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.

1 comment:

Kathie R said...

Hey Kim, I have the same problem with Jackson. I can get nice 'look up' fronts from him on straight recalls, but put a glove or article in his mouth and he can't seem to look up. I'm trying to break it down in small segments now and just practice sitting and looking up at me with something in his mouth. Even bringing out the clicker to see if I can shape a 'look up' with that. Let me know if you find something that works!
Kathie R