Last night at agility class was one of those magical times The handling was difficult (the instructor concentrates on the more difficult handling when we are indoors since there is less room) but on 3 out of 4 runs, I found myself laughing with sheer joy - and Faelan loved it too Just me, my beautiful Faelan and the course; 30-40 seconds of joyously running in the zone!

Those crazy scenarios when my feet are heading one way to support the next jump while my 'headlights' are angling toward the next jump so Faelan knows which lead to land on; back chaining from a sharp turn on jump #6 all the way back to the first jump; being surprised at how fast the AFrame comes at you during an angled serp ; way fun

I was in need of a night like that !!

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Golden moments shared with
Casey, Faelan, Towhee & Brady too !

and forever in my heart, my golden Bridge boys
Rowdy & King

Received e- mail from the custom bumbell maker stating it is cold in Utah where they make them and to be patient Ill get it soon as his shop doesn't have proper heat. I hope it warms up there very soon as I'm trying to fix a problem and need a dumbell to do it. Going to training tonite , the novice exercises are going well but we aren't doing to good in the advanced ones. Nugget likes to take ANY dumbell that hits the floor and not give it back also he is having problems with marking and getting the proper glove and he hasn't a clue on scent discrimination articles unless its got cheese spread on it and I'm only using 3 two are tied down and the free one has the cheese on it . When we try it with no cheese he will pick up the wrong one 2-3 times then quit isn't using his nose but there is lots of time to get this. I'm trying out all the exercises to not bore him with novice- novice- novice exercises, he is very young and I'm sure in time it will all come together.



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Can you order a dumbbell or 2 from Max200 or J&J to see you through? They should be able to get one to you quickly.

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Golden moments shared with
Casey, Faelan, Towhee & Brady too !

and forever in my heart, my golden Bridge boys
Rowdy & King

Thanks Sunrise I never thought of ordering from J+J but I just called them and ordered one of their invincible s dumbells and they will ship it this afternoon it will be a little longer in bar length 1/4 inch but that will work .
Richard


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I'll train articles in a couple minutes here, but I had to share a laugh here....

I set up the gate to train go-outs (just the go touch part) with both guys. Now that Bertie KNOWS the game, he will need a collar. I wanted to alternate sending them to touch so again they'd get to see what the other was doing. Bertie was just RUNNING like a house on fire up the hall way to slam into the gate and turning around and RUNNING like a house on fire to slam into me for his TREAT (piece of bread). The one time he missed (I stepped to the left when I saw him coming) he slammed into the wall instead.

I would reach down to hold onto him so I could send Jacks, but Bertie would immediately turn around and repeat the gate slam and frantic run back.

And then going up closer to just practice touches - Jacks couldn't even get to the gate because Bertie was repeatedly smacking the gate with his nose.

Next time I practice go-outs with Jacks - Bertie will be in his crate I think. Or I'll be standing on his leash.


ETA -

I realized now that Bertie knows the S-T-A-Y word, I need to be careful about putting Jacks in stays while Bertie is in the vicinity. I told Jacks to "STAY" while I planned to work on heeling with Berts... And started walking off assuming Bertie would be following me. Looked back and his butt was stuck to the floor. Now he is still learning 10 second stays pretty much at this point, but after everything with Jacks it was gratifying to see that he's sort of grasping what "stay" means.

Articles - I did without the mat for the first time. This worked out better than I thought. Jacks did these fine. I'm struggling with a little impatience here because I want hurry up and skip ahead a couple weeks or so forth, but my instructor is right about not skipping any steps.

After articles I worked on holds and retrieves with both dogs.

A random trick I learned with Bertie is he will do a ABSOLUTELY DROP GORGEOUS hold if I rub his ears while telling him "hold". At some point that might not work so well, but right now I'm taking advantage.

Bertie is suddenly taking a major interest in retrieving. I just did 3 retrieves (2 with the leather scented article and then there was one metal that actually was intended for Jacks but Bertie went charging in to get it). The first retrieve he brought it back by the very corner of the bell, but the others were pretty good. With him he's not entirely like Jacks in that you can throw ANYTHING anytime and he will retrieve it happily. Bertie is a bit more "if I feel like it" about retrieving - though he has been getting more enthusiastic.

I alternated between tossing the leather article and the metal article for Jacks. He was glowing.

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Always loved, never forgotten, all our previous boys -

Too funny. Casper finally unlearned the body slam on recall. However, he replaced it with a nose bop to the waistband. Run up, bop, sit. Not sure how to get rid of the bop and still reward the return or not give negative feedback for the bop.

In class, which is dog manners not competitive obedience, we do "Casper, Come, Touch." I think this is brilliant. In only a day it reduced his flying returns, especially when he's got his ball. I'll worry about the sit part later.

This morning we worked on Sit/Stay and ringing the doorbell. He's not a doorbell-crazy dog, so it wasn't a huge challenge. In fact, he's been known to go sit at the door when the bell rings - and we didn't train that. For some odd reason, even though I was at the front door ringing the doorbell, he thought someone was going to come in through the garage door.

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Class tonight:

Heeling: Pretty good, but not as good as last week.

Introduction to Quarter Turns (Left and Right Pivots): The right turn went OK, but the left turn is very tricky. We have never done these, so it's going to require some work.

2 Recalls: Very solid.

Long sit stay with new distractions - probably about 5 minutes: Good

Long down stay with new distractions - probably another 5 minutes: Good

Afterwards, we did the treat toss game in the ring for about 5 minutes. I noticed a lot of curious onlookers.

Overall, it was a decent night.

I've been operating with a very sore back this week, due to a muscle pull caused by having Bella chase me around the house. I probably shouldn't do that.

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Grasslands Liberty Belle "Bella" CGC (5-7-2012)

@Nairb - footwork is the key for the quarter turn lefts. That's your first cue to the dog to get back and get in. Leash behind your back helps too.

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Always loved, never forgotten, all our previous boys -

I had the leash behind the back. She doesn't want to move her back feet backwards. The trainer showed me some things to do to help. One suggestion was to just have her stand at first, to get the footwork down. The other was to hold the treat further away from the body. It will take some time, but we'll get there.

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Grasslands Liberty Belle "Bella" CGC (5-7-2012)

Something called "Come Fore" is on the syllabus for next week. What is that?

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Grasslands Liberty Belle "Bella" CGC (5-7-2012)