After we did literally nothing all day on Thursday, I knew that we were going to have to do something yesterday to rid Jedi of some of his pent up energy. I had to run an errand at lunch time and I packed Jedi along just to give him a change of scenery. I still haven't tested the waters of leaving him loose at home when I leave and figured it was easiest to just schlep him along. My plan was to mow the lawn and then play around with some agility drills after work, but mother nature had other plans and dumped rain on us much of the afternoon. Come 5:30 it broke up enough that I could go out to clean up the yard, but it was much too wet to play with sequencing.
It was not, however, too wet to go swimming! I took Jedi and Secret over to Amundson Park. The park (and the river access) has been getting more popular in recent years, but I figured on a gloomy afternoon following the rain we shouldn't have to deal with anyone. I was right, we had the whole place to ourselves. Because of this I didn't bother leashing anyone as I let them out of the van. Jedi didn't know what to do with himself. He'd run a few steps and look back at me for direction. I guess this is preferable to Secret's tactic of just running off to lord knows where. He stuck fairly close until the water came into view and then he was off. I was going down to the beach area with them, but Jedi couldn't wait and ended up jumping in the river a few times on the way (not easy in/out points, either).
The water was pretty fast due to all of the recent rain, so I was cautious with my throws to try to keep them out of the swirling vortex areas just off the rapids. I always throw the toy upstream (towards the rapids) so the dogs just have to work a bit going towards the toy and then have an easy time coming back. Jedi is a lot stronger swimmer than the last time we visited this spot, so he had no problems and did well. I didn't leash him when it was time to leave and instead just started walking back up the trail. Twice he followed and went running back to the beach area. The next time he came running up I put both dogs on leash -- both to prevent them from going back in the water and to keep them from running off into the tall grass to pick up ticks. They got to play for about a half hour. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
Today I mowed the lawn and then Jedi got to go hang out at Bangor Fun Daze for a while so that we could listen to the family polka band play. Jedi did great with the crowds and the noise from the band. He got to meet my cousin's German Shepherd puppy who, at three months, is almost as big as Jedi! I kept Jedi busy with tricks and tugging. There were several people who were enjoying watching him. Jedi also got to go swimming in the creek a couple of times to cool off, which he thought was pretty great. One thing that Jedi needs to work on a bit is settling in public. He is fine if I'm interacting and playing with him, but if we're just sitting there he starts to bark. He gets bored. After the band wrapped up Jedi got to meet some family members who have so far only seen him through Facebook.
Before we went home Jedi got to go meet and play with another puppy -- another cousin's mini Schnauzer puppy (guessing about 3 months), Doug. Doug was a little intimidated by Jedi at first, but Jedi rolled around on the ground enough that he got the puppy interested in playing. Jedi then proceeded to roll on top of Doug like he was something smelly that needed to be rolled in. lol There were some chase games and chewing on each other, but there was a lot of Jedi laying on top of Doug. Thankfully Doug didn't seem to mind this. Weird puppies.
Yesterday I got home from work just before 1:00 and was once again greeted to a mess in Jedi's crate. I'll admit, I did not see him poop outside before I left at 7:30. We went outside together, as we always do before I leave. He went potty and then he stood and barked at me because he wanted to play. Well, that's not going to happen at that time of day, so in we went and he went into his crate with his Kong. Last time he messed his crate he buried it neatly in the blanket and it was easy to clean up. This time I just had a towel in there (still haven't washed the other blanket after hosing it off on the deck) and, well, it was everywhere. It was bad enough that I picked Jedi up and carried him to the door to put him outside because I didn't want him tracking it through the house.
The dog door got locked and the dogs stayed outside while I went about cleaning up the mess in the crate. I hadn't spent any time determining how much Jedi had on him, but I figured he was going to get a bath. Because it was over 90 degrees outside I decided to do the easiest thing and just do it outside with the hose. I looped a slip lead over Jedi's neck and hooked him to the tie ring on the deck -- and proceeded to wrestle him through the entire ordeal. I was still wearing my work pants/shoes and pretty much got as wet as he did. For a dog who is so obsessive about water and the hose, Jedi was surely not a fan of his first hose bath (nor did he really enjoy that one bath I gave him in the house, so I don't think it's the cold water). Oh well, we survived, he got clean.
We left just after 4:00 to head over to the Wisconsin State Fair. This is the third year we've gone over to participate in the weave pole challenge and this year the plan was to bring Jedi along to hopefully give him a chance to jump into a new pool off a new dock. My dad always comes along for the ride and is a huge help -- there is no way I could do this trip on my own with more than one dog, and the drive home would be a tough one on my own. It's roughly a three hour trip each way. The competition started at 7:30 and we needed to be there fifteen minutes in advance. Because of the heat, I didn't want to get there any earlier than we had to, so we stopped at a rest stop and killed about 15 minutes shortly before hitting Milwaukee and timed it perfectly.
Jedi did just great with the atmosphere at the state fair. The gate we enter for the dog sports arena is generally not super crowded, so that is always helpful, but there are still a lot of people and stuff going on. The noise level is remarkable as well, with music blasting from seemingly every direction. We got through the gate very quickly. They make a big fuss about security, but they barely looked into my bag (I packed light and said, "It's all dog stuff" as I offered it) and they didn't wand me -- they did my dad, though, which was kind of humorous since he was the one carrying the (metal) crates. I gave them our entry tickets and they never asked to see my dog passes. They only sent two, for the two entered dogs, which is why I said I would have to smuggle Jedi in. It was a non-event since they never even asked.
It was 7:13 when we got to the staging area, so I immediately set up Jedi's crate and stuffed him in it. He wasn't very pleased about going straight from one crate to another and barked his disapproval, but as soon as we went around the corner he stopped. At least there was a giant fan blowing back in that crating area, so he got to stay pretty comfy while I was out doing the competition with the little dogs. That went awesome, by the way -- Kaiser got 1st and Kizzy got 2nd! Definitely made the trip worthwhile ($$, yay!). When I went back to the crating area to grab Jedi he was just hanging out in the crate looking totally chill. I love that I can take him absolutely anywhere.
The organizers were a-okay with Jedi taking a turn on the dock when the weave pole stuff wrapped up. Jedi was pretty much elated when he realized what we were doing. Because this was his first time on a new dock/pool, I did a short toss for his first go -- good thing, too, because he did a stop & prop right at the edge. He wiggled back and forth a few times but then he jumped in. My second throw was still on the conservative side and he way overshot it, so after that I started to throw like I usually do. Jedi had a blast. His jumps weren't super consistent -- he had some that were super and some that he biffed a little and jumped really flat. He drew a crowd, though, and was able to entertain some fair goers for a bit. Jedi did better climbing out of this pool than he does at the Dog Tank -- This ramp was a little easier to navigate, I think.
We were back on the road home just over an hour after we arrived. The dogs were nice and quiet on the drive home. I'd debated bringing dinner along with us, but in the end I decided to wait and everyone ate when we got home at 11:15. Due to the late night I would have expected a quiet day today, but they were kind of bonkers. I worked from home to give me that extra 1:30 of sleep. The dogs had just finished breakfast before my 8:30 meeting and were a bit wound up, so they caused a bit of distraction with some of the noises they were making (glad I have an understanding boss). Jedi went out in the rain and came back covered in mud, but there wasn't anything I could do about it since I was in a meeting. Afterwards I passed out the yak chews I got at the store a couple of weeks ago -- probably should have done that before the meeting! Surprisingly they are lasting! The dogs have had them all day and have barely made a dent. Awesome. I might have to go dig through the clearance bin and see if there are more. We haven't done anything else today because I was so wiped out. Hopefully tomorrow we can do something fun.
Tonight was Jedi's fifth week of his Foundations 2 agility class at Canine Sports Zone. Because it was a class night, that meant that Jedi didn't really do diddly squat today up to when we left at 5:30. We arrived about 10 minutes early. Normally we wander around a bit and Jedi uses this time to empty himself before class. Tonight, though, it was all I could do to get him to even pee. He just wanted to play. And play. And play some more. I finally gave up and we just went inside.
As usual, Jedi had an action-packed night that mostly involved running for the entire hour. I spent some time at the beginning just having him do tricks like "pretty" to work him through some of his dinner. We moved on to working bottoms on the travel plank. I added a cone before the plank to build up some speed and momentum. I'm pretty thrilled with how well Jedi did with his bottoms tonight! He was sliding into end position and sticking them nicely. He only overshot a couple. We had a lot of parties for his super awesome bottoms.
Over on the other side we worked a small sequence that had two jumps straight to a table followed by a triple jump. Jedi had bars on the ground, so it was just another set of (wide) standards. The other dog in our rotation was having some motivation issues, so while the instructor worked with them on some things I did my own thing with the jumps. One new skill I introduced to Jedi was a send to the backside, pull through and push on -- I'm sure there is some technical name for this that is totally escaping me. It's good to work on this pull through skill since he's so prone to running wide and around everything. We also did figure eights around the wings, including rear cross "flips." The instructor called Jedi a show-off. ;o)
I spent some time sitting with Jedi at the super-inflated balance disc for a while to get him to settle/cool down a bit and to get the rest of his dinner in him. Our partner dog was really struggling with the wobble board, so one of the instructors borrowed Jedi to show the dog there was nothing to be afraid of (not sure if it worked, but Jedi is always game to help). After a while we were called into the turf arena for Jedi's turn at some jump work. The instructor set up three jumps in a big, totally flat serpentine. I'm pretty sure the instructors all think that I've put more training into Jedi than I actually have. lol She sounded surprised when I said, yeah, he doesn't do that yet. Additionally, that's not how I typically go about introducing the serpentine skill, but we humored her. I was most impressed when I set Jedi up at an angle at the first jump and released him while I stood at the second jump -- and he went through the jump standards! I didn't really worry about the third jump in the sequence, I just tossed his toy in that direction.
Back on the other side the new sequence was jump, table, triple jump, tunnel, tire. The tunnel was turned into a full C shape, which is the biggest curve we've seen in class so far. I thought nothing of it, though, since Jedi has seen a similar curve at home and well, I mean, it's a tunnel! He had a fantastic send through the triple standard and barreled into the tunnel -- and then came flying back out the way he went in. Uh.... So we spent some time working on just going through the tunnel. I think Jedi went in and popped back out a good five times. I finally asked him to go the other way and he went all the way through that time. After a couple more tries he went through the other way and then all was well with the world. It was a very, very dark tunnel. I guess he just didn't know what it was at first! I was able to do several more sends into the tunnel before we ended our evening.
One of the instructors asked if I planned on signing Jedi up for the Agility Foundations 3 class. I mean, as much as I'd love to spend another 6 weeks driving two hours each way... Jedi is done with agility classes until he gets older and is ready to join a handling class. My preference is to teach obstacle performance (my way) at home, and there is a great deal that Jedi won't be introduced to until next spring when the snow melts. I'm not entirely sure what the Foundations 3 class consists of, but my assumption is that they need to start introducing contacts and weaves at some point and Jedi won't be seeing those for a while. We've gotten everything I wanted out of these first two sessions of classes and Jedi is an absolute rock star about working around other dogs. We'll see what training opportunities we can scrounge up this winter and hope that we start to see our classmates at trials in the future!
Jedi has been a busy boy since I last posted on Thursday. We spent Friday and Saturday at an AKC trial at Canine Sports Zone. Yesterday I elected to keep us at home for a change. It was a beautiful day and it was tempting to drive up to the Dog Tank for some diving fun, but we stayed home and worked on some rear cross skills instead. I'm between class sessions right now and didn't have to teach, so tonight we did some more training. I've gotten pretty slack on training much of anything lately, so I figured we were due!
Jedi did well at the trial, but he was a bit barky on Saturday. We really only had an issue when I was walking away with 2 or 3 of the dogs without him, and he stopped once we were out of view. A couple of times, though, I came back and someone had placed Kizzy's screen in front of Jedi's crate, so that tells me he was annoying enough that people tried to stop him. After that I started to make a point to just move the screen in front of Jedi's crate whenever I took at 2 others outside without him. He did better on Saturday. Speaking of crating, though, it would appear that Jedi is outgrowing his 30" crate. I might have to figure out a new configuration for us -- either putting the Klee Kai into the 30" crate or packing up Jedi's 36" from the living room and schlepping it along to trials.
I'm sticking to my "no fetching" rule for Jedi for a while. This meant no fun running in the field across the street from CSZ this weekend. He still got to come out of his crate to play, though. In addition to taking him to chill out by my chair next to the ring (and by chill out I mean tug like a crazy fool) I also made sure to take him in the turf area to play. We also managed to get some time on the practice jumps during course builds when they weren't being used by entered dogs. Jedi got his second session of rear cross training on these jumps and he was pretty much a rock star. Have I mentioned lately how awesome his focus is? Coming off Kizzy as my last training project (ongoing...), it's nice to be able to have a dog who can work off leash in that environment without concern. I didn't bother to measure Jedi this weekend since we just did that at the last trial.
Yesterday morning while we were being lazy in bed (I was totally okay that I only got into 2 days of the trial) I noticed that Jedi's retained canine was obviously loose. I probably could have popped it out right there if I tried hard enough, but I thought the odds were good that it would come out the next time we played. Jedi was pretty pushy and active after breakfast, so I finally relented sometime after 10:00 and took him outside to play. I added a second jump to his rear cross training to teach him that we don't just do rear cross wraps -- that there is usually another jump to go out to. He picked it up very quickly. I started with two hoops next to each other at a 90-degree angle and pushed them out pretty quickly since he seemed to get it. When we got in the house after, sure enough the tooth was gone! It would have been nice to keep that one with the others, but oh well, I wasn't going to go dig in the grass.
Jedi had a very quiet day while I worked from home today, so I figured I'd make him happy and set up a little training drill tonight. We continued to work on the rear cross and incorporated it into some sequences. By George, I think he's got it! :o) I'll be the first to admit that Jedi needs some work when it comes to driving the correct line and going through obstacles instead of around them, but he's had very little exposure to hoops so far and he's been asked to go every which way around wings and cones, so who can blame him? That is the least of my worries at the moment, but I am tickled with his ability to read my rear cross cues as well as he is at this point. Additionally, Jedi has absolutely no problems rear crossing into a curved tunnel and drives just as nicely as he does when I'm on the inside. Honestly, after what I went through with Kizzy it's a relief!
After we wrapped up our play time with sequencing I decided to get Jedi's latest "trick" on video. Not too long ago I asked him to jump up into my arms on a whim when we were in the house and to my surprise he actually did it! Pretty much entirely on his own! Since then I've randomly asked a couple of times and he seems to get it, so I thought I'd put it on film tonight. He was a little pooped after all of his running (the video I posted is edited down from 15 minutes, but all I edited out was playing and when he went to dive into the pool, so there is a lot of playing). This meant he didn't have a lot of oomph for jumping up, but he still gave it a good go. He's definitely not put off by it, that's for sure!
Tomorrow night is agility class and then Wednesday night we drive over to the state fair. I'm still planning to smuggle Jedi in (I got Kizzy in as an extra a couple of years ago) with the hope that he can play in the pool.
Yesterday was a pretty quiet day. It was hotter than heck again, so I finally made Jedi happy and filled up the baby pool again. I had a couple different appointments and elected to leave Jedi at home. This is the first oil change that Jedi has missed since he came home (yes, another one). I knew it was going to be a longer appointment due to the tire rotation and I didn't want to try to entertain my bored-to-tears puppy for over an hour. Once the yard started to get shady I went out to pick up the yard and gave Jedi some play time where we started to introduce some rear cross fundamentals. I have to say I kind of felt like a failure when trying to teach this skill to Kizzy, but Jedi looks like he'll pick it up quite easily. My only struggle now is keeping all of my cues straight.
I got home from work around 1:00 today, which certainly isn't very late -- I'd left for work at the usual 7:30. When I walked in the door I could smell something. I'll be honest, Luke is having a lot of problems lately and I immediately assumed that he'd had yet another accident. Well, not quite. As I bent down to open Jedi's crate the smell got stronger. Yup. Poor guy had his first accident in the crate. I saw him pee and poop immediately before I left this morning, so I'm not really sure what happened. Thankfully (?) he tried to bury it in his blanket and seems to have managed to not cover himself in poop. Hopefully we don't have that happen again. I'm sure it wasn't much fun for him, either.
Tonight was Jedi's very last puppy class. It's been such a blessing to bring him along to all of my puppy classes since he arrived! Jedi was able to fully participate in three full groups/sessions of puppy classes -- how many people/puppies can say that? It was a great opportunity for him to meet lots of new people and puppies, as well as work on his ability to focus around distractions. For the most part he did exceptionally well with each group. He's displayed some minor resource guarding behaviors, but it was largely when he was tired and not focusing as well anymore. There were a few times in the first class when I had to give Jedi a timeout for playing too rough, but he's been great with the puppies in these last two classes.
Jedi got a lot of play time with Bumper the Great Dane tonight, as they were the first to arrive. Bumper and Jedi love each other -- perhaps because Bumper looks like a giant border collie? :o) Daisy the poodle arrived soon thereafter and the mood changes a bit with her exuberant energy, but Jedi was able to switch gears and go between the two. Daisy plays rough, but Jedi doesn't seem to mind. At one point someone noticed blood on Jedi. Then we found a canine tooth on the floor. I hoped it was Jedi's, but nope, it belonged to Daisy. Darn it. Jedi's retained canine is still holding strong. It continues to turn brown, so hopefully it just falls out one of these days.
A big storm blew through this afternoon, but it cleared up enough that we were able to take the class outside on a walk again tonight. Jedi was a good boy, except, of course, when I handed him off to a student while I worked her dog. I again made no promises that he would behave for her, but it's kind of embarrassing to see him flip the switch from awesome/calm dog to crazed hooligan. I'm not really sure how to fix that, but nor do I really care since it's not something I really do very often with my dogs. I'm sure if I handed him over to a "dog person" he'd be a lot better. The class ended with recalls back in the basement and Jedi was a good boy, not barking at all.
We've got an AKC trial at Canine Sports Zone the next two days, so Jedi will be spending a lot of time in a crate the next two days. I should have plenty of time to get him out to play between runs, though -- but it won't be near the fun he's come to associate with his regular trips to CSZ.
It's Jedi's favorite day of the week! Agility night! Last night Jedi got to go to puppy class, but it's not nearly the same as the fun he gets to have at Canine Sports Zone. Last night was the first of two graduation nights this week, though, and Jedi enjoyed himself. I let him play with the other puppies but did try to distract him from doing a lot of running. The lab puppy was out of town this week, so that helped things a bit. It was only about 85 degrees outside, so the class got to go for a walk outside to practice their leash walking skills. Jedi was a good boy -- if anything he was wilting from the heat and being pokey for the last half.
I set our new wings out yesterday (no bars) to introduce Jedi to sending through and around them. I just set them in a pinwheel pattern and worked on various things. The only downside to the design of these wings is that there is nothing from stopping the dog from going through the middle of them -- which Jedi did several times. I figure it's good practice for really defining the path, though, and showing him where he's going. We worked on sends, wraps, backsides, and pushes, and pulls. We definitely need more work on pushes and pulls. I also worked on a few "flips" (spin/twirl) around the backside. I'd like to start to introduce a rear cross before too long here.
Secret and Kaiser went to the chiropractor today and Jedi got left at home because I figured 4 hours in the van tonight would be enough -- he didn't need an additional 1.5 hours traveling back and forth to Viroqua. This meant that when we got to class tonight he was ready to go! Lucky for him, tonight was full of opportunities to play and run. We started off doing bottoms on a plank in the turf arena. Jedi started off super distracted by the tunnel that was set off to the side. It didn't get a whole lot better when we turned the ends down, but he eventually started to focus and nail his bottoms with some speed.
Over on the other side we worked the tire to a tunnel. Back over in the turf arena we ran through jump standards.They started in a pinwheel pattern and the instructor kept moving them to challenge Jedi a bit. He did great and enjoyed getting to run. When we switched back over to the mat side we sequenced together a jump standard, broad jump (2 planks), and the table. On our last turn over on that side they added the tire and chute after the table. Jedi did well if the tire was the first obstacle, but he struggled to get it after the table -- the allure of the chute was too great, I'm sure.
While waiting for our turns we worked on a variety of behaviors tonight. We played table games by sending around a cone and then playing on the table in the down position. I pulled out the tippy plank and we played on that for a bit. We also played on a wobble board -- I threw a balance disc in front of it so that Jedi wouldn't have to try to cram his whole body on the smaller wobble board. Because I don't feed Jedi dinner before we go to class (and because we don't get home until after 10:30), I have to make sure we spend at least some time doing "food behaviors" instead of just playing the whole time.
During the last ten minutes of class they had us work on call to heel exercises with a single jump. The instructors started to introduce some distractions while the dogs worked. They seemed to specifically target Jedi for the most part, which I think is great. I use food during call to heel stuff (there is no accuracy with toys...) and Jedi is absolutely 100% more easily distracted when working with food. I definitely lost him a few times to the squeaker, but he returned to work with me. When I switched to a toy and started to work his stay he was completely focused and never broke, including when the instructor ran by dragging the toy behind her on a leash. We ended class with a couple of turns at restrained recalls, which we got to do over on the turf side. Zoom, zoom!
After we did literally nothing all day on Thursday, I knew that we were going to have to do something yesterday to rid Jedi of some of his pent up energy. I had to run an errand at lunch time and I packed Jedi along just to give him a change of scenery. I still haven't tested the waters of leaving him loose at home when I leave and figured it was easiest to just schlep him along. My plan was to mow the lawn and then play around with some agility drills after work, but mother nature had other plans and dumped rain on us much of the afternoon. Come 5:30 it broke up enough that I could go out to clean up the yard, but it was much too wet to play with sequencing.
It was not, however, too wet to go swimming! I took Jedi and Secret over to Amundson Park. The park (and the river access) has been getting more popular in recent years, but I figured on a gloomy afternoon following the rain we shouldn't have to deal with anyone. I was right, we had the whole place to ourselves. Because of this I didn't bother leashing anyone as I let them out of the van. Jedi didn't know what to do with himself. He'd run a few steps and look back at me for direction. I guess this is preferable to Secret's tactic of just running off to lord knows where. He stuck fairly close until the water came into view and then he was off. I was going down to the beach area with them, but Jedi couldn't wait and ended up jumping in the river a few times on the way (not easy in/out points, either).
The water was pretty fast due to all of the recent rain, so I was cautious with my throws to try to keep them out of the swirling vortex areas just off the rapids. I always throw the toy upstream (towards the rapids) so the dogs just have to work a bit going towards the toy and then have an easy time coming back. Jedi is a lot stronger swimmer than the last time we visited this spot, so he had no problems and did well. I didn't leash him when it was time to leave and instead just started walking back up the trail. Twice he followed and went running back to the beach area. The next time he came running up I put both dogs on leash -- both to prevent them from going back in the water and to keep them from running off into the tall grass to pick up ticks. They got to play for about a half hour. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
Today I mowed the lawn and then Jedi got to go hang out at Bangor Fun Daze for a while so that we could listen to the family polka band play. Jedi did great with the crowds and the noise from the band. He got to meet my cousin's German Shepherd puppy who, at three months, is almost as big as Jedi! I kept Jedi busy with tricks and tugging. There were several people who were enjoying watching him. Jedi also got to go swimming in the creek a couple of times to cool off, which he thought was pretty great. One thing that Jedi needs to work on a bit is settling in public. He is fine if I'm interacting and playing with him, but if we're just sitting there he starts to bark. He gets bored. After the band wrapped up Jedi got to meet some family members who have so far only seen him through Facebook.
Before we went home Jedi got to go meet and play with another puppy -- another cousin's mini Schnauzer puppy (guessing about 3 months), Doug. Doug was a little intimidated by Jedi at first, but Jedi rolled around on the ground enough that he got the puppy interested in playing. Jedi then proceeded to roll on top of Doug like he was something smelly that needed to be rolled in. lol There were some chase games and chewing on each other, but there was a lot of Jedi laying on top of Doug. Thankfully Doug didn't seem to mind this. Weird puppies.
