Dog Park Saturday

This has been a beautiful weekend.  Saturday we took the dogs to the dog park.  We love this dog park as it is not only a lovely park but it is one of the few dog parks we have been in where people always seem to have their dogs under verbal control.  They do have a lot of sticks there.  Rylie the stick hunter was in seventh heaven finding sticks for us to throw for him.  At one point a large dog came up from behind and took the stick right from out of Rylie's mouth.  Rylie didn't give up without a struggle though.  That made me laugh because there have been a couple of incidents in class that have combined to make Rylie very cautious of other dogs (not such a bad thing really).  Since having our houseguest Turner for the weekend it seems that Rylie has gained some confidence back.  Turner is younger than Rylie and the sweetest dog you would ever want to meet.  All he wanted to do was play but although he tried everything he could think of to engage my dogs they really weren't buying.  Something about those big paws no doubt.  By the end of the weekend though he did have Rylie playing tug with him.  He'd let Rylie "drag" him around the room with the tug toy and tell him off when he thought he might get up on Neil's lap with him.

When a dog at the park came up to Rylie and tried to hump him Rylie just told him off.  Previously he would try to jump into our arms if that happened.

Today we dug out the weave poles and did a bit of weaving.  Agility classes should start up again this week.  We are looking forward to it.

Max has been  a bit out of sorts this weekend.  I think the rapid change in temperature has been a bit hard on him.    The heat always has seemed to bother him more than it does Rylie.

Joy In The Journey

I mostly post about agility because that is what we train for.  When I first started to train for agility my goal was to teach Max (at that time) everything he'd need to know (and learn myself).  The training itself wasn't a lot of fun - the fun would come once we learned enough.  I used positive methods and reward based training but I do think that sometimes Max must have felt like I was poking him in the eye with needles.  "I" needed a lot of practice so we drilled a lot (disclaimer - my instructor did warn me not to drill but she has border collies who would do something 15 million times without getting bored so I don't really think I took the advice onboard).

Somewhere along the way I discovered how to be more fun and how to make the training fun for me and the dogs.  We love to train (Rylie will yell at me if I'm on the computer too long in the mornings - a whole different issue I need to train through lol).

I have great instructors and mentors who have helped me see that it's the journey that's important - not the destination.  Also they've helped me to stop taking myself so seriously and allow myself to be silly - I can't lie though Rylie helped a lot with that too.  It's hard to be serious with Rylie around.

Training and a rant

It's cold and snowy this weekend so we decided to forgo the barn.  My main goal for both dogs at the moment is more consistent contacts.  I can do some work on this at home without equipment so that's what we have been doing.   Also playing a lot of indoor games working on our foundation skills .

I am looking for a treadmill (for me) and was browsing kijiji the other day.  Of course that led to browsing pet accessories, which obviously led me to browsing the pets for sale area.  I am not a fan of early spay/neuter for health reasons but it's clear to me why the shelters insist on it before rehoming dogs and why vets even do puppy neuters.  There are some REALLY stupid people out there.

Of course there were the bazillion ads from people with various designer breed (what we used to call mutts) pups for sale.  Sadly I even saw an add for Cavaliers in the area.  What irked me even more though were the ads by people looking for free/cheap pups.


There was the lady who was lonely but couldn't afford or justify the $300 the shelter charges for dogs - REALLY?  Just how do you think you'll afford to feed it and pay for vet bills then - not to mention training?

Then there was the guy who had a 10 week dobie pup with issues.  He thought getting another pup around the same age would solve everything.  Yeah right!

Then the family who were trying to rehome their large shedding 18 month old dog because the baby was starting to crawl.  While I understand and sympathize - you'd think they might have realized this would happen when the got a dog to begin with.

Okay - rant over - carry on with your day.

Another Agility Weekend

We went to another venue for agility last weekend.  Only one run each for both dogs.  No videos this time which is a shame because Max's standard run was one where (almost) everything came together - my handling,  his fast efficient lines, and he kept his contacts (although he is starting to jump so back to stride regulators in practice).  He did have a problem with the weaves again this weekend so that tells me we haven't trained them enough,  We have been doing a lot of handling practice involving jumps and turns so  it's obviously time for some balance.

I knew I was in trouble with Rylie when he started to vibrate as soon as we entered the building.  I spent a fair bit of time before his run playing focus and "still" games as opposed to the revving up I do with Max. I promised my trainer I'd make him hold his contacts and he did so that was the good.  That took all of his brainpower though because the rest of the run wasn't pretty.  The good - his contacts, he read my decel cue and didn't go flying over the table but stopped and downed.  The ugly - during the rest of the run we weren't connected at all - he thought to look for me when he wasn't sure what to do.  He did come back when I called when he started heading in the wrong direction though but since it was a starters course he was pretty accurate.  Ugly as it was we only had five faults which I'll take the blame for because I didn't verbally cue the turn to the chute.  He obviously needs body cues AND verbal cues when he is that high.

I learned that there is no point in taking Rylie to a trial where he only gets to run once because it takes one run for him to find his brain.  He's a ton of fun to run anyway - it's like trying to stay ahead of a speeding bullet.  Neil heard a comment about his speed and the commenter said "most Cavaliers are pokey".  I'm starting to get really offended by those comments because the Cavaliers I know most certainly aren't (and Max ran first and he wasn't - he doesn't look quite as fast because he runs in a straight line instead of doing three times the distance necessary lol).  The best way to stop them is to continue to show them I guess ;-).

Weekend Videos

Agility videos from this weekend.  In the first one you can hear me call Max off the chute only to send him through.  For some reason I thought he was heading to the dog walk which is why I called him but he clearly isn't.

Towards the end of the second video Rylie leaves the picture.  I realized afterward that he was running towards the obstacle in his line (which was the tire jump).  I didn't cue him to turn soon enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LireF9Zm_S8

Beaten by the weave poles

Agility Trial

We were at an agility trial this weekend.  I only signed up for two runs with Max and one with Rylie as it's too cold to have them sit in the car between runs.  We didn't get any Q's but I was very happy.  Max was very fast and had a great time.  His dog walk contact was spot on both runs.  The first run I messed up and on the second run he popped out of the weaves - I'm not too worried about that as it's never happened before.  We haven't practiced weaves much lately so that could be it.

Rylie ran like a wild man - he also popped the weaves in the same spot but chose to turn around and do them backwards!  He was so fast he was bounced off of the teeter.  Watching the video I saw that he wasn't naughty - my cues were just not timely enough for the streak of black lightning.  He had a great time and it shows what we need to work on.

Seminars and a gift

Yesterday's double box seminar with Rylie was awesome.  He was right in the middle of experience level of dogs and he conducted himself admirably.  I can really see how our practices concentrating on timing and positional cues have helped us.  Three hours is a long time and although he was getting tired of sitting in his chair by the end of it he really did well.

This morning Max and I went to an advanced handling workshop.  Again it was great and I was very pleased with how well he did.  I think I am learning to trust our training that he will do what he is supposed to do and I don't have to babysit him.  He was really speedy today - and has been for the last few weeks.  I think it's a combination of the recallers games we have been playing, trick training, and gaining confidence.  He was more than happy to tug with me in class but couldn't quite manage tugging with my trainer.

Imagine my surprise when one of the comments on my blog was this:

 I'm always surprised when people read my blog lol!

Thanks Debbie

                    

Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve. As with any award, there is a bit of ceremony involved. In order to accept the award, we must do the following:

1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.

2. Link back to the blogger who gave us the award

3. Pick our five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award

                     Our 5 picks in no certain order are:


Life With Riley and Stella
Bark and About
Lessons From and For Four Legs
Agile Dog Training
BaikasBlog