Housekeeping and the Blue Screen of Death

Ricky is still working through Challenge #6, which involves 2 touches to get food.  He is getting better at watching for the lights, and in his typical frugal manner of expending energy, he has figured out he only needs to tip his nose down and back to see over it rather than bouncing back and forth like you might see from videos of other users. He still gets a bit ambitious and occasionally holds his nose in place as, on a random basis, he has a 1/3 chance that the light right under his nose will be the one to light up.  He also still plays it a bit like a keyboard while waiting for the lights to alert, again, probably due to the odd occasion when this has resulted in faster reward due to the chance circumstance of the light under his nose going off. Check out his progress here

Our progress has been slowed this week by a couple of key learnings on my part.  Number 1--the importance of good housekeeping!  We have had a few occasions where a light doesn't seem to respond to being touched. A good clean up of the light board seems to set it right, so it appears the aberrant device responses were due to a build up of nose drippies (as Ricky doesn't really slobber) on the light pads.  I have heard of other users on the forum I follow experiencing aberrances in the device's responses associated with excess wetting/drool. So we will be instituting a strict regime of wiping it down with a damp cloth twice daily.  Easy to remember--whenever Ricky gets his twice daily heart meds, his machine gets it's twice daily wipe-down to keep his happy heart entertained.
Our second complicating factor this week has been the "blue screen of death".  Much akin to this event when it happens on our own desktop computers, when the dark blue/indigo light shows up, it means we're having internet connection issues and the device has fallen into off-line mode and is minimally functional.  The high winds have been jostling our internet antennae a bit, and good connection can be challenging enough on a fine day on our rural internet connection.  So I have had to do a fair bit of resetting of the device, and one day even just had to put it away for most of the day as our internet was playing up quite badly--that was the day I had to do mobile tethering to get internet connection on our desktop!  We hope for better internet access options in the future, although that may be fairly distant as the fiber cable currently runs down behind our neighbour's dairy farm.

Hair of the Dog

 The one thing Greyhounds lack is a ready supply of craft supplies.  Though, in reality, if did have a dog with a truly craftable coat, I would probably have to spend so much time grooming it that I wouldn't have time to craft with it!  Fortunately I do have friends with well-kept fluffies who are happy to keep me supplied with plenty of raw craft material, and my own dogs are happy for me to be pottering around the house with bags of strange-smelling dog hair.  After a good pick through, scalding, spinning, and dyeing (knew that crockpot would come in handy sometime) we're well on our way to some lovely and scrumptiously soft and warm garments.  I have nearly finished a round of Keeshond (6 skeins and counting) and will soon be starting into some Samoyed.  I still have a bag of Husky down in my back room that will be next up for processing, too.  I'm finding that, given the variable nature of dog coats, I still get a bit of fats&thins with spinning so everything is getting plyed with a 2ply laceweight alpaca to help give consistency when handling for making final products.  Thank goodness for my tunnel house--it doubles as an amazing heated drying room that really helps speed up all this fiber processing!  

Ricky mastering the lights

Ricky is making great progress with his Hub!  Over the weekend he has become a master of the lights and now we're on to Challenge#6--responding quickly.  Now that he has gotten the hang of the game and isn't so bent on gutting the Hub and anything he thinks is part of it, I've gone back to elevating it as, being a leggy Greyhound, he does find it a bit difficult to keep repetitively reaching down all the way to the floor.  Having the Hub elevated also seems to encourage him to actually engage with it rather than sprawling across all the buttons.  It makes it easier for him to approach/retreat as when he is too close (like when he was lying down next to it), he would have difficulty seeing around his nose to actually observe which lights were illuminating.

The Importance of a Well-Rounded Diet

We're still on a bit of a learning curve with operating the Hub.  Today we have confirmed that Ricky's square kibble (Royal Canin Mobility Support) on the right of the photo above doesn't appear to agree with the Hub's food pod dispensing mechanism, resulting in confusion on the part of the machine and frustration on the part of Ricky when it stalls.  We did have some stalling issues early-on when I first tried using this kibble in the Hub, but had thought it was related to our internet connection at the time so when it came time to refill it, we tried the squares again.  It worked fluidly for a little while, but reasonably quickly was back to stalling.  The R/C food also has a lovely tumeric coating, which probably makes it a bit more sticky moving through the food pod.  So we'll be staying with round kibble without sticky coatings and see how that goes rather than persisting with trying the "square peg in a round hole" approach.  At the moment we're using some of Kate's Hill's B/D (on the left in the photo above), but I will also be trying some Hill's J/D as it would have more specific benefit for his joint and heart disease.

*Update from the lovely customer service staff--they have confirmed that the size limit for kibble is 18mm in largest dimension.  The Mobility Support would meet this (15mm on the diagonal), however, I reckon that the size which is approaching machine limit combined with the blocky shape and the stickiness of the tumeric coating do make this food more difficult for the machine to work with.  Fortunately our Hill's J/D appears to be working just fine in the Hub this morning.  It is only approximately 10mm in largest dimension, and a normal round shape without a sticky coating.

Ricky found a short-cut!  Leave it to him to sort out the most low-energy and lazy way to play the current game level--lie down contacting all the buttons!  Don't have to think or even have to move except to eat the bickies as they come around.

Hub progress.

After a night to sleep on it, Ricky is right into progressing through the challenges. We've accomplished eating, exploring the touchpads, engaging consistently, and now are onto avoiding dim touchpads. So Ricky now has the challenge of learning he actually has to wait for the hub to "ask" him to engage with the touchpads--it's not just a vending machine that will spit out treats whenever he wants.
We've experimented a bit with elevation vs on floor to see if Ricky finds any particular position more suitable. It's looking like the floor will be best as it means Ricky can play with it lying down as well as standing and the floor does provide a more stable situation for the hub. Given a chance, Ricky would like to "kill the golden goose" and find the reservoir where all these bits of food keep coming from. Elevated, he's thinking it's the box which now has a few toothmarks for it's troubles.
I'm really pleased with how smoothly the device is operating and it's speed of response to the dog. The bleeps that help "bridge" the dog when it hits the right touchpad are great, especially for ones as impatient as Ricky. Ricky would personally like it to go much faster through the game repetitions, but I don't think it will take long for him to learn a bit of patience.

Clever Pet round 1

Ricky's first evening with the CleverPet hub went really well. We did have a bit of a learning curve with frequent stalling when we were first starting out, which he found a bit frustrating. We did try switching kibble, and seemed to get off on a fresh stride after that.  On communicating with the CleverPet staff (rapid replies on inquiries--great customer service!) it sounds like the delays could have been related to our sometimes unreliable internet speed as the device does rely on wifi to load new challenges.  The joys of rural NZ internet!  We'll go back to Ricky's kibble once he empties the current load--at the moment we're still feeding meals and the hub is primarily game/treat device while he's learning to use it.
My compliments on the safety features on the device.  There are no sharp edges to chew on or get stuck on, and the rotating bowl has a safety mechanism that stalls if it is blocked by a overly-enthusiastic nose or toes as Ricky illustrates here!

It's been a bit of a wait, but it's finally here and proving to be well worth it!  Right out of the box I'm impressed with the quality of the components and the amount of thought that has clearly gone into planning this device to be user friendly and easy for the peoples to start up rapidly, and safe and robust for the dogs.   Bonus--it actually looks nice.  You can have this sitting in the living room and it looks sleek and stylish and may even be a great conversation starter next time you have guests over.

Kate loves her beautiful new purple paisley princess collar from the states.  Thanks Mom&Dad for the extra gift with the hub!

It's Arrived!

Ricky's hub has finally landed!  We're having great fun starting some early learning with it tonight, so watch this space for more posts and videos!  It might take us a wee while to get them loaded given our rural broadband--at least it's not Westworld night!

Pre-clever pet practice

We've started some pre-hub practice with some precision targeting to make sure Ricky has the gist of "touch the indicated small round shape and get food from the big round shape", which is the basis for how the hub communicates (interact with the buttons, get food from the central dispenser).  I conveniently have a few pottles of differently flavored lip balms (so we get some scent engagement, as well) and a container of hand cream.  I'm just working on touching the two balms as having a third object to actively touch would probably be a bit ambitious. Having it there as just a nul object may even be a bit advanced for this being only our third session, but Ricky is always up for a cognitive challenge!  This is only our third session, so I don't think it will take us many more until he's competent distinguishing between the lip balms and we can activate the third object.  He's certainly keen to try to include it himself!  I'm a little rusty with the clicker as I've mostly been using verbal bridges with Ali, so it's probably taking us a little longer to advance as my timing isn't quite as good as I would like, but as with anything that will improve with practice.  I'm also finding a bit of challenge in making sure I give him time to think about the cue and attempt to figure it out before I re-cue.  I so want to help him get it right!   Ricky is having such fun with the process--love how he literally smacks the "mint" balm after one of the cues!

Introducing the Hounds

Ricky--My third and most independently intelligent Greyhound.  Single handedly responsible for most of my dog-related house repairs, at least one insurance claim, my obsession with baby gates, and a few grey hairs for some of his escapades.  He's also worth his weight in gold for being able to go to any event anywhere and schmooze with anyone he meets!  

Welcome to my dog blog!  I'm a bit of a gear-junkie Greyhound lover, much to the benefit of my leash of hounds.  They have each provided their own unique challenges over the years and have taught me to be a much better dog owner.  I wanted to start sharing some of my experiences so other dog and Greyhound owners can explore ways to help enrich their own pet's lives.  We have a very geared-up year ahead so will have lots of neat experiences to share!

Kate is my first and oldest Greyhound.  She lives for
sunshine, cuddles, and visits to the beach.  She's a proper
princess and even has her own tiara.

Ali is my fourth and youngest hound, and by far the
most active!  She has also been one of my most
challenging dogs, but equally a catalyst for
some of my best learning!

Ollie--my second Greyhound, recently departed.  He lived
for  his barrel chair, squeaky toys, and car rides and had to most
admirably positive outlook in the face of his many medical issues.