Todd

Todd's almost 7 months now, I had him to stay for a day last week, he was good as gold. He is Astra Layce x Astra Keyne bred by Pam Duncan and Dane Redford, he is such a scrummy puppy.



And another pic of Scandal, coz she's just so cute :o)

Scandal's first lesson

This week me and Laura with Be went all the way to Kent for a lesson with Dave Munnings. Laura drove, so I got to chill all the way there, thanks Laura :o)

The lesson was fantastic, it was the best agility lesson I have ever had, I learnt SO much, me and Laura filmed each other, and we are going to watch it all back and make notes (geeks :)) as there was so much to take in I am sure my brain has only remembered a tiny bit of it. Scandal was so good, there were only a couple of times I thought she was slow, and Dave said she isn't sluggy, so that's good too :o) I do have to work on getting her to drive forward away from me and I have done too much of running with her, so a bit like Tia she will only get into 5th gear coming down the last couple of jumps. I love training her and just find that I click with her, she doesn't have masses of drive, but it is coming, I find her very easy as she doesn't everything I say like Rix did, but she wants to do it more than Tia did. I now understand properly how to train her rights and lefts, as well as a few other things such as Scandal learning to stay on the line I am running, not cutting behind or infront/to the side. Oh and how to front cross properly so Scandal actually gets to see the jump before she jumps it, poor girl.

I think the 18 months or so I have been out of competing has done me the world of bad!! I feel absolutely hopeless handling, I have no idea where to be, my timing is out, I release Scandal from the start, and by the time she has come to me I have forgotton what I'm meant to say to her!! I could remember the (very easy) sequences Dave had set, but kept forgetting when to move across to do a front cross, etc, all things I was able to do at the age of 12 but it seems that in my old age it's gone from my brain now! Luckily Scandal is very forgiving and gets her bally anyway while her silly mum tries again to get it right in her head before giving Scandal another go!

I can't wait for our next lesson, I feel like I know where I am going with our training now, have lots to practise, and hopefully by the next time we have a lesson with Dave, we will see some improvement. It took ages to get home as some idiot (a.k.a me) booked it so it meant by the time we finished and got on the M25, we hit rush hour pm traffic, ahhhhhh! However as we were both on such a high, it didn't matter quite so much (esp for me, as I had a lie in the next day :))

Was hoping to go to Sharon's today and train with Toni, which I was so excited about, both at having a lesson with Toni as I have never trained with her before, and seeing Sharon's Diesel, however unfortunately as my car broke earlier in the week and I had to have it fixed (altho they didn't, it just cost loads and it is still broke) I couldn't justify more expense at travelling to Sharon's as she's soooo far away. Why do so many great people live in the South/South East?? Hopefully we will be able to meet up in the new year, although it makes me nervous already as it will be Scandal's first time training with another dog! 

After Helen's advice in earlier blog post re: chase drive, it got me thinking as to how I could set up more challenging areas to work in where Scandal would find it harder to concentrate. We have been working on our waits with the chickens as the 'chase'. Scandal lurrrrves the chickens, I bring her in to the field which has the chickens hen house in, it took several goes before Scandal was able to sit calmly enough to open the hen house door, she was squeaking and shuffling around JUST like she does watching agility. She gets so excited when the chickens all come out, her head bobs up and down and she is shuffling her feet around, but she isn't going into a down and even when the chickens have flapped their wings she didn't break her wait. So we are now going to work on improving her sit position, holding a nice upright sit rather than getting lower and lower. Then we will move on to practising on the cows, if I could rank in terms of excitement, the ferret is a 7/10, the chickens a 8/10 and I think the cows a 9/10. And watching anything that is running at speed is a 10/10! But I hope if we can work on Scandal's behaviour and control around chickens and cows, and I can recall her away from them, and ask her to perform her tricks when they are near, then I will be on my way to getting improved behaviour watching agility, and her recall when she is off lead on a walk. Thanks Helen :)

Mendips

Scandal has redeemed herself and has been good the last few days! We did UKA Cheltenham yesterday and while I can't say Scandal was good, she was a lot better than at Shrewsbury, did some sit and down waits, held her static heelwork position for a good few seconds, and didn't bite me (yay :D). 

Tia was WILD. Actually, Tia was great, but we just aren't clicking, she is so much more enthuastic and my brain isn't functioning in the slightest bit fast enough to do her justice. In the first steeplechase she broke her wait (Tia NEVER breaks her wait) and much as I lecture everyone I teach to put the dog back if it breaks, I broke the golden rule and put my arm out and simultaneously said "go", Tia went on my arm movement, hesistated, and then spannered the first jump, I can't remember the rest, I think she took another pole. Then the second round it was going ok and right at the end she had 3 poles, got her stride a little wrong, tried to bounce jumps that should definitely have been 1 stride. In the last round she was beautiful, just a pole at the end but was 3 secs faster than the winner, it was nice to see that :o) I think I am going to have to start doing more courses with her in training as all the poles came towards the end, maybe she is getting tired. Steve was here the last few days of this week and we got some pics of Tia on Friday, had her running around and jumping etc, maybe it was too much for her doing jumping Friday and Saturday and her legs were achy I do not know. 

We went for a lovely walk today and walked to the highest point on the Mendips. It's amazing for the dogs, bracken to run in, rocks to climb on, and in Scandal's case, cows, sheep and horses to stare at through the fences. The only thing that has got me worried is as we were walking up the track, must have only been about 100m from home, Ricky looked slightly lame on both his back legs, and then looked like he was going to collapse, I caught him and held him, but he was completely fine within seconds, perked up again and has been fine all night. I am not sure what happened but I do find it quite worrying, he is only 10 :o( poor Rix. I hope it was a one off and it doesn't happen again. x

Bad Behaviour

Went to Shrewsbury small/med show on Sat. Scandal was SO bad! We didn't even get past the first two metres of the first ring, as she was such a fruit loop, I couldn't get her to concentrate. Normally if Iask her to do 'watch', or a recall-present, she will be perfect, eventually I got the watch, but she completely refused to do a present, and kept coming into me side on to make sure she could keep watching the agility. And then when she did come in straight, stuck her head straight through my legs so she could still watch the agility. Flippin eck she is hard work. It took 2 attempts, and the 2nd attempt about 10 minutes, before we got a 5second wait. Built this up gradually. But was still yapping all the way through. Then snapped when I gave her food, and got my finger soooo hard, that it swelled up, and there is still a mark and bruise now, normally she takes food sooo gently but becomes an absolute monster at a show!

I'm in Blagdon now, the walks here are amazing, a little too amazing for Scandal, as yesterday I was walking her and Honey. I took them on a new walk and thought I would just take the two, as all 5 might be a bit hard to deal with. Well, that was a good choice (not to take all 5!). I let Honey off first and she was quartering the ground and getting a little far away, so I put her back on the lead as the light was going and I didn't want her running off. Little Scandal with a halo on her head was being great, I was walking along talking to Honey when I looked up and Scandal is about 200m away tearing after a hare. Called and called, nothing. Then the hare goes through the gate into another field, which is running back down towards me, so only sheep fencing between us. Thought Scandal would come back on her way past, as she would've only been about 20m away. Well, I was wrong, as Scandal had no intention of coming back, she was off straight towards the main road, which thankfully has sheep fencing round it, although I wasn't sure if this went all the way round at that time. Scandal found a gap in the hedge and went through it, back into the field I'd just been in (I by now was in the sheep field (with no sheep) and running back down to where I'd last seen her). But no Scandal in site. She must only have been gone for about 10mins but felt like an eternity particularly as I had no idea what direction she'd gone in, didn't know if she'd crossed the road back towards the house, so didn't want to call her in case she had found her way back, but had to call her incase she'd got disorientated. Oh dear the relief when I saw her again. She'll be back on a flexi/long line now but it has been pretty frustrating as her recall has been fantastic recently and I thought we were making a lot of progress. Every other time I call her, she will always come back on first call, and absolutely fly to me, she has a quicker response than the other two, but evidently no response at all when it matters most!

Glastonbury Tor

Took the 3 dogs up Glastonbury Tor today. Despite SOMEONE saying it was miles, it wasn't that far, and not too steep, much to my relief, I had visions of climbing a mountain like the one we did in Austria! Here are some pics of Scandal. I have got some pics of the other dogs but of course Scandal got the most, particularly as I haven't taken many of her in the last month. Scandal was really great, she came back every time I called her, didn't jump up at anyone, and only went to say hello to one kid. Sooo much progress. One lady was so impressed that she offered Scandal her ham sandwich for being so good, I had to turn her down as I do not want Scandal thinking that strangers will offer ham sandwiches on a regular basis, otherwise she will be thinking they are an awful lot better to visit than me!

Training

I trained Scandal on Monday or Tuesday this week and she was lovely, running dog walk was great, she got a bit mixed up with the 'target' command but in the end we sorted it. Did some nice send ons into a tunnel.

Yesterday and today have been teaching her tricks, she can now reverse round the sofa and continue reversing up the first stair, which I think is real cute. Can put all her feet in a bowl (altho it's their water bowl so bigger than the food bowl) and can put her front feet on a chair and put her head below. She thinks these tricks are sooooo much fun. Crazy little girlie whirlie! Can't decide what to teach her next, I think maybe leg lifts, and will also teach her to beg. She learns so quickly, and loves freeshaping. Apart from she gets a little carried away and offers as many behaviours as possible in a short space of time, need to calm the Scandalbeans down!

She has been good with both people and dogs this week, no jumping up, and will come back whenever I call her. Infact I can't think of anything particularly naughty which she has done this week, I think that is the first in a long time, maybe she is growing up :O I can hope!

Update

Scandal's now 10 months old, wowwww, old girl!!

We went to Dartmoor on Sunday, lovely day, Scandal was VERY naughty, and very excited, and thought the sheep were just a little bit too exciting (need I say any more?!). We had 5 dogs in the landy and on the way back they all crashed out, except Scandal, who carefully balanced over Rix so she could watch the traffic on the 2 hour journey back home! I am glad she does at least sleep at home, even if she was too excited to sleep in the car!

I have bought my van cages, and we went up and collected them last week, now I just need to buy the van :oD hopefully in the next couple of months. A Fiesta just isn't big enough to transport them all in safely, and means I tend to opt for taking 2 of them out rather than all 3 like I should.

I did no agility with any of them last week, just some nice walks, and practised Scandal walking to heel on a collar and lead without thinking the idea is to extend my arm on the way to the fields. Did a training session with Scan this evening and she was good, she still isn't driving like I'd like her to, but dog walk was lovely, we did 5 from mid point on the dog walk and only one was a bit higher than I'd like. We did some seesaw, where the end of the seesaw is a couple of inches off the ground, and she gets into 2o2o so has to move the seesaw. She LOVES this game, and just spends all her time putting her paws on trying to get a click/marker. I think this has come from a lot of the balance games we have played, like using a wobble board, where she thinks that movement is a good thing. I am pleased that she is so confident as Tia's always approached it quite gingerly, unlike Scan, who is much more gung-ho. I am going to be cutting down on the amount I do her dogwalk now, now I think she understands the behaviour, I don't see much more point in doing it (plus I'm quite bored with it now!) so will leave it for a month or two and just practise it on the occasion I feel like training it. I am pretty happy with how her training is going for everything, I would just like her to try a bit harder, but I am probably expecting too much/wanting too much myself!

I went back to Uni last week and am knackered already, dogs should be grateful they get any walks/training, the poor moma's doing way too much studying :oP (that'll be the day :))