Jedi's First Snowfall

Well look at that, it's been a month since I last posted to Jedi's blog. What a crazy, topsy-turvy month it has been. I didn't even post for Jedi's 9-month birthday, that's how nuts things have been (it got posted on Facebook at least). To update Jedi's stats, he got measured by an AKC VMO at a trial a couple weeks back and she pegged him at 19.5". I've been putting him at 20" or just a smidge under, but she worked on getting him to relax and stop standing on his toes and was able to get a lower measurement. I'm pretty sure his final measurement will be over 20" but under 21", so we're good. I walked Jedi up to the vet's office yesterday to go pick up a refill of one of Luke's prescriptions and he was 34.5 lbs. He's got good bone to him and a ton of muscle.

My last blog post was about our whirlwind trip to Tennessee. Our lives have been a bit upturned since then because -- Surprise! -- I put in an offer on my friend's place. Yes, in Tennessee. This meant that I needed to get my house on the market and sold, a thought that literally had not crossed my mind until maybe a week before that trip, so there was a lot of work to do. As you can imagine in a house with five dogs, there was a lot of cleaning to do. Lots of cleaning... And painting. And floor scrubbing. Then the carpets got cleaned and that was the end of using our living room. I put up x-pens to keep the dogs off the carpet, but I'm not going in there, either, because I would feel guilty leaving the dogs in the kitchen. So I sit in the kitchen with them.

We were blessed with a very moderate November, which is good because the dogs spent a lot of time locked outside. Every time I had a showing they would have to spend a bit of time outside while I finished up the last bits of getting the house ready, and then we'd all pack up and go hang out up at my parent's house. Let me tell you, Jedi has thought that part of all of this is pretty awesome. I think he's starting to view my parent's house as Disney World. Not only does he get to play with their dogs, but it is the house of tennis balls. Tennis balls everywhere! Jedi's eyes pretty much bug out of his head the moment we arrive and he goes nonstop until we leave. The plus side is that this typically results in him being pretty quiet when we get home.

I accepted an offer on the house only a week after it was listed. The home inspection is tomorrow and I have elected to continue our life behind bars until we are past that point. I am so looking forward to having our couch back and I'm sure the dogs are looking forward to getting off the hard kitchen floor. We have been spending quite a bit of time in the bedroom as well. This works out well with Jedi because he is pretty much the best bed dog ever and will sack out for hours in there. Sometimes he gets bored and drops things on me then offers tricks to get me to throw them back to him. Obviously this is too cute to ignore, so he always wins. His sit pretty is improving a lot through these games.

Not surprisingly, we haven't really been doing a lot of training during all of this madness. I have continued to work on Jedi's running dog walk and he has progressed up to running the plank propped up on the 12" table. I was able to remove the wings as guides to keep him down the middle, but if my throw is terrible he will still go off the side of the plank. Striding-wise, I think Jedi is doing great. He does best if I set him well off from the table to start so that he can get a running go at it. I feel this hopefully bodes well to his performance on the full obstacle. One bonus to moving to Tennessee is that I'll be buying a new dog walk and can actually work with Jedi this winter! I don't have any more dog walk videos to share, but I did video our training session the other day where we did a Happy Hurdle Day drill. Jedi hadn't done any agility stuff for some time before this, but he didn't forget anything.

We finally got snow here in Wisconsin. Considering we're now into December I suppose I don't have too much to complain about. I didn't figure I would be lucky enough to get through the move without it. Besides that, it was Jedi's first snow, so that made it more fun. He was pretty jazzed this morning, because what is not to love about wet stuff falling from the sky and creating piles that you can play with? He was pretty insistent that I come out to join him, so I finally relented and all of the frisbee-playing dogs got to play frisbee. This is pretty much the only game you can play in snow. It quickly became evident that Jedi did not understand the concept of snow covering objects, as it took next to nothing for him to lose his disc and I pretty much had to pick it up and show it to him every time he lost it. I think there was one time at the end when the light bulb must have gone on because he finally pounced on the disc in glee after finding it on his own.

As much as I am not a fan of snow, I do enjoy having the opportunity to go out on an untouched trail with no footprints before our own. I think this stems from my riding days and the feeling of getting to be the first to ride in a freshly-groomed arena. Maybe I just like to see where we've been. At any rate, I loaded up the dogs and we went to a section of the trail out in the middle of nowhere to help guarantee solitude (who knows if other people would have the same idea). Jedi loves absolutely everything about snow and finds no apparent downside to its existence. He had the time of his life running around on the trail during our hike. Well bud, in the future maybe you'll be lucky enough to have snow when we come home to visit.  ;o)

Assuming all goes as planned, we should close here at the end of the month and be in Tennessee at the beginning of January. Fingers crossed for a smooth ride.

Jedi's Grand Tennessee Adventure

Until recently, Jedi's longest road trip was when he came home from his breeder's house in Indianapolis. I think that trip took us between 8 and 9 hours, but he was wee and I'm sure has no real recollection of the day his life to that point went topsy-turvy. There have certainly been plenty of opportunities for Jedi to learn the art of traveling, though, with our many 2-3 hour trips to trials. This past weekend he proved what an absolute rock star he is by being a trooper and riding along for a whirlwind down-and-back trip to Tennessee. We left home at 6:30 a.m. on Friday and we got home at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday. Each trip took around 13 hours. That is a long time for a puppy to be good in the car, and Jedi did awesome.

We left bright and early Friday morning. Jedi was the only dog that I elected to take on this trip and the rest stayed home to hang out with my mom. I almost took Kizzy along as well but when I learned that the dogs would be staying at my house I figured my mom could handle her. I wasn't going to subject my mom to the crazy puppy, though, so he came along. My dad was driving his car, so this was Jedi's first experience riding outside of a crate in a vehicle. It occurred to me that it may have been his first time in any vehicle other than my van, as he wasn't sure how to get in the back seat at first. He figured it out quickly enough. It was dark when we left and Jedi slept for a while, but when the sun came up he seemed to enjoy taking in the world going by.

We made several stops on the way down, but they were all pretty fast and not much more than potty breaks. I am so thankful for Jedi's great ability to go to the bathroom literally anywhere and on a 6' leash, as I never had to worry about getting back on the road without having him relieve himself. He gained a fan club in Illinois when we met a couple who was absolutely enamored with him and had seen agility at the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge, so they were excited to meet someone who does that. Our drive was smooth sailing until we hit Nashville. I worried when we got stuck in traffic that Jedi would reach his limit and need to get out, but it was getting dark by then and he slept through it.

We arrived to my friend's house in Cookeville around 7:45 p.m. After spending all day in the car, Jedi appreciated the chance to stretch his legs and get in some running time as he was introduced to Colleen's dogs. Colleen has 6 border collies of her own, so Jedi fit right in! Jedi hit it off with Jet right away and they had lots of fun running and playing behind the house before we went inside. In the house Jedi got to know the other dogs better and did well with everyone, but he was high as a kite for a while and got a bit hump-happy, which I kept on top of and made sure to redirect him quickly. Colleen has two senior dogs that we had to be careful around since Jedi doesn't look where he's going, but Jedi really had a soft spot for Cody and tried to lick him like he does with Luke. We just had issues with Colleen's youngest (intact male) who isn't comfortable having strange dogs in his home, so we kept the two of them separated for the whole weekend. By the end we were able to have them together with one in a crate, so that was progress. Jedi also slept in his crate at night to make sure he didn't bother any of the resident dogs.

On Saturday Jedi had a jam-packed fun-filled day. We took Jedi and Jet out in the morning for a tour of the property. Jedi had loads of fun exploring, but as soon as we reached the creek that was all he cared about. It wasn't exactly warm that morning, but he didn't care. Much of the creek is wading depth, but there are spots with larger pools that allow for swimming. Jedi found them! I didn't even have a toy with me, he just took off and went swimming. I was able to convince him to come out when we went back to the house, but he would have happily stayed there all day. Jedi ran around a bit with the other dogs to dry off some, and then got to take a nap in his crate while the humans went on a driving tour of the area.

When we got back from lunch, Colleen and I packed up Jedi and Rain and went to one of the local parks not too far away. Our mission was to hike down to see a waterfall, which I thought sounded pretty cool. I stuck Jedi's head halter on him for a little more control, which I ended up being very thankful for because the trail was pretty rugged and I needed him to not plow ahead. There were also quite a few people (and dogs!), so he couldn't be off leash. He did really well navigating the crazy terrain as we climbed down the hill to the riverbed. It was hard on Jedi when we got to the bottom and he wasn't allowed to go straight into the river. He did slip out of his halter once and went out to have some fun, but after I tightened it that didn't happen again. When it was time to go back up the trail I switched over to Jedi's harness and let him haul my butt up the hill.

When we got back to the house we took Jedi, Rain, and Rose down to the creek for some swim time. I didn't have any water toys in Jedi's bag, so I just grabbed one of his balls on a rope so he'd have something to go after. That didn't work out so well because, FYI, things with holes don't float well. Jedi got to fetch it five or six times before it stopped staying on the top of the water, so I took it away before we lost it and made Jedi just play with the girls. After swimming we took them into the big fenced field and let them run. Jedi was in heaven having so much room to stretch out and having dogs that ran his speed. I got some of it on video but they'd been going for a while already at that point! Jedi and Rose had lots of fun together (Rain tolerated the annoying puppy).

After having such an exciting and fun-filled day, Jedi was pretty tired. He finally was able to relax and chill inside the house with all of his new buddies. Because he was just sleeping anyhow, I figured he could go hang in his crate for a bit to let Blue be out and about. This was fine until Jedi just stood up and, unannounced, just started peeing out all of the creek water he'd consumed earlier. That's the second time this has happened (the first being on the way home from dock diving). I wish he'd indicate that he needs to go out or something, but I think it only happens when he's really tired and might half be doing it in his sleep or something.

Sunday brought a time change, which we took advantage of to get on the road a bit earlier. We were able to leave a little before 6:00. I think all of Saturday's fun carried over and Jedi slept pretty hard on the way home. The only time he was restless was after I gave him a chewie and I think he was thirsty. At one of our stops in Indiana there was a big grassy area, so I spent a little time throwing a ball for Jedi while my dad gassed up the car. After that he was pretty much out for the rest of the trip home. We pushed a little harder and probably made one fewer stop on the way home, but Jedi didn't have any problem with it. We got home around 7:00 p.m. and Jedi was happy to see all of the other dogs.

Will we be making any more trips down to Tennessee? Time will tell!

Happy Halloween

I didn't buy Jedi a Halloween costume, so I just dug through the cupboard to see what crap I could put on him for a picture -- because you can't have a Halloween cover photo without dressing up, right? Normally this is a night where I hide in the house with the curtains pulled and all of the lights off until it's deemed "safe" from trick-or-treaters. This year was different, though, because I figured it would be a prime socialization opportunity for Jedi. So, after running around for a bit in the yard to take the edge off, I set off around the neighborhood with Jedi and Kizzy. It was interesting to see where the hots spots are (that would be my street) and also how many houses stayed dark -- I always assumed mine was the only one. The dogs did great with all of the (strange-looking) people and kids running around screaming. We didn't see any dogs out until the very end and that got exciting, but by the fourth encounter Jedi barely reacted (Kizzy is a horrible instigator -- great with people on walks, bad with dogs). We did our usual 3-mile loop and it was nice to be out enjoying the night instead of hiding in the house.

We spent the weekend at an outdoor NADAC trial in Zumbro Falls, MN. It was a small trial and I was pretty much working every class that I wasn't running, so Jedi spent a lot of time each day in the van (with the doors closed, because he's picking up Secret's barking). When he got to come out he was high as a kite. I think he sensed immediately that there was a river next to the park and his main objective was to get to the water every single time he left the van. Occasionally he saw agility in the ring and got excited, but he definitely wanted the water more. Before we left on Saturday I took him down to the water and let him swim. It was only 56 degrees outside, but he didn't care. He got to come play tug next to the ring a few times and show off some of his tricks, too. Jedi was fine by the ring and totally focused on his toy. Boy would I have loved to give him a shot on the tunnelers course! It would blow his mind.

Because we got home so early each day from the small trial, I still needed to do something to wear Jedi out. For some silly reason -- perhaps because Daisy Peel just re-posted her videos of Solar's running dog walk training -- I decided to see what would happen if I asked Jedi to run across a flat plank. My dog walk bit the dust this year and officially rotted through. The top plank is to the point where I stopped even letting the little dogs go across, but I've still used the down sides for some target work for Jedi. One of those is rotted on the end, but the other one is in okay/usable shape -- at least for this plank work that I'm doing now -- so that's what I'm using. The rest of it needs to get burned or something.

I have no real plan here. I'm not 100% committed to this (and don't think I can be until I have a new dog walk on which to practice). If plank work goes well and I decide I want to move forward with this, I'll probably enroll in Silvia Trkman's online running contact class. I enjoyed our puppy class, so it would be worth a shot -- but I need a dog walk first. And no snow, of course. At any rate, I think things are going pretty well. The first session on Saturday was mostly about getting Jedi to figure out that staying on the plank was the place to be. I stuck a couple of cones on either side of the end. On Sunday I swapped them out with stick-in weave poles. Since Saturday and Sunday went so well, I decided to video our session today. Things started out rough with several leaps and then he settled back into his pattern. I'm using a clicker to mark hits and vocally marking the super good hits while throwing a big party (which he largely does for himself with his victory laps).

Before we went on our trick-or-treat walk I took Jedi out for one more session. With my confidence boosted by our third good session (but first time removing the guides) I pulled the table platform out and propped the board up on that (just the table top, no legs, so about 4"). Jedi did fine going down the plank from the table, but when I backed him up for a running start at it he often skirted around. One thing I'll give this dog, he has a very clear understanding of reward/non-reward markers. He will stop from a dead run on an "uh-uh" and leave his toy instead of self-rewarding. It's kind of weird really. When that happened we reset and he'd get it the next time. I think he either needs to go back to more flat work or I need to introduce guides with the table setup to complete the picture for him. More than anything I just want him to be successful at this stage of the game. Because -- FUN!

Jedi's 1st Herding Lesson (Sheep)

As I alluded to yesterday, Jedi had big plans for today. He got to go play with sheep! There is a local person who has the setup and wants to learn more about herding with her dogs. To do so she is bringing in an instructor from out of the area (since we don't really have anyone around here who does this). They've had two weekends of clinics so far. The first one was on a dock diving weekend so we couldn't make it. The second one was this weekend when we were in Oshkosh. When I learned that the clinician would be available for private lessons before flying out today I jumped at the chance to let Jedi give it a try.

We went over during my lunch hour and met our instructor, Ellen Schwab. I don't know a darn thing about herding, but she seemed to know her stuff and was good at explaining things to a total newbie. Because this was Jedi's first exposure to sheep, I was expecting (and would have been perfectly fine) to hand him over to this person and let them go to work. I don't know a darn thing about herding and figured I'd just get in the way. I figured out pretty quickly that this wasn't going to be how things worked, though, when she opened up with, "it's the humans we need to train." My first concern was regarding who would video (lol...), but thankfully the owner was there and was kind enough to grab a few clips for me.

My agility-ness gets in the way. I am far too comfortable being on the same side of my dog (sheep should always be between me and the dog) and in herding terms I "nag" and don't take the pressure off enough. You know, that's probably a lesson one could take away for agility, too. Should I really be "nagging" my dog to stay out on their line or should I expect him to stay there until told otherwise? I suppose that's how the mega-distance in NADAC works, but I digress... The instructor was great at giving me feedback to tell me to stop pushing, and when I needed to step in to move Jedi out on his circle.

I feel like we made good progress on the whole circling/gathering business, which I suppose is good for one's first session. I continually tripped over my own feet (and the sheep) when attempting to do anything that resembled a straight line across the pen. The little buggers knocked me down once as I was attempting this, and Jedi swooped in and said, "I got this" -- only really, he didn't, and he just scattered the sheep again. That's pretty much how it went. If I had half a clue what I was doing he did great. If I lost my sheep he tried to take control, which generally meant diving through them. He got a little vocal when he went for these dives, but he wasn't nasty to the sheep or a grabber. Good deal, I don't have to "buy" any sheep.

Jedi's turn was a bit over a half hour and he was done at the end of it. I think he would have continued to move the sheep if allowed, but he reached the point where when I took him away to talk to the instructor he just camped out on the ground and stretched out in an effort to find cool ground (poor Jedi, there was no pool or other water source in which to wallow). The instructor pointed out, though, that he never stopped "working" and continued to drill his laser eyes into the sheep because they kept moving around behind us. Overall he listened so well. We worked on a lot of stopping where I'd ask him to stop and sit, then touch him, then release him to work again. He was really good about that, but if the sheep started moving again the stopping was done.

It was a lot for me to take in, but I enjoyed it and I believe Jedi did as well. Because winter is coming, this is the last time they plan on having anything this year, so now we have to wait until spring to do it again. Hopefully it fits in with our schedule and we can participate in the full weekend. This will allow Jedi more time to settle into the work. The instructor really liked him and said he's a really nice dog. I just think it's fun to watch them do what they were bred to do. I imagine he would have done ever so much better with a more competent handler.

Training, Trial & Hotel Stay

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)

8 months old! (32.5 lbs, 20"? tall)

Jedi has survived another month on this planet! In the blink of an eye, he is now eight months old. Gone is the wee, tiny ball of fluff. One can't be too disappointed in that, though, considering the incredibly handsome dog that Jedi is turning into as he grows up. To commemorate the day we went for a walk up to the vet clinic at lunch time to borrow their scale. I put Jedi's head halter on for the walk (just because) and he was a perfect gentleman. I made him get on the scale twice because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. He jumped up to 32.5 lbs over the last few weeks -- that's nearly 3 pounds! I did up his food a couple of weeks ago so that probably plays a little part, but he seems to have hit another growth spurt. I shimmied him up against the fridge to mark his height today and best I can figure he's about 20". I got 19" under the measuring arm at the trial this past weekend, but I figured the wicket was off because the last time I measured he was 19.5".

Jedi is so good for an eight-month old. His recall on our hikes is brilliant, although we haven't really been tested by anything too challenging thus far (I don't take them anywhere I would ever consider it risky to be off leash). He has amazing focus and the best "work ethic" I think I've ever experienced in a dog. Best of all, he just wants to play ALL OF THE TIME, which is exactly what I hoped for in my next dog, so we are having a blast. Despite his never ending lack of energy, Jedi is a great house dog and doesn't get into things. He comes and drops toys on my computer when he gets bored, but is generally good at self-entertaining (or coercing one of the others to go outside to play with him). He's so good in the house that I've already started to leave him loose in the house for short periods when I leave (not quite up to leaving him for the half-days that I go to the office yet, he is still crated for that).

The last two days have been filled with hiking and taking advantage of the lovely fall weather. Yesterday we drove out to the trail point between Bangor and Rockland, then tonight we drove to West Salem and went towards Bangor. We were out just over an hour on both trips, which is more or less enough to take the edge off Jedi. Right now everyone else is crashed and Jedi is still at it, going in and out the dog door and randomly dropping toys on the computer again.  :o) Neither of our hikes involved swimming, so I'm sure that was a bummer for Jedi. This weekend is supposed to be around 70, maybe we can make it up to Lake Wazee at some point for a swim. The Dog Tank officially closed for the year last weekend. Bummer.

We're home this weekend, so with any luck we'll get in some play time and some more hiking. Next weekend Jedi gets to spend another night in a hotel when we go to Oshkosh. I think that's only his second time? I'll try to get him under their measuring arm to get something more official than pinning him against the wall.

Bangor - Rockland Trail

We found a bench to sit on!

Klee Kai bookends

8 months - Left profile

8 months - Right profile

8 months - Top view

West Salem - Bangor Trail

This trail is next to big open fields - Fun!

Found another bench  :o)