Yoshi & Trek Training Diary

Yoshi and Trek Training Diary - Oct 2012

By Ellen Clary (Copyright 2004-2013)
(reverse date order)
Feedback is welcome:

Frap.org Training Diary home
Our You Tube Video Archive is here
For the human's blog see: The Non-Dog Blog
Non-Dog Blog Table of Contents

Wed Oct 31
Yoshi Prozac Day 52
Happy Halloween
Yoshi morning walk. While he was pooping beside a parked car (so he couldn't see across the street) a Lab walked by on the other side of the street. He noticed the dog walking away and growled a little, but not seriously.

Both Park Centre vets have agreed to be the go between for Yoshi and Dr. Overall so now it's just up to me. It's going to be hard to fill in the questionnaire effectively, but it would be good to try. Then it's do I want to part with the money ($275 plus my vets exam fee.)

Yoshi noon walk. Trek is a little put out by this, but I promised her a walk amongst the younger ghouls who will be out and about at 5:30.
Went over to the park. Lots of people activity and no dogs. Argh. Not even in the park though we did see Jasper who is Corgi Shelby's kid, so Yoshi got some nice scritches from him. On Fountain he watched the mail carrier and then barked at him as he walked by. I informed Yoshi again that barking at the mail carrier is completely cliche'. The mail guy was amused even though I don't think he heard the whole thing. Driving back to work I saw a small dog being walked over near the school. Yeah well.

Tue Oct 30
Yoshi Prozac Day 51
Yoshi noon walk. no dogs - this is driving me mad. Maybe I should always just go over to the park but there's not enough time at noon usually.

Trek evening walk. Two dogs who were on their front porch came down to say hello. They were obviously friendly and I grabbed one of the dog's collars to encourage them to go back to Mom who was calling them. I did see one dog ahead of time so if I had Yoshi I could have turned around. The house was at Central and Mound, and the dogs were a black Tibetian Terrier (or close) and a black Lab. Trek was ok, but not thrilled about all the attention.

Yoshi evening walk. There was just enough daylight and I decided to risk a raccoon encounter to see if we could find a dog or two. We did. Went over to the school and kinda just hung out across the street. As we were getting into position for an approaching MalamuteX, a smallish black dog with a high tail set crossed in front of us on the other side of the street. The dog was staring back. No reaction from Yoshi save to ask for cheese. i was surprised at that but as soon as we turned around to look at the MalX he barked and tried to charge. Once he hit the end of the leash, he came immediately back and asked for a reward. I just talked to him for a bit and then rewarded him for calming down.

i am not sure what to make of these two encounters.

Mon Oct 29
Yoshi Prozac Day 50
Yoshi morning walk - no dogs, lots of school kids, uneventful.
Driving to work I saw a lot of small dogs near the school so maybe i should walk him over there more in the morning. The problem is that I don't want dog drama around kids though no one takes Yoshi that seriously unless he is charging at their dog. People are strangely used to poorly behaved, barky, smaller dogs which is unfortunate in a way. After the time change when I have to do morning walks (they're more optional right now as I can squeeze in an evening walk) maybe I'll walk Trek in the morning and Yoshi at noon.

Sun Oct 28
Yoshi Prozac Day 49
Yoshi afternoon walk
He was up and kinda wired and being a sweivlehead, so I was completely sure he was just going to lose it when he saw a dog.
Saw a couple of them retreating in the distance, but no reaction, but he usually doesn't react to retreating dogs. Got half-way down Central and hadn't seen any dogs so we turned around and went over to Lincoln Park as there usually is always a dog walking through eventually and the cool thing is that they are usually on the main path and we can be lateral of it.

Nothing for a while then a small short coated tan dog. The kind that he would always react to. I was armed with String Cheese, and was 45' away (I later paced it off). Looked at the dog looked to me for cheese. Then repeated it several times in his best Look At That routine. Good boy. You could argue that I'm requiring a behavior first, but not really he just has to see the dog. If I feed him first he might not even look at anything. Even Pavlov's dogs had to hear the bell first.

Later we saw a slow moving Yellow Lab who was just walking and sniffing and clearly no threat to anyone. This time we walked straight at the approaching dog then veered off just over 30' and sat and watched the dog pass by. No reaction except "May I have some cheese?" So maybe he is improving though then again I can't tell if it's just because he's being managed well. In the not too distant past he would look, eat, look, bark, and ask for more cheese to the point that I was concerned that I had created a behavior chain, but I'm not seeing that as much.

Of course as I write this he's racing up to the window barking. I've been letting him have more access to the front area since he's nine and I think he's earned it on the basis of age alone. It's a tough decision as he seems to think the living room window is an obligation, but it is useful to have him up there to let folks know that Mr. Neighborhood Watch is on duty.

Trek afternoon walk
Also went over to the park to work on her Rally skills. It would completely figure that there were people with balls in both places we usually work and she was worries that one of them might start bouncing. I really must teach her to play soccer so she has better associations with them. So I dragged her over to where the Monkey Tree is and fortunately there weren't any of the scary fallen branches there (the "leaves" of a Monkey tree are sharp and unpleasant.) She did very well heeling well including figure 8s and 1-2-3 steps and sits. Moving and sitting stand is working well. I didn't have her do back up since we do that a lot and it seemed to be tempting fate near that tree. Once we got away from the balls she worked well and I'm happy about that. I still have to figure out if i want to work on the expensive RAE title which is $500 minimum. She'll work on Rally in both classes without that as a goal just to see if she has a nice time.

Scary bit was that on our way back, my neighbors had a Black Lab off leash outside there house with kids. I'm sure it's a visitor dog but for a little while the dog was laying down in a position where someone approaching wouldn't see the dog. Yoshi and I walk by their house all the time and while I know I can handle most situations with him, being surprised by an off leash dog is a little unsettling even if the dog is completely friendly. I worry more about Yoshi's reaction to an uncontrolled dog.

Sat Oct 27
Yoshi Prozac Day 48
Dogs had the day off while I went bike riding.

Fri Oct 26
Yoshi Prozac Day 47
Trek Obedience class with Lori.
Well she was less of a head case, but still worried about the door comings and goings. She did very well in the heeling part and stand for exam. Enjoyed the fetch part even though she was a bit worried about some of the activity around the door. Recalls she was almost auto finishing though I rarely sequence them. For the stays she wound up beside a slightly squirrely dog whose owner scolded her and Trek was worried about, so i pulled her out of the line and had her do the stay in the middle of the room. She was worried about the squeak of the baby gate so I asked for it to be moved more so I could feed her a lot of cheese while it was happening which actually may have helps.

The owner of squirrely dog came over later and apologized saying she has had sensitive dogs in the past. I told her not to worry since Trek was so touchy. She said that she'd like to make it up to her next time. If it involves food Trek will like that.

Herding
Both dogs did well at herding today, save for Dotty (that same goat) taking a swing at Yoshi and Linda and I having to spent several minutes intervening since Yoshi doesn't speak Measured Response. It was my fault because she was crowding a gate that I had just taken them through and I brought Yoshi in right into her face. I should have shoo'd the goats away from the gate then let Yoshi through. Trouble is he moves goats a lot better than I do. He does need to learn that if a goat tries to butt him he can nip once, but he doesn't need lose it and go charging around nipping and screaming and terrifying the entire herd.

Trek is doing very well with the ducks She's racing up to them much less and no crashing. These ducks are very well behaved and they fetch to me which I now understand is not very typical. The downside is I get used to these ones and then we go somewhere else and things are different and my being in front of the ducks makes them stop because they won't come to me. I need to find some less well behaved ducks to work occasionally. It's hard to go around asking "Hello, do you have crazy ducks?" Michaelle has nice ducks, but they do behave a little differently, so I should probably work with them more.

Thu Oct 25
Yoshi Prozac Day 46
Yoshi walk uneventful

Trek evening walk.
Went over to Lincoln Park and did some Rally work. She's doing very well: I'm thrilled

Wed Oct 24
Yoshi Proazc Day 45

Evening Yoshi Walk. While I was messing with some cheese package he say a neighbor around the corner and her Boston Terrier. Yoshi started to run towards them into the street and hit the end of the leash though not hard and he wasn't acting his usual weirds but he may have growled some. After he hit the end of the leash I said something ineffectual like "Hey would you knock it off." and he can back and reengaged asking for cheese. I waited a moment and rewarded him. I hope I haven't created a behavior chain with tug on the leash come back for cheese, but it's nice to see him reconnecting.

So now we really need to work on impulse control. That "Charge!" thing. I know Leslie would do more mat work and that might work Yoshi is not as comfortable on a mat as her dogs are. He's more of a crate dog, but he's crate reactive too. He needs to be able to stay while other dogs walk by. Parking lots with predictable dog traffic are good. It's tricky as dog parks the dogs tend to come from various directions. Maybe the hill above the Skyline Gate at Redwood Regional.

Wrote to coltsrunkids:

45 days ago I put Yoshi on 5 mg of Prozac to see if it would help him 
with his anxiety and it appears to be.  He seems to be less of an 
agoraphobic swivel-head, however he still doesn't adapt well to new 
surroundings  - he didn't want to work at all at the Corgi Nationals.  
(Though that was before the magic 6 weeks.)

My goal is to get him in a better mental state so I can get further with 
his impulse control as he's always wanted to charge unknown dogs.  He 
has a ton of training, but it gets canceled out sometimes when he goes 
over threshold (usually when a dog is approaching), until I interrupt 
his impulse with my voice or a leash pull and then he reconnects.  I 
want him to have better self control and years of training (and various 
techniques) only get him so far with his brain chemistry fighting back.

He still is having impulse issues of course, but I'm hoping I can help 
him see he has choices now.  We'll still have to see and after 60 days 
or so I have to consider whether it would benefit him to go up to 10mg.

Trek walk. She was very sniffy, but otherwise fine except for some bouncing balls. Her Rally trial is this weekend so we need to do some tune up training probably in Lincoln Park.

Tue Oct 23
Yoshi Prozac Day 44
Noon walk for Yoshi. No dogs. Argh. I need to get a better idea on how he's doing. He does tense up when he sees someone walking just a little oddly so he's still sensitive, but he might be a little less stressed.

My goal for his adventure is to reduce his anxiety so that he can respond like he's trained to do which he does try to most of the time when his brain isn't derailed by an approaching "threat."

Agility class for Trek
Such a head case. I left her in the car for the lower field and only brought her out for the upper field. She's just not a happy camper here and I might just not take her back next week. I had her run two courses on the upper field and she's back to being hesitant about the dog walk but only going away from her crate. Going towards her crate she's fine about it. She's a bit barn sour when it comes to her crate and her car.

Ripley and I are doing better. Lynn's been working with him and he's listening more and my timing is getting better. I didn't write the courses down this time. Sharon is telling me that he's a fast enough dog that I have to give him the signal and then move and trust he's going to do it. I usually wait to see what happens before moving.

Mon Oct 22
Yoshi Prozac Day 43
Uneventful walks for both dogs

Sun Oct 21
Yoshi Prozac Day 42 (the magic 6 weeks)

Took both dogs to the dog park. Yoshi went on a leashed walk all the way across Washington Park. The cool thing about the park is that the lateral distances are perfect. We saw a couple of other dogs but we kept our distance so they were not an issue.
Then we looked at dogs in the dog park parking lot which was most challenging but as long as no one came close he was ok. He did bark at a couple of Britnany's who had just gotten out of their car but he then refocused.

It's been six weeks and I can't really tell if his behavior is all that different, but he seems more relaxed. I think he's going to stay at this dosage for 60 days and then consider increasing it to 10mg.

Then Trek and I went into the park and walked around and played fetch some with her dumbbell until a Lab stole it for a little while. Then she wasn't interested in a slobbered toy - she'll live.

Sat Oct 20
Yoshi Prozac Day 41
Day off for dogs.

Fri Oct 19
Yoshi Prozac Day 40
Blissfully uncomplicated walks for both dogs today

Thu Oct 18
Yoshi Prozac Day 39
Yoshi morning walk. Saw a lab briefly on Court. Y barked and I tightened the leash and he immediately reengaged.
Did some nice attentive Rally work then continued on and then back over on Gibbons we say another yellow lab. (Could have been the same one). This time i had time to set up and Y sat and watched the dog approach and go by with Yoshi looking at them and looking back for a reward several times. Perfect.

Trek noontime. No time for a walk so we played with a small frisbee in the yard. I'd love to get her catching them but for now she lets it land and brings it back to me.

Evening: played more fetch with Trek.

Wed Oct 17
Yoshi Prozac Day 38
Yoshi noon walk. Saw Max the young Corgi who is kinda still a puppy. We let them sniff noses a couple of times and then Y and I crossed the street and we parallel walked down Court which worked well. Then later on Gibbons, we saw a very well behaved Golden who wasn't moving that fast. We watched them approach and right as they were passing we moved on. Quite successful.

Trek walk. She was way sniffy. Did some right side heeling for amusement.

Tue Oct 16
Yoshi Prozac Day 37

Our neighbor's cat was hanging out on our stone barbeque which would have been fine if kitty hadn't decided to make an overland break for it. Doggies were in hot pursuit Terri says. We're going to have to train ourselves to look over there first.

Yoshi noon walk
on Court saw a slow moving Bully breed coming towards us so we crossed the street and waited for them.
I had time to set up so I showed him the cheese and as he watched the dog he asked for cheese. As the dog started to get closer he started looking a little harder so I pulled a little on the leash to get his attention and he immediately reconnected and was rewarded. The dog went by without incident.

Trek walk. I wandered some as I am a little tired of her dragging me home, but I can't fool her as she knows where she is, but it was still a good walk. Introduced her to right hand heeling.

Mon Oct 15
Yoshi Prozac Day 36
Yoshi noon walk
We just went around the school this time only saw one dog but it was my neighbor and Annie and Yoshi has barked at her before so this was perfect. They were across the street and Yoshi watched them carefully until I finally said his name and he looked up to get some cheese. We repeated that about 4 times before they were past (I had him sitting and we moved on once they were passing. Good boy. this is what drives me a little nuts. He can hold it together under these circumstances but he tends to lose it when doggy is closer, or bouncier, or weirder, or whatever.

Trek evening walk. I'm running out of Rally things to teach her, so they need to invent more exercises before I start teaching her weird things like walking between my legs or weaving around them. Even her backing up is working now that I turn my shoulders towards her some while backing up

when we got back I got some paper cups out and played a shell game first with Yoshi and them with her. Her excitement for the game grew over time and she really liked it when I switched from cheese to the smellier kibble. Teaching her nose work is going to be easy and I should just do it.

I read some here: http://www.dogstardaily.com/blogs/getting-started-nose-work
but she's almost past that and I don't have to restrain her I just send her away some and have her lie down.

Sun Oct 14
Yoshi Prozac Day 35 (Week 5)
You'd think that 5 weeks of Prozac you'd start to see a difference but not that much. The first few days were great but then I think he got used to it or it was just a side effect. After 6 weeks if there is no obvious change then he's going up to 10mg which will be another adjustment period though not as long.

Terri hadn't been giving him GABA for a while and I'm starting it back up again.

Yoshi Bike run Washington Park
Right as I was tying my car key onto my shoe two small dogs appears and Yoshi charged. I had already leashed him to me so it was simple enough to pull him back, but it is distressing behavior for a dog 5 weeks into Prozac. The person with the dog said "feisty" in accented English and laughed. I said something like "No, he was serious" but she had fortunately moved on.

Even more fortunately the rest of the time was very nice. No incidents at all. When we saw a dog we just went the other way. He is not as fast as he used to be and I'm dragging him more than he was dragging me. We even watched the dog part for a while after he had done some running. Went all the way around once and then went back to watch the dog park.

Trek Walk - made it a bit longer this time and did some basic Rally work. She pretty much knows everything and I am so tempted to teach her something else, but maybe after Napa Valley which we have entered. One possible glitch is her Stop then Down. The more I work on it the more confusing things get. I should just use a signal and the word Down. I was trying Lie Down but that seems to be more confusing. I have taught her either pointing to the ground or a raised hand. The raised hand works great even though it's at a weird angle, and then she's not nosing at my hand.

Sat Oct 13
Yoshi Prozac Day 34
I had to meet Joan at Pt Isabel to give her a chair and I had both dogs with me. Let's just say that Yoshi was not at all happy about Pt. Isabel and all this uncontrolled dog motion. We went over to a mostly unoccupied hill well over on the edge of the park and he just basically barked at any dog that came near except for Joan's dogs who were very polite.

Fri Oct 12
Yoshi Prozac Day 33
Dogs herding
So Yoshi is going to be working goats for a while and Trek on ducks. They each get a session. I'll do this for Oct and Nov though since they have a trial coming up at the beginning of Dec I might have to add sessions in Nov. the San Mateo Bridge is going to be closed Fri-Sun for the rest of Oct so I'm debating skipping the Oct. sessions. Getting back home in Friday traffic over the SM bridge is enough of a chore, but to instead to have to go over a doubly congested Dumbarton bridge just sounds unfun. Maybe I should just drive all the way around and skip the bridges.

Both dogs where on a long line with a harness and a carabiner with the line around their body so if I pulled on it it would tighten around their chest.
This worked great with Yoshi and less so with Trek who minded it more. Eventually I did take it off of Trek.

Yoshi on goats. He really is improving on goats. He can work them quietly. He is still much too close, but is calm so they don't mind him so much. I stopped us all a couple of times just to let him realize it's ok just to stop and relax which he is only just beginning to understand.

Trek on ducks. Ms T. is still happy buzzing ducks. I keep hoping this is a phase, but she's still doing it. She needs to stop better at the top of turns. These ducks fetch more which makes them easier to handle, but I have to readjust again after getting used to the Washington Buff Ducks who don't fetch and everything is driving.

Thu Oct 11
Yoshi Prozac Day 32
Yoshi noon walk. I needed to get back to work, so we went on a blistering walk around the block. That block is actually about 3 blocks long, so it was surprisingly good exercise. Couple of distant possible dog encounters that I chose to skip this time.

Trek evening walk. More leisurely but spirited. She wanted to work (well, she wanted to eat more) so we did some Rally work. Her heeling is looking great, a little forged, but, in Rally, that doesn't matter nearly so much as in Obedience and what was more important to me is her being happy doing it. Fronts, finishes both directions. Moving Stand and recall, 1 step then sit, 2 steps sit, 3 (etc) all looked great Worked on backing up with my shoulders more turned to her. That works. She is no longer shooting out away at an angle. A picky judge will say that's not really heel position but it's a risk I'm willing to take and the deduction for such a thing would be small (like 1 point), but that's not likely since I haven't been deducted for an angled back up.

I think we're going to enter the Napa Valley rally trial at least for the morning. We score better with the morning judge than the afternoon judge. I need to figure out how many times I can have the morning judge because she very often is the Rally judge.

Wed Oct 10
Yoshi Prozac Day 31
Yoshi walk. On Central a dog was approaching. I wanted to see where things were so I waited on a corner for doggy to approach. When they got within one house length and one street width, Yoshi started to bark and kept barking as we did a BAT-style retreat to just under a house length where he instantly stopped barking and looked up for a treat. It was like we had crossed an invisible fence into a safe zone. I counted my steps: 27 and they are about 2.5 feet each so around 67-68 feet which is right around the distance that it's been before of 70'. I hope the Prozac helps him with this as I am getting tired of it.

Dog was a young bully breed type. We did see them again and let them pass us and Yoshi barked again, but less so this time.

Trek walk. A little longer this time as I took her all the way down to Encinal before returning on Versailles. I'm still greiving about her stopping agility which I remind myself was my decision and I could always change my mind again though she's ok either way though would rather not ever hear a teeter again. In fact, for the the last two class sessions I'll leave her in the car for the lower field part.

Tue Oct 9
Yoshi Prozac Day 30
Yoshi morning walk - just saw a lot of hurrying people.

Trek Agility Class. There are three more classes in this cycle including tonight.
No Ripley tonight but he will come for the other two.
No class next week as Sharon is going to Germany for fun.

Sharon has a new teeter that is quieter, but it has a boom and Trek hates it - sigh. She won't go near it though I dropped her on it and fed her (but I didn't make her do anything on it.) This is a bummer as she was used to Sharon's noisy teeter and in time would get used to this one but there isn't time if I take her out of class.

Upper Field she did pretty well on. Smoked the blue course in particular.

Met Cameron and her BC puppy Scout.

	Orange course - it was ok - a bit short - she was kinda slow
	Blue course - this course rocked. Hustled and did a FC before the Dogwalk.

Mon Oct 8
Yoshi Prozac Day 29
Yoshi Walk. We crossed the street and nearly walked into a little fluffy white dog who objected to Yoshi trying to charge - I saw Yoshi gathering up and was able to rein him in. Each of us grabbed our dogs and I carried Yoshi past the dog's house. Then we saw a Great Dane and parallel walked with the dog for a little ways - Yoshi managed to mostly cope with that. I'm hoping Yoshi's Prozac helps with this more when the full six weeks is up. He may need to go to 10 mg (currently at 5mg).

Sun Oct 7
Yoshi Prozac Day 28
It's been 4 weeks and he still seems much the same as always.
One interesting thing was that Terri had the door open and the young Mastiff appeared and Yoshi went for the window to bark and not the open door (phew).
Dog walks went fine today. Trek's backing up looks better. I'm wondering If I should turn my shoulders into her more.

Kathy Sdao has a book out called Plenty of things are Free. It's also as an ebook so I got in on my Nook in about 30 seconds ($10).
I sent her a friend request and explained that I was a fan from the last time she was in SF. I also asked if she had any time for a private consult for Yoshi while she's down here. I'm not sure I want to pay $280 to go to clicker expo but I'll spend plenty of money to see her.

Sat Oct 6
Yoshi Prozac Day 27
Yoshi and Trek dog walks. No issues, smelling Murphy's blood didn't upset them this time. Murphy sadly did not survive being hit by a car.

Fri Oct 5
Yoshi Prozac Day 26
I was hiking on Mt. Shasta sans doggies.

Thu Oct 4
Yoshi Prozac Day 25
What an odd experience. We had a neighbor's dog hit by a car (I don't know how the dog is right now, but they whisked him off to emergency yesterday.) His blood is on the sidewalk. This worried Trek yesterday, but she coped. Yoshi came across the now hosed off blood today on his walk and buried his nose in it and then started barking to the air, then more sniffing, then more barking. I just picked him up and carried him away. The dog being hit is upsetting enough that I don't have any perspective at all about what Mr. Y. might have been experiencing.

I'm leaving for Redding tonight to hike on Mt. Shasta Friday and will be back on Sat.

Wed Oct 3
Yoshi Prozac Day 24
Yoshi walk. Saw a Sheltie right out of the door. He wanted to charge so I just held him until he reconnected and then I fed him some. The he was very up and excited. We crossed the street for a running Bully breed he held it together for a little while and then barked some. Pretty up for rest of the walk though he reconnected once we reached Central. At Gibbons there was someone standing there with a soft back on the ground. Yoshi stared at it a long time and I let him to see what he'd do. He finally moved on but kept suspiciously looking back at it. If I didn't have to get to work I would have let him go smell it.

Trek evening walk. Trek stopped in her tracks with her nose to the ground and I learned the distressing news that my neighbor's dog Murphy had run out into the street and was hit by a car and it was his blood that Trek was smelling. They took him to emergency, but I don't know his status right now. Trek and I found a hedge and worked on backing up. The issue is that she likes to look at me and that makes the backup go at an angle. So far we haven't been dinged when this happens, but we haven't done it that much. On the 1 step, sit, 2 steps, sit, and 3 etc I used to say "By Me" to encourage her to sit but "Heel" works just fine and it's less confusing as By Me means come and sit by me, not move with me. In AKC I can just add sit if I need to (APDT would ding me for a second command).

I met Paul a neighbor of mine who has two of the small Victorians across the street, one of which is hidden by a tree.

I have to decide whether to enter her in the Napa Valley DTC Vallejo Rally trial.

Tue Oct 2
Yoshi Prozac Day 23
Roasting hot today. I went home to walk a dog and it was around 90 degrees so I decided not to.

Woodside is having an AHBA trial. Yahoo. I entered Trek in HTD Ducks and Yoshi in HRD Goats I decided not to enter Yoshi in ducks as the entry fees would have been 210 instead of $140, and Yoshi might not have liked it - actually now that I think about it he likely would have been fine with these ducks esp on the Herding Trial Dog course.

Post to corgiherders

My dogs are going to be in their first AHBA trial (instead of a test), 
and for Trek's duck course they'll be using an HTD (Herding Trial Dog - 
I think) course which you can see here: 
http://www.ahba-herding.org/htddiagrams.pdf and the description is here: 
http://www.ahba-herding.org/MainPage.php?AreaName=HTDTrials

I was going over it and things looked familiar, so I looked at the AKC 
Started Course B (in http://classic.akc.org/pdfs/rulebooks/RG9001.pdf) 
and they are very, very similar.  BUT!  The long outrun that is in the 
Started Course B isn't until Level III in AHBA's HTD, so if you have 
access to AHBA competitions it would be a great way to get started on 
doing Course B.

Yoshi on the other hand will be going back to goats and will be doing an 
HRD (Herding Ranch Dog) course which is customized to the place it is 
being held and usually is very fun.  It won't be quite as creative as 
the Pescadero trials which they had you take the stock out a couple of 
gates over a bridge and round a few trees, but we do have to go out 
around a dragon sculpture and go through a chute then a couple of gates 
to go around the outside of one shed (though still enclosed by a fence) 
through another gate and repen.

Trek Agility Class. Class is in the evening and it was still hot, but bearable.
Ripley wasn't there so Trek did the whole class.

Lower field was a set of jumps in a circle and we worked on serpentines which we're pretty good at so it was fun. Trek also did a nice send out to a couple of tunnels and weaves and I was able to get into position in time for a FC to more jumps. The only bobble was at the beginning where I wasn't paying attention and sent her over the wrong beginning jump.

	Orange Course.
	Blue Course. Did our usual lateral DW but I muffed it up so it took 3 times to do it perfectly. Other wise it worked well.

Mon Oct 1
Yoshi Prozac Day 22
Trek morning walk - just a quick one
Yoshi noon walk
Saw what looked like a Bull Mastiff (the smaller Mastiff) walking down our street and then they went down Court. We watched them from a couple of houses away. Yoshi was fine and then bark a couple of times. The dog did look back at us but didn't react. Besides that Yoshi was ok though he was very up as we followed them from a distance.

Then on Central we were over taken by a thin, lithe black lab across the street. Yoshi was perfect - just asked for cheese. This dog was moving and had his/her tail up, but didn't look at us at all.

I've been thinking about herding and I'm wondering if it's really worth all the work. Competition opportunities are few and far away. But the training keeps the dogs happy and relatively sane. Maybe they can just do it twice a month. I have to decide just how important is it that Trek gets her started title. She can do it but the Corgi herding trial isn't until April and it would be nice for her to have 2 Qs before that. But I'm not familiar with the ducks at other locations except for the frustrating ones at Vacaville. I think I should just give up on the idea even though it was nice to have the judges say how talented Trek was.

Both dogs are very talented at it, but I have to remember that doesn't incur any obligation on my part.

Rally is much more accessible and more people I know are doing it. Napa Valley is having a trial on Nov 3rd and I think I'll check into it.