Many people have asked me why I'm driving back and forth to Middleton this weekend. The nearly two-hour drive is draining to do twice a day for three days in a row, no doubt. I have Luke at home, so that is one reason -- But oh my lord, I can't even imagine spending two nights in a row in a hotel with Jedi right now. Thank heavens we can come home where he has all of his stuff, but more importantly the yard to keep him occupied. Last night he was go-go-go almost until we went to bed (he did finally crash on the couch) and tonight doesn't appear to be much different. Yes, I think I'll make the drive for him and for my sanity.
I finally caved this morning -- Jedi got breakfast out of a bowl with all of the other dogs. This was a combination of pure laziness and a time crunch, as all of the foam rolling and stretching I'm doing to try to help my back takes up a good amount of time. I waited to feed the dogs until after I was done with that and I only had about a half hour before we needed to leave, and I still needed to shower. So yes, here Jedi, eat out of this bowl. This is when I noted that I don't really have a "place" for him picked out. Secret and Kaiser eat on opposite sides of the island in the kitchen. Luke is over by the computer desk, and Kizzy is on the side of the couch. We need to figure out a spot for Jedi once this becomes more of a regular thing. I just put his bowl down in the middle of the kitchen and he pushed it over against one of the cabinets.
Jedi had another super day at the AKC trial. Most of the day I moved the screen away from his crate (just keeping it around the Klee Kai crate) and he had a wide-open view. Coming off a dog like Kizzy, I really appreciate his ability to hang out and quietly observe the world around him. I threw a beef trachea in his crate this morning and he gnawed on that off and on all day.
Between runs this morning I took Jedi into the main ring area to work around people and other dogs, as well as the sounds of the trial. They have a nice solid wall between spectators and the dogs in the ring, so I wasn't too worried about being a distraction. Good or bad, this also meant that Jedi didn't have the ability to see the dogs running in the ring, but he could hear them. I had the fuzzy octopus and we worked on stays and releasing on a verbal "okay." I've been working adding silly movement to try to throw Jedi off and he's doing really well. He still occasionally stands up or breaks on his own, but overall I'm very impressed with the progress he's making. He's showing really good self control, and also a very clear understanding of the release word. I'm glad for the reminder we had in Jedi's class this week to make sure they understand the word and that they aren't releasing on a motion cue.
We didn't have the rain-filled day that we thought we would, so we had plenty of opportunity to get outside to stretch our legs and play. Before lunch I took Jedi across the street to the big field. We had it to ourselves, so I took off his leash today to keep him from stepping on it. Today I brought the frisbee and we played with fetching rollers. Much like Secret, Jedi's "tell" that he's tired appears to be that he stops and chews on the disc. That said, he continued to jump up and grab at it the whole way back inside, trying to convince me that no, he really wasn't tired!
I let Jedi cool down a bit after his play session before I brought him out for lunch. Today we spent his entire lunch on the measuring table. I was glad that I opted to do this when I noted his first reaction was to shy away from the measuring arm again. I just fed him handfuls of food as I moved the arm up, down, and around him. It didn't take long for him to stop shrinking away from it and just stand relaxed. Because he was so much more relaxed today I was able to move around and look at the measuring tape while he stood very naturally. It was a solid 15" on the nose, so either he grew 1/4" overnight (hey, possible I guess, lol) or he was shrinking away a bit yesterday when we got him. I'll go with the latter and redact my statement from yesterday, as Jedi is easily 15". So while we're almost at 16 weeks, I'll say that his 15-week stats are 18.3 lbs and 15" tall.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet with just short trips in and out. Once we got home, mostly based on our experiences last night, I opted to run Jedi with the tennis ball to try to wear him out a bit. He did super with his sends around the cone -- we've been struggling lately with sends from my left (he likes to cross behind and come around my right), but tonight I held my position until he came around and he seemed to figure it out quickly. I wasn't a slacker for dinner and we worked on leg pivots. I took the little plate out just to get Jedi started, and then we quickly moved off of the plate. The main focus of the night was getting him to stick to the right leg away from the plate. He tried to offer the left leg a few times, but quickly realized that this wasn't getting him anywhere and swung to the right leg. He's making a lot of progress with this one -- still just turning in circles, but we'll get there.We have one more day of the trial to make it through. I have more faith in Jedi than I do in my back (and the rest of my body, for the compensations it is having to make for my back).
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