He told me he had to go potty, but it’s 5PM and it’s dinner time. So I asked him, “Well, do you want to go potty, then eat, or eat and then go potty?”
He stood there for a moment looking totally conflicted. Then he decided to go eat first.
And it occurs to me: this is the most difficult decision he has to make.
Eat, then potty, or potty, then eat.
Oh to be an Auggie. It would be awesome.
A few weeks ago I needed to get food for Auggie and decided I’d go to the Pet Supplies Plus, since it was slightly closer than the feed store we usually go to. Well, their prices aren’t as good as the feed store, so I decided to buy the big BIG bag to save some cash. I won’t have to buy food for like six months now. (Though I came up with an excellent solution to the issue of too much dog food… get a puppy! So far this one isn’t going over well with my family. Oh well.)
Anyway, I have no idea why I decided to give Auggie the bag after I emptied the bag into his normal food container, a vittles vault, and then a huge plastic bag… but I did.
This is the result.
I had to remove him from the bag. I think he would have stayed there for hours licking the bag if I didn’t take it away.
Week 10 is the beginning of the Problem Solving stage of the jumping program. This stage introduces one stride lengths, bounce distances, long and short strides, and higher verticals and bigger oxers throughout the different weeks. This is where a dog really starts to learn to look ahead and THINK about what is ahead of him rather than just rely on muscle memory to jump the same way every time. During the problem solving weeks, the setup changes each lesson whereas previously all three lessons in a week were the same. However, Clothier doesn’t want you to move on until a dog has basically mastered each lesson. Some dogs might need additional practice rather than just one day/series of six jumps to master a lesson. Auggie needed more practice on lesson 3 in this series… unfortunately, I forgot and moved on to week 11 without really allowing him to master that lesson.
This video shows lesson one, lesson two, and lesson three of week 10. The patterns are different every day and can be found in the book. Week 10 is about teaching one stride lengths, which for Auggie is 45 inches. You’ll see there are still oxers and verticals mixed in, and that jump distances change between two stride lengths and one stride lengths.
As you can see, day three (I should have changed my terminology to lesson three – sorry) is a hot mess more than once. The good news is that Auggie seems to be getting a real kick out of the jumping program anyway, even though the distances between jumps keep changing! And having fun is what it’s all about.
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