The Dogs Are Really In Charge

Fiona- Diabetic Alert dog

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:31:00 +0000

The FiFi had her official graduation!!! Fi and her mom started working together last August with the added challenge of teaching Fi to alert to low blood sugar with the distractions of being at work; a middle school class room. Of course the kids are in love with her and Fiona loves showing off her tricks.

After passing their skills demonstrations and public access test earlier this year they waited to become an official team at our spring graduation ceremony last month.

It had been almost 9 months since I last saw my Fiona and I was thrilled to see that she looked great and remembered almost all her tricks :) Her new momma seems to love her very much and also seems interested in getting her involved with disc dog, at least at home. It's a good thing I gave her a Super Aero disc for Fi's graduation/ 2nd birthday present!

Gracie 5 months

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Fri, 10 May 2013 13:32:00 +0000

Gracie just turned 5 months and has wasted no time embracing her teenager status. Easiest puppy is becoming naughtier puppy, but not yet at home. She's all legs now but still weighs a measly 29lbs.

Biggest issue this last month has oddly enough been potty training. Gracie pretty much trained herself at 8wks of age and with good management from myself I could count the number of accidents she had on one hand. Then this last month she started pooping in her crate in the middle of the night. Wouldn't make a peep, and her crate is in the bedroom so I would hear. Thankfully it was completely solid so cleanup sucked at 2am but it could've been worse. I shrunk her kennel tiny and it didn't help. Finally ended up taking away all her bedding and it seemed to do the trick. Just put the bedding back this week and *knock on wood* no problems yet.

Things were focusing more on now:
1. Retrieves- The hold training has been started now that she aims for my hand no matter where I put it. Simply shaping it is working well for her and these last few days I think the lightbulb has clicked as she made a huge leap in time.

2. Switch vs Touch- Gracie's target is on the wall but not quite at full push plate height because of her tiny stature. She's also doing a low lightswitch, flipping it up with her nose. Discerning which picture requires the use of her paw and which requires use of her nose is our current challenge. She often offers a combination of the two which while it gets the job done, is not what I'm looking for.

3. Visit vs Under- Gracie knows the head rest to my lap pretty well so in order to work on sending her to visit another person, I'm teaching her to send to a chair. We're currently working on duration and also added distractions of keeping her head down while my hand with food is moving around above her. Her added challenge is discriminating the verbal visit cue with her under cue to lie down underneath the chair. I'm not yet mixing up the 2 in order during a session.

4. Stand- Many days she has a 100% accuracy in her little jump up and landing into a stand. Then the next day it breaks and it takes her several tries to not jump up and land in a sit. All days combined, we're looking at maybe a 75% accuracy with her slightly better if started from my side and even better if done with a wall next to her.

And of course throwing in a mixture of other things she knows such as tugging drawers and baskets, going to mat, stays, going to heel and side, etc. I think I've done the least amount of tricks with her as compared to the other puppies but she sure loves to offer the ones she knows!

Toothless

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Sat, 04 May 2013 23:18:00 +0000

The boys visited had a dental appointment this last week. Lance has had a cracked tooth for some time now and I knew I couldn't put it off any longer. Vito was supposed to just be a cleaning, with the possibility of an extraction depending on what the xrays showed for one of his teeth. But Vito likes to go all out when it comes to medical stuff.

After surgery

4 teeth. Yup, that's how many teeth Vito had removed. For those that have met the Toller, you will recall that he has already had 3 teeth removed as a puppy due to the severity of his overbite. Well this week's surgery needed 3 more teeth pulled due to the same problem of them crushing into each other, as well as that bonus tooth that was cracked.

Lance had the 1 tooth removed and thankfully didn't have the ambitions of his brother to ask for any more out.

Due to the majorness of Vito's surgery and the lateness that it ended up being after Lance's, both boys were ordered to spend the night to get fluids and icing. I panicked and pleaded for the Toller, promising to bring him back first thing in the morning. I failed. But reason #958 I love my vet, she offered to take the boys to her house and even let Vito sleep in bed with her as she set her alarm to wake up twice in the middle of the night to attend to them. She said he was a good snuggler. Obviously.

Reason #959 I love my vet is that the next day they set Vito up in a large xpen with access to the soft crate I brought instead of putting him in one of the normal recovery crates. Lance prefered to not be touch.

Vito preferred constant petting. Constant.

Meditating with Grandma

Both boys are on soft food restrictions for a month. I've gotten permission to buy a bunch of small soft toys so Vito can play fetch in a week, but I've promised no tugging or balls. Hopefully the toothless wonder will feel better and fingers are crossed that it may even be an explanation for his increase in anxiety recently.

Vito Behavioral Appointment

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:25:00 +0000

Vito had his recheck appointment with the Veterinary Behaviorist last week. His 6 month checkup was supposed to be the beginning of January but due to some emergencies it had to be pushed way back. Back in January and February I was planning on discussing lowering his medication doses and possibly getting rid of one of the 3 drugs he is on.

I want this again.

At that time Vito was calm, and even resting his head down quite often, on 95% of car rides. At work he was relaxing nicely under my desk and I was able to train the service dogs without any thought of how he was doing without me. His separation anxiety was getting a bit worse if left alone in the evenings, but he was still doing very well if left in the morning.

Unfortunately, and with Vito there always seems to be one, things started to slowly change in early-mid March. Vito is still much improved from last year, but we are no longer in our blissful state that started to exist in October and was cemented by December.

Now Vito is still doing pretty well in the car, but he is slowly increasing the percentage of trips with light anxiety appearing and actual panic attacks are occasionally coming back as well.

At work Vito is continuing to do a nice job of relaxing under my desk when I'm gone, but his reactivity to people approaching or noises heard is greatly increasing. Vito used to only react a few times a week but the last few weeks he has been reacting several times a day.

At home, his separation anxiety is almost back to square one. Thankfully he doesn't need to be left alone very often at all so this is pretty low on our list of priorities. Although I also feel that not being left alone on a regular basis is also what's preventing him from doing better. Vito was doing very well with longer absences when he had a few short 1hr absences a week to help build him up. Since that is no longer possible with our work schedules he now can't even handle 20 minutes.

And finally, Vito is becoming a problem child when he comes with me to let out the pack of service dogs for their noon playtime. He has never wanted to actually play with the group of dogs, but for some reason he finds the opportunity incredibly exciting and starts working himself up a good half hour before it actually happens; leaving him behind becomes a no longer valid option. The new problem is his increasing redirection of arousal to the other dogs. A month or two ago I suddenly found myself having to leash him while the other dogs were let out or he would charge them. Now he is calm while on leash but as soon as the leash is removed he sprints off like a rocket towards the other dogs and snarks at any one who dares to get excited by his approach. After the initial rushing/possible snarks Vito will then calm down and be content to ignore the teenage dogs as he sniffs and wanders on his own.

So our recheck discussion was long. Changing his shorter acting medications of Clonidine and Diazepam to anything else is out of the question as his Prozac dose is so incredibly high at 40mg. Getting him on a different main drug is a possibility but one that we both want to hold off on as it could completely rock the boat. Luckily we do have wiggle room left with increasing how much Clonidine and Diazepam he is getting each day. Currently Vito takes .3mg of Clonidine twice a day, 8hrs apart, and takes 7.5mg Diazepam in the morning and then a hour before other car rides, usually just a 2nd dose at 4pm. I really don't want to increase either one for fear of decreasing his drive even more during training/trials but did start increasing his Clonidine to .4mg.

Other options talked about were trying a DAP spray, acupuncture and food changes. For now I'm just ordering the DAP. For the dog rushing, since Vito won't take any treats in the situation we talked about giving him a ball for a few minutes if it won't create too many problems with the other dogs. Or possibly letting him out with just 2 other dogs for a few minutes to let him calm down and then seeing if he doesn't rework himself back up when letting out the rest of the pack.

Toller USDAA

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:26:00 +0000

USDAA trial for the Toller this weekend!

Screaming was much more minimal compared to the last few trials, something I am attributing to the tighter warm up space due to it being held indoors. But Vito still seemed very happy to play with me and as a bonus he looked like he was actually starting to RUN on course, on Saturday at least..

Saturday Vito had two runs.

Masters Gamblers was an NQ on the distance portion. Like many of the dogs, he looked for me coming out of the tunnel and simply didn't see the farther jump he was to take. But the opening ran pretty well. I set him up to wrap the starting jump figuring that it would allow me to sprint away from him. Vito wasn't a fan of that plan and knocked the bar, but it did seem to work once he realized I was set on leaving him in the dust. Considering we did zero aframes or dogwalks and instead did the teeter twice and the wave poles once I thought he ran pretty fast. http://youtu.be/s8I-O0ONQMo

Advanced Standard was a Q! It looked like a really fun course so I was hoping that the Toller would be up for playing. I think he liked my opening. I chose against leading out so instead I ran with him on my left
to do a blind after the aframe and then an immediate front cross to the weaves. I was a little late with the front cross so he turned wide but I still kept him out of the off course dw/tunnel area. I also tried Vito's stopped dogwalk cue for the 2nd time in a trial. The first time made sad Vito as he was just too new to sequencing with it. This time Vito collected nicely and I released him as soon as he got near the yellow to flip to the tunnel. Perhaps I shouldn't have released him before he technically stopped in either the 2o2o or 4 on the floor (either position is allowable for him) but I didn't want to risk Sad Vito. After the table was our first backside jump in a competition but I was able to lead out and call him to me before front crossing.
1st half not filmed :( http://youtu.be/t2k3jkUi8TA

Sunday Vito had 3 runs.

Advanced jumpers was a Q although not so fast. Lots of pinwheel type sequences limited my ability to run and I counted doing 6 front crosses.

We moved up to masters standard and also got another Q. The dock doors were open before the start of this run, and Vito kept looking at this suspicious change before we started. Very slow teeter and weave poles but other than that he did pretty well. Even had a decent running dogwalk to the table; something we never practice. http://youtu.be/Ne5z7Ldx8WM

Pairs Vito was very excited as he loves going second, but we failed our half. For some reason Vito didn't get the weave pole entrance even though he read my front cross well and it was a straight approach. Then he weaved really slow again and had no momentum to send to the next jump so we got a refusal. I was happy that he screamed at me as I resent him and picked up some speed for the closing. He loved ending with the dogwalk and then a wrap. http://youtu.be/359_abLsO-s

Another held sit!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 23:46:00 +0000

Obedience trial today for the corgi. I took off work so that Lance could do this last AKC trial until August and Vito could still go to an USDAA agility trial this weekend.

Lance qualified in Open which means that he held his long sit! Still obviously stressed, but he did it. The rest of the exercises went pretty well. Lance's heeling was pretty good and and he was back to his usual happy self that I felt was somewhat missing the last trials. Dinged badly on our fronts but we came away with a 195.5.

In Utility Lance managed to fail on 2 exercises so once again no QQ and UDX leg. On the glove pivot he did what is now becoming a habit of not keeping eye contact with me and not sitting. He took the wrong glove. On signals he didn't lie down, sat instead. Our other habitual problem of not sitting on one of the go outs, the 2nd on this time, happened as well and I gave another verbal.

On the positive side, Lance didn't mouth the glove today as he was doing in the CDSP trial recently. He also hasn't moved forward on the signal and moving stands in a long time.

Hawaiian Shirt NADAC trial

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 03:10:00 +0000

The "Hawaiian Shirt" NADAC agility trial was held this past weekend. We went on Sunday where of course it was snowing on our drive down but warmed up to a balmy 40 degrees as the day went on and blessed us with some rain.

The arena was unheated so I modeled my 3 shirts, 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of socks, sweatshirt, jacket and hat all day. It was also mud city. I almost had a boot eaten by the mud moat surrounding the port o potties.

Lance was pissed that I carried him on all outdoor trips, only setting him down when I reached snow.

As for their runs, Lance was pretty excited. He remembered to stop in the 4on position on all contacts, but started to self release on a few. I shrugged. Maybe that's why the 2nd round of regular he added quick releasing the aframe to his list :) He knocked a bar on both regular runs but overall jumped very nicely. The first half of his jumpers course was beautiful jumping but stuttered the 2nd half. Thankfully he manged to keep all bars up and we qualified. In chances only one elite dog qualified and sadly it was not us!

Vito was happy to scream before his turn and blessed the other exhibitors with his wonderful singing even during our warmup playing! He loved doing the dogwalk twice in touch n go although I was unable to turn him before the tunnel straight after the first one. Video shows I did not try very hard.
I also didn't connect after doing a blind cross out of the last tunnel as my brain was trying to remember which hoop we were to go to. He's such a good boy!
http://youtu.be/DPBkibJAtl8

In Chances I really thought we qualified but I guess the judge faulted Vito for going over the line, even though he curled across it before taking the jump the line was supposed to start at. He stalled after the 2nd jump to wait for me so I had to call him back to me and re reved him up for the rest. On the positive side he did go back out happily and did a nice layered dogwalk. Jumpers was clean but not terribly fast.

Aaggh, Minnesota!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:57:00 +0000

Primal wailing and gnashing of teeth is occurring all over Minnesota right now. It is mid APRIL, not February! Why do we live here????

Vito doesn't seem to care.

Poor Corgi.

Sigh, 4 to 8 inches expected...

Training Lists

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:30:00 +0000

I made a training list. I was going to write that I am not a list person. I don't create checklists, am not much of a planner, and generally consider myself the opposite of Type A. But then I just realized that I am that person when it comes to the dogs. I do have a crazy obedience spreadsheet listing the results of every trial we've been to and tabs within said spreadsheet breaking down each open and utility exercise comparing points lost. I have an upcoming events spreadsheet that goes a year out with every upcoming obedience/rally/agility trial and columns for date closing, what each dog entered, if results were submitted to the club, etc. And don't get me started on the bullet point journal I did for Vito's anxiety issues that was almost daily for 2yrs, updated about biweekly currently, and is at 142 pages, at size 10 font.

So I guess my new training list isn't that far off the mark. It's a tricks list actually. On it lists a handful of tricks that I really want to train for the boys, most of which I've already started at some point but like usual faded off. Also on the list is a handful of tricks working on core strength or balance; tricks that for the most part are fairly well known but ones that I don't make an effort do keep up on. It's done in pretty big font so I can tape the list in my living room and remind me to do it.

UDX-C and RL3 Titles!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 20:26:00 +0000

I took the boys to a CDSP Obedience/ APDT Rally trial this weekend.

Vito was entered in 1 round of rally. It took him awhile to get into the run and we had some light lagging in the beginning. But he was focused on me and didn't give any glances towards the steward table or judge. The last half of the course he was more "on" and seemed to be having fun. We qualified with a 210 and this finished up his level 3 title. It wasn't quite the attitude I wanted but it was certainly better than the disaster run throughs he had a few weeks ago.

Lance has 2 runs of Utility B each day. In CDSP, Utility B is more of a versatility class as it chooses exercises from open and utility and then has a bonus baseball glove exercise that allows the final score to be out of 220.

He qualified on the first 3 runs with scores of 212, 210.5, and 215.5 and these were the last legs he needed for his UDX-C!

Noted issues:
- Signal exercise was only done once but Lance sat on the down signal just like the last AKC trial. However in CDSP you can give a 2nd signal and still qualify.
- On 2 of 4 go outs he needed a 2nd cue to sit on the 2nd send outs. However he did not have this issue on any of the 4 baseball glove go outs.
- Glove pivots sucking. On 2 of the 6 glove sends he did not sit on the pivot; I gave a verbal. He's also still locking in on the glove as soon as I finish moving and thus he ends up slightly crooked on the pivot. The poor pivot plus lack of eye contact with me is the reason we failed the 4th trial as he took glove #2 instead of #3 on the first glove send.
- Mouthing the glove as he sits in front. Exact opposite of the issue we were having a few months ago in trials where he wouldn't let go of the glove!

Noted brags:
- Heeling was slightly off in the beginning on Saturday, but he was fabulous on Sunday. No forging or lagging :)
- Did all 4 baseball gloves! This is an exercise that we simply don't practice very often and he sometimes struggles with going out vs heading to one of middle gloves. Lance arched a bit right on every send but sat when told and even sent back for that #2 glove on trial3.
- Finishes were mostly all there!

Gracie 17wks

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 02:44:00 +0000

Haven't done much new training with Gracie these past few weeks since the puppy swap. I've been trying to re-inspire myself and have at least started a few new things this last week.

Personality wise, Gracie is really starting to shine. She loves her toys and it's been nice to have had to do very little training with her to actually bring the toy back to me for tugging! Gracie's also been nice to me in that I haven't really had to train alternating food and toys as a reward. See, easiest puppy ever still!

Queen of the playground. Zoom, Zoom, then hide and attack!

Her biggest battle though has been with her food dish. Gracie works nicely at dinner time with her food sitting on a chair or coffee table just inches away. When put on the floor Gracie continues to do a wonderful job of leaving the food alone and for the most part does as I ask. However, despite the fact that she's physically leaving the food dish she certainly is not mentally. She's practically quivering in excitement as she stares at her dish after each click and continues to stare at the dish if it is at all possible to continue doing so while still doing what I asked. On the positive side, she is at least able to have 50% of her brain there while Bubba's obsession only left him with 10% and insane spazzing with the rest.

Gracie passed the level 2 test today and is now officially in intermediate class at the service dog organization. Teacup Labrador is 22.5lbs. I'm wondering if I accidentally put her in the dryer.

Since the last update:

1. Stays- Mastered walking behind her, mild distractions, and distance. Working mainly on boring old time now, focusing on the sit since I figure once mastered the down will be a piece of cake.

2. Position work- Loves to offer heel and side position and I'm not using a perch at all anymore. Doesn't quite know verbal only cues but will come to the correct side I'm asking for if my head is turned in the right direction. In heel will side step one shuffle at a time, pivot 360 degrees in position, and can back up 3 steps. Needs much more work on this in side position.

3. 2o2o- Backs up to it now. Started raising the height of the box. I also really need to work on distance of backing up away from me.

4. Light switches- Pretty consistent with using her nose to flip the switch up, a tube is still attached. Will be moving to the low switch on the wall this week.

5. Stand- Loves her jump up and is also doing well with a mini stay on her land. Biggest hurdle is the two are only combined when I click the jump and immediately reward, otherwise she goes into a sit right away.

6. Retrieves- Picks up a variety of objects and is pretty good about targeting my hand. Have not yet started a hold but I think this will actually be pretty easy for her unlike most dogs I've trained.

7. Tug- Finally convinced her to stop automatically jumping into the basket and to grab the rope instead. Gracie will now drag me a tiny basket to my hand, but we're still only doing 2-3ft so we really practice the putting rope into hand portion. She's also had a few lessons on tugging open a very light cabinet but I'm limiting this practice until she's better with the previous mentioned version of tugging.

8. Shake/Paw- going back to this and making sure she understands which paw to lift is cued by which hand i'm offering.

9. Frog legs- just started. She has no idea what I want but it's cute.

10. Visit- Generalizing her "sad" behavior (head to floor) to now be head to my lap.

11. Touch- working the target on height now so that she has to paw the target taped to a wall.

Happy 6th Birthday Lance!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I can't believe your 6yrs old already buddy.

Lance Obedience Trial

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 02:30:00 +0000

Lance was entered one day of the obedience trial this weekend. My main goal was for Lance to hold his out of sight sit although I certainly would have taken a UDX leg.

Open
Jumping straight to the good news- Lance held his sit! He was still stressed setting up but remained sitting even with the dog next to him getting up and nervously not waning to be caught. I was so ecstatic on my return that I created quite the controversy as I leashed up Lance and thanked the judge as I walked out of the ring so I could reward the corgi. While an exhibitor can not ask to be excused in obedience as only the judge has the power to make that call, they can not make you stay in the ring :) My judge was highly confused, but I talked to a rep who was there about it and she assured me that I handled it properly and the judge should know to just mark the exhibitor absent.

Unfortunately, we also NQed in individual exercises. On the drop on recall Lance stopped when I told him to lie down but then stared at the steward walking over with his dumbbell instead of actually lying down. He apparently was so enamored with her that he kept staring, although did finally down on my 2nd cue, and needed even a 2nd cue to come to me! The rest of the exercises went pretty well. Lance had a no sit on his front after the broad jump and some crooked finishes.

On the positive side, because we NQed before going into the stays it gave me the confidence to pull him from the down and reward him for the sit. It wasn't planned. I actually didn't think of doing it until I walked back in sight and saw him still sitting there. But I think it was a good move for him. I'll keep in mind doing it in the future, but it sure would be an expensive way to train.

Utility
Not as focused. Heeling was ok, but we actually had a lag on the fast time and for the corgi that is shocking. NQ on signals as he sat instead of lying down. Huh, 2 NQs for not downing. No sit on our glove pivot, again. Benefit to already NQing was I was able to give him a verbal cue. Go outs he drifted towards the glove corner. Big positive is that despite being in the #3 corner he went across the ring to take the correct jump! 2nd go out wasn't quite as drifty but he didn't sit so I gave a 2nd verbal.

I decided to enter one day of another AKC trial the end of the month. In the meantime we'll keep working on our sit stays and we have a CDSP obedience trial next weekend.

Obedience Woes

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 02:11:00 +0000

For the most part Lance's sit-stay bootcamp is still going well. He seems to be OK with food behind him now which I suppose is a good thing although I'm a little sad that it no longer replicates some stress of the show ring for him. I've gotten him to fail a few more times, 1 by pushing on his chest so that he has to work really hard to stay sitting or he'll slide backwards into a down. Another by leaving him for awhile in a sit and then asking the other dogs if they want to go outside.

But then yesterday I was shocked as Lance actually lied down on his sit in the group lineup at the obedience club. On one hand I was a little happy that I could "correct" the corgi in an environment that's a bit closer to a trial, but on the other hand I'm questioning whether all our stay work is helping at all or if it's even making it worse. But if he was stressed in that lineup he sure was doing a great job of hiding it.

Vito is also giving me grief in obedience. Along with the corgi, Vito just finished participating in a small study looking at the effects of a fatty or sugar supplement on obedience performance. He was asked to do a novice run through on 2 different nights, with no treats given several hours before or during it. It was awful; both times. It was even done in a room where I teach classes once a week and thus Vito is crated in that room and often does a bit of training. It was quiet outside of the room and the only person in the room was our judge whom Vito actually knows pretty well. Yet the Toller had zero interest in doing anything. He plodded along during the heeling, several feet behind me, gave me no sits on the halts, and just generally stared at me blankly. Operation happy obedience toller was a no go.

Easter Eggs

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 23:17:00 +0000

Happy Easter! I dug up this video of the boys learning to put easter eggs into a basket from 4 years ago. Vito was just 6 months old!

Puppy Swap

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 03:38:00 +0000

This past week Gracie left me to visit her brother's foster house. In exchange, I took brother Rooney for boot camp. Rooney apparently needed work on not eating people, household manners, and being brave around other dogs during playtime. My 2 said whatever about the whole thing. Was there even a trade? Lance just wondered why he suddenly had less room under the desk. Rooney was a whole 8lbs bigger than our own Teacup Labrador.

Rooney, not Gracie.

It was interesting to compare the two siblings. After getting some ground rules in place, Rooney turned out to be much calmer than Gracie. He actually reminded me a lot of Chuckles with his goofy personality. Both are pretty confident puppies, but whereas Gracie has never shyed away from anything, Rooney takes a short time to be sure. He was a quick study though and I had fun catching him up, almost, to Gracie in training. Puppies are so easy :)

In exchange, Gracie spent the week being an only dog and learning to ride the bus to work. She also had a quick study in lying under a desk all day and going to meetings. Rooney's puppyraiser noted that she had much more of an opinion about the boring work days than Mr. Rooney.

Sibling reunion! Blurry picture #1

Blurry picture #2. After I took charge and decided puppies were doing downs. Here you can see the size difference a tiny bit better.

Rooney, I hope you're behaving yourself for your family now!

Booot Camp for Stays

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 17:45:00 +0000

The corgi has been practicing lots of sit stays since the trial three weeks ago. My plan of attack was to replicate minor amounts of stress in hopes that knowing he could work through it would transfer to trials.

Here's what I found:
1. Lance really does not like food behind him, a fact that I discovered about 2yrs ago in my attempt to have a "security blanket" behind him so he didn't feel completely abandoned. I didn't do it again until now. Lance has always been that good dog who will actively take a wide berth around food, toys, or even fuzz on the floor; something I've occasionally tried hard to fix on go outs and recalls. This means conflict for stays. So far he hasn't broken a single stay with food behind him but he sure looks sad. I've recently started releasing him to the food behind him vs picking it up off the floor to give him and this makes Lance a bit happier.

2. Random distance sits continue to produce stress. This is where I'm sitting on the couch and tell him to sit and stay while he's 10ft away from me just hanging out. Sometimes I then continue to ignore him on the couch, sometimes I go out of sight. Mostly he holds the sit very well. On 3 occasions I got him to break after I ignored him, then left for awhile, and then came back to sit on the couch again. I guess Lance figured I forgot about him, or maybe just doubted that I ever gave the command in the first place.

3. Stays in places other than home actually have the least amount of stress as long as food isn't behind him. It's like he's in more of a training mode and better understands that I might want him to sit awhile.

4. I've apparently taught him to love chairs. I'm not sure when I started occasionally asking Lance to hop on a chair, but I've done more of them these last two weeks and Lance is obsessed with it. I've never asked for it at home (although I guess that's a good idea, I'll try a sit on the couch!) but at dog classes Lance is constantly offering to hop on a chair if there's one near by. Zero stress; I guess he like being up high! It would be awesome if I could just bring a little chair to the lineup with me in a trial, can't you picture the corgi on his chair sitting next to a Great Dane :)

5. Some issues are starting to pop up with the release word. There are times where Lance will not move on my first OK. This is not the case if I release him to food behind him of course :) I know that he does know the release well, and truly knows a verbal only. In agility practice I release him without any movement on my part. And while I can sometimes fool him once by leading out, pausing to face him, then sprinting away without releasing I can never fool him a second time.

6. I haven't really been worried about focusing on other distractions. Inevitably we end up practicing some anyway as when other people see Lance sitting in the kitchen at work, or on a chair at class and ask what we're doing almost everyone starts helping on their own. The corgi can add successfully resisting recalls by his favorite people with momma out of sight to his checklist.

Gracie 14wks

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:32:00 +0000

Lessons this past week:

1. Retrieves- Picks up object nicely, now working on me moving backwards and her bringing it to my hand.

2. Light switches- Her first few lessons in using her nose to flip a switch held at nose level. A tube is attached to make the switch bigger. I think she now understands her job is not to bite it.

3. Position work- Needs a perch for learning the verbal cues only. Without a perch she offers pivoting to heel and side position and with a side step she knows which side I want her to be on. She's also done some backing up in heel/side this week and a tiny bit of side stepping.

4. Mat work- Still working on her remembering the down needs to happen on the mat. Currently she's backfeet targeting the mat and I want her front feet on it.

5. 2o2o- Is just starting to back up to get into a 2o2o position on a box. Not fully consistent with it yet.

6. Stand- I've decided to use the hand touch method for a jumping stand with her. I've used it on adult dogs at work but haven't used it yet to teach one of my puppies. Will be interesting.

Lance NADAC trial

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:22:00 +0000

Saturday
The corgi had his first agility trial since October. That's almost half a year! I didn't realize the implications when I entered weavers as his very first run.

I yayed as he got the 1st entrance, but then we had a mini face off as he popped out at the 10th pole and ran to just inches away from the next obstacle. I won, but not before he entered wrongly and we had to try the first set of weave poles for a 3rd time. The rest of the course and their weave poles went well and we managed to qualify by half a second.

In Regular I was proud of him for stopping on both dogwalk and aframe, and for doing it in the yellow vs just above it. Lance's doing great with it during open ring time, but in a class environment he's still not 100% with the aframe on exactly where he should stop. We Q'd although there was an awfully close off course thanks to the damn barrel.

Chances and Jumpers were both NQs due to off courses. Lance nailed the layered weave poles distance challenge in chances but failed an easy switch cue to take a bonus jump first. In his defense I was a tad late with my cue, but not so late that he couldn't fix it! Jumpers he apparently decided he wanted more distance between us. He also started to stutter on his jumps on the ending speed loop. Lance really looked very nice on his jumping in the other runs Saturday; some early take offs but none of that stuttering until the jumpers round.

Sunday
Lance had 4 more runs. Both Touch n Go and Regular were very smooth and I was happy to see Lance again confidently stopped 4on with all 3 aframes and 2 dogwalks.

Chances was beautifully executed but he knocked a bar. We just can't seem to qualify in this class even if we actually get the distance portion.

Jumpers wasn't quite as stuttery as yesterday's run and we qualified. http://youtu.be/_rTggbj48a8
---
Lance earned 5 titles this weekend with one of them being his open versatility title! Not entering anything with contacts off and on for 3 years kind've makes it hard to get there :)

I already have a chiropractic appointment set up for him in 2 weeks and I'm thinking he really needs it. He just felt a little off this weekend with his speed and of course I noted the same thing at the
obedience trial last weekend.

Vito NADAC trial

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 02:16:00 +0000

Our first NADAC trial since October!

Saturday
Regular was first. I was a bit worried as we were surprised with doing barrels on course (WTF NADAC!) and the first one was right after the dogwalk. Vito's running dogwalk was trained to hit at the end of the board and drive to the next obstacle. I never fully was able to get that first half without the 2nd half, thus our turns issue and ultimately adding a stopped contact option for him. So I was worried as I highly doubted Vito would drive to an obstacle he's never seen before. There was a practice barrel outside of the ring and Vito thought the job was to whack it. When one paw clearly did not get him the reward he thought jumping at it with both was necessary. Awesome. I did get him to actually run around it eventually.

Luckily since in NADAC there's basically a 90% chance the dogwalk is either the 2nd obstacle or the 2nd to last obstacle, I was able to do a lead out and beat him to the end of the dogwalk so he drove to me and then around the barrel was an easy push. The 2nd barrel he had a very slight moment of WTF but then since I was sprinting to get a blind in after the aframe he happily finished it and ran after me. We qualified and it was close to being one of his fastest standard runs in a trial at 4.98YPS and that was even with an extra set of weaves on course.

Chances I was terrified as he fixated on the judge as we waited to start. I had to release Vito with him staring at the judge so I wasn't optimistic, but Vito sprinted on course with me instead! He did one of his fastest rear crosses, well a tandum turn I guess, ever but knocked a bar and then entered the weaves at pole #2. But I was so proud of him for holding it together at the start and then even running!

Jumpers was sad Toller. We were 2nd in the ring and I got stuck explaining my video camera to the nice person I got to tape us. Vito got straight of the crate and had maybe 30sec before going in the ring. That does not work for the Toller. Knocked the 2nd bar and had a slow first half, but started to pick up speed by the end.

Sunday
Moderately happy Toller on Touch n Go. A rear cross in the beginning was hard to recover from. But the dogwalk to barrel appeared again and I was able to use some distance and running to make it there for him to charge to me.

Super happy Toller appeared for Chances. Singing for the whole world to hear before we even walked in the ring :) Broke his stay and of course I let him. (Don't get any ideas Mr. Corgi!). Chances was much easier than Saturday and he made the distance challenge like his corgi brother, but kept the bars up :)

Choking Toller walked in the jumpers ring. Well, at least a throat-irritated toller. During our warm up he coughed up a piece of kibble that was fed to him about an hour before. He was happy to play with me but his scream was more of hack. There wasn't much decision time as he was the last dog anyway so into the ring we went. It was slow and I heard a few coughs, but he managed to qualify. Poor guy.

Gracie 13wks, with video!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 04:04:00 +0000

She must be one special puppy as Vito has secretly given her his paw of approval. He lets her cuddle with him without doing too much grumbling in protest. And he has even played with her a few times at work. In his awkward, creepy looking way of course.

Applause is also needed for Gracie passing the level one test at the service dog school. I believe Bubba was close to 5 months before he could manage the 30second stay and Gracie can almost double that time. Such an easy puppy! A sit and down for another person was difficult for her at first as she really cared where I was going. This is newly developing these last 2 weeks so I need to work on handing her off more!

Gracie is starting to become more spunky this week! A little more vocal in her playing, more crazy with her tugging, and she also had fun dragging the full water dish across the living room. She's very full of herself.

This week's learning:
1. Perch work- No luring needed! Working on maintaining position through pivots. She's also started to offer position without a perch and pivoting pretty nicely without the perch.

2. Shaped retrieves- I decided to skip my plan B and cheated by taking the easy route. Since Gracie transitions nicely between food rewards and tugging on a toy, I knew she would have no problem biting one of her toys. Some very minor steps in getting her to bite it for a click and cookie treat vs tugging with it, but I'm now starting to very the object presented and tried our very first non-toy object today.

3. Stays- Doing very well! I'm starting to add in my movement to the side of her in hopes that next week I can walk around behind without her moving her feet to face me. I also added in the concept of staying under a chair this week.

4. Go mat- apparently we need to revisit this more. She kinda lost criteria on downing as soon as she gets there, or that she needs to actually be on the mat in her down.

5. Other behaviors- Many more behaviors are getting on verbal onlys. When she's thinking we have mastered sit, down, spin right, weave through my legs, and sometimes rollover.

Almost 14wks and only 17.5lbs. I'm thinking she might be one of our teacup labradors like Fiona turned out; pocked sized!

Lance obedience trial

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:37:00 +0000

Another obedience trial for the corgi this weekend. Short summary: 2 NQs in open due to lying down on the out of sight sit, and 2 Q's in utility.

Open Runs:
Heeling was off both days. Not giving me his constant eye contact so was actually lagging at times, very odd for him. Was good by figure 8 on both days.
Fronts were horrible on Saturday, I think we got docked on every single one. Finishes weren't great either.
On Sunday he pulled it together and while he was still off in the heeling pattern, he had spot on fronts and almost all great finishes! Actually Lance had a 197 going into the group stays on Sunday. In this area that means tied for 8th place, but it still would have been nice.

Of course both days he went down on his sit. Saturday he lasted 45 seconds, and on Sunday he went 1min 45sec. I'm really desperate for advice on fixing this issue that only appears during trials and fun matches. Honestly, this issue does not happen in class or on sit stays anywhere else. I can replicate stress though by putting food behind him on the stays or by having him do a sit at a distance while at home and then continue to ignore him.

Utility Runs:
Heeling was again off both days. Not bad, just again not giving me his eye contact and thus was a bit close to lagging at times, especially on the fast which he usually loves.
On Saturday he had issues with the first article. Sniffed it, then moved onto search the rest of the pile, repeat like 3 times. No issues with article #2 or with either article on Sunday. Actually on Sunday we had the same judge as the Herding Club trial in January where Lance didn't like how close he stood the pile and how he immediately starts moving forward the second the dog has the correct article.
Go outs were really nice and straight on all 4 sends although he did his tiny "S"thing on Satuurday.
Our glove pivots sucked both days. Lance is just locking onto the glove as soon as he thinks he knows where he is going and thus not focusing on his heel position. On Sunday I think this was made worse since he yawned right as I started the pivot. Of course in practice he's a pro at keeping eye contact with me until I bring my hand down for the mark, and I often pivot multiple times before sending him.

Sigh. At least utility continues to be going well with 5/5 for the year. I think I'm going to schedule another chiropractic appointment. It won't explain the stays as he's had that issue ongoing, but he is due for an adjustment and perhaps it is a tiny explanation of the heeling.

Spring is here?

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:30:00 +0000

I did not know how much Corgis shed before I got one. Oh yeah, they only shed twice a year...6 months at a time.

The Toller tried to compete but didn't quite make it.

I'm hoping they're trying to say that the large dump of snow occurring this past week is the last of it and spring is right around the corner.

International Flavored Agility

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:30:00 +0000

Another Dog Agility Blog Action Day!
One of the great things about trialing in the U.S is all the agility organizations available. I'm an unusual agility competitor in that I choose to do 2 organizations that are polar opposite in course styles: NADAC and USDAA. I do NADAC because both my dogs love running full speed for the entire course, it's great in building my anxious dog's confidence, and because I love trying distance handling with the other dog. I do USDAA because I like the course challenges and the greater opportunity for handling choices.

But compared to courses overseas, none of the organizations in the United States offer "international challenges" on a consistent basis in their courses. USDAA and AKC are both starting to offer these options for competitors in their Masters Challenge courses and the newly demoed Excellent C class.

When I've talked to other competitors about those options, (well since I'm incredibly shy I mean eavesdropped or lurked on forums/facebook) there are such a wide range of opinions about these international options. Many are excited to try new things, but what appears to be an even greater number of people are scared or even upset by possible changes. Many echo that they just want to have fun with their dog, they're not striving to be national competitors let alone international. I think that's the 99%. Doesn't everyone want to just have fun with their dog? Dreams of podium wins or not, I personally don't see how a change in course style takes away from the fun they are having with their dogs.

But one thing I do note about international challenges is that it requires a certain type of dog, and foundation training, to do them well. The challenges require the dog to collect quickly, remain in collection for several obstacles, and then just as quickly accelerate out. The Toller has the first requirement down in that he reads my collection cues well, almost too well some times. But he has a really hard time shifting back up into gear once he has been asked to turn tight. We've been working hard on driving back into obstacle focus and have been making progress, but at this point an international course would be too demotivating for him. I do have hopes that some day we will both rise to the challenge! The Corgi and I would have a blast doing the handling challenges, but unfortunately he is not a very good jumper. Because of this he now jumps 4in and I'm ok with wider turns versus trying to get him to jump tighter and likely stutter doing it. I have high hopes that with my next dog (who of course will be perfect!) I will train a solid foundation on collection-to acceleration-to collection and thus open up the possibilities for having fun with international courses. But realistically I don't think international style courses are for every team. Of course, I also think that many teams just need to give it a shot. I've seen handlers of all ages and athletic abilities successfully complete international maneuvers with the right amount of confidence and practice.

That also brings me to what we are talking about when we say "international." When I was looking up videos on youtube in order to write this post I didn't find courses that were threadle, after threadle, after backside jump. While the runs that I watched weren't NADAC in style :) they weren't all that different from many USDAA courses. I think that we have to be careful not to make courses too technical in nature in our quest to make challenging courses. Maybe it's only because of my difficulties with the Toller, but I prefer courses that have a challenging piece but followed by stretches where the dog can open up and really Run. I do look forward to where the courses in our U.S. organizations are headed, please challenge us!, but hope they don't become technical just for sake of trying to being international flavored.

Doing Nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Laura, Lance, and Vito) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:54:00 +0000

I've was sick last week and the dogs suffered from it. I've never realized how much Vito depends on a daily level of mental stimulation and exercise until he no longer got it. For 2 full days he didn't leave the house at all and add an extra half day before that and half day after that and you got a recipe for a neurotic Toller. Puzzle toys and brief play sessions couldn't cut it.
Vito would wake up eyes dilated and panting and stayed that way for a full week.

Apparently Vito is not a dog who can just stay at home and be ok with it. I think it had less to do with physical exercise and more to do with going places. My dogs go with me everywhere. It started as necessity due to Vito's separation anxiety and now is habit plus necessity due to all the dog crap I do in the evenings and weekends. I have noticed this to a degree on weekends where we don't have a trial, run through, or any other activity planned. A panting Toller will suddenly appear and the need for a walk suddenly becomes imminent. But the duration of those episodes were short as long as we got out of the house. It's amazing how much stress can keep building until it bubbles over and then needs time to simmer back down.