17 Weeks

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Leanne

Nearly 18 weeks, really.

Not so many tricks these past 2 weeks, mostly house manners and walk manners and visiting manners. I finally knuckled down and started working properly on REA, I’ve been a bit wary as I haven’t shaped it before and I was struggling to mark the right things. Thought about it without Rio, and then attempted to put the plan into action. It took us four sessions to get a rear foot target on the box, but they were short sessions (30s – 5mins) over the course of the day. She was getting slightly frustrated by the third session, but I think that was partly because she had an idea of what I was clicking for but she couldn’t figure out how to get her legs to do that on purpose.

I do love me that girl attitude though, Kim and Rio get pissy and start huffing under their breath and frowning at me, but they keep pushing and pushing until they get what they want. Dylan just goes into repeat-cycle of offering everything he already knows. It’s such a slooooow process for him to problem solve.

Sit, paw, both-paws, down, dead, left, go-round are all on command, and so is “go to bed”. She knows Ready and Go, recall is pretty awesome, Leave-it is also pretty good.

Getting lots of exposure to new things as the Christmas stuff has gone up, routine has been disrupted a lot this week as people are coming and going a lot more than usual with shopping etc. Different visitors, parcels delivered, later nights. All going fine.

She has grown some serious legs this week too. She’s still hovering at around 16″, lots of growing left to do yet though.

Gap Farm December

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Leanne

Rio’s first visit to a flyball competition!

That is the most important thing that happened all day, of course. Dylan ran very well, not as well as he could have done simply because he was running with unfamiliar dogs, and so was I. Our changeovers were not consistent! He ran steady 4.8s over 11″. I have to admit this was a bit disappointing as I feel like he has been running his heart out at training, and I definitely did not have that feeling from him at Gap Farm. On the other hand, his boxturn was reasonably good, he was running into the first hurdle without flinching on his changes, and he swapped for his tuggy 95% of the time (he’s 100% at training but it tends to drop in competition; like any retrain, it doesn’t always hold up under a competitive atmosphere!).

Both the older girls stayed at home in the warm, and I sadly did not get to pick up Kim’s Ice Blue Moon as apparently they weren’t posted or something. Hmph.

I was really impressed with my crazy puppy. She took the atmosphere, the noise, the hundreds of dogs and people, the Christmas costumes/tinsel/hats into her stride. She was polite with every dog she met, and we ticked lots of boxes, meeting hairy dogs (Bearded Collies), big scary looking dogs (Dobermans), tall pointy aloof dogs (Madeleine the Saluki), noisy small dogs (JRTs), some lovely lovely Staffies (Roxy and a big brindle gentleman), plus all the collies/crossbreeds/others. She played with Lolly, who is the least likely puppy lover ever, and she also played with Diva. She and Diva are going to be a pair of troublemakers, it’s clear already! Almost all the dogs she met were polite but disinterested, barring a few over-friendly Spaniels who she said hi to and then walked away from, and grumpy Ella, who gave her very clear “go away” signals which she obeyed. Very pleased with those responses.

She met all the people without any bother, not demanding attention but happy to go say hi if they asked her to. Not bothered about the hats/costumes/reflective jackets etc etc, which I was very pleased about. She made me laugh by noticeably favouring the people who had fed her, but she does recognise Emma and Claire now anyway. Also wasn’t bothered by the people carrying boxes or other weird items, or prams/wheeled objects.

I wasn’t sure whether to let her offlead or not, but we hit the enclosed exercise area with Roxy, George, and Lolly and it was empty apart from one other dog on the other side of the arena. I’d already done some recall-rewards with her there earlier, so I let her off for a mooch around. She was very well behaved, explored confidently but knew her limits, played with Lolly and did a few mad laps, and then came back when called. I like puppies to have plenty of freedom as early as possible, otherwise being off-lead becomes a massive adrenelin rush and all the training falls out of the window. So far this is working, let’s hope it holds up!

She freaked out a bit at the very loud and static-y tannoy, but it kept making me jump as well so I don’t blame her. She also wasn’t very happy about the unpredicable 7yr old girl doing weird things, but I know we need a bit more socialisation with children. I don’t know anyone with dog-friendly kids, so that needs thinking about.

She also didn’t much care for the flyball, which is fine by me! She was relaxed and maybe a bit bored when we sat watching the rings, not interested in the noise or the action at all. She is a tugging fiend however, she stole or tried to steal every passing tuggy so I bought her one of her own and she turned into a fierce little tuggy monster. There is no doubting her tug drive, it overrides even tasty food.

Everyone we met mistook her for a Collie, I lost count.

Busy Days

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Leanne

Having a quiet day today.

Rio had a very busy day yesterday, lots of socialisation boxes ticked. We drove over to Langsett Barn to see lovely Buzz, her fellow Aussie and still a big puppy at 8 months. They got on very well, and would have loved a run around together but Rio just isn’t big enough to go running around the forest with the big dogs yet. She also met several strange people, an adorable Labrador puppy, and a little Jack Russell. She’s very polite meeting other dogs, and getting increasingly good at meeting new people as well (it’s always been her weak point).

We had a quick stroll around the wood before we headed home, she was a little startled by a weird log but we clicker shaped it and she bounced all over it in minutes so I was very pleased with that.

She also visited agility training for the first time! Our agility arena is on a livery yard/smallholding, so lots of new experiences for her. We didn’t see any horses but she met the cows, plus a whole group of people and dogs of all sizes and attitudes. She was polite, took the hints where necessary, and really wanted to play with Diva.

Dylan worked very well at training, we did some weave exercises and then worked on some in/out box sequences. They were hard on me, I had to get my timing exactly right otherwise I’d send him off in the wrong direction. Much harder than it was with Kim!

Hare’n'Hounds Xmas 2011

Posted on December 3, 2011 by Leanne

Dylan had a complete meltdown in the first run, he didn’t start off very well but as we got to the seesaw he shut off entirely. I’ve never had that happen before and to be honest, I don’t know what I can do about it now; he was fine on the seesaw at training and at Tailwaggers, and in the other classes after his flyoff a month ago at HnH. I ignored it and carried on but I don’t know if that was the best thing to do.

First jumping was an ok course and we meandered round, Dylan still wasn’t going well and I think we went clear but in a very boring slow kind of way.

I missed walking G6-7 Agility and it was quite a tricky course, we had a very slow start (Aframe call-off, Dylan’s least favourite thing) but picked up. We got 5f for a missed dogwalk contact, which was a shame. Not a tear your hair out miss, just a no-stop miss, so I need to proof that more in competitions.

G5-7 Jumping was actually quite a hard course which I completely failed to walk, again, but I watched Tracy run Eric around and do a great job so I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do. We rocked the first part and then I forgot where I was going for a second, which meant we were very wide around to the weaves, not what I wanted! We finished 9th anyway, which is our first G6 placing, not too shabby. I know we have the training under our belt, we just need to lock into Dylan’s higher gears. We won’t win out of G6 but I’d like to hope we could get some placings.

His final run in the BC Jumping was his best run of the day, shame we got E’d! Much smoother, driven jumping, just a shame it took us five runs to get to that point. I thought I handled it ok but as Dylan sailed past me in the opposite direction to where I was going, maybe not. There is always something to work on!

I was not at all switched on, I missed walking all but 2 of his classes, much more concerned with making sure Rio was ok at her first show experience and chatting to Cat.

Early Mornings in November

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Leanne

I think the big dogs are enjoying their Rio-free walks. They get to enjoy them for a while longer yet, as even when she’s allowed out, she’ll be heading out on much shorter walks until she’s grown a bit more. Kim or Mollie will chaperone one younger dog each, depending on the day and the time and how cold it is. Kim doesn’t like to go so far in the cold. She had to wear one of her snoods this weekend!

The fog came down for the whole day after our lovely morning stroll though. A little creepy, we were glad to be heading home by the end of it.