DogBlog!

I forgot to bring my cameras to class today, and as luck would have it, so did Dawn. It was just a 'forget things' kind of day! I did shoot a tiny bit of video of Stamp and Toggle playing tug using my phone, which came out kind of abstract and grainy, but I'll post anyhow just to give the page a little color -



and also shot a picture of Boing! Fleet and Toggle sitting in the front seat of the car together (we were parked at the time, they ride in crates when we're in a moving car) with my phone at night.



There, I feel better! I hate having a page that's just all words, boring!

I need hardly mention that in practice this morning Boing! nailed every single AF and DW contact, I don't know how many I did, but it was quite a few, and all were in sequence too. There was only one contact that I'd even consider the least bit 'iffy', she jerked her head up to look at me as she was striding through the contact on the DW. She didn't miss her stride, but she did do a little bounce step instead of driving forward. While theoretically this should make me happy, it really frustrates me that she keeps getting better and better in practice but it's not transferring to trials much at all. I know that eventually it will, she just takes a bit longer than some other dogs to figure things out, and she's so adrenaline high at trials that I really don't think she can think a whole lot. Fleet was terrible about contacts too for a while, and so was Stamp (although Stamp pulled it together rather quickly) so I know that eventually we'll get through this.

It's frustrating because I know she's got a lot of talent, she really loves running, and I do think she wants to do it right. In practice I can see exactly how good she could be, and eventually will be. Of course when I think how long and hard Celine worked with Fleet to get him to where he is now, I realize that I've got nothing to complain about! I'm the lucky one who gets to run him now that all the hard work is done!

Yesterday I did a good amount of basic obedience work with Boing! started teaching her to heel and finish, practiced stays and recalls, etc. and also did some trick work with her, mostly just working on teaching her to walk on her hind legs. She looks hysterically funny walking on her hind legs, not to mention that she's really quite tall that way, taller than one might expect.

Fleet ran quite well in practice today too, except for when I was trying to do some FAST class style distance work flipping him away from me at the bottom of the DW, trying to get him to take a jump. He gets very contact obstacle obsessed, and every time we worked on flipping away from me, he tried to just flip back onto the DW. At first I thought it was just my handling, but even when I stepped in and got in his face, as it were, he would just dodge me and go back onto the DW. It was actually pretty funny, he was so determined to do that damned DW no matter what.

I set up a really difficult course for my beginners today. It was a JWW course, very short, just ten obstacles, but with three different serpentine variations. I showed them how to run the course with all front crosses, then had each one run the course with Stamp before trying it with their own dog. Stamp is really loving being the 'handling practice' dog and he's really honest about doing exactly what he thinks they want him to do, so they really get to see where their handling needs a little work before trying to explain themselves to their green dogs.

After everyone had run the course with all front crosses, I took Fleet out and showed them how it could also be run with all rear crosses. He was fabulous and actually didn't drop a single bar. Amazing because it was exactly the kind of course he often struggles with.

Today was the first lesson for the new trick class I'm teaching, and it was also Toggle's first time working as a real demo dog. I don't really count the U Penn Vet talk because I didn't ask her to do anything except be cute and socialize for that. I used the adult dogs to demo a variety of different tricks so that students would get an idea of what different things they could teach their dogs, but I know that seeing a dog do something really well that looks hard to do often makes people feel as though it's impossibly difficult and they can't imagine their dog doing whatever it is, so I used Toggle to demo how quickly a dog can learn a new trick, in this case standing with two front feet on a pedestal, and she was a champ. I had worked with her on it for a couple of minutes earlier in the day with Dawn, so she already had an idea of what I wanted. Still, it's one thing to perform in a relatively quiet room with just one other person and dogs you know, and quite another to work very close to nine dogs you've never met before, some of whom are trying to play with you and others trying to get your treats. She actually never even bothered to look at the other dogs while she was working, which was great.

So now I've actually taught Toggle a few things - 'come', 'touch', 'shake hands' and 'feet'. I guess I have started training her...

Oh, almost forgot, I had taken the ramps off the DW in class so that I could just lay them flat on the ground for one beginner student who is really afraid (dog, not owner) of the DW, so I took advantage of the ramps being flat on the ground and had Toggle some restrained recalls across the ramps back and forth between me and Dawn. She LOVED it, figured out what we wanted straightaway and just kept going back and forth faster and faster.

Tomorrow I leave for Springfield with everyone except Stamp. I know it's better to leave him home, it's not a trial where he'd be happy staying in the car, and he definitely isn't happy anymore at trials when he has to be crated in the 'crating area', but I do miss him when we're not together, and it doesn't help to know that he misses me. I'm psyching myself up to just run Boing! not care what she does on the contacts and pretend that really there's no one watching us. I can do it, really I can! I'm quite looking forward to seeing all the people I only see when I go up there, especially Monica and Anna who I really only see once a year. I'm also really looking forward to running Fleet, he's really started to pull himself together so nicely.

WAIT - THIS JUST IN - I KNOW WHY BOING! CAN'T DO CONTACTS AT TRIALS!!! SHE'S LOST HER HEAD -
I was just about to publish this post when I looked at Boing! and it all became clear



and one more picture, just because they're cute together -