What do you think

In an attempt to both save money and be more environmentally friendly I purchased these for my dryer.

Shortly after, Engineering Guy came up from the laundry room carrying one and asked why the dog toys were in the dryer?  Apparently those who live in this house think I only buy things for the dogs!

Max seems to be doing better with thunderstorms.  I still have to be awake with him but at least he has stopped barking continuously and is down to just random barks.  During the second storm last night it was enough that I put on his thunder shirt and let him on our bed.  I didn't have to be massaging him so I'd say we are seeing progress.

Yay for Contacts

I am training Max and Rylie differently on contacts.  Max has running contacts.  Rylie is learning two on two off contacts (his front feet are on the ground while his hind feet stay on the contact and he touches his nose to the ground until I release him).  We are training this way on the advice of my trainer and it's mostly due to the speed of the dogs.  I need Rylie to stop at the bottom so I have a hope of keeping up to him.  Max will sometimes miss his contact in a trial and I still have to be pretty close to him to make sure he drives all the way down but all in all they were pretty easy to train.

We have been working forever it seems like on Rylie's.  It took him a long time to get decent nose touches and then he had a hard time stopping at the bottom.  Last week he did the entire A frame and managed to stay on it.  This week we added the dogwalk and he did both in sequence.  Yay!  I'm sure this will be a work in progress but I think the next trial he will be ready for an event with contacts.  Which is good because right now he can only do jumpers and he isn't pleased to go to a trial and only get to do one run in.

He had a grand time in class tonight because he got to do all of his favourite things (we were sequencing and I honestly think everything is his favourite )

Fireworks, Thunder, and Agility

After three nights the fireworks are getting a bit old.  Max has been doing really well though.  I used the rescue remedy Friday night but only the thundershirt and massage yesterday - even during the thunderstorm and he was fine.  The only time we had any real barking was when the fireworks were set off after we were all in bed.  We had to bring Max to bed with us both Friday night and last night but a few weeks ago even that wouldn't have helped.  Rylie woke up and vomited at 4 a.m. this morning.  No idea why - it was only the once and he seemed fine immediately after.  He didn't even want to eat grass when I took him outside.  Last summer that was always one of my signs that his tummy was still upset.  He was fine all day today so hopefully whatever it was has passed.

We went to an agility trial for just a couple of runs on Friday.  The best thing I can say about it is that Rylie got his second and last measurement and we no longer have to be places first thing in the morning to get him measured.

Max ran first and his run wasn't bad actually.  He took a few off course jumps but we are new at the masters level and both have a lot to learn so I was happy.  He was pokey at the start but got in a groove pretty quick.

Rylie had to wait a long time after they set his course.  Since he was the first dog I made sure we were ready - but nobody else was!  I guess they lost power so couldn't print out the running order and do whatever else they needed to do.  Rylie's run started out fine and then I realized at the last second that the tire jump was too high - in truth this probably upset my focus more than Rylie but it meant I didn't get where I needed to be and then he saw Neil and Max watching and ran over in their general direction.  We did get to start again because of the tire but I never got his focus back so I just picked him up and left the course when he decided to visit with all the gate stewards.  He is usually very focused so this surprised me but he also isn't used to seeing Neil and Max watching him.

Camping

We had another awesome camping weekend (although I'm covered in bug bites).  We took a four day weekend and went to a couple of provincial parks close by.  We got in quite a few bike rides (Rylie has decided to complain about the bike trailer) and the dogs got to do a ton of running on the beach and swimming.  Max got so excited that he forgot that retrieving anything on land is totally against his policy!

Thunderstorm Seminar

Last night I attended a seminar on helping dogs cope with thunderstorms/fireworks.  It was very interesting and I came away with a few new techniques to try.  Sadly (for my husband and son) the thunderstorm happened last night while I was away and they had to deal with Max barking for two hours.

The presenter is certified in Tellington Touch and Bach Flower remedies, and is an animal communicator so her techniques drew from each of these modalities.

Awesome Weekend

I was really proud of both of my guys yesterday.  Today it was just me and Max.  We were chasing the elusive advanced standard Q and trying our luck at snookers for almost the first time (the first time we didn't last long before being whistled off).

We have been very close in our last couple of standard runs and I told Max that if he hit his contacts a gave me a good teeter we'd head right to the pond for a swim.  He did and we did!  He also came first in his class so that was cool.

Our next run was snooker.  I managed to plan a reasonable flowy path and it worked well for us.  Max was awesome at staying with me - we ended up with more than enough points and finished nine seconds early - another swim in the pond!  We had a second snooker run today.  The most logical path to rack up points involved taking the teeter multiple times in the opening. Most competitors did this.   Since Max has had teeter issues in the past and was tentative yesterday I decided I wouldn't do that to him so we chose another path that only required doing the teeter as the last obstacle.  We got a Q and even though he never wavered on the teeter today I think it was the most fair choice.

It was  a great weekend - it's nice to see things come together - and in Rylie's case particularly see what we need to work on still.

So tired

A very long agility day today.  First Max had an advanced standard run.  I was really happy although we didn't Q - he missed his down contact on the dogwalk  - he was a bit pokey but did everything else really well so maybe he was just being thoughtful.

Rylie's starters gamblers was next - Rylie gets very high and then he becomes unsure so he was tentative to begin with - I had to send him a couple of times each to the tunnel for the mini gamble but he did go.  By the time we got to the main gamble he was all "I got it Mom - not to worry" - and it was much harder than the mini.  We got a Q.  Max's advanced gamble was next.  I mishandled the gamble causing him to take an off-course and be whistled off but he ran really well and got a ton of points in the opening -getting the mini gamble twice without a blink.

Jumpers - Rylie's advanced jumpers was a wild ride.  We are still learning to work as a team  - because he's so fast I ran as fast as I could to stay ahead (breaking one of the cardinal rules of agility - always stay connected with the dog).  Rylie is very inexperienced so in trying to keep up to me he missed a couple of obstacles.  Clearly I need to support him more.  He did run super duper fast though.  I didn't have great expectations for Max's master jumper run.  It was the last class of the day - he is brand new to masters - and we were both beat after a long day.  He ran beautifully and not only Q'd but came first in his class.  We are really starting to come together as a team.  If I had to guess I wouldn't have guessed that Max's only Q would come in his masters class but he always has liked jumpers.