We haven't done anything exceptionally exciting since Jedi graduated from his agility class on Tuesday, but that doesn't mean we've been sitting around doing nothing! We've had a lot of rain lately, which means the rivers are really high right now and probably not the best for swimming. We've had to keep ourselves busy at home in ways that Jedi can't hurt himself (or is less likely to, at least). I still have no faith in his ability to play fetch without breaking something, so that means he's been getting structured play time and working on his sequencing skills.
While I don't do much with NADAC these days, I still follow the forum. In the last week things have blown up regarding the "hoop circle" that NADAC has. Long story short, for various reasons I decided to set this up in my backyard. I don't own the gates or x-pens that are typically used to enclose the circle, so I put down jump bars to define the circle -- but obviously the dogs were free to enter and exit the circle at will. Some say the barriers actually help the dogs with this exercise, but I don't have any so this is what we did.
The circle is lauded as an exercise that helps dogs with directional skills. Seeing as Jedi has recently learned the rear cross, I figured it couldn't hurt to work him through the circle. He has an impressive understanding of the switch cue already and I'm very pleased with his progress to date. He's getting better at targeting and going through the hoops, but he still goes wide occasionally and shoots around them. The only part of the various hoop circle patterns that Jedi wasn't able to do is the send across the back. He doesn't know what "out" is yet.
We did that exercise Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday I was pretty much just looking to run the dogs safely, so I set up a speed circle in the yard with six hoops and three jump standards. It's what it sounds like, just a giant circle that takes up pretty much the entire yard. I've always found it good for speed and motivation, but it's also pretty handy for building confidence with some distance. Jedi thought this was pretty awesome. Jedi also has absolutely no problems with distance. I was able to send him through the circle standing a good 30+ feet away from him. He did an impressively good job at finding all of the hoops in this configuration. I also tossed in some random wraps so that he wasn't just running blindly and taking whatever was in front of him.
Yesterday was a cold, rainy day. We spent much of the day napping. When the rain broke in the afternoon the yard was still far too wet to do anything that involved running. It was pretty nice out, though, so I figured we needed to get out of the house. I bit the bullet and finally took the four dogs (Secret, Jedi, Kizzy, Kaiser) out for a walk together in the neighborhood. Before Jedi came home we were a walking family. We walked before work and we often walked at night, too. A puppy makes that a bit more difficult, though, and then I just got lazy.
Jedi did great for his first time out as part of the group. He started out a bit crazy and pulling. He also insisted on walking on the right, which is where Kizzy & Kaiser walk. I brought him in next to my left side for a bit to remind him how to walk on leash and then he started to settle down and walk nicely. He got stepped on once when he tried to cross in front of me and stayed in his spot after that (quick learner). We only encountered one dog on our walk and Jedi was more or less oblivious to it. We ended up doing about 2 miles and calling it good. Now that fall is coming maybe I'll be better about getting us out more.
Today ended up being another quiet day. I was hoping to get up to the Dog Tank once more to play before our competition next weekend, but it was really cold this morning. I like to leave by 8:00 to beat the afternoon rush at the pool, but it was only 50-something degrees and getting wet just didn't sound appealing at all. It ended up being a really nice day, but I figured with the rain-out yesterday the pool would likely be packed today. Instead Jedi got stuck in a crate while I went to Kornfest, and then I came home and mowed. Jedi seems to be over his mower issues. This is probably largely due to the fact that he has now realized that the mower provides an endless buffet of clipped grass on which to gorge himself like the rest of the dogs. Let's hope that all passes through easily enough.
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