Resq TailsThe trials and triumphs of rescued dogs

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.

Now that we’ve finally caught up on the agility part of the past weekend, we can share the other bit of good news. Dare passed her CGC test. I know it’s nothing ground shattering, but it was fun, and I’m glad we did it! She’s such a good girl and I think she’s got so much potential for doing great things in both obedience and agility. I don’t think we need any stainless steel drums to store all her titles and ribbons in just yet, but I bet we will one of these days…

Day 3 of the ASCA came and went as fast as the first two days. I don’t think I’ve been to a trial this small in ages, and to be done running by early afternoon was just great. Anyway, Zoe finished off the trial with another Regular run Q and another Jumpers Q. So, she had a total of 3.5 Regular for the weekend, (she dropped a bar in one run, so it was just a half q), and 4 Q’s in Jumpers. Not bad! Here is her Regular run from round 2 yesterday. Sorry, again I didn’t get any course maps, so I don’t have any to post.

Another great day of agility! Today we had two Jumpers runs, two regular runs and one gamblers. Zoe ended up Qing in four of the five classes today. Of course the one that we didn’t qualify in was gamblers. Always has been our worst class. I only got video of one of the regular runs today though, but here it is. She did fine, but I was really late on the front cross before the A-frame and almost sent her to an off course jump. Fortunately, she called off and there aren’t any refusals, so we were fine.

We are at the ASCA trial this weekend. It’s usually a smaller venue than AKC, but this trial is really, really small. Almost more like funmatch size. Anyway, Zoe is having a great time! She is totally full of herself though. She ran around like a wild banshee in the first gamblers run, blowing her contact on both the A-frame and the dogwalk. Fortunately by the Standard, or regular runs, she was running nicely. She qualified in one of those and then q’d again in Elite Jumpers. The Elite Jumpers run is the only one I got on video today. It’s just part of the run, sorry. You’ll just have to trust us that it was nice. I’ll try to post tomorrow if I get done early enough again.