Trial, Class, and Daycare

Jedi has been a busy boy since my last post last week. Speaking of, apparently head halters for dogs are a popular post topic because that blog post got almost 3x the normal amount of views. It did generate some discussion on my Facebook link, though, and any time people comment on my Facebook link to the blog it tends to make more people curious enough to click into the blog to see what I've rambled about on any given day. It may be that people were curious to learn more about the "reactive behaviors" that I alluded to in the link blurb. In case I wasn't clear about what we're going through, I do not classify Jedi as a reactive dog or a dog who has issues with other dogs. I do think he has some momentary arousal issues that thus far have been fleeting and minor. The head halter is simply to ensure that nothing progresses past the point where we are now by giving me a way to easily redirect his attention. I am probably more sensitive than most to this subject because Kizzy came to me with severe arousal reactivity towards various types of dogs, and places like agility trials were very hard for her. Poor Jedi is subject to being my next dog following Kizzy and as such I'm hypersensitive to all of the issues she came with at 20 months old.

Jedi had a great weekend at the trial. As planned, I was able to crate out of the van all weekend where I believe they all get a chance to relax a bit more (okay, again that is more directed at Kizzy). It also meant that I didn't need to do any fancy crate swapping since Jedi has now outgrown the 30" crate. The trial was large enough that I had a comfortable number of dogs between all of my runs which allowed Jedi a chance to get out quite a bit. On Saturday I had a lot of down time during FAST (missed the boat on worker sign-up, so no free lunch for me), so I brought Jedi in and we played lots of tug next to the ring. He also offered a lot of fun tricks -- "Wee wee" has made a reappearance again recently. Admittedly I haven't been doing a lot of shaping behaviors with Jedi lately, so it was fun to see him offer this. Between classes we went and played on the warm-up jump doing all sorts of fun one-jump stuff with the bar on the ground.

On Sunday I decided to take a Chuck-it along with us so that I could give Jedi a chance to run off some energy (he was kind of loony Saturday night after we got home). There is a huge open (groomed) lot across the street from Canine Sports Zone that the owners are kind enough to let dogs use during trials. I figured since I was able to throw the ball over 2x as far as my yard (which itself is pretty big) that Jedi would have more time to be thoughtful about his approach to the ball. It kind of worked. At least he didn't go topsy-turvy on any of his runs, but he did come back a little muddy from doing some of his superman slides. After he'd had a chance to run off some steam I took him inside to learn the art of "chilling" next to the ring while they ran T2B. There were a couple of dogs coming out of the ring that Jedi found a little too exciting, but he was easily and quickly redirected back to me. It didn't take long before he was flat out and totally relaxed while dogs were running in the ring, getting ready to go into the ring, and coming out of the ring right past him. Good boy, Jedi!

We've been playing with cones at home the last few days, but haven't done much else in the training department. I had to mow on Monday and cones were the quickest thing to set up to run Jedi before it got dark. You can do a lot with 3 cones set in a giant triangle -- they are spaced well apart to give Jedi more room to run, since honestly the only reason we really play those games is to give him that chance (to run). I put the pools away (again) before I mowed on Monday, but I continue to relent and get them back out for Jedi. It also helps to keep him out of the water bucket.

Last night Jedi got to come to class with me. It was graduation night for both groups. The Advanced class was doing CGC testing and I debated running Jedi through it, but meh. I mostly took him so that I'd have the chance to work him in the Halti around the other dogs before class. He was remarkably good! One of the class dogs started out by having a really rough night and was more reactive than I feel she has ever been. This put Jedi on hyper-alert the moment she came down the stairs. He had two "OMG what is that" moments there were ended in an instant due to the Halti not letting him whip his head around to fixate. After that he was golden. There were even two moments where I specifically saw him *make the decision* to keep his focus on me after a brief glance towards one of the dogs he has had some trouble with in the past. He was so good! Then Jedi got to play with the lab puppy from puppy class and the other trainer's young labs as well.

I had an all-day meeting at work again today, so Jedi got to go back to daycare today! Last time he went he had just turned 6 months and I was told that this is their cutoff for dogs who aren't altered, but was told that I might be able to get permission from the owner to let Jedi continue to go. I messaged her on Facebook last night and we got the all clear, so Jedi got to have a day of fun instead of being stuck in a crate all day. He didn't make any of the videos posted today, but they got a couple of photos of him that they put on the Facebook page. I laughed when I saw the top picture because it doesn't surprise me at all that Jedi managed to get himself wet even when it was in the 40s today. There was a 9 week old border collie puppy there for his first day of daycare today and in the photo they shared to welcome him Jedi was in hot pursuit, so they must have played for a bit. They seem to really like Jedi there, so hopefully he can continue to go as needed, despite not being neutered.

The other bonus to Jedi spending a day in daycare is that he comes home and we have a very quiet night. This is especially helpful on Wednesdays since I have both of my school seminars back-to-back. Normally I try to get the dogs out and walked or something before my first class starts, but tonight I actually felt like that would be mean to do to Jedi. Instead I ended up going on the treadmill (because I need to start moving if I'm going to run Jedi next year) and Jedi crashed next to me. Since I had to go into the basement to use the treadmill I ended up being inspired to have Jedi work for his dinner, which I haven't done in ages. We did some work on the donut, played with the cone (circling, wee-wee, hug) and did some pretty impressive hand-stands against the wall. That one must be latent learning because we definitely haven't touched on those skills in forever!