Yoshi & Trek Training Diary

Yoshi and Trek Training Diary - Feb 2011

By Ellen Clary (Copyright 2004-2011)
(reverse date order)

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Mon Feb 28
Yoshi morning walk. Kinda dull, but that's ok.

Trek noon walk
Saw Nicole and her son Luka who is the one who was so good with Trek before. She went right up to him and said hello and he started to pet her and she sat right down and was ready to spend the afternoon there.

Sun Feb 27
Took the dogs to the snow with mixed but completely predictable results. Trek got cold easy and wanted to be picked up often. Plush coat Yoshi was very happy plowing around in the snow except at Nyack Rd. where he worried about other dogs. When we took him to Ridge Rd or the i-80 Rest Area he seemed much happier because there were fewer dogs though a loose Lab appeared but he/she was elderly and moving slowly and we convince Yoshi to stop worrying so much (mostly).

They struggle in snow that's deeper than a foot (such a surprise) and really like trodden snow paths. I think a plowed road that has snow on it would be perfect for Yoshi. I get the impression that Trek would just prefer to go straight to Apres-Ski.

Sat Feb 26
So bummed that it didn't snow. Me and several others kept looking out the window all night long.

Dogs didn't do much today save for entertain themselves in the yard while I worked on the garage. We'll take them to snow tomorrow.

Fri Feb 25
It's predicted to SNOW HERE tonight once at 10pm and once at 3am. Definitely getting up to see that. It should last till 6am and then it's going to be sunny so it will melt fast if it sticks at all. It hasn't snowed in the Bay Area since the 70s.

But before that we're going to obedience class in the morning and Yoshi is going for the heeling part and then I'll swap to Trek.

And then because there is a likely break in the rain, we're going herding - yee haw.

Nope. This morning had to beg Yoshi off the landing to go pee, so I emailed Lynda and canceled. Of course it did become a lovely break in the weather. I'm writing this at 11pm and the sky is still clear. Feeling gyped but night's still young and there is a cloud on the way.

Obedience class. Yoshi did very well during his part, later on he did snark at an "everybody's my friend" puppy and I corrected him for that though the owner clearly thought the puppy totally deserved it and I heard the usual "not all dogs are friendly" lecture from the owner to the puppy.
Trek's part. Stand for exam - another downside of home schooling. I can do a stand for exam with her but a stranger is a completely different thing and she wants to move to greet the stranger. She doesn't really like to be left for a recall though she's getting worse about it (sniffing) - this is also an issue in agility class so I work on it a fair bit - it's a stress reaction I think.

Still no snow.

Thu Feb 24
I had an 8am Dr appt so no walk for Yoshi and it rained in the after noon so he didn't get out at all.

Trek noon walk. Rained on us. Shudda brought the umbrella but it wasn't a heavy rain. Stopped to briefly chat with Judy and Cisco. Cisco is a smaller medium sized short brown fur dog - though he's a bit taller than the one that is on Santa Clara and barks at Yoshi and I. Glad I had Trek as they were right near us before I even noticed. Fortunately Cisco is very friendly.

Wed Feb 23
Trek noon walk. Fine.

Yoshi evening walk. One dog sighting. We saw the GSD that we've see before and we waited for them to either cross the street or continue down Central. They went down Central so we followed the (we were across the street). Yoshi was able to watch them walk ahead and unexpectedly they stopped and we caught up and we heeled past them which was fabulous. Yoshi looked at them carefully but refocused on me. Good boy.

Tue Feb 22
Yoshi noon walk. Stopped to talk to Joyce and Harvey a very mellow, now blind, ChowX was lying in their doorway. Yoshi barked at him fortunately to absolutely no effect and I distracted (Yoshi) to get him to chill out. Then we had a couple of small dogs charge out of their house barking at us and we crossed the street (I was pretty sure they wouldn't follow.) Yoshi surprisingly hadn't quite caught on to what was happening so he actually didn't react surprisingly. Across the street I yelled asking about the dogs and the owner was already out calling the dogs and they went back inside.
.
Trek agility class. The teeter has been rubberized and she had no problem doing it. She did it once during a course and 3-4 times with us practicing it. She's getting better about the rebound sound too. We need to work more on lateral leadouts as her understanding that when I'm standing off at an angle and my arm is raised it means take the obstacles in front of you instead of coming to me, until my arm drops and my body turns. this is a Greg Derrett lead out. I did bring up my usual "What would Linda [Mecklinburg] do?" question and we talked about that some. (Most instructors are Derrett devotees since his wife Laura lived here in the Bay Area though Greg was coming out here well before they were married. Linda uses motion a lot more in her system. Trek is driving well to obstacles these days and sends very well also. Her weaves are great. She actually knockes a bar (a rarity) when I crowded her too much on a cross.

Mon Feb 21
Yoshi morning walk. Stopped to let him look at a LWFD standing on her lawn across High St. When she started to bark at us we moved on. Then saw a long legged Pomeranian who had just exited Lincoln Park, was walking down High St like we were, and was not happy to see us. We kept our distance, but that dog was fussy even when we were relatively far away. The rest was a series of near misses: Saw the "I hate Corgis" Fox Terrier a couple of times from a distance, but we left them alone. On Gibbons just to confuse me there is a BC and there is a grey and white Spaniel. They live a few doors away and are different dogs. Also say two lab sized black dogs cross in front of us but they were in the distance and we decided to not catch up.

Trek Walk. She got to pause and say hello to Jim on Court and the owner of the labs who lives in the townhouses that we'd often see. He lost his lab and was thinking about a Corgi. I mentioned they are a lot of work and keep you on your toes. He said others had told him the exact same thing (good for them). He's done his home work and knew they were a dwarf and that Trek was a Pembroke. He told Jim there were 3 types and I mentioned the others were the Cardigan and the much less common Swedish Vallhund (I just skipped over the fact the Vallhund wasn't a Corgi as it didn't seem important - they are definitely related anyway. Other than that her walk was uneventful.

Sun Feb 20
Yoshi Bay Farm CU Training
Shoreline Park on Bay Farm Island is a great place to train. Lots of dogs walk leashed on the path and we can stand 30' away and parallel walk with them.
Got some decent video that I'll have to put together. We parked on Seaview. It's a good enough site that I'd like to have a CU gathering there, if I can get people there as it you pretty much need a GPS to find your way through the residential streets. But this is one reason it's so quiet.


Shoreline Park on Bay Farm in Alameda. Wide in places. Narrow in others. Plentry of leashed dogs and good lateral distance at the park itself. there is a walking path near the water.			Yoshi watching the path from the sidewalk


View of the Bay	View of SF	This Dog Distance is now an ok distance for Yoshi	More cheese please?

Trek chaos training walk to Dog Bone Alley which is in noisy downtown
I needed to order more food for the dogs. She did great though was a little rattled when she wandered up to a Pit Bull X who snarked at her (all bark). That dog probably shouldn't of been in the store. Owner kept the dog very close until they left and we stayed at the back of the store. We took the back way there (Park Ave, then down the alleyway to Park St and then the store) so it was a little less busy, but went back via Park St to Central to Broadway to Lincoln. She did great - it helped that Sunday was calmer than a weekday, but she's so much better now (compare to Dec 19th) and earned lots of treats for it. Everytime she goes I buy her a 75 cent designer treat for being a brave dog. Sort of like going downtown for an ice cream.

Sat Feb 19
Rain rain rain. Trek umbrella walk. I did not drop the umbrella on her head and I stayed dry and we had no real incidents at all besides it raining.
I have ordered an umbrella with a saber handle that I won't be able to drop.

Yoshi walk. We say the small brown dog with the Spitz tail who was unhappy to see us and was posturing some - perfect. We waited till they had crossed the street and then we walked up to the corner. Yoshi looked at the dog for a while (seemed like a long while and I was saying his name to get his attention), and then he chose to look back for a treat. Phew. The other dog continued to complain but the owner walked him away.

Fri Feb 18
Been raining all week on and off which is really making finding dogs to train off of hard.
Yoshi walk - no dogs, saw a squirrel on the ground. Started at it but them came back for a treat. Good dog
Trek walk - with an umbrella!

Thu Feb 17
Yoshi walk - no dogs
Trek walk same

Wed Feb 16
Trek walk - fine
Yoshi evening walk - i drove hom seeing lots of dogs and none were out when we got out there. Hmph.

Tue Feb 15
Yoshi walk. Just when I thought things were going so well...
We walked out the door and down the driveway and approaching were two small dogs, one white one teeny and black. Yoshi explodes just as I tell him to leave it. they keep coming (it's a side walk after all). He relented for less than half a second and started lunging and barking. Do I turn him around and walk away further down the driveway? Oh no, that would have been the Common Sense thing to do. Instead I start yelling at him SIT. LEAVE IT. He, of course, is not listening. I force him into the position he pops up. Once I finally get control of him the dogs are long gone and I'm pretty ticked off. The rest of the walk was ok as nothing else happened but we both were a little edgy. Things are always so iffy around his house he's protective of it I think. - he's always guarding His yard from squirrels.

Trek walk. She got to meet Luka, a son of Nichole's at Lincoln and Court. Luka is young, but was remarkably gentle with Trek who is wary of small children. She walked right up to him and sat down and solicited petting. She did stress yawn as he patted her on the head and I encouraged him to pet her on her side and tummy which he did. Nicole and i talked about Stress Yawns and how they are essentially the same as when a human sighs to calm themselves down. Trek was thrilled and got him to rub her belly. I was thrilled to see her so happy with a kid (4-5 years old maybe?) Nichole mentioned that Luka has always been really good with animals and loves small dogs and he was great with a Chihuahua that he knew. I mentioned that last time we spoke about dogs i usually encourage big dogs for kids, but that Luka would be fine with any dog.

I can't make class for Trek today because I'm going to BiFriendly. looks like it might be rained out anyway (It was).

Mon Feb 14
Yoshi walk. Quick, no issues.

Sun Feb 13
Yoshi walk 3 dog sightings. All went well.
Briefly saw Molly the Pap.
On Gibbons saw 2 dogs, once a brown medium sized puppy, the other grey, white smallish dog. The puppy was fussing about us some.
On Lincoln saw a short hair small black dog with whiskers (perhaps a Snauzer) who was definitely protesting about us.
For all of them Yoshi looked at them and them looked back for a treat. He has really turned a corner. Did not even stiffen to charge.

Sat Feb 12
Hike for Ellen. Dog's day off

Fri Feb 11
Yoshi Herding
[fill in]

Thu Feb 10
Yoshi morning walk. He got to see Dorothy who goes on a morning walk and the best news was that the BC/springer X who lives at Santa Clara and Gibbons came out of the house on lease right as we were walking by. I told him to leave it and he cheerfully heeled right beside me asking for more cheese please. I was internally shocked and very happily surprised to the point that I don't know if me saw the dog but he must have and we watched the dog when we got across the street.

Trek noon walk. We walked right into animal control visiting the cat house. One of their next door neighbors finally called it in after a dog there barked all night. Spent a while talking to them and saying hello to my favorite cat the siamese who came right up and said hello. Met a neighbor Sheree or Cheree. (Sure-E). What AC does is posts a notice and gives them 24 hours to respond. It's an absentee owner so I don't know if they'll get a response. I'm more upset about a neglected dog than I am about the cats who I see every day and who are essentially fine.

Wed Feb 9
Trek noon walk - short - actually forgot the treats but she seemed to have a nice time and I fed her some afterward. If she doesn't eat training treats she gets really hungry and starts to lose weight and eats the yard.

Yoshi evening/dusk walk. Tried to talk a different way that had fewer trees and potentially fewer raccoon chance encounters, but what a pain - every step, "Wow what's this smell! and this and this and oo I've never peed on this tree. I gave up and went back to a more regular route. On Fountain saw a Tibetan Terrier across the street named Schapps and his mom who's name I'm spacing on. Yoshi was being really good probably because it was a little harder to see and she remarked that her dog usually worries about other dogs but it's usually big dogs. I said that it was probably because Yoshi was being calm (her dog had been fussing but settled down. We decided that maybe they could meet when it was lighter - I'm not entirely sure they should interact too much as Yoshi does poorly with dogs who are not confident though he could meet the dog and be rewarded for it.

Current dog weights
Yoshi 20.5
Trek 22.5

Tue Feb 8
Yoshi noon walk - no issue

Trek agility class - no Yoshi this time because I didn't want to stay late.
She was a bit freaky right at first and didn't want to come out of her crate so I just dragged her out. Then she didn't like a couple of rattling collapsible metal crates that someone was using for their dog, but once I got her focused on agility she rocked and did great for the entire class.

Sharon wants me to work on weave pole entrances though I think I was the one messing her up, but she thinks that Trek should be able to find the entrance even if she's not perfectly lined up and it would be a good thing to work on anyway. We can just use the 6 poles that i have in the yard now.

Sharon is having her teeter rubberized. I'm interested to see what Trek's opinion of it will be.

Worked on threadle cuing. Sharon wants us to stop in between the jumps (as opposed to moving) and have the dog come to your outside hand while your body is rotated towards the dog (this sounds much more complicated than it really is.

Mon Feb 7
Yoshi quick walk - no dogs
Trek walk - went to the park and watched basketball which is both ball bouncing and metal clanging. Much cheese was happily eaten. While she wasn't thrilled she was happy to eat.

I later heard she was acting afraid of the oven which earned a "Feed her" lecture from me.

Later she wasn't happy about a noisy VW commercial. The one with a kid playing at being Dath Vader. Trek went and hid in the the bathroom by the tloiet and the wall.

Sat/Sun
I was at a weekend first aid course so dog's had the weekend off

Fri Feb 4
Yoshi Herding [fill in]

Thu Feb 3
Yoshi walk. No dogs at all till the end when we saw the rear end of the BCx that lives at Santa Clara and Gibbons. Yoshi was excited about it, but was able to refocus on me.

Trek walk. Went to the park to look for chaos. Walked down High St and there were several rattly trucks on it. then in the park there were screaming children, and best of all: basketball and much ball bouncing. She's so much better now. Can sit and eat cheese around bouncing balls (and screaming children - which really doesn't bother her anymore.) The ball bouncing tolerance is a fantastic achievement on her part. She still flinches and chomps on me occasionally when I feed her, but she's much, much better about it. On the way home say the small brown dog again. Has a spitz tail just to completely confuse everything.

Wed Feb 2
Yoshi morning walk. 4 dog sightings. Saw the Golden and Chi again. Their usual path must cross ours twice as that's exactly what happened again even though we went down High St this time instead of Fountain. I like High St., but there are many places you could get pinned in since cross streets are few on my side and it's not an easy street to just cross, but no dogs on High St. fortunately. We let them cross Central and they proceeded down Fountain while we were on Central. Then when we got down to Mound (Who named that street? Please.) they were there crossing back over Central. We had already crossed Mound and we going down Central when a dog in a gardener's truck started barking at them (we were about one house distance away. A perfect distance to stop, watch, and eat cheese over it. That went well and just as we were about to continue another Golden appeared coming down Central on the other side. I decided to just see how Yoshi would handle this all on his own without any prompting from me. He watched them for 2-3 very long seconds and then looked back at me for a treat. GOOD BOY! Jackpot.

Then much later we say a smaller short hair brown dog type that you see so often you think it just has to be a breed, but probably isn't. Long legged short bodied chihuahua which means it's not a chi at all. Anyway they were on Gibbons coming right at us but were on the other side of Santa Clara. I didn't know which way they were going so wanted to stay out of their path while still being close enough to do some work. I wound up going a house width distance down Santa Clara as then we'd be ok no matter what way they went.

Ascii (semi)-art time

Od=Other Dog
Yd=Yoshi Dog

       | |Od          | |
       | |\/          | |
     __| |__        __| |Od ->______
                           
     ``| |``        ``| |````````
       | |/\          | |  -> Yd (stop here - dog can go in either direction and we're still ok and can still work)
       | |Yd          | |