Punkin Pictures
I bought pumpkins yesterday morning. They were on mega sale so I was like “I will take all your pumpkins plz.” Actually I only bought five, but I wanted more…
Uhhhh unfortunately most of our family photos looked like this.
This was the best I got, haha. Pepper needs remedial stays again.
Just the boys <3
Auggie saw all the pumpkins and the leaf pile and was like “Oh. *strike a pose*” He just knows… he knows. What a good boy.
I told Payton his turn was next and he decided this is what he wanted to do. Also pivots using the pumpkin as his perch. I’m not sure if I should facepalm or be proud.
Since Payton started it I asked Georgie to do the same thing. SHE IS SO CUTE AHHH
Not in focus =< but it's sooooo cute.
The over-achiever, LOL. Oh Auggie.
Aaaaaand the under-achiever, haha. Poor Pep.
Leaf Pictures
I may have a good reason to re-do the family photos this weekend…
Boys! LOL at Payton with a leaf stuck to him.
All three puppers.
Excuse me while my big dog is devastatingly handsome.
Auggie is the bestest boy.
Seriously, it’s kinda ridiculous how good looking he is. Not even a show dog, Augs.
Oh? But I so pretty.
Yeah, he definitely knows he’s a handsome boy.
And then there’s this thing.
This…
…thing.
I guess he’s kinda cute. Maybe I’ll keep him.
Oh fffffffff seriously? Fine you can stay.
Yeah okay, he’s sorta handsome too sometimes.
But only sometimes.
the rest of the time… uh…
That’s okay. I pretty much like him anyway.
Girly!!
She’s actually very good at posing all by herself, but when you try and get them all together, she can’t hold still.
Yeah she’s pretty cute too.
The end… for now…
Auggie’s Retirement Video
I keep trying to put things into words and just… can’t. We finished our last run and I walked out laughing and smiling, then I took a breath, it sunk in, and I started to cry. It wasn’t a sobbing ugly cry like I thought it might be. Just tears rolling down my face and a bit of not able to say anything. He is just such a great dog and I love him so much. I know our journey together isn’t over, but this part of the story is, and it hurts a little. This is not how I ever pictured it ending.
I am now looking around to find somewhere he can play flyball, because I really think he would love it. We’re going to get back into getting him on sheep too. His breeder gave him a big kiss yesterday and said “You can still come to my house and play.” I know it’s not over. Stuff will be set up in my yard for the baby dogs and we will play on it. Just because we aren’t competing doesn’t mean he won’t play agility anymore. It just means I’m no longer throwing money at it, and we can just… have 100% fun without the pressure of trying to “fix” issues anymore. It’s all about fun from here on out and that’s how it should be.
until we start playing flyball.
Painting Helpers
Yesterday was Payton’s annual. My new house is halfway to the new vet’s office, so Pay came to the new house with us while we painted yesterday. He was a very good boy, but I thought it was immensely unfair that HE got to be the first dog at the new house. So Auggie got to come today. My mom decided to also bring Georgie, and because that wasn’t fair to only take two, Pay came along today too.
All three dogs “helped” while I was painting my new master bedroom. Would you care to guess which of the three did NOT come home blue?
Can you tell from this photo??
AUGGIE decided to curl up in the corner of the room right up against two freshly painted walls. AUGGIE!!
You might not be able to see it – I didn’t see it until we all packed up to leave and then I went “hey, WAIT A SECOND.” It’s on her tail and there’s a small bit on her side too LOL. I have no idea when this even happened.
So PAYTON was the only dog who didn’t get in the paint! And he had TWO opportunities to get all painted, yesterday and today! What a good pupper.
The girlie, just because. Not the girlie I wish I was taking a photo of. I’m very unhappy because this house is taking a lot longer than I expected, and the longer it takes, the longer it takes to bring MY girlie home…
Someday. I hope it’s soon. =<
Payton AND Auggie at the lake!
I was packing our swimmy bag and put Auggie in his crate. He cried like he normally does when I’m going somewhere with Payton and without him. Mom and I went outside to put our sunscreen on and he started crying louder. “I think he wants to go, but he has no idea,” I said.
We came back inside to grab our stuff and Mom said “He wants to go…”
So we took Auggie with us.
Payton went in the swimmy first of course.
And yes, if you’re wondering, I convinced my mom to go because I REALLY wanted her to take photos of Payton swimming.
Cute puppy <3
My little guy. He looks so proud of himself when he reaches the shore. Like =D =D =D LOOK WHAT I CAN DO
Then… guess who had to swim next.
“Okay, I THOUGHT I wanted to go… I didn’t want to go.”
“OMG I thought I would never make it to shore.”
Payton actually chose to swim OUT away from the shore today. Especially after I had just taken Auggie in. Because while I was in the lake with Auggie Payton was on the shore SCREAMING “THAT’S MY SWIMMY GET OUT OF MY SWIMMY THIS ISN’T FAIR.”
I have no idea what’s going on here but I think it’s a cute picture of us so there.
Happy swimming Payton…
So yeah, this is how Payton swims still, LOL. Flailing a bit, butt sinking down, searching a bit for when he hits the ground to push off – it’s like a hop-swim. Sometimes if he’s in really deep water he will even out and just swim. I think he just needs more practice in deep water where he has to REALLY swim rather than shallows or my little pool where he can kick off the ground… or maybe not, since he loves the pool too, and who am I to tell him what not to do when he loves it?
He really does love it.
THE BUMPER! We had major success with the bumper today. He played with the bumper IN the water which he wouldn’t do last weekend.
AND he would even reach down and grab it from the water and retrieve it for me! We celebrated each retrieve with a huge game of tug. There is no public dock for me to use here, but there is a ledge. I decided the next best thing was to put Payton on the dock, toss the bumper into the lake, and tell him “get the bumper!” He would jump down off the ledge then run into the water to get the bumper and bring it back to me. Hey, it’s close, LOL.
Auggie LOLOLOL. I don’t know why I always find Auggie’s disdain so amusing… sorry Augs.
So my mom came up with this GREAT idea… racing. LOL.
I call Auggie my little tugboat… because he just churns along, smooth and steady. Honestly Auggie is the far better swimmer of the two.
And Payton meanwhile tries to catch some air when he swims LOL.
Auggie won EVERY race we had, by the way. Including when Payton had a head start. LMAO. I’m not sure if I should say “oh Payton” or “oh Auggie” here.
I do believe this photo sums up both their feelings on swimming quite well.
My dirty FILTHY dog!
I’m totally sending this one to his breeder. “Oh his sister is winning at conformation shows? That’s awesome! Here’s mine.”
And if you’re curious how he got that way – like this. Including rolling ON HIS BACK and wookie noising. NOW I definitely know I should say “oh Payton.”
I feel like Payton is coming along well for sure. I’m hoping to take a few trips to the small dock at a local lake (not nearly as big as this one and I can’t swim in it) and see if I can’t get him to jump off the dock and snag me the bumper. It’s not into deep water but it’s a dock nonetheless. Baby steps. The Dock Dogs event I want to take him to is in TWO weekends… so we shall see.
Kicked Out Of The Nest
Yesterday I was about to let the dogs back outside after their dinner and my dad told me to wait – there was a baby bird in the yard that couldn’t fly. Georgie found it and tried to make friends. He rounded her up and brought her back inside and was going to make sure the bird had left the yard before taking her back outside. I took the spade to our scoop and shovel set and carefully herded the baby bird through the fence into our neighbour’s yard where it would be safe from puppy mouths.
This morning I let the boys back out after their breakfast… and Payton discovered either another baby bird, or the same one. He tried to introduce the bird to his mouth, but decided it might not fit, so he proceeded to chase it around the yard trying to figure out HOW to get it to fit in his mouth. Auggie watched him for a minute, kind of confused about what was going on – until I came running out of the house, in my pajamas, barefoot, with my toothbrush dangling out of my mouth (see, I was halfway through brushing my teeth when I let them back outside) trying to yell “NO PAYTON DON’T EAT IT.”
“Don’t eat it??” Auggie thought. “Technically she said ‘PAYTON don’t eat it!’ That means I can NOM NOM NOM NOM!”
So I’m running around the yard after my dogs having more or less just rolled out of bed and looking like it, Auggie hopping around trying to dart in and introduce the bird to his belly, Payton POKING the baby bird repeatedly with his nose trying to determine the best way to eat it, and meanwhile there’s apparently a whole flock of birds up in the trees screaming, “OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD” or something like that. I’m not really sure what birds actually scream in cases like this. And I’m trying to grab both dogs, and as soon as I catch one the other one darts in to try and eat the bird instead. So then I have to try and grab the other one, and the one I’m holding manages to wiggle free. This went on for what feels like five minutes, but was probably only about 30 seconds before I managed to lift Payton into my right arm and Auggie into my left arm, then marched back towards the house with one sheltie under each arm, while the birds continued to scream “OH MY GOD I THOUGHT WE WERE ALL GOING TO DIE.”
This happened a few years ago, actually; Auggie kept discovering tasty snackies in the yard. I thought at first the birds were going suicidal – or that one baby bird in particular kept hopping into our yard on a dare from his birdy friends – but a friend told me certain species of birds will push their babies out of the nest before they can fly. Supposedly they still care for the baby bird in the bushes on the ground until the baby learns to fly (by screaming OH MY GOD OH MY GOD when two dogs try to devour it.) and will take off on his own. So I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on again, and the bird this morning was probably the same from yesterday.
Unfortunately we have feral cats around here so baby bird is not likely to survive very long on the ground, even if I can successfully prevent my shelties from introducing the baby bird to the inside of their bellies. In the meantime, I’m glad none of my neighbours were outside this morning to witness the ridiculousness that occurred.
Training Challenge 8/13/12
Okay, these are going to be pretty tough to keep up on. I close on my house NEXT WEEK. Holy crap! From there I have a week of vacation but it’s likely going to all be spent working at the house, getting the major Must Be Done Now things all taken care of before we can move in (like finishing the fence in the backyard!)
This weekend was incredibly cool weather wise, hence why Henri came to pay us a visit. The cool weather will be good for working at the house, but bad for other fun things I had in mind – like continuing working with Payton on swimming to get him ready for Dock Dogs. I need to cart him off to the lake again and do another swim in deeper water. I would really prefer to do this when the weather is above 70 degrees! Let’s hope for some hot weather coming in the next few weekends.
As a result of continuing craziness, I’m just going to continue to make general goals instead. Last week I took a break from teaching “into my arms,” mostly because I visited a dermatologist for a full body scan and she asked me “What did you do to your legs?!” in a horrified voice – what I did to my legs was ask my dogs to jump up in my lap. They may be small but they don’t do anything halfway and I had a ton of bruises, including a few really big ones, all over my thighs. So I took a little break to let some of the bruises heal before I started adding more bruises, lest my thighs become completely black, blue, and yellow.
This week I am going to work on shaping a retrieve with Payton using the bumper. It would be helpful if he brought his toy BACK to me after I throw it into the pool, right? Right.
Speaking of doctor’s visits and horrifying things, two weeks ago Auggie peed all over the floor inside after having just come in and peed outside, so away to the vet we went for another urinalysis. The urinalysis turned up lots of blood and bacteria yet again. So Doc suggested a cystocentesis, which for those not in the know of bladder problems, is where they inject a needle into the bladder and draw a urine sample directly from the bladder. This gives a sterile sample, as opposed to a free catch which is not considered sterile. This was sent off for a culture and sensitivity…
which produced absolutely nothing. NOTHING. So the urine in his bladder is fine. This means the problem is below his bladder. Urethra? We really don’t know. So today Auggie is here at work with me until our appointment at the university vet clinic, where we will attempt to learn something. Anything. Also where all of my moneys will disappear. Our new house is going to be furnished with a cheap butterfly chair I bought on clearance from Target many many years ago, and my Nintendo Wii sitting on the floor in my living room.
So that’s our week. Training and some expensive vet visits. Whoo-hoo. Away we go!
Henri comes to visit again
He has actually been over another time and I’ve been to visit him a couple times but this is the second time I’ve taken pics. ;P
Henri!
Hen… um…
Oh hai.
I can’t stop laughing at this one. Henri frequents the dog park lately, being an only child, and has learned to go belly up when confronted with ballsier dogs (and I don’t just mean that Payton still has his balls.) So this is Henri throwing himself on the ground. Head first. And Payton being like “Um WTF are you doing??”
I think Payton is slightly weirded out because it’s like looking at himself. He’s having an out of body experience, LOL.
Ahhh there’s two of them!
Payton and my sister. OH HAI I’M PAYTON
Auggie, who still isn’t a huge fan of Henri. They chased a tennis ball together for a while but that was the extent of his playing with Henri. It’s definitely an improvement though.
Ummm yeah so he’s definitely gotten bigger. His ears aren’t quite sure what they’re doing (and I kept telling my sister “We can do something about that if you want” hahahaha.) Also check out his tail! I love it.
You can see all kinds of breeds in him. I see GSD for sure. Collie, yep. I don’t really see Aussie which he’s supposed to have some Aussie in him.
I thought it would be fun to try for a family photo. “Fun” is not exactly the word I would use to describe it. I’m pretty sure I told Payton “I hate you” at least six times.
LOL you can’t even see Georgie’s face because she’s looking up at me.
Proceed with caution, Henri… and LOL Payton’s face.
This is just a cute Henri LOL.
TONGUE.
Most of the pictures turned out about like this by the way.
A cute one of all the boys!
Just the shelties… all staying, but looking at my sister, hahaha.
The best one hahaha. Team Three Shelties and Whatever That Thing Is!
Attempt at a nice photo of the three shelties – this is why I told Payton I hate him so much haha.
HENRI PHOTOBOMB
Oh noes, what are you doing to me??
Oh. I see.
The end!
I pretty much love Henri by the way.
Pool today
“This would make a cute picture, right? Smile, Payton!”
He was giving me kisses before but once the camera came out he stopped, haha. I’m trying to get him to kiss me.
Now let’s get Auggie in the picture!!
Payton was licking my hand LOL. Apparently kissing my face is a no-no but kissing my hand is okay.
I’m not sure what the heck is going on here. I’m giving swim lessons??
I think I need to ‘shop Auggie out for one of him from the first two. =P
“Are you sad Auggie?”
“Everybody look at the ground.”
Poor Auggie LOLOLOL.
They both look so sad here hahahahaha! Payton had an eye goober I had to get. =P
See, they’re NOT miserable, I swear!
Repositioned Auggie so his paws were up on the side, and he starts looking at the ground again trying to decide if he wants to jump out or not.
LOL I’m not sure what’s up with Payton’s face here. “This is my look of disdain.”
We decided to try and get Georgie in the picture…
Earlier we had her and Payton in the pool together to see if they would play, but Georgie just discovered she can climb UP on Payton. Soooo that’s what she did.
And then…
…she tried to kill Payton.
Seriously, I can’t believe we got this photo. She decided to jump out using HIS HEAD as a springboard and his head went underwater. Poor guy!!
I promise to never let Georgie in the pool with you again Payton.
Georgie’s First Birthday Party
Her birthday is actually the 25th, but schedules got crazy. My mom celebrated with her and I took some birthday pictures, but we didn’t get to “party” until the weekend!
The princess.
Auggie, always the good sport.
And Payton, who still hates when you put things on his head and only wants to wear a hat when HE is getting all the birthday.
We made a doggy cake, but I also brought home a small slice of REAL white cake, just for her.
NOM MY CAKE
Mmmm…
This one hahahaha
Icing alllll over her whiskers. Hurray!
Payton and Auggie both got some of the doggy cake (no real cake for them.)
Then Georgie had another birthday party hat malfunction…
…and Payton chimed in with a birthday party hat malfunction of his own.
Then Georgie got her presents! Not very nicely wrapped, I just left them in the PetSmart bag, haha.
She doesn’t care anyway.
My mom’s gift to her (she also gave her a new harness and lead, plus an ice cream cone, on her actual birthday) – it’s a Nylabone peanut butter flavoured “stick.” I bought one for the boys and she loved it, so Mom decided to buy Georgie one of her own.
And my gift to her… her very own amphibious bumper. She LOVES the one I bought for the boys (noticing a theme?) and fetched it non-stop one day, so now she has her very own bumper to fetch!
Training Challenge 07/20/12
I haven’t posted one of these for a few weeks, mostly because I was recovering from our last agility/rally trial, partially because it’s still really stinkin’ hot outside and it makes it hard to do much work out in the yard, and also because I’ve been busy juggling a few other things. I don’t want to jinx it so I won’t say more just yet, but really fabulous things might be about to happen for the Sheltiechick crew!
So this week, instead of breaking it down day by day, I think instead I will just make a general goal. I have been working on teaching the dogs to swim and yesterday I decided to start adding in more as it relates to Dock Dogs. I bought a small plastic footstool that sits inside the pool (actually, it floats, so unless a dog is sitting/standing on it, it’s floating around the pool…) and had Auggie standing on the stool, click+treating for him nose-bumping our ChuckIt amphibious bumper. Being the rock star that he is, very quickly I had Auggie nose-bumping the bumper when it was floating in the water. Next step will be to get him to actually mouth the bumper.
Payton’s turn was next, and the poor dog made me laugh so hard I almost fell down in the pool, because he was trying to do his pivots in the pool. He kept thinking his back feet should be on the bottom of the pool and his front feet on the stool, and he should then pivot around the stool, right? No, Payton, no! Poor guy. Payton will actually fetch the bumper for me on land but he doesn’t want anything to do with it when he’s in the water, so I think I need to train a “grab the bumper” outside the pool (rather than just “fetch the bumper”) and then move back INTO the pool and generalize “grab the bumper” to him standing on the stool in the pool.
Of course, my parents want to re-roof the house this week, so the pool is due to be emptied and come down. I’m thinking this coming weekend I might actually go to the lake again and see if we can get some swimming done there. I think Payton will do much better now with his new life jacket, and could benefit from being in water that’s actually deep rather than a pool where if he tries he can actually put his back legs on the floor and just flail around with his front legs. Auggie, meanwhile, is doing awesome, particularly if I put a life jacket on him. He doesn’t seem to really need it, but with the life jacket on, his swimming became much smoother. Unfortunately he wears the same size as Georgie but they don’t fit the same, so I will have to buy a third life jacket if I ever intend to have all three dogs in life jackets at the same time. I could order one of the Outward Hound jackets in pink for Georgie and give Auggie her orange one…
So that’s the training plan this week – “GRAB THE BUMPER!” Low key but still a goal regardless.
Payton discovers the sprinkler
In a vain attempt to save our completely brown lawn my dad has decided to start watering the yard. Last night he put the sprinkler in the back yard late at night so Payton only saw it once when he went out to pee right before bed. But it was running when I came home for lunch today, and, well.
What is that?
OH.
Ta-DAAAAAAA
C’mon baby! Let’s do the twist!
This is why I feel bad sending pictures to his breeder sometimes.
She sends me pretty pictures of his sister and I’m like “oh she’s so pretty! Here’s mine.”
Derr!
Oh gosh there’s water involved in this sprinkler thing and it’s in my EYE
I wish this one were sharper. Total joy. <3
This could be a sufficient way to let my dog wear himself out. Sure! Play in the water and get all cooled off and sleepy!
I love this dog so much. I honestly can’t put it into words. He might drive me crazy and wear me out but God do I love him.
…er.
Auggie’s look of total disdain while this was going on hahahaha. Auggie wants NOTHING TO DO with the sprinkler thankyouverymuch.
But it’s FUN DO IT DO IT C’MON GET IT
Oh puppy. <3
Swimming Shelties
I have now become obsessed with the idea of having these three be a Dock Dogs team. Wouldn’t that be fabulous?? I wonder if Miss Pepper would like to swim too…
Apologies for my pasty legs, melanoma runs in the family so I don’t tan, deal with it =P
Auggie went first. I tried the life jacket on him but really, he didn’t need it. So I just swam him without the life jacket on.
There’s a lot of flailing rather than smooth paddling… I think it’s because they can almost touch the bottom of the pool so they are trying to kick off the bottom rather than just swim.
Swim swim swim swim!
Payton was running around the pool the whole time barking THAT’S MY POOL GET OUT OF THE POOL HE’S IN MY POOL GET OUT OF THE POOL
Scrawny soaking pup!
Payton is still in his life jacket most of the time. I bought him a brand new Outward Hound life jacket that I think fits him better as opposed to the Premier Fido Float we used at the lake, and I think it definitely works better. However, Payton can definitely touch the bottom of the pool, so is kicking off the bottom. It’s not all the way full so this next weekend I will top it off and see if that makes a difference.
He kinda likes it though I think.
Holding him to try and get him to use his back legs more…
Paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle go go go go
Seriously, I do think he likes it. I’d let him out and he’d run off to go shake, but every time I called him he came running back even though he KNEW I was going to put him back in the pool. Either he likes it or he’s really dumb LOL.
I like pool. maybe.
My cute puppy <3
MISS GEORGIE
Georgie is the smart one of the bunch… the boys will swim to the edge of the pool. She doesn’t bother, she just turns around and swims to me like “okay now pick me up.”
She is so cute I almost can’t stand it… seriously. In her little life jacket. Also an Outward Hound model. OMG.
Go! Swim to your mama!
But I’m getting water up my nose!
Little princess paws…
PICK ME UP
No life jacket! Go rock star princess, go!
She actually almost hopped out of the pool here hahaha.
One more time! Go little girlie!
SPLOOSH
Her ears are hysterical here.
Why? Why you do this to me??
THE END.
Master Auggie
So this is the result of this weekend. Well, not just this weekend. The result of a long time, a lot of work, and more money than I care to even try calculating.
It takes 10 Excellent B Q’s to get Master’s titles. Auggie got his MJP on Friday afternoon and his MXP this morning.
And with that he is more than likely all done. I doubt if we’ll ever get his speed up to where it needs to be to ever get a PACH, so there’s no point in continuing to shovel money at it when he has just as much, if not more, fun playing in the backyard. I’m already entered in another trial and there’s one here locally that I might enter depending on the judge, and I’ll be getting Auggie a pirate ship cake that says BON VOYAGE AUGGIE and we can have him a little party. I may bring him back out of retirement one day if his speed issues ever get resolved and let him play again… but I’m really not counting on anything. I feel like this is it.
I wish I had gotten today’s run on camera. It was so totally an Auggie run. He was a little snot in the rally ring so I was hoping he would be on fire and run fast in agility and he was definitely revved up. We have been having rear cross into tunnel issues but he took off for the tunnel today like nobody’s business. He came wide around a jump and headed for an off course tire and I ended up yelling “Auggie Auggie AUUUUGGIIEEEEE” – and he stopped RIGHT in front of the tire and looked at me and came over to take the dog walk like he was supposed to. He flew through the weaves so fast he slipped but kept in them and tore it up. The triple jump was the last obstacle and he was running so wild I thought he might knock it. He took off and I thought “oh God, he’s not going to clear it.” He clipped the last bar. It went CLANG…
but it didn’t fall.
There were people outside the ring watching and they all let out a “WHEW” when the bar didn’t fall. I looked up and mocked wiping sweat off my face, hahaha. One of the agility people I know was scribing and she yelled “Boy, you had to work for that one, didn’t you?!”
It didn’t even occur to me until we were out of the ring that that was it, that was #10. We were done. I was just laughing so hard. What a snot.
I really wish I had it on camera because it was just… it felt like a defining run for us, LOL.
I’m so proud of him and even though I’m sad that we will never get a PACH and never get to run a victory lap or anything like that, we have done so much in our time together. At more than one point I thought he was done and I would have to quit, but he never quit on me. After our very first run in agility together, I heard someone outside the ring – and to this day I don’t even know who it was that said it – say “One day, that dog is going to be awesome.”
In some ways that was more of a curse than anything else because I have always felt like I was giving up on him whenever things happened. Dropping him to preferred felt like I was giving up on him, because one day that dog is going to be awesome. Even this sort of feels like I am giving up on him, because one day that dog is going to be awesome.
But the reality is that “one day” is today, yesterday, last Tuesday, tomorrow, next Wednesday – every single day since the very first day I brought Auggie home and every single day until our time together on this earth has ended. It doesn’t matter if Auggie will never have letters before his name. It wouldn’t matter if he never had any letters on his name at all.
My dog IS awesome. And he always has been. He is an amazing dog, and I could not have asked for a better partner in our journey together through this ridiculous game called agility life.
Training 6/25/12 Wrap-up
After dropping the 2x2s with Payton, I went ahead and switched to weave-a-matics since I already had them dragged outside and ready to go. It was going pretty quickly, I was basically treating them the same as you would 2x2s – get the dog going through the chute of weaves and practice from all angles. Not a big deal and he was going with a lot of drive.
Then we hit the major heat wave that has affected most of the US. I figured it may have not been wise to be outside trying to work a new skill (especially one that had us hitting our heads against the wall with 2x2s) while we were slowly melting, so I axed a lot of the outdoor agility work.
Instead we switched to doing a lot of heeling practice inside. We worked more on the perch and slowly, slowly started getting the progress we needed. I took Saturday off completely with him to let some latent learning set in, but as of tonight we have walking in heel with a C+T every three steps. His left turns are AMAZING (I mean really amazing), his right turns pretty good, overall not terrible at all. I really can’t complain about his progress. I’m a little antsy about how it will translate to a trial setting, but you can never really predict for that.
For Auggie, I decided to keep up with doing some jump work outside, but switched it up a little. Auggie’s current problem is that he likes to hug the right side of jumps… even if we’re doing a left circle, he hugs the right side. He wastes a lot of time on the course altering his path to take the right side of jumps. I’m not sure if this is a physical problem due to his feet, if he’s possibly got a vision problem (all signs point to no vision problem), or if he’s just weird. Personally I think it’s a bit of A and C mixed together. So my challenge is to re-train him to NOT always hit the right side of jumps.
I’ve had a few different ideas on how to approach this, and I’ve decided to do some work with a v-bounce apparatus, or “the spider.” I’ve taken my stick-in-the-ground weave poles and made my own very ghetto v-bounce apparatus, and it may be ghetto, but it does the job. I decided to alter some Susan Salo jump chutes by adding the v-bounce in. I set up a straight chute and put the v-bounce on jumps 1, 3, and 5. I started back-chaining to see what he would do… jump 5, then jump 4, then jump 3. Once we did jump 3 and he kept himself in the center for all the jumps, I switched to all five jumps. We did that for a few reps, then I took the v-bounce off jump 3 entirely and left it just on jump 1 and 5. And he was still running the center line rather than veering off to the side. Whoo-hoo! I even proofed it with some motion and got what I was looking for.
So right now the plan is to do a few more days with the v-bounce in, then remove one more. Probably remove it from jump 1 and leave it on the last jump and see what happens. If it goes well, I’ll take it off jump 5 and work that – and pray that I get a miracle. The idea here is to introduce some new muscle memory to the situation and reward heavily for running the center line.
Obviously running the center isn’t exactly ideal either – you want a dog who can pick his line and either wrap left or right depending on what is most efficient. BUT if I’m given the choice between a dog who wraps right or just runs center, I will take running center. I’m expecting to have to do a lot of work on this, anticipate we may see setbacks with his take offs, but all I can do is cross my fingers and hope we work closer and closer towards a confident, fast dog who can jump safely and appropriately.
Training Challenge for 7/2/12
This week is going to be a bit different, because Thursday night we set off for a three day agility trial for Auggie, which includes two days of rally for Auggie and also – gulp – two days of rally for Payton. That’s right, Payton’s trialing debut is this weekend. And I’m slightly terrified. Anyway, on with the schedule!
Monday
Session 1:
Heeling (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)
Session 2:
Heeling (P)
Jump chute (A)
Session 3:
Rally sign practice
Tuesday
Session 1:
Rally sign practice
Session 2:
Heeling (P)
Jump chute (A)
Session 3:
Rally sign practice
Wednesday
Session 1:
Rally sign practice
Session 2:
Heeling (P)
Jump chute (A)
Session 3:
Heeling/rally signs (P)
Treadmill (A)
Thursday
Session 1:
Jump chute (A)
Session 2:
Rally sign practice in the hotel room
Friday
Auggie agility trial!
Session 1:
Last desperate attempt to fix any problems with rally signs!
Saturday – Sunday
TRIAL TRIAL TRIAL
I have printed out a full set of rally signs, so we will hit those on July 4th, since I have the day off and can play with them a little. I know one I need to practice is the “bowl of food on the ground” with Auggie. It also occurs to me that Payton doesn’t have a very good Front, so I probably need to teach him that.
Auggie’s jump chutes have changed according to our weekly wrap up, so we’ll continue with those this week and cross our fingers that it may put some deposits in his jumping bank before this weekend’s trial.
Weaves for Pay have been scratched from this week, partially due to the impending rally trial and the need to work more on heeling, and partially just due to the heat. I’ve been taking Auggie out to jump after 8pm at night, and even though it’s still pretty hot and humid then, it’s at least a little cooler than the rest of the day. He’s also still getting some treadmill work to get in better shape and improve his speed. So far he seems to be doing really well, he’ll hop onto the treadmill and doesn’t seem bothered by it, so hopefully that will do some good for us too. It’s always a surprise with Auggie, haha! We are two standard Q’s and one jumper’s Q away from his masters agility titles, and I’m hoping we can clean those up this trial. But it seems I’ve been saying that for a while. Ohhhhh Auggie! <3
Training Schedule for 6/25/12
The training schedule for this week is as follows…
M β W β F
Session 1:
Weaves (Payton)
Session 2:
Weaves (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)
Session 3:
Heeling
T β R
Session 1:
Jump work
Set Point x3
Straight line x3
Straight line with height x3
Session 2:
Shaping
Session 3:
Shaping
Sat
Session 1:
Jump work
Distance grid β x4 out, x3 back in
Progressive grid x3
Session 2:
Weaves (P)
Treadmill (A)
Session 3:
Heeling
Sun:
“Rest day” β just playing, shaping
As you can see, I’ve changed Payton’s training from “2x2s” to just “weaves.” After yet another frustrating 2×2 session at lunch today, I think I’m done with the 2x2s. Yesterday I thought we were good to just back up to doing 4 poles at 2 and 6 o’clock and just work the arc to death. This afternoon we had meltdown again and couldn’t even get THAT done. How is this happening? How can I have a dog doing awesome entries for me on Wednesday, then Saturday afternoon, just by starting to close up the weave poles, I have a dog who’s performance falls apart so much I feel like the best way to get him back to being successful is to start completely over?
I know I’m certainly not the only person in the world to have problems with the 2×2 method. Just like people, I don’t believe that all dogs learn the same and that one approach with work for all dogs. Let me clarify: obviously the overall science of behaviourism on the whole is the same for everybody, but there are different learning styles controlled by different parts of the brain. So as much as I am enamored with the 2x2s, it just seems like a great way to teach weave poles… I don’t think this is going to work for Payton.
I’m not entirely decided what I’m going to go to instead. I may try the weave-a-matics or I may just try shaping straight poles. We shall see.
As far as the other shaping sessions, we’ll be continuing perch work this week. Payton can pivot the perch both directions now, so now comes putting them on a cue and getting him to figure out how to switch back and forth. I’m calling them “right” and “left” – and it’s not based on which way the dog pivots, rather, on which leg the dog will pivot into. So for pivoting into my right leg, it’s “right” and the hand signal is a fist with knuckles down. Pivoting into the left leg is “left” and the handle signal is my fist with fingers down to the dog.
Auggie-bad-doggie will be shifted from messing with the perch straight to heeling. He hasn’t mastered the perch yet but there are a few things I need to deal with specifically as it relates to some rally signs and I would rather spend my week and a half before the trial refining those instead of dealing with general heel work.
I told a co-worker this afternoon, entering Payton in a rally trial SOUNDED like a good idea at the time… at least it’s all on leash so he can’t do TOO much damage. Only damage to my reputation.
Three Dog Training
It’s Sunday so we have pretty much wrapped up our training challenge for this week, but I think I’ll save that post for tomorrow when I can post with some video. This morning is our “play” day where I don’t have much of a set plan and instead just fool around, so I decided I would take the pups to the training building after lunch and play around. I loaded the 2x2s into the car so Payton could play with them in another new location, grabbed Auggie, Payton, and Georgie, and off we went.
P started with 2x2s. We’re having some major problems as of yesterday when I started to close them up, and as they did last time before we backtracked and started over again, he’s had a serious setback. I did work him back to where he was before I started closing them up, but of course, the last several well done and hard entries were AFTER my camera ran out of battery power and it stopped recording.
Next I set up a curved tunnel and a jump for Auggie and worked on some rear crosses. We’ve had some issues with tunnels lately. It’s possible he is having some vision problems, or it could just be he’s a brat and it’s a training issue. So we worked that. I’m still not happy with how it went and I think I know what to work on with him next week.
Georgie came out next and she got to run through the straight tunnel. She LOVES jumping so I went ahead and let her take the jump before and after the tunnel a few times. Working on naming “tunnel” and “jump” both with her now.
P came back out and did more of the tunnel and I let him do the jump as well. Did some beginning one jump work where sometimes I would let him over the jump and take the tunnel and other times I would switch sides and he needed to come to me instead of take the tunnel, and not once did he take the bait of the tunnel and ALWAYS read my handling and came to me. Hurray for Payton!!
I brought Auggie out again next and was putting the tunnel away and he jumped into it while I was putting it away. So I had a fully collapsed tunnel and Auggie was sitting in it barking at me. “I’M IN THE TUNNEL WHERE IS MY COOKIE?” This dog. I moved the jump out of the way too and we just did flatwork where I encouraged speed on him. He did awesome. For his last two cookies I just did some off leash heeling because I wanted to let him cool down some and he was awesome with that too, because he’s Auggie and he’s usually fab.
Georgie came out for some flatwork next. We’re having a problem with her bouncing like you could see in the impromptu flatwork video but I got her really tired before long and that stopped. She kept trying to sneak behind me and dart to the wrong shoulder at first but after a few reps I got her going to the proper shoulder and switching sides with me and doing really great. Flatwork is really the biggest skill she is in need of right now, more than any kind of obstacle introduction.
I brought Payton out for more 2x2s, and like I said, this is where we seemed to heal his problems and get his skills back to where they were before I tried closing up the poles. I think we are just going to work at this stage for at least a week before I try to close them up at all and REALLY try to reinforce four poles… I’ll just say that yesterday I was so frustrated (and so was he) I was ready to say screw it to the 2x2s and go weave-a-matics instead. But I love the theory behind 2x2s so I am going to try and stick it out some more. I can ALWAYS quit and go to the WAMs if he never gets to progressing with the 2x2s. So we’ll give it a bit more time.
After all that, I was dripping sweat, so I packed all my stuff back into the car and we came back home. I could use a second set of 2x2s to leave at the training building – it would sure be nicer than having to pack mine up and drag them with us! Let’s put that on the list of things I’ll buy when I win the lottery.
Training Challenge
Okay, the “challenge” isn’t actually in the training. It’s in the staying organized and focused.
I’ve made up a little calendar for myself detailing what I’m going to work on every day. I usually do two or three training sessions a day, so it’s broken out into three training sessions… one at lunchtime, one after work (or after I get back from the gym on days I go to the gym right after work), and one late at night.
Every week, between the normal agility stuff, I’m going to try and focus on new “tricks” on certain days, so this will require me figuring out which tricks exactly I want to work on. So I will try and make a post on Monday detailing what I plan to work on, and at some point later in the week I will post again about our progress. Maybe even with some videos? We’ll see what happens. It’s a challenge.
Auggie gets less training/more time off, however you’d like to look at it, because he is both further along in stuff and because I’m kind of ramping down his training. More on that later whenever it’s more relevant to talk about.
Below is the current Base Schedule. Certain outside stuff is of course dependent on the weather, right now we’re drilling hard on heeling because we have a rally trial coming up in a few weeks, and of course once certain tasks are mastered they won’t be “drilled” so often (like the 2x2s.) And this schedule doesn’t account for Georgie at all, who will pop in and out when I can work with her. And I actually work on training my dogs all day long… this is just the actual structured training sessions I have planned.
BASE TRAINING SCHEDULE:
M – W – F
Session 1:
2×2 weaves (Payton)
Session 2:
2×2 weaves (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)
Session 3:
Heeling (both dogs)
T – R
Session 1:
Jump work (both dogs)
Set Point x3
Straight line x3
Straight line with height x3
Session 2:
Shaping (both dogs)
Session 3:
Shaping (both dogs)
Sat
Session 1:
Jump work (both dogs)
Distance grid – x4 out, x3 back in
Progressive grid x3
Session 2:
2x2s (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)
Session 3:
Heeling (both dogs)
Sun:
“Rest day” – just playing, shaping (both dogs)
This week, shaping sessions will involve perch work. Both dogs can pivot on the perch in one direction but do not pivot in both directions. Auggie’s pivot involves barking loudly at me and jumping off the perch a lot. Payton’s pivot is a lot better and I’ve already done one session getting him to pivot the opposite direction so I anticipate Payton will progress faster than Aug.
I may also work on Payton’s back up which is in progress. Auggie already knows this trick and cracked me up last session by patiently laying in a chair watching me work with Payton for almost the entire session, and when I was down to one last cookie in my hand, he jumped out of the chair and proceeded to back up across the room. Like “Seriously, screw this – WATCH ME DO IT LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME GIVE ME THE COOKIE MOM!” And, well, I had to give him a cookie after that. It was too funny not too. Yes, I do sometimes reward my dog for being a brat.
Grooming day
Washed, dried, groomed all three dogs today. My back is killing me. At least I did nails last night.
Payton.
Georgie.
Auggie, just for fun. I didn’t even realize until I looked at the pictures to edit them that he moved his leg after I stacked him and told him to stay. Figures.
So there’s this hope chest in the basement and I put the blanket over it to take photos. I did Payton’s first, put him on the floor, put Auggie on the chest and took his photos, then put him on the floor. I took a few steps to go get Georgie and hear a THUNK.
I turn around and Payton is on top of the hope chest but his BUTT is wedged halfway between the chest and the wall. He had decided to jump back on it (MY TURN AGAIN ME ME ME) and because of the blanket he almost slid off the back. This could have ended poorly, when Happy was a puppy he tried to jump on the bed, and his leg got caught between the bed frame and the mattress and broke his leg, so I’m paranoid something like that will happen to my guys. But nothing happened except Payton looked really surprised and confused.
So I laughed instead.
A lot.
Georgie v. Payton
Thursdays are my odd day because the class I like to take at the gym doesn’t start until 6:30. So I spend about an hour just sitting around waiting to go to the gym. What better way to blow the hour than take the dogs outside and encourage them to terrorize each other?
Georgie says “I LIKE THIS GAME”
Butts. Unfortunately where I was sitting I got a lot of views of their butts as they blew past, because they weren’t looping the garden the other direction as I’d hoped.
Not focused but these always crack me up haha.
LOL.
Payton could so kick her butt if he wanted to. It’s a REALLY good thing he adores her.
“I MIGHT JUST EAT YOU UP ONE DAY”
More butts! That’s the end of it.
Oh, what Auggie was doing while this was going on:
Dumb puppies.
Sunbathing. I’m not sure he knows that dogs don’t tan.
Henri
Henri is my sister’s new puppy. He came home the weekend before last, but he was wormy so we waited until this weekend to introduce him to our dogs. Auggie came out first and kept looking at me like “ANOTHER ONE??? Take it back!!” Poor guy. No, he wasn’t staying. He didn’t want to play with Henri at all. I don’t get it, he LOVED Payton and has never snarked at Payton, but he doesn’t have tolerance for other puppies now. I guess Pay was just special.
Georgie came out next and Henri wasn’t sure what to think of her. She was loud and didn’t stop moving. She got him to play a little bit but he just didn’t know what to think.
So then we brought out the Wild Child.
Oh Lord.
PAYTON will not rest until you play with him. PAYTON will not stop barking in your face until you play with him. PAYTON WANTS TO WRESTLE AND BY GOLLY YOU ARE GOING TO WRESTLE. So they became pretty fast friends actually, by necessity of the wild one being obnoxious until Henri obliged, and then Henri decided Payton was pretty cool and he wanted to play play play!
They did get into it a little twice, and I still can’t figure out what it was that Henri did that Payton didn’t like. I think it was Payton who would lose his cool but maybe not. Certainly Henri wasn’t doing anything that Georgie doesn’t do and get away with, but maybe because Henri was still new he wasn’t allowed the way Georgie is?
Anyway, what you really want is the pics:
“This thing won’t stop following me!”
Slightly blurry… he is a cutie!
Auggie sniffing at the puppy. He’s allowed to sniff the puppy, the puppy isn’t allowed to sniff him.
Oh here is my tongue.
Cutie cute cute!
Mom: “Are you sure Payton is wilder than Georgie?”
Umm… yes.
Yeah play!!
Imma bite all this fluffy hair you has! (I think this may have eventually become what Payton didn’t like even though Georgie – AND AUGGIE – do the same thing.)
Oh there’s a tennis ball.
I nom ball.
There’s another toy!! So many toys!
His tail kinda curls up over his back sometimes, haha. It’s adorable.
Mommy that cookie lady put me in this bucket.
I want out!
My sister was sitting right next to him getting him to pose like this and so she could keep the bucket from tipping over hahaha.
Ugh he’s terribly sweet too.
Getting sleepy… it’s about time to recharge my batteries…
head going down…
huh wha?? No I wasn’t sleeping!
Puppy butt!
The end… or just the beginning.
Impromptu Flatwork Session
The other day I decided to do some impromptu flatwork with the puppies. Click to watch the video below…
Admittedly I haven’t done hardly any flatwork with Georgie at all. Sometimes I’ll do a few handling maneuvers with her, but that’s about it. So her, uh, interesting take on flatwork in the video is not exactly her fault! She just needs more work. Lots more work. It’s okay, we’ll get there. She’s not even a year old yet, she has time.
Payton is improving a lot. Our biggest struggle is that instead of chasing the shoulder so to speak, he was more interested in trying to bite my legs. We have gotten past that at least, though the barking, THE BARKING. It doesn’t stop. Hopefully once he has something to do besides just chase the shoulder he will use his brain more and stop using it to vocalize!
Auggie was stuck in there just for fun. His session is rather different since we are working more on building drive and speed, though admittedly, we don’t really have drive or speed problems in the yard… only at agility trials… but whatever. We’re working on it. After this we had an impromptu game of tug and fetch, in which I threw the toy, he went to retrieve it, and as soon as he reached the toy, I turned around and ran the opposite direction and he had to catch up to me with the toy. GREAT fun for Auggie and I was dying before long, sprinting in circles around the yard and trying not to break my ankle stepping in any of the holes in the ground or trip over the garden or whatever. This is definitely a game we’ll play more.
All three dogs want to squirt behind me and take the wrong side, so there’s more to be done. It would obviously be nice to have a larger space to work in too… working on that one…
Auggie’s Pee Saga Continues
This morning I let the boys out to pee. Auggie squatted to pee, then almost immediately decided he would rather bark at my mom moving cars in the driveway instead. “Auggie, you still have to pee,” I told him, and sent him back out into the yard. He came back on the deck and barked in my face instead. So we came inside for breakfast. I sent him back out after eating and all he did was poop. Fine, it’s YOUR problem if you don’t want to pee.
Except it wasn’t exactly like that, as I would find out later.
When I came home for lunch and let him out, he squatted, then did the little “Imma wag my tail while squatting” thing which he first did when he had his UTI last year. He has since done this a few times, causing me to freak out and immediately get a urine sample to the vet only for it to come up clear. It still makes me pay more attention, but doesn’t cause immediate worry like it used to. I do know when he is wagging his tail, he’s not peeing yet, and it’s not until he stops wagging his tail (or just moves and tries a new location) that he actually pees. So he moved and squatted again.
And then I realized it didn’t look like he was ACTUALLY peeing.
I told him to try again, so he picked another spot – and this time I was watching closely – squatted… no pee. After a little bit a few dribbles came out, but no real pee.
I went inside and called the vet. Doc was at lunch but they would call me back as soon as he came back to the office and let me know what they wanted to do. I took Auggie back outside and asked him to pee again. He tried a few more times but each time nothing came out. I could tell he obviously HAD to go – for one thing, he gets his food floated in about a cup of water, so I knew there was pee in his bladder – but nothing was coming out. Not. good.
Auggie came back to work with me while I waited to hear back from my vet, then off we went rather quickly to be worked into the schedule.
Doc couldn’t feel anything obvious, but as I expected, an x-ray was first up to make sure there weren’t any stones floating around, even if he couldn’t feel anything. Away the little pup went for his x-ray, then came back looking smug. I wondered if he had peed all over their x-ray equipment, but no, he had just been a very good boy for his x-rays. Doc came in with the x-rays after a few minutes and… nothing. Nothing on the x-ray at all. So away Auggie went again, this time to have a catheter run. Doc warned me they might have to sedate him a little to get the cath in, which, if you remember from Auggie’s last annual, he has developed a heart murmur, so that gave me some anxiety. Back in they come, Auggie looking EXCEPTIONALLY smug now and not woozy at all. They hadn’t had to sedate him, he was very good, he had peed AROUND the cath even. So they had collected a urine sample and were running it, but visually, there wasn’t a lot of blood or anything. It could come back with a bladder infection, but it could also be clear, and if it was clear, we were out of ideas as to what was up.
At this point I seriously started to think my dog was trolling me. Especially as he sat on the floor looking at Doc and Doc gave him some cookies. Auggie, we have cookies at HOME, okay? And they’re a lot cheaper. You don’t need to fake me out just to come get cookies from Doc. That is ridiculous.
So after the urinalysis was finished, Doc came in and said “Good news!”
“He has a bladder infection?” I asked. In what world, exactly, is it good news that your dog has a bladder infection? In my world, where money is tight, and cute little dogs are threatened with a horrible death when they go to the vet and run up bills for no good reason.
“Yep! Lots of white blood cells and bacteria in there.”
“Whoo-hoo! Auggie, you get to live after all!”
(I am, of course, joking. I was trying to fight off a panic attack and trying very hard NOT to cry this afternoon when I realized we had a problem. I love my Auggie doggie even though he may be the biggest snotbucket in the world.)
We came home with antibiotics and some anti-inflammatory too, since he is likely pretty sore and inflamed to not have been peeing. Poor baby dog! Hopefully he will get to feeling better in a few days here. We’ll go back next week and run another urinalysis to make sure we’re in the clear. I sure hope so. I don’t want the poor thing locked into another cycle of urinalysis after urinalysis and I definitely don’t want any stones developing from this infection like we had last year. So hopefully this chapter in Auggie’s Pee Saga will be a short one!
