Sunday, August 24, 2008

reliving wednesday (and thursday maybe)

ill try, since one of my readers wants more berlin/attention in this blog, to remember what we did in her class. we always start with a little "pet dog" to get the dog used to LLW and focusing only on us and not other dogs, and then turn that into moving watch with the dog in front of me. then we did some heeling - in fact, a lot of heeling. we introduced halts the week prior, and did a lot of that -
halts all over the room, about 15 paces and then either about turns, right turns, or halts. she's getting very nice - offering me about 90-95% heads up attention heeling all the time, which is good for her! i sometimes lose her if someone gets too close to us while we heel because she sniffs them, and i lose her on fasts, so we need to work that - but other than that, her head and body position is superb, which thrills me. she's a very nice, happy worker. we're working on getting her to tuck when she sits - she's very funny. she gets impatient in heel position if we don't start soon enough and she starts moving, and when she's wearing her panties (since she's in heat), she flips onto her tail and sits on it with her feet falling forward, since it must hurt her to sit on her vulva, it's so swollen (sorry, TMI!).

we worked on short fronts, sit for exam, and SFE, some stays, and started working on the beginnings of a left finish.

sat out from open and then moved to heeling with rah - kathy heeled us for 30 minutes straight. STrAIGHT. have you ever heeled for 30 minutes straight? its kILLER. KILLEr. like, i couldnt feel my feet or my legs by the end. oh my god, i was dying. rah was pretty good - by the end even HE was tired. lots of heeling, pace changes, halts, turns, etc. but he was under a lot more control and i dictated to him that he HAD to give me a consistent head position and demanded it, i think kathy liked that.

thursday... i did novice and utility with rah.

heeled in novice much the same as wednesday (i think terry is just copying kathy's patterns so i have an unfortunate preview!) - he was a little less enthusiastic, but under control for the most part. did recalls, and he was nice! SFE was perfect, fig8 i needed to give him one correction on the first turn but then he was much better - i need to keep reminding myself that i need to stand up and take control! he held his stays and i sat out open.

utility was a comedy of errors - started with articles and he blanked on what he was supposed to do (After his marvelous job on the pile the week prior??) and he got corrected on the pile twice for just poke and grabbing - i realized he really had no idea of what he was doing wrong, so i backed him up a step, gave him an article with cheese on it in the pile, and he successfully did 4 after that.

gloves weren't bad - terry has him doing the actual gloves (with no pivots) and he did better, but i need to work on keeping a tight turn at glove 2.

signals were awesome as was moving stand (yay rah) but wow, go outs and DJ - rah had the silliest go outs i've ever seen - one was a bunch of circles before he made it out to the stanchion (WHAT??)....

yeah. ups and downs. his heeling and halts are significantly improved, though - at least IMO.


he hasn't limped on the left front leg since i got home. i tossed him two tramadol.
worked through a CDSP open run today at training, and did articles (he did them flawlessly), and he again had problems with go outs, something he never had problems with before. ill work those once we are done with the trial next week. intro'd berlin to the broad jump and the high jump.

then spent an hour BS'ing with elsie (terry's and kathy's mother, also a trainer) about people, trainers, dogs and the like.

pointless update

training on wednesday and thursday - nice heeling from rah wednesday, berlin did well. thursday rah was good in novice but utility was a little trying.

had a rental today, and worked rah a bit and put him away to work berlin. pulled him out and ...

he's limping. he's entered in 5 days and he's limping :(

Saturday, August 16, 2008

a weekly (late) update

class wednesday with beroo -
berlin says she doesn't want to train in panties. its very hard to do :) we did some heeling with heads up, worked on adding in halts. she wasn't half bad, but the rests in between are hard, and the rutebega says she cannot do any resting in a down position in between while wearing panties - she MUST ROLL ON HER BACK.

heeled rah for the heeling in between open/utility with kathy - kathy says im letting him bully me and i need to not let him do it, especially on the slows.

i forgot most of the rest. getting old, ya know.

thursday night - good stays, very good yay rah. did heeling and rah actually did some nice halts, woohoo! terry says we're actually coming together well, go figger! I do have to remember to stand up straight, control the situation, and not let him push me so much - set the pace we heel at, not let him set it. And not accept when he drops his head

Worked some recalls and he was nice and fast and ignored all distraction, yay rah.

Did a few nice ROF, but need to work on fronts - later on I put out the go out guides and used them to get straight fronts and he was amazing! ROH was perfect, he did them - two VERY hard retrieves, and i ended on that. broad was fine, nothing spectacular but i only did a few. we also worked figure 8 and i still need to remember again to stand up straight and NOT LET HIM PUSH ME.

moved to utility - and rah was a super star.

did articles first - i did two retrieves of the old scent articles and he did fine, and then i scented two new ones and he found them both as well - WOOHOO YAY RAH.

then we moved to gloves and terry let him finally do a fairly full directed retrieve, minus pivots - and he did fairly well! he didnt even shake the gloves THAT MUCH.

go outs and directed jumping were AMAZING - i was stunned. go outs were fast, straight. and then i sent him over jumps WHILE ANNE HEELED DUNE THROUGH THE RING and rah just did it and came to front. i ended on that because it was amazing. woohoo rah.

signals and moving stand weren't bad - his signals were quite good my handsome boy - moving stand would be better if his mom would learn how to communicate with him better.

im going ot enter him in another CDSP trial and i think ill also enter him in open for the second trial so i can move him up if he qualifies in the first one.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

CDSP

rah had the CDSP trial on sunday... two legs of his CD-H down!
first trial was good. i lost his attention going into the ring because the honor dog was milling about and rah turned to look at him, i got him back, but once we started the heeling pattern he was slow to sit for the first sit and he sat crooked. rest was ok. fig 8 was fine, a little pushy but not bad, moving stand perfect, and he did the recall over the jump perfect. honor down was fine! the judge was nice but really slow in taking my leash once we started off leash, so that flustered me a bit.

the second trial i did a game into the ring and had AWESOME attention setting up, it was great - ill have to remember that one. heeling was ok, but he was REALLY forgey on the slow and i didnt reign him back in. I lost first place for him in the second trial by being in the utility mindset and once I stood my dog, I just kept moving and didn't wait for the judge to tell me to leave him (it's a moving stand, not a normal SFE) - but I caught myself - but was already flustered! Then there were other distractions, Rah took his eyes off me, and moved his front feet when the judge came to touch him :) Silly boy! slightly crooked for the front after the recall, perfect for the honor. oh, and for the fig 8, once i took off my leash, i just held my arm out without looking at anyone, and one of the posts (linda sperco THANK YOU I LOVE YOU) took my leash from me - linda brennan is right - hold your arm out and SOMEONE will take the leash :)

Our scores were nice - 196.5 in the first trial (first place) , and second trial was 192.5 (second place)

i have to look and see if i blogged his private from saturday...

Saturday, August 9, 2008

classes schmasses

wow, i need my motivation to blog back :)

thursday rah had his dermatology appt (i should post about this in my lj, so if interested some can read about it there), and then we went to the beach, where my faithful LJ friends know rah ingested most of the atlantic ocean and then had it spew liquid diarrhea all over the place. it was thrilling, i tell you - thrilling.

i didnt think he was up for utility, so instead i did novice/open on thursday and worked berlin for part of novice - started doing some heeling with distraction and working changes of pace and changes of direction, about turns, etc. she did well - but when they went to add in halts to the equation, it was time to bring rah into play :)

worked rah and did some REALLY intensive heeling, so much so i was out of breath! i still need to work on his straight sits - his set ups are getting so nice, but his halts are sloppy because my footwork sucks... argh.

did some stands (awesome) recalls (VERY NICE attention and great speed and while lazy on the sit not bad with the fronts and more heeling. moved to open - his broad jump was funny but he did well, the ROF was nice - terry showed me that i need to stop staring him down when he brings it to me because it pushes him away. but his pickups were very quick and clean. ROH was very nice as well! stays were great, even when a dog that was next to him got up and walked around all over the place, sniffing! worked recalls over the bar and called it a night there, we were all tired.



had a private today, and she worked me to DEATH, to DEATH i tell you. of course, we did heeling and halts first - i need to get this footwork and body language down, and hold up my end of the bargain. i canNOT hold it against him if he sits crooked if i am not giving him good footwork to work with. i also have to stop using my body to turn him and just use the right footwork and give him body signals instead of "scooping him" - but all in all, by the end terry said his helling pattern would have only lost 1 point or so for his sloppy first sit and a forgey left turn, i think she said.

worked a lot of fig8's and i don't give him enough space - worked on my body language and taking charge and pushing through and he really responded, so i have to keep that up.

then we did more recall over the bar (since he has to do that tomorrow in the show) and we realized that i set him up too far, so he cannot do great jumping - i need to remember to set him up 12 feet from the jump.

im exhausted so im going to bed. wish us luck with the show tomorrow... i feel really unprepared.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

back in the groove

class last night, just for the berlinaroo. Rah came to just hang out to his dismay, because he offered me just about every behavior this boy has to get some training time in. i did a few pivots, turns, and some heeling before putting him in the car to appease him.

did lots of heeling - kathy has taken over the class with just some help on the side from terry, so its a little different. berlin did well, but its mostly a blur because we worked a lot.

rah is back in class tonight, which he will love. but first...

rah is off to the dermatologist today. yes, i give up. he's chewing himself raw, and i don't know what else to do.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

I didn't fall off the earth

I'm still here - I didn't fall off the face of the earth

Rah's classes have been out of session for two weeks and start back up next Thursday :) He's been insane and this past week I put him in an advanced beginners class just to work some energy off!

With so many things going on I haven't been training at home as much as I should, which is my own fault. I don't train at home as much as I should, period. Between life, losing Tyler and Watson this month, and so many other things, I just have been mopey and blah.

Classes start back up - Berlin on Wednesday in Attention 3/Novice (Kathy AND Terry are teaching this - it's my first real class with Kathy), Rah on Thursday in I don't know what yet - I want to get him back into Novice, but I don't know if I will do it yet? or just keep him in OPen and Utility at this point and then next session do Novice/Utility.

Rah has a private with Terry scheduled for next Saturday and a CDSP trial on Sunday, where we could potentially earn 2 CDH legs.