Well, I get a big fat F for blog updates seeing as it's been over a week since my last post. Silence certainly doesn't mean that stuff hasn't been happening, though. Down time isn't really in Jedi's vocabulary. Last weekend was lovely and warm (well, 70, which is warm for October). I didn't get us up to Lake Wazee as hoped. We did get out to hike on the bike trail on Saturday, though. On Sunday I set up the drill from Backyard Dogs in the June 2016 issue of Clean Run. I stopped subscribing to that magazine several years ago when I found I wasn't reading it anymore, but I recently ordered four issues to be able to read their series on agility flooring for a friend. The bonus is that we now have a bunch of fun new drills to play with. Jedi did awesome.
I didn't have class this week, but I did step in to sub a different class this week. Jedi didn't get to go along to this one. I'd been forewarned that there were some reactive and anxious dogs in the class. Given Jedi's arousal issues that we're working through, I really didn't think it would be beneficial to expose him to that, even just in the crate. As it turned out, the reactive dogs didn't show up that night and he would have been fine, but better safe than sorry. Instead Jedi got to go on a super long leash walk in town before I left to teach. I took him out with Kaiser first, and then took him out with Kizzy (Secret stayed home because she got a fun trip to the chiro earlier in the day). We ran into a couple of dogs while out with Kizzy, which is unfortunate because she doesn't exhibit behavior I want Jedi to emulate. He was in his Halti, though, and when he got excited by Kizzy's outburst it was easy to redirect his attention and all was good.
On Tuesday Jedi got to take a field trip up to my parent's house. I came home from work midday to find that my internet was out and wasn't projected to be fixed until the following day. I packed up Jedi and we went up to my parent's house to borrow their internet for the rest of my work day and to do my homework. There he got to run around with Wes & Lexie, and I think he managed to find every tennis ball in the house (of which there were many...). And this would be why I do not have balls of any kind available in my house, because Jedi proceeded to repeatedly bring them up and place them on the table by my computer. When my dad came home Jedi showed a behavior I've never seen before when he repeatedly jumped on top of the dining room table (from the floor, usually from a run). That was fun. It was around that time that I took him outside and used the Chuck-it to throw a tennis ball up the hill to wear him out a bit. We ended up going back to my parent's house on Thursday to borrow that hill again.
On Friday we were off to Oshkosh for an agility trial. We went to this trial because of the late start on Friday, which mean we didn't have to leave home until 9:30. Unfortunately for Jedi I just used that extra time for sleeping in, not wearing him out. This meant that by early afternoon he was starting to go a little bonkers. I, brilliant dog mom that I am, left home without Jedi's magical bag of toys. Blessedly I'd left a ball on a rope sitting on top of one of the crates in the van, so all was not lost. I took Jedi out between runs and let him wear off some steam. We made a trip to Petco on the way to the hotel to pick up some boredom-busters and treats. Jedi got to come in with me while the others waited in the van. He wore his Halti for reinforcement of good behaviors and I was glad for this when we encountered a pit bull whose first reaction was to lunge and bark at Jedi. I was able to redirect him before he could get riled up from the incident.
This was Jedi's second time in a hotel and he did well. He barked a few times at noises in the hallway (doors slamming, etc.) but always quieted quickly. There was quite a bit of jumping on/off the bed at first, but after being called back up several times he finally figured things out and stayed put. There was a dog in the room next to us that howled until its people came back at 2 a.m., but blessedly none of my dogs seemed bothered by that. Jedi stayed on the bed all night until we went out around 6:30. He did great with the on-leash potty trips, which pleases me greatly since some of the others have some issues with that and that can make traveling difficult.
Jedi did well at the trial on Saturday. I got him out and played fetch again for a bit. I took him inside for a bit between runs to visit, but Oshkosh has some pretty cramped quarters and it was hard to stay out of the way. Instead I opted to bring him in after the Masters classes were done running so that I could get him on the measuring table. It turns out my measurement against the fridge was pretty accurate. Jedi is just a hair (one line, to be exact) under 20" right now. We got out of there around 1:30, which put us home a bit before 4:00. I decided to walk Jedi down to the little park down the street to use the big field for a game of fetch. While I would never call my yard small, it isn't big enough for Jedi to really open up and run (something I learned while watching him at my parent's house). The park served its purpose and Jedi was able to run out all of his energy from being cooped up all weekend.
Today I was pretty darn lazy, but I did eventually get my butt in gear to play with Jedi. I ended up setting up the Power Paws Drill from the May 2016 issue of Clean Run. I finished reading that issue today and this exercise looked fun because it had a tunnel. The main focus of the exercises was sending to the tunnel entry and working on turns out of the tunnel. We had a few small hiccups, but worked through all of them. I think we struggled most with a send up to the tunnel from the left that occurred mid-drill (the send from the start wasn't an issue). Jedi ran past the tunnel entrance several times, so we broke it down until it clicked. I thought he seemed pretty pooped when we finished, but he's been super active all night. He's crashed now, but it took until almost 10:00 to get there. I guess that's what you get when we sleep the day away!
Tomorrow Jedi has a fun field trip in store. Hopefully we'll have a fun tale to share (with video). :o)
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