Day 2

Sunday was day two with Denise. It was just as good as day one. I liked that there were so many different dogs there, we got to see how Denise tailored the exercises for the specific dogs the she was working with. I love stuff like that. I am such a geek.

Since I had that annoying front problem where Vivre wanted to stand at an angle instead of directly in front of me I decided we would work on that. I got up there and Vivre sits perfectly. Surely that was a mistake. I move and she's dead center again. We did this several times and while she did get a little crooked she never got that far off. What the Hell! Of course that turned out to be a good thing since we then switched to heeling where I discovered that I CAN"T WALK A STRAIGHT LINE! How did that happen? Of course Vivre forges but that's my fault, it is easier to see her if she is forward and I have inadvertently trained that, but my walking in to her is the reason she gets wide on me. So I come home today and start to work and I still can't walk a straight line. I am walking along the tile lines on my floor and I get so busy walking along the lines I quit watching Vivre. I am going to have to figure this out. I also need to learn how to work with a leash. If I can handle 25 foot lunge lines I should be able to handle a 7ft leash, but apparently I can't. I picked up a thinner leash that Brydon made and I am hoping that will help. She had some very nice collars and leashes. I need to measure Vivre's neck for her collar.

I also bought new toys. I was just tickled when I walked in and saw a table full of toys Denise brought. We got another French Linen tug since Vivre really likes those and Denise suggested we stick with that and I picked up a Gripper Flipper. So Vivre now has a frisbee we can tug with too. She loves it!

Denise also gave me a suggestion for teaching the blinds so that Vivre doesn't go too wide around the blinds and I don't have to fix it later. Which makes me glad that I have only done some basic work with going around object.

Darren showed up Sunday afternoon so Denise could watch the dogs work. She had a lot of good suggestions for Darren with Vivre, but Vivre did pretty well considering it was only the second time Darren had worked with her.

I'm feeling energized to get back to work. Just in time for winter :-) Vivre doesn't mind the cold near as much as I do. I will probably just have to suck it up and deal with it. I hope it isn't as bad as last winter. I couldn't handle that.

Day 1 with Denise

This weekend is the seminar with Denise. Today was great. I have walked away with ideas for when I start working on the formal retrieve and some ideas for helping to get a closer heel. And after following Denise's suggestions for tug delivery on the down after only a handful of reps she has quit levitating her elbows. That is something I have been struggling to fix and had no idea how I was going to do it.

Tomorrow we are going to do more work with the dogs and I have to decide what I want us to work on. I have so much I need to work on that it is hard to decide. I am thinking maybe fronts, I really need to get her straight. What she does now can barely be called a front, though I also got some great info on fixing that problem today too. I wish I had brought my hula hoop. If I had my ideal it would be to work on send outs. I can down Vivre and walk away either still or out of motion but she doesn't like moving away from me. I don't know about working on that at the seminar since I am not sure how I feel about working her off leash around strange dogs. Okay I know I am paranoid.

On another note I have a new appreciation for Yoda. This is the first time I have been away with just Vivre. So far we have trained with food, trained with toys, I've tossed food around the room for her to eat, and we've trained some more, and trained some more. She finally has curled up on the bed and gone to sleep. She has also been very good about noises in the hotel. I was a little concerned and the first time she heard people she started to bark, but after I hushed her she has mostly ignored the noises. I am off to make my notes from today and veg before tomorrow.

Sick as a ...

On my way back from Lexington I started to feel pretty bad, I made it home, fell in to bed and stayed there until Thursday. Even then I really wasn't up to par. It was two full weeks before I was better. Now I am having to deal with the things that didn't get done while I was sick, getting ready for this weekend and dealing with my post election funk, when I am faced with the depressing fact that I am surrounded by republicans. As a result none of the stuff I wanted to work on before the seminar got done.

I haven't even taken Vivre out in public. We have worked quite a bit in strange places, once she realizes that I have a tug she will focus and work regardless of whether or not I have taken her out lately. Hopefully I will be able to make time tomorrow to get some work done before I leave on Saturday.

Pictures

Here is a couple of new pictures of Vivre. I think she might actually look like a dog now.

Vivre meets Darren

Last night Vivre and I headed up to Lexington to work with Brydon and her helper, Darren. I am very grateful that Brydon set this up since my club basically shut down when the T.D started a new job. As a result Vivre hasn't done any bitework in about a year. I like Darren, he talked to her the whole time he was working with her and he has a very playful manner with the dogs. Vivre definitely enjoyed herself and I love being around dog people. Around here when I start talking about dog stuff people get this glazed over look in their eyes.

I also got to see Brydon's boys while I was there. You can tell that Vivre and Wicked are related, they share a lot of traits especially behaviorally. Wicked is surprisingly not that much bigger than Vivre though he has a lot more fur than she does and of course has filled out more.

I had to swing by petsmart and pick up some crickets for my aunt's frog, so Vivre also had her first trip to a pet store. She has gone to the feed store with me in the past, but last night made it clear that I haven't take Vivre out to work in new places lately. That last couple of weeks it was because she was in heat, but even before that we had been mostly working around the mountain. I couldn't even get her to heel from the car to the door of the pet store. Pathetic.

The seminar with Denise is in a couple of weeks. So I need to get her out working in new places again or she will be totally worthless at the seminar. I am also going to try and pretend to be an organized individual and make a list of things I have to work on, train, or fix. Off the top of my head...

Front - I accidentally trained a wonky orientation. She doesn't want to sit directly in front of me but canted to the side.

Impulse Control- I have done a fair amount of impulse control with the tug and am usually glad that I live alone when I do. I would hate to have to explain to somebody why I am bouncing on the bed, singing (badly) and swinging the tug around my head like a lasso. What I haven't worked on is impulse control when I throw things (like a dumbbell)

Duration and Distance- I need more duration on the down, if it is apparent that we are actively working she holds the down, but I haven't built the duration that I need, especially if I am not looking at her. I also need more distance than the down and sit out of motion.

Tracking- I really, really need to start tracking. We have done only a handful of tracks.

Revier- We have had a couple of shaping sessions teaching her to go around buckets, but I haven't gotten it solid and we will need that behavior for the blind search.

Stand- This is just stupid on my part. I totally forget about stand. I am putting this on a fairly high priority because I don't want to get a lot of reps of sits and downs out of motion then try to add stand later.

Retrieve- I have started back chaining the retrieves but the retrieves make up a lot of points in a schutzhund trial that I am a little paranoid about messing it up.

I need to fine tune my heeling, especially right about turns where she gets a little wide or occasionally forward. Now I remember why I don't like to make lists. I start thinking about everything I need to get done and think... well I won't use that kind of language here. Of course if I made lists then I might be more organized and more likely to get things done. Stands, Fronts, and added distance and duration on downs are the top three things on the list. I also need to get a jump so I can start training that as well. I might take a shot at building it. I will need to build the a frame so the jump might be good practice for me. Of course watching me attempt to hammer anything is amusing, but I figure that is why they invented drills.

Still Growing

I had all kinds of great plans for this month. I am trying to get training sessions scheduled with Brydon and Wicked. I had planned to take Vivre to the beach and get some lovely fall photo hikes in. I also just got bought some floating rope as well as a floating frisbee and a bumper. And now she has gone in to her second heat cycle and blown all my plans. Now I remember why I tend toward males.

I might have to break down and order her little heat panties, but I am holding out until I can find some that aren't humiliating. All of them are either pink or have little ruffles. Or, brace yourself for the horror, are pink polka dotted with ruffles. Vivre would bite me and with good reason. (Note: I hate the color pink. For most people the regular pink might not be too bad, but I just can't look at pink.)

So she has just started her second heat, and now I am really having to get in to the spay or not to spay mode. I really have no intention of breeding her since I can't imagine trying to find homes for a whole litter of little Vivres. Just the thought causes me to be in awe of Denise. But I don't want to spay her until she is finished growing, plus there are the new studies that show spaying to increase various health problems.

I am at least going to wait until November. I'll let Denise look at her and see if she thinks she is finally finished growing. Vivre has actually grown about 1/2 inch since July. Putting her at 20.5 inches in height. She is still so small and delicate looking.

I'm trying to fix my wonky fronts. I goofed up badly when training heel. I started by having her place her front feet on a target and then clicked for hip movement. However I focused on hip movement and didn't notice that she had decided that she had to be at an angle to me when in front of me. Her heel is fine, but she wants to front at an angle. I have gone back to basics and back to the foot target and started clicking hip movement that only moves her toward straight. But if anybody has any other ideas I would be glad to hear them. I have to get up early tomorrow. I hate getting up early.

More Hiking

So went hiked back out to dog slaughter yesterday. It was a beautiful day and since it had rained the first part of the day I figured that nobody would be on the trail. Thankfully I got an earlier start than last time so I wasn't racing the sunset. I didn't really get to notice how pretty the trail was before. Which I suppose became really obvious when about 3/4 of the way down the trail I looked around and realized I didn't recognize anything. I actually thought I was lost and turned around before I finally realized I hadn't been lost at all.

Once we got to the to falls I turned her loose and she had a blast running around and playing. I also discovered that Vivre isn't a great swimmer. So that is something to work on. I may head out to the lake and let her get some swim practice in. I don't want to take the hike back from dog slaughter completely soaked if I get in to help her. I didn't get any great shots of her, so I ordered a new lens this morning. It is an old manual prime, so even though it won't auto focus it is faster than what I am using now and should let me shoot some distance shots in low light.

Here is a couple of the shots of Vivre "swimming," I doubt you will see much more than the water, but it will give you an idea.