Day 82 - Oil Change & New Puppy Class Night

Poor Jedi. My work schedule was pretty terrible today. I had an 8:00 meeting that I needed to be in the office for this morning, so that meant that Jedi went in the crate at 7:00 (my commute sucks). That's only a half hour earlier than usual, but I didn't really get up much earlier so the dogs didn't have a ton of running around time this morning. In addition to the early start, I had a meeting from 1:00 - 2:00 that was best attended in the office, so I ended up sticking around for that and didn't actually get out of the office until almost 2:20. As a result, Jedi was crated for eight hours today, which I'm pretty sure is the longest I've ever left him without having my dad let him out or something. That said, he did just fine and he certainly didn't run outside and immediately go to the bathroom or anything.

Both breakfast and Jedi's late lunch were spent working on the cone in the basement. Today I started to add in "check, check, check" for Jedi's left turns (the good way). Whoa, this totally threw him off. The first time I did it he stopped and spun around. After that he was giving me the googly eye every time he went around the cone that way instead of staying focused forward like he was before. I'm wondering if the problem here is that when we've done our cone work outside I use, "Jed, Jed, Jed" for tight turns back to me at the cone. Jed and check don't really sound all that different when said quickly together. Didn't really think that one through, did I. Right turns continue their slow progression. Full revolutions are starting to happen, but they include a full turns to the left. So basically, Jedi is going around the cone to the right, he bypasses my body, turns back into me to the left, then continues his circle right. It reminds me of when Kizzy would do a similar turn inside the tunnel on every rear cross to the left. It took forever to break that... I'm sure Jedi will conquer it faster than she did, though.

The van needed yet another oil change today, so Jedi got to come with and hang out at Brenengen Chevrolet with me again. Jedi is 4 1/2 months old and this is his third oil change already. I think I drive too much. After we got checked in I walked Jedi out to the patch of grass out front to see if he would go potty before we went inside (he did). I made him pose next to a Mustang on the way back inside. That is so not workable as a dog-mobile.  :o)  I ended up sitting on the floor with Jedi again in the waiting area to help keep him entertained. There was quite a bit of activity in there today with people in and out, kids playing, etc. Jedi watched some of it with interest, but he mostly scavenged his toy bag and played the entire time we were there. He would have pulled everything out of the bag had I let him.

Instead of going straight home from the oil change, I decided to take Jedi back over to what is becoming our new favorite place to hang -- Fishermen's Park -- for a swim to wear him out a bit. I think I need to stop thinking of swimming in terms of tiring Jedi out, because no matter what it just seems to crank him up and it takes a while to come down from it. When we got there today there were a couple of guys putting a boat into the water, so we had to wait for them to wrap that up since the spot where we swim is technically a boat ramp and all. Jedi got to go in the water once the boat was in and he didn't seem to care about it at all. They were nice and didn't start the motor up until he was back to shore from one of his swims. We struggled a bit again with Jedi bringing the toy all the way back up to the shore, and I was again in tennis shoes. I'm starting to think his issue is that he won't leave the water because he thinks I'll make him leave for good. Oh well, we'll work on that. As usual, Jedi didn't think I let him swim long enough, but when he starts to gurgle on the way back and spit up water, then we're done swimming. I appeased him with a few throws of the frisbee to help him dry off. I had him drag his leash to make sure he didn't try to make a break for the lake again.

The reason I wanted to wear Jedi out a bit tonight is because we had another puppy class start up today. This is a new night, but we had enough interest so we started up another class. Because it doesn't start until 7:30, it gives us plenty of time to do stuff (like swim) before we have to leave. Jedi did well at class tonight. We have a couple of chocolate labs, a standard poodle, a golden retriever, and next week we'll have a doodle join us. The puppies are all roughly the same age and size (including Jedi), so it should be a good group. Jedi got on the best with the female lab who is a couple weeks younger than him, but slightly bigger. They had lots of fun running and wrestling during play time. Jedi had great focus on me during class, but was jumping up on me a lot for attention. That's new. Once again he did a great job at demonstrating food ignoring -- seriously, he practically mauls my hand the first time I offer it. It's actually kind of nice because he can quickly move through the various stages to show people what to work towards.

After everyone left we worked on heeling for the rest of Jedi's dinner and then we did some recalls and a few sends around the poles. Jedi got a small second dinner tonight when we got home and everyone else got fed. We went downstairs and spent dinner on the peanut, just working on bending back and forth. This was difficult for two reasons -- Jedi knows nothing about standing facing away from me, and he immediately tries to lay down when I ask him to bend. Something more to work on, I guess!

Day 81 - Concert in the Park

I think Jedi might have actually stayed up on the bed for a portion of the night last night. It's been a while since that's happened. He came barreling up when the alarm went off, though, so he didn't make it the whole night. We actually started off the night with all five dogs on the bed, though, so I'm not surprised that didn't last. At least Jedi didn't get up at 0-dark-thirty to find his own fun this morning. All paper bags and other objects were still safely in place in their hidy-holes. That said, he did pull one out in the afternoon....

I finally got around to putting together some video for lesson 5 of our online puppy class with Silvia Trkman. We filmed breakfast, which was entirely cik/cap work around the cone in the basement. Jedi continues to make improvement to the right, but it's slow going compared to the progress of the left. I crammed in a quick session of heeling for lunch and got that on tape as well. I had a 1:00 meeting that I had to get back inside for, so Jedi had to wait a bit to play. Once that wrapped up we went back outside and I recorded a session of "stays with distractions." I still need to work more with these at home in front of tunnels and such, but for the purpose of the video I just danced around, threw the toy, and then tugged with Kizzy while Jedi held his stay. That was a new one for him and he did pretty great!

For our outing of the day I decided to take Jedi and Kaiser to the Concert in the Park. This is a local thing that they are doing pretty much every Wednesday over in Evans Bossard Park here in Sparta. There is a different band each week and they play for free in the park for two hours. They sell food as a fundraiser, so I figured why not go over to grab some dinner and sit in the park with the dogs for a bit with lots of stuff going on. I took Kaiser not because he enjoys being around people (ha....) but because I assumed that other people would have dogs there and he is the least reactive of the bunch (not including Luke). As it turned out, I was correct. It's hard to be a Klee Kai that doesn't want to be touched because everyone wants to pet the Klee Kai. Thankfully Jedi was more than willing to divert the attention to himself.

I could see that the park was completely full of cars when we drove by on the main road, so I elected to park over at Fishermen's Park and walk over. Since we were there, I thought maybe I'd take the edge off Jedi with a quick swim. I threw the bumper out into the water and at first he stared at it. I thought, oh great, we just lost a bumper. I guess he's always followed Secret out on other excursions. No worries, though, he figured it out. That behavior that I described the other day where Jedi would come almost to shore and then turn around to stare at Secret? Yeah, apparently it had nothing to do with Secret because he did it tonight, too. It's like he's waiting for the toy to go out again, but hey dummy, it's still in your mouth and you are 3' away from me still. This was somewhat problematic in that I was wearing tennis shoes and was not going to go into the water to get the toy, so we worked on me sitting there and waiting until Jedi figured out he had to bring it to me.

We didn't spend a lot of time at the lake because, frankly, I wanted dinner. Jedi probably got in 6-7 good tosses before I clipped on the leash and pulled him out of the water. I put his harness back on and we started the walk over to the park. Unlucky for me, the entire walk over to Evans Bossard Park is along the river, and Jedi had water on the brain. He spent almost the entire walk straining madly against the leash trying to get to the river. In addition to the fact that I just didn't think he NEEDED to swim anymore, that stretch of the river is laden with rocks and not good for swimming, so I kept us well back and up by the walkway.

Jedi's attention was diverted as we got closer to the area where the music was set up. There were kids running everywhere, loads of people in lawn chairs, and, sure enough, several dogs in attendance. I wrangled the dogs while I grabbed a sandwich and a bottle of water, and then we went to find a spot to sit in the grass to listen to the music while I ate. It was some country band playing tonight -- nobody I know, but apparently they are popular based on the size of the crowd! The dogs did well while I ate in their face. I pulled Jedi's Holee Roller out of the bag and let him play with that to keep him busy. A couple of people came over and were asking questions -- mostly about Kaiser, but Jedi was happy to jump all over them with his wet self.

Jedi did great around all the action, including completely ignoring the other dogs (even the one right behind him who started barking as we were talking to someone). He did a much better job at walking back to the van at the other park, but he definitely still noticed the river off to the side. I briefly considered letting him swim again before we went home, but he was drying off and I figured he'd live without it. Once home, dinner tonight was spent on the FitPaws donut in the basement, where Jedi was more or less insane and attempting to eat my entire hand (he was still a little high, I guess). Once again, it's almost 10:00 and he's still going strong -- but to his credit, he actually had a super quiet afternoon while I worked today. I think he actually napped!

Day 80 - Agility Class (Graduation!)

Jedi has decided that sleep is for losers. Four and a half month old puppies don't need sleep. Why would he want to lose precious moments of living life to its fullest by closing his eyes? Last night he didn't settle on the couch until after 10:00, and he was up before anyone else again (by the way, I need to move the stash of paper bags or I soon won't have any to worry about...). Today I got home from work at 1:00 and Jedi did not stop for one moment until we left for class at 4:15, where he was pretty much finally forced to sleep. It's after 10:00 now and he's still running around outside after we got home from class. So yes, who needs sleep? Not my puppy, apparently.

Jedi worked on cik/cap around the cone for both breakfast and lunch. He's got that left turn down pat now. By lunch I was holding out for multiple turns in that direction, and he's even starting to speed up to get them done faster (imagine that). My guess is that Silvia would tell me that it's ready to be named, so I should probably settle on what I'm going to call these. When Ann Braue demonstrated these turns she used "nananana" and "check, check, check." I don't think which one is which matters so long as you are able to keep them straight for yourself (ha, good luck self). I think Susan Garrett uses "lalalalala" for one of them. I think the "la" rolls off the tongue a little easier than "na," so maybe I'll go with that. At any rate, Jedi's aptitude at turning to the left is making it harder to get him to offer much to the right. When he does it he continues to go just a bit further past me, but as soon as he gets his reward he reverses and goes back in the favored direction. I really need to video something for the online class...

I didn't bother with any play time for Jedi today aside from the tugging that he gets to do with his meals. When I'm teaching I prefer him to be more subdued (ha....), but I figure when I'm able to give him my full attention at agility class then I'd like him fired up and on his toes. That said, Jedi must have crashed super hard on the ride to Middleton today. He was pretty bleary-eyed and blinky when I got him out of the van and it took him a moment to really wake up and figure out where we were. I got there fifteen minutes before class started, though, so we had plenty of time to walk around to get him to empty himself and wake up before we began.

Tonight was graduation night from Agility Foundations 1! There was no pomp and circumstance, no big hurrah -- Actually, not even a certificate. Really, I think it's kind of a good marketing ploy. Graduation and certificates often signify the end, and these classes are more or less structured to just run from one to the next. They started talking about the next session a couple of weeks ago with the expectation that everyone would sign up and continue on. It will be interesting to see how many people from the group return, as there were obviously varying levels of success among participants. Jedi is all signed up and ready to go. We'll have next week off and start up the following week. That class starts at 7:30, so it will be a late night for us, not getting home until 10:30 p.m.

We started the night split up again. Jedi and I were on the "not the tunnel" side, where we were pretty much given the option to do whatever we wanted on the various target stuff strewn about. Emphasis was placed on working bottoms on the travel plank and table position, so that's pretty much what we did. Bottoms were hard with all of that tunnel fun going on behind the divider, but Jedi did a good job at keeping his focus on me and the task at hand -- well enough that I was able to remove his leash because it kept getting caught on the travel plank. When we switched to the table we worked on offering a down and playing in that position. This is probably the biggest thing I picked up from the puppy seminar -- playing in a down is hard, but it really has upped the value for that position on the table!

Over on the tunnel side we started to chain a jump standard before and after the (straight) tunnel. Jedi ducked around the jump standard after the tunnel the first time because I was behind. I got him to hold his wait longer the next time to better indicate the jump and after that he was fine driving through ahead of me. He did well holding his wait tonight, but he is really twitchy when you stick him in front of obstacles (especially tunnels). I'm going to have to start proofing this one at home, since he's been rock solid when I work on this without the equipment. Heck, he's even holding his position when I throw his toys, but I guess that doesn't hold a candle to the tunnel.

We introduced the tire tonight. The PVC tire frame they were using was slightly raised (maybe 6" or so?) and I wasn't a super huge fan of that -- Mostly because Jedi was oblivious to it and kept hitting it, but eventually he seemed to figure it out. Hopefully this lack of caring that he hit a solid PVC bar doesn't foreshadow a bar-knocking future.  ;o)  Jedi has never seen a tire before and started out by going around it the first couple of times. If he ran around it he came back through it on the way back to me, so there is that, I guess. He figured out the point of the obstacle pretty quickly, though, and I was able to send him through at various angles.

During the last half of the night the two groups came together and we just took turn running through various short sequences. They were all straight and long. My preference at this stage is to run Jedi on a curve because, well, he's a lot faster than me and a curve puts me at the advantage. I pushed his stay where needed if I needed to get ahead, or just threw his ball to drive him forward if the situation warranted it. We did jump tunnel, hoop tunnel, hoop chute, jump jump table, and jump table jump. Those last two with the table were the hardest since Jedi doesn't have any drive to the table yet. I needed a head start to keep him driving forward to the object, or else he turned back into me and started hopping in anticipation of receiving his toy. He attacked the jump table jump combo with gusto, sliding completely off the table the second time -- but hey, at least he appeared to attempt to stop.

At the end of class one of the dogs absolutely lost her mind over a dog coming in for the next class. This was totally out of character for this dog, so who knows what was going on -- but it happened right in front of Jedi. I'll be honest, after his reaction to the reactive dog last night I was a little concerned that he would join in, but he stayed totally relaxed and was pretty much "not my monkeys, not my circus" about the whole thing, even when another dog from our class (one who is often reactive, so no surprise) joined in. Good boy, Jedi. He's just so chill about the other dogs at agility class, even when they run right up his butt after getting away from their owners.

We had a nice quiet drive home compared to last week when we had to make that emergency stop. Jedi didn't get much of his food during class tonight since the majority of the time was spent running through things (which equals toys), so he actually got to eat dinner with the rest of the dogs when we got home. I still have to watch him like a hawk to keep him from going into the other dogs' dishes -- he does great for a while then slips, gets corrected, does great for a while, etc. I wish the dogs would correct him, but he's a smart boy and only goes after Luke and Kizzy's dishes. The other two would put a stop to it for sure. Oh well, I just need to be more on top of him I guess.

Day 79 - Class Night

Today was a fairly busy day for Jedi, because Jedi is a busy, busy boy right now... His energy level the last few days has been absolutely through the roof, which I find a little amazing considering how much action he's had lately. If you think about what he's done in the last week, Wednesday and Thursday were low-key outings (the "picture park" and the horse show), but Friday he swam and played frisbee, Saturday he did a ton at and after the trial (too much, really), and yesterday, while not filled with lots of running, still provided a ton of mental stimulation. I know I was certainly pooped coming off the trial weekend, but not Jedi! I had every intention of sleeping in as late as possible since I was working from home, but noises from out in the living room prompted me out of bed around 6:00. Jedi pulled another paper bag out of their hidy-hole next to the fridge and was starting to tear it up. I picked it up and went back to bed until 8:00. Jedi was under the bed at that point, but at least he wasn't tearing anything up.

We finally saw progress on our cik/cap work today! Jedi can now do full turns to the left! We did this for both breakfast and lunch today. During the breakfast session I decided to hold out until I got that one extra step that would take him past me. Oh the frustration that ensued! Jedi pitched a holy fit. He barked. He laid down and barked some more. He started to chew on the box that was nearby. He checked out a couple of times to go sniff things. But then he thought about it for a moment and the light bulb finally came on. The lunch session went much better with almost no frustration barking. The full turns to the left are definitely looking very purposeful and Jedi understands what he's supposed to do there now (so I should probably figure out what I'm calling this). The turns to the right are progressing to the point where he's starting to cross in front of my body, so he'll get there. This is a lesson we learned with pivoting -- don't give up and one day it will just show up out of the blue.

We had a funny moment that made me question Jedi's intelligence for a bit, since so far I've pretty much figured he was the smartest dog ever -- I kicked the dogs outside while I vacuumed because I put down some of that carpet powder. Jedi was not happy that the dog door was locked and barked in protest for a bit as he tried to get the door to push open. By the time I finished he was over it and laying nicely on the deck, but apparently he had decided that the dog door was broken and no longer worked. When I removed the door lock (it's a solid piece that slides in) and called him to come in he stood up and put his feet on the glass, above the dog door. Luke came in the dog door and Jedi tried again with his feet too high. Two more dogs had to come through the door before he finally followed through while the door was open for them. Thankfully the effects were not long-lasting and he managed to figure out the dog door again quickly.

My dad came by for a visit before lunch. We had to go pick up my lawn mower, but he was a bit early so he hung out with the dogs while I wrapped up what I was doing for work. Jedi was thrilled to get to visit with "grandpa" while I did boring work stuff. He went in the crate for a bit while we ran to get the mower and grab lunch, and then he got his lunch when I got back. Jedi is doing great with his crate criteria of waiting until released when I open the door, even in those exciting times when I first get home. Patting myself on the back, I'm doing a pretty good job of maintaining that criteria, too! The van seems to be the hardest for Jedi, so that's where I need to be on top of things and ready to close the door if he breaks.

I'm still hesitant to do loads of mindless fetching after Jedi came off the couch with a bit of a hitch Saturday night (note, haven't seen anything since then), so we did not do any running this afternoon. With as full of it as he was all day, I didn't really want to take Jedi into class tonight with THAT much energy, so I decided to pack up Jedi and Secret and go for a quick swim over at Fishermen's Park again. There were more people at the park this afternoon, but the boat launch area was free. I parked right next to it and just let the dogs out -- Jedi made a beeline to the water again, but had to wait while I chased down Secret who was trailing lord knows what scent. Once I got her attention we were good to go and they both got in a good solid 10 minutes of good solid swimming. The only issue I'm really having with Jedi is that he's getting into the habit of coming nearly to shore and then turning around to stare at Secret while she comes in the rest of the way (since generally I throw her toy out further than Jedi's). She doesn't like this at all, which causes her to swim way off to the side to avoid him. If I walk up to grab Jedi's toy and throw it for him he'll go out again, but his default is to stare right now and we'll work to break that one. I just find this interesting since he doesn't exhibit this behavior at all with balls or frisbees.

We were home for about an hour before we had to leave for class and Jedi was just starting to go down for a nap when we left. Jedi did well at puppy class tonight. He's playing predominantly with the (female) doodle puppy, but he does spend time with the others as well. We had a freak thing happen tonight that is the perfect example of why it's not good to have dogs play unsupervised while wearing collars or harnesses. The doodle puppy somehow got her hind leg wrapped through the chest loop of Jedi's harness while they were playing. She was under him and started squealing, but when I went to separate them I couldn't lift Jedi off of her. When I realized how she was trapped I had a moment of internal panic. Blessedly both puppies were amazing and stayed completely still while I tried to get her out. Eventually I realized I could just unsnap Jedi's harness to let it fall off him and then move him out of the way while I untrapped the puppy's leg. Just one of those freak things.

Jedi behaved really well in class tonight. The most impressive part was when I was working with another puppy and its owner to get a down. Jedi had to sit nicely off to the side while I worked with the other puppy. He needed a couple of reminders not to come up in my space, but considering I was handing out hot dogs to another puppy I think he did really well. I'd love for him to be able to hold his spot while other dogs work without having to be in a crate, so this is something we'll continue to work towards. Jedi gave a good demo on how to teach a roll over, which we haven't worked on for weeks. He got to practice his heel position while the rest of the class worked on various leash skills, and there was fairly minimal screaming during the restrained recall portion at the end of class.

There was a basic manners class that was supposed to be starting up tonight, but only one person showed up (we knew it was a small class, but....).  As it turns out, that person and the dog are well beyond the skill set of the basics class, but the dog is reactive and needs to learn to work around other people and dogs. For that reason it was kind of a bummer that nobody else showed up, but we were able to work on things more specific to her dog. Unfortunately Jedi was not particularly helpful in this scenario. It's becoming obvious between this and the last reactive dog we had in class that Jedi does not do well *at all* with this type of dog. The dog tonight was not a barker, but he stares. He stares anxiously. This look, this energy, something about this type of dog sets Jedi off and not in a good way. In that sense, I was working my dog tonight as much as the student was working her own. If I kept Jedi's focus on me he was fine, but if he was allowed to look at the other dog, and that dog happened to be looking at him, he was going to lose it. As a result, Jedi went through about three hot dogs tonight. We went for a short walk around the neighborhood to end the night and both of the dogs did just perfect. But when we got back inside it was right back to pumping him with hot dogs (toys didn't work because that got the other dog too worked up). The good news is that I can redirect this reactive behavior quite easily, but I'd rather it didn't exist and we'll keep working on it.

Jedi finished his dinner at class tonight. Because of this and because of those 3 hot dogs he consumed, he got a big bowl of pumpkin when the other dogs got fed their dinner tonight. So many hot dogs....

Day 78 - NADAC Trial, Day 2 (19 weeks old!)

Jedi is 19 weeks old today. Apparently 19 weeks is the magical age where they go totally mental on you?  ;o)  Where does this crazy boy of mine get all of this energy? It reminds me a lot of when Kizzy first came and we were putting on 5+ miles every single day to keep her in check. Jedi did finally crash hard last night around 8:30 or 9:00, but he was going a million miles per hour all day. He continues to do well sleeping free at night (notice I didn't say "on the bed"), including when we had an emergency siren sound in the middle of the night (my town sets off the sirens for the dumbest  non-emergency things). He wasn't on the bed this morning when the alarm went off, but as soon as he heard it he lept up onto the bed with the happiest, "OMG, you're alive!" look on his face. Nights are boring and long when you are Jedi, I guess.

In the interest of time, Jedi ate breakfast out of a bowl this morning. He and Kizzy were full of beans this morning and tugged while I did all of my stretching/rolling on the floor. Jedi settled nicely at the trial today, though, and slept quite a bit of the day compared to yesterday. I opted not to do any fetching games with Jedi today because he came off the couch a bit stiff last night. Four month old puppies should not be stiff, he just did way too much yesterday chasing frisbees, running around at the trial, chasing balls at home, and then running around the yard for a couple of hours (again, crazy amount of energy). We did one play session at the end of the ring doing figure eights around a barrel and jump standard. I just used Jedi's leash as his toy and he thought it was the best thing in the world. I love that about him!

Other than that we just took lots of trips outside and hung out in the ring tugging his leash a couple of times. In the afternoon someone brought their 12 week old puppy to visit, so I brought Jedi out to meet him. They grow up so quickly -- I remember when Jedi was that little (probably because it was only 7 weeks ago). Jedi was very good with Ben, although he did try to spend an inordinate amount of time on top of him. After a bit they reversed roles, though, and Jedi rolled over onto his back and let Ben crawl on top of him, so I thought that was good of him. Ben escaped his collar at one point and, since I wasn't holding onto Jedi's leash at the moment, the two of them made like bandits into the arena area. Thankfully it was just during a course build and someone caught the other puppy quickly -- otherwise I bet the two of them would have had a rip-roaring good time running around together.

Jedi's lunch got split into a couple of sessions due to time constraints. He got to come out during the build/walk-through for one course, during which we worked on his heeling skills. He's doing really, really well. I'm starting to vary my speed more, adding in faster spurts and more turning. During the next walk-through I brought him back out to finish up the last of his dinner. I grabbed a jump standard thinking I would see if he'd offer the pee trick on a smaller object, but he immediately started to offer cik/cap around it (or whatever I'm going to call this behavior). I took off his leash to keep him from getting tangled and we spent the rest of his lunch doing that. We're still not getting more than a circle offered, but I think he's getting there.

Jedi got to meet several new people and a few new dogs this weekend. He played/worked off leash around other dogs and people, and wasn't reactive to anything or anyone. I love this dog! I had him in the arena this morning during tunnelers and that was a little too exciting, but that was the only thing that really got him going this weekend. Jedi saw all of the tunnels in the ring before we got started and thought surely all of that fun was there just for him. He's never done more than one tunnel in a row before -- I'd be curious to see what he would do if unleashed on a tunnelers course right now. Probably lose his brain, most likely. I only have two tunnels, so I guess that's not something we'll experience any time soon.

When we got home I got the yard cleaned up and then it was time to mow the lawn. Jedi's new favorite trick is apparently to scale the a-frame while I'm attempting to move it. I'd remove him or shoo him down and as soon as I'd go to grab the side again, up he went. Cute at first, but after a point you need to get the darn a-frame moved, so I had to try to fool him about what I was doing... Jedi did well with the lawn mower tonight, but I did have to come into the house and physically carry him outside after he saw me bring the mower out. Once I was going he was fine, even coming out to wander the yard once I was about halfway done or so. He just really hates it when I bring the mower out of the garage.

Dinner was out of a bowl tonight. It's been a long weekend. We'll get back to work tomorrow and I suppose I should probably start doing more for our Silvia Trkman class than just heeling and the cik/cap exercise. I'll be curious to see when Jedi finally throws in the towel tonight. It's almost 9:00 and he's still going strong.

Day 77 - NADAC Trial, Day 1

Today we had a NADAC trial in Rochester, MN, which meant getting up bright and early to hit the road. Bright and early to me means 5:20, but Jedi still goes by the mantra "you snooze, you lose." I did manage to work Jedi for his breakfast at the early hour. We just went into the basement and played on the FitPaws donut. We're able to work through his food a lot faster with that versus working on the cik/cap exercise around the cone, so it won. Jedi ran around pretty much nonstop while I got ready to go, and thought for sure that he was going to get to play with the hose when I went to fill the water jug (sorry buddy). Thankfully this wore him out enough that he slept quietly on the ride to Rochester.

With temperatures in the 90s today, there was no way anyone was crating out of the van. I brought the 30" crate in for Jedi to hang out in today. He did really, really well inside at the trial today. He had a few moments where he barked as I was walking away, but he always stopped quickly. There were a couple of times where he barked at me when I was taking Kaiser or Kizzy out of their crate, but again he stopped once we walked away. Any time I took anyone outside I took all three dogs so that nobody would feel left behind and bark. I'm especially pleased that Jedi doesn't appear to be picking up Kizzy's screaming habit, which would be easy to do with her carrying on next to him (she quieted down this afternoon, but the energy was nuts in there this morning).

Jedi got in lots of play time today. I left him in the van until after Kaiser & Kizzy finished up Jumpers, and then I got Jedi out and we played frisbee before going inside. A little later on I brought him into the arena and we played with sends around the barrel. I finally squeezed in Jedi's lunch a little before 1:00 -- we worked on his heeling exercises at the end of the arena while they were building/walking Novice Regular (figuring that I can use his clicker when they aren't running). A couple of hours later I took Jedi outside to go play frisbee again. This session was shorter because it was about 94 degrees outside. Poor Jedi was missing his pool when we were done! I kept him out of the crate and let him flop onto the cool concrete floor outside of the arena. He looked dead to the world, soaking up as much of the cool floor as he could in a flat frog-dog pose.

I don't know where the heck his energy is coming from these days, but Jedi was nuts when we got home. We changed the water in the water bucket and then I ended up dumping and refilling both pools since they were hot to the touch again. Jedi went bonkers with the hose today. Luke and Secret had been left home all day, so I figured I'd play ball with everyone for a bit after the pools were filled. I quit when Secret stopped bringing the ball back, and Jedi said this was not long enough for him! Even still, he did seem ready to belly-flop into the pool afterwards.

Jedi enjoyed scarfing as many ice cubes as he could when I dumped the cooler. This, along with all of the water he sucked out of the hose, is probably what contributed to what I'm guessing was Jedi peeing in the house while I got dinner ready tonight. He was crated briefly while I ran to Walmart and then I moved to feeding as soon as I got home. I probably should have taken a moment to make everyone go outside. Now, I didn't see it happen or anything, but I'm assuming it was Jedi due to the size and all of the water he had. My guess is that he was excited about dinner and couldn't hold it. It's probably been eight weeks or more since he's gone in the house, but I guess that's why they call it accidents.

Jedi got dinner out of a bowl tonight because I'm exhausted and wanted my own dinner. Since then he's been going 100 mph running around with Kizzy, or by himself once Kizzy had enough. You'd think days like this would wear him out, but I swear they only charge him up. Hopefully the weather allows us to run outside again tomorrow, because I think that really helped keep him happy today. We got to Rochester at 8:00 and didn't leave until 5:00 -- that's a long day in the crate for a puppy, even getting out to play as much as he does. Counting travel time it was a solid 12 hours door to door today.

Day 76 - Fishermen's Park

Jedi has been a busy boy today, starting right away in the morning. I was lazy and didn't get out of bed until after 7:00 this morning, so Jedi found his own fun and made a toy out of the empty milk gallon sitting next to the garbage can. He played with that pretty much all morning, so at least it kept him busy. For breakfast we went downstairs and gave it our first go at shaping around the traffic cone. Jedi got fairly frustrated and was displeased with my rate of reinforcement and not understanding what it was that I wanted. I was very careful with my reward placement, but come the end of the session I'm pretty sure that Jedi thought he was supposed to do a half circle around the back of the cone. At least I got him to stop offering hug and pee on the cone, though -- that took a while.

Jedi was active throughout most of the morning, far longer than when he hits his usual nap time. He probably didn't settle down until after 10:00 or so. For lunch today we went out and did nails on the deck, as I'm trying to get back into the Friday routine. Jedi did really well today. I did both Kizzy and Kaiser before it was his turn, and he waited patiently next to me as I randomly tossed him pieces of his lunch. When it was time for Jedi's turn he was much better than last week when he was a bit nutso. His preferred position remains to be sprawled across my lap, which isn't my favorite position, but so long as he holds still I guess I can deal with it.

I waited until around 2:30 or so before we went back outside for some play time. I picked up the yard and then refilled the pools so that they would be ready for Jedi when we were done. It was hot today, around 85 degrees, and I knew this would be a pool day. Not only that, but the water in the pools was disgustingly warm to the touch; not very refreshing. While the pools filled, and in between going to put the hose back into the pools when Jedi pulled it out, I brought out a tunnel for the cone exercise again. I set up the video camera today so that I can show where Jedi's at. Considering how warm it was today, I'm pretty impressed with how well Jedi was able to maintain his speed (although you can start to see him dragging at the end). As predicted, he hung out in the pools for a while when we were done.

Jedi was pretty quiet this afternoon thanks to the play time in the heat. I wasn't sure what we should do for our outing of the day and I finally settled on going to Fishermen's Park here in Sparta. Secret got to go along today despite the fact that she just went on the last outing, but both Kaiser and Kizzy are running agility all weekend and I figured they could stay home and rest up for that. Because it was Secret coming along for the ride, and because I knew the park had a big open grassy area, I grabbed the frisbees and threw them in the van.

I haven't been to this park before, so I was unaware of the fact that there was lake access in the form of a canoe launch. I've never swam the dogs in Perch Lake because the edges tend to be slimy with algae, but the water was clear at the launch area. I figured I'd make the dogs' day and let them go swimming for a bit. We had the park to ourselves so I just opened up crates and let them out. Jedi immediately ran down to the lake, where of course he jumped right into the algae part off to the side. Sigh.

I let them swim for quite a bit and then we played frisbee to help them dry off. We went over and posed for pictures on the playground equipment, where I had their rapt attention (Jedi's at least) because I had the frisbees in my hand. I threw the frisbees on the way back to the van and had every intention of loading up to go home at that point, but the dogs had other ideas. Jedi led the way into the mucky part of the lake, and Secret followed. Well... Since they were both completely wet again I figured they may as well get a few more swims in and at least try to get the algae off them.

They probably got 5-6 more fetches in before a couple of people showed up to fish off the little deck area. I figured the dogs had swam enough and didn't need to be disrupting the fish for these people so I called them out of the water. Jedi obliged at first, but then went right back into the lake. Again. Apparently Jedi has a recall EXCEPT where water is involved. I got his leash put on and then was going to throw the frisbee for him again (I try hard to make sure he doesn't associate the leash going on with ending his fun), except for then he turned around and went back into the lake. Again. With his leash on. Argh.... He did chase the frisbee several more times after that, though. He was still completely wet, but I figured it was time to go home.

When we got home Jedi was certain there was still time to play more, as he stared intently at the toy box in the garage. I still had the tunnel set up outside but I figured enough was enough (seriously, he ran a lot at the park) and I put that away while he continued to run around the yard. For dinner we went downstairs and worked on the cone again. Things are progressing faster with circles to the right than to the left, but I still feel that Jedi thinks the exercise is half circles around the back of the cone. I started to hold out in the end for him to take more steps around the front and we progressed to about 3/4 of a full circle on his own. We'll keep plugging away at it, although I still have no idea what I'll name these.

We have a NADAC trial in Rochester tomorrow, so we'll be on the road bright and early.