Chook 5 months

A LOT has changed about the C-man in the last month:

• His legs are twice as long;
• He is a lot more motivated (to eat at least, and to train);
• He has discovered that he can actually use his back legs, and that he has some degree of coordination control;
• He now has some ability to rest quietly when required;
• He is house-trained (except when nobody notices his requests for transport down the steep stairs to the back door which are still not possible for him to negotiate alone);
• Sleeps all night (like a dream!!!!! :) :) :))
• The bottoms of lady dogs start to be very interesting

I would love to be able to say "and the barking is gone!" but it hasn't. At least it is MUCH better than it was. It is still a bit of a struggle to train at home because of it. At first I thought "fine I'll just train high-excitement things somewhere else" but that isn't very practical and so the project continues.

Thanks to his new-found control of body parts we have been doing a lot of work to try and develop his movement, and it has come a long way in a short time! Stays have been a theme of this month and the concept is starting to sink in.

My main crime is my neglect of training him to walk nice on a lead. He works fine in a show lead but put him in a harness and, well, the effect of long uninhibited park and beach walks can be seen :). I got him a martingale collar dedicated to project "walk nice" and I think that needs to be the theme for next month.

Chook 4 months :)

Chook turns 4 months on Wednesday, and he has been living with us for a month now. What a great little man!, I think in the silent times :). Chook's good points:

1. He is super good-natured. He is very easy-going and loves people. He is a piece of cake to handle - he can already have his nails clipped with no drama, behaves for brushing and ear cleaning. Teeth handling needs a bit more work, but he is not very mouthy (at least when it comes to chewing...).

He has been puppy classes twice a week for 4 weeks. This was a good idea as he learnt about friendly dogs. In a few weeks he went from hesitant with other dogs to Mr Outgoing. His best buddy from puppy school was a huuuge Am Staff puppy. From Sen he has learnt that dogs are not always in the mood for play, and that wise puppies make polite enquiries about play enthusiasm status before barging in.

2. He is very confident. He doesn't mind things that go bump in the night, and recovers quickly to investigate things he has initial fear of. He is still a bit afraid of traffic, but he is after all a country boy and this is the inner city. We spend a lot of time on a certain bench at a certain road intersection - like a pair of homeless people watching the world go by.

So far he has had the great benefit of lots of opportunities. He has done quite a few café lunches and dinners at people's houses. He does not have much capacity for long walks yet but has done a nice mix of bush and urban strolling. He has been to a few agility trials and handled the environment really well. Next weekend he is off to obedience school.

3. He is a very well-structured dog. Oh yes and he is handsome and he knows it :)

All of these are great attributes! I am happy that he has them. He is everything his breeder said he would be and more :):)

Now on to the "room for improvements":

1. Love is lost here due to his somewhat extreme, split your ears from 100 m piercing bark. He is a young man with a lot to say, and often. However everyone (man and dog) is on his case about it and the message is getting through - keep it closed young man, nobody likes it.  He has stopped barking in the car, and for the most part when training. Sad fact of inner city living is that the barking needs to go ASAP. The good thing is it is mostly excitement/attention-seeking barking, not barking at actual things and he doesn't seem to do it when home alone.

2. He does not really offer much during training - actually he doesn't offer anything. All of my previous dogs have been great free-shapers. Chook needs to be lured to start things off. I find this a bit frustrating as I find shaping great - tires them out and gets a more active behaviour. Good thing though it isn't the only tool in the box.

He is fairly toy motivated, motivated by simple attention, but not very food motivated (sometimes not at all and there are few things he will work for more than a few attempts for). Motivational challenges are, after all, to be expected for some individuals not from traditional working breeds.

Overall he is a great addition to life! Sen is on a whole much happier now that she has a playmate.

The happiness of Sen

Sometimes it comes when she is paying attention:

Sometimes when she is thinking up trouble ("look into my eyes"):

But always it comes when we are together :)

Fantastic photos by team Taryn, Bob & Chappy :)

Morning sickness?

Seems it gets harder and harder to have a peaceful morning walk - one where nobody comes to dump rubbish, no loose giganto-dog chases as, nobody gives us lip, and so on. Oh well, we try to look for the sweet spots!

What have we been doing?

This blog has been a little quiet. That is because of numerous holidays :). We are just hanging out and all is well.

Spring has sprung:

The dog looks better straight:

Sen AD JDX

In the post today! Very proud of my girl:

 

5 x 0 (Q) = Sen, WA State JDX Champion + AD + JDX titles!!!

Sen seems to have the ability to pull things off when most wanted. I might be frustrated with her inconsistency and passion for taking off at high speed, but there are moments of brilliance! I got to see a few such moments at this year's WA State Agility Championships. Sen's State's achievements:

 

-  2014 JDX State Champion (200) - TADAA! 

-  1st place Qs in all three JDX heats!

 

Here's the video for the first heat (speed 5.04 m/s!!!) and the finals run:

 

Great as these results were, the remaining 4 classes were are collection of DQs. Still I got a lesson in frustration - these all felt bad at the time, but when watching the videos later, each run contained some great work. Clearly things are going forward and that is the main thing, AND MOST WEAVE POLES WERE CLEANLY DONE (about time...). The States were only her third competition for this year, and lack of competitions certainly shows in her ability to concentrate. I noticed that she is better on tight courses than easier courses. Someone hypothesised that this is because she cannot get up a full head of stream on harder courses and enter the crazed zone - maybe this is true. At least the stats for this year are so far better than those for 2013:

 

There was one downside to the States. Our awesome agility pals Bob & Taryn made their competition debut! We were so proud :). Bob did fabulous work, but pulled up lame the next day. Fingers are crossed that it is not something too serious, but cruciate ligament has been suggested :( :(. Best wishes Bobby boy:

 

The following weekend we attended a normal ANKC trial, and by this time Sen was with the (concentrate) program. There were no crazy run-offs on this weekend, and in 10 minutes she finished her AD and JDX titles. The JDX title had been quick - 4 passes in two weekends and the other from Albany last November (her first JDX run). The AD title was ANOTHER story (two passes at last year's States and then the looooong wait.....).

 

I have to say that I am happy with her work, and once she gets more exposure to competition environments I'm sure she will settle down. Sen now gets to "rest" until the end of the year (+/- a run or two at the end of May). We started our relaxation with some Perth tourism, and the princess had much training in inner city life:

 

 

Sen's Western Classic 2014

Was a hoot!

Her focus suffered a lot from her total lack of attending competitions (not since Nov 2013), but some great work was done. We had a blast in teams with Corgie Tobie, Papillon Spirit and super dog Astro - thanks guys!. Our team showed 'em how jumping was done and pulled off a 3rd place in Teams Jumping:

Sen's runs were pretty much chaos - except for this great Open Jumping run, her first JDO Q!

Some coaching, at last!

At the end of last year I took Sen to Perth for a seminar by former US world agility team coach Stacy Peardot-Goudy. Below you can see the videos of our work before and after Stacy. It is amazing the improvement you can get from a little calibration. How fantastic it would be to be able to do something like this regularly, not just every other year.

Tuesday night:




Thursday night: