When did that happen??

Is it just me, or is time simply flying by lately? Maybe this always happens when puppies are around- the first year or so is measured in spurts and breakthroughs and benchmarks that all happen so fast.  One after another, something is always changing.  That’s life I suppose. Change is the only constant. 

But having a puppy sure does throw that concept into sharp relief.

Here I was having a nice weekend of training with the girls and realized that I don’t have a Pup and a Dog anymore, but two dogs.  Two demanding, pushy, eager dogs.

Sure, she’s still wiggly and naughty and gets into everything, but I think that might just be her nature.

She is part terrier, you know.

***

So the dogs and I had some very surprising and eye-opening sessions this weekend. The Pup’s was surprising and eye-opening because of the sheer fact of her being all mature and intense about working now. I suppose I started to notice her commitment level changed drastically last week, but the past few days have been somehow exponentially better.

The two most noticeable changes: obstacle drive and pre-run attention.   While she has been doing pretty well on sequencing one thing to another, she’s now starting to have some confidence. I guess what I thought was running before…not so much. Hello, Speed.  Nice to see you there between those jumps.   I don’t necessarily need to baby sit every step of her path now, either.  I’ve been gearing myself up for a long struggle with de-Velcroing her but it might not be the issue I had previously thought it would be.  She has officially started seeking out things besides the table and contacts- sends to tunnels and jumps are now on the books. 

The other thing, pre-run attention:  This has changed in that we have it now.  Before there was some ‘sniffy sniffy clover eating ok I’ll come do something I want to do now’ but at this point I just have to give her the cue to line up on either side and she’s magically there. Poof. Ready to do whatever is in front of her. 

Someday I will take video of all that magically grown-up cuteness. For now though, here is a little video of her full dogwalk.  This is the second session, all reps (as seen on FB).

 I think she is solid on the idea that Thou Shall Not Leap.  I don’t think that she has worked out her stride for the full obstacle.  It looks to me that she is very ok with the going up part, but occasionally being cautious across the top (she HATES crosswind), definitely changing strides for the down, probably in an effort to not lose control.  She has a tendency to balance her weight back whenever going downhill.  I’m thinking this will fade with time and confidence and she will run extended and head down the whole length, but has anyone else noticed this with their babies?

***

As for The Dog, I think I may have figured something out.  I’ve been racking my brain on why there doesn’t seem to be a lot of carryover recently with the running dogwalk.  I know a lot of it is courses and confidence and all the normal variables, but I thought there must be something basic that I was missing causing the rift between beautiful running in practice versus a show.  Wouldn’t you know, I think it’s the lack of toy.  Can’t get much more basic than that.

I was working on a course without carrying a toy, which I normally do in practice.   We got to the dogwalk and suddenly had a totally sticky show-like performance.  Did some experimenting and sure enough, she would only have the motivation to run if the toy was with me.  Huh. 

So yesterday we went out and tried some weaning.  I did get a few right away without a toy (having her natural high at the start of practice work for me there) and with a friendly set-up.   Then to keep her attitude in the right place we started hiding the toy around the course and asking for two nice dogwalks before she could go find it.  I always marked the dogwalks, but asked that she carry on a bit after the nice ones and then she had to stop and get praise and pets from me and THEN she got the toy.  I’m hoping the break up from our previous routine will help with some transference to the ring.  I’m sure the absence of reward/motivation in a show was probably not helping much.  We will see!   

***

Aside from interesting training breakthroughs, we had fun swimming and hiking both days.  The Dog was all kinds of naughty and refused to leave the lake yesterday.  Even The PUP came when called before her.  Naughty. 

Lastly- behold, two seemingly boring studies in dogness:

The Dog. 

The Pup. 

Why share these?  Would you believe that these are photos of two exhausted dogs?? No, really. Please bear witness to The Pup's first ever time being tired enough to lay down and not start destroying something. Amazing. 

Of course, ten minutes later she got a hold of her new special toy compliments of her sister and started going to town.

Pup Says...Riot has good GOOD TASTE!!! 

Feel Good Time

I’m not a very huggy wuggy person, perhaps my parents over-instilled a fear of stranger danger or germs, but if I were the sort to dole out hugs I would be doing that now.  

I’m really not that sort though.  Let’s just have a nice, long distance, no-contact-necessary moment here where I say thanks instead. 

Thanks for being supportive. For offering commiseration. For being pushy.  For giving feedback. For having a laugh. 

I really needed that.

I was a bit shocked- though why should I be? Dog people are the best people- at the help I’ve gotten in one form or another since yesterday.  Because of people taking the time to give that help, I’ve got a better outlook, I’ve got ideas, I’ve got a better understanding.  I’ve got a great dog, and I’ve got hope again.

Phew!

***

So we can probably cancel the suicide watch at this point and get back to our regularly scheduled program which references Velociraptors and crack way too much.

Speaking of…

Crack Puppy!  And here is a shot of her with the seldom seen Crack Ducky (he’s been shrouded in mystery due to the fact that she engulfs him in her giant mouth).

He’s seen better days.

Lucky she has a short attention span (which you can clearly see waning above) or he wouldn’t have lasted this long. 

Case in point: Give it two minutes and...

Pup and Ball. Friends Forever. Who’s Crack Ducky??

 ***

 I was taking my monthly side-by-side to chronicle Pup Growth and became a bit alarmed. Um. Is she bigger than The Dog now??? I’m not sure I can blame this on tricky lighting… 

One thing is for sure though- I obviously need her to learn to stand like a slinky BC and not a proud terrier.  The Dog looks positively diminutive. 

***

The Pup has no time for silly things like crouchy stands though. She is all about agility now.

I’m sad to say her crate suffered some substantial wounds due to her…um…enthusiasm… while waiting to work though.  Oh well.  At least I know she wants to play?

We had a really good practice with her last night. I am pleased to report that the short turn alternating is working really well for BOTH girls.  It’s harder for me to bust up the party once it gets going, but I’m learning.   It’s helped me become more focused and plan better too so we are getting a lot more out of our hour.

Anyways, so The Pup worked some on the Aframe, I think it’s about 4 feet at this point?  She seems to adore flying the apex. Her stride is a natural one to put her into the yellow so I don’t think I will need to do much more than train her to go up and off straight.  Which is awesome since I am The Anti-apparatus.    We also started really working on the full dogwalk.  I wasn’t sure if it was too soon to go full height- if she was too young? But she seems sure footed and pretty sturdy.  Plus she has a Helmut Head.  For protection.   So we back chained up and over and everything held up just fine.  She’s already doing the adorable leap from the top board to the middle of the down plank (flying the ‘apex’ of the DW!) so I think that tells us her speed and confidence are good.

We also started on some more sequences.  I was too into it to stop and video, but here are some tiny maps to allow you to use your imagination: 

Tunnel, tunnel, jump, table, A! In case your imagination is broken.

Tunnel, jump, tire, jump, teeter! Because it's not really that obvious, huh.

She was all about working out and seeking obstacles last night so I took advantage to start working a bit on sending. We used a TOY for the first time really and she BROUGHT IT BACK! And TUGGED!!! This was pretty huge.  SO much easier to train with toys, I am glad she is starting to get that part and especially get that part about playing WITH me.   I’m seriously going to send presents to all the dogs that have been demonstrating good tugging skills for her.  I really think that helped far more than anything I’d been doing.

Just when I think she’s had her agility ‘lightbulb’ she keeps getting better and better.

Now if only I could get her to stop eating toilet paper. 

Here we come, Quarterfinals!

Ok so the NC Regional.

On Monday I was all “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Tuesday was still “Yeah no thanks can we talk about something else?”

Today…ehhhh. Okfine. At first I figured if I skipped the written record it would be pretty easy to pretend it never happened, but admitted that overall that isn’t very good for posterity‘s sake.  Remember, one of the key originating principles of the whole ‘Project Concept’ was that I could also be able to look back and see what went wrong. So here we go.

***

Let’s just go there- not our best weekend.  Probably a top two lowest low actually (no weekend will ever be worse than the Great Lawrenceville Confidence Crusher of February 2010).  I’m still struggling a bit deciding on the WHY but here are the theories:

Too much AKC, not enough USDAA. I’ve been showing much less this year and more AKC than USDAA recently. I felt, the weekend prior and last weekend, very out of sorts and really out of practice.  I think that my little team noticed quite the change moving from one to the other- jump heights, spacing, endurance, course technical difficulty and range of skills needed all differ between the venues.   Reasons I think this is a valid theory:  We didn’t hit our stride until day three.  Day three felt normal again. Like our snow globe had been shaken and the glitter had finally settled.  Or maybe more like fitting a puzzle together- we had pieces but it wasn’t until we worked away at it for awhile that you could see the picture.  But reasons I dunno:  We flip back and forth all year, every year…don’t we?? And we train at higher heights and we train all the games and we train the spacing. Hmm.

Structural problems. I’m still on the fence as to whether or not the disastrous first day was Unpredictable Dog Attitude rearing its head or if she was really just that ‘out.’   Problems we were having were her deciding to wing out (China!) as opposed to coming in to me resulting in sad WHISTLE! or running Really. Slowly.  Reasons I think this is a valid theory:  We had a TOPS appointment for Saturday morning, they adjusted a LOT in her head, neck and shoulders turning her into Dog Jelly and she had no issues with not turning into me or running really slowly after that. But reasons I dunno: She DOES have her preferences and Day one was especially against those preferences.  And she DOES run more slowly when she doesn’t get her way or when she perceives that she chose wrongly.  Running slowly ensures correctness in her mind. 

Lastly.

Courses.  It is rare that I don’t enjoy a challenging course. Very rare.  Usually, we fare exceptionally well the more challenging and impossible the course appears.  But I didn’t love too many of the courses. They were very challenging, but really not in a fun way.  Many challenges were exactly opposite our strengths.  Reasons I think this is a valid theory:  We didn’t do very well on these courses.  The challenging courses I did like or that at least we could use our Super Powers on we did well on. But reasons I dunno: Mmm, none. I think this is pretty valid. At least as an excuse. (Insert smiley winky face)

***

In a general rundown of events, Day one was Master Gamblers, Team Snooker and Jumpers, Steeplechase and ICH Jumpers.  Gamblers was pretty impossible with the noise and chaos and impossible gamble- 2% Q rate in Performance and maybe 9% in Championship.  It was also the start of horrible non running dogwalks, as the theme for the weekend seemed to be dogwalk into nothingness. So that was the first thing to go downhill.  Snookers was funny- our team showed why we are called Solidarity: all three dogs made it to 6 with the same opening and bombed 6. Go team!  Jumpers was nuts, The Dog had her sad WHISTLE here and it was a mega disaster. The rest of the team fared well luckily.  Steeple was next and was the Very Slow Dog’s turn to make an appearance. So very heartbreaking to see that side of her.  Might have made it through anyways, but she had a runaround on the broad jump clenching that NQ.  Needless to say I skipped ICH Jumpers and went to the hotel deeply depressed.

Day Two was Masters Snooker, Grand Prix and Team Standard and Gamblers.  Snookers was terrible- she didn’t want to leave the line, didn’t want to do my plan; I changed on the fly to give her an easier (fun) tunnel plan. Ran out of time. Very depressing. Went to TOPS. Grand Prix after was actually lovely but one bar down on a wild rear cross. No byes for us (hence, Here we come, Quarterfinals). Very nice time though, even with a horrible slow dogwalk.  Then I flubbed my opening a bit in Gamblers, losing a few points, but all three dogs managed well enough.  Team Standard they all ran without Eing and The Dog and I finally pulled a clean run- but with the stickiest dogwalk I’ve seen in ages and overall it was pretty dirty for being clean.  Day Two ended again at the hotel in cranky depression.

Day Three was Masters Gamblers, Standard and Jumpers, Team Relay and IHC Standard.  Gamblers was ok as a warm up, again I messed up the opening and lost about 10 points from my plan but she did get the gamble at least. Standard was clean too, with another sticky icky dogwalk but a great listening dog and a really nice auto-drop on the table.  Jumpers was probably the one run I truly, truly enjoyed from the whole weekend.   She ran beautifully and fast and responsively and ended up in 8^th with all the placements within a second (I think?).    Relay was deceptively hard- it really thinned the herd but resulted in far more teams getting a Q then before the class ran.  Our team ran a lovely clean relay; apparently it was also very fast as they ended up winning out of 70 or so teams.  We are still scratching our heads over that but we will take it!  It also bumped us into a final overall placement of 6th which was really encouraging.   

We ended on the IHC Standard course- crazy hard but in that fun way.  She ended up in 10^th, 8^th for time, with the last bar down and about 1.5 seconds left out there on two turns.  Given that, I was really proud of her for keeping up with or besting the times of the actual ‘contenders’ and for just plain surviving the course.  Oddly, this was her best dogwalk of the weekend; no idea where this one came from other than the course was so engaging to her that she didn’t have time to stress.  And boy, was she engaged- normally a tight controlled course like that would put her into Thoughtful Dog mode, but this one seemed to crank her as she went.  Very nice to see at the end of the longest up-and-down weekend ever.

***

Ok, maybe it doesn’t sound (read?) that bad- but it was more the inconsistent nature of things that had me so depressed.  If you run a dog that goes out and runs predictably every time, consider yourself very lucky. Even if it isn’t lightening fast, or consistently clean, it is still better than the alternative of never knowing what you will get or how long you will have it.  I would love to get to the point where Practice Dog and Show Dog are the same Dog. Sometimes there are flashes. But we’ve got a long way to go.

***

On a light and fluffy note, The Pup had the most amazing time ever. She reunited with all seven or so of her siblings that were at the Regional.  She played with anyone that would have her. She screamed and screamed at the dogs running and only knocked one little gate over with her baseball head.  She is very grateful to her friend AMP who showed her the joy of watching dogs run and then the part about tugging on stuff when it gets too exciting, and to her other new puppy friends who let her actually tug with another dog for the first time (The Dog doesn’t tug so much as staunchly freeze in a position until The Pup tires of trying to wrest the toy from the statue’s mouth).  She worked on the practice jump for toys for the first time and stayed engaged. She only ran away one little time, and only because she was really obsessed with the skinny girl from Jersey for no explicable reason.  And she came back so there. 

I love that she is learning to thrive in a show environment; she’s seen from day one that shows are exciting and to embrace the energy. At this point, she works for me better in the high intensity settings than at home where it’s quiet. I don’t think there is going to be any problems with show stress in this one.  She might lose her mind, but she will have a wonderful time doing it. 

Maybe We ALL Need Bags on Our Heads...

We’re leaving soon for…dun, dun, DUNNNNN, the Regional.

I’m trying to be positive. Trying. Very. Hard. Tobepositive.

Also trying very hard not to hyperventilate.

I think it’s fair to say I’m feeling a bit unnerved at this point.

Once upon a time I worked really well under pressure.  Big events were ridiculously exhilarating for me.  My little dog loved them too.  The two of us, we never understood why people would look so green before a run.  Why dogs tried all means of avoiding these owners during warm-ups.  Or especially why some handlers seemed to live in the bathroom during a trial.  It’s like, fun, right?

Enter: FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN. 

Oh how times have changed.  Before, I had certain expectations.  If I handled the sequence with maneuver A, then the result will be B.  Sure there were some tiny blips of ‘oops’ but in the scheme of things, those were anomalies.  Extraneous variables making mayhem.  I had no reason to give way to the nervous ‘what if’ thoughts- I knew ‘what.’ 

Now, there is a whole host of ‘what ifs’ swirling around:

Does her shoulder hurt still?

Will she be able to run?

Can she manage 22” jumps?

What will she do on the dogwalk?

Will she decide to weave this weekend?

How will she handle all the runs?

Is the excitement going to help/hurt her attitude?

Any number of possible outcomes. Statistical probability of me correctly predicting any one outcome? I believe in clinical terms this percentage would not be considered ‘significant.’ 

Sigh. The good news is I'm so worried about the internal components, I haven't even started in on feeling external pressure from competition. But what I would give for the confidence to have a few expectations this weekend.   I don’t feel that I can ask for much, given that I will be lucky to have her whole enough to actually run. And of course, given the huge training unknowns we are working with currently (ahem…talking about YOU dogwalk).  This makes setting goals…difficult.  But I can’t imagine running without ANYthing in mind, so here we go:

I will make sure she has a good time.

I will not converge on her line on the contacts.

I will find the good in every run (unless we have a no point run in Snookers. Then I am exempt).

I will trust in her skills and will handle normally so she can trust in mine. 

If we manage that much, it might be a successful weekend. 

***

Thank goodness I have The Pup.  No one can snap me out of a funk better than her.  True, that’s usually accomplished by destroying/stealing/hiding/alloftheabove something of mine.  No one can say she doesn’t get the job done though. 

Why, just the other day she stole a jewelry box off my nightstand and chewed it up.  I salvaged the earrings stored inside quickly, but then noticed the necklace was absent.  I was sure she ate it.  I spent so much time looking for the necklace and watching her go potty just in case that I completely forgot to hyperventilate about The Dog’s dogwalk.  Thank you, Pup! (P.S. Don’t worry- she had just hidden the necklace for safe keeping…and NOT in her colon.) 

Pup, convinced rawhides are NOT all gone.

Pup, getting brain damage making SURE they are all gone.

Pup, making her own substitute chew toy.

Must be nice to be her. 

Debbie Downer: Guest Blogger.

Well, this has been an interesting week. 

Not necessarily in a good way, either.

So last Tuesday The Dog looked a bit off at class to start. Not limping, just moving a little uncomfortably on the ground. Slightly awkward over some jumps.  She smoothed out well by the end so I assumed the ground and clumpy grass in the one area were throwing her off a bit.  Wednesday for practice she looked great, despite the heat, and was moving very well, jumping beautifully.

Then she fell off the dogwalk.

It could have been worse- she landed well balanced on all four feet with minimal twisting and did NOT hit the dogwalk support (thankfully, close call there).  She was unscathed; not so much a real fall in my mind as a slip.  But her mind was the one that counted more, so after checking her out and walking her around I sent her up and over once more. Her opinion was ‘NO WAY am I going to run this thing, thankyouverymuch.’   OK. Don’t blame you. So we went home and decided to ignore agility for 48 hours. 

Friday we ran out and did five minutes of dogwalks and they were all perfect. Every single one.  She didn’t appear mentally or physically broken so I was back to having some confidence for our one day of showing Saturday, having been nail-bitingly nervous the past two days over what damage may or may not have been done.

So Saturday.  Sigh.  I had three reasons for entering:

1)      Try and get a GP bye for next weekend

2)      See how her dogwalk looked ‘in public.’

3)      Remind her how to jump and me how to handle at 22”

Really a big fat fail.

The layouts couldn’t have been more ‘helpful;’ they were lovely courses for her with fair approaches and exits to/from the dogwalk.  She has trained at the facility for two years and has never had an issue with the footing; I’d say it’s historically her best surface actually.

Gamblers to start- did three dogwalks, all leaps, deceleration on the descent.  Gamble was an afterthought which she got with barely enough opening points. Lucky for me she took several jumps that weren’t in the plan?

Grand Prix next- I really liked this course. I had a good plan for her dogwalk so was pretty confident.  Wouldn’t you know, winning time by a second, pretty nice dogwalk actually (probably still a leap but no visible deceleration) but a bar down. An easy bar.  Just…deflating.

Same story in Standard after that, one easy bar down, except in this run her dogwalk was pretty horrible. It was her bad side, but she came off towards me rather than fading away which she normally does on the right. It was ‘in’ but really weird. Hoping that the wooden dogwalk had something to do with her lack of confidence (she slipped off a wood one, and this was VERY loud in the building) and that rubber will prove more successful in the future?

Snookers was a REALLY fun, exhausting course with a crazy hard 4-5-6 sequence.  She had a lovely opening- I led out through the whole course and recalled her through to the tunnel.  I haven’t tried that start since February maybe and she was infinitely better this time- she ran! Woo!  She did the crazy hard pull from 5a to 5b (passing by two inviting jumps) really well…and then knocked 5b.

At this point I was starting to be reminded of a few weekends earlier this year: all these uncharacteristic bars, strange movements earlier in the week, major crabbiness when playing with The Pup… shoulder?  So I checked her out and sure enough it was unyieldingly tight- a huge difference from stretching out earlier.  Took her for a massage and found a knot was hiding in there.  It made sense; the bars were coming down on that leg. 

Since she had a massage and a huge break between Snookers and Jumpers at the end of the day, I decided to run her.  I waffled for awhile but she was peppy and eager and her gait looked balanced.  Really bad call. She looked unnatural out there, sort of tossing herself over in a huge effort, not extending out at all. She ticked about 6 or 7 jumps and while none came down just…ugh. I felt awful for running her.  Considering how much she has been enjoying Jumpers again lately it was a pretty big sign as to how she was feeling. 

***

It was a terrible run to end on. It didn't get much better after, with me needing to ice her and her still subtly favoring her arm a day after. At this point I have really very little positive thinking left for next weekend.  I’ve been telling myself ‘no expectations’ for the Regional all summer aside from doing our very best and having fun. So while we haven’t been out there training for the big win, we’ve at least been working towards our own personal ‘A game.’   If her shoulder issue has decided to stage a comeback now, I don’t think we can even do that. I'll be lucky to run her in Team I think. So yeah. I’m depressed. I don’t want to break my dog. I don’t want to break my dog right before a show I’ve been looking forward to all year, when we’ve been so careful to NOT break her and condition her to be strong and UNbreakable.  

But I really, really just don’t want to break my dog. It makes her sad because then she has to rest and doesn’t get to play with the balls. And that makes me sad.

***

Speaking of balls though, a bit of good news... sort of? The ball that was lost over the fence the night The Pup killed the blinds was finally returned. Um… again, sort of. He just isn’t the same anymore…

He used to be a bright orange spiky ball.  He was The Dog’s favorite toy that week.  When he disappeared over the fence, it was a sad moment. The next day I had intended to ask for it back.  However, when I peeked through, he was…gone.  I figured they had tossed him back into the wrong yard. The Boyfriend went to the store and bought a whole flock of replacement spiky balls. While The Dog enjoyed Pink and Green Spikey Balls, she ignored Orange Replacement Ball.  At least the girl has some loyalty.

Replacement Ball... just not the same.

But anyways, the other day, we went out in the yard and there he was, waiting. The Pup found him first and rejoiced. Then The Dog.  But when I went to see what they were playing with, I couldn’t help but recoil a bit.  Old Orange Spiky Ball was not so much orange anymore. He was totally see through.  It was…creepy. 

And he doesn’t act the same anymore. He just sort of sits around, not wanting to join in on Toy Basket Molestation Time with the other Spiky Balls.

Toy Basket Molestation Time.

 Staring. Creepy.

Ah! Oh it's you... you scared me!

Naturally I assume ABDUCTION.  The Boyfriend thinks he went into the neighbor’s pool and got bleached. But the dogs and I know the difference. Alien abduction. Obviously.  He’s gone clear from the trauma. Or the experiments. We aren’t sure. He’s not talking.

Staring at the pool? Or into space? 

***

Oh, and I got cute new running shoes (really, they ARE cute, this picture doesn't do them cute justice).  So in the event that my dog isn’t broken beyond running, we can run really fast.  They are as minimal as I’ll ever get. And they are PINK! 

Spending money is excellent therapy.  I'm still a Debbie Downer, but at least I'm a Debbie Downer in cute new shoes. That's the first step to starting down the path to recovery.

Dog Days of Summer

What a nice, lazy weekend.

I’m really glad I signed us up for some weekends off this year.  While the trade off is probably going to be not finished her Silver ADCH this season, it wasn’t technically a goal so… not a loser?

We did a smidge of agility training on Saturday at a fun match.  I went to see about getting The Dog on foreign dogwalks, but unfortunately the course was pretty dense. She had a few that she tried to run but then a few that went one way or another because of the compression.  Ran out and did a few at home after and those were perfect.  I think we just need to keep plugging away at Project Make Contact with Contacts.

Besides the dogwalk, she did very well. The flooring was interesting. I love watching her acclimate to various flooring types. It’s a superpower of hers for sure.  I had her run 24” for one of our runs and she was pretty marvelous.  While we try not to make a habit of over-jumping, it really helps me with timing.  I can’t get away with things I get away with at 20” or even 22” so it keeps me an Honest Leader I suppose. 

***

But aside from those 6 minutes or so of warm-up and practice runs, we were really very lazy training wise.  The Pup did a few tunnels and started some work on ‘front.’ Other than that we all generally felt that our time would be better spent playing with our collection of brightly colored spikey balls and watching cooking shows.  And eating Tres Leches cake. So. Much. Tres Leches cake.

Yesterday though, we did have an adventure.  Seemed that if we weren’t going to use our time for training then the best thing to do would be letting dogs be dogs. What better place to do that then at a dog park?

Turns out, there is an amazing dog park that puts all other dog parks to shame right down the road from me (thanks to our friend for pointing out what should have been obvious since I drive by it every day!).  Not only does it have a huge field to run and play in, but there are tons of trails for hiking.  And it was all fenced, so no worry about certain Pups running away never to be seen again (ok, minimal worry). 

So off we went to the park. I was extremely nervous when it came to letting The Pup run free, but she nearly asphyxiated trying to chase The Dog while on leash as we were walking through.  I let her off in the open field and let the girls chase the ball a bit. And The Pup didn’t run away! Even when she got the ball, she stuck around.  Even when other dogs came into the equation! And people!  Shocking.  More shocking still- she even kind of came when I called her.

When we continued on our tromp through the woods, I crossed my fingers and let her run free. She was so good! She stuck around, checked in, and moved along when we encountered other groups.  I’m pretty sure she was just following the excellent lead of The Dog, but I’ll take it! Whatever it is that means I don’t lose my little Alice Puppy down a rabbit hole is good enough for me.

At one point, we came to a muddy path that I tried to avoid by picking through the woods next to it.  In that time I lost all view of the dogs and was about to freak out a little since I knew there were lots of other dogs close by.  As I jogged out of the woods, I still couldn’t see the dogs, but I saw the lake.  Apparently, so did The Dog.  All of a sudden, there she was. Floating in the middle of it with her ball. I guess she has really missed swimming! She refused to come out until she was relatively sure I would be playing along, but I was more than happy to oblige her a few throws.  What an adorable River Rat she is.

Oh, and you’ve all heard the myths about Border Staffies and water, right? I can say now, having seen it with my own eyes, that the legends are true: Border Staffy plus body of water equals magical transformation into an otter or similar sea creature!  I didn’t have to coax, bribe or otherwise cajole her; The Pup took one look at The Dog in the lake and dove in after her. Zero hesitation.  If I would have blinked, I would have missed it! Next thing I registered was that she was swimming like she’d done it every day of her life.  This, from the dog that screams in pain at the sight of a bath or hose down.  Eyeroll.

Baby's first swim! 

River Rat and Sea Otter!

So that was our adventure. Really glad to have found the little lake so now we FINALLY have a place to swim close by!  Gotta love these results:

Things. Just. Got. Real!

Guess what this is!

Go on, guess! (And don’t just guess “paper.” That’s lame.) 

Give up? Well- it’s a registration form for The Pup’s FIRST SEMINAR!!

I know, I can hardly believe it myself.  I wouldn’t have done it if the seminar weren’t months away. (November.)  I really wanted to attend a seminar by Tracy Sklenar, having heard that she is just wonderful- fun, informative and open-minded (my absolute seminarist ‘must-meet’ criteria!)- from everyone on the planet.  Unfortunately, the “Master Handling” portion was on a Friday and all my vacation is already allocated for the year. That meant that The Pup was going to have to step up and be the working girl, so I signed her up for the Novice Handling day. 

I was pretty much vomiting after I decided to do this- I mean, I haven't worked her in agility more than one or two 10 minute sessions a day.  I have never worked her around other people.  The only thing that kept me from being absolutely sick was the fact that this is several months out- plenty of time to start increasing difficulty. 

But in fact, it turned out to be a REALLY good choice. I was struggling a bit for goals for her at this point. Now, having something to work for, I feel back on track.  So goal driven was I yesterday that I went out on the skimpiest new bud of a branch ever and brought her into a puppy agility class last night.  I continued on my scary limb and put her on the more advanced puppy side, figuring that if she went into total ADHD mode with wanting to chase the other dogs I could defect to the newbie side and work attention only.  

Amazingly, my branch didn’t snap! Project Pup Prep went really well. Like, REALLY well.  She didn’t forget her name, didn’t spaz over every dog/person, and had so much fun she forgot about chasing butterflies and eating clover (ah, mostly).   I had unprecedented attention for the first half, then it waned a bit on the second half (the clover side). But she still stuck with it; only running away to see Marvin once when she wasn’t supposed to. 

Things I learned:

Marvin is a godsend (ok I knew that already)

Clover is catnip for dogs

Long wet grass turns her into Ms. Dainty Paws. She also couldn’t put her butt in the grass and instead sort of crouched.

Watching other dogs run isn’t ALL about wanting to chase. There was definitely a jealousy element. The times I let her watch them run she would run full board on her turn. 

She likes to become one with the equipment. 

I sort of guessed that one before, but it’s pretty obvious what will hold her attention AND enthusiasm- if she can’t go on, over or through it she gets a bit ‘meh.’  She was very much into the contacts, weaves, tunnels and tables (and even the tire!) but when it came to running through jump standards she thought it was lame. Where’s the risk in THAT?? So we need to get more involved with flat work and make it crazy fun, not just a meal ticket.

Overall- really had a good time.  Both of us. And she was…different… after. Not so obnoxious at home- much sweeter and attentive to me.  So we will be going back!

 ***

After all, anything that keeps the Decepticon from surfacing is well worth it for that reason alone.  I’m thinking this is the outlet she needs- not enough stimulation and too much being left to her own naughty puppy devices has been…not so good for the house recently.

Exhibit A.

Um... I didn't do it?

Farewell expensive light-blocking blinds. We shall miss you!

***

Oh, and of COURSE I can’t post without mentioning a certain Dog.  I had a horrible practice with her on Wednesday- bigtime dogwalk struggle.  Really, I blame the heat for the bad practice AND The Pup’s mutilation of the blinds. Watch me reason the crap out of this-

Dis otta be good.

So, it’s HOT and humid and because it’s hot and humid the ground can’t absorb all the water, so it’s all muddy. The mud got all over The Dog and made her all slippery which made her dogwalk performance suck, which made me move the dogwalk out of the mud, which made it too close to the fence, which made her miss it worse.  So when she FINALLY got a rep I chucked the ball hard in joy, which increased her exuberance, which when combined with slick slobber from the heat made the ball SHOOM into the neighbor’s (locked) yard.  The Dog then refused to do any work, so I had to get the ball, which meant shoving the dogs in the house so I could go try to scale the fence without falling on them. This led The Pup, who had not yet been allowed to play because the dogwalk was too high, to throw a tantrum inside, which caused her to pull the blinds off the wall and murder them.

I told ya- I DIDN'T DO IT!!!

See!!?!? Stupid weather.  

Anyways, last night I began Project Make Contact With Contacts- an attempt to get  The Dog on as many different dogwalks as I could and try to get her to run each from the get-go (no encouragement period).  I am pleased to report that phase one was a complete success and she ran EACH dogwalk last night.  One leap and one sticky in there somewhere but ended with her best reps yet. The only downfall is that I cannot yet turn her tight AT ALL without sacrificing stride. All such experiments failed. Eh, homework. 

Tomorrow phase two continues with a fun match!

…I love projects!