What a good reminder to all of us to take the dog in for a happy (at least neutral) vet visit every once in a while .... to weigh the dog, pick up a treat (or have your own with you) ..... what a good counterconditioning move for what can be a scary-smelling and -sounding place.

Good job, Sharon!

connie: my cody man has fear that has affected his life in negative ways. He could be doing great things in dog school, or competitions in rally or some other one. he loves to work, he loves to run and tries to do our ghetto agility course. but his fear keeps him from entering in. that is why I spend so much time trying to help him and my other rescues. Terra has fears too. I want them to be all they can be.
Tonight working on basic commands for the dogs, sit, wait, come, down, spin, touch, leave it. I am still not feeling really well so we will just keep brushed up on our basics. Maybe some pivots, some fronts with Bindi and some finishes. Going to practice having cody help me around the house by closing cabinets, picking up dishes, and laundry I drop on the way to the washer, on the way to the area where I fold them.
Sharon

Club night last night. Did some obedience patterns and long downs. Of course she was much better than in the trial eleven days ago.
I took some bites from the 150# Rott and from a 9mo GSD, a new member that has foundation training as a PPD. The dog was purchased from a well known kennel/PPD trainer in Cali, and came to TD for finishing. I initially thought she was a little young for that type of training, but she has over-the-top drives and a high threshhold, and has excelled at bitework and obedience.

Tracking this morning...very basic, just getting back in the groove.

 Quote: Sharon Empson

excellent way to get your dog used to the sights and sounds of competition too! You want to make sure your dog is ready in every way, not just the skills level, emotionally too.
Did you know that you can get your CGC (canine good citizen) certificate and when passed turn in your passing info (where you took the test, instructor etc) and get an akc number even if your dog is not a purebreed, you can compete in akc activities. I think the name is Canine Companions. Anyway look up the good citizen certificate on AKC web page and learn about it. my dog bindi is registered with them, she has a registered name now and a number. So, you might want to go thru that way. sharon

Unfortunately I live in Canada and I don't think they would allow that although I do have a friend that lives in NY. Maybe I could use her address. Sasha already has her CGN and her CGC. The CGN is the Canadian equivilant to the CGC. I'll check the AKC website and see what I can find out. We were working towards our CD but my work schedule doesn't match up with the training classes. That's why we switched over to Rally.

We've been doing alot of work on the left pivot and it's finally coming around. My girl is so big, it takes alot of motivation to get her up and down from a sit. We did a pretend trial in class on Monday night and when I asked her to sit, she just stood there and stared at me. Great focus, but that's not what I asked for. We were allowed to restart and ended up with a final (pretend) score of 184 out of 200. Pretty good for our first try. We'll be "bootcamping" the sit this week and continue to work on the left pivot and right sidestep.

Introduce a new smell for Harley. That went very well. I was even able to hide the target smell and get him to find it.

We will see if tomorrow goes as well.

Next week we also go back to agility class.

Trying to improve focus in the "fuss". Shortened the distance to just a few steps (lowered my expectations) and upped the value on the treats.

Bindi went to school today, did outstanding! She is so smart, you show her something a couple of times, and she gets it! Worked on leave it -weaved through cones, with fries sprinkled on the ground, unleashed, she soared with it. So glad I trained her not to get treats or anything off the ground. Working on the back command. She does it well, knows what she means, is not able to back up straight in the heel position. Will work on that. We also did the "visit" command. The visit command is where the trainer sits in a wheel chair and then bindi comes up and at the command of visit, she places her head on the knee of the person in the wheel chair and they can love on her. Bindi is not real hot at people touching her, but she loves people and loves to go and greet them.
We also worked on stand stays. BIndi did ok. the trainer came and walked behind her, that was a little unsetting to her, but I know she will do better as time goes on. She did stand and stay well, but a couple of times in the beginning she leaned in my direction if I moved. Then we went outside and walked the dogs on the right side of our bodies, the side command is what we used for that. Then we practiced sit, down, and stand stays as the handlers left their own dogs in stay and walked around the dogs and returned to our dogs. So, a great day.
With Bindi I am practicing fronts and hand signals, and pivots. Also the go round command. She is a great little dog.
Cody- fear issues, heel, place command, wait, go touch (hits balls with nose)
through (jumps through hula hoop) down sit,basic review.
Terra- Wait command, she is a little sneeker and when I turn my back she tries to slowly move, if I turn around she runs right back to sit wait position where I last let her. She is super smart, but has self discipline issues. working on those. She is very impatient. sharon

We have not done much this week, horse shoping and no agility.

We did so very nice short focus heel session, very intense play and some good long run in the wood.

Today it is kind of hot for the season so all the animals are sun bathing, Harley included.

Two fifteen minute sessions this evening. The first was transitioning Sadie from retrieving and holding the ball to holding a wooden dowel (which is the same diameter as the IPO1 dumbell, but much lighter). She initially refused it when I asked her to take it, so I tossed it a few feet and had her bring it. By the third bring she had gotten quite comfortable carrying it, so I asked her to hold it. She adjusted her grip and held it quietly, as we had done with the ball. After that, she took it and held it on command (for treats, of course).
The later session started with two "take it" and "hold it", then we did some flip finishes, some "places" and fronts, and worked on quickness and position in the down in heel position. We finished up doing some three-step "fuss" and some about turns. I turn to the left in the about turn and Sadie turns to the right, and I am working on speeding her up and coming back to focus more quickly.
We got a lot done in two short sessions, but still managed to leave her wanting more.

Advanture of the intermediate/advance agility class.

So we are working on getting the dogs to work farther away from us and doing tighter turns.

So the thing was go over the A frame then straight to a jump (handler not to go past the jump) 180 right turn to a jump.

Sequance 2 just A frame 180 to a jump Handle not to go past mid point of A frame.

Harley miss understood the sequance 2 as Go up the A frame jump off the top and get mixed up in legs anf land on your side the happily zoom around the class as he did snatch the tug out of my pocket. By the time I got the monster back in control the coach was tryng to find a was to build Harley confidence back to go over the A frame. I gave her the puzzled look and just pointed and said FRAME and Harley bolted off over and to the contact this time of the A frame.

Some how after that his contacts were all rock solid, maybe that knock some sence into him.

The class will be fun, we are only 4 dogs 2 advance and 2 intermediate.

The lady with the BC asked the coach if Harley was what they would call a very high drive dog as hers is said to be high drive. Coach said that no Harley was just a fearless crazy high drive dog but with a good focus as long as he is under order but by himself he is just nuts.