Saturday, July 25, 2009

class on thursday night... and the private.

started with berlin in open. we finally got her back to regular heeling - we do a lot of close work where we almost run into each other, its good distraction work for the dogs. however, for one of the dogs in the class berlin simply doesnt trust it heeling close to her, so that freaks her out. other than that, her attention and such was very good. i still cannot get her to break into a run when we do the fast (even rah canters!) so ill have to work on that tomorrow. fig8's werent that bad either, she was much better attention. still need to work on her motivating for that outer post and driving forward to my right.

broad jump wasnt bad, we worked on fronts with the db in their mouth (rah's issue) and she was vERY lovely. i have one dog that wants to be in front all the time and another dog that hates it :) did a few flat retrieves, but she was getting tired. worked on tuck sits, and just played around.

rah in utility - started with signals and he was completely not paying attention when the entire group was together doing signals - he gets ahead of himself or he stops paying attention. need to work on that - LOOK AT ME ONLY.

moved to articles and he did a lovely job. need to remember to reward him for his efforts- his fronts may not be perfect, but he's thinking and putting effort into them, so he should be rewarded accordingly. but he had three perfect articles!

gloves were tough - i need to stop staring him down with the pivots and just look where the glove is going to be, because it puts him in perfect position. he shied away from heavy pressure at glove 3 (three dogs mulling around) and chose to mark spots on the floor????

go outs and directed jumping were PERFECT. he has no target sticks out there, just guide sticks along the way keeping him straight. the only mistakes he makes is sometimes when he gets 5 or so feet away from the gate, he pulls up short. need to keep letting him get all the way out there. the new people in class were confused because he does go outs to nothing at all, and all his rewards come from me. thats just how it had to be with him... i jumped him at full height too, and its kinda amazing to see!!!!

moving stand is better.

im bored and tired and not tired all the same. maybe someday ill get to that private lesson...

Thursday, July 23, 2009

binghamton redux...

the dogs and i traveled up to NY to the susquenango kennel club shows last weekend, since they had all the wildcard classes and such offered- dont get the chance to do those so i had to jump at it!

berlin showed in prenovice - most important thing for her was making sure we were up and happy in the ring and that she didnt check out. i should have read the rules of the class before we went in (i thought it was like the wild card classes) - i spoke to her during the run and we lost 6 points for that. she also couldnt do the stays (on leash, me 6 feet away) and thought they were fronts, so she fronted and didnt get any points for them - prior to these mistakes we were working a 192...

she had VERY nice set ups and good oomph for the ring. yes, i let her jump all over me, no problem there and i encourage it. i didnt drop her, though it looks like it - i remembered you cant carry your dogs in the AKC ring so she had to get down fast!!

she wasnt paying wonderful attention for the start of the heeling pattern, so i get no sit at first, and she wanders on the left turn into a small lag, but she kicks in very nicely right there and does pretty well even though we were run into the ring gates. fig 8 needs the most work (and this is the first time shes done one in a month) - her inner post isnt bad, but she wanders a LOT on the outer post - this is where i spoke to her. came back for nice sits though.

SFE perfect, i was worried since it was a male judge but while she wasnt happy and gave him major ears, she wasnt bad. recall was funny - you can see her ears moving paying attention to him while she's staring at me, she wasnt comfortable with him behind her. she does the front (and fixes it on her own) - but the finish was too concerned with him to give me a nice one the way i WANT them.

without further adieu, the video...




rah showed in rally - got his first COUNTING advanced leg with a perfect score of 100 and we lost to a BC who went 10 seconds faster than us! of course, this would have been his title had i not been silly and entered him in the wrong classes for the other two shows.
on the first station, he is trembling and staring at the jump, and made a motion to just take it - all he wants is the jump. in the end he's staring at the max200 tables and people who are playing with db's!!!




and then rah showed in wildcard open. i wildcarded his ROF, which is why you see me training the entire thing. he did pretty well - i was much calmer for him as well since it wasnt a title leg on the line!!!! still many things to work on, but we got to see in real show situations now, how his retrieve is - definite progress. he took second with a 187 or 188 - he hit the broad jump with a back foot but the judge didnt notice, but still lost 4 points for that exercise. the judge came up afterwards and told me that lost the class for us, oh well!!! i need to fix his heeling too - he's heeling by feel instead of actually watching me for many things, which is why i have no sits for the first halt. his transitions were pretty good, as were his set ups. i have to refocus on tuck sits as well right now.



overall very happy - the judge came over and complimented me on my nice working dogs! i was surprised too, since rah typically doesnt do well with male judges but he was fine!!!!!!! go figure...had it been a real open class, rah would have his CDX now! i was most pleased with this show, worth the drive!!!
god, ive been horrible with the posting lately!!!!!!!

the show went well over the weekend (ill update on that next, with videos!). i also had a private lesson on sunday with debbie (the agility intstructor).

last night we had agility first, then open.

started agility with working lateral outs and sequencing. berlin actually caught on quite well, but part of me thinks this is because we were sequencing to the tunnel and we all know she's a tunnel suck. but i have to remember that i need to intersect her path and push her to the jump. but she did well, and i didnt have to babysit the line or go up to the jumps. debbie says she will be like a bull in a china shop during agility - the dog who is so dainty and controlled in obedience is a MAD WOMAN in agility and jumping, pushing, biting all over. she's crazy.

we then worked teeter - added in some motion, clicked for adjusting their body over the pivot point. berlin was very cute and kept giving us 2o2o at the end but that wasnt the point, i verbally rewarded that though.

then we moved to training a 180, and did crosses with that too - berlin did well, and then added in contacts - it was very cute. in between working she ran over to the teeter and got on and stood there, waiting for her reward. debbie is right though, i need to maintain a better connection with her in between the jumps.

open - stays were fine. worked individual stuff, minimal heeling (im fine with that last night, i thought i would pass out). working his fronts with the ball like debbie told me (will be in another post), he's coming in much more focused but i still need to tweak it. did proofing games for the DOR when you drop them WHILE you are running backwards and my signals arent strong enough - he would only drop 50% of the time on a signal, but 100% stop on a dime with a verbal. maybe i should switch to a verbal in the ring?

can i also state that im in incredible turmoil right now - besides a rescue mal puppy that was offered to me (8 weeks), a friend of mine just offered me an awesome working bitch from her litter she just bred. OH MY GOD.

want. malinois.

Friday, July 17, 2009

up in binghamton for the show tomorrow --- had good training days - well good and bad!

ill hopefully update tomorrow with the classes and how the show went :)

Sunday, July 12, 2009

dump it all here...

god, im so behind in all of this again!!!!

the UDC show thurs and fri - berlin was dumped thurs and ray hated her :) but she passed her YTT with flying colors - naz (it was great to see her again!) said she did perfect - didn't alert too early, lit up without any encouragement from me and settled down after. rah was entered in the ATT (even though he's already passed it) and he was ridiculous :) as soon as he was out there he was keyed in on the car, knew an agitator was going to come out - oscar was on the phone though, so rah just stood there staring... finally after a minute he came out and rah started barking immediately.

the second day, berlin did much better and was E rated and earned the first CC towards her UDC CH !!! (she needs three, as well as the TT's and working titles). lots more happened, but im too tired to recall it all ;)

yesterday i was simply too tired to make it up to the trial, so i went to my training centers ob match instead, and got three runs for the dogs. berlin we just worked on attitude, ring set ups, the first start of heeling, we did a SFE and a few recall games.

rah worked open - heeling wasnt bad (though judy wants to know why he can do such nice fig8's but cant control his butt all the other times...), DOR was nice except his front was a little crooked (Everything else was perfect!), ROF we did games and no full retrieve, same for ROH, broad jump he anticipated (OF COURSE).

later we did a utility match - signals he was anticipating like crazy, he heeled, did the stand, but as soon as i gave him the down, he immediately gives me a sit and then a come front... i dont know if its that i am reflecting when the judge gives me the signals somewhere in my body or if he's just so keyed (both very possible) but that needs to be proofed. articles - he couldnt find the first, but i did two more and he slowed down and worked the pile and found the right article. his biggest issue as with any class is going to be him slowing down and THINKING.

moving stand was pretty much perfect.
gloves - we did 1, but he's choosing which glove he wants and the minute i pivot he drops his head and picks a glove. he just happened to pick the one i was sending him to. on glove 3 he's already picking too... we need to work on pivots separate when he's so crazy, with no actual retrieve at the end. and him not dropping his head.

go outs - were lovely. i think he's using the guides as his mark instead of the stanchion, so in class this week we will have to explore that. but his go outs were perfect and his jumps were nice!!!!

didnt get to class on thursday because of the UDC show... agility on wed was good, his open class was crazy.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

HIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

today we had a double CDSP trial, and we had a mixed bag - multiple NQ's because rah couldn't find go out if i had handed him a map... but...

we took High in Trial in the second trial with a 197!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and high scoring rescue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

im so proud of him - its kinda silly, but it's our first HIT!!!!!!!!!

ill type more later about class thurs (berlin rocked open, rah rocked utility) and what happened at the trial. but im tired and have stuff to do.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

expellllll.....

well, it's been awhile since i've updated the blog at all. been dealing with a few things here and there, my own issues, their issues, our issues, life in general...

had a match this past weekend.



class last night was good for both dogs.
started with agility - the class split up and we started working the weaves (full set of 12) - im intermittently rewarding berlin, sometimes for every pole, sometimes no click and just verbal marker, sometimes i jackpot her at the end with food, sometimes its a toy i throw, she never knows. she's got some nice speed and she focuses through the weaves and she does quite well. i should get the weaves out at home and take some videos- i should also invest some money (i dont have!!!) in good weaves, since ours suck.

then we switched and we moved to jumps and table work while the other half of the class worked on weaves (i was working with lydia and bunny). did jumps to table in both sits and downs - did sends, did running past with her staying on the table, did both sides and she was nailing it!!!!

then we had a few sequences we tried, working on pivots and different linda mecklenburg types of handling skills - her backey uppy thing, and all these lateral sends, etc. then we did a full sequence to see how the dogs would do and how we would handle it. berlin did really well as long as i remember to support my jumps and the line!!!!! she had great speed and was focusing well on me.

hung out and got dinner, lydia put bunny in the attention class. waited more and then rah had open. we worked on jumps and i spent literally 45 minutes working retrieving with rah, both on the flat and over the jump. did retrieves on the flexi, dead retrieves and recalls with the db in his mouth. he seriously just cannot focus when the db is in his mouth - because he was nailing totally off center fronts on regular recalls and was perfect. but the db gets in his mouth and the minute he starts dancing with his feet, he stops thinking. im getting so frustrating with what to do here to get him to think - i just want a fast front. i just want him to think about what his job IS.


unfortunately i came home today and rah has been vomiting and diarrhea-ing all over the house. im telling you, after the past month with my dogs having bodily functions all over the place, im seriously considering either 1) not feeding them at all (ha ha) 2) feeding them all kibble because changing the foods is throwing everyone off. i dont want to feed kibble thoughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.


im seriously getting lost with rah's fronts.