First Barn Night

Yesterday we moved all of the agility equipment to the new barn, and tonite was the first training night. Sarah and I are working it so that we are teaching for 2 hours, and get 1/2 hour in between to work our own dogs- which works out great. I brought Vito and Wicca- as I didn't want to work Wicca too much due to her busy weekend.

Wicca and I worked on jumping- consequences for knocking poles included a brief down, or being put away while Vito came out. We also worked on Weavepoles- she of course blew past the entry- a down, and a resend- with the same speed. I fall into the habit of just resending her from the poles, which isn't really teaching her collection with speed. Next week I am going to work only with a gate on the first pole. And only four poles.

Vito was SO excited to be there. He had a blast. We warmed up with some dogwalk races- which he loves. Did some tugging, and some obedience, and also worked on some jumping. I have been jumping him at 6" but am starting to throw in the odd 10" jump. He will jump 6" in a trial but I'd like him to be able to do 10" for the odd Nadac trial in which he'd jump 8".
He did great and was very up beat and really wanting the toy. We ended with some teeter games (which he also loves) I am starting to challenge his approaches a bit and I was very pleased with him. I worked him for about 10 minutes total- broken up.

This new barn is MUCH better than the one last year- it is way cleaner and less smelly. Should make for a fun winter!

Sam Update

This weekend Sam saw Susan Sutcliff for the first time. I have been taking him to the Fitness Centre but out of curiosity I wanted to see what Susan would say about him. He had been doing very well but would go days of being pretty sore. I am a little frustrated about the whole thing. Anyway, Susan worked on Sam for just over an hour and gave me some great tips. She thinks that his lameness had alot to do with his Sacrum- which was not where it should have been at all. After some adjustments he was already feeling better than he had been. She also talked to me about how he walks- Sam always (or nearly always) has a hop to his walk. His back legs move together instead of apart. She wants me to teach him how to use his legs independantly of each other- So we have excercises that will help that aswell. She also suggested swimming. So the search begins today for a facility that has a pool for dogs. I have heard of one in Calgary and will do some phoning today.

Susan came and worked on him at the trial on Saturday- which meant that Sam had to sit around all weekend- watching all the other dogs play agility. It was pretty hard for him- he really wanted to play. I haven't taken him at all this year because I knew how hard it would be but this time it was unavoidable. Poor Guy, he doesn't know why he didn't get to play.

Weave Woes and Jumpers

We were at a trial this weekend- the last of the year and boy do we have things to work on.

Wicca was very pushy with her startlines all day Saturday and it got to the point that if she moved again I was going to take her off...and then of course she was perfect the rest of the weekend! :0)

She also had a horrible time with the weave poles...she missed every entry on Saturday, and for no good reason either. After talking it over with Sarah we decided that there had to be a more obvious consequence for when she blew past the entry- a down and a resend, or leave. I am happy to say that after a down and resend she was pretty careful. I think Wicca's problem is that she goes on Autopilot and when there is lots of speed she has a hard time using those braincells very effectively :o)

We also had some bar knocking- more than she has in a while. By the end of Saturday I was pretty frustrated at her. Steeplechase on Sunday was a good example of just how bad she was- Knocked the first bar- twice (we got a re-run) knocked the second bar after the frame and before a tunnel, tire, tunnel sequence. Where instead of taking the tunnel entrance I told her to she shot out 30 feet to the other one....After getting on her for it she was good though, and weaved beautifully.

On the plus side she had awesome contacts- even on the teeter and I really pushed her on them, so I was pretty happy about that. It is always such a good feeling when you see results at a trial.
And we had the most spectacular jumpers run ever. EVER. She didn't knock a single bar and I don't think I have ever ran so fast in my whole life. We ran it in 25seconds...the fastest time overall (winning us 7$ ) It was the last run of the day and to be honest I had little hope of qualifying as she had been so rotten all weekend. But somehow we pulled it together and it was pretty amazing.

So this winter we are doing three seminars, lots of training and hopefully we can keep improving as a team. I have a notebook that I write all of my training goals in and this winter the top five are:
1) Weave Poles
2) Jumping
3) Commitment (we've been having some problem with jump commitment, I need to take a look at my cues and find out why she is confused)
4) Distance/Discrimination (this is usually a really strong point with her, but I haven't worked specifically on that for a while)
5) and Startlines.....

I will keep you all posted :o)

Vito and the Hollee Roller

Vito has a new favorite toy....

Cellphones are amazing!

I figured out that my new phone will let me video! I was pretty excited about it and of course had to video the dogs to try it out. Out of curiosity I tried this morning to upload it to You Tube and it worked!!! So- here is Wicca's cheesy first video....

What to say...

Well, it has been a few days since I last blogged but what can I say...nothing too exciting happening these days. The weekend was spent keeping warm and sleeping away some mild food poisoning....ugh. I was kind of hoping that something fun would happen yesterday or today but no. Sorry to dissapoint but no fun little stories and I don't even have any new pictures to share with you....

But, I do want to share with you one of my favorite videos on you tube. I have watched it oh about a million times. I want to get Wicca one of those- maybe it will help her jumping ability???!!!

Due to Popular Demand

More Farm Pictures!

Vito was VERY interested in the horses, but left them alone when I asked!

You can see the whole collection on my photobucket site

http://s194.photobucket.com/albums/z199/manymuddypaws/

Addict...

I am a confessed collar addict...really. My dogs have many, many collars. (too many to count) Yesterday, I added more to the collection. These collars will become their everyday, normal collars. I actually got tags to put on them. Can you beleive it!!! My dogs rarely wear collars, but am becoming a bit paranoid about them one day getting out. Our animal shelter here is pretty stupid so I'd hate for them to be picked up without tags. I actually had a nightmare about that the other day.

So- on to my selections:

For Sam- New Wave pattern, looks amazing and matches his wild personality.

For Wicca- Jelly Roll, I was concerned that it would be too girly but it looks great. I have never had her in purple before.

For Vito- Silverado, He looks very dashing and the sparkles stand out on him....fancy shmancy!

Fun at the Farm

My friend Natalie has been looking after her inlaws farm and horses while they are away. I went with her a few times last week and was amazed at how beautiful it is down there. Today I brought the dogs- and a camera!!!

I have a few more really good ones that I will post tomorrow...

Bugs 'N Obedience

Today was a pretty busy day!
This morning we went to an Obedience funmatch where Wicca and I entered Open. She was such a good girl! Her heeling was great and there was no weirdness on the recall at all. She did everything perfectly until we got to broad jump. Ugh. She walked over it, and even when I set her back up to try again she still was hesitant...So- more broad jump work is needed apparently :o)
I pulled her from long sits and downs as I thought the distraction was more than she could handle. (the conformation people had started to arrive and were being of course rude) I was pretty happy with her overall performance and have some things to work on.

We had our 1st Annual Howl-oween Party at work in the afternoon and it was lots of fun. We had a Parade of Costumes, followed by judging- some of the costumes were awesome! We played Musical Mats, and Weiner Dunking. We had also set up a "Photo Booth" of sorts- where people could get their dogs pics taken. Of course I had to get some of Wicca and Vito. They were very cute- but very unhappy!

Sam stayed home, but he does have a costume, I will try and get a picture of him before Wednesday!

You can see more pictures of the Bugs on my Photobucket site and more pictures of the whole Howloween Event at the POTR Flickr Site...There are some GREAT costumes- totally worth checking out...

Bugs...

Wicca and Vito got all dressed up today for a Howl-oween Party.....More details of the day to come!

How Perfect...and Unusual

I think it is really neat that when you name your dog generally the dogs personality becomes perfect for the name. I know some really cool dogs and it always amazes me how well they suit their name. Now, I know some other really cool dogs with pretty ridiculous names but mostly I blame that on their owners bad choice. :o)

Take the name Wicca. What do you think of when you hear the name. I think a witch, intense, and fast. How would you describe my dog- a witch, intense, and fast. :o) See?!

What about Sam. He came named, and I couldn't think of anything. I know, lame. But what do you do. So- Sam is a happy name, one that I attribute to retrievers mostly..and well, Sam is very retriever like sometimes. This dog has a serious case of ADD.....

And little Vito. Initially Vito was named after Danny Devito But later on we discovered (well, sarah actually) that Vito is very much a Mobster name...And well, Vito does think he rules the world. He can be a bully and has no problem bossing other dogs around....he is also suspicious and doesn't trust a lot of people...perfect eh?

I have friends dogs too- that for the weirdest reason their names are perfect...

Coulee- I had never met a dog named Coulee before. And I had never met a dog quite like Coulee before. She is a Golden Retriever/Border Collie cross who is exactly what you would think that cross would be like. Hyper, Energetic, and well, Active. She is the color of the Coulees in the fall, and has wild hair, and fuzzy toes. Her name suits her...it's quite amazing really...

And then there is McKeely- I had never heard the name for a dog before and I will admit that I was skeptical at first. But wow- does her name ever fit. Mckeely is a Weimeraner. She is a girly dog, but not really. Kind of like her name- it is definitely feminine, but not girly. Mckeely is an active dog and was named after a Tennis player or something like that...for whatever reason it works!

And my last Unusual but Perfect name-
Perkins- he is a miniature dachsie who is undeniably just Perkins. He was named after a device for hearing impaired people, and again for some reason is an amazing name. Perkins is Mr.Personality. This dog is happy, happy and loves most people. Everyone knows who Perki is and of course he is adored wherever he goes

Agility 101

I am starting to work with Vito a bit more seriously (a bit, not a lot) and thought it would be fun to blog about some of the things I am doing with him.

Motivation:

The most important thing for any dog- and especially a dog like Vito is building up a motivator. In Vito's case he loves the tug 'n treat, aswell as a long furry purple tug like thing. He has been a hard to dog to motivate so I am thrilled that now he will tug almost anywhere- we do lots of fun warm up games to get his brain working, and to increase the excitement of the training- so sit, down, throw the toy; down, sit, stand, tug the toy etc. etc.

Contacts:

Even though I am not going to keep a 2on2off I do want to teach it- I want him to learn independant contact behaviour so that I do not have to be there with him. Also- I want to have f-a-s-t contacts- so it is quite a complicated thing at this point as I mostly want fast- not accurate. So- I am racing him- I have a target on the bottom, loaded with goodies I might add, I hold him back get him pumped and if I get there before he does I get the cookies! The nice thing about this is that with the target there he isn't jumping off-which is what I was getting when I was racing him without the target. I am teaching his actual bottom behaviour on a contact trainer. Using a clear target- asking for a nose touch in a traditional 2on2off stance. This is coming along well, but not great as he tends to sit...I am also continueing on with the happiest place which has made the most impact on him. He loves this game and I think that this is what is actually helping him to understand what I want. The teeter is his best piece of equipment at this point. I started doing teeter games with him months ago so this dog LOVES the teeter. He gets on, runs to the end, and rides it down- exactly what I want.

Jumping:

He is jumping 6" and knows how to find a jump, will go out to a jump, and is learning jump patterns. He can succesfully complete a pin wheel on his own, as well as a serpentine. We have just started threadles and 270's. I am trying to do a lot of jump work- as I do not need another bar knocker. We have a goodie container with PB or canned food that he gets when we do jump games. I want him to think that jumps have the most value.

Handling:

He can follow a front cross, and a rear cross on the flat. We are using tunnels to teach rear crosses on a jump and he has front crosses down pat. I think that he is the dog that I will have to be doing front crosses- alot. With Wicca and Sam I tend to use a lot of rears- mostly because I am always behind them! With V I think that I will be using front crosses to keep him moving and paying attention.

Weave Poles:

I have been teaching him entries- just with two poles and clicking. And that is about as far as I have got so far with weaves. I will be using gates to teach them, but am not in any hurry.

Howloween Trial

Just a quick post on some weekend news. I will post more tomorrow.

Saturday
Mas. Gamblers
- Wicca was wild- a little out of control. Stuck contacts- except teeter! I forgot and didn't tell her to. Aaaah! Didn't get the gamble- it was super hard and only a few people got it
Adv Std 1
- Good run, awesome contacts. Wicca was responsive and listening well. We had a knocked bar and an off course
Adv Std 2
- Great run! It felt amazing. The course was very difficult and required quite a bit of handling. But we managed well and only had one knocked bar!!!
Adv Jumpers
- Awesome run. it felt smooth and not frantic at all. She handled well and didn't knock a single bar! Go Wiccie Go!


Sunday
Steeplechase
What can I say but amazing. We were clean and ran it in 32. seconds. No bars, no flubs. Woohoo!
Std 3
Fun! Wicca did great and nailed her weave pole entry, her contacts were great and I was super proud of her. What a good girl! One knocked bar
Team
- I got to run twice and it was very fun.
Run #1/Side 1/with Jaz - wicca handled well but didn't commit to a jump and we earned a refusal- Jaz was clean
Run #2/Side 2/with Gyp - wicca was awesome, but missed her weave entry- earning us again, a refusal. Gyppie was clean :o)

Snooker
and, as I mentioned in my previous post Wicca and I are taking a Snooker break. We will be working on this over the winter and hope to be back in the snooker ring in the spring!

Oh- and Sarah and I won the Team Costume contest- as Bugs (the dogs) and Bug Catchers! It was very fun and they were very cute!

UPDATED: OCT 22
I was very impressed with how well Wicca ran this weekend. We accomplished everything on my list of goals and I am very satisfied with our weekend. She had amazing weave poles- we only messed up one weave entry (on team of course) She had great contacts and I really pushed her limits on them. I did notice that when I take her leash off at the line she scoots forward a bit- hoping I don't notice I guess? Something that I will have to work on I suppose.

Breed Quirks

So I was thinking last night (while observing dogs in my classes) about all the different "quirks" or traits that we assign to a dog- based purely on breed or group. Now of course these are all generalized as there are always exceptions. But for the most part I think that my observations are fairly accurate

Retrievers- labs, goldens, flatcoats

They are ALL goofy- some more than others (particularily if you're a flatcoat) They generally are easy to train- but it is important that they learn to think even with an obvious reward...





Toy breeds- papillons, chi's, etc..
Can you say boing????? These dogs generally are either bouncing off the walls, or melted to the spot, terrified to move. Thankfully the ones that come to my classes tend to be the bouncers- which makes for great fun! They are little balls of energy and you can't help but go "Awwwww"
These dogs tend to be introverts in class and have lots of handler focus.

Herding breeds- corgis ;o), border collies, aussies, shelties etc...
Smart, but tend to overthink things. Generally these dogs have obsessive problems, tend to be a little over the top, and well....are very, very, very smart.

Working Breeds- Berners, Mastiffs, Rotti's etc.

Great work ethic but can have a slower learning rate. These dogs never forget stuff- but are generally considered harder to train than dogs from other group. These dogs also tend to be easily distracted and very...very food motivated.

and then there are the Non-Sporting dogs...We don't have many around here...well, except poodles. We have oodles of poodles (mostly standard)
These dogs are smart, beautiful, and well, smart. They tend to be either thinkers, or bouncers. And if you are lucky you have one in between!!!

Terriers- scotties, jacks, to name a few
Intense, driven and always looking for an opportunity to be bad! Generally they are little geniuses though- with tons of potential, if only they listened!






**Photo credit- JRT, Flatcoat, and BC - sarah novak Mastiff- me**

Weekend Goals

So we are off to Calgary this weekend for the Training Troop trial.

It should be lots of fun, and I have some specific goals for Wicca

that I thought I would share.
Goal #1- Teeter Contact. MUST stick it. No exceptions
Goal #2- No more than 2 bars per day. If there are more than that she is to be pulled off, no excuses.
Goal #3- Weave Entries.
and of course the normal Wicca trial "goals" of start lines, contacts, and control. Wicca and I are on a Snooker diet but I still have been practicing control around obstacles.

It's funny that I rarely get nervous with Wicca anymore. I remember when I first started trialing her- I actually got sick once. It's the weirdest thing as I am not even sure why I was so nervous- I think because I knew my handling wasn't as good as my dog- now that I am a better handler I think I stress less about it...weird.

I am however always excited to trial her. Running Wicca at an

agility trial is a rush like no other. It is amazing and when it

comes together it is the best feeling in the world. And when it smashes to a million pieces it feels horrible. But everytime I trial this dog we get better and better. She is amazing. I feel so lucky to have her.

Heeling, Broadjump, and Relax!

I haven't blogged in a while about the general training of the beasties so thought I'd update you all on the training aspect of things. We'll start with the youngest.

I am in the process of teaching Vito to heel. It is not as hard as one might think, but it sure takes a long time! When I say "heel" I mean that the dog is looking up at me while walking on my left side- shoulder to shoulder. So for Vito- who is still what I classify as a puppy- I am pretty much rewarding him for looking at me while moving. He can do about 10 or 15 steps. He's pretty good, and will offer the behaviour to me consistently. Vito is also learning how to find heel position- he is not great at this yet and doesn't ever sit straight so we are working on that.

As I posted the other day- Wicca and I have been working hard on teaching a solid contact performance on the teeter. I am happy to report that she has it 90% at training. We'll see how she does at the trial this weekend. I have also been working more on her Obedience skills. I am hoping to get a leg or two on her CDX in November. Her weakness has been the broad jump and out of sight stays (just stay in general is hard for Wicca :o) ) So we have been doing the broad jump every day, and I have been making an effort to use stay at least twice a day in normal situations. All of the other aspects of the open routine she is great at. She loves to fetch, and is a good heeling dog. She is also very reliable on her drop.

Sam and I have been working on little things as he is still not able to do a lot of strenuous things. I have been trying to clicker him to rest his head on the ground. This seems to be an impossible thing with him as he really is a VERY "up" dog and unless I lure his head down he doesn't even think about offering it. I am also teaching him back up, which has been fun- and it forces him to use that back leg...he is pretty good, but seems to always shift to the right. (probably mostly to do with his leg)

So that's that on the training front.

2 Centimeters!

I took Sam up to the Canine Fitness Center and he's gained 2 centimeters of muscle on his leg! That is a great sign as it means that he is using his leg more. We have been doing the prescribed exercises every day and he is doing great. He really seems to enjoy them at least! And, I can start letting him do more normal doggy things- he is allowed to do stairs whenever he wants (in moderation) and he can have normal to moderate walking exercises. Still no 100 mph running but Sam will be a very happy boy to get more exercise. We go back again in three weeks, so hopefully he will continue to improve! Yay for Sam!

Great Expectations.

This afternoon Sarah and I went out early to train our own dogs before class and I thought I'd report a few things.
First- Gyp, Sarah's little border collie- is Cute. And Sassy. But still Cute! And Wicked Fast.

Second- Wicca finally understands the newly added Teeter contact. You see, I never bothered to teach a 2on2off on the teeter. I liked her fast teeter- why would i need her to stop. Well, after a few well placed teeters at trials(picture teeter- tunnel) I discovered that yes, I did in fact need my dog to stop. So we have been working on this for a few months and she is getting it. Yay! What a good girl

Third- Vito is cute, and may be a half decent agility dog afterall! I am ashamed to admit that I really didn't think that Vito was cut out for an active lifestyle. Really, this dog loves to lounge around and is not easily motivated to do much. So I assumed that he wouldn't be super interested in agility. I have been doing some stuff with him- in small steps and only playing with him when he is interested and fast. I don't want him to think that Agility is boring and should be done slowly. So- I have done lots of backchaining on contacts, teeter games, and have introduced him to tunnels, chutes, the table (which he loves), and the tire. I have done minimal sequencing and have just begun teaching him jump patterns (serpentines, threadles, 270's, 180's etc) I am also ashamed to admit that I didn't expect much of him. This is where I screwed up with Sam too. I saw that Sam loved agility but didn't expect him to be as fast or as good as Wicca. I know, I know. Stupid. But that's what I thought. Sarah set me straight and I am trying hard not to fall into that mind set again. So by keeping my training short, and moving slowly I think that I have made what could be a pretty good little agility dog. He probably will make it out of starters snooker before Wicca.....

Cellphones

So, for those of you who know me well won't be surprised to hear that I lost my cell phone sometime today. Ugh. This is phone no. 3- and I really have no clue as to where it could be. My day was a busy one and the last time I used it was around 2:20 or so- I was in Natalie's truck on the way to the daycare after picking up all the pooches. And then the weirdest part is my phone called the daycare!!! (around 2:45) Super Weird- I actually thought it was Natalie calling me from my phone but when I picked up the phone was hung up. So I guess I am out a phone. Again. unless by some miracle it is returned to me. If I was more organised, and less frazzled all the time these things wouldn't happen to me, but for whatever reason I am always rushing around and it seems my brain can't keep up to me!!!

Stay tuned for the continuing saga of the lost phone. :-)

-Amanda