A blog to track the training and activities of my border collie, Jedi.
Monday, July 4, 2016
Day 86 - 4th of July in the Park
Happy 4th.... Jedi did well with the fireworks last night to a point. He and Kizzy were even running around in the back yard while the smaller ones popped off here and there. He was completely unfazed -- Until the blasted M80s started going off all around us. Argh!! This makes me so mad. I don't even classify those things as fireworks, they are nothing more than explosive devices and should be outlawed. They were getting set off close, as they shook the whole house when they went off. Prior to the M80 blasts I was pumping food into Jedi during each of the bigger pops from "normal" fireworks. He was happy to take it. When the M80s started Jedi was refusing food and looking worried. He retreated under my recliner for the rest of the night. From what I could see he was flat out and I think he slept through most of the later stuff, but it still bothers me that we had this experience. My fear is always that this sort of thing will cause problems with storms in the future.
We were so super lazy today. Luke had some issues last night, so I was kind of worn out from that. Jedi worked on his cuddling skills in bed this morning. I'm sure eventually he'll get big enough that it won't be comfortable for him to be right on top of me, but hey, we'll go with it for now. Once I finally got out of bed Jedi got his breakfast downstairs. We started on the cone and really only focused on going to the right. I'm getting to the point where I can treat Jedi just in front and slightly to the left of me and then he will continue around the circle, but he's still getting stuck if I don't do the food placement. We finished up breakfast on the paw pods and the donut.
After I more or less napped the morning away I finally took Jedi out for some running time. I dragged the tunnels out again and set up another circle with the cone -- this time a little more spaced out than the last time to give Jedi more room to build up speed. He kept staring at the toy shelf every time I went into the garage to grab stuff, so he was a happy boy when I finally grabbed his udder tug. The name of the game continues to be "just run fast" and we did minimal work with any turns at speed. I didn't ask him to come off his line/turn until the very end. We also threw in some check-check and nanana turns around the cone before finishing up. Jedi did great with his stays in front of the tunnel today and only had one occurrence of coming into me instead of the tunnel when released, and I'm pretty sure it's because I was just too far ahead and lateral for him.
Jedi's pool was a little tepid, and he was looking like his usual warm self after this running session, so I made his day and we refilled it. The best part of pools in Jedi's mind is when they get filled, although they're pretty cool the rest of the time, too. You know Jedi is warm when he doesn't even wait for the pool to fill at all before he flops in and spreads out. He lays there while the water starts to fill over the top of him and this lasts until he's cool enough that he realizes the hose is running and this is something he can play with. Then it becomes a contest -- he tries to see how many times he can get the hose out of the pool and I try to keep it in.
Once Jedi's pool was filled I figured I'd spend a little time playing with Kizzy through the tunnels (Kaiser's still got a bum foot and Secret is just stressing over fireworks all weekend). I gave Jedi a tennis ball in the hopes that it would entertain him while I played with Kizzy. Well, Jedi isn't much of a self-entertainer when it comes to tennis balls, I guess. He just kept running to wherever I was and waiting for me to throw it for him. He got to run through a few more tunnels and then I would throw the ball across the yard to hopefully keep him away long enough that Kizzy could at least get in a circuit before he showed up in her path again. I very briefly attempted to get him to hold his sit while I had Kizzy go through a tunnel, but it quickly became evident that this was not going to happen so I gave up trying. He's not ready for that yet. You know what he can do now, though? Catch tennis balls that are tossed to him! The mouth/eye coordination is starting to develop! Still a ways to go with food being tossed at his head, though...
All of this took place around noon today, which means that Jedi got another late lunch. I wasn't going to feed him that soon after so much running, so we went back inside for some nap time. Jedi ended up crashing until about 3:00. Once he was up I figured I should probably get around to making up for missing nail day on Friday. Jedi's nails were looking kind of long when I looked at them the other day. How do they grow so fast? We went out on the deck and everyone had their turn. Jedi had to wait through Kizzy and Kaiser's turns. He did well and I randomly rewarded him with a few pieces of food while he waited. Jedi did well for his turn, if not a bit overly-fixated on the dish of food in front of him. Once he was done I let him finish off what was left. He more or less stayed out of the way during Luke and Secret's turns.
Jedi's outing of the day was down to Memorial Park in Sparta where their 4th of July celebrations were happening. Kizzy got to come along due to the social aspect of the event, and since Kaiser's still got that bum leg and all (and Secret had the big outing yesterday). We met my parents and niece down at the Lion's Shelter for dinner. Jedi barked impatiently a few times, I think mostly at the boys who were throwing a baseball in the nearby field, but in general did well while we ate. We took a short walk after dinner and the dogs got to say hello to several children who wanted to pet them. Our walk took us next to the lake, which was hard for Jedi, but he got better once we turned around and walked on the other side of the road. Before we left I made the dogs pose next to some cow figures that I assume are still there from Butterfest/Dairy Month.
I debated stopping by the park to let Jedi swim before going home, just to take a bit more of an edge off him before the fireworks commence tonight, but I thought he'd probably done enough for the day. We came home and did dinner on the peanut downstairs. We did some sit pretty and waves, but spent most of the session working on spins/twirls. Not surprising, Jedi had a harder time going to the right (twirl). We just kept working on it and he started to do better. Jedi and Kizzy ran around outside for a bit, but when things started popping outside I called everyone in and shut up the house. I left everything open last night because it's really not that warm out (especially for July), but tonight I caved and I've got the house closed up and the air conditioning on to dull some of the noise outside. So far it hasn't been too bad. The dogs haven't seemed to notice anything. So far no big booms, we'll see if that lasts.
Happy 4th.... Jedi did well with the fireworks last night to a point. He and Kizzy were even running around in the back yard while the smaller ones popped off here and there. He was completely unfazed -- Until the blasted M80s started going off all around us. Argh!! This makes me so mad. I don't even classify those things as fireworks, they are nothing more than explosive devices and should be outlawed. They were getting set off close, as they shook the whole house when they went off. Prior to the M80 blasts I was pumping food into Jedi during each of the bigger pops from "normal" fireworks. He was happy to take it. When the M80s started Jedi was refusing food and looking worried. He retreated under my recliner for the rest of the night. From what I could see he was flat out and I think he slept through most of the later stuff, but it still bothers me that we had this experience. My fear is always that this sort of thing will cause problems with storms in the future.
We were so super lazy today. Luke had some issues last night, so I was kind of worn out from that. Jedi worked on his cuddling skills in bed this morning. I'm sure eventually he'll get big enough that it won't be comfortable for him to be right on top of me, but hey, we'll go with it for now. Once I finally got out of bed Jedi got his breakfast downstairs. We started on the cone and really only focused on going to the right. I'm getting to the point where I can treat Jedi just in front and slightly to the left of me and then he will continue around the circle, but he's still getting stuck if I don't do the food placement. We finished up breakfast on the paw pods and the donut.
After I more or less napped the morning away I finally took Jedi out for some running time. I dragged the tunnels out again and set up another circle with the cone -- this time a little more spaced out than the last time to give Jedi more room to build up speed. He kept staring at the toy shelf every time I went into the garage to grab stuff, so he was a happy boy when I finally grabbed his udder tug. The name of the game continues to be "just run fast" and we did minimal work with any turns at speed. I didn't ask him to come off his line/turn until the very end. We also threw in some check-check and nanana turns around the cone before finishing up. Jedi did great with his stays in front of the tunnel today and only had one occurrence of coming into me instead of the tunnel when released, and I'm pretty sure it's because I was just too far ahead and lateral for him.
Jedi's pool was a little tepid, and he was looking like his usual warm self after this running session, so I made his day and we refilled it. The best part of pools in Jedi's mind is when they get filled, although they're pretty cool the rest of the time, too. You know Jedi is warm when he doesn't even wait for the pool to fill at all before he flops in and spreads out. He lays there while the water starts to fill over the top of him and this lasts until he's cool enough that he realizes the hose is running and this is something he can play with. Then it becomes a contest -- he tries to see how many times he can get the hose out of the pool and I try to keep it in.
Once Jedi's pool was filled I figured I'd spend a little time playing with Kizzy through the tunnels (Kaiser's still got a bum foot and Secret is just stressing over fireworks all weekend). I gave Jedi a tennis ball in the hopes that it would entertain him while I played with Kizzy. Well, Jedi isn't much of a self-entertainer when it comes to tennis balls, I guess. He just kept running to wherever I was and waiting for me to throw it for him. He got to run through a few more tunnels and then I would throw the ball across the yard to hopefully keep him away long enough that Kizzy could at least get in a circuit before he showed up in her path again. I very briefly attempted to get him to hold his sit while I had Kizzy go through a tunnel, but it quickly became evident that this was not going to happen so I gave up trying. He's not ready for that yet. You know what he can do now, though? Catch tennis balls that are tossed to him! The mouth/eye coordination is starting to develop! Still a ways to go with food being tossed at his head, though...
All of this took place around noon today, which means that Jedi got another late lunch. I wasn't going to feed him that soon after so much running, so we went back inside for some nap time. Jedi ended up crashing until about 3:00. Once he was up I figured I should probably get around to making up for missing nail day on Friday. Jedi's nails were looking kind of long when I looked at them the other day. How do they grow so fast? We went out on the deck and everyone had their turn. Jedi had to wait through Kizzy and Kaiser's turns. He did well and I randomly rewarded him with a few pieces of food while he waited. Jedi did well for his turn, if not a bit overly-fixated on the dish of food in front of him. Once he was done I let him finish off what was left. He more or less stayed out of the way during Luke and Secret's turns.
Jedi's outing of the day was down to Memorial Park in Sparta where their 4th of July celebrations were happening. Kizzy got to come along due to the social aspect of the event, and since Kaiser's still got that bum leg and all (and Secret had the big outing yesterday). We met my parents and niece down at the Lion's Shelter for dinner. Jedi barked impatiently a few times, I think mostly at the boys who were throwing a baseball in the nearby field, but in general did well while we ate. We took a short walk after dinner and the dogs got to say hello to several children who wanted to pet them. Our walk took us next to the lake, which was hard for Jedi, but he got better once we turned around and walked on the other side of the road. Before we left I made the dogs pose next to some cow figures that I assume are still there from Butterfest/Dairy Month.
I debated stopping by the park to let Jedi swim before going home, just to take a bit more of an edge off him before the fireworks commence tonight, but I thought he'd probably done enough for the day. We came home and did dinner on the peanut downstairs. We did some sit pretty and waves, but spent most of the session working on spins/twirls. Not surprising, Jedi had a harder time going to the right (twirl). We just kept working on it and he started to do better. Jedi and Kizzy ran around outside for a bit, but when things started popping outside I called everyone in and shut up the house. I left everything open last night because it's really not that warm out (especially for July), but tonight I caved and I've got the house closed up and the air conditioning on to dull some of the noise outside. So far it hasn't been too bad. The dogs haven't seemed to notice anything. So far no big booms, we'll see if that lasts.
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