Yoshi and Trek
Training Diary - June 2009
By Ellen Clary
(reverse date order)
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the human's blog see: The Non-Dog Blog
Non-Dog Blog Table of Contents
Tue Jun 30
Walked both dogs and uneventful for once.
David Wong put those cute photos of Trek and is up on his site. I'm going to be
buying an 8x10 of this
one: 
His website is: http://www.photoshelter.com/user/davidphotos
This is in the Bayteam USDAA May 2,3 Prunedale collection - in the Candids area.
http://www.photoshelter.com/image/I0000ZnUsPOQz6kM
Mon Jun 29
Trek dog walk. Windy so it was a bit challenging for her (lots of
random noise) but she's getting used to it and learning to cope very
well.
DVD night with all 4 dogs (ours and Cathy's two) started out all in
crates and then 2 out and then three and then four. It worked
great. Yoshi who was on leash and attached to me the whole
evening did very well and was completely relaxed for most of the
evening only bristling when Abby started to hop up and down (because
she needed to be controlled in his mind)
I think his calming supplement is starting to take effect again. I'll know more on Wed during his Rally class.
Barbara's daughter Bre took photos of Trek from last Saturday at
Willowside Ranch. For the most part she just looks like a hang
dog who'd been dragged to a place she considers a mild hellhole "Please send help - Wait, what's
that smell?" but the last one is cute.
Sun Jun 28
Terri and I went horse riding at Garrod Farms which was fun.
Training walk for both dogs. Trek was worried about a flapping flag, but seemed to settle after being fed around it.
Yoshi had more work to do as I waited till other dogs were out. 3
dog sightings all generally good results though when he's over
threshold I pretty much have to force him to sit, but I have few qualms
doing so now since we've been practicing this for a while now and he
knows the drill. However when I know he's going to be way over
threshold (white fluffy dog directly across the street) I can feed him
through it and he'll be ok. For one of the dog sightings I went
further away than I planned to (they had crossed the street), so I know
that he definitely can hold it together for 1 street width and 3 house
widths (it was 1 house length and one house width actually but that was
a good enough approx.
He wasn't coming in for Terri tonight so I stormed out there saying to
him "Yoshi HERE. You are nearly 6 years old and I am out of
patience with you." He promptly came in. Terri teases me
that I may as well be lecturing him with his whole name "YOSHI HAYATE,
you get in this house Right This Minute or I'll ..."
Sat Jun 27
Yoshi herding.
Today was a tough day for all but Trek and she would argue with that.
First thing was that the sheep were in the corner and standard
procedure with a green dog is to walk the dog on leash to flush the
sheep out of the corner. Trouble is one of the sheep decided to
climb over the gate into the next pen. I broke off saying "Ok
this is not going to plan." So we break off to regroup.
Then I was doing stay work with Yoshi on a long line. He was
doing terrific and the line was only 15' long so after a few reps I
dropped the line to get more distance. He broke the stay and
charged the stock and evaded me. Problem is the stock was small
goats and he locked on one trying to grab it to stop it with the goat
screaming bloody murder and me yelling at Yoshi. Goat and Yosh
slammed into the fence, both ok, but Yoshi broke off and I caught him
and threw him into the car crate and got Trek out instead.
Then (yes there's more but not involving me) a sheep decides to go
through a fence to get away from Cathy's Abby who's just standing there
not doing anything pushy at all. I wire the fence back together
as best I can (someone else is holding Trek who's trying her best to
completely disappear - not a shrinking violet, more a disinterested
one.)
Then I get Yoshi back out but I am not letting go of the line any
more. I tied the 6' leash onto it which gives me 20' to work
with. He gets his stay back but he so desperately wants to work
sheep but I'm not going to allow him to today. So we walk the
sheep around the ring with me keeping him 10+' away. The cool
thing is that The Sheep are Calm! I tell him this is what we
want. He seems unimpressed but is still interested. Lots
and lots of Walk Stop Walk Stop Walk Stop Sit.
HTrainer3 said that Trek could go in and see the geese and we even helped
move them to another pen. She's still unimpressed but is a good
sport about being dragged along - it's not like she's fighting to get
away. So much to her chagrin she gets to come along to herding.
I think Yoshi is going to start coming to agility as a tourist as long
as the terriers don't join our class (they will eventually).
When we got home I order him a Ray Allen Grip It 30' tracking line from
workingdogs.com. It should come in before we herd again since
next week is an agility weekend for Trek.
Fri Jun 26
No classes for Yoshi or Trek - though I still had the day off.
Went to Leiter's Rx to pickup another round of Trek's custom eye medication.
It's a pain as they want you to keep it refrigerated but we need to put it in her eye.
Wed Jun 24
Yoshi Rally Class
One of the dogs has some anger management issues and Yoshi seems to be
good at pressing that dog's buttons. Yoshi snarked at her, I wisk
Yoshi off into a crate completely out of sight, and she stays pissed
and is looking around for another dog to blame. Growls at Giles
and another dog neither are doing anything but glancing at her but
she's very much "What are YOU looking at?" Fortunately her owner
is pretty on top of things.
Later one I accidentally walked Yoshi near her and he's trying so hard
not to, but not realizing the other dog was staring daggers at him I
dragged him past (fortunately fast). He got through it but wasn't
happy about it.
He's having a hard time in the stays but copes sort of. The
problem is there is no place for him to do a stay that is out of the
way or close to other dogs.
Tue Jun 23
Double checking the numbers
CPE hasn't been updated and I probably need to give them more money anyway:
Bayteam Results from Sunday:
Regular/Veteran - FullHouse Round 1 - Level 1
Judge: Dogs Entered
Jim Collins : 9
Point Time: 8" & 12": 35 Total Game Time: 8" & 12": 40
Armband Call Name Breed ID # Owner/Handler Time Points Q / NQ Place
8071 Trek Welsh Corgi (Pembroke) 03558-03 Ellen Clary 35.00 29 Q 1
Regular/Veteran - Standard Round 1 - Level 1
Judge: Dogs Entered
Lee Ann Zerbian : 11
Yards: 136 Course Time: 8" & 12": 66 16"/20"/24": 61
Armband Call Name Breed ID # Owner/Handler Time Faults Q / NQ Place
8071 Trek Welsh Corgi (Pembroke) 03558-03 Ellen Clary 50.18 0 Q 1
This means that even with blowing by a jump and fixing it, AND stopping
to roll on the grass. we were STILL well under even the big dogs course
time. I think that's a little too generous even for level one. ;)
Canine Performance Events, Inc
| Member ID: | 03558 | | Generated On: | 01/07/2009 |
|---|
| Qualifying Runs for Dog ID: | 03558-03 | Trek |
|---|
| Show Date | Club Name | Judge Name | Class | HtCat | Level | Rnd | Time | Pts/Flts | Place | Q-Pts |
|---|
| 03/22/2008 | Bay Team CA | Terry Scofield | Standard | R | 1 | 1 | 31.37 | 0 | 1 | 25 |
| 11/08/2008 | Bay Team CA | Jim Hibbard | Standard | R | 1 | 1 | 40.02 | 0 | 2 | 25 |
|
| 03/22/2008 | Bay Team CA | Becky Dean | FullHouse | R | 1 | 1 | 40.56 | 29 | 2 | 20 |
| 03/22/2008 | Bay Team CA | Terry Scofield | Jumpers | R | 1 | 1 | 34.47 | 0 | 2 | 20 |
|
| 07/19/2008 | Bay Team CA | Dorris Wiglesworth | Colors | R | 1 | 1 | 36.09 | 9 | 3 | 5 |
| 03/22/2008 | Bay Team CA | Becky Dean | Wildcard | R | 1 | 1 | 38.04 | 0 | 2 | 20 |
|
| 07/19/2008 | Bay Team CA | David Garrison | Jackpot | R | 1 | 1 | 42.22 | 37 | 1 | 25 |
| 03/22/2008 | Bay Team CA | Jacquelyn Oricko | Snooker | R | 1 | 1 | 59.28 | 33 | 2 | 25 |
|
| 07/19/2008 | Bay Team CA | Candace Rapp | Jumpers | R | 2 | 1 | 40.30 | 1 | 3 | 15 |
| 11/08/2008 | Bay Team CA | David Garrison | Jumpers | R | 2 | 1 | 45.26 | 0 |
| 20 |
|
| 11/08/2008 | Bay Team CA | Jim Hibbard | Snooker | R | 2 | 1 | 54.15 | 39 | 4 | 25 |
USDAA
Trek: Competitive Results Detail
AKC
No change:
We did pick up a jumpers Q on Saturday.
Castell Christmas Gift - DN10071801
| |
Agility - Awards Processed Through 05-JUN-2009 |
| |
|
| Number Qualifying Scores |
1 |
| Number Different Judges |
1 |
|
|
| Number Qualifying Scores |
1 |
| Number Different Judges |
1 | | |
Sun Jun 21
Bay Team CPE. Trek is entered but likely to be just a tourist, if I can get her out of bed at all :)
She came right along enthusiastically and did well in the
morning for 2 classes before running out of steam, so that makes
her half a tourist.
The first class was Fullhouse which is a game where you have to get
three jumps, 2 round things (tunnel, tire, chute), plus a "Joker" which
is are 5 point obstacles (in this case an A-Frame, weaves and a
double). In the process of completing the requirements you can
add on as many obstacles as you like ( I think you can do each one
twice though we didn't bother.) When the buzzer sounds you have 5
seconds to get to the table and you get one point off for each second
over, which means it's actually worth it to go do a far away high
pointed obstacle sequence and risk the deduction. Fun game but we
were just there to do some obstacles and weren't going for a
win. I designed a straightforward jump, jump, tunnel, double,
jump, A-Frame, tunnel, tire, weavepoles, and then was going to just do
jumps still the buzzer went off. Things were going perfectly and
we're in the weavepoles when I hear the horn going buzz, buzz, buzz
which means there's a problem. I'm literally going weave, weave,
weave, WHAT?, weave. There's been a timer malfunction. Now
we've done more than the essential parts of the course and were just
going into to screw around until the buzzer mode. She ran
fabulously and I'm not going to make her do it again, so I'm out there
saying Trek did great can we just take standard course time?
While we're talking, I take her over to the table to hop on it just to
make it official (that stops the run). Then it becomes "Well you
might not have gotten enough round obstacles." to which I say that I
can tell you our course (which involves 3 round things and you only
need 2) and then the supervising judge who's been watching jumps in
since he saw the whole course too. So he and I recite our course
to the actual judge who fills in the rest of the scribe sheet and
gives us an extra jump since we obviously would have taken one on the
way to the table.
The timer is uber-competent and feels just horrible "Are you sure you
don't want to rerun? You only had half a run. I assure her
that Trek ran great and that it's completely fine. Truth was I
didn't even care if she Q'd, but since she obviously did, I was going
to make sure that it was recorded correctly (she already has her title
at that level and I'm just keeping her at the lowest level in all
venues just to build her confidence.) I'm just glad that it
happened to me and not someone else where it mattered more and who may
not have been as confident. After all that rigmarole, Trek, no
only Q'd, but won the class even though it was abbreviated since we did
a lot of 5 point obstacles.
Sat Jun 20
Elk Grove Corgi Agility trial for Trek
Ran around the first jump and I got her back and restarted and she did
great. People are really impressed with her weaves with me at a
lateral distance (in both classes). She Q'd (95/100 a refusal
ding for the rocky start) and won the class
Std class. Had a teeter bail off, but did the other contact
obstacles, it's the only teeter she'll see this weekend which is nice.
And she is a table sucker and ran to it when it turned up in her path
even though it wasn't on course. (I did too good of a job reinforcing
it - I'll take it considering the alternatives :)
Fri Jun 19
Trek Agility Class. She did well. No teeters this
time. Ran out of gas on the last run so I stopped her instead of
begging.
Wed Jun 17
Yoshi starts Excellent Rally
A lot of the same dogs which is good, unfortunately there is the
addition of one dog that he hates and the owner isn't that proactive so
I'll have to watch him. Actually Hazel talked with her and she's
a lot better. Patricia and Mr. Giles are in the class and that
will be fun. Hazel took a second to warn one new person about
gettng too close to Yoshi which was fantastic.
Heeling outside into a Saxophone player - now that's outside the
box. I told Hazel that that was a little above and beyond.
She laughed and said he does good work though he does keep a distance
from me even though she knows I don't go around kicking him.
Sits and downs were tough for him but he was able to cope after I turned him around (and he was on hist mat.
He struggled enough that I'm going to put him back on his calming
supplement as even though he doesn't "need" it, it does help him.
Mon Jun 15
Yoshi Walk - no dogs. Think it's time to have Trek do the noon
time and Yoshi the evening. There are plenty of sounds at noon,
and more dogs after work and the days are long so no freaky evening to
deal with.
Trek noon walk. I was in no mood to deal with her being a wilting
flower so when we walked her over to the school I just ran with
her. Perhaps not all that well thought out but she needed the
exercise anyway and it gave me a chance to see how she'd be. She
actually quite happily ran and wasn't trying to hide or run
erratically. It's like it gave her something to do. I don't
like to run on sidewalks much myself so we won't be doing this much but
certainly could do it for a block or two every so often.
Yoshi evening walk. I even brought along the spray collar which is a lot to manage, but saw no dogs anyway.
Had an unsettling incident that could have gone really badly. The
dogs got out (which almost never happens - the wind had blown a
door open that I hadn't closed all the way) and Yoshi bit a dog but it
was on the dog's collar. The owner kicked at him and Yoshi came
back at the dog and the owner kicked him hard in the ribs (good).
By this time I hear the commotion and the fact that I'm hearing my
dogs not at all in the right places so I charge out yelling "DOGS!"
(multiple times - the all dogs come command). When I get out to
the front lawn both dogs are on the front lawn and coming to me, but
Yoshi is looking over his shoulder at a man and dog and that's when the
owner told me that Yoshi bit him. I told him I'd be right out
once I put him away. When I got back the owner said his dog was
fine and that Yoshi had bit the collar. I apologized and said he
was a herding dog trying to control motion. I'm just glad that
Yoshi never, ever aggresses to humans and that by the time I had gotten
out there he had retreated and was recalling to me. It's all pretty
upsetting, but could have been so much worse. The owner said
Yoshi might be a little sore from the kick in the ribs, I assured him
that was fine.
The chompee was a sweet male German Shorthaired Pointer who looked similar to this one (2nd photo down) (http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/germanshorthairedpointerphotos.htm)
Somethings that I'm considering.
- I'm definitely putting a deadbolt on that door so it doesn't blow
open. I hadn't before because there's a window on it and I wasn't
sure where to put one. Now I've decided that I'm going to put in
one that has a keyhole on both sides and leave a key in the inside one
so it acts like a regular single sided one. When we go out of town for
more than a day, we'll remove the inside key.
- I had been letting Yoshi watch out the living room window, but I
don't know if that's such a good idea. I had been letting him
because I could control/suppress his behavior with the beeper, but
during that time he was getting really stressed watching the
kids. Somewhere around there both dogs went into the kitchen and
saw the open door, charged out started barking. Actually it was
Trek who was barking, Yoshi when he's doing what he did doesn't bark
much. Problem is I don't know how much time had past.
Enough for him to charge and chomp on a dog, get kicked back and charge
in again and get solidly kicked. Probably not that long - it
doesn't take long for him to get in trouble. Suppressing his bad
behavior without giving a better alternative is sometimes an unfun game
of Wack-A-Mole. The frustration and aggression comes out in other
ways. The best solution is to keep working on getting doggy more
comfortable in the world.
With that in mind I'm going to work more on relaxation. The
crates are great for that - our Monday DVD night with dogs in crates
and rotating a couple out at a time is by far our most peaceful, well
managed evening, but I'd like to do more with mats since I
can have them anywhere.
- I'm going to continue the sit and watch and eat while dogs go
by. I will still wrestle him into sits if need be, because I'm
asking for a specific behavior as opposed to just suppressing an
undesired behavior. So it's providence smiling on me that we
didn't see any dogs on this walk when I had the beeper with me.
- I'd like to be able to give him a behavior he could do when in
the window. I can't figure out if he likes the window or just
feels compelled to guard it.
- I am going to price roll up shades - preferably one's that are washable or resistant to dog snot.
Sun Jun 14
Spent the day with my sister Anne and her husband Russ.
Dogs stayed with Terri. Yoshi was generally an idiot around Russ
(a MAN in HIS house), but we just managed it and it was fine if Russ
didn't move and if he did he knew to just stop and let Yoshi grumb and
then he'd be ok. I mostly just kept Yoshi on leash.
YaHoo! They're finally formally studying just how screwed up
the
dominance theory about dogs is. My opinion is that the dominance
theory is about as useful to dog training as a rolled up newspaper -
even for wacking yourself over the head. If you want to wack
yourself on the head just use your hand as unless there's something
wrong with your self control you should be able to properly self
modulate how hard y ou wack yourself on the head. :)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090521112711.htm
Sat Jun 13
Yoshi herding. Me handling. Trek going as a tourist.
That was fun and certainly more successful than we've been in the past.
I set up a basic JHD like course and worked on that . I kept
losing the sheep just before gate 2 as one in particular wanted to run
off to a far corner. If I could get Yoshi to stay on the inside
of the arena they wouldn't have an opening. Clearly something to
keep working one. I need to keep moving but reviewing
HTrainer3's video I don't see her moving much faster but she's much
better
at walking with intention.
I am switching to Stop - much easier and just about all I need really - I don't need a full sit.
Switching to my older Asics Kayunos running shoes (no longer a running
shoe - too worn out) was a big win as they have more lateral support
than my Gel Cumulous's. i probably really should have Trail
Running shoes but I have these and they work great as I can really run
and catch up to sheep.
I volunteered Trek to go into a pen full on 20 just weaned sheep to get
them used to dogs. Trek was very much "But there's this really,
really important smell right here" but did allow herself to be dragged
along on leash. The idea is to expose the young sheep to dogs and
to learn not to face down a dog but instead give way. There were
a couple of really brave stamp the ground and stare back ones that will
make excellent school sheep if they don't get themselves killed first..
Arlene is getting somewhere in teaching her new Corgi Ben down! and for the first time ever I got called a Rock Star.
(Silly since she's doing all the work - I just suggested an idea of
putting a treat on the floor and covering with your hand and waiting
and waiting and waiting....)
Subject: Ellen Clary is a Rock Star!
WooHoo!!! We just had Ben's 4th 'down' session and he has it!
I
modified Ellen's suggestion a bit. Instead of just covering a treat on
the ground I palmed it and made a show of moving my hand to the ground,
a very exaggerated variation of my 'down' hand signal. I wanted him to
associate my movement with his action from the beginning. A couple of
times he lost interest so I just raised my hand to get his attention
and repeated the motion. The first two sessions the downs were all
accidental. I even gave it to him for a couple of play bows. This
morning, about the third treat, he looked at my hand, dropped and
looked at my face to see my reaction. That's when I knew he was really
getting it. This time I took him outside on grass instead of on the
carpet in the garage. He went down within 3 seconds of my hand hitting
the turf.
Our instructors will be amazed at his progress. I'll tell them I owe it all to The Clary Method.
Arlene
And life just wouldn't be the same without the nightly "that's my pillow", "that's still my pillow" conversation:
Fri Jun 12
Trek Agility. For the moment, we have a working teeter
strategy. I'm done begging. If she doesn't want to do it I
tell her she can hop off ("You don't want to do it? Ok." and I
pull her off with my body language. During training I make it
abundantly clear that she could have had a nice treat (I usually have
the treat in one hand and today without even thinking about it, tossed
said treat into my other hand as if to put it away). Usually we
go through that once (this happen this class and last class) and then
she decides that it's completely fine and does the teeter and gets a
reward. I don't pressure her, but keep around 6 feet away or more
(she seems to like to work at distance on weaves and the teeter.
So now it's time to work on speed as she's getting slower. I
think I'll run with her off the line and maybe start running with her
for fun away from the course as well. I need to condition her
more as we did a 21 obstacle course and she was pretty winded by 16,
and we paused to let her rest.
Our class is down to 3 people (Trek, Charlie and Cash) so while
Rachelle figures out what to do I'm going to bring Yoshi just as a
tourist to watch.
Thu Jun 11
From a Coltsrunkids post of mine:
Maureen wrote:
> I didn't realize Trek has anxiety issues, too?
It's a completely different issue fortunately. She's sound sensitive.
First I thought it was from Idaho thunderstorms, but it's more about
percussive sounds like (ahem) teeters (drat), bouncing balls, and dogs
barking in enclosed areas (which echoes), and also metal on metal
clanging sounds like playgrounds (and the associated children's
voices). It's a physiological response: she pants, her heart races and
she shakes - which is exactly how a thunderstorm phobia manifests, but
we just had a very rare thunderstorm and she didn't care a bit. (Yoshi
did, not by freaking but by alarm barking at it - that's fine). Having
involuntary physiological signs really, really helps as I can instantly
tell when she's doing better, which is why I could tell that pressure on
her sides (either by hands or a shirt) helps her.
Trek's breeder Kathleen takes very good care of her dogs, but they are
crated in a side room which can get quite loud when a lot of the dogs
bark (and then a human shouts at them to shut up.) They also have a
duck hunting season which mean shotguns are going off though she's not
afraid of fireworks so I'm not sure how much a factor that is.
Ellen
I did write to Kathleen saying that she did not have Thunderstorm or
Fireworks Phobia, but more like some sort of fear of echoing or
clanging sounds.
It's interesting to me that when she's afraid, the only place
she feels ok is in her crate. This is a relief as given that she
was crated while listening to a lot of barking dogs she could have come
to hate it but didn't.
----
We have run pretty much out of Yoshi's calming supplement (but still
have the L-Theonine), I'm going to try him without it for a little
while and see how that goes.
I'm having a time crunch today. The dogs need to be walked, they
need their nails done before agility or herding, and I need to get to
REI to get low top Keens before we do herding on Sat and I was hoping
to get to the gym. Guess REI is going to win over the gym.
Maybe dog nails on Friday noon?
Wed Jun 10
Yoshi walk. No dogs, but lots of practice sitting for passing people.
Trek walk. I'm going to try taking her over to the school yard again if it's not too busy.
The Survior Buff came in so I brought it along. One quarter block away
she stopped and started to look axious. Looking up I see a kid in
the house across the street from the school is bouncing a volley or
soccer ball against his front steps. This does not bode
well. I put the buff over her ears but couldn't tell much
difference, she seemed to settle but only because I had my hands on
her. The kid went inside so I carried her over to by the
playground, but not right beside it, more behind a portable building
that is right by the playground. She's uncertain but a little
less shaky. I put the buff on her head and don't see much
difference. I put my hands over her ears and still don't see much
difference. Noticing that my hands on her sides seem to help, I
put the buff around her waist. That helped. Ah so we're
back to the T-Shirt idea. I let her walk some with the buff on
but since she's not a human female it works its way down her waist
which gets silly, but I have my answer - the T-Shirt is going to be the
most effective, sometimes it's the experimental failures that teach us
the most. I take her back home to change. She tries to drag
me back, but I don't let her, instead stopping to feed her every so
often. Being a Corgi she'll eat no matter what.
At home I put Yoshi's West Coast Chomper T-Shirt on her (I have two so
I guess one is hers - she uses it in agility class when its cold
anyway). We walk by the school and while she's not thrilled she's
way, way better. So we go off on a normal walk. The weather
is just slightly cooler, so it's interesting to see people's amused
reactions. I want her to wear a sign that says something like:
"This is my security blanket." Just wait till she wears it when
the sun is out.
I'll keep the buff in the dog bag in case I do need to cover their ears
for any reason - though I'm as likely to steal it for some mountain
climbing thing.
Tue Jun 9
Yoshi walk. One dog behind a fence surprised him but other than
that he was fine. Lots of people passing by and I have him sit as
they walk by and he's really good about that now.
I have ordered a Survivor Buff to try putting over Trek's ears in hopes
that will help her sound sensitivity. Candy G. does this from
time to time to her dogs though I'm not sure specifically why - I
should ask her. The buff ships from Elk Grove so I will get it
tomorrow or the next day. She can model it for her agility
class. If she likes it she can practice the tetter while using
it. Trek Survivor Tocantins does Teeters.
Mon Jun 8
Yoshi walk - 2 Yellow Labs, 2 different reactions, very telling.
The first lab was tied to his house's railing - he appeared to be
patiently waiting while his/her owner ran in the house to get
something We watched us even stood and sat but made no real
moves towards us. Just sat there. Yoshi had no issue with
this dog at all. On the way home, we saw a bouncy version of a
very similar dog taking his/her owner for a walk. Bark bark
lunge. I wrestle him into a sit and he holds it there very grudgingly
while the dog passes by.
Trek
Working on taking a treat politely like Yoshi does. Hold treat but
don't let go. She tried to bit it and gives up. I encourage
her to just open her mouth and I can put the treat in.
Sun Jun 7
Took Trek for a hike in Redwood Regional
Park. Note to self and anyone who'll listen. It's difficult
to explain the concept of a loop hike to a tired dog. I had
blithely taken a route that was it turned out 3 miles long. It
appears that Trek gets tired after 2, so at 2 miles into the 3 mile
loop, she stops and sits down and gives me this very clear "I want to
go back" message. Now just try to explain to doggy that it's much
shorter to keep going and turning around is longer. i sat down
with her for a little while and then just carried her for a short way
until we hit a semi steep downhill and it wasn't safe for me to carry
her, then she came down the hill and after a while stopped again.
Repeat the same procedure. Fortunately Trek has this amazing
homing device in her head and even though we were a trail that she'd
never been on, she knew when we turned in the direction of the car and
she perked right up and led me all the way to the car (with help with
the strange navigation up to the parking lot.)
All in all pretty amazing and good exercise for both of us but I think we'll do Out and Back trips for the near future.
Just so I remember our loop route was.
Start: District Office Parking lot off Skyline.
Dunn Trail nice popular fire road
Graham Trail less popular fireroad nice feel to it
Montrios Trail has some steep sections
Return on Golden Spike Trail - a favorite trail though has some poison oak.
Very last few feet are back on Dunn. Don't forget to turn right to get back to the parking lot.
For the future I think we'll just do out and back on Dunn.
Thu-Sat - Up in Redding, never
made it to Shasta because of nasty weather, but we went to Lassen for a
day. Terri walked Trek and had Yoshi run around the yard looking
for squirrels.
Yoshi's window behavior continues to be stellar. I did beep him
once and the Whoa! look he gave the beeper was perfect. It's
tempting to find a way to take that on the road, but not sure how to
make that work. Maybe in recall training. Too bad I don't
have three hands as it would be a big help if he's about to lunge at a
dog.
I'm now totally commited to learning to be the best sheep herding handler I can.
Tue Jun 2
Trek walk.
This time I took her just on a martigale and a std 6' leather leash just over my wrist and it worked fine.
I just walked fast which got her more exercise. I just had to
keep her from running. I can keep up with her trot. She did
try to drag me on the way home but I changed directions which only
helped until we again turned for home, but I called her back to me and
said "don't pull" which worked for once. She probably knew I had
the GL in my pocket and would use it if necessary. This means
that Terri can walk her while I'm gone.
Yoshi Walk - fine.
Terri said yes to taking Trek to obedience class on Tue starting Jun 23. Cool.
Mon Jun 1
Yoshi Walk. I stopped to read a sign and right then a dog came
around the corner which set him off barking and I can't say I blame
him. That dog crossed the street fortunately.
Archive - Go to:
2009
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - May 2009
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