ResqTails

Today was bath day for Zoe and Dare. Gotta get them both spiffed up to leave for the ASCA trial this weekend. Honestly, none of my dogs enjoy getting a bath. But Zoe just hates it! The odd thing about bathing Zoe is that even though she doesn’t have a really nice thick Sheltie coat to speak of, what coat she does have, just absolutely resists drying once it’s wet. Even after she’s been blown dry, she still seems to be chilled. I guess she’s a lot like me in that respect. Once I get cold, it takes forever for me to get nice and toasty warm again.

Anyway, I think if Zoe could speak to me she’d probably tell me “Mom, why don’t you just relax, maybe spend some time searching for some equestrian clothing or dog agility equipment, or youtube videos…” Pretty much anything else that might distract me from bathing her. LOL Sadly for Zoe, I was able to fight the gravitational pull of the computer chair today long enough to get the girls bathed. I couldn’t resist taking a picture because I think she’s she’s so funny when she’s all wet though. She didn’t think it was quite as funny as I did.

Wow! This month has flown by. I am just stunned when I look at the calendar and realize that it’s going to be May tomorrow. It’s been a busy month, but in a good way. Looking back a lot has happened. No wonder it went by so fast.

My husband found another job this month. It’s going well. I think he’s still adjusting a bit to the new schedule, having to be up at 5 am isn’t his normal routine for sure. But all in all, he’s liking the job and the people he works with, so you really can’t ask for more than that.

The boarding kennel has been busy all month. Maybe that aweful start we had back in January was just a fluke. Even gas prices being over $3.00 a gallon don’t seem to be discouraging people from traveling too much, so that’s good for the boarding kennel

Training this month has been fun. The weather has been a bit unpredictable, snow one day, 70′s the next…but overall, we got to a lot more training outside this month and I for one and so glad to be back outside. We had our workshop with Stacy Peardot-Goudy this month and as always I come home seeing lots of room for improvement in both my handling and my training skills. I’m really glad that we have the opportunity to work with someone like Stacy. She’s a big help!

We got in lots more walking this month, much to the dog’s delight! They don’t want to see anyone sitting around on the computer reading enzyte reviews, when we could be outside burning off some energy. Hopefully next month we’ll continue some of the habits that we tried to rekindle this month.

Anyway, that’s enough rambling about where this month has gone. The dogs say, “get off the computer and get moving, mom!”

Ok, so here is the promised video of the jump training Layla and I were working on today. It’s serpentines and threadles. She’s doing really well. I can see in the video that I probably need to improve my timing and make my cues a little bit better, but she’s doing a good job responding to me regardless. LOL

Now we’re loading up the car to take Twist and Raven over to my friends house. I’m going to set up a Rally Obedience course for them and see what we need to work on before the Sheltie Specialty in a couple weeks. Then back home and possibly a walk for the younger two dogs. No need for any fat burning pills pills today. I should be busy enough just keeping up with the dogs today.

So, I’ll start off with “the good”. We got to spend yesterday at another Stacy Peardot-Goudy workshop. The weather was pretty nice in the morning…while I was auditing. That all changed though as soon as the afternoon session was about to begin. A rain and hailstorm rolled in and stayed the rest of the afternoon. Thankfully, they had the workshop at a location with the option of moving inside a barn if needed. I was so grateful for that! Regardless of the weather, the training sequences were challenging and fun. I have to say that Stacy really has a talent for making you feel at ease, and yet being able to push you outside your comfort zone in your normal handling.

Another good thing from yesterday was that Layla seemed to be back to herself in regards to people. She was more than happy to go visiting everyone. I had been really worried that she was going to have trouble with this because on Sunday we had gone out of town for the day. I had a friend stop by the house to let the dogs out and she said that Layla gave her trouble when she tried to get her to come back inside the house. Even with treats, she apparently was slinking up and grabbing the treat and then jerking backwards, so she couldn’t touch her. I still don’t understand what is going on. I mean I would have assumed that she would have been more comfortable here on Sunday with someone that is familiar, than up at the workshop yesterday, but it wasn’t the case. Go figure.

Now for “the bad”. Even though Layla seemed comfortable with the people at the workshop, she didn’t seem relaxed to me when we were running the courses. She got a little sniffy a couple times, which I think were signs of stress, and she had problems weaving again. Everyone at the workshop is really sweet and they kept saying that her weaves looked better than last time. The thing is that the last time we were there, she did 3 sets of 12 weave poles without any trouble, and then she started bobbling. This time, she never did do a complete set of 12 on the first attempt and eventually Stacy just had me take her through 6 poles to help her be successful. So, in my mind, her weaves were much worse this time. I finally asked Stacy if I should put the guides back on the weaves at home for a while and see if that helps. She said that would be a good idea. I think it’s just a green dog problem and the fact that we haven’t been able to weave in places other than at home hasn’t helped. Now that the weather is getting better I’m going to make a point of getting out and training other places again.

And for “the ugly”. I have decided after my drive home last night that the “ugliness” is mostly coming from inside my head. The last few weeks with Layla acting strange have really freaked me out. I know it’s not reasonable, but I get so worried that these recent sensitivities and quirks that are showing up might be an indication of her becoming more reactive like Rogue. I don’t think I could handle going down that road again. In fact, I know that I just don’t have it in me to deal with another reactive/sensitive dog right now. I wish there was some easy way to change a thought process once your stuck in it, like just clicking a button. I guess that kind of solution only works if you’re looking to clear up your acne problem though. click here Since I know there isn’t a magic button, I’m just trying really hard to remind myself to live in the present, not relive things that happened in the past. Too bad my mind doesn’t work more like the dogs in that respect. LOL

I’m so excited! We got a refund on our taxes this year and since my husband was able to find a job we decided that we’d split it and spend it on something fun. So, he of course opted for some electronic and for clothes. LOL Guess what I’m spending my part on. Nope, I’m not going to buy any barcode scanners. I know you’ll all be shocked to hear that I’m going to spend my part on the dogs.

NTI Global was having a spring sale on some package sets of their tunnels, and I’m so excited that now we have a collapsed tunnel to train with! It’s their practice tunnel, so the barrel part isn’t the hard plastic one like at trials, but it’s like regular tunnel material instead. The nice part about that is that it is really lightweight and totally portable. I’m so happy. I can now take that along with my pvc jumps when I want to train other places. Woohoo!

So, anyway, here’s some pictures of the girls trying out their new tunnel.

Dare says, “No problem mom, I’ve got this new tunnel all figured out!”

Layla was next…

Raven’s picture cracks me up. I think she was going too fast, (I know funny for Raven).

I was reading one of my favorite blogs Team Small Dog, well, actually I think it was a FaceBook post, (either way I guess it doesn’t matter). Anyway, she said…”would like to update you about all the agility we’ve been doing lately. Insert moment of silence here.” She totally cracks me up! That pretty much sums up my training with the dogs here this week.

I really don’t even know where the week has gone. The only thing I can think of that I’ve done that counts as training would be taking Layla and Dare down to Parowan with me last Sunday for agility. Dare didn’t do anything but go along for the ride, so I guess really only Layla got in some training. Oh well, I really can’t say that I was sitting around just wasting my time shopping for new door mats or anything, I was just really busy. Just seems like every day this last week had me running in one direction or another and overall I didn’t accomplish much.

Hopefully we’ll get back on track starting today. This afternoon I’m going to take a couple of the dogs to my friend’s place to train a bit, while she has her beginning obedience class going on, for distractions. Then since the schedule around here is going to be different with my husband getting up early for work starting Monday…Woohoo!…I think it is a good idea to sit down and figure out a better schedule for myself with the medical coding course and training the dogs, and everything else that has to fit into the week. I’ll let you know what I come up with.

So, I spent the better part of yesterday trying to figure out how to edit video to play in slow motion. I downloaded a couple programs, couldn’t figure out what I was doing and finally looked again at the program I had, and noticed that it was an option on there, but I’d just overlooked it before. What a dork! Seemed to be a theme yesterday. I was absolutely oblivious. I got the funniest video of Dare training that shows just what I mean.

I did get around to editing Layla’s video from the last couple days into slow motion though too. I think that I really like her striding better with just 2 stride regulators than 3. The slow motion really does help so that you can see things better. Here is that video.

In other news, my husband decided he’d better try to finish up the project for his mom that he was working on. So, he called her to see if he could come down today and install the cabinets. She said no. She hasn’t painted the wall behind where the cabinets go yet. It drives me crazy. She’s been asking him to do this job for a while now, and he didn’t have the time when he was working full time. Now that he has the time, she just keeps coming up with things to stall the progress. I don’t think she’s even thinking that if he does get the part time job at Home Depot it’s going to make it harder for him to come down to install the cabinets and cut out the countertop for her Franke sinks. Oh well, once again, I’m worrying about something that no one else seems to even give a second thought about. You’d think I’d learn, but apparently not. LOL

It’s so nice to have the equipment back outside again! It is raining on it this morning, but at least we’ve been able to use it for the past two days. My goal is to get a consistent running A-frame with both Layla and Raven. Of course, the retraining with Layla is going much better than it is with Raven. Raven just struggles to run the A-frame with speed and confidence. She wants to pause at the top and then that makes her stutter step, well, it’s just not pretty. The problem has been that when I’ve tried to go ahead and work with that pause and just ask for either a 2o/2o or a 4 on the floor, she pauses, and then runs down a ways and bails. Doesn’t seem to matter what kind of hoop or target or mat I use, I still get this silly bailing off too high with her. So, she’s going back to the running A-frame too now. Layla on the other hand, is doing well. She loves to do anything full speed, so my only challenge right now is figuring out where I want the stride regulators to get the most out of the speed to get her the furthest into the contact zone. I have tried watching her as we’re running, but it’s hard to see while I’m moving. I also asked my husband to help me watch last night, but he wasn’t that much help either. LOL I think I am going to set up the camera and see where her stride is taking her right now, and see if it looks comfortable or not, and then adjust things accordingly. One thing I can say is that with all this running I shouldn’t be needing any quick trim burn and cleanse products in the near future.

As for the dogwalk…I am happy to report that Layla seems to be understanding the 2o/2o position nicely. She was 100% on it yesterday. I let Dare run the dogwalk as well, to see if the work we’ve done over the winter on the board in the barn was still in her head, and it is! She is also doing a good job translating it to the full dogwalk. I’ve been setting a pretty slow pace on the dogwalk, but yesterday I did start to add a bit of speed to increase the criteria. I’m also trying to remember to send them ahead of me, to run alongside them and stop at the contact zone and to run clear past the end of the contact zone without slowing down to give them a clear picture of what I expect of them, regardless of what I’m doing. So far, so good. Let’s just hope this rain doesn’t make things too muddy out there today, and that we’ll be able to train later on today.

Well, here is Zoe’s sassy run from the DOCNA trial. It’s not pretty, I warn you. LOL But, I think it’s fair to say that it’s an even mixture of poor handling and sass. I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie “Up” but my husband says that you wouldn’t want Zoe to have one of the collars that the dogs on that movie had that translated what they were thinking into English when we have a run like this.

Since I’m talking about things that don’t go as planned…I’ll tell you what happened this afternoon. For the last week or so, I’ve thought that something felt odd with my front teeth. They didn’t hurt, but something didn’t feel right. That is absolutely horrifying for someone like me. It’s nearly impossible to think of something that scares me more than having to go to the dentist. You’d think that after I worked in a dental lab for a couple years it would have helped my ridiculously unfounded fears, but it didn’t. I still avoid going like the plague. I’d rather do just about anything, even go shopping for rustic furniture if it would keep me from having to go to the dentist. Well, today I was flossing my teeth and out comes a filling from the backside of the front tooth. Ack! Now I just can’t seem to keep my tongue out of what feels like a crater in the front of my mouth. So, joy of joys…I will be going to the dentist tomorrow. LOL Definitely, NOT PART OF THE PLAN…

So, the DOCNA trial on Saturday was great. Zoe started off the day with Jumpers, her favorite. She had a beautiful run. Unfortunately, our video camera wasn’t cooperating and so a friend has the runs on her camera, so I can’t post anything yet. Her Beginner’s Gambler course was next. Again, beautiful. Then Standard, or regular or whatever they call it. LOL It was a train wreck. I ticked Zoe off at the start of the course, giving her a really hard “here” to get her to come in to the dogwalk, rather than the tunnel on the outside. Well, she came in and told me off about the cue. Bleh. That’s never a good sign. So when I did get her on the dogwalk, she just flew across and bailed the contact. I wasn’t going to let that pass, since you can train in the ring in DOCNA. I took her back and we did the dogwalk again. I think that just made her even more ticked off. We did get around the course, but not without several other bobbles and arguing from Zoe. She’s such a brat! I just love her. I’m sure it would really make me angry if it happened all the time, but here and there it just makes me happy that she’s still feeling that sassy at her age.

Anyway, the class to qualify for DOCNA Championships is the North American Challenge. It would have been a really pretty run, except that again on the dogwalk, (maybe a little sass was still left over), she wouldn’t turn off it into the tunnel, instead she jumped back onto the dogwalk first. So that’s a 10 point fault. Fortunately…DOCNA allows up to 12 faults in this class. So, despite our bobble, Zoe will be going to Championships again this year.

The drive up and back both had parts I could have done without. On the way up we saw lots of deer because it was so darn early in the morning. We almost hit one coming into a town. Fortunately, Zoe was in a crate, so she was fine. My friend’s dog was riding loose in the back seat, and she got thrown off the seat, but was still ok. On the way home, we hit snow, and rain and slush and mess. It made for a very tense ride home. I’m definitely going to be grateful for warmer weather and decent road conditions again in the next few months.

My husband is out putting in more resumes today. One is a janitorial position. Not his ideal line of work, but it’s with the school district, so that part is good. He probably won’t be using any Anilox roll brushes for cleaning printing presses, just regular old cleaning. LOL For the rest of the week, a friend of ours has asked him to refinish her cabinets, so that’s a small job to keep him busy.

I’m headed out later today for an obedience lesson with Dare. Should be fun. Hopefully we’ll come away with lots of interesting stuff to share.