The Dogs Are Really In Charge

Another thursday agility class and AWESOME news!

>> Thursday, April 23, 2009 – agility , lance , luke , SA , vito

Today was a great day! Lance had agility practice and only 3 other dogs showed up. This meant that when we divided up it was just Lance and one other dog, and his partner was from the "big" dog side of class (a little cockapoo) and was somewhat decent! Lance got a lot more practice time in today, and actually got to do activities that challenged him :)

Today was the first time that we worked on a serpentine. We started with the jumps not fully parallel so the dogs could easier see what they were supposed to do, but since Lance did so great we closed them! Unfortunately he did the first closed set great, but then got too excited and failed so we had to make it easier for him again. Next we did a rear cross sequence that Lance actually got PERFECT. Normally we have some problems when I have to cross behind him to change sides, but not today :) By the end of class though he was pretty tired, not used to actually having to work!, and wasn't thinking very much. He still had great drive, but his attention wasn't as solid so he failed to read some of my cues on the first attempts that he normally wouldn't have a problem with. But overall it was a really good class!

I've decided that I'm going to stick with this club for Lance's agility class, but I am going to talk to the instructors and insist that either they divide the class by skill and not height, make the groups random, or just put Lance in with the "big" dogs and lower the jumps for him.

And in really really great news, I decided to try Vito locked up in the kitchen while Lance was at class. I dragged a doggy bed in, set up the portable cloth crate with door open, and threw in a whole bunch of bones. When I came back nothing was destroyed and there were no accidents! But in even better news, while reviewing the videotape I noticed that Vito didn't cry once!!!!!!!! He paced a bit, did a bit of panting, but actually ate his bones while we were gone and didn't have a heart attack! I didn't have the greatest angle on the camera since I was worried about Vito going on a rampage and destroying stuff, so I couldn't really see what he was doing most of the time. But I can't get over the fact that he was a relatively calm puppy! I am so so happy :) I'm still going to work on Vito being in the kennel and locked up, but hopefully I'll be able to use the kitchen again when I have to leave him alone for real and not worry about any setbacks in our training. YAY!

Super glue!

>> Wednesday, April 22, 2009 – obedience , vito

I recently posted about Vito's amazing levitation powers during a retrieve. Since he can now return an object promptly to my hand, regardless of where my hand is, I've been trying to teach him to do a formal sit in front of me with the object. So I've been telling him "sit", giving him an object, and want to click while he holds the object for half a second while sitting. Well as posted earlier, Vito's front feet immediately leave the ground and he goes to "beg" position once he is holding something and supposed to be sitting. Thanks to some great advice, I tried putting a little bit of pressure on him by leaning, and then taking a step forward to see what would happen. Well Vito practically did a backflip as his paws flew wildly in the air to try and maintain balance and then dropped the dumbbell as he tumbled to the ground.

Well I went to film it today so maybe people could better see what I need to fix, and wouldn't you know it but that little stinker stopped doing it!! Ah, the power of a little super glue.
Just kidding, but not once did any paw leave the ground when he was holding something. After I clicked and took it one paw raised up as he grabbed his treat, but zero paws off ground during the actual hold! I of course didn't do that many trials so as to quit on a good, no, a great note (one of the few times I actually am a good trainer and quit when ahead).

I swear Vito is some type of evil genius. He must have known I was videotaping and wanted to show the world that he knew all along what I wanted him to do!

Of course I know that I will see some levitation on many more trials in the future before it is completely gone, but at least he got several jackpots today for maintaining a sit :)

Vito's 5.5 month video!

>> Sunday, April 19, 2009 – luke , tricks , video , vito

Vito's 5.5 month video is up!!! I had a lot of fun teaching Vito's these tricks. I especially love backing up the stairs, I just wish that we had more stairs in our place than those 3! Vito is still struggling with the stacking bowls trick though. At first he wanted to stand in him (way to generalize from the food bowl, yay!) and now he understands his job is to pick them up but has much difficulty. Part of his problem is that he is moving way too fast to think about where he's dropping it, but he is also knocking both bowls around in his excitement that they either flip or wobble out of his way!

Oh, and Vito's lethargy didn't even last a full day. He woke up Saturday morning bursting full of energy and wanting to make up for Friday! Here are some crappy pictures of Vito eating the kitty

Of course, when Vito moves on, it leaves Luke looking like this

Help me

Luke decides that be better hide to get the upper hand

The Big Day

>> Friday, April 17, 2009 – vito

Snip snip snip :) Vito is officially an "it" today. I'm not really sure if I agree that every pet dog should be spayed/neutered, but because of our lifestyle I figured it was the best for him. I don't really know enough to really talk about it, but spaying and neutering isn't as great as we once thought it was.

From my understanding, neutering can actually increase the male's chance of getting cancer (especially prostate cancer, but others as well), especially if done under 1yr of age. Spaying can also increase the risk of cancer, although UNspayed females have a 7x higher rate of getting breast cancer. Spaying and neutering also make ligament tears more common and results in lanky looking dogs such growth plates close slower. From everything that I've gathered, most female dogs should be spayed before their first heat cycle, or at least before 3yrs of age to lower the risk of breast cancer and something complicated call pyometra; but males should NOT be getting neutered from a pure health perspective. Responsible owners shouldn't automatically be pressured into spaying and neutering pet dogs.

With all that said, I did decide to get Vito snipped. Although I would not be oppossed to owning an intact dog and dealing with the "behavioral" issues (or you know, just a dog being a dog), because Vito and Lance have to deal with such a large number of dogs each day between daycare and petsmart it is much easier without the complicating issue of hormones. I would have like to wait until he was a little bit older before having it done to have him fill out a bit more, but the wellness plan he is on includes the neuter and saves me hundreds of dollars if done before he turns 6 months.

Vito was VERY excited to see me when I picked him up this evening. There was definetly a "toller scream" to be heard as he squealed like a little pig! He has been pretty lethargic and cuddly ever since he has gotten back from the vet :)
And surprisingly Lance really missed the little bugger. Lance kept looking for Vito and wanted to spend ALL day outside sitting on the porch steps. He even went into Vito's kennel a couple of times. Who'd of thought :)

Oh, and if you're interested there are a ton of studies done on spay/neuter, but here's a link to one of the latest presentations at the Canine Health Foundation

www.akcchf.org/pdfs/whitepapers/3-23-08DiscoveriesArticle.pdf

A little backyard "agility"

>> Thursday, April 16, 2009 – agility , lance , vito

Now that spring is FINALLY here I can start moving my training outside! I've been dragging out the long wooden board and starting to teach Vito running contacts. Even though running contacts are still controversial in the agility world, I plan to use Silvia Trkman's method (my hero!) as it's the easiest (plus she's the one who invented running contacts). Just put a board on the ground, have dog race over the board to a target, and gradually raise the height of the board until you have full dogwalk height. There's no reason for the dog to jump off and miss the contacts if it's flat on the ground, running is the most efficient! So Vito and I have started and since it's easy, we have no problems. The only hitch is that Vito is not the most patient of dogs and has decided that if I am taking too long he might as well do it himself, run over grab target and bring it back to me in hopes I put a treat on it for him. Clever boy, too bad it doesn't work that way!

Adam also put the weave poles back together for me and I've just started Vito running the channel. Right now he's not actually weaving at all, but gradually the poles will move closer and closer together until he's weaving without even knowing it! I'm in no hurry for him to start really weaving since he's not fully developed yet, but for the next couple of months I just want to practice him having good entries. I also am restarting to do this with Lance. Unfortunately I got the weave poles right at the end of summer last year and we barely got started with Lance before the poles were buried in the snow. But Lance seems to be right where he was when we quit last fall (still a definite channel for him to see, but his body has to weave a bit to make it through).

My dream is to have a backyard full of equipment, but right now all I have is one 6ft board, and a set of channel weaves made out of pvc! I was able to utalize Petsmart the other night pretty well with Lance though. There were quite a few big display boxes in the center isle so I made up a mini agility course! It was just a bunch of "outs" (go around the displays without me) sequenced together in a funky pattern with some front crosses thrown in. But Lance seemed to love it and read my directions perfectly :)

He Levitates!?!

>> Monday, April 13, 2009 – obedience , vito

Vito and I have made great progress with our retrieving work. He will bring a toy thrown back to my hand 95% of the time (not always when other dogs are around) with no reward other than a game of tug or just another throw. Even with plastic, leather, and metal dumbbells he will run after and bring it back (I use treats for dumbbells to make it extra cool!). So I have no regrets (yet) about my decision to allow him to roll the dumbbell into my hand at first and then raise the height of my hand so he can't roll it anymore. (see Vito 17wks for the explanation

However, now I am working on more of a hold but we have ran into a slight problem. Either the dumbbells are made of helium or Vito is levitating.

When I gave him the dumbbell, all 4 feet were on the ground.

My plan is to click early, before he has the opportunity to bring any feet off the ground. But it really is an instintanious lift off, so I end up with this

He is trying so hard!!!

I've been looking at my body language to see if my leaning forward to give him the dumbbell is too much pressure and causing him to want to move back, but standing straight or even kneeling doesn't make a difference. I've also tried not letting go of the dumbbell as is recommended by Sue Ailsby, but I've never been able to make much progress with getting even a 1/2sec hold with that route on Vito or Lance. So I'm trying to decide if I should just keep trying to click early and so what if he levitates, eventually the law of laziness (there some name for this, but I can never remember so I make up my own name) will lead Vito to do less and less of a lift off. The downside being obviously that laziness might not take over and since what you reinforce is what you get....

He does look cute though!

Happy Easter!!!

>> Saturday, April 11, 2009 – lance , luke , tricks , vito

Enjoy!!!

Doesn't he look cute!

Ok, Vito hated it.

Lance was just perplexed.

Even Luke didn't get away!

If only I had a little one for the ferrets! Oh well

Happy Easter :)

HR 669

>> – ferrets

There is currently a bill before Congress titled HR669 or The Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act. It's purpose is "to prevent the introduction and establishment of nonnative wildlife species that negatively impact the economy, environment, or other animal species' or human health, and for other purposes." Sounds good, right?

Well if you think about it at all, you realize that almost all of our pets aren't native to this country. So most rodents, birds, fish, and FERRETS will be banned! Yes, even cute little hamsters will be illegal to own, breed, or sell.

I realize that this is years away from making it through all the stages to become a law. And even if it did pass there would be ammendments made so more than likely gerbils and hamsters would be excluded. However, if this were to be law I know that ferrets would not make the excluded list. In California it is still illegal to own ferrets despite years (since the 80's) of hard work to educate legislators. Basically it is said that ferrets will spread rabies (there's not even 1 case of ferrets EVER spreading rabies, now compare that to dogs!), will get loose and form feral colonies (99% of ferrets in the U.S. are from pets stores and already come spayed/neutered, in addition to the fact that a female ferret in heat MUST be bred or will die- hence owners having to spay, plus the fact that there's NO way any of my ferrets would surive more than 3 days in the wild!). Even though it is generally believed that ferrets have been domesticated longer than the cat, I have no hopes that the U.S. Congress knows anything about ferrets and would exempt them from this horrible bill.