Last weekends ADAA trial was good. For the first time in a while I felt really positive about Sonic’s performances. ADAA have created their own NFC (Not for Competition) entry that waaay surpasses our own WA created ANKC NFC entry. You basically enter the class as normal but when you go up to the start line you let the judge know if you want to run as NFC. You can pick any class you want on the night. It’s up to you whether you run the set course or do your own thing for the duration of the standard course time. You can also take a toy into the ring to reward your dog, as long as the toy isn’t thrown. How awesome is that!
So my plan with Sonic for the night was to pick a couple of agility classes to run as NFC. I wanted to run them as if we were competing but if he performed a contact particularly well or drove hard through his weavers I wanted to be able to reward him with his toy. Or on the other extreme, if he didn’t hold a contact I wanted to be able to put him back on. I’d actually been working through some distraction training and proofing on the contacts the couple of weeks before so it ended up being all about me being able to reward his performances.
The brilliant thing that happened is that you could see his confidence grow every time he got his toy for doing great weavers or hitting a great contact. I’ve taught him to tug while still in two on two off position so that came in really handy as well. His runs still need a lot of work and handling skills are a work in progress but he was confident, fast and happy so I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. I also thought that I handled him better than I have in ages. With our State trial this weekend and the Nationals two weeks away it gives me some small semblance of hope that they will go OK….
Sonic and Axl also had their first attempt at running an ADAA teams event together. Mmmmmmm, was an interesting experience! Simone ran the course with Axl first and he was great, powering around with a perfect clear run. While Axl was running Sonic was getting more and more wound up. I couldn’t get him to sit at all and when Axl came past to do a couple of obstacles Sonic wanted to go and chase him off. Somehow I managed to get him back and then it was time for our half of the course…. Well, he may have been with me in body but definitely not in mind. Somehow I managed to get him around the course clear after about five almost-off-courses. Poor Simone having to watch, it would have been horrible! Axl and Sonic are entered in Novice Strategic Pairs at the Nationals so the moral of that story is that Simone and I need to get Axl and Sonic used to working close together otherwise that may not be very pretty or fun experience. Both are highly charged “get dat damn utha dog offa my course” kind of boys.
We have a massive few weeks of trialling ahead. I'm really looking forward to getting on with it all. It feels like the last Nationals was forever ago. You spend so much time getting your dogs and yourself prepared for these things that now I just want to do it!
Sonic the Border Collie and Friends
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Elusive Q Card
I've been having a bit of a play with the blog. I just wasn't inspired by the template I picked after the New Year. Every time I checked it out it seemed to be lacking something. I did go briefly to green but apparently that wasn't met with great joy by some of my blog readers....
You have no idea how hard this photo was to get...
Agility, agility, agility. Been lots of it lately. Training has been positive and for the first time in ages I've been coming away feeling like I've achieved something good. I jumped Sonic on 600 last week with ADAA on the weekend and I thought he handled it really well. Certainly it seems to make him think about his jumps a lot more. He only knocked one bar at the ADAA trial where as last time he knocked at least one in each run. There had also been some great little sequences set up where I was able to challenge some of the handling that needs to improve.
The last couple of trials, both ANKC and ADAA have delivered me a few qualifying cards. The old Q card had been somewhat sparse on the ground for a while. Sonic managed to get his very first Snooker and Gamblers passes at a rarely seen Games Trial hosted by Gosnells Dog Club. Most clubs in Perth seem to have an aversion to running Games trials so if I'm lucky Sonic may achieve his games titles by the time he's about ten. Not that I'm a huge games fan. More often than not I find that I may have a great opening sequence and then right at the very end I blow it. So it seems a lot of hard work for very little. I do think they are a great opportunity to fine tune skills though. Then the ADAA trial I went to on Friday night provided us with another two Q cards which means that he now has achieved his very first ADAA title.
The fact that we got Q cards makes it seem that we must of had some good runs but there was some rather naught stuff going on through the process. Not so much at the Games Trial but at ADAA some of Sonic's runs were nothing to celebrate. It all started when Lloyd high tailed it along side us to check Sonic's down side dog walk contact. Sonic just powered on through it and then all subsequent AF and Dog Walk contacts from then on quick releasing every time. I tried to use Gamblers to get them back but failed dismally. With Nationals four weeks away it's a little disturbing. His focus for the first three or four runs was pretty good but the last couple were atrocious. He was either screaming at the dog running before him and then completely unfocused or if I could keep him with me at the start line he then vagued out in the middle of the course. Sonic also got up or shuffled his skinny little butt at almost every start line. I do have to accept some blame doing my usual late front crosses for some crappy turns AND I should have put him back on every single contact that he blew me off on. I am definitely guilty due to my desperation to get some Q's. Boy do we both have some stuff to work on... My plan this week will be to break his contacts as much as possible to try and reinforce some good ones.
Last weekend saw the last of the Better Pets and Gardens dog training workshops. They seemed to be very well received and most attendees were dead keen to get home and try some of the things that I showed them. It does surprise me how little the average person understands about why their dogs do what they do. All kudos to those that came to the workshops to try and improve the relationship that they have with their dogs but I have to wonder about how the hell they got where they were in the first place. Especially with the amount of information available with the click of a button over the internet these days. People seem to think that you have to be a dog trainer to have a well behaved dog. There was certainly a lot of surprised faces when I showed them how simple stuff could be as long as you used something that is reinforcing to your dog. Sonic and Riot were my assistants and showed everyone how easy it is to teach your dog to work to earn rewards instead of working to avoid punishment.
You have no idea how hard this photo was to get...
Agility, agility, agility. Been lots of it lately. Training has been positive and for the first time in ages I've been coming away feeling like I've achieved something good. I jumped Sonic on 600 last week with ADAA on the weekend and I thought he handled it really well. Certainly it seems to make him think about his jumps a lot more. He only knocked one bar at the ADAA trial where as last time he knocked at least one in each run. There had also been some great little sequences set up where I was able to challenge some of the handling that needs to improve.
The last couple of trials, both ANKC and ADAA have delivered me a few qualifying cards. The old Q card had been somewhat sparse on the ground for a while. Sonic managed to get his very first Snooker and Gamblers passes at a rarely seen Games Trial hosted by Gosnells Dog Club. Most clubs in Perth seem to have an aversion to running Games trials so if I'm lucky Sonic may achieve his games titles by the time he's about ten. Not that I'm a huge games fan. More often than not I find that I may have a great opening sequence and then right at the very end I blow it. So it seems a lot of hard work for very little. I do think they are a great opportunity to fine tune skills though. Then the ADAA trial I went to on Friday night provided us with another two Q cards which means that he now has achieved his very first ADAA title.
The fact that we got Q cards makes it seem that we must of had some good runs but there was some rather naught stuff going on through the process. Not so much at the Games Trial but at ADAA some of Sonic's runs were nothing to celebrate. It all started when Lloyd high tailed it along side us to check Sonic's down side dog walk contact. Sonic just powered on through it and then all subsequent AF and Dog Walk contacts from then on quick releasing every time. I tried to use Gamblers to get them back but failed dismally. With Nationals four weeks away it's a little disturbing. His focus for the first three or four runs was pretty good but the last couple were atrocious. He was either screaming at the dog running before him and then completely unfocused or if I could keep him with me at the start line he then vagued out in the middle of the course. Sonic also got up or shuffled his skinny little butt at almost every start line. I do have to accept some blame doing my usual late front crosses for some crappy turns AND I should have put him back on every single contact that he blew me off on. I am definitely guilty due to my desperation to get some Q's. Boy do we both have some stuff to work on... My plan this week will be to break his contacts as much as possible to try and reinforce some good ones.
Last weekend saw the last of the Better Pets and Gardens dog training workshops. They seemed to be very well received and most attendees were dead keen to get home and try some of the things that I showed them. It does surprise me how little the average person understands about why their dogs do what they do. All kudos to those that came to the workshops to try and improve the relationship that they have with their dogs but I have to wonder about how the hell they got where they were in the first place. Especially with the amount of information available with the click of a button over the internet these days. People seem to think that you have to be a dog trainer to have a well behaved dog. There was certainly a lot of surprised faces when I showed them how simple stuff could be as long as you used something that is reinforcing to your dog. Sonic and Riot were my assistants and showed everyone how easy it is to teach your dog to work to earn rewards instead of working to avoid punishment.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Twelve Months On
As of the Western Classic weekend it was officially twelve months since I started trialling with Sonic! It has been a very interesting first year of our competition journey and although we've come such a long way, we have a loooong way still yet to go. I'm loving the fact that he is getting confident and powerful around the course but it is like we are two individuals when we are out there. It always feels like I'm on a knifes edge every run that we do and the run could go either way. I need to work really hard on us being a team and getting a much better feel for him. I'm still really happy with all three of his contact performances but his weavers have slowed down again. At the Classic and on the weekend at the teams event he wasn't pushing forward like he has been. So for the next month I'm going to focus very much on handling, handling, handling with a small splash of weaving thrown in to see if I can bring back the drive. At the seminar Lynda talked about working on your weaknesses and not over doing the things that you are stronger at so that is what I shall dutifully do!
It's been an incredibly busy couple of weeks since I returned from Melbourne. Last weekend I did my first ever dog training workshops for Better Pets & Gardens which was really fun. I actually feel really lucky to have the opportunity to try and get across positive dog training methods to the Average Joe. Most people just don't know anything about the philosophy of reinforcement builds behaviour and after both sessions I got fantastic feedback from the attendees. Hopefully they will go away and try some of the things that I told them about and their dogs will certainly be better off for it. A few people mentioned some of the other methods they'd been told to try on their dogs and it seriously made me cringe. I have two more workshops to do this weekend. Sonic and Riot were my very capable and well behaved assistants who managed to provide some very enthusiastic demo's showing how much enthusiasm and joy you get from positively trained dogs.
And how can I not mention, it was Soda's THIRTENTH birthday last Friday! I cannot believe another twelve months have past again in my old girls life. Soda is still as gorgeous as ever and celebrated in style hosting her own birthday party for one in my walk in robe while I was at work where I had inadvertently left my dog training backpack on the floor. By the time I got home she had thoughfully removed every dog single training halter and harness from the backpack in her treasure hunt to find her special birthday present (treat bag FULL of liver treats) that she no doubt thought I had left specially for her. Firstly I stumbled across empty butter menthol wrappers, followed by the training gear, then the clicker that was attached to the treat bag which was nestled amongst Colin's shoes, and some dog treat wrappers. But where was magical treat bag? It took a bit of searching but I eventually found it, very empty, tucked up in the back of Riot's crate. What a lovely birthday surprise!
Soda - thirteen years young
It's been an incredibly busy couple of weeks since I returned from Melbourne. Last weekend I did my first ever dog training workshops for Better Pets & Gardens which was really fun. I actually feel really lucky to have the opportunity to try and get across positive dog training methods to the Average Joe. Most people just don't know anything about the philosophy of reinforcement builds behaviour and after both sessions I got fantastic feedback from the attendees. Hopefully they will go away and try some of the things that I told them about and their dogs will certainly be better off for it. A few people mentioned some of the other methods they'd been told to try on their dogs and it seriously made me cringe. I have two more workshops to do this weekend. Sonic and Riot were my very capable and well behaved assistants who managed to provide some very enthusiastic demo's showing how much enthusiasm and joy you get from positively trained dogs.
And how can I not mention, it was Soda's THIRTENTH birthday last Friday! I cannot believe another twelve months have past again in my old girls life. Soda is still as gorgeous as ever and celebrated in style hosting her own birthday party for one in my walk in robe while I was at work where I had inadvertently left my dog training backpack on the floor. By the time I got home she had thoughfully removed every dog single training halter and harness from the backpack in her treasure hunt to find her special birthday present (treat bag FULL of liver treats) that she no doubt thought I had left specially for her. Firstly I stumbled across empty butter menthol wrappers, followed by the training gear, then the clicker that was attached to the treat bag which was nestled amongst Colin's shoes, and some dog treat wrappers. But where was magical treat bag? It took a bit of searching but I eventually found it, very empty, tucked up in the back of Riot's crate. What a lovely birthday surprise!
Soda - thirteen years young
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Lessons That We Learn
So here I am, home again after another interstate seminar. There is nothing quite like travelling away from home to do dog stuff. You get to leave everything else about your life at home (in my case for my partner to deal with...) while I go off and spend three days totally indulging in my favourite past time. Does it get much better than that?
No major dramas occured. Sonic and I made it to the airport in plenty of time. He seemed relatively relaxed when I left him at frieght. Perth Airport is undergoing long overdue upgrades so was a bit crazy checking in but other than that no problem. The weather forecast was for 34 degrees in Melbourne as opposed to the 45 degrees we had last year leaving me slightly less stressed. I do tend to get a little stressed/emotional anyway just because I worry about my dog being OK.
The plane ride was somewhat bumpy but we landed safely and after what felt like a long wait for my luggage it was off to collect the rental car. As per normal I'd booked the cheapest car available on the internet which was an itty bitty manual Hyundi Getz. I find these are a good option as they have the hatch back so with the seats folded down you can fit the dogs flight crate in no problems and did I mention - they are really cheap! I was secretly hoping for an ugrade to a Corolla or Ford Focus (like I got last year) though as they are a little nicer to drive. When I got to the rental company it was utter chaos. People everywhere, customers arguing with the staff. I just wanted to get the car and get the hell out of there so I could collect Sonic. When I finally got to the counter and the lady finished all my paperwork she tells me that all they have left available was a Ford XR6. For those that aren't into cars its a sported up version of the Falcon. In other words big, roomy, automatic and goes really fast. All I could think of was "I can't wait to tell Simone!". For Simone's benefit and so I can tease her, here is a photo. Did I mention that it was black and shiney with alloys and a spoiler. BTW lovely to drive, lots of buttons to press, but not as gutsy as my Commodore SV6... Having been provided with this lovely car at the same price as for the Getz I spent the weekend smiling.
No scary GPS dramas this year. I'd decided that saving money by avoiding using the tollways was a waste of time and effort so the I set the GPS up to send me on the most straight forward route. It did once send me around the block on the edge of the CBD but it looked like the way it was trying to send me had been cut off due to road works. I couldn't really swear at the GPS for that. All I had to do was follow the signs back onto the main motorway and all was well. Staying in Somers again was a delight with the usual walks down the beach for a swim. No koalas this year though. My uncle was telling me that they haven't seen nearly as many this year as they normally do.
Then we had the whole reason for the trip, the seminar. Lynda was fantastic, so enthusiastic and passionate about dog training and passing all that she could onto us. I only audited at the Susan Garrett seminar in 2005 so this time around with a working spot I was able to experience first hand how much of a clutz you turn into when you have someone you would love to impress standing there watching you attempt to train your dog. I knew I would learn heaps, and I did. Greg Derrett has always said to us that in Australia we need to get someone out to do some training seminars as he was seeing pieces missing from our dogs performances. Now I can totally understand why he has been telling us that.
Everything that they do at Say Yes dog training in Canada is for a reason. They leave nothing to chance. All the foundation skills that they introduce to their dogs have a purpose and is a building block for something else. Everything they do is planned. They NEVER get their dogs out and stand around, it's all about deciding what you are going to do BEFORE you get your dogs out, then bring them out motivated and ready to go, train and then back to their crate. Their dogs are NEVER trained unless they are motivated first. If your dog is distracted or not motivated then you get that BEFORE you start. We also worked a lot on the transitions between food and toy being smooth and seamless. No fumbling in pockets. Lynda talked a lot about dog training being about problem solving. You train your dog for short periods then you assess. If it's good you move on, if it's not good you work on your weaknesses. You certainly NEVER continue or move on when all you had was crap. The really stupid thing is that none of the above is hard to do. I just need to change my old habits. When I get to training I need to set up what I want to do first and not get my dog out until that's done. It's not really that hard but I think with most of us it's just easier to do what you've always done.
My other exciting news is that while I was away my future agility training area was cleared ready to start it's transformation from bushy scrub with dead banksia's everywhere to eventually lots of grass and some new eucalypts that we are going to plant. I took some photo's this morning so I can record it's humble beginnings. It's not huge but definately big enough for contacts and jump sequences.
No major dramas occured. Sonic and I made it to the airport in plenty of time. He seemed relatively relaxed when I left him at frieght. Perth Airport is undergoing long overdue upgrades so was a bit crazy checking in but other than that no problem. The weather forecast was for 34 degrees in Melbourne as opposed to the 45 degrees we had last year leaving me slightly less stressed. I do tend to get a little stressed/emotional anyway just because I worry about my dog being OK.
The plane ride was somewhat bumpy but we landed safely and after what felt like a long wait for my luggage it was off to collect the rental car. As per normal I'd booked the cheapest car available on the internet which was an itty bitty manual Hyundi Getz. I find these are a good option as they have the hatch back so with the seats folded down you can fit the dogs flight crate in no problems and did I mention - they are really cheap! I was secretly hoping for an ugrade to a Corolla or Ford Focus (like I got last year) though as they are a little nicer to drive. When I got to the rental company it was utter chaos. People everywhere, customers arguing with the staff. I just wanted to get the car and get the hell out of there so I could collect Sonic. When I finally got to the counter and the lady finished all my paperwork she tells me that all they have left available was a Ford XR6. For those that aren't into cars its a sported up version of the Falcon. In other words big, roomy, automatic and goes really fast. All I could think of was "I can't wait to tell Simone!". For Simone's benefit and so I can tease her, here is a photo. Did I mention that it was black and shiney with alloys and a spoiler. BTW lovely to drive, lots of buttons to press, but not as gutsy as my Commodore SV6... Having been provided with this lovely car at the same price as for the Getz I spent the weekend smiling.
No scary GPS dramas this year. I'd decided that saving money by avoiding using the tollways was a waste of time and effort so the I set the GPS up to send me on the most straight forward route. It did once send me around the block on the edge of the CBD but it looked like the way it was trying to send me had been cut off due to road works. I couldn't really swear at the GPS for that. All I had to do was follow the signs back onto the main motorway and all was well. Staying in Somers again was a delight with the usual walks down the beach for a swim. No koalas this year though. My uncle was telling me that they haven't seen nearly as many this year as they normally do.
Then we had the whole reason for the trip, the seminar. Lynda was fantastic, so enthusiastic and passionate about dog training and passing all that she could onto us. I only audited at the Susan Garrett seminar in 2005 so this time around with a working spot I was able to experience first hand how much of a clutz you turn into when you have someone you would love to impress standing there watching you attempt to train your dog. I knew I would learn heaps, and I did. Greg Derrett has always said to us that in Australia we need to get someone out to do some training seminars as he was seeing pieces missing from our dogs performances. Now I can totally understand why he has been telling us that.
Everything that they do at Say Yes dog training in Canada is for a reason. They leave nothing to chance. All the foundation skills that they introduce to their dogs have a purpose and is a building block for something else. Everything they do is planned. They NEVER get their dogs out and stand around, it's all about deciding what you are going to do BEFORE you get your dogs out, then bring them out motivated and ready to go, train and then back to their crate. Their dogs are NEVER trained unless they are motivated first. If your dog is distracted or not motivated then you get that BEFORE you start. We also worked a lot on the transitions between food and toy being smooth and seamless. No fumbling in pockets. Lynda talked a lot about dog training being about problem solving. You train your dog for short periods then you assess. If it's good you move on, if it's not good you work on your weaknesses. You certainly NEVER continue or move on when all you had was crap. The really stupid thing is that none of the above is hard to do. I just need to change my old habits. When I get to training I need to set up what I want to do first and not get my dog out until that's done. It's not really that hard but I think with most of us it's just easier to do what you've always done.
My other exciting news is that while I was away my future agility training area was cleared ready to start it's transformation from bushy scrub with dead banksia's everywhere to eventually lots of grass and some new eucalypts that we are going to plant. I took some photo's this morning so I can record it's humble beginnings. It's not huge but definately big enough for contacts and jump sequences.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
On the road again
After a tumultuous month Sonic and I finally got back into the agility ring. Great news, we managed a clear in Masters Agility. It was a more open course than we usually see but still had some interesting traps with the lines that the obstacles put the dogs on being not the line they had to do. I even managed to do at least one front cross at the right time...
It wasn't the perfect run but was definitely solid. I won't however talk about the Open Agility run we did. TOTAL disaster. I couldn't even bring myself to watch the whole thing back.
Tonight I'm packing for mine and Sonic's trip to Melbourne and the Lynda Orton-Hill seminar. I can't wait!
It wasn't the perfect run but was definitely solid. I won't however talk about the Open Agility run we did. TOTAL disaster. I couldn't even bring myself to watch the whole thing back.
Tonight I'm packing for mine and Sonic's trip to Melbourne and the Lynda Orton-Hill seminar. I can't wait!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Trialling 2010
A new year of trialling has begun again. We started the year off with a fun teams event hosted by Cloverdale Canine Compainions followed by a midweek jumping trial hosted by the Agility Club of WA.
Dog performance wise, pretty happy with both Sonic and Lexi. Lexi's attempts being particularly impressive seeing as she'd only been back in training for three weeks after an eight month break. Her skill level is great, but she needs to shed another kilo before I'm going to be able to knock much time off runs. When she is back in shape I will start to get her revved right up before we go into the ring. I have to admit that I was surprised by just how strong all her behaviours are and she has understood the concept of the 2 x 2 weaver entries extremely well.
Sonic also had some very strong runs. He is definately getting more and more powerful around the course and only missed a Q run with a dropped bar in the Masters Jumping class. Unfortunately I think I handled him dreadfully and once again out of the seven or so front crosses that I did from the four runs, I'd say that at least five were late. Because he's getting faster I'm so busy standing there calling him round like a dickhead that I'm not pushing to get into the right position early enough and then I'm rotating far too late. So instead of getting a nice tight turn I end up with really wide ones instead. Sonic was about three seconds behind the first placed dog in Masters Jumping and I reacon that I could have knocked off at least two of those if I'd managed to get tighter turns. I'm not sure why I'm so incapable of front crossing at the correct moment but I'm determined that I'm going to get it right eventually!
One thing that I am very happy about is his weaving. When I first started trying to build more speed by high level reinforcment using his toy, I didn't think anything was really happening. But then suddenly (or so it seems) he has knocked about half a second off his performance. I still want to get more drive out of his turns so given then the rewarding with his toy worked so well for the weavers I'll keep on working on it and hopefully over time more drive will come.
We only get one night of training this week with Australia Day on Tuesday. I'm sure the dogs will enjoy a swim down the beach instead anyway. Then we have a trial on Friday night hosted by the Rottie Club. For this trial I have entered Sonic in Not For Competition in the Excellent and Open Classes. I want to give him more opportunity to stretch out and build confidence away from the more technical Masters courses. It's all part of the bigger plan...
Dog performance wise, pretty happy with both Sonic and Lexi. Lexi's attempts being particularly impressive seeing as she'd only been back in training for three weeks after an eight month break. Her skill level is great, but she needs to shed another kilo before I'm going to be able to knock much time off runs. When she is back in shape I will start to get her revved right up before we go into the ring. I have to admit that I was surprised by just how strong all her behaviours are and she has understood the concept of the 2 x 2 weaver entries extremely well.
Sonic also had some very strong runs. He is definately getting more and more powerful around the course and only missed a Q run with a dropped bar in the Masters Jumping class. Unfortunately I think I handled him dreadfully and once again out of the seven or so front crosses that I did from the four runs, I'd say that at least five were late. Because he's getting faster I'm so busy standing there calling him round like a dickhead that I'm not pushing to get into the right position early enough and then I'm rotating far too late. So instead of getting a nice tight turn I end up with really wide ones instead. Sonic was about three seconds behind the first placed dog in Masters Jumping and I reacon that I could have knocked off at least two of those if I'd managed to get tighter turns. I'm not sure why I'm so incapable of front crossing at the correct moment but I'm determined that I'm going to get it right eventually!
One thing that I am very happy about is his weaving. When I first started trying to build more speed by high level reinforcment using his toy, I didn't think anything was really happening. But then suddenly (or so it seems) he has knocked about half a second off his performance. I still want to get more drive out of his turns so given then the rewarding with his toy worked so well for the weavers I'll keep on working on it and hopefully over time more drive will come.
We only get one night of training this week with Australia Day on Tuesday. I'm sure the dogs will enjoy a swim down the beach instead anyway. Then we have a trial on Friday night hosted by the Rottie Club. For this trial I have entered Sonic in Not For Competition in the Excellent and Open Classes. I want to give him more opportunity to stretch out and build confidence away from the more technical Masters courses. It's all part of the bigger plan...
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Summer Holidays
Mmmmmm, yummy spoooooon.
Sonic say spoon clean now!
I love being on holidays. Getting up whenever you feel like it. Going down the beach every couple of days. Doing some work around the house then having a nana nap in the afternoon. Relaxing with the dogs. Reading lots of books.... Aaahhh the list goes on.
Can we come in pleeeeease?
One of our local inhabitants.
Then there is reality which starts again next Monday when I have to go back to work. I shall continue to dream for the lotto life!
A Noodle peering through the bushes.
In between enjoying myself I have also managed to fit in some quality agility training with young Lexi. Lexi is a funny little dog. She looks quite comical at the moment as all her coat has dropped out following her last litter of pups. She has these odd tufts of fur that stick out from different spots on her body. One thing that I have realised since she has come to live with us is that she has NO self/impulse control. If the cat moves she has to round it up. If a dog runs past her she has to chase it and nip it. If a person jogs past on the beach she runs after them and tries to nip them... Obsessing over Kenny was driving me nuts (not to mention poor Kenny) and telling her off was doing nothing. So I decided it was time to pull out some training skills and actually reinforce her for doing something good. It's amazing how lazy you get when all your other dogs are so well behaved. So we whipped out a mat and taught her the go to your mat game. Lexi is very food driven so it has taken no time at all to redirect her "lets round up the cat game" to going to her mat and lying there waiting for a treat. Now whenever we go and sit down she happily takes herself to the mat. Sooo much nicer than telling her off all the time, plus it actually works...
Pleeeeease let me round up the cat?
We have also commenced our 2 x 2 training. It's been twelve months now since I taught Sonic 2 x 2's so I had to whip out the DVD for a refresher on how quickly to add the next sets, move closer etc. Our first couple of attempts were pretty feeble so I was a little concerned that she wasn't going to get it. Lexi has never been taught any shaping so she has no real concept of offering behaviours. But after the first couple of goes the penny dropped and she has been moving forward very nicely. At this stage we are up to two sets about seven feet apart. She is managing some great angles into the entry so I'm hoping if all goes well in another week or so I should be able to transfer across to the straight poles. Other than that I've just been doing some figure eight work to build some jumping fitness with a few rear crosses thrown in being one of her weaker skills. Then just some two on two off work on a down plank. To be honest her skill level appears pretty good. I'll be very interested to see how she goes at proper training next week.
Throw the ball, throw the ball, throw the ball!!!
Riot doing his best Zoolander impression.
Sonic does not approve of me training other dogs. Apparently he is the only one who should have agility privileges in this house. After a session with Lexi yesterday I got him out to do a couple of minutes of figure eight work and he was flying! It was like he was trying to show me that he is much better so I should only be training him! I can imagine he will be very excited about going back to training next week. I'm pleased that he's had a really good break. I think it's been very good for him.
Huey, Duey and Louie
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