It’s now January 2008. Joon’s last entry was on January 15, 2007. Shame on me!

Just because I haven’t written in her blog, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t worked with the dog. I just haven’t shared. We’re not where I want to be, considering it’s been a year, but then there’s life that gets in the way. So it did, and does.

If I look at Joon’s Checklist, we’ve made progress. One thing I’ve learned when working with dogs, especially difficult dogs, is that it’s insanity to do anything but evaluate their progress over the long term. It can be quite frustrating to see improvement when you look at a week, or even a month, but given 3 or 6 months it’s far more obvious that the mountains are moving; the only way to move one of these canine mountains is slowly and deliberately. So over the past year we’ve made huge progress.

Down to details (’fess-up time): Joon is still not housebroken. (more…)

Weekend of February 10/11, 2007
We traveled to Hampton VA to a Novice/Open AKC trial, indoors at the Merrimack Dog Training Center. It was my first time there, though Karen had been there before. We took three very novice dogs: Karen with Patch, a rescued border collie who is 7 and displays all the behaviors that border collies have been bred for centuries to have, and which cause people to place them free to a good home; Pam had Jessie, a lovely 3-year-old English springer spaniel who is coming along beautifully; and I brought Jig, our 2-1/2 year old BC.

The trial was a blast, but I’m writing about the fun we had on Saturday afternoon after the trial. I wanted to go to the beach, but there apparently are no easily accessed beaches in Hampton - or if there are we didn’t find them. So we settled for a park. Looked up parks on our handy-dandy GPS (thank you, Pam) and the closest one was the Air Power Park and Museum (which our dogs dubbed the “Rocket Park”). The museum itself was closed, but the park had a lovely four-foot chain link fence around it, and there was no one there to tell us not to enter (no signs stating that either). So in we went, to a wonderland of rocket ships and airplanes - and a large field containing them. Out with the frisbees and ball, and, well, we could have been anywhere as far as the dogs were concerned. Karen considered it a great photo op, so here you are. Not often do you find dogs and rockets together. And just in case you were wondering, we cleaned up after our dogs and closed the gate after us when we left.

All of these photos are compliments of and copyright Karen Stinnett.

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…

Words to the wise: Stay home (or just don’t enter) if you are invited to go to an agility trial in an unheated Virginia horse barn during the second week of December. It will take me a while to recover from this one.

The good parts were the dogs’ runs which were exceptionally wonderful, until the afternoon of day #2 when the handler’s brain became mush and she couldn’t form a complete “go tunnel” cue and “table” came out instead — or when she realized she meant to cross behind the weave poles at about the time she reached pole #5 and put on the brakes, causing poor dog to pop out (only two of many issues; it was u-g-l-y). Yet these canines forgive me for all the physical abuse they endured this weekend, crated in a barn with temperatures outside at 20 F and inside probably less. (more…)

In an email discussion list I’m on, I’ve recently answered some questions about my favorite agility venue and would like to share this info. So here is my USDAA FAQ - which may be added to as more comes up.

Q. With what I can read on the USDAA website, it looks like the dogs run “naked”. At least the people get to wear their clothes. Also looks like USDAA runs all “Starters” together without “A” and “B” classes.I couldn’t find the definition of a Q in the rules, just info about faults and the number of obstacles at different levels. There’s a fault listed as “touching the base of the wishing well”. What is that? Dogs jump through an obstacle that looks like a wishing well? That’s kinda scary.Is there a lot of competition to get into USDAA trials like there used to be for AKC trials?

Is there any etiquette that we need to know about that’s different from AKC, UKC or NADAC? If my dog gets too wild n crazy, may I ask the judge to leave? Speaking of wild n crazy, if my dog is his “usual” self on the agility course, would we get whistled off for lack of control?

A. Do read those rules! But don’t get too crazy with them. The performance criteria change for each level. You’ll be out of starters pretty quick.

Some quick answers:

Yes, the dogs run naked. Collar = elimination. Outta there. Sometimes they whistle you off immediately, and sometimes they don’t. But if they see the collar you are out. They do appreciate it if handlers are clothed, however. (more…)