SD Photo Shoot

There was a request on the level training mailing list from a Canadian SD trainer. She needed pics of SDs in action for a presentation. So of course we volunteered what we have on our blog. But we didn't have much that showed the girls in action that much, especially not Molly in uniform in action.

So DH helped me out and we did a little photo shoot Saturday. The situation may be posed, but the work is real. This is some of what they do for me on a daily basis and even these better shots don't do their jobs full justice. I don't know what I would do without the Bookends. On a day like today, I probably wouldn't even get out of bed if it weren't for them. But enough of that. Here's the shots.

This is how I put on and remove Molly's vest. Bending over to do it just isn't an option.





We couldn't forget to include Shawnee. I think it is pretty clear that she has earned an SDiT status!

Boot and Sock Removal

It didn't work out well, but DH helped me film Molly removing my boots and socks the other day. Note that these are VERY new jodphur boots with strong elastic in the sides. Removing them is very difficult, even for DH--and he has hands! So it is QUITE a task for Molly right now, but one she is eager to tackle. She gets furious if someone else does it for her!

Another Update

I'm sorry for falling behind in posts. Molly is not very happy about it either. But I've had a bug or something and been sick for a few days.

Molly hasn't had much in the way of training sessions, but she's been working with regular retrieves and taking care of me. She's also really been showing off how great she is at coming when called.

Friday we took my Quarter mare to the stallion and Molly came along, of course. It was a lot of slower driving in really hot weather, but she didn't seem to mind. We did have to make sure that she got plenty of water. She stayed calm in the car despite other dogs barking at her and horses round.

On the way home, we took a different route that included a ferry crossing. She was so calm that we're not sure she even noticed the change! The ferry was noisy and much different than driving.

Today Molly had a big first in public access. We took her into a very busy regular store. The store is called "Tiger" and is the Danish equivalent of the dollar stores in the US. I was in my wheelchair and DH pushed. With him pushing, I could focus on where Molly was and what she was doing.

She took everything in stride and was quiet and well-mannered the entire time. I had decided to take my chances on being asked to leave--DK law doesn't guarantee SD access to that sort of store--but even though store workers saw us, no one said anything. She was in her vest and perfectly behaved. The store was really crowded and there were people all over. Molly didn't solicit attention although she was very alert to all the people. The worst for her was a little kid in front of us that kept staring at her and was swinging around a toy golf club. But she could still sit on command and stay with me.

We also discovered how little attention people pay to people in wheelchairs. A very rude man butted in front of me in line like I wasn't even there. We'd been leaving a little space so Molly wasn't right up to the kid, but not that much space. When my DH commented to him that we were there first, the man got very rude and insulted my husband!

Even then Molly stayed calm and behaved perfectly. She was also great just walking in the street. I kept her leash pretty short so she couldn't get all over, but still--she wasn't fighting me and just ran along beside my wheelchair.

Needless to say, she's gotten lots of praise. We also spent a little time playing outside all three of us together in a shady area here at home. If we can, we'll make a quick run to the beach, too, so she can have a good play.

Dressing Miss Molly

We got a long awaited package in the mail today from The Raspberry Field today. I am now the satisfied owner of a service dog vest. Molly is a fashionably dressed service dog. It took a little while to get because the vest was custom made to order and included a embroidery. I can only find a very minor editor's nit flaw on it, but not something I'm going to complain about.

The quality seems superb. Everything is sewn securely and they will repair things if problems do occur. The pockets work, of course, and it is pocket clear through over the top, so I could actually get a larger flexible object in over her back if I needed to.

The fit is very adjustable and is also excellent. I will probably cut off some some of the extra strap from the belly strap, but not until we've used it a bit more. I may wait in case I want to use it over a warm shirt in the winter. She does get cold sometimes if a chilly place and not active. It's that short coat that does it.

I ordered her "In Training" patches unattached, so I sewed those on after I took those pictures. I wanted to hurry and see how it fit and took pics to share right away. Then I sewed the patches on with bigger stiches (but not ugly, just so I can more easily remove them) above the zippers. They are above the SD patches but under the DO NOT PET embroidery. I sewed only into one layer of cordura, so it is still a tunnel up there if I need to slip something big into it.

Practing Shoe Removal

One of Molly's everyday jobs is helping me take off my shoes. She's done it for a while, but I change what shoes I wear a lot and some, like my cowboy boots, are really hard to take off. With all these variations and challenges and because she took on the job quickly out of need instead of having been trained slowly for it, Molly talks a lot when she does the job. This talking makes it unacceptable for me to use this task in public and it is just generally bad manners and annoying. When I really need something I can't always be picky, but it's time I started cleaning this up--she should have enough practice under her belt to be able to do the job quietly now.

So today I'm putting levels training aside and instead I'm focusing on trying to teach her that it's a better idea to be quiet when helping me with my shoes. I've done this before with socks pretty successfully. I knew I'd need to train this soon, so when I bought a new pair of hiking boots about a month ago, I saved the worn out pair for just this purpose. I stripped the laces out so they'd be easier work. When we get beyond that point, I can switch to the new ones. This way she can take them off hundreds and thousands of times in practice and I don't care what happens to them. I can throw them for thousands of retrieves, too. They're also cleaned off so I'm not bringing any dirt or into the living room when I come in to a comfortable spot to train.

One thing I've learned working with Molly is that she needs a reward or she gets noisier or starts throwing oddball behaviors at me. So instead of cutting down on the rewards, I need to give more or higher value rewards for the preferred behavior but still give something for the basic behavior.

Another thing I've learned is to put the clicker under my big toe. That way I can use one hand for treating and the other for managing items. It makes life a lot easier. I don't know how easily it works for other people, but I can move my big toe quite independently, so I just rest my foot on the floor and only hold up my big toe. Then I push it down when I want a click. I have no problems doing multiple quick clicks or whatever I need.

For my first short training session, at around 7 am, I worked with kibble. I wanted to make sure she got a good base of her quality food before I started mixing in other stuff. We worked through probably about half of a daily ration. DH had given her some before he left for work, too, so she'd eaten already.

My initial goal was to make sure she knew to go for the heel area of the boot. So I spent a few moments shaping that. Clicking for attention to the boot, then attention to the sole, then the heel area. She pretty much knew that anyway, but it is good to refresh. I'd never really shaped the job initially. She only had on the job training a day I came in from outside and couldn't do it so kept pointing and saying "PULL" and praising her and encouraging. Then I switched it onto the "boot" command (for both shoes and boots becuase I htink the word is most unique in sound).

Once that was worked out, I started working on the noise issue. I hung the boot heel up (I often don't have a chair when she needs to take my shoes off, so stand up with my foot lifted behind me) off my hand. She was barking and grumbling as soon as she started to take it, so I had to back up. Could she approach the boot without making noise?

I clicked and treated that for a while. I tried to catch her before she made noise, even if it meant she was just looking at the boot. Mostly I could get her to before she opened her mouth without making noise. Unfortunately I wasn't really making progress and it was time for a break. Plus she'd gotten a good bit of kibble and I didn't want her so full she wouldn't eat more for hours.

We took a second session around 9:30. This time I skipped kibble completely and broke out a can of shrimp. She loves shrimp. For a lower value treat, I used the cut up Frolic, a lower quality softer dog food that she likes. In addition to the boot, I got out a pill bottle that she can retrieve quietly. I was ready with another tactic.

I wanted to get Molly handling the boot quietly even if she wasn't taking it off me. This is what I'd done with socks before. If I first started her doing the basic retrieve behavior that she is good at with another object and giving her high value treats for silent retrieves, I can swap in the boot. If she is really noisy, she gets a low value treat. If she is only a little noisy, she gets a couple low value treats. No noise is a high value treat. If she is low value a few time, I swap back to the easier item. Slowly I should be able to build up the difficult until she is removing the boot from my foot. How long it will take is up to Molly, but it's a good positive way to do it and it doesn't make it impossible for me to keep letting her do the job in the mean time when I need it--I just have to reward with the appropriate value of treats depending on her noise level.

So I started with the boot first. She made noise. I gave her a low value treat. I threw the bottle. She was quiet. Shrimp. Bottle. Shrimp. Bottle. Shrimp. Bottle. Shrimp. Boot. Frolic. Boot. Frolic. Bottle. Shrimp. Boot. Shrimp. Boot. Frolic. Bottle. Shrimp. And so it continues. We worked for probably about 5 minutes. I'm not good at looking at the clock. Instead I watch Molly. I want to stop while she is still enjoying it but not so soon that she doesn't get the chance to learn the pattern. When she stayed stuck for a while, I threw in more items she was good with and also pants that she isn't, so she could see that it wasn't just boots=frolic and bottle=shrimp and the exceptions were me being crazy. That helped a lot. I also try to stop on something she does well if I can, preferably with a jackpot, even if it means I have to stop on the bottle.

We didn't get beyond retrieve successfully in this session though. I even tried having her pull the bottle off a finger then put the boot in the same position. She still didn't have quiet and the boot associated enough yet.

We took a third session around 12:30. Another 10 minutes approximately. Things really started clicking. It didn't take long to start getting noiseless retrieves, but it just wasn't working for that next step--pulling the boot off my finger. Then something clicked in my head--when she retrieved, she grabbed the flaps at the top of the boot. She has to grab the heel to pull off.

So I went back to shaping just the grab portion. I held the boot with the heel towards her. I took a big handful of Frolic and started shoving them in her mouth and clicking like mad as her mouth opened near the heel and she didn't make noise. It worked!

She started being able to touch the heel without talking. Then as soon as she made heel contact and started to pull, I used my thumb to gently shove the boot off my finger. YES! She "pulled" the boot off without making noise. Clickity-click-click-click. Lots of frolic and a shrimp. I didn't want to mix tasks yet, so I gathered up the boot from the floor and repeated a few times.

After several successful retreats, I had Molly also pick up and give me the boot. SUCCESS! I gave her a shrimp jackpot and a Molly pet and praise party. Then I took her outside to her fence in the yard that she loves for more petting and to let her have a good break.

When she came in again, the boot was lying on the floor where I'd dropped it to throw the party. She looked at the boot and up at me and back a few times. So I said "take." She quietly picked up the boot and brought it across the living room to where I lay on the sofa. Then she handed it to me without making a sound. Frolic jackpot.

So that's 3 sessions already today--a pretty intensive training. I'm not sure we'll do more. It depends how we feel. If we do anything, it will probably be refresher stuff instead of something as intense as what we've been doing with shoes.

More Public Access Practice

Practicing public access is essential for Molly's training as a service dog. We're still waiting on her vest but it should be in the mail (international mail does take time and the fact that we had a national holiday yesterday doesn't help).

So since we're vestless, we're still restricted to outside areas and pet stores. The other day we went to a pet store again and Molly showed real progress. There weren't many people in the shop. She was still excited about the shopkeeper and wanted to jump up, but responded well to sit commands so she was on all fours instead. It's a great way to keep her from jumping--if we get her down in a sit, we can abort the jump and give a positive task to praise her for instead of worrying about restraining her all the time like so many people do. Also jumping is self-reinforcing, so it helps to offer a behavior with even more reinforcement. It is additionally a step closer to the end SD behavior we want--a dog in control of itself and focused on the handler.

Once she'd been greeted, she was able to settle down and walk with me on a loose leash. She sniffed things a little but discretely and in a way that didn't disturb the merchandise. She wasn't trying to eat the treats and bones in buckets on the floor, so I'm really happy about that--I didn't even need leave its.

With our upcoming US trip and my worries about the different terrain, we wanted to try some dog boots on her. She took it totally calmly. DH did the fitting because I couldn't get down very well. But she stood still and patiently while he put boots on her front feet and adjusted them. Then she walked around, awkwardly, but without signs of distress and still with her brain and interest in other things. They actually seemed okay, but we want to look another place yet.

After we got those off and were standing and talking, Molly just relaxed and stood next to me. I hadn't given her something to do--she just settled calmly on her own. Some other people came in during that time. She was especially interested in the kid that came in and it didn't help that he kept staring at her, but she stayed in control. She looked at him but stayed with me and didn't pull. A simple no got her to settle back by my side.

The shop keeper offered some taste tests of some treats for her. So it was a perfect time to test how well she could sit and lie down in a strange environment on a single command. She did perfectly, took the treats, and was very nonchalant about the whole thing. She didn't used to be interested in food away from home, so that and her quick response to commands shows how far she has come with public access.

I'm sure she'll just keep getting better with more practice. I'm eager for her vest to arrive so we can try to vary the environment more. It should also help with public reactions to her.

Crate in the Car--Lots of Rides Lately

Life hasn't been so exciting for Molly lately. Thursday we had to go for a long drive to a treatment for me and she had to wait in the car during it. Today was another long drive to a meeting with people setting up a service dog organization here in Denmark. It should work out really well, but the host's dog has recently had surgery in her knee, so guest dogs had to stay in their vehicles for the duration. It isn't how host or host dog had hoped to do things, but was essential under the situation. With the host dog in training and so newly operated, vistors would just have been too risky.

It's been really hot lately so we replaced Molly's car basket with a wire crate. We'd tried before without much success but now we have a plan to make it more comfortable. We also got an extra crate free from a friend, so we are able to make a permanent stable setup in the back of my car and still have her home crate undisturbed. That's a big help.

Now some people would say that a plastic crate owuld be sturdier and more comfortable for transport. The reason we want wire is to increase the air circulation. It isn't possible to open the windows in the back of the car and there aren't air vents there. So the only way we get air to her in hot weather is from the front, either the vents or the windows. She needs a wire crate so it can be open as much as possible.

The first thing we did to make the crate comfortable was to position it well and tie it down securely. It does not move at all when we are driving now. DH took care of that. Only the door in the short side is accessible, but we have that turned towards the back and positioned so that she jumps up onto the car then goes into the crate. This should prevent injury and make entry and exit more comfortable for her. She can sit in the crate to wait to get harness and leash put on and removed. We don't want to leave the leash on her when crated and the front lead harness isn't a big deal either way, but it is easy to remove, so we usually do just to make her more comfortable. Once her vest is here, she will also need to have it taken off when in the car for her comfort.


The next thing is to make the bottom comfortable. I took an old blanket and cut it in half. Then I made each half into a crate pad with four layers of blanket and quilted it by sewing it on the sewing machine. With two of them, they can be washed or I can have one inside and one outside. If I want to, I can cover the pads with old comforter covers. As soon as I get time, I will probably take an old comforter cover and turn it into two crate pad covers for warm weather so it is cooler to lie on and can be washed even more often.

Another big problem with the crate is that it gives her no support to lie up against when we drive. That's what she likes best about a basket--she can curl up against it and be supported in curves and stops. Our ultimate plan is to make a curve inside with a strip of foam about the same height as a basket. We can make comfortable curves in the corners by holding the foam in place with cable strips. We'll also put a piece of carpet on the bottom of the crate to make sure her crate pad can't slip, although it doesn't seem to. We haven't had time to do that yet, but as a temporary measure we put a blanket up against the end with extra in the corners to give the curves. It does the job and gives Molly support when we drive.

We've always had sun shades in the two back windows to keep the worst of the sun off her, but it isn't enough. So for this really hot weather, we've also covered her crate in the sun's direction with a white cotton sheet. It reflects the sun so it won't bake on her black coat or the black bottom of the crate, but breathes enough to still allow air flow.

So Molly was able to enjoy today's trip despite the heat and the time in the car. DH parked in the shade and moved the car as necessary to keep her in it. We kept tabs on her condition throughout and gave her plenty of cold water.

After the meeting, we found a shady place to stop and eat our sandwiches where Molly could come out on her leash and be a dog for a while. She found sticks to chew on and pine cones to play with and a walk with DH let her stretch her legs.

All Work and No Play Makes Molly a Dull Girl

Service dogs shouldn't work 24 hours a day. Like their human counterparts, they need the chance to have fun and relax. They also need to get enough sleep. Now Molly, for example, likes helping me, but that still doesn't mean she should be in her vest and expected to behave perfectly all day long. She'd burn out quickly if I demanded that of her, especially when she is so young still--she isn't ready for it yet. A long day once in a while is one thing, but long days day after day can stress a service dog.

We also need to accept that our dogs are like people in that they can have bad days and make mistakes. We train them carefully to try to prevent things from going wrong, but they can get sick of just make a mistake. Or we might make a mistake and confuse them, causing them to do something we didn't expect.

For the most part, Molly is "on call" when we're at home. She can lie on the couch with me, play with her toys, nap on her bed, or whatever else she wants. If I need her, I will call her and I expect her to come pretty quickly to help me. If we get visitors, she can talk to them and she can try to get either me or my husband to play with her. We tell her if we aren't in the mood. Basically she just gets to be a dog with that little extra of coming to help me when I need her and call her. But she spends much of her time near me and doesn't seem to mind helping me. She'll come running with a toy in her mouth then drop it to pick up my crutch for me. Once I'm all set, she picks her toy up and goes right back to her game.

Molly also has to work short periods at home for training sessions. When I tell her it is time to train, I require her to focus on what we're doing for a few minutes (10 max). Afterwards, she can have a break and go have some fun.

We also have more formal play sessions at home either inside or out. For these, I settle in with her and a toy for a little while to play with her on her terms. We often play with a ball or her kong. She loves to play fetch and variations of fetch that include down-stays and walking slowly to get the item. Molly also likes to chew on sticks, play with weeds from the garden, and go to the beach. She puts a lot of time and effort into making sure that I am happy and safe all day every day. It is my job to make sure that she is happy with her life too.

We rotate Molly's toys to help keep them interesting. We often save her ball for interactive play sessions and let her keep the other toys for playing by herself or playing on her own and bringing to us to ask for short play sessions. After she's had a toy for a while, we'll put it up and get another down. The break makes the toy new and exciting again and limits how many toys we have scattered around the house.

A kong is a great toy for helping a dog entertain itself. If I've been feeling really rotten for a while, I'll often put goodies in her kong so she can have fun getting them out. For example, I fill it half way with kibble, add a teaspoon of peanut butter, and fill it the rest of the way up with kibble. Another fun thing to do is to put a chew stick in the hole. That takes forever for her to get out.

Molly also likes to be outside to run around. To make sure she gets the chance, we put up a fence in the yard for her. I can roll out to it in a wheelchair and let her in to run around. She generally won't stay long without company, but it gives her the chance to run free without any worries of her getting into trouble.

For car rides, Molly is always off duty in the car. It is a good chance for her to rest up before and after working in public so she is fresh and ready when I need her. She has a basket in the back of the car that she loves to curl up in to sleep. If she wants to look out the windows she is welcome to, but usually she naps.

My husband helps make sure that Molly gets the exercise and playtimes that she needs for a dog her age. She needs more mental exercise than physical, but she is young and does need to get out and have fun and experience fun things like playing on the beach. I find it a great help to have a healthy person in the family to make sure that Molly's life is well-balanced and that no side of her development is neglected.

Once she is older and more stable, I still intend to give her a healthy balance of play and work. By then she will be more accustomed to her job and needing fewer breaks for that reason, but she will still get them when she can to make sure she stays happy and healthy and keeps loving her job.

I love the way she comes running eagerly when I call her for help with a toy in her mouth. She'd rather help me than play and doesn't go back to her game until she is sure I don't need more help. That's a dog that loves her job and that's how I want it to be until the day she retires.

Completed Level One

Let's start with a great progress report. Molly and I passed Level 1 in our Level training this morning. This means that she has a really basic sit and down, some self control as demonstrated with doggy zen (if you haven't done zen with your dog, do it), and she can target my hand with her nose on command. Okay, so we had a lot of this (except the targeting) before today, so what's the big deal? The deal is that we redid what she knew in a positive way. So now there is no way she should have negative associations with it. I also put new commands on down and zen. Those were in Danish and now she's bilingual there too. The bigger deal is that we practiced communicating and doing it the right way. It's a trust thing and a bonding thing.

One of the "assignments" for the levels, is to think about what I want to get out of this training.

1. I want to learn how to train Molly to be a fully-functional service
   dog for me.
2. For Molly to be able to become a well-adapted and happy member of
   our family, regardless of whether she can function as a service dog in
   the long run.
3. To give Molly a strong go to mat really soon so she can feel
   comfortable staying put on the airplane and I can worry less about her
   ability to cope on the flight. (in September)
4. To learn the tools to be able to work positively with Molly to face
   any problems or needs we may have in our future together.
5. To improve my bond with Molly and make sure that she knows she can
   trust me, that she knows she can trust me not to let bad things
   happen.
   

So now I'm thinking about what we're doing and what I want and that's important.

About the whole service dog thing--I don't know right now that Molly can be a great service dog or if she'll really be happy as a service dog out in the world. She likes it at home, I think, but out in public is a whole different ball park. So realistically it has to be right for both of us and we need to accept that. She'll always have a home here as the pet and herding dog she was intended to be originally even if she can't make the grade as an SD in public.

Now we're starting Level 2 and have a lot of challenges ahead. It's so much fun!

About This Blog

Welcome to our blog. I don't know how exciting it will be or that I will get things posted every day, but we're trying to offer a way for those who want to to follow our training progress and hear about our experiences. I'm writing in English because that way my family and friends can read it, but it can also help anyone else in Denmark who needs a service dog. The DK laws are pretty vague and it is hard to find info. I'm in Denmark and I'm doing it myself.

Because of joint problems that cause instability and pain, I have a lot of trouble getting around. Walking hurts. Sitting hurts. Sometimes lying down even hurts, but it tends to be the best option for me. There isn't any fix for this, or so I'm told. Physical therapy and massage can help some, but I can't be fixed. I have to find a way to get as productive a life as I can out of my condition and I want to do what I can myself.

Molly came to live here in February of 2007. She was about 3 and a half months old and was a shy dog. We were told her parents were working dogs--we bought her from a dairy farm and a lot of dairy farms use BCs to move the cows. Her mother was a little short haired girl and her father is a big furry guy. We could tell she was a short hair and looked a lot like her mother. We were also told she'd been placed once and returned.

She bonded with us very quickly. Husband is the fun guy that plays and stuff. Rebecca does most of the training, sets more limits, and it home during the day.

We'd had her almost a year and she'd tried working on sheep--she has potential--when my health had taken a turn for the worse. I started needed what a service dog could offer and Molly was there, so we tried for fun to see what she could learn. She could learn and fast.

At this point Molly's primary tasks are retrieve and carry. She can fetch items we point at and bring them to me or husband on command. She can also take items from our hands. She can carry items to either one of us for return, even if we are in another room or the other end of the house (great for passing silly love notes). The best of this is that she picks up crutches for me when I drop them, something I do often when I need a hand for something or lean them up against something and they fall down. Bending down for me is painful to say the least, but also often ends in a fall or me needing help to straighten up again.

Additionally she's learned to help me undress so I don't have to struggle to get out of things when I'm sore and tired. She takes my shoes, including cowboy boots, and socks off for me when we get in the door. She can also pull my pants off if I just loosen them and slide them down so I'm not sitting on them. We're still refining these jobs before she can do them in public (the shoes, I mean, of course), because I change shoe styles a lot and wear really supportive ones like hiking boots and cowboy boots so they're hard to remove. When Molly is frustrated or a task is really challenging, she talks. Talking isn't acceptable in public, so we're fine tuning with different value treats (better ones for quiet work, lesser ones for noisy work). Also just more and more practice is helping.

Molly has really been a great help with housework. Hate bending down to empty a front-load washer or dryer? Train the dog! Molly pulls the items out of the machine for me and hands them to me. I can stay standing or sitting and put the items into a basket. Once the basket is full, she can drag it across the floor to wherever I need it. Then I can hang the laundry up as I can hold to it. Once the laundry is dry, I put it into the basket again and she drags it off to wherever I want to fold it. Or to somewhere out of the way until later.

I can also fill the basket with other items I need to move and can't carry, like books. Then she pulls away as happy as can be.

Since she learned to take and give items, Molly has shown herself to be my husband's dream dog. She's a total neat freak. As anyone who has lived with me or ever seen my bedroom can confirm, I suck at keeping things organized. I'm better than I used to be, but when I hurt or am stressed out, I forget to keep things clean. If I leave a sock lying on the floor, Molly will find it and bring it to one of us. If I'm in a hurry to lie down when I get in and leave her leash and harness just lying there instead of hanging them where they belong, Molly will deliver. And deliver. Until one of us puts it somewhere that makes sense or she can't reach it. I could tell her leave it and she'd quit, but we're encouraging this trait. Molly hates things out of place even more than husband and I need the persistent training.

Our main training guideline at the moment is:

The Level Book


I really recommend this resource for anyone with a dog to train, even if you just want a good family pet. It's a great positive training resource and it will teach you to think like a trainer just as much as it will teach your dog to behave. It's also great for bonding with your dog and it helps make your dog WANT to please you. It can't hurt to try--everything is positive. You just need some treats. A clicker helps, but you can make a sound with your tongue or something to try it out if you're not sure you want to invest right away. They are really cheap though.

So if you want to follow our training and see how things go, look back once in a while. I can't promise tons of pictures, but I will try to throw some in once in a while.