Little Lance in the Snow

I found some old footage of Lance playing in the snow when he was 9-10 months old. He just loves the snow and loves to run! I can't believe how bouncy he was back then! I guess I don't really get to play with Lance this way anymore. The only time I get to see bouncy Lance now is when I play "chase me" when the store closes at Petsmart. He gets all barky and sprints all over the store. In my opinion it would be more fun if Lance would play a closer version of "chase me," but Lance likes to stay at one end of a long isle with me on the other end as he barks and runs!

Read more...

Lance has his RN!

Lance had his 3rd Rally-O trial today. It was not his best performance. I blame Adam for not buying hotdogs and filming at the entrance!



In reality, Lance was just really distracted. Even warming up with him he was not his usual attentive self. He wasn't that bad during warm up, but wasn't great. In the ring it showed. He did do a really good spiral however! I thought i had his attention back it was so good, but then it left again. I talked to him a lot, but he completely ignored me. On the positive side, he still generally walked with me, just not in a heel, and if I told him to sit he sat, it just wasn't automatic.

But we still qualified and scored a 92. And now Lance has Rally Novice title and is
Lakeway's No Ordinary Rabbit CD RN! Now I just have to decide if I enter Lance in the next level which is done off leash, or enter him in novice again at the next show which isn't till May.

Read more...

Vito's 2nd First Day of Agility

In an interesting turn of events, Vito had his 2nd first day of agility class tonight! Since his other class is only 3 weeks, I had just starting emailing other organizations about classes and managed to get into a beginner class on Fridays! It's not technically a puppy agility class, and it's ongoing, but the instructor seemed ok with Vito joining. He is the youngest one there by far and of course is nowhere near their experience, but we had a blast!

I was a little scared when we first started since I didn't know it wasn't the start of a new session and the first thing on the list was a sequence of a-frame, tunnel, and 3 jumps! But when it came my turn they put the bars on the floor and just had Vito run through a curved tunnel and have me do a recall over the zero height jumps. Then they had me do it a couple more times with me running alongside the jumps.

Vito of course had only done a tunnel once before, and it was straight, so he had some fun figuring out what he was supposed to do. At one point he went inside, ran back out the entrance and ran to the exit where he proceded to enter and turn around to face me. What a thinker!

Most of the night I separated off from the group and worked with Vito on a wobble board, plank, more tunnels, tire, and the bottom of the a-frame. He did really well and was so excited the entire time. Since it was just me, I was able to take the time to shape him and just let him think through what I wanted him to do. Of course with all the shaping we had done already it went really quick.

Vito did more sequences in this first class then Lance had done the first 2.5 classes he took. So this is definitely a fast moving class, but at the same time I'm not worried. Vito did great, and they are ok with me and Vito going off and just working on some things by ourselves. I think Lance would actually fit in great with the group of dogs and what they are doing, so I am jealous that Lance's own class is moving so slow when he is clearly ready for more.

Everyone loved Vito and I really like the instructor. She is very impressed by Vito's drive and fast learning. I think that I will learn a lot from her as well, and maybe when Lance's current session is over I will decide to move Lance to a class with her.

Read more...

Lance Hind End Awareness Tricks

Lance wanted to show off some of his newer tricks! We've been working on a lot of hind end awareness stuff for agility and obedience. I think Lance is really enjoying all of the backwards stuff as his bark has changed from one of frustration to that of excitement like he does when he rollovers! He always has a big goofy face on when he does the backwards circling!



Lance is a wonderboy! I think Vito is "young nastyman" though :)

Read more...

Vito's 1st Agility Class!

Today I took Vito to his very first puppy agility class. It's only a 3 week class, but I'm still very excited about it! There are 5 other dogs in the class, and 3 of them are just a tiny bit older than Vito and the other 2 still under 9 months. They are also all big dog breeds which is the opposite of Lance's agility class which is almost all small breeds.

I was very excited that we started to work on the tunnel right away! Vito absolutely loved it and had no problem running through it even when it was stretched all the way out. I think we progressed a little too quickly as they had us sending our puppies in the tunnel from right next to us instead of calling them through at the other end, but at least Vito did great with it! We also walked over a board with the dogs. Before we started Vito was starting to offer me the behavior of backing up onto it with his hind legs. I was very proud of him even if that isn't what you do with a plank! When it was our turn to actually walk on it Vito did it perfectly. Then they had a small table that Vito was very excited to hop up on, and I had him lie down on it to get his treat. There was also a little "scary center" that I didn't think looked scary at all as it was generally just some boards, pool noodles, a barrel, and toys, but Vito had a lot of fun trying to figure out if he was supposed to do offer me a behavior with the objects. He then had to do a little stay and come there which he did just fine with. The wobble board came out next and of course Vito had no problem with the movement under his feet.

The last 5mn there was puppy play time. I was very happy that Vito was relatively quiet and didn't show his evil face at all! He didn't quite want to play as he still wanted treats, but he would venture away from me and try to play a little bit with some of the other puppies. A little bit of barking and growls, but it was definitely the good type of barking/growling!

Vito was very attentive in class. Adam said that Vito is the 2nd best dog there after the 9 month lab/pit! But really, all the puppies are very attentive and well trained. I wish that Lance's class had dogs that were this focused as we could progress a lot faster in his class!

The only downside is that I almost lost my fingers in class. It's held in a doggy daycare that is in a warehouse and I think they turn the heat off in the evening. I normally have poor circulation, but tonight my fingers were white and then purple for the entire class. The treats stuck to my fingers and I couldn't tell if Vito had actually gotten a treat or not sometimes as I couldn't feel them in my hand!

Read more...

Little Problem Solver

At daycare today I was back with the little dogs for the first time in a couple of weeks. Well Vito impressed me by wanting to explore on top of the kennels that are placed all along the back wall. He had seen another little dog go up there earlier in the day to sleep in the smallest kennel and Vito decided that it must be pretty cool up there. Apparently Vito isn't quite big enough or agile enough to jump up yet, but he tried. And then as I was watching him look so intently at the wall of kennels, Vito quickly ran a couple feet to the left and proceeded to jump on top of the only small plastic kennel in the row, and then used that to parade back and forth across the entire line of them! He looked so proud! And wisely, Vito decided against walking on top of the wire kennels after testing it out with one paw.

Read more...

Leaking update

So update on the peeing problem- Vito does not have diabetes insipidus after all. We took him to our trusted ferret vet who recommended taking him off the meds and collecting a urine sample from him first thing in the morning. If he is able to concentrate his urine after not having water all night, then he can't have DI. So after having to invade Vito's privacy for a couple days, and being scared to open certain drawers of our fridge, we tested all the samples. Based on the results, the vet thinks that Vito just has Psychogenic Polydypsia. Which basically just means they have no idea why, but Vito has an unhealthy obsession with water. Chances are he'll outgrow it!

And already we've noticed improvements. He still will sit at the water dish sometimes, but he has been going outside a lot less. When he has to come to Petsmart with me he can hold it for over an hour while I'm teaching classes!!!

Read more...

Lance's 2nd Rally-O Trial

Today Lance had his 2nd Rally Obedience trial. It was held at the club we train at so I was hoping that Lance would be less distracted and more focused.


Lance did absolutely amazing! His heeling was almost perfect, his eyes never left me, and he didn't even sniff one sign! I couldn't have asked for a better performance in my wildest dreams :) I did talk to Lance a lot more this time around, I used a lot of "good boys" and reminded him to "heel" on the many turns, but I don't even think he needed it. We qualified with a perfect score and placed 1st. It was a really big novice class, I think there were 20 dogs, and 2 others scored a perfect 100 as well. So it came down to time, and Lance finished the course 1sec faster then a golden who then placed 2nd! So we've done 2 rally trials, scored a perfect 100 2 times, and got 2 1st places! I am so proud of Lance :)

Read more...