Monthly Archives: November 2011

Tell Me Thursday

  By Leanne | November 18, 2011 - 9:52 am | Tell Me Thursday
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1. What are you thankful for this week?
My mum getting up at 5am on Wednesday to see to Rio, and letting me get an extra 3 hours sleep. I needed that something wicked.

2. How do you deal with a squeaker/shrieker/noisy dog?
I pretend it’s not happening? I have no idea, I have three noisy dogs and a noisy puppy and have never successfully persuaded any dog to be silent.

3. Barbara wants to know: what would you say is ONE skill or attribute needed to be successful?
In life? I was going to say perseverance, but I think knowing when to quit is important as well. So I guess really it’s the ability to identify when it’s best to persevere, and to do so, and when it’s best to quit, and then do so.

In dog training? Patience. I still don’t have enough, but I have much much more than I did when I started.

Both are pretty important the other way around too.

4. Pippin wants to know: what are your favorite games?
This is a weird question. I like running Time, Fault and Out in agility, that’s always fun.

I used to love Cluedo, because I always won. I only remember losing once and I got 2 cards right but it was Rev Green instead of Mrs White (yep, I remember that detail). And to be completely honest, my strategy was always to go 100% on one answer, and then maybe 80-90% on the other 2, and then go with my gut and guess. I have no idea how I won so often.

5. What are some of your strategies for dealing with winter?
Socks. Hats. Sheepskin-lined snowboots. Not leaving the house unless wearing 600 layers and only when absolutely necessary. I hate being cold.

12 Weeks

  By Leanne | November 17, 2011 - 10:26 pm | Rio, Training
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Just notes so I remember what stage we were at!

Rio believes in early to bed, early to rise. Current wake up time is 5am, far too early. Bedtime between 7:30-8:30pm.

She can do Sit, Paw, and Down on command. Luring left turns as she’s showing more aptitude for the right side at the moment (she’s going to be a right turner in flyball like the other girls!). Shaping paw targets and the Elephant Trick specifically, and doing random shaping sessions with random objects. Can get one stride away on sit wait (no command yet). Much more inclined to interact with paws when training. Very happy to work with unstable surfaces, will push drawers/doors closed. Working for treats at the moment but is showing lots of toy drive and lots of tug drive (will engage with most toys offered by me, will swap between toys).

Beginning to understand that “Ready?” means time to do something. Understands “watch out” for gates/doors/people coming towards her. “Go” games excellent, now understands that kibble can be thrown away from her/me and will watch for it.

Recovery time to unexpected events is good, will back away on first visual/audio but will approach within 10-20s to investigate. Has only completely freaked out (run away/barking) about the noisy nail sander, but with one clicker shaping session will now glance/look at it and offer sit/paw/down within 6ft.

Leave it is good on low- and moderate-value objects, non-existent on high value objects. Recall similar, will recall away from low- and moderate-value distractions, non-existent on high value. Kim, Dyl, Mol = high value.

Lead walking going well, sit beforehand and “let’s go!” for a trot to heel. Travelling in car for up to 30 mins no problems, is happy to be left in car (always accompanied by Dylan or Mollie), only attempted up to 10-15mins at the moment. Has been to the car garage and sat in car whilst car battery was changed, very loud/lots of strangers in and out of the car, chilled during event.

Surprisingly well co-ordinated, can jump from standing start onto sofa/dining room chairs. Not encouraged, do not want Rio to dinner.

Happy to greet strangers (wigglebum) after second outing to meet and greet. She’s happy with low-traffic roads, not thrilled with moderate- to high-traffic – especially if cars have headlights on? Need to meet more children! (Had first mis-identification as Border Collie today, couldn’t be bothered to correct apparent BC owner.) Enjoys vet visits.

Will request to go out for toilet by going to the back door and glancing around at whoever is in the kitchen. Need to make sure everyone in household is aware of this and acts promptly!

Tailwaggers Nov

  By Leanne | November 13, 2011 - 4:31 pm | Agility, Bailey, Diva, Dylan
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Back over at Tailwaggers this winter, they’ve done unaffiliated and I don’t blame them as the BAA has completely gone off the rails with some truly ludicrous rule changes amongst other things. Shame as it had the potential to be a great organization, but I won’t be bothering with it anymore.

Dylan and I were there to train only, the Senior classes were pretty big for an unaffiliated (50-60 dogs) and most of them were really good. We had a clear in the Steeplechase and came 9th, 2s off the winner, and it was not a particularly good run. Dylan’s jumping however was really nice, and it proved that his times are better when running in third or fourth gear and having smooth jumping, than running flat out and having poor jumping.

I trained his Agility; he set off with the same super jumping, and I rewarded his seesaw after the flyoff at HnH the week before. His jumping then went downhill for the rest of the day, I’m not sure what that’s about. Anyway, really nice Aframe and he was literally the only dog in the class that I saw nail the weave entry and stay in them whilst I moved away to the dogwalk. Go Dyl!

We got nothing in the rest of the classes, a slow clear on the fairly simply Jumping course and a big E in Triple A.

I did get to run Emma’s Bailey in her Agility and Triple A, as Emma was concentrating on Diva. We had an unlucky pole in the Agility which was my fault, but we still finished 8th. We had a cracking clear in the Triple A but couldn’t be bothered to wait until prizegiving, but I love running Bails. She’s so well trained, so naughty and fun, and she’s such a fast little cannonball! I might try and borrow her for some proper shows next year. (Just looked up the result, we were 5th. Bailey is amazing.)

Had lots of fun supporting Emma and Diva at their first show, Diva is going to be seriously fast! Some of our other club dogs were there too so it was a worthwhile show just to support people.

Hare’n'Hounds October Halloween

  By Leanne | November 13, 2011 - 4:20 pm | Agility, Dylan, Kim
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Kim had a great run first thing in the Combined 1-7 Jumping, a course with just jumps (no tunnels/weaves), so it was a pure speed kind of course. She finished 7th, I think 4/5s off the winners but she was the top Grade 6 by 8 seconds or something ridiculous. That was fun, but frustrating, as I ended up pulling her from the only Graded class of the day as I thought her jumping looked off mid-way through.

I’m not going to keep her going just for the sake of one more win, but it really would be nice for her to reach Grade 7 before she retires. She is skipping the next few months as I don’t trust the weather to stay nice enough for her, but Kim has always preferred running indoors so we’ll see if we can fit in a few more shows before the summer season starts up again.

Dylan had a hesitant run in his first class, an ok run in his second, and then was just beautiful in his last three. His jumping was super, really smooth and no silly stuttering around. We only got one clear, in the G5-7 Jumping, which was in the same ring as Kim’s earlier C1-7, so no tunnels/weaves and a fairly fast, open course. We were well out of the placings but it was a nice run with a moment where I got lost, and we were only 2s off the pace. I’m pretty pleased with that, Dylan and I are at our weakest on these kind of just-jumping fast courses, and this was our first Grade 6 show.

We had a horrible flyoff on the seesaw in the first run of the day, which I was really very surprised about – Dylan does not do flyoffs! I missed walking the course because I was too lazy to get out of the car, and we were running a really nice clear until the second to last obstacle (seesaw). Of course, Kim was in that ring later and she also flew it, so I’m tempted to blame the equipment. I did see a lot of other dogs do the same, clearly surprisingly themselves for the most part.

We had a super tough 6-7 Agility for our first proper G6 class too, a short spaced jump-seesaw line where you had to pull off the seesaw to hit a 120 degree weave entry to double back on yourself (I will try and get a course plan up). We avoided the seesaw and got the entry, but we messed up later on. It did remind me that running G6 with Dylan is actually going to be fun, he has all the training to do these harder courses and I love the handling challenges.

Tiny Puppy

  By Leanne | November 9, 2011 - 9:21 pm | Rio
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Rio’s litter was the Sweetie Litter (hence her KC name!), and she was called Crunchie.

The 6 week photos were taken when we first went to visit the litter and the breeder (and meet mum, dad, and a few other relatives).

Can’t believe how much she’s grown this past week, starting to look like a proper dog now.

Rio 11 weeks

I have a whole bunch of posts to make about Dylan and I at Hare’n'Hounds and at Tailwaggers but I haven’t got enough time. Puppies are hard work, who knew?!