tenzears

Yep - you were all right. Left Ky in the car and Ten was totally fine. I went ahead and just made today about tugging and fetching but then I should probably just do that sometimes anyway. It is awfully nice to spend time with her just playing without an agenda after all.

I moved all the jumps out of the central area of the yard and worked on circles, fetch, race, and tugging with Ky. She sure is fun. I think she might be part jackrabbit. Of course she'd be a rabbit like ominious Frank in Donnie Darko, not like Thumper.

Ten is generally speaking a wild tugger and LOVES to fetch anything that is thrown.

Which is why I'm totally puzzled right now. We went up to the yard today at lunchtime, I put the puppy in the crate, and started a game of tug with Ten. As soon as the puppy bitched in the crate, Ten dropped the toy and would not play with it anymore. I got out a ball and threw it. She would chase the ball, but not pick it up and bring it back. Okay - fine. I'm not going to work a dog that won't play. So she goes into the crate and I get the puppy out and play with her. Then switch back. Ten still won't play. She'll chase the tug and leave it where it fell, then runs back to me and sits at my side.

Fine, back into the crate with Ten, puppy comes out and we play some more. Ten gets one more shot, won't play, and that's the end of the session, everyone back into the car and back home.

I wish I could say this was an isolated event, but I think that Ten hasn't been so enthusiastic about play the last few times up to the yard. I think I may have been using food rewards with her on those trips when she wasn't working well for the toy. Normally I can switch back and forth no problem.

Next time I'm going to see what happens if I leave the puppy at home and just take Ten. If she still doesn't want to play, the whole training session is then going to start to be about getting that back. I can't have her not able to be switched into drive at the yard.

Kind of a riddle. We'll see where it goes.

Random thanksgiving thoughts.

I really don't understand why people think that teaching a pup "Body Awareness" makes sense. By all means, teach your pup that it has feet and that they work independently. However, your pup is growing so fast that teaching it complex body awareness exercises seems a bit silly. Its body isn't where it left it from hour to hour and day to day. Perhaps people that didn't go from 5' 2" to 5' 10" in two years in Jr. High don't get this. I do.

When I was a kid my best friend Emily Wulff and I used to fantasize about our lives as grown ups. This life involved buying a Winnebago and a horse trailer. We would travel around living in our RV with a menagarie of animals. Cats, dogs, hampsters, and horses. The big flaw in our plan was how would we tow both a horse trailer and a small car? What I find interesting about thinking back on this is that there was no special reason for the travel. We just wanted to live in an RV with a lot of pets.

Right now in "real life" the fantasy is to rebuild the garage and put an "endless pool" in it for the dogs. That would be a huge simplification of keeping them in shape. Independently of DP's recent related post I've realized that Ten is not in the shape she was in this summer. Between Athena passing away and now we have essentially stopped taking her to Marymoor to run. It was not a conscious decision; in fact I suspect it was one of those unconscious decisions that our minds make without letting us know to help us avoid pain. At any rate, prior to Athena's passing we used to go to the park before work a few times a week. Post-passing we had not gone until a week ago tomorrow. All that complexity aside, this time of year its tough to get up early and beat the idiots to Marymoor. When it really isn't light until 8:00 pretty much every fool in King County is at the park by 9:00 with their inappropriate dog. Not to mention I really do have to get to work before 9:00.

The girls are doing well. Ten is already muscling up again with walks and trips to the park and swimming. Her coat has puffed up so much she actually looks even fatter, but if you give her a grope her muscles are hard again. Soon I hope to rediscover ribs. Ky has melted off almost all of her puppy fat.

We go to the trial at Trail's end tomorrow. My goal with Ten is to take at least one jumpers run and run FAST. Not FAST the class, fast as in actually "bring it" to a run. Standard, well, I'd still like to finish her Ex A title before I go back to training in the ring in standard. Silly, since what's the point of being in B instead of A if there are band aids on our performance.

My goal for Ky for the weekend is just to have her have fun and not eat every loose stick on the site.

The girls are so amazing. They really deserve a whole multimedia extravaganza of cuteness and cleverness.

Instead they get things like me taking Ten to meet Cricket at the park and forgetting my camera.

Taking Ten to go swimming for the first time and not realizing my phone (with a CAMERA) is in my purse sitting there getting wet with the rest of my junk. Ten wet is the cutest thing I believe I have ever seen. She was of course utterly uninterested in me and I believe would have happily gone home with the wetsuit clad ball girl.

Ky finally has a decent wave instead of her little "hurt paw" wave - also undocumented. Current state of her ears: braced yet still asymmetric, lord help me. Ky's shoulders for the first time appear to match the rest of her body as opposed to having been grafted off of a bulldog puppy. Now she's going through "weird neck," "flat butt," and "big nose" all at once. Perhaps not a good phase to document anyway. She still manages to be a darn cute puppy if not the picture of uniform growth Ten was.

Pictures, video, soon . . .

Okay, so I guess I don't know how to handle an excellent standard course. We're something like 1/8 at this point and its ALL me. All of the NQ's have been "one little thing" except today where I just totally futzed up the whole run. Ten is doing great, I just apparently can't keep my wits about me with all that painted rubberized plywood around.

Our jumpers Q rate is better, but there are definitely some things I need to work on. If I'm not going to teach her how to respond to a serpentine command, I need to MOVE MY FEET and not have her stopped on course while I front cross. We're never going to get out of medium speed purgatory if I don't start upping *my* game.

My worry is that I'm going to handle at a medium speed to avoid making mistakes, and biddable sweet Ten is going to come down to my level instead of speeding up.

Good things about this weekend; no weave faults, no contacts that were not what I asked for, and a very sweet, good, attentive, dog trying very hard to figure out what I want. Oh! And some very nice pictures of Ky playing with Haku!

Ky 7-1/2 Weeks


Ten 7-1/2 Weeks


Ky 9 Weeks


Ten 9 Weeks

I definitely need to take more pictures.

I really need to retrain Ten's chute performance, but heck if I want to spend the $$ on a chute.  Anyone have one that mostly sits and isn't used?  I'd be happy to pay to rent it for a month or so?

JB and Scamp and Ten and I are looking for a third for Elma.  22" Championship.  No pressure team, we just want to have fun!  Let me know if you're interested or know anyone who might be.

What are the merits of stopping the dog on contacts?  Here are my thoughts:

1)  Easy to identify and reinforce criteria
2)  Having that moment on course to get somewhere is useful sometimes

That's it for me.  I'm not all that interested in criteria #2.  So, if Ten does her behavior and self-releases, do I care?  I feel like I "should" care, but in reality I don't have any desire to make her wait on contacts other than for reason #1. 

Thoughts?  Maybe I'm just wanting to skip fixing her self release with motion.  She'll stop if I stop.  If I don't stop, she won't stop in a trial.  She will at home, might at class, might not.  Never leaps. 

You might have forgotten since I never seem to post anymore.

She's pretty cute and sharp.  Quite a little pistol - and HUGE compared to both Pixel (two weeks older) and Creek (one week older).  She looks a bit like godzilla compared to either one.  I'm quite sure that her growth will slow down eventually and she'll not actually be 27" at the wither when she's mature. 

I'm being good and sticking to working on recalls, tugging, and chase me games.  Its HARD.  However, right now I can recall her off of other dogs, people, FOOD, Ten chasing a toy, etc.  I wish I could say the same of Ten.  Ten's got a super cute wave though . . . and can climb a wall with her back feet.  That's almost as good as a reliable recall, isn't it?  Oh, and yes she does have to wait for a release to go through the front door or leave the x-pen or a crate.  She added a sit to that behavior, so apparently, again, I've taught a puppy to sit as a byproduct of something else.  The "Feral Plan" is going well, in my opinion.

Here are some catch up pictures.  Those are her actual ears in the last few.  She's got a bit of an irritation in one of them from the adhesive, so she's getting a break from ear glue for a bit - and if her ears keep heading the way they are it might be a permanent break. 

She looked at me earlier today with her ears back in "greeting" mode and I saw her mother in her face.  She's the spitting image of Swirl looking at Gail with her "I love you" face - and Swirl is beautiful, especially when giving her mama her best soft face.  I'm very happy to get a glimpse of the pretty girl she'll grow up to be.


Is it me, or does that toy look a little, um, inappropriate?


Ten says the puppy is making her do this, she still doesn't like her.


Why are the pictures that actually show a little personality always out of focus??


Hi, Ky!

So, if you're a normal person you can watch these two runs and think they're ok.  If you're me you see your dog not knowing where she's going next and all the work we still need to do on contacts.

I was reflecting today as I played with Ky at a new park (not a dog park, of course), that the time we spend with the pups at this age isn't really all about "socialization."  We did meet some new people at the park, but for the most part it was just a new place she was exposed to.  With new things in it.  Picnic tables, swings, park benches, garbage cans, busses parked at the curb, cars going past.  All this is new to a young pup.  So, certainly some percentage "socializing" with humans but also a very large amount of just "exposure" to new situations and things.  I think the wider variety of new situations you can let a pup be in, and be comfortable in, the more they will comfortable with novelty as adults.

After some play and recall work at the park, I loaded her back into the car and brought her down to the office.  For the first time she got to experience an alley in Pioneer Square (Seattleites know what an exposure that can be even for humans), the sound of heavy machinery doiong street work, lots of cars going by, people going by not interested in her and interested in her, the foyer of our office building, her first elevator, our office with its funny shapes and things and new people. 

After about 20 minutes in the office it was off to drop some things in the mail.  More cars and trucks going past, more people, including at least one crazy guy (again - Pioneer Square is an experience for any species), a parking enforcment officer on a seguay (sp?), more people, mailboxes clanging, more busses. 

Ky takes it all in.  She doesn't fail to notice the novelty.  In fact, I do think that she's a bit abashed by it, but she comes and sits on my feet and watches the world from up close for a while.  I leave her alone about it - including at this point not pestering her about playing with me the whole time - and after a moment or two she gets off my feet and starts to poke around her new environment on her own.  When she does that I let her check things out for a bit and we move on.

Ky's second ear taping was not exactly a success.  But its failure did give me a chance to get some "candid ear" shots. 


Here's the personality shot.


Ears!  That left one looks structually unsound.  Yikes!


Ears flipped down.  Retaping tonight as soon as I have a puppy restrainer! It is fun to see them in their intermediate stages though.  Watching Haku's ears makes me a little wistful about natural puppy ears.  But not wistful enough to overcome my vanity . . .



Don't know if you can see the faces in this one very well; but its a great summary of how Ten feels about Ky and how much Ky is disturbed about it.  You may also get a clue about what happened to all my cute hats!  Also, interesting.  Ky's chest at 10 weeks is nearly as wide as year and a half old Ten's.  Hm.  She may be a big girl!

Not much to say; tired and still trying to get over this stupid ick by the time I have to drive to Yakima Saturday morning.  I'm a wee bit too obsessed to write off the weekend, but I'm not looking forward to it as much as I would if it were to be a nice sunny afternoon in a grassy field.  I did scrap taking the RV.  I'm just not that excited about having the battery die on me in the middle of the night in 40 degree weather and having no heat.  Huh.  Maybe I should make a hotel reservation.

I took Ky's ears down to re-do them today (solvent finally got here; bad job of planning ahead with supplies on my part).  High comedy.  Unfortunately the "ears down" shots the AF feature on the camera lens was turned off.  She's getting big!  She's also had a total meltdown in potty training.  She peed in the house more times yesterday than the prior 2-1/2 weeks she's been home.  Yes, she's had a bit more freedom, but my god, not that much more.  I'm afraid she might have a bladder infection given the frequency and suddenness of her need to pee.  Sigh. 

Ears up


Ears down

Our Canadian agility competitor friend currently has a list of 250 or some such behaviors to teach your puppy prior to starting agility training with your dog.  While I totally agree that there's no reason to rush into career training based on my experience with Athena, who took all of about 4 months to learn all of her contacts, weaves, how to jump (she was naturally a lovely jumper), and how to follow me sequencing.  The thing that took the longest was actually teaching her that a sit is something that is done *until released* after living in a pet home for the first two years where "sit" meant do so until you don't feel like it anymore, then I'll tell you to sit again. 

At any rate; I am trying pretty hard not to teach Ky 250 behaviors before she's a year old.  In fact, until she's six months old I'm trying very hard to teach her a very limited number of things which I hope to perfect.

Her name
Recall
Tug like a maniac
Wait until released to leave your crate/xpen/go through the front door

Those are the specific behaviors; the other stuff you'd expect as well.  Housebreaking; lots of socialization both being a city dog and being a trial environment dog.  Handling - as in you'll be happy about me touching your feet, your butt, your tail, your ears, etc.  Generally NOT being rewarded/encouraged for jumping on people (but this isn't going to be a big deal - there won't be a lot of NO JUMP!STRANGER BAD! work either). 

Once she turns 6 months old we'll start playing around with tricks and other behaviors.  Ten had lots of tricks and behaviors by the time she was six months old, but her recall off of other dogs who are chasing balls and so forth still sucks.  This time around a different expirament!

I was wrong, its not Souixsie Souix eyeliner.  Its little Alex, our favorite malchick from Clockwork Orange eyeliner. 

Here's puppy Ky with her first jolly ball..

On a related note; guess what Ten doesn't understand?  Release word!  Stays were another one of her gifts that I probably should not have accepted and should have trained instead.  So, now remedial release class will be going on in tandem with remedial teeter work.  I think that this will help with her self releasing on the DW too.

Pictures!  (Yes, I should pressure wash that moss)

Left the camera in the car.  No new Ky photos - again!  They do say the second child doesn't get photographed as much as the first and Ky is the  . . . well, fifth I guess?  Those who met her in person just raved and raved about how pretty she is and what a nice personality she's displaying at this age.  She got to meet a lot more people and a lot of appropriate adult dogs.  She also did some really nice puppy restrained recalls in the big field, despite sharing it with a herd of BC's playing ball and Mick on a down right next to her.  Good girl!

We do have video of Ten's runs today.  She's doing great, I just need to keep my head in the game.  In JWW I failed to support the second jump on the lead out (something I KNOW I need to do) and she came in and over the third jump, so away we went.  I really flung her at the weaves after the triple to "see" since we had already NQ'd and got some information about entry work.

I was really happy with how she responded to the inside arm RTH presentation out of the tunnel.  I liked that turn!  I think if I would have been blasting into FC position "facing the direction I want the dog to go" she would have overjumped and perhaps gone off course.  Interesting.  That's definitely in the "keep" pile.

In STD I blew a perfectly good run by telling her "weave" coming out of the tunnel instead of her actual weave command which is "get 'em".  Its not all on me; it was the obstacle she was presented with and I think she could have gotten them anyway, but I also think that me shouting some weird word at her distracted her.  Something to play with (and since this has now happened with her and with Athena I need to change my weave command to "weave" like its always been).  Then I gave her her DW command, which is normally given on the ground before the DW on the down ramp which also seemed to distract her.  I was pleased that even though she came off the side looking confused she also stuck a foot out and stopped as if she was trying to get it despite me messing with her.  Unfortunately I was having a personal moment when I released her and lost connection and she blind crossed me and came around the last jump.  Oh well.  Two more shots to get her out of Open in Yakima and two more shots to finish her AXJ too. 

I was also very happy with her athletiscism all weekend.  No bars went down and I gave her a few pretty marginal lines.  She even went the extra distance on the triple yesterday when I flicked her to it and rotated her hips all the way up to the side so her rear was out from under her to keep the top bar up.  Not the jumping form you want, but given a suprised dog it showed me a real understanding that bars up is part of the game.  I like that!

Standard was *weird.*  The course was fine; our run was weird.  Ten made her DW contact.  I don't have a good feel for her speed over the obstacle, and I did go ahead and help her by stopping myself, but she made it.  More than I was getting in class the other night.  I'm pleased about that.  Her teeter was horrendous. I really skimmed on the training of that and I need to un skim it and do it right.  I will have two weeks, more or less, from tomorrow to Yakima so I'll be pushing hard on that, hard weave entries and the DW contact with speed.

The weirdness was just that I think I was pretty herky-jerky.  I had to really "save" the 180 at the two wingless jumps by going all the way in to avoid a backjump.  Then Ten had a lovely AF contact, lovely table, lovely HI JUDGE, ARE YOU COUNTING JUST FOR ME COOL THANKS, then back to the table.  Off to the chute, lovely weave entry, change of arms to the jump parallel to the line of the weaves and a shitty angle from me for her to get over the triple at the close.  I was SO happy about what she did at the triple though.  She took off funny, and at an angle, and to save it she rotated her hips 90 degrees to her body and had her back legs totally out from under her.  Wow.  Not what you want for every day, but in terms of demonstrating understanding that jumping and keeping bars up is important, boy did she tell me she "gets it."

I loved our jumpers run.  I pushed her off of one jump by mis-timing the rear to the tunnel discrimination, but it was really a very lovely run.  She's so solid; we get each other in terms of navigating so much of the time.  Far more than I deserve for such a young dog. 

Ky was a hit.  She's very confident, nothing phased her.  We got some "follow me" and "name game" type stuff in, but mostly she got passed around and loved on by a lot of people, which she was very happy about. 

In Daisy's class on Thursday she asked what we were doing between sessions with the pups.  Pup in this case refers to Ten; she is still a pup herself after all.  Or a young lady perhaps but not quite a grown up.

I started working on proofing the DW after Tuesday's class, but I had to spend some time thinking.  What the heck have I been doing?

I think September was a "lost month" training.  Part of August as well.  From the time Athena was diagnosed, most of the day to day focus turned to her issues.  We didn't go to the yard for such a long time that Dawn was shocked to discover I was not the one that had moved equipment (ongoing mystery, since no one else gets to use the yard - since its not ours to offer, really). 

As if it wasn't fairly clear anyway, the reasons for not having a pup at the same time you have your novice dog are getting clearer all the time.  Its going to take planning and resolve to stay on track with Ten.  The trouble is that she's mostly good enough.  I could remain satisfied with her performance as it is, but I don't think I would ever get the agility dog that she *could* be if I transition to mostly working on handling and condititioning and less on drills and training.

So, resolved.  Back to the yard!  Every day and try to sneak in some 2-a-days.  Its going to be challenging with less daylight, worse weather, more work, and the pup in tow, but I can do it, darn it!

List of drills and proofing:

Weaves; harder entries with 6 poles
Weaves; staying in all 12 no matter how much pressure I put on her (check out the SG video and booklet for proofing ideas)

Contacts.  "O" is not a release.  Motion is not a release.  "OK" is a release. 

Teeter.  Get to the END then stop.  I'm not going to insist she hang ten on it (har har); but I am not happy that she will stop anywhere from 6" to 18" short. 

With the contacts I need to remember to really be happy no matter what.  She is sensitive, and I need to remove all frustration from my consciousness.  She can be wrong, but I won't let her thing wrong is bad.  Just not rewarded.



Non sequitor childhood chicken training shot.

Again, first and foremost - puppy pictures.


Gratuitous eye shot.


Coming this way.



Going that way - flag held high!



Ten easily resisting a lot of cuteness and very little charm.



Here, hold this and let it bite you.

Training thoughts:  I was talking to another gal in my Tuesday night class with Jill last night.  Both of us were told by our first trainers with our first performance dogs to never tug with the dog; and if you did ever tug with the dog never let them win, because they would become dominant and possibly aggressive.  I actually paid good money for that advice.  Little wonder that Cass never became much of a tugger, even though her prey drive was, er, a bit excessive at times. 

Ten blew her contacts off the DW to a tunnel over and over last night.  Same problem as Eugene.  Gosh, not working on it at all appears to have not fixed it at all.  Weird.  Today I pulled a tunnel in front of the DW and was not able to reproduce the problem, but could do it with a frisbee.  Not tennis balls, not cheese, not the tunnel, but a frisbee.  Okay - fine.  So we worked on that, and I threw her some "softballs" too so she could also be succesful and get reinforced.  One of the things that seems to stymie me in the moment but often comes to me later is how to take the distraction that will work, and tone it down to a level where she can be succesful, then crank it up.  Or perhaps that's the wrong attitude and what I really want is to have something to not reward.  Tough when the thing that makes her blow it is the frisbee and I'm working alone.  Once its gone and she got it, she's already self-rewarded.  Hm.

Anyway.  Off for my monthly put me back together so I can keep running massage therapist appointment.  I'm fairly, but not totally, sure that Ky will not be totally feral by the time I get back.