Yoshi and Trek Training Diary - August 2007
By Ellen Clary
(reverse date order)
Feedback is welcome: 
Fri
Aug 31
Trek is a
fetching fiend . Before Terri and I went on vacation,
Trek's fetching was, ok but not great. She was great indoors, but
outdoors was only so-so. Plus Yoshi would bark at her to play and
she found that too distracting. Well it turns out that during the
time Mark had her they played fectch nearly daily. Today I went
into the yard with just her and a tennis ball and she was
amazing. Didn't always bring it back to my hand (though started
to catch on that that's what I wanted) but would drop it at my
feet. What a great dog! Mark is welcome to train my dog
whenever her likes. The only time she didn't bring it back was
when she needed to rest. Unlike Cali, I do seem to be able to
take the ball from her when I notice she's tired and have her rest at
my feet with out her losing her mind with anticipation and barking like
Cali did.
Even with the
extra exercise she's still puzzle solving when we're not
paying 100% attention to her when we're home. She got to
the clip on my other similar pants but didn't get far before Terri
caught her. The imp.
Wed
Aug 29
Yoshi obedience
class. What a pro! No incidents, and he
appears to be relaxing some - horray!
Tue Aug 28
Sweet
little innocent Trek has just earned herself a crate when
we're not around. First she managed to unzip a training bag (my
fault) and tea two training sessions worth of treats,, then chewed up a
zoom groom, then chewed a hole in my sweats to get at treat dust, then
a plastic clasp (yikes), then a box of wooden matches (yikes), and now
has toliet papered the bedroom with two rolls of TP that were stored in
the bathroom. She clearly needs more exercise (playing with Yoshi
in the yard is a good work out, but is no longer enough), and I do hope
agility class starts up again soon (Rachelle is on vacation).
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TP Artwork
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TP Art and Artist
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Plastic Clip Half Eaten
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Sun Aug 26
Yoshi
Herding. The booties worked and he was able to get
some training done. I was asking Joyce about what the next step
should be and she was emphasizing that we needed a down on
recall. I was trying to tell her that we had one and she was
saying that we needed it 100% of the time. I finally realized I
needed to show her how good his was already and put him on a long line
and demoed how good his was. After seeing it she was pretty sure
we could translate that to sheep so we brought him out to the large pen
and since he was already tired and he is a little intimidated by Joyce
he was golden. Now we need to work on my as my timing while great
for agility, is bad on sheep. She now thinks he can really do
it. I knew he could if we could get past the obsessiveness.
Sat Aug 25
Back from
our trip. We had a nice time. Tons more
detail will be put in the nondogblog.
Trek's hotspot
has healed up completely and now she is just sporting
the latest in dog body art.
Next she's going
to want to shave her head.
Yoshi's booties
came in and one pair fits him well enough to give them
a try tomorrow (photo below).
He keeps
focusing on trying to take them off. It will be
interesting tomorrow to see how distracted they make him.
Took Trek to
Point Isabel Dog Park today to let her play in the water
and romp around some. She was a bit overwhelmed by all the dogs
and stuck close to me with a few exceptions, but she generally enjoyed
the wind and the water and the freedom.
Semi-random photos
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Trek Hang
Five
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Trek Hotspot
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Trek Hotspot
Closeup
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Yoshi Booties
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Fri Aug 17
No class
for Trek. We're maddly trying to get ready for
our Mt. Whitney trip and there's not enough time to get to class and
take care of everything. Poor kid. But they're spending the
week at Camp Cooper so it's not that bad.
Wed Aug 15
Yoshi Ob
Class.
There
were new dogs there and he did surprisingly well.
One was a JRT that he really was unhappy about but, with help, he held
it together. It also helped that the JRT was very well
trained. The other two he has seen before though he's not
thrilled about them - one is the Chessie that was in his Rally class
and the other is a young, some what enthusiatically spastic Mallinois
(named Cali ironically) that he's seen before in Lori's classes.
I guarded him pretty carefully and he was very successful though a
tipped over crate nearly hit him and I came close to wacking him with a
bag. Poor guy he just knows we're out to get him.
Tue Aug 14
My
sister requested a more recent photo of Terri and I and the two
dogs. The self timer on my camera is really short so the results
of the first try were really funny as I have just charged into the
photo with Trek. It looks like I'm holding her hostage.
Sun
Aug 12
Poor
Yoshi the tenderfoot tore a pad again at herding. This is
even with using Musher's Secret. So now it's booties (http://www.dogbooties.com)
and if those don't work then we have to wait till October. The
tear wasn't too bad so we were able to do some slow work as he'd much
more manageable when his feet hurt (sad but true). I've taken to
just herding the sheep PT style along the fence of the round pen.
Awkward but he doesn't lose his head that way.\ and we get a little bit
of work in.
Behaviorally he
did very well. He's at his most relaxed at
herding. I almost don't care if he never herds competively as the
environment is so good for him.
Fri Aug 10
Trek
agility class. This time Terri came along and taped us some -
hooray. This time Trek didn't want to take a tunnel in one
direction - probably cause there was a treat in it or something.
She would go part of the way in and when I would call her she would
turn around and run to me outside of the tunnel. I think it this
situation I need to say tunnel and when she gets in, don't say anymore
until I'm right at the tunnel's exit so she can see me.
Eventually she did catch on (or she finished up the treats inside it
and started doing the tunnel like a pro. We also work some more
on the A-Frame and then spent a lot of time working on a lowered
teeter. Very hesitant at first and had to put her on leash but
after several repetitions was doing ok.
Once again she
was out of it fairly early on. Guess her and Yoshi tearing around
the yard isn't building any endurance. Will have to give up and
take them for regular leashed walks.
Stayed a little
for the next class and she perked up as the temps cooled and the part
of the class that we attended was on the cool grass of the lower
field. Did a couple of great 4 staggered jumps and a set of 6
weave poles in both directions.
Wed Aug 8
Terri
suggested taking her out on a leash to try again with the urine
collection. It worked! That combined with she was on a
slope helped. I can only hope that the lid was able to collect
enough urine. I think so - it certainly looked like enough when I
poured it back into the specimen container.
No class
for Yoshi today as I've been really busy at work and I'm just wiped out.
Tue Aug 7
Switching
to a semi flat take out container lid. Still is jumping out of
the way. I need to explain to her that the alternative is for a
vet tech to use a very thin needle to collect the urine directly.
Will keep trying for a little while longer.
Mon Aug 6
I spoke
to Park Centre about Treks strong smellig urine and they gave me a jar
to collect a sample. Now getting the sample is going to take some
work as as soon as she feels anything behind her she jumps out of the
way.
Sat Aug 4
Terri and
I took both dogs up to Redding to see Treva for her birthday.
But just before
we left I noticed that Trek had chewed a hot spot in her side, and so
we spent the morning at the Park Centre Vet Hospital and Spa and she
emerged with a customized shaved spot on her left lunbar area complete
with what looked like a specialized tatoo in the center (a scab)
My vet declared it Hot Spot day as there were around 5 cases that
cropped up overnight and had to be seen that day.
At a rest stop I
was walking Yoshi and he say two small dogs, he wanted to lunge, but I
had hold of him and got him to sit and with effort he was able to sit
and watch them with just the occasional grumble. Before I had him
sit, I paced off the length of one of the chain link fence sections and
it was 10'. I then counted the number of fence sections between
us and the 2 dogs. 10 of them. So I had a very good
estimate of 100', so I know that his tolerance of other unknown dogs is
approx 100'. It probably helped that it was 100 degrees F out and
he was melting.
Both dogs were
on their best behavior for Treva's house, and Treva really enjoyed
meeting Trek.
Fri Aug 3
Trek
agility class. I was delayed at work so class was very
abrieviated. Just as well as it was warm and though Trek's first
run was fantastic (flew over a nearly full height A Frame) The
rest of the time she would stop looking for treats on the ground, and
basically looked kinda whipped (all the dogs did.
Yoshi's Musher's
Secret didn't come in so no herding this Sunday.
Trek nail trim.
Wed Aug 1
From a performance corgi's post:
Another poster wrote:
> ... the ONE thing I have
learned NOT
> to say is....I would NEVER
do (fill in the blank). I have seen many others
> say the same thing ...I
would NEVER do THAT to MY dog....only to see them do it
> later on.
[I wrote]
That's me. Pot. Kettle. Black. Here I am.
If you asked me 5 years ago I would have said "I would never pick a dog
up by the neck scruff with my hands"
Ironically, that has turned out to be a fast, dramatic, startling (to
him), and actually non-violent way (I'm amazed but it doesn't appear to
hurt him at all) to get Yoshi's attention back when the aggression
demons run away with his mind. Sort of like a cortex reset button.
Ironic? Oh yes. And this isn't a recommendation. And no, I don't do
it at AKC Venues, as John Q. Public doesn't need to see that and think
it's ok to do to their dog.
Ellen Clary
and herding nut Yoshi (sometimes Mr. Hyde) and agility fiend Trek
I wrote Lori to say that for the rest of the year that I wanted to
bring Yoshi to the Utility class as the Basenji was stressing
him. She said that sounded like a good idea though
the owner of the Basenji is going to try coming in early to see if she
can get the Basenji to settle down and relax until her class (she's an
open dog and the owners other dog is a novice dog) as it's very
difficult for anyone to concentrate with her whining.
Yoshi has obedience class tonight. I have to remember it's at
7:45pm and not 7pm since his Rally class is over.
[After]
What a good dog! After some initial loud grumbling about Hank the
Bulldog coming in he was fine for the rest of the evening. It
helped that he was familiar with all of the dogs there. Oliver a
CKCS, Rosie a Corgi, Hank the Bulldog, and Indy a poodle, He did well
on the stays (I still keep him tethered and run an additional long line
out to me.)
One unusual thing was that Sharma had her other poodle in a wire crate
and that dog was sitting up in the crate, but she was a bit too tall
for the crate so her head was lowered. This gave her the
appearance of a vulture and Yoshi didn't want to go anywhere near and
that's where his figure 8 pattern was. I would have just walked
him nearer the crate while feeding him the whole time, Hazel told me to
continue the heeling pattern but maintain my pace and lure him
around. I have mixed feelings about forcing him into an obviously
stressful situation as I've had poor results placing him in stressful
situations, though this one was low risk since he was on leash.
He did get through it ok. Personally I think either method would
have worked fine since the Poodle wasn't growling or barking just
staring in that intimidating way that some Poodles can stare.
Did some work on dumbells and while I can get him to retrieve the
dumbell he doesn't like to hold it, so Hazel wants me to teach him a
hold separately by manually placing it in his mouth and holding it
there for 2 seconds. Now I could teach a really motivated dog
like Cali or Trek to hold fairly quickly with a clicker but Yoshi lacks
confidence and likes to be told what to do, so he may do fine with a
manual hands on method.
Other work: Heeling, heeling over strange surfaces, alternative
about-turn footwork by starting the turn with your right foot instead
of just your left (adds a step), and jumps.
Zanna particularly was very happy to see how well he did. And he
really likes Zanna since she gave him yummy salmon treats last time (as
you might guess, all the dogs love Zanna :) He even got to have the
gentle leader off for a while since we were doing dumbell work.
This is one of the first times that folks there have seen his nose
without a blue stripe across it.
I'm thrilled - there is hope.
Go to:
2007
Yoshi and Trek Training Diary - Jul 2007
Yoshi and Trek Training Diary - Jun 2007
Yoshi and Trek Training Diary - May 2007
Yoshi and Trek Training Diary - Apr 2007
Yoshi and Trek Training Diary - Mar 2007
Yoshi and Trek Training Diary
- Feb 2007
Yoshi and Trek Training Diary
- Jan 2007
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