A blog to track the training and activities of my border collie, Jedi.
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Training, Trial & Trail Walk (29.5 lbs, 19.5")
Not surprisingly, having a foster dog in the house has been rather time-consuming and I have completely failed to update Jedi's blog for the last week and a half. That is not to say we haven't been doing anything -- while Link's presence added a bit of a challenge to various things, Jedi still requires a certain amount of daily activity and I made sure he got that. The amount of rain we've had over the last week didn't help at times, but we all survived. Yesterday Link left us to start the next chapter of his life, so things will start to return to normal around here.
Jedi did very well with our visitor, especially considering some of the behaviors that started to come out as Link settled into the pack. Much like Kizzy when she first arrived, Link has a bit of an issue with overstimulated/playful dogs. Jedi pretty much exudes this quality and I ended up having to do quite a bit of management because of this. One of our problem areas was the hose. Jedi gets very excited about the hose, and Link would use this as a time to come in with a "correction." He got Jedi in the back of the leg a couple of times -- Thankfully Jedi was a saint and completely ignored him. I managed this by keeping the dogs physically separated where the hose was involved. Link also started to have issues with Jedi's state of arousal while playing, so Jedi got solo sessions each day while I closed the gate to keep the other dogs out of the yard (or Secret got to play, too).
On Monday Jedi got to walk up to the vet clinic where we delivered Link for his dental appointment. Jedi thought the field trip was great fun and I always appreciate the opportunity to give him more positive experiences at the vet's office. I'm pretty sure he views the vet as a place to go to jump up on people (sigh...), play tug in the exam room, and sit on scales for treats. After we handed Link over I asked if I could stick Jedi on the scale before we left. He came in at 29.5 lbs. He was last weighed at the beginning of the month and registered at 29.2 lbs, so the growing is slowing down down. I also stuck him under the measuring arm at our trial this weekend and he was 19.5", so that's a 0.25" increase since our trial over Labor Day weekend.
On Tuesday Jedi got to come to class with me again. It had rained much of the day on Tuesday but had cleared up by late afternoon. I knew my plan was to get the classes outside, so I figured the walks would be good for Jedi. I took my crate screen downstairs with us and used that during class to ensure good behavior from Jedi (he dislikes it when class dogs stare at him, so I figured I'd just prevent that from happening). He was a good boy during the inside portions. I had the class dogs work on door manners on our way out and stuck Jedi in the corner while I pumped him with hot dogs to keep him from reacting to any of the dogs as they passed through -- it worked and he didn't notice/care about any of them. Our puppy group was small and we have bigger puppies this session so I initially let Jedi stay out to meet everyone. He got too rowdy for my liking with a lab puppy, though, so into his crate he went. He had been fine while doing on-leash greetings but was getting over-stimulated with the off-leash playing. Jedi was super for our walks outside with both groups and spent nearly the entire time at my side staring up at me while I occasionally fed him hot dogs and ignored him the rest of the time. As per usual, the moment I handed him over to a student to show her something with her dog, Jedi acted like an untrained heathen.
On Wednesday I set up an honest to goodness training session for Jedi. Bad Dog Agility was doing a series of live webcasts last week in preparation for the Agility World Championships. Each day they posted a short exercise that was based on a section of a course at a previous AWC and they would run it in numerous ways while comparing which option(s) worked best or were fastest. This looked super fun, so on Wednesday I took the exercise that they had done the day before and set it up in the yard for Jedi and I to play on. Using their suggestions pushed me out of my usual handling rut and forced me to work on a few things I haven't really done yet with Jedi. The one we struggled with the most was the blind wrap where I ask him to turn in my direction, go around the wing, and I pick him up on my other side. It quickly became evident to me that the cue I was giving him was clearly coming across as my tight switch wrap cue -- but only on the first jump of the sequence and not the second. So I'll need to look at my handling to figure out what I'm doing there. There is nothing more honest than a baby green dog! Other than that I thought he did pretty amazing. I would still like to set up the exercises from the other days that were posted.
Friday and Saturday were spent at an AKC trial at Camp Bandy. Originally I'd thought about staying at a hotel for this trial to avoid the 2 hour drive back and forth, but when Link arrived I decided the drive would be a better option than staying in a hotel with 5 dogs. It was a smaller trial so there wasn't a lot of time to putter around and get the non-running dogs out. I did manage to get Link and Jedi out for playtime in the back field each day, where I wore Jedi out by throwing his ball on a rope. I learned that I could mostly avoid catastrophe if I just threw it super high in the air because then he'd run out, circle around a bit, it would fall, and then he'd run to it without trying to kill himself. He did still manage a somersault of epic proportions on Saturday when I had a bad (low) throw, and we called it quits then because my insides immediately seized up in fear that I broke my dog (he's fine). I really wish this dog could play fetch without killing himself. On Saturday I took Jedi inside during T2B and played tug next to the ring while asking him to do tricks. He was blissfully oblivious to all that was going on around him.
Today we did something we haven't done in a while -- we went for a hike on the bike trail. I feel like we haven't been out hiking since our disastrous experience hiking up at Lake Wazee where we came home and I pulled more than 60 ticks off the dogs. I was a bit scarred by the experience, honestly, and have been completely avoiding all possible areas where we might encounter more ticks. The weather is cooling off now and this makes for nice walking weather, so I hope to start getting us out more again. It also occurred to me that I cannot recall the last time I had Jedi out and about where he had off-leash freedom. I figured today was as good a day as any to see where he's at in his listening skills.
We went to the section of trail that is a wide open straight stretch with not a lot of distractions (cows, roads, etc.). The weather wasn't super nice today, so we didn't end up running into anyone while we were out. Jedi is a LOT more independent now than he was on our previous trail walks, that's for sure. He used to stick pretty close and not venture off very far, although I do recall on our last trip that he was starting to follow Secret a bit more versus sticking closer to the Klee Kai (who are attached to me via flexi leashes). Today he was a man on a mission and just left us all in the dust, often traveling a good 10 yards or more out from Secret. The good news is that he often stops to check in with where we're at. He needs a little work on the speed of response to recalls, but he did come when called. Jedi ran straight over to the railroad tracks towards the beginning of the walk and started to run down them -- this is my absolute rule, that nobody goes near the tracks (Secret used to have an issue there) -- he recalled well and then stuck to the trail from there on out.
Thanks to all of the rain lately there was no shortage of water. Jedi pretty much was wet for the entire walk, capped off with a swim near our turnaround point where the water was deepest. I was happy for that, since just a bit earlier he'd gotten covered in mud... We were out for an hour and I think it was good for everyone. It's been a quiet night and best of all, I haven't seen any ticks yet.
Not surprisingly, having a foster dog in the house has been rather time-consuming and I have completely failed to update Jedi's blog for the last week and a half. That is not to say we haven't been doing anything -- while Link's presence added a bit of a challenge to various things, Jedi still requires a certain amount of daily activity and I made sure he got that. The amount of rain we've had over the last week didn't help at times, but we all survived. Yesterday Link left us to start the next chapter of his life, so things will start to return to normal around here.
Jedi did very well with our visitor, especially considering some of the behaviors that started to come out as Link settled into the pack. Much like Kizzy when she first arrived, Link has a bit of an issue with overstimulated/playful dogs. Jedi pretty much exudes this quality and I ended up having to do quite a bit of management because of this. One of our problem areas was the hose. Jedi gets very excited about the hose, and Link would use this as a time to come in with a "correction." He got Jedi in the back of the leg a couple of times -- Thankfully Jedi was a saint and completely ignored him. I managed this by keeping the dogs physically separated where the hose was involved. Link also started to have issues with Jedi's state of arousal while playing, so Jedi got solo sessions each day while I closed the gate to keep the other dogs out of the yard (or Secret got to play, too).
On Monday Jedi got to walk up to the vet clinic where we delivered Link for his dental appointment. Jedi thought the field trip was great fun and I always appreciate the opportunity to give him more positive experiences at the vet's office. I'm pretty sure he views the vet as a place to go to jump up on people (sigh...), play tug in the exam room, and sit on scales for treats. After we handed Link over I asked if I could stick Jedi on the scale before we left. He came in at 29.5 lbs. He was last weighed at the beginning of the month and registered at 29.2 lbs, so the growing is slowing down down. I also stuck him under the measuring arm at our trial this weekend and he was 19.5", so that's a 0.25" increase since our trial over Labor Day weekend.
On Tuesday Jedi got to come to class with me again. It had rained much of the day on Tuesday but had cleared up by late afternoon. I knew my plan was to get the classes outside, so I figured the walks would be good for Jedi. I took my crate screen downstairs with us and used that during class to ensure good behavior from Jedi (he dislikes it when class dogs stare at him, so I figured I'd just prevent that from happening). He was a good boy during the inside portions. I had the class dogs work on door manners on our way out and stuck Jedi in the corner while I pumped him with hot dogs to keep him from reacting to any of the dogs as they passed through -- it worked and he didn't notice/care about any of them. Our puppy group was small and we have bigger puppies this session so I initially let Jedi stay out to meet everyone. He got too rowdy for my liking with a lab puppy, though, so into his crate he went. He had been fine while doing on-leash greetings but was getting over-stimulated with the off-leash playing. Jedi was super for our walks outside with both groups and spent nearly the entire time at my side staring up at me while I occasionally fed him hot dogs and ignored him the rest of the time. As per usual, the moment I handed him over to a student to show her something with her dog, Jedi acted like an untrained heathen.
On Wednesday I set up an honest to goodness training session for Jedi. Bad Dog Agility was doing a series of live webcasts last week in preparation for the Agility World Championships. Each day they posted a short exercise that was based on a section of a course at a previous AWC and they would run it in numerous ways while comparing which option(s) worked best or were fastest. This looked super fun, so on Wednesday I took the exercise that they had done the day before and set it up in the yard for Jedi and I to play on. Using their suggestions pushed me out of my usual handling rut and forced me to work on a few things I haven't really done yet with Jedi. The one we struggled with the most was the blind wrap where I ask him to turn in my direction, go around the wing, and I pick him up on my other side. It quickly became evident to me that the cue I was giving him was clearly coming across as my tight switch wrap cue -- but only on the first jump of the sequence and not the second. So I'll need to look at my handling to figure out what I'm doing there. There is nothing more honest than a baby green dog! Other than that I thought he did pretty amazing. I would still like to set up the exercises from the other days that were posted.
Friday and Saturday were spent at an AKC trial at Camp Bandy. Originally I'd thought about staying at a hotel for this trial to avoid the 2 hour drive back and forth, but when Link arrived I decided the drive would be a better option than staying in a hotel with 5 dogs. It was a smaller trial so there wasn't a lot of time to putter around and get the non-running dogs out. I did manage to get Link and Jedi out for playtime in the back field each day, where I wore Jedi out by throwing his ball on a rope. I learned that I could mostly avoid catastrophe if I just threw it super high in the air because then he'd run out, circle around a bit, it would fall, and then he'd run to it without trying to kill himself. He did still manage a somersault of epic proportions on Saturday when I had a bad (low) throw, and we called it quits then because my insides immediately seized up in fear that I broke my dog (he's fine). I really wish this dog could play fetch without killing himself. On Saturday I took Jedi inside during T2B and played tug next to the ring while asking him to do tricks. He was blissfully oblivious to all that was going on around him.
Today we did something we haven't done in a while -- we went for a hike on the bike trail. I feel like we haven't been out hiking since our disastrous experience hiking up at Lake Wazee where we came home and I pulled more than 60 ticks off the dogs. I was a bit scarred by the experience, honestly, and have been completely avoiding all possible areas where we might encounter more ticks. The weather is cooling off now and this makes for nice walking weather, so I hope to start getting us out more again. It also occurred to me that I cannot recall the last time I had Jedi out and about where he had off-leash freedom. I figured today was as good a day as any to see where he's at in his listening skills.
We went to the section of trail that is a wide open straight stretch with not a lot of distractions (cows, roads, etc.). The weather wasn't super nice today, so we didn't end up running into anyone while we were out. Jedi is a LOT more independent now than he was on our previous trail walks, that's for sure. He used to stick pretty close and not venture off very far, although I do recall on our last trip that he was starting to follow Secret a bit more versus sticking closer to the Klee Kai (who are attached to me via flexi leashes). Today he was a man on a mission and just left us all in the dust, often traveling a good 10 yards or more out from Secret. The good news is that he often stops to check in with where we're at. He needs a little work on the speed of response to recalls, but he did come when called. Jedi ran straight over to the railroad tracks towards the beginning of the walk and started to run down them -- this is my absolute rule, that nobody goes near the tracks (Secret used to have an issue there) -- he recalled well and then stuck to the trail from there on out.
Thanks to all of the rain lately there was no shortage of water. Jedi pretty much was wet for the entire walk, capped off with a swim near our turnaround point where the water was deepest. I was happy for that, since just a bit earlier he'd gotten covered in mud... We were out for an hour and I think it was good for everyone. It's been a quiet night and best of all, I haven't seen any ticks yet.
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