One Year, What A Change

This day last year, I was meeting Dhali for the very first time at a puppy open house.  He was 4 weeks old and adorable :)

I can't believe he was that small!

Fast forward ONE year and Dhali attended his very first seminar.  It was at Loretta's and it was fun :)

We were auditors, so mostly Dhali just hung out in his crate.  But he did a really excellent job of just being.  That is a tough skill!

He didn't make a peep when I left him to walk a course.  He whined a little bit when there were other dogs barking.  He also whined a little bit and barked once (!) at the end of the day.  I know what his problem was though - he needed to go potty!  And he was refusing to go.  Still an issue with the strange location pottying.  

But other than the potty issues he was a rock star.  I don't think he could have handled working in that environment - YET, but I was really itching to try the exercises out :P  

He did a lot of this....

And some of this...

At the very end of the day I brought out his mat and let him play on that.  He did a good job, but his enormously full bladder was distracting him a little bit.  It's frustrating to know that if he just would pee he would feel so much better LOL!!

He was great at looking at and then ignoring the dogs working on course.  He was like "yeah, whatever I have mat, I have cheese and hot dogs - don't care about boring dogs."

I love this picture - wink?

My shoes drying off in front of the fan.  My feet were so wet the entire day.  It rained a lot last night, so we were in the barn for the seminar, but my feet got soaked hauling our stuff from the car to the barn.

I really liked having the seminar in the barn!  It was nice and cool - I was even cold!  The dogs didn't run off too much, because we were in the barn.  The sun didn't blind me and I didn't get a sunburn.  All around I enjoyed this year's seminar much better than last year.  It was so relaxing to have Dhali with me.  Last year was stressful with Tibby.

And I learned a lot too!  I took lots of notes.  I can't wait to play with one jump :)

P.S. I ate a hamburger for the first time in over 15 years.  AND it was grilled by a world agility champion :D LOL!!!!  It was a tasty hamburger.  I couldn't remember what they tasted like, but now I know!

Agility Seminar At Loretta Mueller's

Tibby and I went to an agility seminar at Loretta's place.  It was fun!  I got to see a lot of agility, meet some nice people and see smart dogs.

Tibby was not impressed with being left in the crate when I went out to walk the courses (I was auditing).  She serenaded everyone with her full repertoire of barks, howls and whines.  If it wasn't annoying it would have been funny.  She makes quite interesting noises.

She eventually calmed down enough to take a nap in the afternoon.

It was really hot in the sun, but there were lots of fans and nice shade covers to sit underneath.  I was only hot when we were standing in the sun, but otherwise it was a really nice day.  I made Tibby get in the baby pool to cool off.  That's why she looks like a drowned rat!  She doesn't like water, but too bad!  Better water than overheating. 

Being in the pool and having a fan on her, she didn't even pant......except when she was 'singing' at the top of her lungs.

I took a bunch of pictures.  I had over 200, but whittled them down to just over 100.  You can see the full album here Flickr Loretta Seminar Album.  These below were my favorite.

I didn't edit them at all - some could use cropping at least, but I'm too tired!  Left the house at 5:30am and got home at 7:30pm plus outside all day....Tibby has the right idea!  Time for bed. 

Ann Braue Foundation Seminar

We finally made it home today!  It was a fun vacation, but it's nice to be home.  It rained every day EXCEPT Sat. when I was inside a windowless building.   It was a perfect day on Sat.  Tibby and I took long potty breaks, just to enjoy the nice weather.

Yeah, so we went to an Ann Braue foundation seminar on Sat.

We took the long (and often) potty breaks to both enjoy the beautiful weather outside and also, because I didn't want Tibby to be the first dog to have an accident on Ann's carpet!  She has a really nice training place.  She gives a good seminar too.  I really liked her style of teaching, the way she explained things and how she took time with each team.  A lot of the things she said reminded me of Loretta! :)

Tibby was a good girl in a very distracting environment.  Of course, no surprise, but our weakest link is having her stay with me and not run around by herself.  She wasn't the only dog that had trouble with that though!  Her best working session was (surprisingly) the last one of the day.  The seminar was from 9am - almost 5pm.  She had her best session at the end of the day, because she finally relaxed in her crate and TOOK A NAP!!  Yes, that was the sound of hell freezing over :P

I had her crate set up like this - with the top open, so she could see me and not freak out, bark ect.  She whined and moved around pretty restlessly, but she was also quiet for some of the time.  Ann had her dog Scream out to demonstrate some things and then he sat on his red steps, which were only a few feet from Tibby's crate.  Scream likes to whine a little bit too and Tibby would settle down and then Scream would whine a little and Tibby would start up doing her own whining again.  So one of Ann's helpers told me to cover Tibby's crate completely.  I was nervous that Tibby would bark and I would have to take her out, but it turned out to be really good advice.  She still whined, but I was able to concentrate on the seminar a lot more AND eventually she calmed down and slept.  Which she really needed.  Little babies always do better after a nap! 

I can't post the video from the seminar - we all had to sign a contract that said we wouldn't post our videos on the internet for everyone to see, but we could use then for our own training/review. 

The seminar covered Linda Mecklenburg's 6 turns.

I liked the way Ann taught them.  I really understand how to teach them to Tibby now.

She's a very good teacher!

She gave us steps to start out with and then how to progress the training until we can do them in sequences, but she also said to remember to keep going back to the 6 basic turns every once in a while, so our skills don't get rusty.

The nice thing is that you only need a jump and maybe a tunnel.

This is Tibby jumping - if you can't tell LOL!

This is Tibby's crate all covered up.  She was sleeping in there, but it was a little difficult to see.  I thought (for 1/2 a second), when she was so quiet, that maybe she died.  But she was just sleeping - whew!

Just waking up in her crate.  She was even able to sleep through other dogs barking.  The dogs next to us barked whenever a dog was running on the floor in front of our area......and yet they did not have to cover their crates.  Too bad for them - I got good advice and we made a training step - Tibby slept in her crate!

That's Ann in the background behind Tibby.

Lateral send.

I would really like to know how to be exciting and keep Tibby's interest, but not step too much into her bubble.  It's SO HARD to figure out.  It's easy to say - be more exciting and keep your dog playing with you, but what I really need are the directions to this.  I need some rules!  I guess Tibby would have to give me the rules, since she seems to be the one in charge - hmmm, that didn't come out right! 

During this session there were some guys banging around with the plumbing in a back room.  Ann later said that she had thought that she should ask them to stop for a second, so Tibby could work, but she didn't.  Tibby was REALLY trying to figure out where the noises were coming from.

She did great playing with her toy - I was even using it as a bribe to get her to come back to me.  During the session that I didn't get videoed Ann said she had good play switching skills - toy to food to toy.  LOL!  Little does she know how hard we have worked on it!  The first time I offered Tibby the toy and she POUNCED on it, I was shocked.  Yay!

Tibby hanging out on Scream's steps.

I would take another seminar from Ann - the time went by super fast.  I like seminars - especially the way this one was run.  I was able to watch 11 other teams (some, OK most more advanced than us) and see the progression and how each step fit together.  It's also nice to see what other people (who don't know you or your dog at all) see in your dog/you.  They don't know your dog's history - for example how big a deal for us it was when Tibby could be quiet in her crate and have it completely covered.  We may not have the 6 turns - yet - but Tibby slept in her crate!

"I's so smart."

Guess What We Did Today?

Daisy Peel Seminar

So phase 1 of adventure week is over!  We went to the foundation session of Daisy Peel's seminar at Cloud Nine Dog Training in Hopkins, MN. 

Way back in 2011 I heard that Daisy was coming to MN and I thought, "Wouldn't it be neat to take her online class and then at the end of that class attend her seminar and meet her in person?!?"  So yup, that's what we did.

Oh, yeah and maybe I should have read the fine (or not so fine) print that said the session was from 1pm to 5pm.  Hmm, yeah that's 4 hours!  That's a long time for a dog to work and not have a putty fried brain.  Actually, that's a long time for ME to work and not turn into a zombie.

Yes, I turned into a zombie.

I signed up to audit the rear cross session which started at 6:30pm, but I was toasted by 5pm, so we left.  I looked at Tibby, I looked at the clock and then I thought about the 2 hour drive home.  It wasn't a very hard decision.

Daisy is like a totally normal, average person.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but she's OK.  Not scary or whatever like I had read in a few places.  In fact when we first walked in I didn't recognize her.  She's smaller than I thought she would be!! :P  Daisy said she thought Tibby looked bigger than she thought she would be LOL!   

Ahh the internets - where size is only relative.

The Cloud Nine place was nice.  Kind of small and built like a split level maze type (fill in your own word I'm tired).  They are having a teacup agility trial there at the end of the month.  It would be the perfect size for teacup agility!  Really, it was nice and all the people were very nice.

There were only 12 people there (1/2 working, 1/2 auditing), so it was really more like a semi-private lesson.

I want to say this in the nicest way possible, so please don't get offended:  Because I'm new to dog sports/agility/dog training I some times feel like I'm entering a new culture.  Have you ever been to a foreign country or high school???  It's like the first day of high school.  I try to soak everything in and figure out what these people are about.  So not only is the agility information new, but all the social stuff is too.  Like should I walk past you with my dog, if your dog is tugging or should I wait?  Is it OK to pet your dog if it comes up to me?  Or why would someone bring a dog they don't live with, but are planning on training and the dog's actual owners also are auditing, but they don't train the dog?  Confusing stuff.  :P

So anyway, Tibby did awesome.  She was CrAzY.  If she could have bounced off of the walls she would have.  Focus?  Not so much.  But I'll take crazy Tibby over scared Tibby any day.

My hand was actively bleeding 5 mins. into the seminar.  I think Tibby got a little ketchup with her hot dogs.  yuck! hee hee hee.  She has sharp teeth! 

She actually worked for 4 hours.  Right to the very end.  AND she played with her toy.  No issues, except that she wanted me to run around with her and actually play.

Of course, there were breaks for Daisy to lecture.  But for Tibby the lecture parts were the worst.  It took her 3 hours to remember that she had a delicious lamb stuffed Kong to lick in her crate.  So yeah, I crated out of my car and she barked.  Until she remembered the Kong and then she was quiet, but of course then we were almost done.  She also sat with me for part of the time.  I had a 2nd Kong and she licked that. 

Daisy would have us break up and practice in different parts of the room and then she would come around and watch us work.  By the 3rd time of doing that I stopped working until she came around to us.  First of all, Tibby would do it perfectly until Daisy came to watch and then she would get too excited to pay attention.  Second of all, I was getting tired and I thought Tibby would get full pretty soon with all the treats she was getting!  Third of all, I didn't want to practice it wrong a bunch of times.  So some of the time we sat on the (nice cushy mat) floor and watched the other teams.  I learned from that too.  It's interesting seeing a lot of dogs and handlers doing the same thing.  And yup we were all at about the same speed.  Everyone has a different issue, but we all have issues :)

I took some notes, but they would require a lot of back explanation.  If you have the Foundation Jumping book by Linda Mecklenburg - then you know what we covered at the seminar.

Things I thought were interesting (and new to me):

The cue to the dog to jump is the handler's motion towards the jump or location to the jump.

Building value for jumping - Dog should see a room full of jumps as a million opportunities to be rewarded.

Handler ahead of dog - forward cue

Handler behind dog - turning cue

Indirect eye contact - forward cue

Direct eye contact - turning cue

Example: weaves - indirect eye contact - forward cue

Dogs have to be trained to follow arm cues - this is not instinctual

Steer a dog with motion - motion is instinctual to dogs

Obstacle name = forward cue

dog's name = attention cue

She said none of her dog's know direction cues like right, left, ect. 

She said with a novice dog she would run them to where she wanted them to go instead of trying to use arm cues or directional cues.  They will get them evenutally, but it's easier to use your motion to move them around the course.

AND it's offical:  Daisy said I was very calm.  And that Tibby needs me to be less calm.  More rewarding with my voice. 

She said Tibby is a party girl.  Like a bunch of times. 

Ok, ok.  I'll try to be more of a party girl with Tibby.  But I was tired!  It was a loooong time to be training!  I don't have the stamina of Tibby.  :P

I think I was doing pretty good for the first hour or so giving Tibby verbal encouragement.  She does like it a LOT.  But after a while......

Tibby highlights:  She did one jump back and forth (boring) for 8 mins.  We worked our way around the room at different jump stations - Tibby did from 12" up to 16".  By the end of 8 mins. I was tired, but Tibby was still offering to jump the jump.  Back and forth.  Without me moving at all.  So all the work was Tibby's.

At the end of the seminar we did a little sequence of 1 jump wrap to a tunnel to a 2nd jump wrap.  Tibby did it and I think she read my cues pretty well :)  And that was after 4 HOURS of working! 

OH YEAH  and PS I had the wrong size treats AGAIN!!!  Every time I go somewhere they are either too big or too small.  Last night I spent an extra hour (around midnight) cutting Tibby's treats nice and small.  Then today Daisy said we should have big treats - like a cheese stick!  Or a hot dog!  Seriously I can never win.  Daisy would have liked the treats I brought to Jane Killion's seminar and Jane would have liked the treats I brought to Daisy Peel's seminar, BUT I can never get them at the right seminar!!!

So to re-cap if your couldn't tell with all my whining:  Good time, Tibby did great, Daisy was nice.

Confession Time

I did a bad, bad thing.  Or maybe it will be good. 

We will see.

I can never be happy with just floating along - what's wrong with me?!?

I always have to push the envelope.

Of course, that's gotten us this far....so maybe????  It will be OK?

I made some plans waaaay back in 2011 and now that the time is here...I'm not sure that we are ready.

But we're going to find out, I guess.

I have 2 'secret' weapons in my arsenal.  DAP - dog appeasing hormone and calming treats with thiamine, L-Theanine and Colostrum Calming Complex.

My list also includes: crate cover, crate, training bag, toys, treats, frozen kongs full of ground lamb and peanut butter, a chair, water, notebook, video camera, regular camera, human food, GPS, map, bandanna (for DAP) and Wonder Walker.  Plus some more stuff - like different leashes and stuff.

Nervous, but happy to be going.

The worst that can happen - we have to go home.

The best that can happen - who knows!