule in Phoenix, Arizona turns out to be 2am - 11am here in Bendigo. Yikes? It's currently the "lunch break" on Day 1 as I'm writing this blog post - meaning 6:00am here. I took a nap before the day started so I'm still going strong (with some tea/coffee and snacks) but we'll see how the rest of the weekend goes. Miss Audrey has been fast asleep all "morning"...

Dusting off the camera...

This weekend, I took my baby DSLR out for the first time in a long while. Pauleen and I have been planning to take photos of the dogs for a few weeks now, but we've always either forgotten or run out of time.

This past Sunday, I finally got a chance to shoot some dogs - and I'm pretty happy with how some of the photos turned out! Of course, Miss Audrey is still the cutest one...

It was hard picking just a few favorites, but here we are:

Gabby the Destroyer, looking very innocent.

Baxter just had a haircut and is looking SO handsome and all grown up!

She's obviously the cutest one.

Danny-boy, who we picked up from NSW a few weeks back.

Princess Louie (actually her real name is Lulu)

Candy - and her beloved frisbee

I can't wait!!!

It's official, this August I will be attending and presenting a poster (!!!) at Behaviour2015. We're going to Cairns for a whole week! Of course this trip would not be complete without visiting the Great Barrier Reef, so that's on the schedule too. I am so looking forward to this!

In the mean time, the semester is winding down. Next week is the last week of classes, and then the students have Winter Break for 2 months before the start of the next semester. I'm not doing any tutoring next semester, which means I will be 100% focused on my research project(s).

It's also my 3-month Australia anniversary tomorrow. I feel like I've just gotten here, but at the same time it feels like I've been here forever. I still try to get into the wrong side of my car though - so not quite completely converted yet!

I've also started volunteering at the local RSPCA. It's nice to spend one morning a week supporting a good organization, and the connections I will make there are invaluable. Plus they might let me practice my photography skills on the adoptable animals - woohoo!

Road trip!

Yikes, I've been doing a terrible job of blogging regularly.

It's been busy here, but lots of fun. This past weekend, Pauleen and I took a road trip up to Bathurst, New South Wales. But first, it's probably good to go back a little bit on the updates.

Dog training is now well underway for the honours students' project. The dogs are learning a visual discrimination task and it's fun to see the different techniques each dog uses to try and figure out the rules. So far we have Princess Lulu far out in the lead compared to the other dogs, but we think everyone will figure it out if we give them enough time!

All of a sudden, the semester is nearly over. We've finished marking (aka grading) the student essays, and there is only one more tutorial left, and a video project they have to do before the end of the semester. It's all a bit nuts - time is going by so quickly!

The other day, I got a message from my sister telling me that her company, Alter Eco, now sells their chocolate at Coles, one of the major supermarket chains here in Australia. I was sent on a mission to find the chocolate and take a picture. Of course I forgot my phone when I went shopping, so I *had* to buy one instead - I had no other choice!

I picked the least dark one. Yummy!

 The semester ended last week for my stats courses - which means 2 semesters down, 4 more to go! I'm only taking one class over summer semester though, so hopefully it won't be too stressful. I should figure out when classes start again though...

OK - now I think that basically brings the blog up to speed. This past weekend, Pauleen needed to drive up to Bathurst, NSW to pick up a dog, and asked if I wanted to come along for a little road trip. The trip to Bathurst from Bendigo is about 8 hours if you drive straight through, and about 9-10 hours with breaks for car fuel and people fuel. Bathurst is a fancy little town, about 2.5 hours outside of Sydney. Apparently lots of rich city people own weekend properties there.

Trip from Bendigo to Bathurst, courtesy of Google Maps

On the way up, we were driving at night so there wasn't much to see, but on the way back it was a beautiful drive. New South Wales (or at least where we were driving through) was much greener than home, and we drove past miles and miles of pastures with sheep and cattle. We even saw an emu (which Australians pronounce e-mew) and a camel! I guess some people keep camels as "pets" - although I'm guessing it's sort of like Americans keeping zebras as pets.

On the drive back, we stopped at an iconic road trip stop, the Dog on the Tuckerbox. There wasn't much to see, but we each had a Tucker Box Burger for lunch - with beetroot in the burger. Odd, but I like beets so it was actually quite tasty.

Miss Audrey will be 6 months old at the end of this month. She's growing up so fast - and my time here in Australia is going by so quickly too! Before I know it, three years will be up. Hopefully by then I'll have learned lots, experienced lots, and (most importantly) finished my thesis! :)