Resq TailsThe trials and triumphs of rescued dogs

The jump training continues. The first video is of Layla doing the tighter turn drill that had me baffled. I think it’s definitely better now that I’ve moved the jump. Here’s a short clip of the new and improved tighter turn drill. LOL

The next video is of the Jump Around the Clock drill. We don’t need any industrial hand wheels to do this one. I just need to keep track of our imaginary hands of the clock. If I remember the drill correctly, you are to have the dog jump from all around the clock. So, if you set the dog at 6 you go to 12 on the clock. If you set the dog at 4 you go to 10 etc. The next step would be that you start changing up the distance of dog from the jump and also your distance from the jump to test out their ability to recognize the need to either extend or collect at the jump. I am thinking that we may run into some trouble doing this in the limited space in the barn. We’ll see though. In the meantime, here is the first part of the drill that we’ve done.

If the weather cooperates tomorrow, I’ll get to go visit with my friend’s litter of Malinois puppies. I’ve been trying to get up there once a week to play with and help socialize this litter and the bonus is that I get a little puppy fix at the same time. It sure beats sitting home looking for insurance quotes. Not that I will be looking for another puppy for quite a while! Honestly, the thought of having another puppy is about the furthest thing from my mind, with all the work that I am trying to do with Layla and Dare. But, that having been said, there is just nothing like puppy breath and puppy antics. The puppies are about a month old now, so they are really starting to get to that adorable, fun stage. Well, it’s a fun stage for me, since I don’t have any of the work that comes with trying to keep up with them now. Anyway, I’ll be hoping for no snow in the afternoon and clear roads so I can go play.

Layla is not the only one around here that is getting some needed direction in her training. I also wanted to get something clear in mind for Dare. So, I found this great training outline by Sue Ailsby called the “Training Levels”. It is a really detailed program to give the dogs a good foundation of skills that are useful in Obedience, Agility and also in general life. Because it is so detailed I decided to move my posting about Dare’s training to her own blog. Don’t worry, it’s not like we’re not going all the way to medical travel Mexico or anything. I just didn’t want hog all of ResqTails with posts about Dare, (who certainly isn’t a rescue). There will still be posts about Dare on here too, if you don’t want to be bothered with having to check out yet another blog. LOL For those of you that are gluttons for punishment though and that do want to read more about Dare’s training, here is Dares new blog.

I always get uncomfortable videoing training sessions and posting them. I have to say though…I’m really glad that I’ve been stepping out of my comfort zone and doing it anyway. Yesterday was a perfect example. I came in after training with Layla a bit baffled. If I hadn’t had video, I probably would have still been scratching my head about why I was getting a different response from Layla on one side of the tighter turn drill than the other. Thankfully we didn’t need a finger pulse oximeter to help us figure out the solution. LOL Seems that all we needed were some really helpful observations from everyone. Someone mentioned placement of treats, someone else that maybe I was seeing a tighter turn in one direction because she just prefers one side, and finally that she may have been uncomfortable turning towards the wall. I appreciate all the comments, both on and off the blog. I thought about it and figured the easiest one to test first was if it had anything to do with my placement of of the jump near the wall. Guess what? That seemed to be the problem. I moved the jump to a different spot today and she started jumping much tighter to that left side of the jump. Woot, thanks Diana for the observation!

Layla and I went out today and did the first couple exercises on the DVD “One Jump, Two Jump”. The first exercise went really well. We’ve done it before, so it was more of a refresher for us than anything. The idea is to get the dog comfortable with the jump and to work your way up to full height, while keeping the dog’s head low and having them jump rounded. (I think). The handler is not supposed to lure the dog or give any signal, just let the dog offer jumping. So, here is a short clip of Layla doing the first exercise.

The second exercise is supposed to help with teaching the dog tighter turns. The handler is to stand on the approach side of the jump. Ideally, the dog is supposed to read this as a cue to collect as they approach the jump and turn tightly back to the handler. I noticed two things when we did this drill. One, Layla isn’t jumping with her head very low. In fact, she looks to me like she jumps with her head really high. I think part of this is because she’s so short. Of course the dog in the video is a Border Collie and so the style of jumping is different all together anyway. Anyway…someone mentioned that maybe if I tossed the reward before she’s done jumping her head might be lower. That makes sense. I will probably try that tomorrow. The other thing that I noticed is that she is turning tighter in one direction than in the other. When I stand to her left side, she is still jumping almost in the center of the jump, then hesitating, and then turning back. I am curious to see if it’s the same tomorrow. Anyway, here is the video of the second exercise.

Lately I’ve found myself stuck in a rut of just going out to train with the young girls, without much direction in mind. Not the most productive way to train. LOL So, the last week or so, I started really trying to sort out in my head a direction to go with each of the girls.

For Layla, I think I’m going to focus more on agility stuff right now. I think I did really well when I had a goal of getting her weaving. However, once she got the general idea and the weather turned all bad, I lost a bit of focus. Ok, so I lost a lot of focus and motivation. Maybe some nutritional supplements would help. We are limited to a much smaller space in the barn right now, but that’s really no excuse. I got a DVD called “One Jump, Two Jump” by Sandy Rogers a while back. It gives you a lot of exercises to do in limited space to build a good foundation for handling. I’m going to watch it again today and get started with Layla. I’ll try to keep you posted on our progress.

So to balance out my negative view of the weather we’re having, I thought I’d share Penny’s opinion. Penny has always LOVED the snow. As a puppy she would just bury her head in the fresh snow and run! The Penny Snowplow. LOL In more recent years she has changed her style a bit, though she still seems to really love the feel of the snow. Now she likes to roll in the snow. I got some pictures of her out after the storm yesterday, so I thought I’d share.

STEP 1: Bury the head…

STEP 2: Get the sides involved….

and the other side….

STEP 3: Prepare for the shake…

STEP 4: Shake it! Shake it! Shake it! LOL

And then you’re all set. Hope you have as much fun in the snow as Penny does!

I know you’re probably all sick of hearing me complain about the weather, but brace yourselves because you’re about to hear about it again.

Just last weekend when we went to the agility trial I was posting pictures of the dogs running on grass. Granted, it was pretty sad looking grass, and you didn’t want to kneel down because it’s wet where the snow had recently melted, but it was grass!

Yesterday, this is what I woke up to.

and this….

and this…

Before the storm was done, we had about 7 inches of really, really wet heavy snow blanketing everything. It warmed up just a bit again in the afternoon and melted part of that down into more of an icy crusted several inches.

Now…it’s snowing again! I’m really so tired of this. I just want warmer weather and no more chiseling poop out of the frozen snow/ice. Is that too much to ask? LOL Apparently it is, if you live in Utah.

Just thought I’d share some of the pictures that we took over the weekend. This was one day after the trial. There is a pretty big grassy area close by and we let the dogs play and chase the frisbee. It is so nice to see grass again. It’s supposed to storm here at home for the next three days, but I’m hoping it won’t add up to anything. It’s just finally starting to warm up a tiny bit.

I’m not sure what we did before digital cameras. I think we must have taken over a hundred pictures. It’s just so nice to be able to take as many as you like and then just see them immediately on the computer and find a few that turn out. I think I’d go into withdrawals if I had to go back to my old film camera. LOL It’s so nice with the puppies too, because I have so much better record of them growing up than I do of my older dogs. Anyway…here’s some of the pictures. Enjoy!

I am just exhausted tonight. I think I’m still dragging a bit from the 3 day agility trial, followed by a trip to Cedar City the next morning to get our taxes done, and then today I took on a housecleaning job. I haven’t done housecleaning for years now, but considering the fact that my husband’s not working, I’m doing just about anything that still gives me the freedom to take care of the kennel and spend time with the dogs. Anyway, I am totally out of shape for housecleaning apparently. LOL The five hour job has just wiped me out. Course after I finished the job, I had to come home and clean all the empty kennels from the boarders that had been picked up too and I don’t think that helped anything. As I sit here typing I have to wonder if some modern office furniture would be more comfortable. That or maybe I just need to settle on the couch with the laptop. That’s always comfy. Dangerous though, since I won’t want to get back up again.