Day 99 - Hotel wrap-up and AKC Trial, Day 2 (22 weeks old!)

Well, we all survived Jedi's first hotel stay! It actually went quite a lot better than I expected. After spending at least a half hour (my guess is purposefully) dropping toys off the bed to be able to bounce down, pick it up, come back up and do it again, Jedi finally settled down around 8:30 last night. I took the dogs out for the last time around 9:45 or so. It was storming a bit, but thankfully the hotel had this handy little overhang on our side of the building and we were able to stay dry while the dogs went potty. Jedi wee'd forever, as I'm pretty sure he drank an entire bowl of water in the hotel room -- but bonus, he didn't play in it. Maybe we'll try again here at home. Back inside, Jedi got his second wind and was starting up the toy drop & plop game again. I eventually got up and put the toys away. With his fun ended, Jedi finally settled down again.

Jedi stayed up on the bed all night, which is super. One of my big concerns was getting from the bed to outside in the morning without Mr. Drinks-a-lot going potty, but he was totally fine. I had my clothes laid out in preparation and Jedi actually stayed on the bed until I was ready to put his leash on. He did hit up the first patch of grass he saw outside, but he made it (we were on the 2nd floor, don't know if I mentioned that last night). Some moron was outside with two off-leash boxers and wasn't paying any attention to them at all, so they ended up making their way towards us while Jedi was finishing peeing. Always a lovely way to start the morning, dealing with dogs who don't understand social cues to stay away from the snarling and barking pack of dogs they are walking towards, along with an owner who just stands there and does nothing.

Jedi had another fantastic day at the trial. I didn't have his crate covered at all either day and he was super with all of the activity going on around him. Today he did start to do his "woo-woo" noise when I took one of the Klee Kai out of their crate, but it was only one and he didn't keep it up if it was one of the times that he was staying put. Jedi did great maintaining his crate criteria the entire weekend and always waited until released (if only I asked the same of my other dogs). He drank what seemed like a ton of water -- or at least I thought so, until I was packing up and realized how wet the towel in his crate was. It was pretty hot in Soccerblast this weekend, though, so I can't blame him.

Jedi got to go shopping today. I had taken Jedi in yesterday when I was picking up my new crate pads (they sell the best ones ever and I've been waiting to see Best for Pets since I bought these crates in March!) and Jedi really took a shine to this one toy on a string. It had lots of interesting stuff attached to it, so it was definitely fun and appealing. Well, bummer for Jedi, but apparently they sold the last of these toys yesterday. That's okay, though, because we found something even better, at least where Jedi is concerned. It's a bungee tug that is 2' long unstretched and has tennis balls on BOTH ENDS! Jedi's favorite toy is his ball on a rope (we really need to replace that one of these days), so I thought this toy was a grand slam. Oh my, he just loves it. We played ringside for a bit and then ended up going outside and doing some wait/go games. I had a happy, panting puppy at the end of it and he took a nice nap in his crate for a while.

For lunch I took Jedi back to the measuring arm and worked on a stand-stay. He did pretty well with it, but will need more work because once he gets rewarded he assumes he's done. I'd prefer to be able to reward/reinforce and have him hold the position since lord knows measuring can sometimes take a bit. With how well he was standing still I was able to get a little clearer measurement today, so I'm going to retract my statement from yesterday and say that Jedi is sitting at 17.5" right now. He's doing great with not being at all reactive to the measuring arm swinging around, but one of these days I should probably get someone to help me simulate the judge doing the measuring. I had a couple more people remark that Jedi is going to be a "big boy," but they also had midget 16" border collies standing next to them, so....

I started packing up the van between Kizzy and Kaiser's final runs. With all of the doors open and the breeze blowing through, I think it was nicer out there than it was inside the arena. We finally got out around 4:00 and were home a little after 6:30. I'm pretty sure the thing Jedi missed the most about his weekend away was being wet. I refilled the bucket and he pretty much freaked out with happiness. At some point tonight he got himself completely soaking wet -- don't know if he was in the bucket or if he went into the pool, which I'm sure is pretty warm. All is well with his world now, though, and he's actually looking a bit pooped. No worries, I'm sure he'll be recharged tomorrow. I still haven't decided what fun is in store for the big day -- Day 100!

Day 98 - AKC Trial & First Hotel Stay

Today we were up bright and early to leave for our AKC trial. Thankfully none of my dogs were entered in the first run of the day, so we didn't have to leave quite as early as we may have otherwise. We were on the road by 5:50, which was a little later than I'd planned, but we still got to Soccerblast a little after 8:30. Due to the early start, Jedi ate breakfast out of a bowl this morning. I unloaded everything from the van before bringing the dogs inside -- Miraculously, I actually managed to find a spot big enough for all three of my crates. I took Jedi and Secret in first and Jedi stayed nice and quiet as I left him to go bring in Kaiser and Kizzy. His crate is in the middle and this setup seemed to work well for all involved.

Jedi did great at the trial all day and didn't bark at all in his crate with all the coming and going. I feel like I got him out a good deal and gave him stuff to do, but there were a couple of stretches where he was in there a bit longer due to some craziness between the two ring schedules. Soccerblast gets pretty crowded and Jedi did really well traversing the cramped quarters every time we went in and out. He stayed low-key and wasn't bothered by any of the other dogs. For the most part he ignored everyone as we walked through, only trying to say hi to a couple all day. We have a young (12 week, I'd guess) border collie puppy crated next to us and they got to meet once.

I finally got around to giving Jedi his lunch around 1:30, I'd guess. I took him into the ring that had the measuring arm set up and we spent most of his lunch trying to get an accurate measurement. Right now I mostly just let him stuff his face the entire time I'm swinging the arm over him, but this results in a lot of movement. I'm going to have to start spending time working on a stand stay for the future. Because of all the moving, the measurements I got today ranged from about 17" - 18". He's apparently had quite a growth spurt! I'm going to go ahead and say that he was 17 3/4" today, as that seemed the most repeatable.

While I was waiting to walk Secret's JWW run I brought Jedi out into the bleachers to hang for a while. It took him a while to realize that there was agility running in front of him because the lower walls are covered with sheets. He got kind of excited when he saw what was going on, but it didn't keep his attention terribly long. I was able to distract him pretty easily with food. While we were waiting for Secret's results to be posted I took Jedi into the arena and we played tug with his leash. He started acting strange and pawing at his mouth. Someone suggested that he was probably losing a tooth. Yup, that was it! She helped pull it out. It was a pre-molar. I didn't even realize he had any of those left.

We're all checked into our La Quinta for the evening. This is Jedi's first time in a hotel -- first time sleeping anywhere other than home, really. When we first got here I gave all of the dogs beef tracheas to keep them busy for a bit. Jedi didn't seem to know what it was at first, but he eventually dug in. Of course his mouth was all bloody from chewing, so we had a minor moment when he moved off the blankets that I have covering the bed and got blood on the sheets. Thank goodness I packed Nature's Miracle along for the ride. And lucky for me, Nature's Miracle appears to clean up blood (at least in small amounts).

I fed the dogs dinner at 6:30 and then packed everyone in the van to go pick up my dinner. Everyone had the chance to go potty then, but I'm guessing we'll make another trip out before the bedtime trip. I have two stuffed squeaky toys here and Jedi is currently bouncing between the bed and the floor with them. The bed is so super high off the ground that I ended up sliding the chair over for the dogs to use to help get them on and off. Jedi is being a good boy and using the chair, surprisingly enough! The only other questionable thing for this evening is the water dish. This is the first time Jedi has had indoor access to water since he was 8 weeks old. So far so good -- fingers crossed.

Day 97 - Chiro & Eckhart Park (25.5 lbs)

Jedi needs to get on board with "work at home Friday" and learn to enjoy sleeping in a bit more. He was up and running by the usual 6:00 time, but I put him off until almost 8:00 when I finally made myself get out of bed to log in to work. For breakfast this morning I took Jedi back downstairs to work more on the suitcase trick. This one is clicking with him pretty quickly. The auto down is there, so I started moving the lid closer towards the closed position so that Jedi would have to duck his head to get in. I was all set to go downstairs for Jedi's lunch when I remembered, oh yeah, it's Friday -- So we went out on the deck and did nails instead. Jedi was a wee bit excited about his food today but otherwise did well.

Secret and Kaiser had another chiropractor appointment in Viroqua today. I hemmed and hawed over whether or not to bring Jedi, but he'd had a long boring day at home and needed to get out of the house. It was cool enough (another day in the low 70s!) that I could leave him in the van if I wanted, but I ended up taking him inside. Jedi tugged his leash while we waited in the lobby -- it's nice to always have a "toy" handy that way.  :o)  One of the main reasons I took Jedi in with us was so that I could get an official 5-month weight on him. He weighed in at 25.5 lbs today, which is like a surprising three pounds behind some of his brothers. Huh.

I brought Jedi's toy bag along to keep him occupied during the appointment. He self-entertained with his holee roller for a good deal of time before and during the appointment. It's pretty fun now that he's learned how to squeak the ball inside of it. Eventually he got bored with that and started to dive into his bag looking for other toys, which the vet found entertaining. Unfortunately he picked the one with the loudest squeaker (one of our Clean Run food stuffable toys) so I ended up taking that away from him because it was absolutely obnoxious and we couldn't hear each other talk. Jedi behaved himself pretty well for the most part, but he's starting to jump up on people so we'll have to put a little bit of work into that one.

After we left the clinic I decided to check out a park in Viroqua to get Jedi out to another new place. I learned of Eckhart Park when I was looking for something to do last weekend, although we didn't end up going. It's on the same street as Rising Sun Animal Wellness Center, but down on the opposite end, so it was easy enough to find. It was a pretty little park. I left Secret and Kaiser in the van since they were just adjusted and I didn't want Secret leaping for frisbees only to undo everything, so we didn't stay and explore very long. For the most part we just threw frisbees for a bit to help Jedi get his ya-yas out. A few people walking by seemed entertained by Jedi's antics. One asked if Jedi could do any of those "fancy catches" and I said maybe someday, but he's still a little too young for that.  :o)

When we got home I cleaned up the yard and I started to get some of our stuff ready for our early departure to Minneapolis tomorrow. I took Jedi downstairs for his dinner where we worked on the suitcase trick before having to bring the suitcase upstairs for packing. I continued to lower the lid even more and Jedi did super, including having it fully closed on top of him once he was in. He's not ready for it to be fully closed yet, which became clear when I wasn't quick enough about getting it picked up a little after he jumped out. He didn't even look for a way in, he just jumped straight on top of it and tried to lay down, wondering why things weren't working quite the same. We'll have to revisit this one after we get home (and the suitcase gets unpacked, which sometimes takes a while, but maybe this will be motivation).

Day 96 - Bangor Park & Class Night (5 months old!)

Jedi is 5 months old today! My how time flies. I kind of forgot about it at first and didn't realize it was the 14th until sometime this afternoon. Thankfully I remembered in time to stop at Walmart to scavenge for some "birthday" picture supplies. I thought surely I'd be able to find something for a 5 year old and re-purpose it for Jedi's 5-months, but Walmart didn't appear to have any age-specific party supplies. We had to settle for buying a $1.50 package of cheap hats and then spending $4 on a Spiderman card for a 5 year old just so that I could harvest the "5" off it and glue it to the hat.  :o)  Before I went through the hassle of making the custom hat, I figured I'd try one on Jedi to see if he'd even let it stay on long enough for pictures. Surprisingly all was well, so we got it done. Good sport, Jedi.

This morning I introduced Jedi to a new trick. I decided to teach him to pack into a suitcase before he gets too big for my bigger suitcase. My suitcase has been sitting at the base of the stairs waiting to be put away forever, so it was handy and available. I taught Kizzy to do this one not that long ago, so I didn't figure Jedi would have too many problems with it. The first "issue" we encountered was that the little stinker wouldn't stay off the suitcase long enough for me to get it unzipped -- he just kept jumping on top of it while it was still closed. Once I finally got the darn thing opened there was no issue whatsoever getting Jedi to jump in. Couldn't keep him out, really. I started to wait him out to see if he would lay down, but he got increasingly frustrated and was offering every behavior under the sun inside the suitcase (including spin, pretty, wave, etc.). I finally rested my hand just inside the suitcase and he figured out what I wanted. I tried to move too fast with a partially closed lid and he just jumped on top of it, so I will need to back up and work on the auto down a bit more to keep his focus lower and build the value for that position.

I got home a little before 2:00 today and opted to skip Jedi's lunch because of class tonight. He had a surprisingly quiet afternoon, but I knew that was going to bite me in the butt come class tonight. For that reason, I decided to pack Jedi along when I had to run to Bangor to get my hair cut around 5:00. It was only 73 degrees and overcast, so I knew that he'd be fine in the van for the 15-20 minutes that it would take for me to get done. We went down to the park when I was done and I took Jedi over to the big open field next to the "skate park" to chase frisbees. There was quite a bit of activity in the park between a kid's baseball game and some people shooting guns at the shooting range. Jedi didn't notice any of it.

I had two frisbees and was working on getting Jedi to switch between the two. He'll need more work on this. I settled for rewarding him with the one he wanted (his little one) if he would bite at the big one when offered. Jedi was not very graceful tonight and kept somersaulting while going after the frisbees. I started throwing them up the little knoll as running up hill seemed to at least slow him down a bit on the approach. After 10 minutes he stopped bringing the discs back right away, so I figured that was enough. I let Jedi go jump in the creek quick before we left, but he seemed more interested in the plastic in my hand. He tried to convince me that he wasn't hot or tired and could we please play more, but we packed up and went home at that point. This was when I made my stop at Walmart and we did pictures before we left for class tonight.

We had a fun group tonight. We had a new puppy who didn't make it the first week, so everyone had fun meeting him. The ones who showed up tonight are the hard players so there was some rough and tumble play for about 10 minutes and everyone was panting by the time we got going in class. Jedi went into the crate so that I could work on greeting manners with the other puppies, and he managed to be a good boy and stay quiet.

Next we worked on being able to take stuff away from our puppies and Jedi was a terrible demo dog because he didn't want the pig ear again so I had nothing to take away from him. I think he was too concerned about what the other puppies had and if they were going to try to take his pile of stuff that he wasn't touching.We had a couple more issues tonight where the lab puppy got into Jedi's space while he was working and Jedi got reactive -- Nothing nearly as bad as Monday night, but still unacceptable behavior. Granted, the puppy was rude, but still. Because it was so nice outside we got to take everyone for a walk around the block. Jedi was a star for me but I did briefly hand him over to a student while I showed her something with her dog and he was pulling with her. Go figure.

One big breakthrough tonight was when I was explaining/showing crate games to everyone. While Jedi has always been good about demoing the wait and release at the open door, he has been terrible about self-loading into the crate. Not tonight! Something must have clicked because he started offering to go in on his own. He got big treats for that. Jedi went through all of his dinner and quite a few hot dogs tonight. I fed the other dogs before we left, so there was no "second dinner" when we got home. There was some running around outside, but Jedi is actually laying on the couch next to me right now and we've been home less than an hour. It's a miracle!

Day 95 - Neshonoc Boat Dock

Last night was a short night of sleep following our late arrival home from class. Jedi was wound up tight until about 11:30. I'm not much different from him in that respect and we didn't go to bed until after midnight. Our 6:00 alarm came much too early (for me, not for Jedi). For breakfast this morning we worked on the hold behavior downstairs and Jedi did great. We did all the fun stuff in our post breakfast play. I had to go into work and got home around 1:00 today. There was a leash sitting on the table, so I decided to take Jedi into the bedroom and see where he was at in holding the leash. Not surprisingly, he's pretty much exactly where he is with the toy. The other dogs were milling about the bedroom and getting in the way, so Jedi had to work through their distraction.

It was another hot day, so we didn't do anything outside here at home aside from cleaning up the yard. For our outing of the day I opted to load up Jedi and Secret to hit the boat dock at Lake Neshonoc. We know that Jedi will jump into a pool, so I figured it was time to introduce him to jumping into natural water -- lest we have the reverse of Secret's problem where she would always jump into natural water but not pools! We got to the park probably around 5:15 or so and I was surprised at how dead it was. I was happy to see that there was nobody fishing or doing anything else that we would otherwise disrupt by leaping off the dock. Heck, there was only one boat trailer parked up top when we arrived.

I chucked Jedi's bumper off the side of the dock not terribly far off shore. He stared at it. He whined a little, but he didn't leave the dock. I ended up having Secret go in and get Jedi's toy, then I threw the other bumper in closer to shore, at a point where the water wasn't very deep. He jumped then, and from there on he was fine. I second-guessed my decision to jump here a few times just based on the absolutely horrible form that both dogs had going off this slippery dock. It certainly doesn't do them any favors when it comes to trying to build distance, but at least it gave Jedi the experience of jumping in a new place.

We had a minor catastrophe at one point when Jedi became a toy hog and grabbed Secret's bumper after he had already grabbed his own. After many circles of trying to take both of them he finally settled on Secret's big green bumper and abandoned his baby orange bumper way out yonder. After much begging and pleading, Secret appeased me and brought Jedi's bumper back with her. She wasn't pleased about this, though, and when she got back up to the dock she spit it out. Before I could grab it the bumper went under the dock. And then it was gone. I was on my hands and knees in the water trying to peer under the dock and I couldn't see it anywhere. I continued to throw the big bumper for Jedi while I searched, which displeased Secret greatly. By some absolute freaking miracle some awesome dude came swimming across the lake and stopped at our dock for a breather. I asked him if by chance he could see a bright orange toy from his vantage point and boom, about five feet away from him, there it was! He saved the day!

Jedi did well at coming out of the water today IF Secret was also coming out of the water. If Secret was still in the water he really didn't see much need to come out. When he did come out, though, he was a good boy and jumped up onto the dock all on his own and brought his toy with him. He misjudged a few times and tried to jump from too far out. Oops, didn't quite make it. In general, though, he's pretty talented at jumping out of water onto the dock. As usual, Jedi was none too pleased when it came time to leave. I figure we were probably there for about 45 minutes (we left at 6:00), which I think is more than enough (more than I ever used to do, at least). They got in a lot of swimming -- In addition to the jumps off the end of the dock, which meant a pretty long swim back to shore, they also got in some tosses from shore for some out and back swims.

We walked around long enough for the dogs to have a chance to shake off and go potty, Jedi straining at his leash the entire time trying to go back down to the lake. He crashed on the drive home, though, so I'd say he got in enough swim time. Once home Jedi got dinner out of a bowl tonight because I had class starting at 7:00. He continues to find it very entertaining to bring the stemmy weeds that I pulled outside through the dog door and into the house to chew on, and I continue to get up and throw them back outside. Jedi thinks this is a fun game (Secret has done the same thing; something about those weeds).

Day 94 - Agility Class - New Session!

Jedi was pretty full of himself this morning. He was up and at 'em bright and early, which I didn't really appreciate since a storm had rolled through around 2:00 a.m. and woke me up (but hey, at least the emergency sirens weren't sounded this time). I finally rolled out of bed around 6:30, much to Jedi's delight. We went downstairs for breakfast and spent another session working on Jedi's hold skill. He started offering the hold in a sit today! There's still some head flinging, but it's getting better. Once we worked through Jedi's food I spent a bit of time playing with him since he was so wound up and I knew he'd soon be going into the crate. We worked on turns around the cone, spins & twirls, waits, and downs.

I didn't get out of work until 2:00 due to a long meeting, so Jedi had another day where he was crated a bit longer than usual. So far he hasn't given me reason to feel bad about this, as even after being crated from 7:30 to 3:00 he is able to run outside, bark at me while I carry the bucket over to the water spigot, play with the hose, roll around, and then follow me back over to where the bucket lives until he feels it necessary to go potty. Hooray for growing bladders, I guess.

Because I got home around 3:00 and knew we'd be leaving at 5:30, I elected to not do anything with Jedi this afternoon. I also didn't feed him a lunch meal today, opting instead to throw double portions in his "to go" container for class tonight. I really should move Jedi to twice daily feedings and drop lunch one of these days. There seems to be so much value in having that third training session each day (or the fact that it lets me feed him one meal out of a dish without feeling guilty if I'm lazy). On class days where I expect him to get more food in the p.m. it makes sense to skip lunch right now. There was a bit of pressure put on me tonight to make sure we finished all of the food, though, since I fed all of the dogs before we left tonight and don't want to have to finish Jedi's dinner after we get home.

So, tonight was the first night of our second round of classes at Canine Sports Zone in Middleton. This class is Agility Foundations 2 and is a continuation of the last class we took. It runs from 7:30 - 8:30 which is convenient from the aspect that I can work my normal hours (I'm generally online until at least 5:00 when working at home) and even get some homework done before I have to leave. The challenging aspect is that I won't be getting home until 10:30 each week. Neither myself nor Jedi are very good about going to bed straight away when we get home, so I anticipate some late nights on Tuesdays for the next six weeks.

I'm not complaining, though. It is so worth it to see Jedi in his element at class. It is so beneficial to be able to devote my attention 100% to Jedi during this time. Doing so ensures that we don't see any of the negative or reactive behaviors I sometimes see creep in on the nights when I teach and am not able to focus on Jedi. In this class Jedi gives it his all from the moment we walk into the door until the moment we leave (and I pretty much have to make him get in the van because yes, the fun is done). I anticipate plenty of "working" time during this class session, as it's a small class of four students. The other three attendees were all in our Foundations 1 class, so it was nice to see everyone again tonight (we had 6 in that class, so we lost a couple or they went to another night).

Tonight was largely all recap from where we left off. Even though there were only four of us, we still split into two groups of two. I started with Jedi over on the "target" side. We moved around the various stations working on the plank, two-on/two-off, balance discs, boxes, etc. I was happily surprised that Jedi was still able to offer full pivots on the balance disc when prompted. I keep meaning to revisit this one at home to make sure he doesn't completely lose that skill. I'm pretty good about doing that -- teaching something and never returning to it again. After a bit I switched over to toy play and we worked on stay/release, where I started throwing some blind crosses at Jedi. We still had a little bit of time to kill (long rotations) so then we finished up this session by working on the paw pods, where Jedi was able to show off his skills of having all four feet on separate pods.

When we moved over to the other side we had a tunnel (straight), a chute, and a table. We worked on sending to the tunnel, staying in front of the tunnel, and then the same with the chute. After that we added the table after the tunnel. Jedi came in to that one with a bit too much impulsion, but he tried really hard to land in his down, so that was nice. After a couple of times of overshooting the table we did a couple of sends not out of the tunnel. Jedi is doing great with holding his down on the table while we play and I think this is a big help in the development of his auto-down.

The class came back together to do some restrained recalls for a bit, and then we ended up back over on the tunnel side. This time we connected chute, table, then tunnel. Jedi did well going from the chute to the table and started to catch on to the fact that he needed to collect himself a bit to not go sliding past. Thank goodness he's giving me a nice lead out, though, because I'm sure I wouldn't be getting him on the table so seamlessly without that. When we switched sides we had traffic cones to play with. Jedi still had some of his dinner left, so I opted to work nanana and check-check with his food. I'm pretty proud that Jedi was able to concentrate on this (to a point) while the other dogs were going through tunnels on the other side. As we neared the end of time, though, it was getting harder for him so I elected to put his leash back on and finish up with some target touches.

The ride home in the dark made things pretty quiet, but Jedi has been running around like a mad man since we got home. Kizzy seems to be just as jazzed up as he is, so we'll see how successful we are at actually going to bed tonight. I've had to get up about 5 times now as I typed this post to throw the giant weed/plant/things back outside that Jedi keeps bringing in through the dog door. Oh, and once he brought in poop that was in the potty yard (as evidenced by the rocks stuck to it). That was special.