Class yesterday night

Yoshi did pretty good...he gets the weaves, then he doesnt.. hes still really patchy. He did one BEAUTIFUL run through them though..it gave me some hope. We still have two more months before his first show. I am going to start practicing on the crappy inline set I have here a few times a week since he has inline down for the most part.

He did extremely beautifully with a jumpers course though. Our rear crosses are practically seamless most the time and it just is the greatest feeling working at that speed and he just totally gets it. I actually had to do part of the course over and over a few times because everyone else wanted to see how I was doing this extremely complicated course. All rear crosses...haha it is VERY difficult to get a front cross in with Yoshi because I cant ever get there in time for it to be effective.

Im trying to not do too much with them right now, things have been very upsetting and stressful and I dont want to get aggravated with Hemi and Yoshi too much.. with Yoshis first shows coming up quickly and Hemi being so sensitive. They have not been too happy about it, but I dont want them getting affected by what is going around. I think they know I am strained..they both really tried their hardest in trying to please last night and I could tell Yoshi gave me extra effort. Dogs are such blessings in disguise.

I think they are going to be fine, they never picked up the virus so we should be good to go.

Holding My Breath

Well the dogs I take care of at work (field trial English Springers) all came home with a nasty virus that they picked up at a trial. Some guy from California brought in a trailer full of sick dogs so now all the dogs are sick. I am hoping and praying my dogs dont somehow get it. I am very careful to wash my hands and put all my clothes up on the washing machine right when I get in the house. If they get this virus..its going to be battling extreme diarrhea and vomitting for 72 hours.

I havent taken the dogs to any classes or let them go anywhere because of this. I have been keeping an eye on them and I havent been feeling too great either. I have a bunch of drainage and its making me sick to my stomach everyday.

That and things have gone up in a fire lately.. its been pretty tough here the past few days.

Drumroll Please!!!!

Yoshi GOT the weaves. We went to a private lesson before our normal 7 pm class and he just got them right away. We moved the channel from 4 fingers apart, to 2, to 1, then inline..never missed a beat. Rachel also helped me give him a better approach so he would not miss that one pole. He did the inline set of 6 poles inside...with enthusiasm..not missing a pole, head down, and with some speed. Rachel said that she thought he had them down and that he should be good to go. She said not to expect him to do the same thing outside because of different place and it being 12 poles because it will sometimes throw the dogs off...However,

He zipped right through those weaves...all 12 poles, not missing a beat. Im thinking it might have been a 4 second weave pole run.. maybe 5 at the most. Not bad for a dog who has JUST started inline weave poles...Im so happy, its now time to start concentrating on getting him ready for shows. We are ready!!!!!!!!

Dec 1-2 I think we are running FEO in ASCA at College Station

1st weekend January- CPE in Alvin (5 min from home) I think we will do level 2, still not 100% decided, but I want to set him up for success and since I havent ever shown in agility before

2nd weekend in January we are running an AKC in Crosby TX

3rd weekend in January AKC in Katy

Last weekend in January AKC in Crosby again

woohoo!

Camp Was Great

Yoshi did really well at camp and I think he enjoyed it for the most part. We tried Canine Freestyle and he didnt get into it too much, but he REALLY liked the flyball stuff. I think we are going to look into some flyball training because he just really loved the motivating scene. He did wonderful in the agility classes. He won the "Top Agility Dog" award at camp.

I got a couple videos of his run. I couldnt get why that pole would fall so late on that one jump, it ended up the jump cup was turned a little bit and I think if the dog was running hard enough and jumped close to the jumps it breezed the pole off. Other than that, a pretty great run..no shooting through weave poles either..he came at my VERY insistent come come come come tunnel chant! haha

The last two videos are during the same course, the video stopped and had to be picked up again during the run.

Leaving For Camp!

Well we are leaving VERY early (5am) to go to the Iron-Dogs camp... I am sooo excited and I know the dogs know something is up. I think Yoshi is ready to rip on some new courses =)

Hopefully I will have a lot of pictures!!!!!

Class Last Night

Well class was a bit interesting if you want to call it that. First off I took Yoshi inside and did a bit of weave work..he did the channels closed totally on one end and then on the other maybe half an inch fairly well. When we would close them he would get confused again but he wasnt as bad. Then we go outside for class.. guess what the crazy dog does.. gets his entry during a course, weaves into the right pole without skipping, i just stood there not knowing what to do and he stopped....I started walking again and the crazy dog did an INLINE SET OF TWELVE POLES!!!!! I almost had a heart attack. He made me put my foot in my mouth because I was just explaining the hard time I was having with training him to weave. The rest of the night he didnt do them correctly, but he did gain some more enthusiasm. I set up a private lesson with Rachel before our next Tuesday's class and we are going to start to get his weaves down now. I think he will definitely be ready for January now. I was starting to get worried about the weaves, but he definitely made a breakthrough.

Then on to the not so great part.... Yoshi did yet another faceplant into the A-frame.. I am figuring it out, he only does it at night-time, when there is a bunch of dew on the ground.. young dog not getting his footing right and it being slippery out. He did the whole course again after that and didnt act scared of the frame. Scared the crap out of me though. I am going to start doing "gymnastics" work with him.. setting up 3 jumps at 18' apart and then recalling over them, then running with him, then putting them to 15' apart, then 20', then putting them at varied distances.. he might be not on the right lead. These will help him gauge his distances better...feels like I am training a horse all over again..lol

Trying to get the weaves down

Well so far, its still been a struggle for Yoshi to learn the weaves. Yesterday I took him to a place and I worked on weaves almost the whole time. We did a couple of sets of inline weaves, but he messed up a whole bunch..I finally got the clicker out and I had to click for every step he made when he would weave properly. He got really stressed and just started laying down and wouldnt move when I called him.

I worked on channel weaves and had him doing it maybe 2" apart fairly consistently. Right now he doesnt like the weaving and hes just not sure of it yet. I just hope I can get him weaving in the next 2 months and he picks up his enthusiasm. Im going to have to start taking him places at least 3-5 times a week I guess if we are going to get them down. At this rate, we wont ever get them down because hes just weave pole dumb.

Yoshi is retarded- I swear!

So we went to class tonight, he did wonderfully, very fast and focused and I think I did good on my handling as well. He was very consistent and he ran really fast on the dogwalk and stopped on a dime at the bottom, he jumped cleanly and he didnt break his start line stays. His contacts are still consistent on his running a-frame too. After Hemi's class we did more channel weave work..hes still not getting the 3" and under..that little "limbo area"

Well let me go into detail about what he did DURING Hemi's class...*sigh* He tore open the brand new $85 soft crate that I just bought 2 days ago......... The zipper is totally broken and man I was just livid...I cant believe the idiot broke the crate. I wish he would calm down and learn to watch. Its very distracting in class when I am trying to watch everyone else or listen to whats going on when hes making such a fuss. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

Guess Where We Are Going???

To the Iron-Dogs camp! I heard the behaviorist trainer was so good that the $400 was worth just to go to her seminars!

I am sooo excited!!!!!!!!!!!

A Little Off

Yoshi wasnt all that tonight. He ran ok, wasnt 100% focused, and didnt run very fast (maybe it was just me or he didnt like the mugginess) We did running a frame contacts again tonight... hes doing pretty well, I just hope he doesnt blow contacts.

The first part of class was more pinwheels.....Im sorry to say, but I am absolutely sick of the same exercises.. made me think about not taking this class because its not very challenging. At Rachels place, we run excellent level courses and exercises and I feel he does better with more of a challenge. I think Yoshi caught on to my attitude maybe.. who knows. After that though, we ran good! We had another successful teeter run in class..hes really got it down I think..yay for him.

Maybe taking him to other places is a good idea so he learns to run hard everywhere...we'll see if it was just an "off" day.

That and he had to wait at my work for 30 min for me to finish with the Springers before we went to class... I dont think that helped him any.

After Hemi's class, I went into a ring and did some channel weave work with Yoshi. I cranked them down to almost totally inline..we were a little patchy (I think this was due to the tire being right next to the weaves and it was a bit distracting) and not as fast as I would like..but we got some good practice in.

Much Better!!

No big a-frame problems tonight..he veered off on the right side a bit, but not as bad...and hes already getting running contacts down as well. Everytime he stepped well into the contact zones and kept a really level head about being let loose like that. It wasnt the most speedy, but it really saved on that extra stopping bit (looked like it was easier on his body), and I think he will only continue to get faster with it. We also used the teeter in part of a course, he did the best hes done. We had some fun coursework today, only one knocked bar and only one faceplant (Yoshi is still tending to peel out around corners sometimes). I found out that if Dustin holds him during the class, that he acts a bit better and it doesnt make me so nervous (when he thrashes and whines about trying to go run, it just makes me nervous!) At the end of class we made a beautiful tunnel entrance with a difficult full speed going at it with the other side and the a frame that was dead on from the jump being the most appealing things. I can barely fault him tonight, he did better than I expected..and maybe the a-frame isnt a big problem =)

Last but not least......He did his first inline set of 6 weaves..it wasnt necessarily pretty, and it was a bit slow...but he did it... I opened the channel up and let him rip through them. I also made him enter with me at a distance..he did wonderful.