Jedi has been a busy boy since my last post last week. Speaking of, apparently head halters for dogs are a popular post topic because that blog post got almost 3x the normal amount of views. It did generate some discussion on my Facebook link, though, and any time people comment on my Facebook link to the blog it tends to make more people curious enough to click into the blog to see what I've rambled about on any given day. It may be that people were curious to learn more about the "reactive behaviors" that I alluded to in the link blurb. In case I wasn't clear about what we're going through, I do not classify Jedi as a reactive dog or a dog who has issues with other dogs. I do think he has some momentary arousal issues that thus far have been fleeting and minor. The head halter is simply to ensure that nothing progresses past the point where we are now by giving me a way to easily redirect his attention. I am probably more sensitive than most to this subject because Kizzy came to me with severe arousal reactivity towards various types of dogs, and places like agility trials were very hard for her. Poor Jedi is subject to being my next dog following Kizzy and as such I'm hypersensitive to all of the issues she came with at 20 months old.
Jedi had a great weekend at the trial. As planned, I was able to crate out of the van all weekend where I believe they all get a chance to relax a bit more (okay, again that is more directed at Kizzy). It also meant that I didn't need to do any fancy crate swapping since Jedi has now outgrown the 30" crate. The trial was large enough that I had a comfortable number of dogs between all of my runs which allowed Jedi a chance to get out quite a bit. On Saturday I had a lot of down time during FAST (missed the boat on worker sign-up, so no free lunch for me), so I brought Jedi in and we played lots of tug next to the ring. He also offered a lot of fun tricks -- "Wee wee" has made a reappearance again recently. Admittedly I haven't been doing a lot of shaping behaviors with Jedi lately, so it was fun to see him offer this. Between classes we went and played on the warm-up jump doing all sorts of fun one-jump stuff with the bar on the ground.
On Sunday I decided to take a Chuck-it along with us so that I could give Jedi a chance to run off some energy (he was kind of loony Saturday night after we got home). There is a huge open (groomed) lot across the street from Canine Sports Zone that the owners are kind enough to let dogs use during trials. I figured since I was able to throw the ball over 2x as far as my yard (which itself is pretty big) that Jedi would have more time to be thoughtful about his approach to the ball. It kind of worked. At least he didn't go topsy-turvy on any of his runs, but he did come back a little muddy from doing some of his superman slides. After he'd had a chance to run off some steam I took him inside to learn the art of "chilling" next to the ring while they ran T2B. There were a couple of dogs coming out of the ring that Jedi found a little too exciting, but he was easily and quickly redirected back to me. It didn't take long before he was flat out and totally relaxed while dogs were running in the ring, getting ready to go into the ring, and coming out of the ring right past him. Good boy, Jedi!
We've been playing with cones at home the last few days, but haven't done much else in the training department. I had to mow on Monday and cones were the quickest thing to set up to run Jedi before it got dark. You can do a lot with 3 cones set in a giant triangle -- they are spaced well apart to give Jedi more room to run, since honestly the only reason we really play those games is to give him that chance (to run). I put the pools away (again) before I mowed on Monday, but I continue to relent and get them back out for Jedi. It also helps to keep him out of the water bucket.
Last night Jedi got to come to class with me. It was graduation night for both groups. The Advanced class was doing CGC testing and I debated running Jedi through it, but meh. I mostly took him so that I'd have the chance to work him in the Halti around the other dogs before class. He was remarkably good! One of the class dogs started out by having a really rough night and was more reactive than I feel she has ever been. This put Jedi on hyper-alert the moment she came down the stairs. He had two "OMG what is that" moments there were ended in an instant due to the Halti not letting him whip his head around to fixate. After that he was golden. There were even two moments where I specifically saw him *make the decision* to keep his focus on me after a brief glance towards one of the dogs he has had some trouble with in the past. He was so good! Then Jedi got to play with the lab puppy from puppy class and the other trainer's young labs as well.
I had an all-day meeting at work again today, so Jedi got to go back to daycare today! Last time he went he had just turned 6 months and I was told that this is their cutoff for dogs who aren't altered, but was told that I might be able to get permission from the owner to let Jedi continue to go. I messaged her on Facebook last night and we got the all clear, so Jedi got to have a day of fun instead of being stuck in a crate all day. He didn't make any of the videos posted today, but they got a couple of photos of him that they put on the Facebook page. I laughed when I saw the top picture because it doesn't surprise me at all that Jedi managed to get himself wet even when it was in the 40s today. There was a 9 week old border collie puppy there for his first day of daycare today and in the photo they shared to welcome him Jedi was in hot pursuit, so they must have played for a bit. They seem to really like Jedi there, so hopefully he can continue to go as needed, despite not being neutered.
The other bonus to Jedi spending a day in daycare is that he comes home and we have a very quiet night. This is especially helpful on Wednesdays since I have both of my school seminars back-to-back. Normally I try to get the dogs out and walked or something before my first class starts, but tonight I actually felt like that would be mean to do to Jedi. Instead I ended up going on the treadmill (because I need to start moving if I'm going to run Jedi next year) and Jedi crashed next to me. Since I had to go into the basement to use the treadmill I ended up being inspired to have Jedi work for his dinner, which I haven't done in ages. We did some work on the donut, played with the cone (circling, wee-wee, hug) and did some pretty impressive hand-stands against the wall. That one must be latent learning because we definitely haven't touched on those skills in forever!
Jedi's head halter arrived today! I looked around at different brands and ended up going for the same brand that Jedi's brother has -- The Halti Optifit head halter. There are several reasons this brand and model won out. I knew 100% that I wanted to have control over Jedi's nose. The trainer who owns the business where I teach is a big fan of the Canny Collar head halter, but that model goes over the nose and is controlled from behind the head. I decided to try a head halter to keep Jedi's focus on me (more in a bit) and less for pulling, so I definitely feel that having the control point under the chin is more beneficial for what we're dealing with. The Optifit has a nice wide and slightly padded nose and shouldn't leave the indent that is so common with the Gentle Leader. I ordered a medium and ended up having to shorten it as far as it goes, but it works.
So, why a head halter? The idea started with that trip to the park when we went on our walk on Monday. Jedi completely blew me off as soon as he saw the water and I could not get his focus back on me for anything. He would stop and sit, but then plow forward as soon as he was released. Tuesday night I took Jedi to class with me. I was setting up some rally stuff for my Advanced students to play with and I wanted to run Jedi through the exercise before we began (note, I am not a rally person). For some reason everyone started to arrive 10-15 minutes early, so I had zero time alone to work with Jedi. From the very beginning he started doing his lunging behavior at the other dogs as I worked him. He's not aggressive towards other dogs -- he was actually running around loose when the first one came and he was fine, but when I started to work him he tried to go after the same dog. I believe it to be resource guarding behavior. It's the same naughtiness that he did in puppy classes when another puppy would come too close while he was working. At any rate, I'll stick him in the head halter next time so that I can control his head in those situations.
Jedi's snarkiness earned him a spot in a crate for the entire Advanced class. I was glad I'd brought him when the puppy class rolled around and only one puppy showed up this week, though. It was the female lab puppy that Jedi played a bit too rough with last time. I kept him on leash at first and pulled him off her when he got to be too much. Eventually he settled down and they were able to have some good play time together. Jedi did a good job showing her how to play crate games and then we took them out on a walk together. He always does so well when walking with the class groups. Really, I have had very few issues walking him on a flat collar or harness to date which is why I never really gave much thought to other training aids up to this point.
On Wednesday we went out on the trail for a quick hike before I had to get home to log on for my online classes. We were out for about 50 minutes and Jedi was a good boy. He continues to improve during his off-leash hiking time and has been very responsive to my recall cues when he starts to veer off in the wrong direction (towards the tracks). I think he's figuring that rule out, though, because he's not going off towards the tracks very often now. He's not very coordinated at ditch-jumping and face-planted a few times when he couldn't see the change of terrain through the tall grass. Thanks to all of the low spots and ditches filled with water, Jedi spent that entire hike wet from head to toe. He smelled a bit rank on the trip home, but seemed fine once he dried (thank goodness because the last thing I felt like doing at 9:00 was bathing a dog).
Last night we played in the yard. I brought out a tunnel and set up some hoops in a configuration that AgilityNerd posted on their blog yesterday. One of the patterns involved a serpentine. Jedi does not get serpentines. I think it's probably time that I back that one up to square one and do my usual method of gradually making the pattern more shallow/flat. After playing with that for a bit I straightened the tunnel and pointed it at the table. We played with running really fast to the table, jumping on, and then having a party in the down position. Jedi needs more work at driving onto the table. We also did some teeter slams before ending for the night.
Tonight I took Jedi out for a walk by himself to test out the new head halter. I ordered it from Chewy.com on Wednesday (along with a bag of food that we'll eventually need, so that I could get free 2-day shipping) and we had it already this morning! I took Jedi out alone because I never do anything with the trialing dogs the day before a trial, and I figured it would give me a chance to better assess the head halter. I put it on Jedi several times in the house while getting it fit properly and he seemed completely oblivious to the contraption. Once it was time to go and I had a leash attached to it, though, he had a complete meltdown in the garage. So much bucking, and flinging, and thrashing, and pawing.... I finally grabbed him by the head to see what the heck was going on and he somehow had gotten a piece in his mouth. I got that fixed and off we went.
We dealt with dramatics for the first half a block or so. At one point he somehow got the thing off his nose. At least he was a good boy and stood like a rock while I got it fixed. After that he seemed to accept it and we didn't have any issues. He did start rolling his face around in the grass when we were stopped for me to clean up his poop (thanks for going on the sidewalk, Jedi...) but for the most part ignored it completely. As I said earlier, Jedi is generally pretty good for walks -- at least the few leash walks I've actually taken him on -- but he was perfect in the head halter. We just walked about a 3.5 mile circuit through the neighborhood, so I didn't test it around water or anything difficult yet. I figured it would be good to get Jedi used to it before testing it like that. We did see another dog on our walk and while Jedi acknowledged it, he kept his attention with me.
After one wearing I'm pretty much sold. We're at a trial this weekend and I don't know that we'll need it there, but I'll take it along just in case anything pops up. I plan to crate out of the van, though, so Jedi will just come inside for some socializing and play time. One of these days I'll put the halter to the test and take Jedi walking in the park again. I also figure I'll take him to class on Tuesday just to use it there, too. I really want to squash the reactive behavior before it escalates into anything more serious.
On Saturday the dogs and I drove down to Canine Sports Zone to play at their run-throughs. I love that they've started to hold these on Saturdays -- at least when I don't have anywhere else I need to be. I do find it a bit ridiculous that the money I pay to run all four dogs would cover the cost of an hour-long private ring rental, but it's nice to have other people/dogs there to give it more of a trial-like feel. While Jedi hasn't shown that he is going to have any issues with the trial environment, I figure it never hurts to give him the opportunity to get comfortable playing in the ring with other dogs around. Honestly, though, when you put Jedi in that situation he is just completely oblivious to all of that other stuff going on (which is a blessed change from what I went through with Kizzy).
Possibly thanks to my request, the folks at CSZ had set up the individual large dog agility course from the Agility World Championships. There was a novice course nested in it and one of these days I should probably start looking at those to give Jedi something more age/skill appropriate. Again, though, I didn't really have time to put together a plan for Jedi's turn and ended up just working him through some pieces of the course I was running my other dogs on. I figure we're not there to work on actual skills anyhow, we're just taking advantage of getting to play around equipment, on turf, around other dogs and people.
I got Jedi's first trip on video -- Nothing super exciting, but he had fun! A minute and a half is not long enough for the crazy puppy. Thankfully he was the last to go and then they opened the course up to walk-throughs again. I kept Jedi in the ring with me while I went around to help set bars, so he got to play in the ring a bit longer. Then we went out and played with a couple of wings that were in the crating area (also on turf). By the end of that Jedi's tongue was hanging way out (look how big that tongue is!!), so I think he was happy with the amount of play time he got. I didn't get his second session on video because he was the last dog to run and most people were gone. We were a little more organized on that round, still just breaking the course into the small bits that Jedi could do. I think he had lots of fun!
I hoped to get out on Sunday for another hike, but I ended up being disgustingly lazy. I finally got out and mowed the lawn before dinner. Jedi has no fear of the mower now and has joined the ranks of the other dogs as being one I need to make move out of the path of the mower as I come by. At one point he was laying next to the table and I chuckled because that's where he used to hide from the mower. I don't think he can fit under there anymore! Jedi was a bit loony from having done nothing all day, so after I was done mowing I dragged a few traffic cones out into the yard and ran him a bit. I threw in the tiny teeter, which Jedi does well with when hopping on from the side, but really overshoots when you add in any sort of speed. Stopping is hard!
Today I had to take my van over to Brenengen Ford for an alignment check after getting new tires put on. I took Jedi along and took him for a walk while they worked on the van. We walked down the main drag (Hwy 16) to the park. Jedi did well on the walk to the park but lost his ever-loving mind as soon as he saw water. Seriously, all leash manners went completely out the window and I couldn't get him to walk nicely for more than 2 seconds at a time, and they were stiff, halting steps before trying to take off for the river. I finally gave up and took off his leash. We found some sticks that were washed ashore by the recent flooding. Jedi enjoyed jumping in after them but lost them nearly every time. Apparently someone is used to brightly-colored bumpers.
After some swimming time I put Jedi back on leash to walk through the park. He continued to completely ignore me and fixate on the water. This continued as we headed back towards the dealership, until which point he couldn't see water anymore and then returned to his well-behaved angelic self. The van was ready when we got back, so Jedi just had to sit and wait patiently while I got everything paid for. Other than a couple of impatient barks when I wasn't engaging with/looking at him, he was really good. One nice thing about a dog who fixates on you waiting to play is that they are oblivious to those around them and don't try to do obnoxious things like jump on strangers. :o)
I really should have set something up and worked the dogs tonight, but instead I was lazy and we threw frisbees. I've been working with Jedi and he's starting to do better at catching low throws. I moved to throwing the disc in an effort to try to keep him from killing himself with face plants and somersaults that he does with balls and rollers. His catch rate is pretty low because he doesn't really track the disc yet. He generally overshoots it and has to come back to get it, but at least that's at a more moderate speed. When I manage to get the disc directly in front of his nose he shows he actually can grab it. In an effort to keep him from jumping I often throw it too low. We are a work in progress. He sure does love his frisbee, though. Agility, dock diving, frisbee.... So many things to choose from!
I was exceptionally lazy this summer. I used Jedi's arrival this spring as an excuse to stop walking the dogs -- because he was too little to go along at first and I didn't want to leave him home. Once you stop a habit it's hard to start it back up again. The cool fall weather is a reminder that winter is around the corner, and this always seems to start my weird backwards version of nesting. Only my "nesting" involves being outside and doing as many outside things as possible before the snow comes and we are stuck inside until March. I imagine I'll start feverishly setting courses/drills and training the older dogs on the agility equipment that we've ignored all year while I have played with Jedi, but right now we're hiking!
Today was our third day out in a row. The last two days we hit up different sections of the bike trail. The mosquitoes were just god-awful thanks to all of the rain we've had lately. The section we hit up yesterday also had some nasty, stanky standing water along the trail that it was hard to keep Jedi out of because, you know, water.... The day before we went over the river and I was able to send Jedi and Secret down from the bridge for a swim to make them happy. Today we went up to the Experimental Forest and there was no water until we were on our way back to the van and encountered the nastiest puddles ever. A couple were scum-covered and gross, but of course those are the ones the dogs gravitate to.
Jedi has had his moments with regard to his ability to listen off leash. For the most part he's doing very well, but the boy just loves to RUN. This means it doesn't take him very long to get a lot further ahead than I'd like him to, especially when we are on trails where we might encounter walkers/runners/bikers (the latter of which can come up pretty quickly if you aren't paying attention). I've been bringing along a full treat pouch and basically playing a ping-pong game with Jedi. I let him run way out yonder and then call him, then he comes running, gets a treat, and then I say "go-go-go" and send him back out to run again. He seems to think this is pretty fun and it also means he's going over twice as far as the actual distance we travel and getting in a lot of running. Jedi also thinks it's fun to jump up and grab his leash from around my neck and start a game of tug, and once he turns on to this it's hard to get him back in running mode -- although this usually starts up about 40/45 minutes into the walk.
The down side to all of the fun hiking is the stuff we bring home with us. I've only found a handful of ticks over the last few days, but we've found more than our fair share of various burrs and sticky things. I try to pull as many out on the trail as I can, but on the bike trail the mosquitoes didn't allow me to stand still long enough and today Jedi couldn't be bothered to hold still for more than five seconds at a time. He does pretty well at letting me pick or brush them out of his coat when we get home. I'm not going to lie, I would have loved a smooth coat for my next dog as I'm not really one for a big fluffy coat. Jedi's coat really isn't that bad, though, and the burrs come out pretty easily.
I don't think we'll be returning to the Forest this year. That's a bummer since I really like walking the field roads and letting the dogs run, but it appears to be hunting season already. There were about 8 trucks parked up there when we arrived tonight, which made me a bit nervous, but I decided to go out anyhow. We stuck to the corn for the majority of our walk (and even flushed out a turkey at one point, which I'm guessing is what they are hunting?) but hung a left to go down the other trail for a bit before heading back to the van. It wasn't long before I saw a hunter at the edge of the woods and he appeared to be gesturing at me -- more or less a "get the hell out of here" motion. I have no idea what the rules are with public lands that are open to hiking and hunting, but I don't think we'll risk it anymore. That's a shame, especially since there weren't any mosquitoes up there. That said, the trails were absolute crap and completely ungroomed. This picture here was an actual marked trail. Yeah....
In other news, my new shirt arrived this week! I saw it posted on Facebook a while back and couldn't pass it up. The Star Wars-inspired phrase works for Jedi and it's got a split face like Secret. :o)
Not surprisingly, having a foster dog in the house has been rather time-consuming and I have completely failed to update Jedi's blog for the last week and a half. That is not to say we haven't been doing anything -- while Link's presence added a bit of a challenge to various things, Jedi still requires a certain amount of daily activity and I made sure he got that. The amount of rain we've had over the last week didn't help at times, but we all survived. Yesterday Link left us to start the next chapter of his life, so things will start to return to normal around here.
Jedi did very well with our visitor, especially considering some of the behaviors that started to come out as Link settled into the pack. Much like Kizzy when she first arrived, Link has a bit of an issue with overstimulated/playful dogs. Jedi pretty much exudes this quality and I ended up having to do quite a bit of management because of this. One of our problem areas was the hose. Jedi gets very excited about the hose, and Link would use this as a time to come in with a "correction." He got Jedi in the back of the leg a couple of times -- Thankfully Jedi was a saint and completely ignored him. I managed this by keeping the dogs physically separated where the hose was involved. Link also started to have issues with Jedi's state of arousal while playing, so Jedi got solo sessions each day while I closed the gate to keep the other dogs out of the yard (or Secret got to play, too).
On Monday Jedi got to walk up to the vet clinic where we delivered Link for his dental appointment. Jedi thought the field trip was great fun and I always appreciate the opportunity to give him more positive experiences at the vet's office. I'm pretty sure he views the vet as a place to go to jump up on people (sigh...), play tug in the exam room, and sit on scales for treats. After we handed Link over I asked if I could stick Jedi on the scale before we left. He came in at 29.5 lbs. He was last weighed at the beginning of the month and registered at 29.2 lbs, so the growing is slowing down down. I also stuck him under the measuring arm at our trial this weekend and he was 19.5", so that's a 0.25" increase since our trial over Labor Day weekend.
On Tuesday Jedi got to come to class with me again. It had rained much of the day on Tuesday but had cleared up by late afternoon. I knew my plan was to get the classes outside, so I figured the walks would be good for Jedi. I took my crate screen downstairs with us and used that during class to ensure good behavior from Jedi (he dislikes it when class dogs stare at him, so I figured I'd just prevent that from happening). He was a good boy during the inside portions. I had the class dogs work on door manners on our way out and stuck Jedi in the corner while I pumped him with hot dogs to keep him from reacting to any of the dogs as they passed through -- it worked and he didn't notice/care about any of them. Our puppy group was small and we have bigger puppies this session so I initially let Jedi stay out to meet everyone. He got too rowdy for my liking with a lab puppy, though, so into his crate he went. He had been fine while doing on-leash greetings but was getting over-stimulated with the off-leash playing. Jedi was super for our walks outside with both groups and spent nearly the entire time at my side staring up at me while I occasionally fed him hot dogs and ignored him the rest of the time. As per usual, the moment I handed him over to a student to show her something with her dog, Jedi acted like an untrained heathen.
On Wednesday I set up an honest to goodness training session for Jedi. Bad Dog Agility was doing a series of live webcasts last week in preparation for the Agility World Championships. Each day they posted a short exercise that was based on a section of a course at a previous AWC and they would run it in numerous ways while comparing which option(s) worked best or were fastest. This looked super fun, so on Wednesday I took the exercise that they had done the day before and set it up in the yard for Jedi and I to play on. Using their suggestions pushed me out of my usual handling rut and forced me to work on a few things I haven't really done yet with Jedi. The one we struggled with the most was the blind wrap where I ask him to turn in my direction, go around the wing, and I pick him up on my other side. It quickly became evident to me that the cue I was giving him was clearly coming across as my tight switch wrap cue -- but only on the first jump of the sequence and not the second. So I'll need to look at my handling to figure out what I'm doing there. There is nothing more honest than a baby green dog! Other than that I thought he did pretty amazing. I would still like to set up the exercises from the other days that were posted.
Friday and Saturday were spent at an AKC trial at Camp Bandy. Originally I'd thought about staying at a hotel for this trial to avoid the 2 hour drive back and forth, but when Link arrived I decided the drive would be a better option than staying in a hotel with 5 dogs. It was a smaller trial so there wasn't a lot of time to putter around and get the non-running dogs out. I did manage to get Link and Jedi out for playtime in the back field each day, where I wore Jedi out by throwing his ball on a rope. I learned that I could mostly avoid catastrophe if I just threw it super high in the air because then he'd run out, circle around a bit, it would fall, and then he'd run to it without trying to kill himself. He did still manage a somersault of epic proportions on Saturday when I had a bad (low) throw, and we called it quits then because my insides immediately seized up in fear that I broke my dog (he's fine). I really wish this dog could play fetch without killing himself. On Saturday I took Jedi inside during T2B and played tug next to the ring while asking him to do tricks. He was blissfully oblivious to all that was going on around him.
Today we did something we haven't done in a while -- we went for a hike on the bike trail. I feel like we haven't been out hiking since our disastrous experience hiking up at Lake Wazee where we came home and I pulled more than 60 ticks off the dogs. I was a bit scarred by the experience, honestly, and have been completely avoiding all possible areas where we might encounter more ticks. The weather is cooling off now and this makes for nice walking weather, so I hope to start getting us out more again. It also occurred to me that I cannot recall the last time I had Jedi out and about where he had off-leash freedom. I figured today was as good a day as any to see where he's at in his listening skills.
We went to the section of trail that is a wide open straight stretch with not a lot of distractions (cows, roads, etc.). The weather wasn't super nice today, so we didn't end up running into anyone while we were out. Jedi is a LOT more independent now than he was on our previous trail walks, that's for sure. He used to stick pretty close and not venture off very far, although I do recall on our last trip that he was starting to follow Secret a bit more versus sticking closer to the Klee Kai (who are attached to me via flexi leashes). Today he was a man on a mission and just left us all in the dust, often traveling a good 10 yards or more out from Secret. The good news is that he often stops to check in with where we're at. He needs a little work on the speed of response to recalls, but he did come when called. Jedi ran straight over to the railroad tracks towards the beginning of the walk and started to run down them -- this is my absolute rule, that nobody goes near the tracks (Secret used to have an issue there) -- he recalled well and then stuck to the trail from there on out.
Thanks to all of the rain lately there was no shortage of water. Jedi pretty much was wet for the entire walk, capped off with a swim near our turnaround point where the water was deepest. I was happy for that, since just a bit earlier he'd gotten covered in mud... We were out for an hour and I think it was good for everyone. It's been a quiet night and best of all, I haven't seen any ticks yet.
Jedi turned 7 months old yesterday! I'm a day late in posting due to something else going on here right now, but more about that in a minute. On Tuesday I ended up taking Jedi to class with me. It was the second week of classes so I thought maybe he might come in handy for demoing stuff to the advanced group. I also felt bad because Tuesday is an office day and he'd already spent half the day in his crate. I figured even if he was crated at class, at least it was a different location with stuff going on. I spent some time before class working on Jedi's heeling skills, something we haven't touched since our Silvia Trkman class. We were still working when the advanced students started to arrive, so this was a good opportunity to work through distraction. Jedi reacted towards the pitty types in the class -- I corrected him and he was easily redirected, but that was naughty. He did well in his crate during class and came out to demo some tricks at the very end. I ended up putting him in the van for puppy class so he wouldn't be disruptive -- I'm sure the puppies would have been super exciting for him.
Jedi didn't get to do anything super exciting to celebrate this 7th month on this planet. I consider it a pretty great achievement that we've made it this long without him breaking (badly, at least). Knock wood... Jedi was the 3rd to wear the super special sparkly seven hat. It was originally purchased for Kaiser's 7th birthday, then Secret wore it last month, and now it signifies 7 months for Jedi. I suppose now I need to put it away for a couple of years until Kizzy turns 7! That thing gets around. As usual, Jedi was a champ about posing with crap on his head. He's such a good sport.
I knew that my evening was going to be devoted to other things, so I opted to take Jedi out for a play session at lunch time to wear him out a bit. It's been a while since I've taken video of one of our training sessions, so I set the camera on a fence post and recorded it. I really couldn't be more pleased of Jedi's progress. He has picked up some fairly complex skills so quickly -- honestly, I'm pretty sure he's got a better understanding of some cues than my "trained" dogs. :o) I tried to include as much of the stuff we've been working on in this session as I could remember. I'm so amazingly proud of his ability to leave his toy on the ground while he works -- and not even lose any speed! All it really took was that one session and he's been great about it ever since. Jedi is showing an amazing understanding of check-check and na-na, allowing me to get the backside from a bit of a distance. He has a great understanding of a backside push and can flip out around the wing. His ability to work and move away from me is phenomenal, at least with these simple pinwheel exercises. And the best part is that to Jedi this is all just play! He loves it so much.
My big plans for last night involved driving down to Madison to pick up a visitor. We have another Klee Kai in the house for a bit, which Jedi thinks is the best thing ever because, you know, he's a Klee Kai, too. They are his kin. Link is an older fellow, around 10 we've discovered, so he's not super into playing with Jedi, but they are doing well together. If anything, the new arrival is making Kaiser and Kizzy more playful and Jedi is benefiting from this. Kaiser was playing with Jedi right in front of me outside today! This is usually reserved for their secret one-on-one sessions when they are outside alone. Jedi was in heaven!
Jedi didn't get a play session today because I had a meeting immediately after getting home from work and then took Link to the vet this afternoon. We were outside for probably 4-5 hours this afternoon, though, so I figure it's all good. Link should be settled enough that tomorrow we can resume Jedi's normal schedule of playing while all of the other dogs mill around the yard. Due to our change in circumstances I'm going to guess that we will not be making it to Madison this weekend for the Pier Pups event. I'm really hoping we can get back up to Lake Wazee for a swim while the weather is warm enough. Maybe that's an option for this weekend? We'll see.
I've been slacking on the blog the last week! Apparently I never even updated after we went to Camp Bandy for an AKC trial last Sunday. I stuck Jedi on the table to measure him and he had sprung all the way up to 19.25". He's had quite a growth spurt in the last month. At the AKC trial we also wandered around and looked at the horses, sheep, and chickens, and Jedi got a chance to play on the warmup jump outside when nobody else needed to use it. He barked at a really fluffy Shepherd -- a reactive bark that I've never heard from him. Yesterday he barked at a Terv, so apparently Jedi is starting to have a thing for hyper-excited fluffy Shepherd breeds. Hmm.
Jedi continued to work on his agility skills this week, mostly because it's the main way I wear him out every day. Since I still don't feel like he can fetch without hurting himself, we have structured exercise in the form of sending around/through stuff in the yard. For the most part hoops, wings, and cones are in the yard with no real pattern and we just play. We go until Jedi starts including a dip in the pool as part of his victory laps. One night this week I made Jedi's day and brought out a tunnel. I put the puppy cannon in the middle of a circle of stuff, with cones on either end. We worked on sending, switching, tandem turns, tight turns out of the tunnel, and a tight rear cross pre-cue into the tunnel. I was pretty impressed at how quickly Jedi picked that one up!
This weekend we got to go play up at The Dog Tank for our second NADD trial. This one was a "normal" event and not a qualifier for nationals and it was a lot more laid back than the last trial. At the qualifier event the atmosphere was pretty charged and the dogs all fed off that (some in a good way, some not so much). There was none of that this time and that, coupled with some serious wind, likely affected Jedi's jumps a bit. He still managed to get all six of his qualifying scores in the Senior division, but we topped out at 17'6" as his longest jump on Saturday and 17'3" for his longest jump today. The rest of his qualifying jumps were in the 16's with one in the 15's yesterday. The picture here was posted on the Leerburg Facebook page to advertise the trial this weekend. I was like, hey! It's Jedi! I got video of most of Jedi's jumps, just missing the first wave each day.
Jedi did well in the van, but I largely opted to keep the door shut on him this weekend since it was cool enough to do so. There were a couple of times when I forgot to shut the door and quickly realized my mistake and went back to shut it, then he was fine. The format for this weekend was "go when ready," which was really a little unfortunate for Jedi. He doesn't do well waiting in line for his turn, it's a lot easier to walk up at the last minute. Today I brought his harness so that he at least wouldn't continue to gag himself. There was a lot, and I mean a lot of screaming while we waited our turns. Today during open dock time we went straight from the dock back into line (to wear Jedi out before going home) and I was able to keep him tugging on the bumper, but in general he cannot be redirected to the toy when he gets that frantic.
Jedi had a "quiet day" on Friday, with his only real activity of the day being a trip to PetSmart to go pick up more bumpers for the weekend (we ruined two more on our last trip to The Dog Tank and only had one whole one left). I think this actually made him way over the top for his first wave on Saturday (so much screaming), so last night when he wanted to play we went to town. The circle circuit was still up in the yard (minus the tunnel) and I just had him run and run until his little brain was happy and tired. What I learned is that Jedi doesn't need (nor perhaps benefit from) quiet days like my other dogs before events -- Even after a day of jumping and then running at home last night, he was still loonytoons today and ready to go.
I'm not sure when the pool will close for the winter -- I think we're still waiting to hear if there might be an option to move it inside somewhere for the cold months (wouldn't that be awesome?). Jedi is going to be sad if we have to wait until spring to start jumping again, although won't it be fun to see what happens with a bit more growing and muscle-building under his belt! Next Saturday Pier Pups will have their pool in Madison for their last event of the year. I don't currently have anything planned, but feel like we should stay home for a weekend after putting on over 400 miles this weekend. If the weather is nice we just may have to go, we'll see.
Jedi has been a busy boy since my last post last week. Speaking of, apparently head halters for dogs are a popular post topic because that blog post got almost 3x the normal amount of views. It did generate some discussion on my Facebook link, though, and any time people comment on my Facebook link to the blog it tends to make more people curious enough to click into the blog to see what I've rambled about on any given day. It may be that people were curious to learn more about the "reactive behaviors" that I alluded to in the link blurb. In case I wasn't clear about what we're going through, I do not classify Jedi as a reactive dog or a dog who has issues with other dogs. I do think he has some momentary arousal issues that thus far have been fleeting and minor. The head halter is simply to ensure that nothing progresses past the point where we are now by giving me a way to easily redirect his attention. I am probably more sensitive than most to this subject because Kizzy came to me with severe arousal reactivity towards various types of dogs, and places like agility trials were very hard for her. Poor Jedi is subject to being my next dog following Kizzy and as such I'm hypersensitive to all of the issues she came with at 20 months old.
Jedi had a great weekend at the trial. As planned, I was able to crate out of the van all weekend where I believe they all get a chance to relax a bit more (okay, again that is more directed at Kizzy). It also meant that I didn't need to do any fancy crate swapping since Jedi has now outgrown the 30" crate. The trial was large enough that I had a comfortable number of dogs between all of my runs which allowed Jedi a chance to get out quite a bit. On Saturday I had a lot of down time during FAST (missed the boat on worker sign-up, so no free lunch for me), so I brought Jedi in and we played lots of tug next to the ring. He also offered a lot of fun tricks -- "Wee wee" has made a reappearance again recently. Admittedly I haven't been doing a lot of shaping behaviors with Jedi lately, so it was fun to see him offer this. Between classes we went and played on the warm-up jump doing all sorts of fun one-jump stuff with the bar on the ground.
On Sunday I decided to take a Chuck-it along with us so that I could give Jedi a chance to run off some energy (he was kind of loony Saturday night after we got home). There is a huge open (groomed) lot across the street from Canine Sports Zone that the owners are kind enough to let dogs use during trials. I figured since I was able to throw the ball over 2x as far as my yard (which itself is pretty big) that Jedi would have more time to be thoughtful about his approach to the ball. It kind of worked. At least he didn't go topsy-turvy on any of his runs, but he did come back a little muddy from doing some of his superman slides. After he'd had a chance to run off some steam I took him inside to learn the art of "chilling" next to the ring while they ran T2B. There were a couple of dogs coming out of the ring that Jedi found a little too exciting, but he was easily and quickly redirected back to me. It didn't take long before he was flat out and totally relaxed while dogs were running in the ring, getting ready to go into the ring, and coming out of the ring right past him. Good boy, Jedi!
We've been playing with cones at home the last few days, but haven't done much else in the training department. I had to mow on Monday and cones were the quickest thing to set up to run Jedi before it got dark. You can do a lot with 3 cones set in a giant triangle -- they are spaced well apart to give Jedi more room to run, since honestly the only reason we really play those games is to give him that chance (to run). I put the pools away (again) before I mowed on Monday, but I continue to relent and get them back out for Jedi. It also helps to keep him out of the water bucket.
Last night Jedi got to come to class with me. It was graduation night for both groups. The Advanced class was doing CGC testing and I debated running Jedi through it, but meh. I mostly took him so that I'd have the chance to work him in the Halti around the other dogs before class. He was remarkably good! One of the class dogs started out by having a really rough night and was more reactive than I feel she has ever been. This put Jedi on hyper-alert the moment she came down the stairs. He had two "OMG what is that" moments there were ended in an instant due to the Halti not letting him whip his head around to fixate. After that he was golden. There were even two moments where I specifically saw him *make the decision* to keep his focus on me after a brief glance towards one of the dogs he has had some trouble with in the past. He was so good! Then Jedi got to play with the lab puppy from puppy class and the other trainer's young labs as well.
I had an all-day meeting at work again today, so Jedi got to go back to daycare today! Last time he went he had just turned 6 months and I was told that this is their cutoff for dogs who aren't altered, but was told that I might be able to get permission from the owner to let Jedi continue to go. I messaged her on Facebook last night and we got the all clear, so Jedi got to have a day of fun instead of being stuck in a crate all day. He didn't make any of the videos posted today, but they got a couple of photos of him that they put on the Facebook page. I laughed when I saw the top picture because it doesn't surprise me at all that Jedi managed to get himself wet even when it was in the 40s today. There was a 9 week old border collie puppy there for his first day of daycare today and in the photo they shared to welcome him Jedi was in hot pursuit, so they must have played for a bit. They seem to really like Jedi there, so hopefully he can continue to go as needed, despite not being neutered.
The other bonus to Jedi spending a day in daycare is that he comes home and we have a very quiet night. This is especially helpful on Wednesdays since I have both of my school seminars back-to-back. Normally I try to get the dogs out and walked or something before my first class starts, but tonight I actually felt like that would be mean to do to Jedi. Instead I ended up going on the treadmill (because I need to start moving if I'm going to run Jedi next year) and Jedi crashed next to me. Since I had to go into the basement to use the treadmill I ended up being inspired to have Jedi work for his dinner, which I haven't done in ages. We did some work on the donut, played with the cone (circling, wee-wee, hug) and did some pretty impressive hand-stands against the wall. That one must be latent learning because we definitely haven't touched on those skills in forever!
