Poor Jedi. My work schedule was pretty terrible today. I had an 8:00 meeting that I needed to be in the office for this morning, so that meant that Jedi went in the crate at 7:00 (my commute sucks). That's only a half hour earlier than usual, but I didn't really get up much earlier so the dogs didn't have a ton of running around time this morning. In addition to the early start, I had a meeting from 1:00 - 2:00 that was best attended in the office, so I ended up sticking around for that and didn't actually get out of the office until almost 2:20. As a result, Jedi was crated for eight hours today, which I'm pretty sure is the longest I've ever left him without having my dad let him out or something. That said, he did just fine and he certainly didn't run outside and immediately go to the bathroom or anything.
Both breakfast and Jedi's late lunch were spent working on the cone in the basement. Today I started to add in "check, check, check" for Jedi's left turns (the good way). Whoa, this totally threw him off. The first time I did it he stopped and spun around. After that he was giving me the googly eye every time he went around the cone that way instead of staying focused forward like he was before. I'm wondering if the problem here is that when we've done our cone work outside I use, "Jed, Jed, Jed" for tight turns back to me at the cone. Jed and check don't really sound all that different when said quickly together. Didn't really think that one through, did I. Right turns continue their slow progression. Full revolutions are starting to happen, but they include a full turns to the left. So basically, Jedi is going around the cone to the right, he bypasses my body, turns back into me to the left, then continues his circle right. It reminds me of when Kizzy would do a similar turn inside the tunnel on every rear cross to the left. It took forever to break that... I'm sure Jedi will conquer it faster than she did, though.
The van needed yet another oil change today, so Jedi got to come with and hang out at Brenengen Chevrolet with me again. Jedi is 4 1/2 months old and this is his third oil change already. I think I drive too much. After we got checked in I walked Jedi out to the patch of grass out front to see if he would go potty before we went inside (he did). I made him pose next to a Mustang on the way back inside. That is so not workable as a dog-mobile. :o) I ended up sitting on the floor with Jedi again in the waiting area to help keep him entertained. There was quite a bit of activity in there today with people in and out, kids playing, etc. Jedi watched some of it with interest, but he mostly scavenged his toy bag and played the entire time we were there. He would have pulled everything out of the bag had I let him.
Instead of going straight home from the oil change, I decided to take Jedi back over to what is becoming our new favorite place to hang -- Fishermen's Park -- for a swim to wear him out a bit. I think I need to stop thinking of swimming in terms of tiring Jedi out, because no matter what it just seems to crank him up and it takes a while to come down from it. When we got there today there were a couple of guys putting a boat into the water, so we had to wait for them to wrap that up since the spot where we swim is technically a boat ramp and all. Jedi got to go in the water once the boat was in and he didn't seem to care about it at all. They were nice and didn't start the motor up until he was back to shore from one of his swims. We struggled a bit again with Jedi bringing the toy all the way back up to the shore, and I was again in tennis shoes. I'm starting to think his issue is that he won't leave the water because he thinks I'll make him leave for good. Oh well, we'll work on that. As usual, Jedi didn't think I let him swim long enough, but when he starts to gurgle on the way back and spit up water, then we're done swimming. I appeased him with a few throws of the frisbee to help him dry off. I had him drag his leash to make sure he didn't try to make a break for the lake again.
The reason I wanted to wear Jedi out a bit tonight is because we had another puppy class start up today. This is a new night, but we had enough interest so we started up another class. Because it doesn't start until 7:30, it gives us plenty of time to do stuff (like swim) before we have to leave. Jedi did well at class tonight. We have a couple of chocolate labs, a standard poodle, a golden retriever, and next week we'll have a doodle join us. The puppies are all roughly the same age and size (including Jedi), so it should be a good group. Jedi got on the best with the female lab who is a couple weeks younger than him, but slightly bigger. They had lots of fun running and wrestling during play time. Jedi had great focus on me during class, but was jumping up on me a lot for attention. That's new. Once again he did a great job at demonstrating food ignoring -- seriously, he practically mauls my hand the first time I offer it. It's actually kind of nice because he can quickly move through the various stages to show people what to work towards.
After everyone left we worked on heeling for the rest of Jedi's dinner and then we did some recalls and a few sends around the poles. Jedi got a small second dinner tonight when we got home and everyone else got fed. We went downstairs and spent dinner on the peanut, just working on bending back and forth. This was difficult for two reasons -- Jedi knows nothing about standing facing away from me, and he immediately tries to lay down when I ask him to bend. Something more to work on, I guess!
Poor Jedi. My work schedule was pretty terrible today. I had an 8:00 meeting that I needed to be in the office for this morning, so that meant that Jedi went in the crate at 7:00 (my commute sucks). That's only a half hour earlier than usual, but I didn't really get up much earlier so the dogs didn't have a ton of running around time this morning. In addition to the early start, I had a meeting from 1:00 - 2:00 that was best attended in the office, so I ended up sticking around for that and didn't actually get out of the office until almost 2:20. As a result, Jedi was crated for eight hours today, which I'm pretty sure is the longest I've ever left him without having my dad let him out or something. That said, he did just fine and he certainly didn't run outside and immediately go to the bathroom or anything.
Both breakfast and Jedi's late lunch were spent working on the cone in the basement. Today I started to add in "check, check, check" for Jedi's left turns (the good way). Whoa, this totally threw him off. The first time I did it he stopped and spun around. After that he was giving me the googly eye every time he went around the cone that way instead of staying focused forward like he was before. I'm wondering if the problem here is that when we've done our cone work outside I use, "Jed, Jed, Jed" for tight turns back to me at the cone. Jed and check don't really sound all that different when said quickly together. Didn't really think that one through, did I. Right turns continue their slow progression. Full revolutions are starting to happen, but they include a full turns to the left. So basically, Jedi is going around the cone to the right, he bypasses my body, turns back into me to the left, then continues his circle right. It reminds me of when Kizzy would do a similar turn inside the tunnel on every rear cross to the left. It took forever to break that... I'm sure Jedi will conquer it faster than she did, though.
The van needed yet another oil change today, so Jedi got to come with and hang out at Brenengen Chevrolet with me again. Jedi is 4 1/2 months old and this is his third oil change already. I think I drive too much. After we got checked in I walked Jedi out to the patch of grass out front to see if he would go potty before we went inside (he did). I made him pose next to a Mustang on the way back inside. That is so not workable as a dog-mobile. :o) I ended up sitting on the floor with Jedi again in the waiting area to help keep him entertained. There was quite a bit of activity in there today with people in and out, kids playing, etc. Jedi watched some of it with interest, but he mostly scavenged his toy bag and played the entire time we were there. He would have pulled everything out of the bag had I let him.
Instead of going straight home from the oil change, I decided to take Jedi back over to what is becoming our new favorite place to hang -- Fishermen's Park -- for a swim to wear him out a bit. I think I need to stop thinking of swimming in terms of tiring Jedi out, because no matter what it just seems to crank him up and it takes a while to come down from it. When we got there today there were a couple of guys putting a boat into the water, so we had to wait for them to wrap that up since the spot where we swim is technically a boat ramp and all. Jedi got to go in the water once the boat was in and he didn't seem to care about it at all. They were nice and didn't start the motor up until he was back to shore from one of his swims. We struggled a bit again with Jedi bringing the toy all the way back up to the shore, and I was again in tennis shoes. I'm starting to think his issue is that he won't leave the water because he thinks I'll make him leave for good. Oh well, we'll work on that. As usual, Jedi didn't think I let him swim long enough, but when he starts to gurgle on the way back and spit up water, then we're done swimming. I appeased him with a few throws of the frisbee to help him dry off. I had him drag his leash to make sure he didn't try to make a break for the lake again.
The reason I wanted to wear Jedi out a bit tonight is because we had another puppy class start up today. This is a new night, but we had enough interest so we started up another class. Because it doesn't start until 7:30, it gives us plenty of time to do stuff (like swim) before we have to leave. Jedi did well at class tonight. We have a couple of chocolate labs, a standard poodle, a golden retriever, and next week we'll have a doodle join us. The puppies are all roughly the same age and size (including Jedi), so it should be a good group. Jedi got on the best with the female lab who is a couple weeks younger than him, but slightly bigger. They had lots of fun running and wrestling during play time. Jedi had great focus on me during class, but was jumping up on me a lot for attention. That's new. Once again he did a great job at demonstrating food ignoring -- seriously, he practically mauls my hand the first time I offer it. It's actually kind of nice because he can quickly move through the various stages to show people what to work towards.
After everyone left we worked on heeling for the rest of Jedi's dinner and then we did some recalls and a few sends around the poles. Jedi got a small second dinner tonight when we got home and everyone else got fed. We went downstairs and spent dinner on the peanut, just working on bending back and forth. This was difficult for two reasons -- Jedi knows nothing about standing facing away from me, and he immediately tries to lay down when I ask him to bend. Something more to work on, I guess!
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