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!