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."