Day 52 - Vet Appointment & Agility Class (week 2)

Sadly, my back did not improve overnight. If anything it got worse, and I struggled to even let Jedi out of his crate this morning. Bless him for being so patient! Breakfast was pretty low key -- We just hung out in the living room and did the pee trick again. I tried to get Jedi to use his left hind leg for a change and he just got frustrated. He's got the right leg down pat with some impressive lift now, though.

I ended up staying home today because I couldn't manage to get myself dressed in time to leave early enough to make my 8:30 meeting. That meant that I had to do my team meeting via Google hangout during the dogs' most active time of the day -- Jedi made one appearance when he jumped up on the couch behind me because the other dogs were barking at something. I'm glad he didn't pull one of his lovely run across the keyboard maneuvers that are becoming his signature lately.

I managed to get a massage appointment booked for noon, but it was too hot out to take any dogs along for the ride. I got home at 2:00 and Jedi had his vet appointment at 2:15, so lunch was going to have to wait. We walked over to the vet clinic and Jedi was a good boy walking through the neighborhood. If anything he was pokey and complaining that it was too hot.

Jedi weighed in at 18.3lbs at his appointment today -- I thought for sure he was going to hit 20lbs at this appointment, so I was happily surprised that he isn't as gargantuan as I thought. I had the backpack full of toys along, so we passed time in the room playing with various toys. We just had a tech appointment for Jedi's Lyme booster today, so it was a pretty quick in and out once the tech came in. He didn't much care for the Lyme vaccine the first time, but this time it was a non-ordeal. I hit Jedi up with aspirin just in case we encountered any soreness like last time, but I haven't noticed anything this time.

A dog came into the clinic while we were checking out that Jedi didn't seem to care for much. He started barking and didn't much feel like stopping, even after I took him around the corner of the counter. I pulled a toy out of the bag and he was easily redirected at that point.

Jedi finally got to eat lunch once we got home a little before 3:00. I tried to go outside to work on the hold trick, but we were chased inside by rain so I brought the pole inside and we worked on it there.

I really waffled on whether we should go to class tonight. Between my back and the way Jedi reacted to the last Lyme vaccine I didn't know if there was much point. I'm pretty stubborn, though (some might say stupid), and when 4:00 rolled around I decided to give it a go. I won't lie, there were several points on the drive where I came close to turning around to come home (I didn't sleep well last night and that didn't help things much, either). I pushed on, though, and I'm glad I did because we had a fun night!

We started the class by going around for a little refresher on the names of everyone's dogs and how they got their name. I kept Jedi occupied by having him target the lid of his food dish. Then we did a group exercise where everyone worked on stay/wait (glad I practiced) and releasing to a release word without any motion. I'm not sure if I've ever really done that (no motion) with Jedi, but he didn't have any trouble releasing on "okay" alone. He did have a terrible time with a sit-stay, though, because all he would offer was the pee trick. I was using a toy through this exercise so he was pretty amped up and cheated a bit on some of his stays. Homework, I guess, especially with toys.

Next everyone was introduced to restrained retrieves. I think 3/4 of the class brought squeaky toys tonight and it was during this portion of the night that every single one of them decided to start squeaking their toys. Jedi got to demonstrate again, which he was more than happy to do. We didn't continue to do this exercise with all of the mad squeaking going on, though, because Jedi was starting to lose his mind a bit. Instead we just focused on being able to tug among all of the squeaking (I'm telling you, there was a lot of squeaking). Jedi did awesome. Last week he really struggled to work through that.

When we split up our group started with plank work. Everyone was introduced to two on/two off, which Jedi was happy to demonstrate. I again used a toy through this exercise to proof Jedi's bottom. He did pretty well, but he missed several in his excitement. We also took a turn on the plank that was raised on a couple of milk jugs to get the dogs used to walking on something above the ground. Yup, no fear, although the little goober did let his attention slide and slipped off the edge a couple of times.

On the other side we were introduced to the chute. Our group of 3 did well and the fabric was quickly let out. After a few passes through the full (AKC) length being dropped on him I said he would probably be fine going through on his own -- he was. He's already pulling like a freight train to get into the chute and tunnel.

When we switched sides again they wanted us to shape going through the jump standard. I would call it Linda Mecklenberg's one-jump exercise minus any bars. The only problem Jedi had with this was that he was offering other behaviors (like the pee trick, again) on the jump, so he went over it sideways more often than not.

For our last rotation we did restrained recalls through the tunnel -- and they started to add the slightest curve to the tunnel (so slight that I was like, is that supposed to be like that?). Hooray for restrained recalls! Jedi is a fruit loop. That said, he wasn't screaming or doing anything to bring attention to himself, but for some reason almost every dog in the class was fixated on him tonight. Three different dogs left their handlers to run to Jedi tonight. He completely ignored all of them because he was just fixated on his toy. I can't get too upset when this happens -- Jedi did manage to get away from me once tonight when he heard one of those squeakers and I didn't have him in working mode. Last week I said I should bring my tug with a squeaker in it (I forgot), but now I'm almost determined to get through this without a stupid squeaker.

Jedi was pretty pooped by the end of class because he'd been going nonstop for the entire hour again. It didn't stop him from wanting to play more, though, and trying to drag me onto the turf for more play time. Once in the van he had a bit of an overtired toddler moment where he fussed a bit, but he soon crashed for the rest of the drive home.

I'd gone through almost all of Jedi's food in class tonight, so he got a little extra while the other dogs ate their late dinner. We just played with the pole grab, although Jedi started out just certain that I wanted him to do the pee trick again. He's a little obsessed with that one at the moment.

Day 51 - Amundson Park (swimming!)

Happy Memorial Day! I was beat this morning from our trial weekend, but 6:00 rolled around and Jedi was ready to go. We tried something new -- I got up to let the dogs outside, and then we went back to bed, but this time Jedi got to come up on the bed instead of going back into the crate. I'd call it a success because we got in another hour and a half of sleep before they started to move around. I didn't actually get out of bed until almost 8:30. I haven't decided when I'll start moving Jedi out of the crate at night (he likes his crate) -- but one thing I definitely noted was how much more crowded the bed is with all five dogs in it!

For breakfast this morning we went outside and did pivots to the leg. We continue to try to move off the target. I found I had better success if I moved completely away from the target, but Jedi is largely stuck to my left side at this time. He continues to offer backing in a circle around me. This morning he gave me four nice tight backwards circles! I'm not calling it anything, but I do click and reward when he does it.

I left the dogs for a bit this morning to go to a family thing. When I got home I was thinking a nap would be nice, but Jedi immediately went to the garage door and let me know that he wanted to play. Rather than just throw stuff for him, I decided to drag out a tunnel and the chute (yup, cheating for class tomorrow). This is the first time I've brought out either of these for Jedi at home.

I just set the tunnel in a straight line -- I'm not going to worry about adding curves until he figures out that the name of the game is to drive as fast as you can through the tunnel. I made sure to get entries from both sides and both ends. I also was able to chain in a send around the cone before the tunnel!

For the chute introduction I folded the fabric very short, but there was still enough of it that it was collapsed. I honestly thought that if I did a collar grab in front of the chute Jedi would just go through it. He started to, in that he entered the chute tunnel, but he stopped dead when he hit the fabric portion. Okay, I guess we do need to make it shorter. I folded it up even more so that you could see through the tunnel and then Jedi went through with no problems. As he went through it the fabric started to let out a bit so that he was eventually pushing through a little. Overall I think it was a great introduction to the obstacle. We'll see what they have in store for us in class tomorrow.

It was a hot day today and Jedi's tongue was hanging out pretty far after all of this tunnel fun, so I went ahead and filled up a pool for him. Secret was busy eating the tennis ball (....) so Jedi got all of the pool/hose fun to himself today (minus sharing it with Luke who just used it as his big water dish). When I first started filling the pool Jedi just went all frog-dog in the water and soaked it in. Once he had cooled off a bit he was back to playing with the hose.

I tweaked my back a bit (or rather, I think all of my sore muscles from the weekend just seized up on me) during play time, so we went back inside and took it easy the rest of the afternoon. The dogs were happy to hang out in the house and relax in front of the fan. Sometime after 3:00 I realized that I forgot to give Jedi his lunch again. He can probably go down to two meals a day any time here, but I had 16 weeks in my head so we'll see. Jedi got a late lunch that was pretty much just doing the pee trick against the window benches in the house.

For our outing of the day I decided to keep it local -- We've done enough driving lately! Since Secret was left home all weekend, obviously she won the outing lottery today. And finally, since we had Secret along and it was hot out, today was the perfect day to go swimming! Amundson Park is within walking distance (less than a mile) from home, so I threw a couple of bumpers into Jedi's backpack and off we went.

We had an uneventful walk over to the park. There were several vehicles parked down in the park, but there were no people around the playground equipment so we went over to check that out first. Jedi went down the little slide on his own several times!

As we made our way down to the river we saw a couple of people pulling canoes out of the river, and then we ran into a family playing frisbee golf (Jedi noticed the frisbees more than the people). As we approached the little beach at the end of the trail I saw a dog up at the corner. I opted to assume it was under control and continued forward, and we soon learned that the dog (a Shar Pei) was on leash, but the leash (flexi) was being dragged. I had to call out several times before one of the owners came running to attempt to retrieve the dog (who, upon seeing the owner, proceeded past us to try to avoid getting caught).

It was hot and the dogs wanted to play, so we continued to the sandy area. I hooked the long line onto Jedi for safety and as soon as he was released he went plunging into the river towards the two people in the water. And with that he continued to be a little fish the entire time we were there. Apparently the water just needed to warm up a bit for Jedi's gills to grow in.  ;o) He fetched the bumper numerous times at a distance that required a good swim. Thankfully, much like Secret, Jedi also managed to completely ignore the other dog when there was water/toys involved. There was one time when the owner started to let the flexi leash out and the dog snarled as she got closer to Jedi. He was oblivious, but I pointed out to the owner that this was not a friendly greeting and she pulled the dog back close to her.

We didn't stay a terribly long time because that other dog was pretty much having a fit and the owner was holding on to her collar the entire time. Jedi made it very clear that he was not ready to leave yet, because when I put the bumpers into the backpack he went tearing off back into the river and swam over to the people again. I had to haul him out with the long line and he literally screamed in protest. Once I got his leash back on him I had to drag him down the trail away from the water. Every time he saw the river as we walked back he tried to pull his way over. I let him go in again at the canoe landing because I wanted to check things out -- This used to be a jumping spot for Secret, but the development they did for the canoes ruined that. Jedi immediately went to the end of the leash and started swimming in place, trying to go out further, before I eventually had to pull him back to shore. I may have created a monster.

For dinner we did more pee trick against the window seats (my back is not up for the slight amount of bending that pivots require). Since then Jedi and Secret have been playing pretty much nonstop, so I guess their little trip was bonding for them and they are back to playing again.

Day 50 - Day 2 of NADAC trial (15 weeks old!)

We are halfway there! To clarify, when I brought Jedi home I had a somewhat "soft" goal of giving him 100 new experiences over the first 100 days. It's one of those things you toss out there because it's a nice round number and it sounds good. Looking back at how much we've done over the last 50 days brings a new realization to how big of a number 100 is!! Thankfully the weather has blessed us and we only had that one day that rain chased us indoors to visit PetSmart -- Outdoor experiences are much easier to come by. It's a bit daunting to think that we're *only* halfway there.

Thankfully days/weekends like this one are "freebies" in that I don't have to put any thought or effort into planning our schedule. Agility trials are a most wonderful socialization opportunity for puppies, as they are filled with dog-savvy people and well-behaved dogs. I'm thankful for everyone who took the time to meet Jedi this weekend, and for the dogs he got to say hello to as well!

We were up bright and early this morning. Jedi and I went outside to work for his breakfast. We did more pivots to the leg (from the small plate) and then we worked on our wait/stay behavior. Jedi is doing really well with this, using both food and toys. Better with food.  :o)

Everyone did great on the trip to Rochester. I decided to bring Kizzy along today because, well, I enjoy running her. This definitely affected how much free time I had to devote to Jedi today, and the schedule also made it less convenient for him to be inside. As a result, and because the weather was quite lovely today, Jedi spent much of his day in the van with regular trips out to potty/play. He had a few opportunities to practice hanging out inside when I had bigger lulls between runs.

I had enough time to play with Jedi before the first class of the day, so I took him into the arena and we played with the hol-ee roller for a while. There was a barrel set up in the open space, so I decided to see what would happen if I asked Jedi for a send around it. So far I've only asked him to go around a large traffic cone, which I figured is different because he can see me the entire time. He went around the barrel the first time I asked him -- Wow! We continued to play with sends in both directions around the barrel and Jedi rocked it. Additionally, while he typically goes pretty wide around the traffic cones, he had nice tight turns around the barrel (obviously the barrel is bigger and that might be part of it). We probably got in about 10 minutes of running before I had to go walk my course.

One of the times that Jedi came in I had him sit next to me while I scribed the class. There was a solid partition between the scribe table and the ring, so I figured we were safe from him getting too over-stimulated about anything. Additionally, someone came and sat on the floor next to Jedi and kept him entertained throughout the class. She must not have been playing enough for his liking, so he started throwing behaviors at her like backing up onto things and waving at her. It's nice to see that he'll offer these things to other people!

For lunch we did more leg pivots. Jedi is making progress at moving away from the target if he's not thinking about it. Every now and then he gets a bit stuck, though, and we have to go back to restart. We worked more stay/waits at the trial today, too, mostly with the toy.

Back at home, for dinner tonight I was looking for something quick and easy (because I'm exhausted) so we went out to play on the table. I thought we'd work on some table downs, but Jedi started offering the pee trick as he reached for the table, so we went with that.

Other than that it's the usual insanity around here tonight. At first Kizzy wanted Jedi to leave her alone because she was tired. She's recovered, I guess, because she's been playing with him now. Secret jumps in now and then. I thought she would have been more active tonight since she was left home today. I've noticed that Secret has not been playing with Jedi as much lately -- Kizzy has been hogging him again.

Day 49 - NADAC Trial (Rochester)

Today Jedi went to his third agility trial. The first two were AKC trials at the same location (Camp Bandy) and we were done before noon (the Masters classes, at least). A NADAC trial is a bit different beast, taking up much of the day and involving a lot of in/out/in/out. Additionally, partly because of the weather and partly because of Luke, I was opting to crate inside at the trial today. So, lots of new stuff for Jedi to take in!

We got up at 5:30, which isn't too bad for driving over the morning of a trial. I spent the majority of Jedi's breakfast on pivoting to the leg. He's still pretty stuck on the target, especially on my left, so I'm putting a little extra effort into getting us over this hump. We finished up the last bit of food with putting stuff into the bowl. The super fun part of all of this was the discovery of ants crawling all over my training mats. Teeny tiny ants. Great. I put Jedi upstairs when we were done and sprayed the heck out of the edges of the room/windows with bug killer. Hopefully that does something, but we might be avoiding the basement for a few days while that dissipates.

We got on the road at 6:30 and it was a pretty quiet ride. Jedi was pretty patient as I made several trips back and forth to get things set up inside. I took Luke and Kaiser in first and debated just letting Jedi wait in the van until after our first run, but I ended up having time to run out to get him and let him go potty.

I got Jedi set up in his crate (we were way back behind the arena almost by ourselves, so it was pretty secluded) and took Kaiser out for his run. I heard some barking while I had Kaiser out, but it wasn't too bad. When we came back, though, Jedi was screaming bloody murder and would NOT stop. I was waiting him out, needing a quiet moment before I opened the door, when someone poked their head around and said the judge was saying it needed to stop. I'm like really, I'm supposed to reward this behavior? Thankfully the appearance of this person stopped Jedi momentarily and I was able to get him out.

After I took all of the dogs outside again I put Luke and Kaiser in the x-pen and took Jedi into the arena for some play time. With that little crate display, I figured he needed to run some ya-yas out. I attached the long line to him for safety, just in case he suddenly noticed the other dogs. There was no need to worry about that, he was completely fixated on playing. We did lots of restrained fetching and racing with the holee roller, and then spent a good bit of time just tugging and asking for tricks with the fuzzy ring. We did this through the Open class, since I didn't have to work until Novice. I took Jedi outside again before putting him in his crate. He barked as I walked away, but then remained quiet.

Because of our experience after Kaiser's first run, I opted to put Jedi in the van for each subsequent run of the day. He still got plenty of indoor time because I retrieved him after each run -- and he pretty much barked every time I left but then quieted down. The good news is that he only got so excited that he screamed one more time when I returned. After that he just wiggled but was able to contain his vocal excitement.

I was able to feed Jedi his lunch during a course building break (so I could use his clicker). I took him into the arena and we worked on pivoting with the food lid. He did really well and wasn't distracted at all. He continues to improve on both sides. If I don't respond when he's on my left he will start to back in a circle around me. I clicked for that, mostly because that's a trick I have no idea how to teach so if he's going to offer it I'm going to take it.

Once he finished eating we sat down to play tug and do some "set point" jumping over my legs. After that a friend brought her dog over to say hello. She was curious at first, but then I think she thought Jedi was weird and that was the end of that. Jedi also got to meet a sheltie puppy today who is less than a week older than him (born 2/9 vs his 2/14). This was one big sheltie puppy, as he was considerably bigger than Jedi! I don't think Jedi is going to be a small border collie, so I'm thinking that's going to be an oversized sheltie. They were pretty cute together -- Unfortunately we were both running or working most of the day so they didn't get a lot of play time together.

We didn't leave the show until about 4:30, and they weren't done running yet. Our ride home wasn't as quiet as usual, because Jedi dropped what was left of his pig ear in the water dish and got it lodged in there. He probably spent about a half hour trying to get it out before he finally succeeded. Once he finished up that piece he started gnawing on the water dish/crate bars again. I nearly slammed my brakes on the interstate when he started screaming. He got his teeth stuck on the crate bars, I think. Before I could pull off the road, though, he freed himself. I had to stop for gas about a half hour from home and after that he finally crashed.

Kizzy stayed home today, so since we got home she and Jedi have pretty much been going bonkers together. The only break was when we had dinner -- I took Jedi outside where he started offering pivoting on the upturned bucket I had out there, and then we spent the last of his dinner doing some slams. A bit ago I heard him making very strange sounds and went out to find him playing in the water bucket. I dumped the pools out (and didn't refill them) tonight, so I guess that's what I get.

Day 48 - Brenengen Chevrolet Sparta

It's a work from home Friday! My favorite day of the week. It's a good thing that work was pretty quiet this morning, because Jedi was a bit nuts. For his breakfast training session we pretty much spent the entire session on the behavior of holding the jump bar. He's doing well with figuring out the grasping behavior with one paw and he often tries to do both paws (he's still not strong enough to hold himself up for any length of time in the pretty position). Interestingly enough he's been more dominant with his right paw with this behavior.

Around mid-morning I finally gave up and took Jedi outside to chase a ball. It was either that or keep having him walk over the top of my computer. This made him extremely happy and things stayed pretty quiet until lunch. A note about this picture -- Jedi is becoming a mountain goat. Today he assumed Kizzy's position on top of the couch behind my head (thankfully she wasn't there first so she didn't care). He has scaled the couch a few times, and he's jumped onto my bed two or three times now. He's figuring out how to operate all four legs together, I guess.

I kept up the ritual of nail-trim Friday for our lunch training session. Jedi was well-rested from his nap, so he was on the squirrely side today. He was fine about his feet being handled and the nails being clipped -- he was just hyper-focused on the food dish in front of him and not terribly patient about waiting for me to deliver it to him. He did well waiting his turn while the other dogs got their nails done, though (I toss pieces of food at him occasionally to reward his patience).

After lunch we tossed/rolled some frisbees to wear Jedi out for the afternoon. The pools weren't terrible today and it wasn't as hot as it has been, so Jedi (and Secret) had to settle for what came out of the hose while I refilled the outside bucket.

Jedi pretty much slept until we had to leave for an oil change appointment at 3:00. My hope was that they would allow Jedi to hang out in the waiting area so that he could have that new experience today, but I figured we'd hang out outside if we have to. They had no problem with us staying inside, though, so that's what we did!

I came prepared with Jedi's bag of toys. I sat down on the floor with him and started to go through the bag-o-fun. If I tried to put a toy away and wasn't fast enough about getting another one out, Jedi tried to go and get his own. He's got that bag figured out, that's for sure. I ended up settling on the holee roller with a squeaker ball inside of it because this was something Jedi could use to self-entertain without leaving pieces of everything all over the floor. He played with that thing for a good solid half hour (and entertained all of the people there).

After that first half hour I took Jedi outside since he'd been playing pretty hard and I didn't want to be caught with him needing to empty himself when we had to pay or something. We walked out to the patch of grass up by the highway and he did his thing, unfazed by the numerous cars going by. I was hoping the construction crew across the highway would be at work, but I'm guessing they took off early for the holiday.

Back inside I tried to get Jedi to just settle, but it's hard to settle when there is a bag of toys in front of you. I kept our games to lower value toys and we worked through some tricks and behaviors, including the start of a hold (in his mouth).

We were there pretty much a full hour (I got my tires rotated, too) and Jedi did great. He thought it was a super fun place to visit and wasn't bothered by anything.

Tonight we worked on pivots for dinner. I'm terrible about teaching stuff and then never doing it again, so I figured we should revisit this from the earlier step of full circles on the raised bowl. As I figured, when we go a while without doing something it doesn't come as easily. It didn't take too long to get full circles back, though. We moved into doing pivots to the leg on the raised bowl, and then ended with the small plate.

I'm skipping the idea of heading out to that other horse show tonight. The radar didn't look good so I figured I wouldn't chance it. Jedi was pretty pooped out from his earlier adventure today anyhow, but he's awake now....!

Day 47 - Jedi's first horse show

I think someone put something in the water. Jedi's been kind of nuts the last couple of days. I'm half tempted to go get Wes & Lexie from daycare for the next couple of days to help wear him out. lol Everything is pretty well puppy-proofed around here so he can't get in much trouble. It's entertaining for the most part, but just a bit exhausting when he's still going strong at 10:00 p.m.

This morning we practiced stuff that I wanted to get video of in later sessions today. We did a quick refresher on putting stuff in the bowl and then did some side legs. We also got in some leg pivots. I rushed through everything this morning and didn't have much time for play because I had to be in the office for an 8:00 meeting this morning. Yes, I actually made it out of the house shortly after 7:00 this morning. I made it in time for my meeting and everything. Jedi didn't seem to mind the rush, he was just happy to get his Kong when I left. I swear my dogs escort me out the door in the morning because they want their Kongs.

I took the camera downstairs with us for Jedi's lunch training session. We got some good footage of his bowl trick. I had him pick up the spoon, two different lids, and the small plastic container. I suppose next we'll have to aim for a smaller target. After the bowl I moved to side legs, and then we finished with his introduction to holding an object. I used a jump pole that was down in the basement. Jedi caught on to this right away -- at least the interaction with the pole part.

We went outside and chased balls for a bit after that to run some energy off everyone (and by everyone I guess I mean Jedi because he was the one who did the most running). His clockwise send around the cone broke by the end and he only wanted to go the other way, so I guess I know what we need to focus on next time. After play time was done I did what is becoming the daily ritual of dumping and refilling the pools. They get so much bird poop in them every day and it's gross. I want to know what kind of bird is doing this, too, because it's big and nasty. At any rate, Jedi certainly doesn't mind that we do this every day. He thinks it's great. Then again, he also plays in the bird poop water, so....

I've had our outing of the day planned for several days now. I was on the website for the Western Wisconsin Horse Show Association a while back and saw that there was a horse show (games) in Black River Falls tonight. I'm always looking for things to do on a weeknight, and since I don't have anything else going on Thursday nights I knew I'd have time to make the drive (it's a bit over a half hour away). Horses used to be a big part of my life and while I have no plans to go back, I still would like for Jedi to be comfortable and well-behaved around them. I figured if I could get him introduced before the 16-week window, all the better. So, off we went!

Hindsight being what it is, I absolutely should not have chosen a gaming show for Jedi's first exposure to horses. A nice sedate western pleasure show would have been a much better option. That said, the PEOPLE at the show could not have been better. Gaming people are so laid back it's insane. If I would have been at a dressage show doing what I was doing people would have had a conniption and thrown me out. These people didn't bat an eye and the horses are just expected to be fine with everything. Kudos to them.

I parked in a little lot out past the horse trailers. I decided to introduce Jedi slowly by letting him check out the horses tied to the trailers. It took him a bit to notice them, but once he did he was definitely unsure of things. He barked, so we moved further away until I could get him to play with me, then we tried again. He got better quickly and we were soon able to walk up and down the sidewalk in front of the parked trailers without any problems. It didn't hurt that Jedi was super distracted by his new favorite thing -- Horse poop. I'm so used to the dogs eating it that I didn't even bother trying to stop him. This was just the smooshed stuff out of the bottom of the hoof anyhow. Tasty treat!

Once Jedi was okay with horses that were standing there doing nothing, we started to make our way over to the show arena. This is when we met our new little friend, a little girl who was kind of obsessed with Jedi from the get-go. She was wonderful, though, and she led me around and showed me where the observation area was (this was helpful, because I was going to plow right through the horses to a totally wrong entrance).

Jedi got to meet LOTS of kids tonight, as everyone wanted to come over and play with him. Once we were in the arena the kids learned that my backpack contained all of Jedi's toys. And here is where I am solidly impressed with gaming horses -- Those kids were running back and forth, waving Jedi's fuzzy tail and octopus in the air, bouncing balls, and just making all sorts of noise. Bless them, because Jedi thought this was awesome and was having the time of his life. He was so engrossed in playing with the kids that he didn't even see the horses running in the ring directly in front of us.

On our way in Jedi got to meet a German Shepherd puppy that was the same age as him! That was a nice surprise. They got a little bit of play time later on before the other puppy left, too.

We were inside the arena for a good long time with Jedi completely focused on playing. Then, like a switch, he realized there were running horses in the arena. His mind was gone. My little helper helped me stuff all of Jedi's toys back in the bag and we high-tailed it out the door so as to not be a disruption (again, these people were so totally cool about everything, and I thank them for that).

We spent a good deal of time standing in the doorway and then removing access to watch when Jedi got too high. He seemed to catch on to this and was able to watch for a bit. He did okay with the slower horses, but as soon as one of the fast ones came in he couldn't contain himself and we had to go around the corner again. After a point he was just getting over-stimulated and it was time to go (when he kept barking and pulling even after we'd gone around the corner). We were there just over an hour, though, so that was a lot to take in tonight. Again, a more sedate show probably would have been the better choice -- or even if the show was outside and we could watch from a distance and move closer as appropriate. There is another show tomorrow that I think is outside, I may consider giving that a try.

Jedi crashed hard on the drive home, but popped up when we got home. It was 8:00 so we had to hurry up and get our dinner training session recorded before it got too dark outside. We did side legs on the agility table -- I had to prop it up on the side to get a decent angle. Jedi offered spiderman a couple of times, but I think he's probably too young to spend much time on that trick already. We finished with more pole holding. I had wanted to get more stuff on video for this lesson, but it will have to wait. Considering Silvia is in a different time zone (continent....) I hope I'm not already too late to get it submitted before break! And with that, I am too late (just checked and the forum is locked). Bugger. Oh well, I guess I'll just share it here and likely do a new video when class starts back up in two weeks.

Day 46 - Bangor walk (high school)

If anyone is wondering how long it takes for my house to recover from a weekend full of playing with visitors, the answer is two days. Monday and Tuesday were incredibly quiet -- for everyone, not just Jedi. Everyone was back to "normal" again this morning. I picked up the yard before I left for work since I didn't have a chance to do it yesterday and all five dogs (even Luke!) were running around and playing with each other. They're usually a bit more subdued in the morning. We didn't go to bed until midnight last night due to the fact that I had homework that needed to be done after we got home from class, so I wish I had their energy.

I dropped pivoting from Jedi's breakfast work and this seemed to make him happy. Granted, he was more awake than the last several mornings, too, so that probably didn't hurt. We ended up spending the majority of the session just doing paw touches. He's getting much better at offering the right paw. I tried to get a bit of crossing, but it was more flailing than directed placement. We just rotated kibble from Fromm to Earthborn Holistic and the kibble pieces are considerably bigger. The training sessions will go a bit faster now because of this.

We got lucky and I beat the rain home today. I dumped the pools and refilled them because they were both full of bird poop. I've been seeing more birds hanging out and drinking from them, so I suppose this is an unfortunate side effect. The dogs drink out of the pools a lot so I want to keep them relatively clean. It is gross, hot, and humid, so I went ahead and filled the pools again. Jedi got absolutely soaked going after the hose. His ears go floppy when they are drenched with water, but thankfully they pop back up when he shakes it all off.

Once the pools were set I grabbed Jedi's lunch and we had our training session outside. We did teeter bangs and Jedi did a great job at holding his bottoms. We moved over to the dog walk to finish his lunch and did bottoms there. Instead of just having him jump on from the side this time I had him go up the plank a bit, turn around, and then drive into the bottom. My dog walk is only a couple of feet off the ground, so no real worries about anything -- and heck, the little stinker has already gone over it on his own out in the yard. He isn't afraid of anything.

We got in a game of frisbee after lunch and made it inside before the rain started. We had a small thunderstorm blow through that came with a few boomers. Whenever there was a loud crack of thunder I went, "Wheeeee!!!!!" and gave Jedi treats. He didn't startle in the least at the thunder, but still, I figure let's make a positive association.

I planned to take Wes & Lexie's stuff up to my parent's house after work and luckily the rain stopped right in time. Actually, we drove through a downpour but came out to sun on the other side. I let Jedi come in the house with me to check on things but we didn't stay long. We got back in the van and drove to Bangor to go for a walk. I'd brought along both Kaiser and Kizzy as well, as these three have been doing well walking together. One of these days I'll just have to add Secret.

I parked in the high school parking lot. It was empty and there was nothing going on at the school -- I hadn't figured there would be because of the rain, but it would have been nice to stumble upon a baseball game or something. Instead we took off down the road and took a walk through town.

This was a sound-filled walk for Jedi. We arrived shortly before 6:00, so we got to hear the lovely 6:00 whistle. We also walked past a church that was playing the church bells for a super long time. I wasn't even aware they did that (they were playing songs). There were also about three trains that went through town while we were walking. As expected, Jedi didn't pay any attention to any of this.

We cut down through the park so that the dogs would have the opportunity to cool off and get a drink in the creek if they wanted. Well of course, they all barged straight into the water and Jedi immediately started swimming. Too bad for them that they were all on 6' leashes, so there wasn't much they could do. I swear Jedi would live his life soaking wet if he could.

After that we just walked up and around Labus and then cut through the schools to get back to the van. Someone was playing basketball on the elementary playground or else I probably would have taken the dogs over to play for a bit. We were only out for a little over a half hour tonight because I had to get home for school. It was gross anyhow, and we'd walked a lot of hills, so the dogs were ready to be done.

Tonight Jedi did pivots to the leg outside for his dinner. We also spent some time working on his wait/stay and he did great (notice the excellent distance I got in front of the school sign tonight!). Then we did some fun spins and roll-overs (luring), and finished up with a couple more leg pivots.

Our class with Silvia is going on break for two weeks starting on Friday, so if I'm going to submit video and get feedback I need to get it done tomorrow! I finally checked in on lesson four and it looks like side legs and putting stuff in other stuff are both on the list, so we can check that off. Something new to work on is holding an obstacle with the paws/legs. Working on the stay behavior was also on the list, so we'll continue to build on that.