two rankings in one year...

APDT rankings are out --

rah is...

17th in the nation for the ARCH level!!!!!!!


two rankings for the year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


im on cloud nine :)

we didnt go to the match today - rah has only coughed twice, so i think we are DONE WITH THE COUGH _ ive taken him off atopica for a few days because i think it was suppressing his immune system and im letting him just fight this off.

speaking of this evil koff, one of the other dogs exposed (a dobe that my friend has) is in the ER with pneumonia now, so think good thoughts - i saw him yesterday and immediately transferred him to animerge, he looked like shit. poor tory.

its crazy having these housebound dogs (Even worse with the roo in heat!) is ridiculous - ive cut rah's portions back to his summer meal size (if you recall, rah eats next to nothing because he is so inactive over the summer because he hates the heat and normally is CRAZY in the winter!) - and im taking all the extra weight i can off of him since hes going to be jumping so much and i want him as lean as i can for obedience - a dog his size is going to be rough on the directed jumping, etc - so im keeping him at 90 lbs or so. which is rough on him, he says - its dog abuse.

going to get them up and work on some fronts, retrieves, and drops in a bit. havent worked heeling at all in weeks. that scares me that im showing in 6 days.

so help me god if there is a snowstorm next week and i cant get to training, im going to die.
i have to brave the weather and get to the mailbox and see if i even got into the show. some other people got entries today...

I'd like to share the following with you -


BERLINS LIFE IS OVER. she is full of woe. she is never showing again EVAR.

she came into heat last night (we dont want to talk about it) and she has to wear panties again and today she is full of emo about the entire situation. she also ate her pad and lydia had to induce vomiting. mental note - do not let her wear the XL thunder thigh panties unattended.

so she's on the sideline for the next month, she definitely wont be coming with us to see rah show (must make other plans for her). im wondering if she will be ready for march APDT?



my woe for the night? class is cancelled due to snow. I'm NEVER going to get back to class before rah shows. seriously - we haven't worked outside the house in at least 2 weeks - and if he gets into GSA's show next friday, an NQ is to be expected. eeeeeek. there's no class tomorrow night because terry is judging down in wildwood at sand n sea - thank god i didnt enter them or i would have had to eat those entry fees.




but in the midst of all this woe, i have one little itty bitty glimmer of HAPPINESS...

cdsp rankings came out, i didn't think much of it, i only showed rah a handful of times.

RAH?
my handsome blue boy?
made the Top 20 for his division!!!!
RANKED 11th in the nation in Nov B!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


can i get an
OohRah!

is there ANY way to search blogger for other obedience blogs? i can find 20000 agility themed blogs, but id really like some other competition obedience minded blogs, if they exist. ive found 3-4 other people, but there has to be more of us, right? i know its a dying sport, but id love to find more people....

SHARE WITH ME.

so, we're still clearing up the cough (now mercury has it). so do at least 5 dogs rah showed with 2-3 weeks ago. and so do tons and tons of dogs that go to doggie day care, one of which has closed down for a few days. and we're on high alert for canine influenza again, and animerge has sent out bloodwork. im not worried about this crew - they are getting better, but its clearly the viral strain as the abx aren't making a damn difference. it just has to run its (long painstakingly loooooong course).

but it means we're housebound. no match show sat. no show today. no classes last week. hopefully we will be well enough in 4 days to go to class this week. we shall see.

RAH HAS A SHOW IN 12 days. we need to get to class!

all we've done is work fronts. fronts fronts fronts. fronts fronts fronts. fronts frontst fronts fronts fronts.

great way to make your open debut - dont take your dog to class or train anything because he is infectious.

confusion????

since we're recovering from kennel cough here due to the new foster dog i took in (an 8 + year old dobe girl from PSPCA that has mammary tumors/cancer... did I post here about her??) we're not training this week at class... sad sad sad. we're also missing our match on sat (i will still work it, since im actually judging for half the day!). we shall see what happens for sunday.

been working at home - have rah's front platform built, he seems to get it! now to talk to terry about how to work it and fade it? far from that right now, though...

berlins also doing some nice db retrieves -s hes starting to play with it with her feet though, want to stop that.

i got some videos from people on one of the dog stuff lists, and i watched the anne marie silverton problem solving utility video this am, and it had a minor breakthrough for me...

i dont think rah is a dominant dog in the sense that he's an aggressive dog that will challenge and try to bite me - not ever. he adores me, he's a wonderful, great dog. but he's the type of dog that most dogs don't challenge, or people. he doesn't care what you do to him - he's just large and in charge. corrections dont phase him, he knows what he wants. yes, he has his irrational fear of things hitting him in the butt :) but is he a hard dog? i think so. in some ways, absolutely.

as i paraphrase anne marie (who has an amazing accent!)... i dont necessarily think rah is dominant. but if you look at it not as dominant, but HARD

"dominant dogs are very willing to learn exercises when its new and fresh, and perform it very well for awhile – then it falls apart. Then you think its time to return to teaching phase – DON’T – hes not confused, he’s challenging you. (If he was truly confused, he will threaten you – if he understood his job, but was just challenging you for the authority he will look confident) If you mistakingly assume he doesn’t understand, you avoid the corrective phase and just keep motivate and teach – creating a viscious cycle of coaxing your dog to obey you. "

the part in parenthesis is the part i dont think applies to me and rah, since we're never coming to blows. but challenging my authority, yeah :)

i think its hard to know when your dog is confused versus when they are choosing to just not perform the exercise correctly - im still not sure with utility for instance, and im looking to my trainer and we were discussing it with some othe rpeople in class last week when rah wasn't doing articles and directed jumping right. rah did directed jumping PERFECTLy when we used to do it, and he's sucked for the past few months now - so where has it gone? does he not understand (confused) or is he challenging me? we're not working the entire go out - i leave him out there in go out position and walk out to the other end of the ring, but often i cant even turn before he's chosen a jump to go over - he understands???? what the exercise is, but does not wait for direction from me. terry mentioned that his stress (remember he used to fear the jump falling on him after he had a crash with both the high and the bar jump separately) causes him to want to rush this; kris interpreted rah as wanting to get the FUN part out in his quest for self-fulfillment and waiting is boring, jumping is fun. would AMS say that rah not waiting for me to give him a signal to jump as a challenge to my authority - rah perfectly understands what the exercise SHOULD BE (and in fact 2-3 months ago, was doing directed jumping perfectly) but does not want to wait for me to TELL him which jump he should take, so he opts to choose for himself, giving me the finger in doing so?

i can see all three scenarios being correct for rah.

or is it a fourth scenario- he truly doesnt understand what he is supposed to be doing out there - he gets i leave him there and he jumps - but he doesnt understand the waiting for me to signal which one it will be, and doesnt understand the signals.

like i said, its hard to know when they are confused and need to be TAUGHT more, versus when they are perfectly understanding the exercise and just being disobedient. one deserves a correction, the other deserves teaching.

i think thats the crux of dog training, and its the difference between a mediocre trainer and a great dog trainer - knowing the difference.


ah, so much to think about.

open schmopen

rah's first open trial is in 21 days and counting.

started with stays last night - he was perfect, did them without his collar too. knock on wood there - he's also been pretty good with heeling into the ring for stays with perfect attention -he had been figuring out the second and third times we went in the ring he didnt have to pay attention and i dont want him to get in that mode just in case we ever have run offs - it helped that we had multiple trials in one day.

then while she worked on a stay issue with mulder, i did some warming up and baby go outs. if he cant find his reward he is searching the gates. BAD DOG :) but i am considering going out to the CDSP trial on sunday (in harrisburg) - i cant decide - its a 2 hour drive, but berlin could finish her CD-H and then i could enter rah in open - but he needs a go out for his open runs.

then we did heeling - rah wasnt bad, but he still did his "push your face into moms hand" when he gets too crazed. he was really huffing 15 minutes in (kathy is akiller heeler) and his eyes were turning red, he was so worked up -we did a lot of litle patters - forward right into a halt after two strides, then turns into changes of paces, about turns right into halts. something ive noticed is that at change of paces, rah tends to bounch in and out of them - i want him to stop doing that because it puts him out of position and he hits me when he does that.

after a killed session of heeling that lasted about 20-25 minutes, i was dying, so we broke up into individuals.

started with DOR. rah, in his infinite wisdom?????? i set up for the drop and left him - i had waited a bit because the judge may not send him immediately and he decided that we were ACTUALLY working directed jumping and took the jump???? i put him on the flexi and worked waits and straight recalls for a few, and then went back to drops, his drops were nice and fast- played a few get it get it get it games, then some more formal drops. also threw a few regular recalls in. im working on where i look for his recalls and seeing if that helps where he positions himself, and so far it is.

moved over to do the broad jump - he's doing really well iwth this. so far i have the go out stick on the jump to make sure he doesnt cut the jump and goes over straight, and 2 feet out i put a cone to ensure that he goes all the way out instead of landing and pivoting right there. i also put a cone to my left (his right) from where front would be, to make sure he doesnt over(actually, under) rotate his ass end when he comes in for that front - and he's been coming in beautifully. im also being careful to make sure that i dont stare at him the entire time he's doing this, which is helping him - just looking where i expect him. if he messes up, i leave him in a stand and have him come back in to fix the front, which is working well (he gets the jump part). furthermore, he's not anticipating the jump and waits well now! woohoo.

did ROH - put him on flexi (which he hates, and it showed) - he did nicely and i guided him in to front, wasnt' half bad. if only that would translate to front without the flexi. he's not mouthing his db anymore (less stress over fronts) but he's starting to not want to give up the db, so im showing him that i have rewards for him if he "reaches" with his head and gives up his beloved db. seems to be working well - need to do that again today as a refresher.

worked some on the flat too - doing well (same as over high) on the last one, the db took a nasty turn and when he turned he was coming to me and at the last minute he saw the jump and decided he HAD to take it - so he went over - BUT HE WAS STILL ON THE FLEXI. i saw our open debut going down the drain if he took the jump down (ive been jumping him almost near his comp height, too) - so i tossed my arm up as high as it would go and threw the flexi and it cleared by 2 inches, PHEW and he didn't even know. i also couldnt verbally stop him just in case he didn't make it over the jump because of me...

i forgot to work a figure8, but other than that, it wasn't bad. i stayed for part of utility and worked articles - brought him back to wek 7 and introduced some toys into the mix, and he worked it well. he kept trying to cheat :)