The Book of Ramblings

It's not the BEST picture, but here's Dahlia standing up on her hind legs for a treat. Right now she'll ONLY do it under two conditions: (1) HIGH VALUE TREAT OMG and (2) We just came home after being out for a couple hours.

We got home from Kitty's today with a thing of leftover steak. Dahlia is always excited about this and usually "sit pretty" turns into sit pretty and then "jump up and put my paws on their chest."

But then one time she sort of balanced for a moment on her hind legs with both front paws just dangling in the air and David gave her a treat while she was like that.

So I wondered...can I repeat it?

And I did...and this time she balanced for like 10 seconds, like REALLY balanced, sort of dancing around on her hind legs to keep the position. We did it like 4 or 5 more times. It was SO AWESOME. Seriously. I LOVE MY DOG!!!!

REALLY sensitive. That's how much. She can't even handle a prong collar being used on another dog. Seriously. Tonight we ran into my next door neighbor whose new trainer has her buying into the "My dog is a dominan, alpha male type because he's a German shepherd and therefore I must train with a firm hand" nonsense. I'm not going to argue with her. I tried turning her onto positive training and she tried it at first, I think with a trainer she didn't like much and so now has this new one. Ugh.

Anyway. New trainer has her using a prong on the dog (well, he/she had her using a choke chain but luckily I got her to switch to using a prong, which, while awful, is less dangerous and has less potential for physical damage than a choke chain). So she wanted Krieger to sit before we approached. Fine. I wanted Dahlia calm and so had her remain at my side calmly. Had to break her out of her freeze/stalk mode once which she seems to want to get into more often these days.

So they're close to meeting when Krieger breaks his stay to come forward. She jerks the prong and tells him to sit.

Dahlia JUMPS BACK and starts yawning and licking her lips and then wants nothing to do with Krieger. She won't go near him and Sharon and walked a foot away and turned her back to us.

Wow.

And because it's too cute, here's Dahlia before our walk tonight.

Dahlia is learning a new trick. I think. When we got home from session on Saturday I came bearing pieces of steak. I can never finish my open steak sandwich and so I always cut up the rest and bring it home to Dahlia (no she's not spoiled, not at all!). She can smell that stuff from a mile away and so combined with her excitement over our coming home, she is also excited over the smell of that wonderful, still warm steak. Well, I asked her for a "sit pretty" and she sat and then immediately came up on her hind legs to rest her front legs on my chest. It was adorable. I gave her a piece of steak, and patted my chest and up she went again. So I think I could train her to do this for some command. Maybe "give me a hug" or "up" or something.

But I don't know. Is this dangerous? She's not the type of dog to jump up on you and never does when we come home usually (instead she prances around, licking frantically, and curls herself into a C-shape while grinning). So I don't THINK this would result in her starting to jump on us when we come home, but is that possibility there? Something to think about.

Attempt at a sit pretty picture #2: Basically she looks like a furball with front legs. Her back legs are like GONE. She's like dorf. Dorf on sit pretty.



( She's also batshit crazy )

1. Regarding the last entry. Fred from Shit Means Shit never bothered to comment back to me. Am I surprised? Not really. The last time he tried to get a dig in about that very same video, he never responded either. I guess trying to insult someone for their untrained dog (who, in a video, is playing, not working on training) doesn't work so well when that person turns around and tells you their dog has her CGC.

2. Related to that. David went and commented back to his original comment, which was something like "What is this video supposed to show? That your dog runs away from you and won't come to you?" David knows how to cut them to the quick.

Fred--I'm the guy in that video. You apparently really need to get a life. Someone puts up a video to show friends their new rescue dog playing and you come by to criticize? What a loser. You sound like a little man with power issues. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Some of you might remember the RV (Harvey) business from way back and David's rather cold, biting e-mails. Yeah. He's good at that shit. Fred removed his original comment. LOL I love David. He's awesome.

3. Dahlia's trick training is going REALLY well. She now knows "sit pretty" 100%. She even knows to try to stay with her paws off the ground until I give her the treat, though she sometimes loses her balance. Little by little she's extending the time she can sit up. I hope to get a picture sometime in the next couple weeks. We're going to take her out to the park on a nice day and do it then. So now the next goal? Crawling (though I've been calling it "sneak"). She's taking a little longer to get this, but she's starting to crawl forward to get the treats. It'll take some time to work her up to doing it 10 or 15 feet. I need to get more training treats though! I'm plum out of the things!

I very nearly had a dog who would be sleeping OUTSIDE tonight. She raced up a slope to see what I thought, at first, was a cat. Until I noticed it moving funny and the light hit it.

And it was a skunk!

I shouted "Dahlia, leave it!" and she rushed right back to me. I am so HAPPY my dog is well-trained.

When we were out on our walk today, we went by the Methodist church that's down the road. Out in front of it next to the sidewalk they had set up a "dog watering station" which consisted of a large dog bowl full of water, a jug of water and a cat bowl, just in case there are cats around. It had some quotes about taking care of the animals and the like printed up and laminated and stuck into the ground next to it. I thought it was pretty neat.

Dahlia's really getting solid on give me a paw, so I'm starting a bit on "sit pretty." I don't know how most people do this, but Dahlia will NOT take both feet off the ground on her own, so what I've started with is asking for her paw and holding it while she balances herself upward with the other paw off the ground (if that makes sense). She got it right away. After a handful of repetitions and other things she stopped "getting it" and so I figured the training session was over. We did a down and a sit and then I asked for her paw and ended it there. I tossed her foxy a couple times for fun and then she settled down to squeak. All in all I'd say it was a successful training session.

Wow...the last agility class already! I was never quite clear, for some reason, on whether or not there were 6 classes or 7. It turns out there was 6. The problem? I didn't think to bring my camera just in case. I could have kicked myself! The instructor had a camera but it was a pretty crappy one and it was hard to get action shots off of it. She did get one decent photo of Dahlia coming out of the chute, and one as she was starting to leap over a jump (just had one foot in the air at the time), but that was it. Damn. I could have taken a lot better photos than that! Oh well.

There were only two of us in class this time around, just the female dogs: Dahlia and Ellie (I think, if I remember correctly, Ellie is some sort of pit bull/lab/sharpei mix of some random sort). We started off with having them do individual obstacles and taking pictures of them doing it. It was fun. Dahlia was none too fond of the weaves last night. She had closed them up completely and I think she was a bit confused. I did manage to get her through them but not at the usual speed. She did well with the jumps and the chute. And I got her to get two feet up on the teeter. I really think jumping is where it's at for her. She loves jumping and has no problem with just leaping over them when we get near them. The rest I think she could give or take, but jumping she enjoys. I'm glad that I bought her a jump!

We did a few run-throughs of the course in various arrangements. Dahlia was exhausted by the end. With only two of us there, she did a lot more than usual. During the last run through she just barely made it through the weaves. Poor girl! She was still grinning though.

At the end of class we all got a little goody bag with some biscuits and a toy for our dog, a plastic dumbbell (which floats!), and a gourmet biscuit which Dahlia loved and ate right up in the car on the way home.

Overall, I'm glad I took the class. They're going to see if they can set up "play dates" for people to come and use the equipment for a small fee, so we'll definitely go down for that if they can get it together.

I can't believe this was already our 4th class! Wow. Time flies. I think there are just two more and then "graduation" (whatever that is exactly).

Now, you might recall that Dahlia was a complete chickenshit last week. She didn't even want to go through the tunnel, even though she had done so many times. It was almost like starting over and I wasn't quite sure what the issue was. I'm thinking now that maybe it was too much stimulation and uncertainty that day. We had taken her in for grooming so she spent quite some time at Blueprints that morning (from about 8:30am until 2pm or so). So it might have been an all around bad day for her.

Well, this week she rocked the agility equipment. I was so proud of her!

We started with the teeter. She was still nervous around it, but we managed to actually coax her up onto it, all 4 feet. The instructor let it rock forward a bit and Dahlia immediately jumped off when it moved, but it was a start. She's still more nervous around it than some of the other dogs, but she's much better than she was last class. When the class moved onto jumps (which Dahlia has been doing fine), the instructor took the teeter off the base and put it on the ground (so it only moved slightly when you touched it) and suggested I work with it really low like that. I managed to get her to put paws on it while it moved around a bit. She was still nervous, but definitely much improved. I got her to stand and it on it a couple times.

We moved onto jump sequences after that. The jumps were set side by side. We had to make the dog go over the first jump and then call them to and over the second one. Dahlia did great! I think she's ready to move the jump up a bit. She mostly steps over it, sometimes slightly leaps over it. I'd like to see it a little higher for her at this point, so we'll see if the instructor wants to move it up. Of course, little Cesar (the Bichon Frise) can't have it much higher. I think he might be jumping at close to conformation height for a dog of his size already.

Then it was back to the weave poles. We started with them pretty far apart and Dahlia went through fine. Then she moved them closer together, almost so they were completely straight on (each pole was moved maybe a couple inches out from the center). I wasn't sure how Dahlia would do with that, really. I thought for sure she'd avoid going through. Imagine my surprise when she went right through them like she'd been weaving her whole life! The only problem is starting her into it. Sometimes she goes the wrong way, but once I get her in the correct way, she just weaves right through without my having to guide her. Go Dahlia! I was so incredibly proud of her. She would come out of the weaves with this look of "wow that was fun mom" on her face.

We then moved onto combinations, which I find hardest as the handler because I just can't quite figure out how to get her to them smoothly. I suppose that comes with time. I especially have difficulty because I'm moving VERY fast and over excitedly to try to get her pumped up. I can't quite recall the first combo right now, but the second combo was pause box, teeter (at least just walking over and putting a foot on it), jump, tire jump, tunnel, weaves, jump, tire jump. Quite the combo! She did well on it, though I had some difficulty getting her set up for one of the jumps. She's going through the tire jump and over the regular jumps like a real pro. She doesn't even try to avoid them anymore -- she just heads right for them.

At the end of class, I directed her back through the weaves (in both directions) and she did awesome again. And then when I headed to get her leash she raced after me looking all excited. I think she's starting to get more into it!

The really nice thing about class last night? There were only four dogs there: Cesar (the Bichon), Ellie (the only other female dog, who is also a little more hesitant about things), and Samson (the pit bull). Samson is HILARIOUS. I don't think he's quite aware of where his feet are at every moment. He runs toward things with his feet going every which way and just barrels through things. He knocked the bars off both jumps (because he doesn't jump -- he just goes through it most of the time), knocked over the tire jump, and yanked the weaves apart. I don't think his owner is helping much because she gets him all hyped up to do it. I HAVE to do that with Dahlia or else I end up with a dog who wanders over to the obstacles. But with Samson I think I'd want to keep it all incredibly low-key. She managed to start doing that on the weaves and he went through at a much more sedate pace.

On a side note, I ordered a basic agility jump (yay!) so I can do some jumping with Dahlia at home. Our next door neighbor (with the GSD puppy) is interested in the jump as well. She won't set it high or anything, but just having him go over a low jump will be fun. Now I wish I could afford other equipment, especially the weave poles!