Training and showing plans for the week?

Faelan and I were entered in an agility trial today, but the site never has enough parking (not usually a big problem since I just get there really early); received 40 inches of snow last weekend plus more yesterday. We received an email asking us to carpool since they lost parking spots so it must be bad and more snow is possible for today. So I decided it is just not that important to show him today <sigh>. I hate parking lot woes.

We had a rental in a different place yesterday and it really showed a few things LOL. The dogs were RAMPED - perhaps it was the kennel and howling dogs underneath us, but keeping butts down on the floor was difficult for each of them; especially Faelan on his scent articles! He found each article immediately, even with my having set up going into a mirror, but just could not contain his excitement at presenting me his prize.

I had the right 1/3 or the gating down (open space) while doing go-outs and he kept arcing to the right until I reset the gating. Interesting. I know that would not occur in a trial but the arcing was enough for probably a 3 point hit so we will be revisiting that scenario LOL

Towhee showed a hole in her SFE training when the 'judge' was standing at our side for the setup portion - granted the 'judge' was someone she knows and loves, but it was interesting for sure. Her heeling was quite adorable but she was so ramped reviewing the video shows I should have increased my pace to help accommodate her dancing/prancing energy. Her fronts and finishes were flawless and we were joking she shook the rafters with the thunk of her butt hitting the floor

All the dogs worked agility sends (Brady at 4 inches) and loved it: Casey wouldn't jump until I lowered the bars to 16 inches but hey, hey will be 12 in a few weeks!

Brady and I did some focus work - Getting It right the first time. He struggled a bit with some toys I found left on a table - undoubtedly very attractive 'other dog' toys, but we worked it through nicely Tape submitted to teacher

I am so behind in my classes what with the cancellations of rentals, weekend spent shoveling, delays in traveling etc that I will put the time gained today to good use I'm sure.

ETA : A quick video of how Faelan's article training is coming along - he gets so excited on delivery his butt and feet dance so that will be next up Music added to protect your ears from barking dogs, yodeling dogs, grunting dogs and digging dogs ; oh yeah and the dogs from downstairs too LOL

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

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

Going to Monday evening class will work articles in front room and signals too. Taking paper plates to begin teaching the mark at class tomorrow where there is adequate room , hopefully Sunrise' s suggestion works for Nugget as my way doesnt. I sure will be glad when this cold is over and we can train in the yard.


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Today I will practice agility in my livingroom.

Monday is agility class.

Tues, Wed, Thurs, more livingroom agility practice.

Friday meeting with friends to train agility.

Saturday agility private.

I had a weird dream about showing in novice at an obedience trial last night. The judge was taking points off of people for nothing, she just kept going to her clipboard, then when there were stays, only a few of the dogs stayed, so she let the ones that broke their stays redo them. Then I was dinking around, and missed awards, so I went to the score sheets, and didn't place because I only had a 195.

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Susan

UCD URO1 HighRoller Fast Track Filly CDX, RN, NA, NAJ, CGC
River Run Absolutely Riveting CDX, RE, CGC
UCD Hot Gold HankyPanky CDX RAE CGC (retired)





"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment." ~Jim Rohn

Interesting how our minds put these things together. Maybe some concern about "judges" or people in high places not always following the rules?

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Zoe, Rockwall Nantucket Breeze, BN, CGC, Delta therapy dog
Zeke, our introduction to the world of Golden Retrievers

Only class on Monday and Saturday this week....

I got back a golden specialty premium I'd requested and... erm.... entries are limited to 12? in novice? o_O I was going to enter Jacks and Bertie, but I'll probably just do the saturday show instead. There is no guarantee I'll put Jacks in the ring, and he has his title... so I'd hate to take a space from somebody working on getting their title. o_O

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Always loved, never forgotten, all our previous boys -

I need to set up the video camera again to show our progress, because I know this will sound like a LOT of empty bragging...

But!

Jacks is now doing articles without any goop on them. At. All. And I backed us up about 12 feet from the mat, and we have a really eager retrieve of the correct article each time.

His signals are also on the mend. He had two perfect rounds this evening.

And of course he gets to retrieve every night as a reward....

I was just typing up a log sheet with the daily training projects and felt weird seeing EVERYTHING I work on with Bertie every single day compared to what I do with Jacks.... Jacks does articles and stays every day, that's about it except for class days when we do everything.

And then Bertie... gets to work on EVERYTHING.

Speaking of which... Bertie is officially -

1. heeling without moving the butt out as much.

2. left pivots and left abouts are out of this world compared to what I went through when I taught these to Jacks!

3. Sit and down stays - I'm not timing us, but am fairly sure we are up to 45 seconds. I'm really trying to keep these slow. We'll have plenty of time to build up longer stays.

4. Stands - I'm teaching the exam part now that he understands "stay" as it applies to stand. I'm the only one doing the exam and reminding him to stay. Over time I will enlist family members to play judge for me, but we are a couple weeks or so away from that.

5. Waits/fronts - again VERY GOOD considering I only taught him the wait last week. o_O

6. Dumbbell holds.

7. Retrieves using softy toys.

He has so much better control than Jacks does even now. o_O The retrieves are a joy to watch too because he's so EAGER. Um, er... this will need cleaning up later, but he jumps a couple feet in the air so he can pounce on the toys before grabbing them. <- I guess it will be a LONG time before he is a bird dog.

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Always loved, never forgotten, all our previous boys -

Started up training again after 3 days off. Did some heeling, fronts/finishes, and stays.

We will be focusing on slow "look at me" heeling for quite some time. I don't feel as I'm under pressure now to have great heeling with the CGC class coming up. To my knowledge, the test does not require perfection, or even close to it, so we're basically starting over from scratch. I literally started today's session with one step, and worked up to maybe 10 steps, back and forth in the hallway for 5-10 minutes. Looking away for even one second is no longer acceptable.

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

Monday Class -

Bertie

Heeling (abouts, uturns, halts, finding and maintaining heel position)
Fronts
Stand stays (I did a lot of them)
sits and downs stays
Retrieves (with a toy)

Note: I may need to drop $5 in the box for him next session, because I somewhat realized I'm doing open floor and somewhat cheating the club. o_O

I also sent an email in for information on becoming a member of the club. So I get a little help on class prices (like 1/2 off). I've been attending classes there for 5 years, so I can't imagine there be any problems... right?

Jacks

Was completely AWESOME.

Heeling - I wore my gym shoes today since Bertie got a hold of my favorite pair of training shoes. The gym shoes are the rocker kind (higher in the middle) and they are meant to help me distribute my weight evenly while walking on the treadmill and there is cushioning to pad the areas of my feet where I have bone changes. It's a PAIN to train dogs with these shoes though because I can't stop myself from rocking and I feel like I'm going to just fall over! But it forces me to walk evenly, believe it or not... and that probably helped Jacks who heeled perfectly.

Figure 8 - I cringed when I saw the instructor was calling it, because she normally gets after me to do weird patterns. Didn't happen. In fact we had a perfect figure 8 where she couldn't pick out a single thing to nitpic on - besides me rocking my toes. She said Jacks maintained perfect heel position and went right with me with straight sits, no bumps, etc.

Moving Stands - just did one. The call to heel wasn't perfect, but I didn't line myself up right. He stopped when I signalled him and held the stay while she did the exam over him. Call to heel, he tried coming to front. I shifted left and gave him a second heel command to correct.

Drop on recall - We did twice, the second time was very pretty. I did do both a verbal and a hand signal - that was mainly because they wanted him to drop right in the section of trainers waving their arms and moving around on both sides.

High Jump - we had one cut around when I tossed the first dumbbell. The others were good. This was on a 22" jump. I think there was an agility trial there over the weekend, and most of the obedience stuff was still in hiding. They didn't bring out the third 8" board.

Broad jump - OMG - he was anticipating the call and jumping on his own. I reinforced the "Wait", but got 2-3 good jumps. Afterwards I worked a little on our fronts from the broad jump landing.... tossing a treat and calling him to front. I stood where I'd be if he's just jumped the the broad and had to come to front. I had 2 good fronts out of maybe 5 tries - so we can work on that definitely.

Stays - Jacks held his stays. I did go back in to release him from his sit stay and reset him for the final 4 1/2 minutes. He'd turned his body watching me going to the corner. I just thought he was very likely to break based on his body position.

Gosh... I'm very tired. >.<

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Always loved, never forgotten, all our previous boys -

Nugget was mediocre last nite . Lagged on heeling a little . Fiq. 8 was fair . Stand was solid but recall the first one was fast and he gave me a good front but when given swing signal decided to go visiting out of the ring after I got him back second recall wasn't nearly as good as first but he did stay in ring . S + D were good. In morning he did articles and with two of each tied down got the right one each time sent. Retrieves fast but with poor fronts jumps over broad ok but again only two boards and front off. The first ROH was real good but next one he went over but no retrieve of dumbell third one went around but got dumbell so it goes with puppies.


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We have ring rental tonight and Gladys has class this weekend.
We started one class before the holidays, worked on recalls and standing on the bucket. Now, I think we're doing go outs and the dumbbell.

Gladys has been out of commission for several weeks; we did novice w/ the instructor with Boomer, but this is all new material and all new dog - Gladys. I'm not sure what's going to happen.

Boomer - go where we go, do novice exercises, play with the dumbbell, and have fun
Gladys - work on attention, recall, stand on bucket, go out, dumbbell
Dee Dee - potty training, look when called, go to club and watch from crate

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Boomer, Gladys, DeeDee, and Dawn