I guess I took a little break there from blogging. :o) After going 101 days with no break I think we were all ready for some down time. Jedi has still been his usual, busy self, but we've definitely taken a step back and have enjoyed a couple of unstructured days without any plans. This past Wednesday was the first day we stayed home and did absolutely nothing. It was a hot day (we've had a lot of those lately), so our activity of the day consisted of nothing more than playing with the hose, filling the pool, and chasing tennis balls. It was really, really nice to stay home for a night!
Thursday night was a class night. It was a small class, but Jedi got to play and have fun. It was round two of the grooming discussion, so he demoed a few things and was a good boy. Friday was another gross day, so we went to the beach. I figured we'd go to Dresbach again, but I could see that airport beach was practically deserted as we drove by, so I went there since it's closer. The water was really high from all of the rain we've had lately -- and there were a lot of plants floating in it, which grosses me out a bit -- but the dogs don't care and they had fun (I took everyone but Luke).
On Saturday we left bright and early (that would be 8 a.m.) to drive up to Menomonie to play at The Dog Tank again. Jedi continues to get better with each visit. We arrived just before 10:00, which is apparently when they open on Saturdays (I was thinking 8:00, but that is Sunday I guess). There was a private session wrapping up, but come 10:00 we had the entire place to ourselves. That lasted until about 10:30 when another dog showed up, so the dogs got in a lot of swimming time right off the bat.
Since we were there by ourselves, Steve (the owner) asked if I was interested in any tips to get the dogs jumping better. Well, yes, of course! While Jedi has been gaining distance, his jumps have been pretty flat -- which obviously is going to limit how far he can go. Steve worked with me to get the dogs tracking the toy better and then we worked on my throw. The object is to wait until the dog is nearly to you before throwing, and then throwing it more UP than I was before. Ideally the toy will travel directly in front of the dog for the entire flight; perhaps the dog might even grab it. My throw needs some work, in timing, height, and distance. The good news is that both dogs started to pop more. The bad news is that I often failed to keep the toy in front of them and they would turn in mid-air. We'll keep working on it, but Jedi's probably put on almost 10' from his initial jumps already. It will be fun to get official distances from the competition next month.
After swimming I threw frisbees for a bit to air dry the dogs some before the drive home. We didn't stay long, as there were storms starting to blow in from the west. During the frisbee play Jedi did several of his tumble-flops that he does when he overruns his target. I noted nothing before loading up to go home. I noted nothing when we got home and he got out of the van. Early that afternoon, though, Jedi got up from napping and was noticeably off on his right front. Uh.... So yeah, panic -- I broke my puppy. After working him over, the best I can figure is that it's his foot. It's the only thing that elicits a reaction (he mouths my hand -- he doesn't do that when I palpate his other foot).
So, life has been pretty boring since Saturday. Jedi was still limping on Sunday. He would walk out of it, but when he got up he was off. Trying to keep him quiet has been super fun. Yesterday he did remarkably well at staying in the house and sleeping all day. I took Jedi to class last night, but he wasn't allowed off leash play time at the beginning of class (his doodle friend, Maizy, was nice enough to come roll around on the floor with him for a bit). Jedi actually did really well dealing with not being able to participate in play time. He also did great during class, including -- a miracle -- he didn't bark once during the restrained recall portion of class (I did have his crate covered/blocked, but still!).
Tonight was Jedi's agility class. He is moving better today and that initial gimp in his gait was far less noticeable (maybe even imagined by me at this point because I'm so neurotic). I decided that, like last night, Jedi could go to class and I would just limit his activity and not let him run like a loon. Yes, that is Jedi's most favorite part of agility class, but tonight would be focused more on impulse-control games for him and we would make that fun. Thankfully the instructors were totally on board with this and pretty much let me do my own thing for the entire night.
Instead of rotating over to the "action-filled" part of the lesson (I believe tonight they added the broad jump to the usual chute/tunnel stuff), Jedi and I went into the adjacent turf ring. There was a lowered dog walk (about 2') set up in the ring, along with a teeter off to the side (and jumps, a tunnel, etc.). I started Jedi out on the dog walk and we worked on bottoms, hopping up from the side. We progressed to having Jedi start from the middle plank and he did really well at nailing his bottoms (yeah, he overshoots occasionally and I need to work on proofing the behavior eventually). On a later turn I propped up the end of the teeter with a traffic cone and we worked on doing some slams on the raised bottom. This was the first time Jedi has seen a teeter other than mine at home and he did great with the difference.
On the other side we played with a tippy plank and wobble board, then we sat down and played with the paw pods. Jedi is getting really fast at finding all four (one with each foot), so I decided to spend some time to see if I could get him to have all four feet on two pods. I got two front feet on one and one back foot on the other, so that was pretty close. We also spent some time doing table downs and playing on the table. One super fun thing I threw at Jedi tonight (literally) was proofing his stay by throwing toys around him. I had 9 different toys out of his bag -- all "high value" toys with the exception of one boring braided fleece. I was able to throw them all around him (even hit him) and he held his stay. I was pretty amazed. It was interesting to see which toy he would pick when released. It was most often the holee roler with the squeaker ball in it, followed by the ball on a rope and the two-ball tug. Yup, he likes balls!
One of the trainers was playing with Jedi at the end of class, fascinated by his ability to wait until released to get the toy. She remarked that his nose looked a little swollen. Huh, yes, a bit. Secret had snapped at him right before we left when he got in her face, but I didn't think she'd actually connected -- but that's what I attributed it to. Imagine my surprise, then, when we got home and his face had blown up like a balloon! What the heck? We went through this with Kizzy on the day of their last vet visit, which may have been a reaction to the vaccination -- but I have no idea what could have brought this on. Jedi doesn't seem to care, he's not affected by it in the least. I gave him 2 Benadryl (assuming that as he's growing, the 25mg dose probably wasn't enough now), with the hope that maybe it would also help to knock him out for the evening. Well, no such luck there. The swelling has gone down some, but I guess we'll see what it looks like in the morning.Jedi still has a retained canine tooth.... This picture is a few days old. Still stuck tight.
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