Confession: My dogs don’t know the common obedience cue, “Stand.” Once upon a time I taught all of my dogs to stand on cue, but since I stopped doing competition obedience I didn’t feel the need for it and just stopped teaching it.

Recently, in doing Canine Freestyle, I discovered a need for it. And now, while working on conditioning my couch potato Aussie Frenzy, it becomes even more important. I dawdled with it from time to time over the last several months somewhat and found that any manipulation of her body to “help” her into a stand just made her all goosey and silly (which she can be at any time, but even more so when I try moving and placing her). My heart wasn’t really in it until now, when I decided that I really want her to do this, so I set out yesterday to teach her how to stand.

Clicker in hand and treats in pocket, we proceeded to our outdoor training area (only required because there are 8 dogs in the house, and new behaviors are very hard to teach in the face of 8 dogs offering diverse behaviors and leaping up to grab the cookie when it’s offerred). (more…)

While at Fair Hill in October we purchased photos done by Sport Photography CA. I just put one of the series they did into a Flash movie of our BC Jolt weaving. You can view them on our Photo page.

Joon lives. Really. I know I haven’t written anything since NOVEMBER 28th! (I actually didn’t realize it was that long ago! Oh my.)

Let’s see, first of all I caught a cold - had no voice, a head full of stuff, and then it segued into an ear infection, and now I can’t hear. It’s been cold. Or hot. Or raining. There was a bunch of holidays in there too, disrupting any semblance of a “normal” life around here. Though with 10 dogs I’d sure like to know what’s normal. OK, normal for us. Meaning crazy. And then, just to be sure she could just live a slothful life, Joon came in season. So no running in the agility area - might make things a tad distracting for the paying students, ya know - and no training up in the barn - for the same reason.

We do play ball in the dog yard, either with other ball-crazy dogs or alone. We play the Two-Balls game (stop it!!) to encourage retrieving. You know the drill: throw one ball, dog runs off to get it, wanders back and tries to play keep-away, but off goes the second ball, dog drops ball #1 and races off to get the second one. Human grabs ball #1 and the game proceeds. Tires dog out really quickly, but the true purpose of the exercise is to teach the dog to bring the ball back - and the second ball/chase is the reward. Over time, anticipation of the second throw causes the dog to drop the ball before the second one is sent away - and with encouragement perhaps to bring the ball closer to the human. Joon has progressed to bringing the ball to my feet, drops it, and is ready to go. The game can then be played with one ball from this point, but two’s funner.

We also combine this game with sits and downs. She brings the ball, has to sit (or down). Gets released to chase the ball. Exercises in self-control.

But we’re coming back. She’s almost out of season. I really don’t have to hear to train her. Breathing helps, of course, but for now that’s working. Of course, the next interruption will be in a month or so, when the sweet gurl gets spayed.

But stay tuned…

The other day I was reading one of my e-mail lists (probably Clicktrain) and came across a post in which someone said something like if you find yourself in an adversarial relationship with your dog, you’re doing something wrong. This brought me up short. I know it to be a truth, but sometimes I guess I just need to be reminded.

As you have probably read, Tuck and I do not share the same views about where dogs should defecate. Unfortunately this often means that I am not very happy with him. I know all abut setting a dog up for success. I really do try to do so, but short of giving the darn guy an enema, there is only so much I can do. The compromise I had worked out was that I would take him out as soon as I got home and wait for him to potty. If nothing was forthcoming I would unemotionally carry him back to his crate and let him try again about every thirty minutes or after eating, whichever came first. Apparently my ‘unemotionally’ was not as good as it should have been because I noticed my sweet, loving little guy starting to avoid me. In my defense I will tell you that it’s cold out, it’s been raining, and I’ve been late for work almost every day for the past four weeks trying my best to give Tuck as many chances to succeed as humanly possible. That’s when I read the post and once again applied the rolled up newspaper to my forehead. (more…)

• AKC’s new FAST game, a game of strategy where distance skills are very useful
• USDAA’s Snooker, a game of strategy where control is very useful (not that it’s not useful in FAST too).
• By popular demand, we’ll throw in a tunnelers game, for the blast it gives the dogs.

More information is available at http://www.mountainviewdogs.com.