Dhali's First Lesson, Hiking! and First Agility Trial!

Wow we  have done so much in a short amount of time!  And I don't have pictures of ANY of it :(  Oh, well. 

Yesterday we went to Loretta's and Dhali had his first lesson!  He did a really, really good job.  He had a few moments when he wanted to do his own thing, but those moments were very few.  I think he thought it was too hot, because when we went in the shade he did better at staying by me, but considering how many new things he was introduced to - I think he did GREAT! :)
This is the list of things Loretta gave us to work on.  It's a lot, but I think Dhali will be able to do it. 
And me.  I'm the one that has trouble!

Minimum 80 recalls---no dining and dashing.

Playing----no playing and dashing. When doing recalls with toys, stop and play for 30 seconds.

Sits, downs and waits on a mat.

Agility trials---MAIN FOCUS IN SOCIALIZATION, get to as many as u can.

Kibble for treats.

Teach a jump on the ground, work up to a pinwheel. Start FC, RC.

Tunnels, chute (end opened) and start get on board, and reward on board.

RUN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Work food to toy to food transitions. Of having issues give breaks between transitions.

Playing with dogs 1 to 5 ratio. For every 1 min with dogs, 5 mins with you. INVOLVE IN THE PLAY! Recall out of play on leash. Reward heavily.

If you cannot MAKE HIM come to you, don't call him.

Reward and name potty times. On leash.

Once jump trained, start lateral and forward sends.

PLAY PLAY PLAY ALL THE TIME.

Jealousy is a good thing :-)

Loretta

I can see that I'm going to have a hard time with the 80 recalls a day.  That's a LOT!!  But I will try my best to get close to that number.  I'm also going to have a hard time with the 1 min. play time with Tibby for 5 mins. play time with me.  It makes Tibby happy to play with Dhali, but I know that the results in the future will be worth a little work now.
During Dhali's lesson Tibby waited and barked a lot.  I wanted to do something fun for Tibby, so on the way home we stopped at a state park and went hiking.  Tibby was very happy!  It was a nice hilly hike and we only saw 4 people and 2 of them were (female) park rangers.  So very nice hike for Tibby - no scary things or people.  It really shouldn't be a surprise to me that Tibby is happiest hiking, after all that's what we did every day for the first 3 months she was with me.  It was the only way I could keep her from keeping me up all night long - very long off leash hikes.  She would run and run and come home tired, but still happy to keep me up at night.  Yeah.....I was pretty sleep deprived for a long time.  Crate training, people....do it!

The last 2 nights Dhali has been so tired that he doesn't make a peep in his crate for 8 solid hours of sleep.  sweet, sweet sleep - ahhhh I love it.  Before that I had my construction ear muffs.  Pop those on and I can't hear anything.  Yes weird, but it works.  I tried those orange ear plugs, but they weren't strong enough.  Dhali's voice can pierce through brick walls.  I even tried ear plugs + ear muffs.  Well, any way he's doing better and it's so much easier having a puppy in a crate at night.

So we had fun hiking, then we came home and I gave both pups a bath and then they had after bath zoomies, I played tug with Dhali and then I was tired!  Dhali was still ready to go, go, go.  Lesson, hike, bath, play - more!  He doesn't sleep in the car very much either.  I don't remember if it took Tibby a long time to start relaxing in the car?  He watches me, chews his bully stick and barks.  Today he slept, but he was very tired.

So today!  We went to an agility trial in St. Cloud.  Just Dhali and me.  It was fun.  Dhali was awesome again.  My only complaint is the benches were super uncomfortable.  I need a chair with a back!  Otherwise it was great.  Fun to watch everyone and see some great dogs and handlers.  Dhali tugged on his toys, chilled and watched everything and watched me to get treats.  Mostly he just relaxed and watched everyone.  I DID notice where his comfort level for tugging was.  He was a crazy fiend in the parking lot - jumping and tugging really hard in the parking lot and on the walk to the trial site.  When we went around the side of the building and he could see people/dogs his tugging went down a lot.  He would still play, but he wasn't jumping as much. 

Although at the end of the day he did really fierce tugging right by the ring with dogs all around and people sitting around next to us.  People even stepped over him and he was still tugging and playing.  I think he did great.  We were there for a long time - almost 4 hours?  I think.  And he was focused on me really, really well.

So different from the first trial I took Tibby to.  She barked the ENTIRE time and she lunged at anyone/dog that came within her vision line.  We didn't stay very long, because she was acting so crazy and BARKING like a crazy.

Thank you Loretta for kicking me in the rear and getting me to take Dhali to agility trials.  I will try!!!

One thing that we need to work on - Dhali wouldn't pee!  He held it the entire time we were away from home!  He pooped, but NO PEE.  Silly pup.  So that was what?  We left at 12pm and got home at 7:30pm.  That was a long time to hold it!  Poor little tiny bladder.  He also wants to go really, really far away to poop.  Which is nice, but also a pain.  Gotta work on the potty on leash!

So after the trial we stopped at Petsmart and the best happy making me thing happened.  When we were checking out the Petsmart employee said, "I was watching you while you were picking out a collar and he just sat there and watched you the whole time!  It was so cute!"  Yes, he was a good boy!  We were working on focus and Dhali was a very good boy.  He doesn't try to jump on everyone he sees, but rather sticks with me and walks along or sits and watches me.  It looks like I actually train him or something LOL!!

Whew, so we made it home and Tibby missed me SO much.  She had to sit in my lap for a while until she calmed down and she followed me around to make sure I didn't try to escape again.

Very tired now.

When we got home Dhali was like, "Let's do something!  Play with me!  Toys!  Run around! Fun!"  and I was like no you are tired.  I know you are tired.  Dhali was like, "Put me in coach!  I'm ready!"  But yeah, 5 mins. in the x-pen he was sleeping.  He WAS tired!      

OW

"I bite!"

Dhali has a very interesting style of recall. I call it the Badger recall. He runs at me full speed (I'm kneeling down), jumps at my face with his mouth wide open and bites whatever is sticking out. Like my nose or cheeks or....hopefully not my eye. Tonight he got really close to my right eye. Everything always happens to that stupid eye too. That's the one that was lacerated almost 2 years ago - so, so painful. Only time I have ever gone to the ER as a patient.

I like the recall! I LOVE it! He's fast, happy and having fun. I would just like to not be bleeding or in pain after he recalls!

"I kiss your boo boos. *lick*"

Today

I'm feeling very disappointed in Tibby's recall today.  I know that:

1- It's my fault for feeling upset 

 2 - My fault for not having her on a long line

3 - My fault for not controlling the situation and

4- giving her too much freedom before she was ready.

But that still doesn't make me I feel better about it.

I went for a hike with my Mom, a friend and my friend's dog, Zoe.  Tibby was doing some pretty good speedy recalls through out the hike.

Then near the end of our hike my Mom, my friend and Zoe got farther ahead and I stopped to scrape some nasty wild animal poo off of my shoe (brand new shoes too!).  Tibby was running between us - recalling to me for a cookie.  Then she stopped coming back to me.

So I'm walking to where they are waiting for me.  My Mom has Tibby by the collar and they are talking to some other hikers who also have their dog by the collar.  The other hikers pass me with their dog and I'm still walking toward my Mom, Tibby, ect.

I'm about a football field away from my Mom, and the hikers are about a football field behind me (also around a curve in the path), when my Mom lets Tibby go.  Tibby runs full speed past me and to the hikers.  There was no possible way that I could have stopped her (unless I had been smart and put a long line on her).  So she goes up to them and sniffs the dog.  I call her, she doesn't come.  I start to go and get her and she finally comes, but only after one of the hikers accidentally (I think) steps on her foot and makes her squeal.  So she runs to me, gets a cookie and put back on leash.

I am......not happy.

Of course, my friend had to point out that Zoe didn't care about the strange dog at all and stayed with them/didn't run off.  Whoo hoo for Zoe. 

Zoe the dog who eats poop and resource guards everything in the world.  Who doesn't know how to sit and is terrified of everything in the world.

*sarcasm* I'm so impressed. 

And sad.

My Mom said she let Tibby go, because she thought Tibby was so attached to me she wouldn't run to the other dog.  Yeah......right.

So I feel like what's the point.

All of our training and Tibby has so little value for me. 

That makes me very sad.

If I can't teach Tibby to recall then....what's the point in training anything else?

I feel betrayed.

I'm sure I'll get over it, but right now......it hurts.

I thought you loved me?

Recallers Course

I signed up for the Susan Garrett Recallers course.  So far I have been very impressed.  I signed up at the Brilliant level - my budget couldn't handle the Inner Circle ($1000+!!!!).  As it is, the dog walk will have to wait until spring.  BUT last night I had a great reminder of WHY I'm taking this course. 

Last night I was carrying in a big box with a new crate (so we could play crate games).  Tibby jumped over a baby gate, ran between my legs and out the door.  Then she dashed out the open garage door and onto the driveway.  I was very, very lucky that there weren't any dogs or people walking by.  I KNOW that she would have been gone in a second.  She was excited that I was home, so she did come back, but I could tell that she was looking around and thinking about running farther.  This is bad.  My house isn't very far from a street.  Not a busy street, but still dangerous.

I would rather pay to have Tibby learn a recall, than pay to have her fixed up if she gets hit by a car.  Or worse.

This is where we keep track of all our training.  I want to decorate it with some pictures of Tibby.  I'll show you when I get done with it.  I'm also printing out all of the games, so I can re-read them and take them on the road for practice.  It's only when I'm in the middle of a game that I have questions about it. 

The calendar where I'm keeping track of our training.  I know I can keep track of things with the 'big picture' in front of me.  I have a past history of not journaling very well, but I can do a calendar.

The course doesn't start until Monday, but there are pre-games to play. 

One of those games is crate games.

The new crate.  I took the crate pad out.  It was too fluffy for crate games.  I put the crate in the spare bed room, because there aren't as many distractions (and I had the space there).  I can't wait until the basement is done - all that beautiful space for running around.  It's SO CLOSE to being done......but not quite yet.  Although (totallya tangent) I learned how to take out a light fixture and change it out for a new one.  It's not that hard!

The treats I used for our first crate game.

Meatballs, kielbasa, ham, hot dog, cheese (dill jack, ooo fancy).

Susan said to use the highest value.  Here it is!

Tibby did AMAZING.  I can't wait to see how she does tomorrow.  We worked all the way through steps 1-3.  We only played for 30 mins (not 1 hour like the video says), because I felt like Tibby had eaten a lot of treats and she probably needed to get a drink.  I didn't want the treats to start to lose their value. 

I was surprised how well Tibby did with the crate games.  She went in the crate to start the game, stayed in the crate when she was supposed to and exited the crate when she was released.  She turned right around and went back into the crate.

I was especially amazed at how quickly and willingly she figured the game out, because her only other experiences with a wire crate have been very negative.  Wish I had known about crate games when I brought her home!  My vet told me to put Tibby in the crate, leave her there and wait until she stopped barking.  We tried that twice, but after 2 1/2 hours of her barking without stopping the first time and her peeing on herself/acting scared when I opened the crate door the 2nd time I didn't try crate training again.  The last time I put her in a wire crate was at a foundation agility class - she had a 'panic attack' - frantic clawing at the bars/shaking/barking/drooling.

I think the baby steps I've taken with the travel crate have probably helped. 

Later on I found her sitting in the crate (good girl!) and waiting to be released.  What a smart pup!!!

Tibby Recalls and A Stray Dog

Tibby and I have been practicing more recalls. I love the light 25 foot line that I bought when we had our private lesson. Tibby chooses to follow me. Me! She doesn't run away!
I try to go once a day and walk around on the 2 soccer fields by my house with Tibby on the long line. Some times it doesn't work, because there are people using the soccer fields. Also, there is a school across the street from the field/park and the kids are too much of a distraction for Tibby.
Yesterday, we finally found a good spot in the park to practice and I could film for our puppy/tricks class. Then a stray dog ran into our practice spot!!!
Ugh. It's not a real stray dog. The dog's owners live in one of the houses next to the park. They let it out to 'run' every day. It runs around every where. Annoying. Tibby didn't seem to care about the dog. Even though dogs are her favorite thing. I guess cheese is more powerful.

Restrained Recalls With A Tree

I took Tibby to the dog park again today. We tried some restrained one person recalls using a tree. The first 2 sessions were OK. Then a train went by the park - like 10 feet from us and Tibby was a little scared. I think next time I will take Tibby's harness, so she has something to pull against.