Trip to the lake, round 2
Equipped with a better life jacket, we went back down to the lake today. My mom kept insisting it would be too cold (it has been chilly the past few days, getting downright cold at night) but I had faith it would be warm enough. Sure enough, it was really quite lovely – and being that it only got up to about 80 (as opposed to 100 from last time), hardly anybody was on the beach and fewer people were out on their boats, so it was just generally quieter and calmer.
I got him there, strapped on his life jacket, went out until I was about chest deep in the water… and let him go. And he swam. Pretty well actually. He still kind of bobs his butt down, checking for ground – he knows eventually he will hit shallows and he can start walking, so it’s a kind of funny swim, but swim he did. And I’m pretty sure he liked it, more importantly. I still can’t get him to grab his bumper, or ball-on-a-rope, when he’s in the water, but we were playing in the water (I was splashing him and he was biting the water.) Also, he has learned that when he hears the sound of a boat, he needs to IMMEDIATELY run down to the lakeside because that means a bunch of big waves he can play in are about to hit the beach. It’s actually hilarious and I love it. Seriously, we were sitting up on the little ledge drying off, a boat went by, his ears pricked up, and he jumped down and almost dragged me to the water so he could play in the waves. He likes to go in the water about chest-deep but he still isn’t sure about swimming out on his own. He tried it once or twice and changed his mind and turned back around immediately and went back to shore. I’m not terribly offended by this, the idea of Dock Dogs is to get the toy and come back to the ramp anyway, not just swim out to the blue beyond LOL.
ANYWAY. The pics. I was desperate to get a photo of him swimming so I took a chance and carried my point & shoot out with me… and luckily I did not drop it in the lake.
Playing in the waves.
Getting his feet wet then coming back on the beach.
Dirty dirty puppy!
This is Payton’s face as I am carrying him out into deeper water… not kidding LOL.
SWIM GO GO SWIM SWIM SWIM GO GO
A better one – for some reason he doesn’t want to swim to me, he wants to swim next to me, so this was hard to get. He REALLY has fun if I put him in the water then I swim along next to him. He starts smiling and he swims faster like it’s a race. Obviously I couldn’t take a picture like that though (I dunno how to do a backstroke or anything!)
Little paw prints in the sand. Just for my scrapbook.
His life jacket was off so he could dry out a bit and a boat went by so DOWN BY THE WATER WE GO sans life jacket.
He even climbed in without his life jacket on, which is good news. I didn’t ask him to swim without his life jacket because I could tell he was getting tired, and I didn’t want him to get tired and start sinking without the jacket – so we left it on to make sure it was a good experience until the end.
Poking around in the shallows some more…
More dirty puppy.
This happened a lot LOL. Unfortunately I can’t take him off lead here so it just kept happening… I always had to make sure before I let him go to swim that I had the leash so he wouldn’t get tangled in it. =P
Life jacket… doing it wrong. I asked him if he wanted to go back in and he hopped up for me to put his jacket back on, so we went back in one last time.
Before we left. I ‘shopped out the stupid lead because it’s otherwise such a great photo. ;P He really, truly does like the lake. I’m glad.
And finally:
THIS is the best swimming shot, but unfortunately it was blurry. =< One day I will have somebody come with me and stand on the shore and get shots with a zoom lense... one day...
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!
Payton’s Gotcha Day
And I didn’t even know it was his Gotcha Day… I’m a terrible puppy mommy. I knew it was coming up, but I’ve been juggling so much with buying the house it just sort of slipped by without my noticing. This past week was terribly stressful, particularly on Friday which was his actual Gotcha Day – I wish I had known that was his Gotcha Day, it probably would have helped.
So here’s the unknowingly Gotcha Day photos:
A storm rolled through Thursday night and knocked down some big leaf stalks. I gave one to him to play with. Maybe my heart knew it was his Gotcha Day even if my head didn’t?
YAY YAY YAY
Stopping to nom on it a bit, butt in the air!
This is your Quintessential Payton photo from this set. Yeah, it’s out of focus, but that’s part of the Quintessential Payton-ness of it LOL.
This was the only branch we lost in the storm, apparently in another part of town TONS of trees went down. I told him to nom it.
GIANT STICK YEAH
A brief walk down memory lane, in case you forgot… Payton’s first day home, when he was still Nameless Baby and thus responded to “puppy.”
Can you believe it? I still can’t. I still can’t even believe I went to get him. My brain was so torn and didn’t know if I should really go get him. My heart told me to go get him. I decided for once in my life to just ignore my brain and listen to my heart, and here we are. And once he came home to me I knew it was meant to be. He was supposed to be my puppy and I was supposed to be his person. I had planned to be further along with things than we currently are right now, but I have no regrets about our first of what I hope is many years together.
This also means I’m done with this project! OMG. These last few months have been really uninspiring… he is done growing and our routine is pretty much set without a ton of new stuff going on (or at least new stuff I can take a photo of) so… lots of shots snapped in our quiet time right before bed, or first thing in the morning while I’m getting ready for work.
[url]http://365ofpayton.tumblr.com/[/url]
It may be months before you see another Payton picture now that I don’t have to take any LOL. (kidding.)
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.
Whatever Wednesday
Other ideas for names for this post was “Wimpy Wednesday” or “Whiny Wednesday.” Or maybe I could save this post and call it “Failure Friday?” Let’s stick with the slightly more optimistic “Whatever Wednesday,” because once again, I’m trying to be positive, right? Right. So let’s go.
As I mentioned in last week’s training challenge, Payton was entered in his very first rally trial last weekend. It was novice rally – not a huge deal, right? Payton’s perch work was fabulous and his heel was looking really good as a result. Not flawless but really good for the semi-rush job I was doing to get ready for the trial. I thought we’d maybe scrape out a Q, even.
Sometimes life just likes to punch us in the stomach though.
I had Payton out before going in the ring and was practicing the moves for the signs, popping him some treats to get him all locked in and ready to go. He was sitting in heel and I was chatting with a friend while feeding him and just working on eye contact before we were going in the ring. She was telling me he looked great, was so attentive, I was feeling pretty good. Optimistic!
Then a large dog almost sat on him.
Cue a meltdown from Payton. I got up and took him in the opposite direction but that wasn’t helping. He was barking and flipping out. I had a treat and tried to get him in heel to pop him the treat, he had NO interest in the treat at all.
My dog’s brain was gone… and they just called our number to get into the ring.
I did about four signs with my dog barking the entire time and swiveling his head around looking for that big dog, freaking out, before I realized there was no recovering. I turned to the judge and said “That’s it for us, thank you,” and out of the ring we went.
My friend told me not to feel bad, that dog had just freaked him out, but I still felt bad. Immediately doubts started setting in. Payton is kind of OCD at times. If you move something in the house, he’s alarmed and barks at it. If you bring something new and strange into the house, he’s alarmed and barks at it. If he sees something new while on a walk, he’s alarmed and barks at it. The response I was anticipating from Payton in the ring was for him to get really excited and start jumping around and playing like a crazy, not panicking. What was I going to do?
The second day I got Payton out and was ready to try again, and made SURE I was very calm and quiet with him before we got in the ring. I kept out of everybody’s way so nobody would accidentally sit on him again, so nobody would do anything strange and freak him out. We got in the ring and he sat in heel at the “start” sign and looked up at me with a smile. “Yes,” I thought. “We got this.” I took a deep breath as we started forwarded…
and as we reached the second sign, there was another person standing right outside the ring gates with their border collie, doing as border collies do, creepin’ and peering into the ring.
Cue meltdown!
I did manage to get Payton to complete the second sign, and we started towards the third sign, but he wouldn’t do the third sign (a left pivot) for me. I looked up at the judge (a different judge this day thankfully, I don’t think I would have even had the guts to walk back in under the same judge) and said “We’re all done I think, thank you.”
“That was a good decision for him,” she told me as we walked out. I’m pretty sure my face was bright red. I know I did right by my dog by taking him out so I didn’t poison the ring experience, but this was mortifying. I’m sure everybody thought my dog was a total nutcase and completely untrained.
Just to be clear: I don’t blame the person with the border collie. Yes, it would have been nice if they weren’t standing right outside the ring gate with their dog staring at me. Before Auggie goes in the ring for agility, I try to keep him back from the ring gates, but I am getting him revved up and that means he’s jumping around and barking. If that sets off a dog in the ring, it’s unfortunate and yes, I would feel bad, but it ultimately means the dog in the ring needs to be trained better against distractions. Same rules apply to Payton. He needs to be trained better. It is not the fault of the person outside the ring that my dog was unprepared for that kind of distraction, it’s MY fault. The answer is TRAIN MY DOG.
So that’s why this is WHATEVER WEDNESDAY. Part of me feels really beat up and beat down right now (and it’s not because this week’s gym activities have left me unable to tell you a part of my body that is NOT sore at the moment.) I am terrified that we are facing a long uphill battle and might never be able to fix this problem. I’m picturing my dog freaking out every time I take him in a ring and he sees something new. THERE’S A SANDBAG UNDER THAT DOGWALK OMG. THERE’S A SIGN HANGING ON THAT WALL OMG. THAT TABLE IS PAINTED PURPLE INSTEAD OF YELLOW OMG. It’s panic inducing picturing serious problems for the rest of his life. You certainly can’t control every aspect of every trial – there will always be something new or unknown or unusual.
But you know? Whatever. I know the answer: TRAIN MY DOG. And it’s kind of that simple, isn’t it? I went to the Dollar Store and I bought a bunch of “weird” things. Anything that just looked different, stuff that maybe Payton hadn’t seen before. I bought some spinny flower sticks, some glow sticks in the shape of a trident and an axe, a plunger, big buckets, just anything that looked different. We’re going to start more distraction work. I’m going to double down again on the recalls and try to rebuild getting him locked on when he hears his name rather than having him tune me out so much.
My biggest plan right now is to re-read my way through Control Unleashed, especially as it addresses Over Noticers. So I’m planning on running a nice muscle soak this evening and dying a little while reading the book. Just like I’ve been making a weekly schedule on what to work with my dogs every week, I need to battle plan out how to work on this with Payton.
It all comes back to training.
We’ll see how simple it is when we actually tackle the problem.
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
Payton went swimming
Ssssssorta.
Yesterday while at Target buying a pool for our backyard (this has become an obsession) I ran into a friend I met through agility. She moved out of town, not too far away, and just happened to be in town visiting her parents. She told me there’s a lake near where she lives and she has been taking her portie there and it’s a great place.
Well, I was told I couldn’t set the pool up, at least for now. And I was bored. So I packed Payton into the car and drove down to this lake. It’s about 90 minutes away, if that, so not too far really.
I took him in the water and he wasn’t really sure what to think. There were plenty of people out on boats and whenever a boat would go by (the boating section is on the opposite side of the lake from the public swimming beach) there would end up being sorta large waves rocking over to our side of the beach, and that confused him. So I took him back out and put the life jacket on.
He WILL swim, but it’s a terribly ungraceful splashing swim. I took the life jacket off and he hated that, his head dipped under water a few times too, so for now life jacket only. I ended up putting my shirt back on because I thought he was going to yank my bikini top off flailing around LOL. People were super interested in us, I kept hearing “I thought all dogs could swim!” Does it look like he can swim? LOL. One guy and I think his teenage son were talking to me about it while they threw a football back and forth, and Payton was watching them, and the guy said “Will he float in that if you let it go?” So I let it go to show him, and he was holding the football, and Payton started sloppy-splash-flail-swimming to the guy because I think he wanted the football hahahaha. OH PAYTON, you need to try that with SINGLE guys who are MY AGE, but nice try honeyface.
I tried to get him to go for a tennis ball but he was having none of it. He wouldn’t even swim out to get closer to me – I left him standing on the beach and floated out in the water and he just stared at me. I said “what if I was drowning out here??” and he just stared LOL.
We went back to the beach and sat down for a bit to get a drink, I pondered what I could try differently, then we went back in for a bit. This time he walked into the shallows all by himself and played around a little, he even walked in until he was about chin-deep, but he stopped there. Like he’s thinking about it, just not sure.
We sat on the beach drying off and I asked him if he still had fun or if he hated me now, and he gave me a kiss, or maybe my face just smelled like fish (we found half a dead fish near the shore and I was SO glad I left Auggie at home.) Picked up a few shells that had washed up on the shore and went home. Not too bad, we only spent a couple of hours there and I spent three-ish in the car, but it was really fun anyway.
I’m hoping my dad will change his mind and let me set up the pool in the backyard so we can practice more. =P
Here’s the photos I nabbed – none of Payton in the water since I was out there all by myself and wasn’t taking my camera in the lake, even if it was my crappy point & shoot…
Attempting to get a photo of us together hahaha. The lake was filthy, by the way. We both got right in the shower after getting home and my swimsuit was almost BLACK inside. Grosssssss.
“I don’t like you much right now mommy.”
Just sittin’ there, watchin’ people play in the water…
It was SO nice down there… even though it was still about 100 degrees back home and even hotter the further south you go, the air off the lake was fabulous. The sand seriously almost burned my feet though. But other than that it was super lovely!
Layin’ on his towel drying out, watching the people hanging out away from the water…
That’s it, nothing very exciting. =P I’m frickin’ exhausted right now but Payton’s like YAY YAY YAY PLAY PLAY PLAY YAY YAY YAY. stupid puppy.
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.
Payton loves sheepie toy
Oh sheepie toy. Let’s run away together.
Somewhere we can lay on our backs and make wookie noises all day long… Forever.
Oh. You’re here too.
Look I guess you can come if you want to. Just don’t get in the way of me and my sheepie toy.
Oh balls, Payton.
MUCH cuter without testicles in the photo.
NO!! Don’t tell them I’m cute!!
I’m not cute, I’m obnoxious. <3
Payton in class, round two
This afternoon I texted with Auggie’s breeder. My initial thought was to just bring the puppies over to the training building after her class tonight and let her see how things are going and give me some tips, especially on an issue I’m having with Georgie. But she told me she was just starting a new class and asked if I would like to bring the pups along.
I decided to bring Payton, since our rally trial is in three weeks, and he could use some work in a new location and with some other eyes watching. Georgie will wait for another day; besides, I can’t really work two dogs at once.
The class is a unique one we developed to meet some in-between demands… people who weren’t quite ready to jump into agility, but were looking for something more than just pet house manners. We delve into some rally exercises and do some extended sit-stays and down-stays in a line up like you would at an obedience trial, and also do some beginning obstacle introduction with agility stuff (jumps, tunnels, tire.)
So away we went tonight. Payton did fairly good with heeling though he is still very forgey, and forges more on me the longer we heel. I stepped on his paw once and almost tripped over him several more times. Sigh. And the sits, oh God, the crooked sits! I’m still hoping to clean it up enough in the next few weeks that we can scrape out at least ONE qualifying RN score.
But in light of my decision earlier this year to stop always being so negative about my dogs and their behaviour, I am not going to tell you where he was awesome.
First, his first sit-stay was ALMOST great, but being his very first time in a lineup with dogs he had never met before, he got up and came to me just before I went back to him. The next several sit-stays, however, were lovely, and I was even able to test him some by doing stupid dance moves and things (I made sure none of the other dogs – or their handlers – were looking at me while I was doing this.) So he rocked those!
Next, his recalls were equally lovely, though the first was lacking the enthusiasm I like to see, but he gets a pass because once again, he was sitting in a lineup with dogs he had never met before.
After that, we moved on to introduction to agility. First we had a jump, and I felt bad because Payton and I are totally cheating. We have at least a dozen jumps of varying type at home and he has seen regular jumps over and over and over again being that we’re doing beginning jump training! The other students were like “ooooh!” but HE’S CHEATING HE’S DONE THIS A MILLION TIMES ALREADY.
Next we got out the tunnel. Payton has seen a tunnel before but not fully extended, and as many times as I see it in my basement and think “I need to get that out and work on it,” I have yet to actually do that. So I wasn’t sure how he was going to do with a tunnel stretched all the way out.
Of course I am an idiot and had no need to worry. He darted right through it, then came back, then back through again. Everything was going GREAT until Auggie’s breeder suggested I run with him through it.
So I did. And Payton went OMG YOU GUYS THIS IS SOOOO MUCH FUN and the next thing I know he jumps on top of the tunnel, STAYS THERE for a second or two, then hops back down. How he managed to actually stay perched on top of the tunnel is beyond me, but he did it.
But I said I wasn’t going to be negative, right? Well, as embarrassing as that was, he only did it the one time and then appeared to realize that on TOP of the tunnel is not how we do it. I ran him back and forth several times after that in both of our turns, including setting him up for some odd entries.
The best news: he is really fast. Not so fast I can’t keep up, I am a runner myself and just generally a gym junkie (in fact, I’m blowing off a Wednesday class at the gym to take him to this class… but I figured I can do those weight lifting sessions at home…) so I have the added bonus of being able to sprint myself and not end up nearly killing myself. But he is definitely fast.
Now I just have to figure out how to not kill that speed in him. Which means I need to become a far better handler and very soon.
So there you have it. My dog is a huge brat and embarrassing, but he’s a very talented little embarrassing brat too.
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…
Just one Payton…
And by that I mean there’s only one photo, and also, there’s only one of him.
Thankfully.
I don’t know what I would do with two of him.
