It is day 75 since Jedi came home! We are officially 3/4 of the way done with our 100 experiences in 100 days project. We're on the home stretch. :o) Jedi continues to do well sleeping out of the crate at night. He appears to stay on the bed until the early morning hours, when he lets himself outside and then comes back in. For breakfast this morning we went downstairs and Jedi was introduced to the large peanut (mine is 80cm). I clicked/rewarded for pretty much any movement that he offered during this session. I use my legs to stabilize the peanut and also keep one end propped against the wall, but it was still pretty wiggly when Jedi stood up. He was not bothered by any of this, though, and he sure gives it his all.
I worked from home today because I had an all-day meeting. If I would have gone into the office I would have missed at least an hour of it to drive home and then feed/play with Jedi. Because of that, and because my boss was in his own all-day meeting, I decided to just call in. Note to self, calling into an all-day meeting is horrendous. My meeting didn't start until 9:00, so I decided to walk Jedi and Kizzy up to the vet's office to get a weight on Jedi so that we could chime in and compare him to the brothers that were posting their weights the last couple of days. Jedi weighed in at 21.8 lbs today, so only a one pound gain since his appointment last week. His brothers are reporting weights in the 24-25+ lb range! I propped Jedi up against the fridge and held a marker over his withers to get a height. This is far from accurate, but he measured 16.25" today.
One nice thing about being stuck on that awful phone call is that my hands were free to finally pump up my new FitPaws donut and stabilizing ring. They inflated faster than anything else I've ever had to pump up, so they were ready to go when we took a lunch break. Jedi did really well with the donut and all of the wobbling (even using the stabilizing ring). He started out offering side legs on it, then moved to the back feet, and eventually backed himself all the way on. At that point I only rewarded when he stayed on and we moved back and forth from sitting to standing. I'm still amazed at how challenging this particular piece of equipment is. I'm also amazed at how much FitPaws equipment is now in my basement...
We cleaned up the yard and then Jedi got in some play time with cones and a tunnel. Yes, I finally brought out a tunnel for him. I set it up on the open side of my cone triangle. The short (12') tunnel fit nicely in this space with a slight curve. Jedi did just awesome with this addition to our handling drills. I started out by throwing the toy every time he came out of the tunnel but quickly moved to being able to ask for sequences coming out of the tunnel. I think I was most impressed with the fact that he could circle the cones nearest the tunnel without sucking to the tunnel. His focus was really kind of amazing in that respect. Having the tunnel seemed to speed him up even more, too!
The much-needed play time helped settle Jedi until about 3:00 or so. Wouldn't you know it, but the dogs were dead to the world right up to the point where I finally had to provide some input to that meeting. Thanks dogs, I always love when you bark for all of my coworkers to hear. Thankfully our meeting wrapped up about an hour early (scheduled until 5:00), so I decided to work all of the dogs through our little cone/tunnel exercise. My first plan was to let them hang out in the potty yard with the gate closed. Jedi let me know pretty quickly that this was not going to work, as he started to scream while I worked Kizzy (probably not helped by the fact that I had his racoon tail). I put all of the non-running dogs in the house and locked the dog door, which Jedi didn't like any better, but at least his screaming wasn't wide open to the world anymore. I worked Kizzy, Kaiser, Kizzy again, and then Secret before finally bringing Jedi out for another turn. He was even faster than he was at lunch time, so apparently watching the other dogs have a turn gets him super jazzed. I'll have to try to get his latest handling work on video one of these days.
For Jedi's outing of the day we drove up to Black River Falls to go to the Wazee Riders gaming (horse) show again. I saw on Facebook that it was going to be in the outdoor arena tonight, so I figured this would be a great chance to expose Jedi to the running horses in a non-enclosed space. In addition, it was only 70 degrees outside, so I figured it would be a beautiful night to sit out and watch some horses. Jedi was still pooped from his play session when we left home, so he slept hard all the way to Black River Falls.
We found a nice spot in the grass some distance away from the arena to start. We were next to the driveway, though, where horses often walked past on their way too and from the ring. This gave Jedi the chance to see horses up close but kept him further away from the main action. It didn't hurt at all that we arrived when the younger kids were wrapping up the pole bending class, so there wasn't a ton of speed and excitement off the bat. Jedi noticed the horses in the ring, but didn't react to them. We were quickly able to start moving closer.
It didn't take long for the kids to start drawing to Jedi like flies. At one point I counted 8 kids around him at once, and they were all trying to play with him at the same time. Jedi thought this was pretty cool. He tried to play with everyone, but he was definitely most drawn to whomever had the racoon tail at the time. When not playing with toys he was happy to sit in laps and give kisses. During all of this he never so much as glanced at the horses in the ring. I made sure to never let go of his leash, though, just in case. The last thing we would need is for him to suddenly see the horses and take off running.
Similar to our last trip to the horse show, Jedi reached his limit after about an hour. They had moved on to barrel racing and the fast horses were running. Once Jedi realized this, that was about it. His guts exploded with excitement. I gave him a few chances where we walked away when he barked and then he got a chance to go closer again, but as soon as we turned back he was lunging towards the ring (horse or no horse). We backed way off and he did much better, but he was still getting too excited when the fast horses would run. At that point I figured his brain had experienced enough fun for the night and it was time to leave.
For dinner tonight we worked on healing out in the yard. I finally checked in to my Silvia Trkman puppy class today to see what the latest lesson is. Sure enough, glued to the leg while walking is one of our exercises. Backwards figure eights are also on the list, which I've never tried to train before and I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. Also on the list for this lesson are teaching the skateboard trick (anyone have a skateboard...?) and cik/cap finally showed up. I might have to drag a cone down to the basement so that I can use food for that one.
It is day 75 since Jedi came home! We are officially 3/4 of the way done with our 100 experiences in 100 days project. We're on the home stretch. :o) Jedi continues to do well sleeping out of the crate at night. He appears to stay on the bed until the early morning hours, when he lets himself outside and then comes back in. For breakfast this morning we went downstairs and Jedi was introduced to the large peanut (mine is 80cm). I clicked/rewarded for pretty much any movement that he offered during this session. I use my legs to stabilize the peanut and also keep one end propped against the wall, but it was still pretty wiggly when Jedi stood up. He was not bothered by any of this, though, and he sure gives it his all.
I worked from home today because I had an all-day meeting. If I would have gone into the office I would have missed at least an hour of it to drive home and then feed/play with Jedi. Because of that, and because my boss was in his own all-day meeting, I decided to just call in. Note to self, calling into an all-day meeting is horrendous. My meeting didn't start until 9:00, so I decided to walk Jedi and Kizzy up to the vet's office to get a weight on Jedi so that we could chime in and compare him to the brothers that were posting their weights the last couple of days. Jedi weighed in at 21.8 lbs today, so only a one pound gain since his appointment last week. His brothers are reporting weights in the 24-25+ lb range! I propped Jedi up against the fridge and held a marker over his withers to get a height. This is far from accurate, but he measured 16.25" today.
One nice thing about being stuck on that awful phone call is that my hands were free to finally pump up my new FitPaws donut and stabilizing ring. They inflated faster than anything else I've ever had to pump up, so they were ready to go when we took a lunch break. Jedi did really well with the donut and all of the wobbling (even using the stabilizing ring). He started out offering side legs on it, then moved to the back feet, and eventually backed himself all the way on. At that point I only rewarded when he stayed on and we moved back and forth from sitting to standing. I'm still amazed at how challenging this particular piece of equipment is. I'm also amazed at how much FitPaws equipment is now in my basement...
We cleaned up the yard and then Jedi got in some play time with cones and a tunnel. Yes, I finally brought out a tunnel for him. I set it up on the open side of my cone triangle. The short (12') tunnel fit nicely in this space with a slight curve. Jedi did just awesome with this addition to our handling drills. I started out by throwing the toy every time he came out of the tunnel but quickly moved to being able to ask for sequences coming out of the tunnel. I think I was most impressed with the fact that he could circle the cones nearest the tunnel without sucking to the tunnel. His focus was really kind of amazing in that respect. Having the tunnel seemed to speed him up even more, too!
The much-needed play time helped settle Jedi until about 3:00 or so. Wouldn't you know it, but the dogs were dead to the world right up to the point where I finally had to provide some input to that meeting. Thanks dogs, I always love when you bark for all of my coworkers to hear. Thankfully our meeting wrapped up about an hour early (scheduled until 5:00), so I decided to work all of the dogs through our little cone/tunnel exercise. My first plan was to let them hang out in the potty yard with the gate closed. Jedi let me know pretty quickly that this was not going to work, as he started to scream while I worked Kizzy (probably not helped by the fact that I had his racoon tail). I put all of the non-running dogs in the house and locked the dog door, which Jedi didn't like any better, but at least his screaming wasn't wide open to the world anymore. I worked Kizzy, Kaiser, Kizzy again, and then Secret before finally bringing Jedi out for another turn. He was even faster than he was at lunch time, so apparently watching the other dogs have a turn gets him super jazzed. I'll have to try to get his latest handling work on video one of these days.
For Jedi's outing of the day we drove up to Black River Falls to go to the Wazee Riders gaming (horse) show again. I saw on Facebook that it was going to be in the outdoor arena tonight, so I figured this would be a great chance to expose Jedi to the running horses in a non-enclosed space. In addition, it was only 70 degrees outside, so I figured it would be a beautiful night to sit out and watch some horses. Jedi was still pooped from his play session when we left home, so he slept hard all the way to Black River Falls.
We found a nice spot in the grass some distance away from the arena to start. We were next to the driveway, though, where horses often walked past on their way too and from the ring. This gave Jedi the chance to see horses up close but kept him further away from the main action. It didn't hurt at all that we arrived when the younger kids were wrapping up the pole bending class, so there wasn't a ton of speed and excitement off the bat. Jedi noticed the horses in the ring, but didn't react to them. We were quickly able to start moving closer.
It didn't take long for the kids to start drawing to Jedi like flies. At one point I counted 8 kids around him at once, and they were all trying to play with him at the same time. Jedi thought this was pretty cool. He tried to play with everyone, but he was definitely most drawn to whomever had the racoon tail at the time. When not playing with toys he was happy to sit in laps and give kisses. During all of this he never so much as glanced at the horses in the ring. I made sure to never let go of his leash, though, just in case. The last thing we would need is for him to suddenly see the horses and take off running.
Similar to our last trip to the horse show, Jedi reached his limit after about an hour. They had moved on to barrel racing and the fast horses were running. Once Jedi realized this, that was about it. His guts exploded with excitement. I gave him a few chances where we walked away when he barked and then he got a chance to go closer again, but as soon as we turned back he was lunging towards the ring (horse or no horse). We backed way off and he did much better, but he was still getting too excited when the fast horses would run. At that point I figured his brain had experienced enough fun for the night and it was time to leave.
For dinner tonight we worked on healing out in the yard. I finally checked in to my Silvia Trkman puppy class today to see what the latest lesson is. Sure enough, glued to the leg while walking is one of our exercises. Backwards figure eights are also on the list, which I've never tried to train before and I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. Also on the list for this lesson are teaching the skateboard trick (anyone have a skateboard...?) and cik/cap finally showed up. I might have to drag a cone down to the basement so that I can use food for that one.
"His guts exploded with excitement." Lol! Seriously! :)
ReplyDeleteWell, it's more or less what happened. He had already pooped before we went over to the ring, but when he started to get overly-stimulated by the running horses he suddenly started to spin in a circle and then... Well, it was gross. :-P
Delete