Shady is a 5 year old,very spoilt Tervueren,who has to live with a pack of dogs known collectively as the 'badogs'!
They're not really bad,its just compared to Shady,any dog looks naughty.
Tuesday 27 March 2012
I've had a great couple of days training.Amazing weather,lots of laughs,and saw some real imrovement in the Foof.I have lots of videos to put up but they will have to wait till tommorow,I need some sleep! Here's some photos of other people's dogs for now.
Famous!
Look at this gorgeous Collie puppy.He has a very famous daddy,and is incredible.
I just love this photo of Dappy,with a bonus Famous out of focus behind.
Sixx is 10 months old now,and is just turning into a beautiful girl :) This past month or so she's really got into agility,she's found her 'job' I think. She's running hard and fast,head down and meaning business :)
B E A U T I F U L girl!
Sixx in action..
READY!!!
Run ladies...
GO Sixx GO!
Sixx got a little distracted and had a play with another very willing puppy lol
Two days of wonderful,smile making,sun tanning sunshine!Aah it is good for the soul! Yesterday I was out in it all day with the girls at the show,and today the dogs have been to work with me,playing as I toiled lol. Then we played in the garden for ages,and I got out my DSLR,I have been neglecting it. Along comes a little Blackberry,with its 'oh so portableness' about it,and my amazing camera got kicked to the kerb. Well I'm sorry cannon,I forgot just how good you are to me lol. Its such a long time since I could just let the dogs let loose in the garden,and even throw some toys around with reducing the lawn to a mud pit! It was so much fun and I got some lovely,and funny photos :)
Tommorow and the following day I am at a 2 day agility workshop with Dave Munnings,and Sian Illingsworth.Its specifically targeted at young dogs,and me and Flooz are going to have a wonderful time woo hoo.Let the summer and the dog days commence!!!
Mindy and Bug are a match made in 'balls to the walls,play like crazy' heaven!
Mindy 'say what?this is not my forever home?' lol
Mookie is a dinosaur slayer!
Mindy may have helped ;)
'What??? I'm not thinking bad things about Bruce!!'
Lol I love Flooz's expression in this pic,when she gives me this look,I KNOW she is trying to get away with something!!
Floozie is determined to find some more stuffing in there to rip out!!
Shiny girl :) She was subjected to a bath on Friday,poor abused girl that she is!
Mooks is a ball fetching nutta!
Bwahahaha!!! Double derp!!!
Mindy completly defers to the little tyrant named Floozie!
The girls are thinking 'THROW it throw it throw it' I was thinking 'mow the lawn mow the lawn mow the lawn' lol. Mowing the lawn is hindered greatly by the dogs er 'helping'. The girls like to do fly by attacks on the mower,Shady tries to keep out of its way,and Bug just lies there until you repeatedly ram him with the mower hahahaha!
When Floozie dies,her heaven is going to be full of things to hang off lol.
We put our clocks forward an hour last night,and tonight because of that it wasn't dark till a little after 7 thirty :) I'm looking forward to a long summer walking,training and competing with the dogs!
I took my girls to another UKA show today,got there really early and was the second day parking car there,which meant I had a great spot right next to the rings,which meant less walking to and fro to the van. Floozie was SO good again.In her agility run she had lovely contacts,bit slower over the dog walk than in training,and she ran past both the Aframe and dog walk initially,but that's nothing a bit of exposure and experience won't fix :) I missed out the seesaw and weaves out on purpose,as she's not ready for those in the ring yet. I just love bringing a dog out at UKA first,it is SOOO much more relaxed than KC shows,I wish I had done that when Shady and Mooks came out.
This is Floozie's first steeplechase run (no weaves or contacts).I had so much fun running it! I am 100% happy with her focus on me.This from a dog who wanted to chase and attack dogs when I first got her. I had planned to do the first 6 obstacles then reward.Then carry on and reward again after the 4th tunnel on the front cross,which worked really well.I think I could have run till the end ok,but want to keep her motivation up whilst she's new to shows. She just missed out the second to last jump,but who cares,what a nice 2nd ever run at a show :)
Here's her agility class. I did the first 2 jumps then rewarded and used the tug to drag her past the unwanted seesaw!hahaha.She ran past both dog walk and aframe,no problem,that'll soon come. After the dog walk she came nicely through the box and turned left nicely for the aframe. I can't wait to run her again!
Here's Mookie's agility run.My main thing I wanted to achieve was just to reward her on the contacts. this was her first time tugging on contacts at a show,and she loved it,and was really willing to immediatly tug when I offered her the toy. On the vid the dog walk is behind the seesaw,so when he comes down the dog walk from this angle it looks like she's on the seesaw and it looks weird!She got the contact,came off when I told her she was clever,so had to go back on and find the position again. We went clear on the rest of the course,though we had a terrible turn from 3 to 4. It was good fun,I love running her!I only entered her in one run today due to finances,or lack of!
Posing the girls with their back to the rings was not Floozie or Sixx's idea of fun haha.
Dan took some cool photos of Becky me and the girls,I think I like the first one best,but I'm not certain,I like 'em all really.
I spent some time playing ball and tug with Mindy indoors today.She's very happy to play catch indoors or in the garden,and will tug either indoors or in the garden,tommorow I will take her down a local field with minimum distractions and see if she will,and then if we're successful with that I'll move to the edge of the local park and see if we can get it around dogs too. I'm sure she'll fairly easily start playing outside,and so then in the flyball training arena.
Taken today whilst I was working.Graham my mum's lovely next door neighbour buys biscuits especially for my dogs,as you can imagine they LOVE it when they hear him come out into his back garden. They all line up at the fence and wait for him to dish out the goodies! :)
Some random shots from a walk the other morning.
RRAAWWRRRR!!!
Dylan is a football hooligan!!
Floozie at the kennels on the disused kennel and run which used to house some of the staffs little Terriers.I am SUPER suprised she hasn't gone over the fence yet!
Floozie came in the staff room at lunchtime,and proceeded to search every inch of the room for food!
We had our first try at flyball tonight. We waited until the beginner class was finished and just had about 10 mins to ourself with Louise our trainer.
Whilst we were outide waiting Mindy was understandably a bit worried,although she's been here nearly 2 years,and is used to meeting dogs on walks,and at work.She is not used to excited barking dogs,and the noise plus the smells made her a little unsure.
She really does have a lovely nature,when she had her tail tucked as she was sniffing about outside,as soon as someone came out,her tail was up and a waggin',and she was desperate to say hello :)
From seeing her outside,I didn't expect to get anything out of her inside,and would have been happy just getting her used to the environment which was an equestrian centre,which in the nearly 2 years I've had her she's never experienced.
We did get her tugging a bit,and she would chase a tennis ball.She was happier to chase the tug than she was to tug it,but that's cool,we can develop her desire to tug.
She did 2 jumps in a row running after me to the tug,and just went and put her feet on the box a couple of times.
I need to put some time into getting Mindy tug and ball mad,she will play with both at home,but as per her foster agreement she's not allowed off lead in public,I've been lazy at playing with her away from home.Now I have a purpose to do so with her,and it'll be lovely to work with her and build a stronger relationship with her :)
The 2 things which she really needs is drive for tugging,and drive to a static tennis ball,I can't wait till tommorow to get started!!
I don't care if it takes months to get her to the place where I could 'my' dogs in weeks. This is gonna be an adventure just for me and Mindy :)
This is my little Floozie's first ever run at a show. :) I was SO happy with her today. I kept her off lead the whole time we were queuing,she was fabuous,and considering her dog agression/reactivity and overwhelming desire to chase dogs running,was a massive achievement itself,and had I gone home with only that today,I would have been over the moon!
So off lead in the queue,focussed amongst the chaos,and happy to do tricks and behaviours and stay engaged with me the whole time. I did put her on the lead when I went into the ring,as I didn't want her going off and doing any equipment with out me. One thing I forgot to do,was play with her before setting her up and leaving her.I want her to be thinking she is going to do something with me when we get in rather than just desperate to get to the first piece of equipment which is a mistake I made with Shady.
She had a lovely wait.She slowed down for the turn after 2,came out and drove on from the tunnel to number 4 nicely and had a nice turn over number 4,after which I rewarded her,very happy with that little sequence.
Then we had a slight lol!! stumbling block,she'd never encountered a tunnel under a dog walk before,its unusual to get one in the beginner classes TBH. So as it was a training run I tried unsuccessfully to get her to do it.Thankfully my trainers were watching and told me to go and do it from the other end,as you can take your own course if your running NFC (not for competition). She was a little slow on the dog walk but we have been doing a lot of seesaws lately,so that may have been it. Wonderful contact!! I was super happy with how well she did on there.Happy,engaged,and would not be dragged off her happy place!!What a good girl :)
Unfortunatly I ran out of time then,so didn't get to the rest which I had planned,but really I am very happy with how she did at her first show :)
I only booked one class for Flooz today,but next week I'll do 3 runs each,I can't wait!!
This is Mookie's steeplechase run.The steeplechase classes are just jumps and tunnels,no weaves,not that I was looking for a class for Mooks with no weaves,its just what I ended up entering,to try and make the day the least confusing! It was a straight forward course,but too many tunnels and I got confused after the second tunnel,and then suddenly forgot where I was meant to go right after it,and made a reasonable job of kinda rear crossing her there lol. I did have a massive wide turn after the last tunnel,but managed to win the class still :) I do have a trophy and rossette,but I can't be bothered to go and do a photo,I'll get one tommorow.
This was Mookie's jumping run.It was a nice enough run,with a few mistakes and wide turns,but they were on the whole my mistakes,I know why it went wrong,so I'm very happy with the run :) 1,2,3 into the tunnel straight forward,she had a wide turn on 5,caused by me being late,and then abrupt with my check arm. Then thinking too hard about getting her to check her stride and not enough about keeping my drive arm to tell her to take the jump before the turn,I pulled her off number 6,by dropping my drive arm too soon,before she was commited to the jump. Round to 10 and 11 straight forward.I had to put in another front cross before the tunnel (12),but forgot,but actually think that rear crossing the jump after the tunnel worked well. Nice turn on number 15,she really checked her stride for that one. Long jump,jump then I left her to go find the weves on her own,which she did nicely.Not quite sure why she popped out early,but never mind,we ran back laughing at each other (Mookie does doggie laughing all the time,she thinks life in general is hilarious!!)and she did them nicely,and drove on nicely to the end.
What a fantastic pair of girls I have :) I couldn't have asked for more of them today,and we just all had a really nice,fun day out. We've got another show next Saturday,and I CANNOT wait!!!!! Its another UKA so I can train Floozie in the ring,oh and I'll train Mookie's contacts too,and reward her on them,and I may even enter Shady even if I do a really low height and mainly practice waits and contacts.
Can't wait for this season,so much to look forward to :)
So I've been wanting for quite a while to train a dog in flyball.After reading several blogs about flyball dogs,I came to realise just how difficult it must be to train a flyball dog,right to the point where it is ready to compete. Training a dog to go and get a ball from a machine,yep easy I thought,and when I tried it with Mookie,yes it was. What I hadn't considered was all the other stuff which goes into getting the dog,and you ready to actually compete. The dog having to concentate in that hyper stimulating environment,the passes,they have got to be hard for both dog and handler to achieve correctly,and I'm sure there's more that I haven't even thought of.
Mookie has tried it,and enjoyed it,and I'm sure Floozie and Shady would too.They're all very driven dogs who love ball and tug,and working for me. But I don't want to do it with my agility dogs. Then I considered Bug,but realistically,I don't have the working relationship with him which I would like,and don't want to 'steal' him from Pete,by training with him.So I thought I was destined to maybe never getting a go at flyball.
Then finally I realised that here in our midst,is a potential flyball dog who I'd completely overlooked,and a jaw droppingly fast dog at that. Mindy!!!
Look at her,the girl is built for speed,her acceleration from a stand still is phenomenal.
I will need to work on her reactivity around other dogs,so I've asked for some private lessons if she can't concentrate around the other dogs,but we'll see how we go. Longer term I would love it if Pete would join in with Bug.Bug is not ecspecially fast,but it would be great for him to have a job to do,he's a smart boy,who is some what wasted just being a pet.Plus I think Pete would like flyball more than agility.
We'll see how we go,but I can't wait for the weekend to be finished so we can go to flyball class!! I know I am going to be knackered on Mon eve.I have 3 agility classes back to back with Floozie,Shady and Mookie,then have to drive for an hour to get to flyball,at least I should have a good nights sleep on Mon :)
Spring is in the air,and I have a Springer on the lead lol. Buddy is a 2 year old Springer I began walking a couple of weeks ago,here's some uick phone pics of him,and some other random photos from the last little while.
I walk Floozie with him,and we found some cool woods with hills in to run up and down. :)
Buddy is just a great,uncomplicated dog.He's areally enjoyable to take out.
Love soggy Spaniels!
Beautiful Husky Blaze,a favourite of mine from the kennels.
Strawberry anyone? lol
My view if I look into the back of my van whilst driving.Mooks,Flooz and Shady fast asleep :)
Happy wet Belgian,who came complete with miserable wet mummy that day!
Mindy our foster is near to celebrating her 2 year anniversary with us!Its so tempting to keep her. I hope to try her out in flyball soon,if we get her sufficiently motivated she could be amazing,she is amazingly fast!
