ness

Here is the other video I hope - youtube was having a mind of its own .

goodonya - well I was just training in the yard .

And the second one - this is my very much broken COP exercise. She has the novice bit down pat and is about 99% reliable on a drop but when I go to add any distance I totally lose my sit up . Not worrying about the recall part yet since she has a nice recall . Will add the link when the video decides to cooperate.

Oooh hang on a tick I had to adjust the setting from private to public - I uploaded them a different way and its defaulted it to private - should work now I hope .

Ok here is distraction video 1 - just some figure 8 heelwork. Video 2 - is Change of positions and yes she is still having issues with her sitting up so I tried breaking it down so I wasn't asking for both a drop and a sit.

Am just downloading video staring Kozmee and Cuz . Kozmee didn't prove to be overly distracting in his quiet mode and I stirred Kenz up with Cuz before we started and so yep she was very keen on Cuz .

Hahaha so Ptolomy do we get a picture of caffy's Alex - since he seems to be a favorite distraction tool over west . Ness thinks I need to take a photo of her posing with her biggest distraction . Hmmm sorry Ness not sure you would actually pose with it. I will say that is the inactivated form of Kozmee - I think the activated form is still a bit much for a baby and I'll have to work up to it.

Day 4 - Alien Toy Distraction Training - Getting Acquainted.

Introducing Kozmee - and Kenzie's first getting acquainted with the new distraction toy session. Step 1 - Posing for a silly photo with toy - hard task for a midget dog who really needs to learn a better stay although actually she did ok today and stayed put with no additional commands for my entire photo shoot without trying to pounce on the camera .

Neither of my BC girls acted skittish after being desexed either and neither were giving Rimadyl and my youngster had had 1 season before being done.

Oh one more thing Zug Zug don't be afraid to go back to only a couple of steps when you start with the duration heelwork. That was the take home point I got from Sue's seminar - never mind the fact that my girl is trained through to UD and should therefore be able to do a decent length of heelwork - if you have to start back at 5 paces so the dog is successful so be it.

Zug Zug in answer to your heeling problem - hmmm its a tough one - I would probably start some duration heelwork with her now there are no trials for the next little while. I would however only be doing that. Alternatively you could give her a break for about a month or so and start again towards the end of January. I am currently spelling my older girl and just doing stuff with the younger one and you can bet your bottom dollar that the older one is less than impressed by missing out on the training. She is starting to butt in whereas before she would sit and wait. I will occasionally do something small with her (yes Ptolomy I so can't help myself ) and she is bursting at the seams. She has done nothing much in the way of training since the beginning of December and certainly nothing at all since around the 13th. When we start back I will start her off with some duration heelwork with food rewards located off me.

I will say although don't do as I do I have called both of mine off gloves at various points. Mostly when they decide to not wait to be sent. Ness will sometimes shoot off after a glove without taking direction and in those circumstances I will call her off. Kenzie will also get called off for a similar reason but I don't think in her case it will kill any enthusiasm for the retrieve so I am not to concerned. I am careful the next time though to set them up so they can be successful and so I don't need to call them off again.

This is the abridged version of the Food Bowl/Directed Retrieve exercise: Get three small bowls. Place one out in front of the dog and put some food in it (just a couple of pieces). Have the dog neatly sitting very straight beside you - as he should be if you'd turned nicely. With elbow tucked IN ! place your hand neatly next to dogs side of face. Your hand, body, shoulder, feet, head should all be pointing towards the bowl. Without moving your hand, say GET IT!! and send the dog to the bowl. You can click the go out and let the dog get the food. Once he had eaten the food, call come and have the dog race back to you for a reward. Build distance. You can place the bowl randomly out on the park, with trees, broad jumps etc behind it. Put two bowls out. Separate them by more than you would have in the ring (S added: in the ring each of the gloves is 6 m apart). Only walk out and put food in one of the bowls but pretend to it in the other bowl. The order is to be done randomly. Start close, go through the same procedure. Change which bowl you put the food into but make sure you line up as described consistently. If you're worried about the dog going to the wrong bowl and then going off to the other bowl - 1. this is telling you that the foundation work of looking straight and running straight is still not strong enough, so go back!! You can also have a friend (who can also put the food out for you if you're lucky) there to take the bowl away with the food in it, if the dog goes to the wrong bowl. BUT STILL go back to one bowl and get the foundation behaviour. Once you are confident with two bowls you can start to put out the third bowl. Set them slightly broader of the centre than trial standard but always be in the centre (in front of No 2 glove position). Go through the same procedure. Practice turns separately. Once the dog is marking and running straight you have a good foundation. That is the first bit - you then repeat the process in a similar fashion with a glove rather than the food bowl present.

With all my training sessions I am running out of exercises to start - suppose that means I might have to actually finish something . Hey we did have progress on articles today. I played a session this morning using 5 flower pots and 1 scented wood. Well that got her sniffing pretty quickly. Ended up taking away the flower pots and had 4 unscented woods 1 scented wood out and she would find the wood regardless of where I had it even if she had to go over the top of unscented articles to find it . Lets say when I tried again tonight we only had fetching on our brain . Ah well she will get there eventually.

Ness ex Gina ex Ozobedience .

Just for the record Ptolomy I did actually check that Kenz would hold an article until give her release cue to give it and yep she was fine . Didn't even start mouthing the article just held onto it patiently until I cued her to release it.

To me the $235 odd dollars was only a fraction of the purchase price of my new car and the price tag never really factored into the equation I considered it as necessity when I got my car .

Here is a cute one I managed to take today .

Day 3

Hmm nope I can't find an IMG link in Flickr .

If you google backseat buddy and pull up the manufacturers website you can get a list of cars against size backseat buddy. That is what I did to work out what size to order .

I love my backseat buddy . I usually also throw an additional blanket on top of the Backseat buddy to save me having to wash it to often - especially if we have been somewhere like the beach.

I am a member of an obedience club but my youngster didn't go through the classes. Our club have a trial ring set up each week and somebody to put you through (either another club member or one or other of a couple who are obedience judges). If it was just "classes" then I wouldn't be attending. Maybe you can find a club that has a set up similar to this.

She can actually . We didn't lump that bit hahahaha. I could even find video to prove it - although I think she was only 16 weeks at the time . And before you ask yes she can do it with dumbbells, metal articles, leather articles, wood articles, seekback articles, gloves, pencils, pens, bits of paper, toys (well mostly) . Although interesting tonight I was using my small wooden DB (Ness was never keen on it because the clearance off the ground is less), Kenz has never been great with the heavy plastic one I use for Ness although I admit I haven't done a DB session using it for a while. Would be interesting to see if her retrieve was as nice as todays was. About the only thing I could fault is I would like a faster turn but as an exercise and what would be deductable from a points perspective there was little if anything (well other than I really do need to get off my backside and teach her a finish as thats the only thing we are missing ).