My Dogs Today

[SkySoaringMagpie]

I've been working on getting the evil salukis to offer more behaviours when we're shaping, and with the boy, it's been slow. With my girl tho', she's a doggie genius.

I dropped an empty Amazon cardboard box on the ground the other night, and she offered all this stuff in the space of five minutes. Nosed it, pawed it, flipped it on its side, flipped it over, stood one paw in it, stood two paws in it, shoved it along the ground. She was really quick at picking up that she should try something else and her attention in between behaviours was great.

I was very proud of her, especially as the boy just eyeballed me and ignored the box (I shaped him into looking at it, but he was still "eh, what?")

I do enjoy the no pressure "let's just see what you can do" sessions with them at home much more than the formal work. It's wonderful watching their little doggie minds in action (even if some are slower than others )

Of course, my boy who is not so blessed in the brain department is the biddable one, and my girl, who is a smart little minx, is not biddable. At least I know that when the boy does get something, it will stick fairly reliably and he will not push the envelope. My girl is much more likely to test if I'm going to insist on something.

[Guest Tess32]

I loving doing that kinda stuff Anita...it's so great to watch them figure things out

[Reddii]

My boy who is being a bit of a teenager with other pups at the moment met the little swf from up the back yesterday. They played very nicely for about 15 minutes!!

Didn't stop the little terror from barking non-stop for 3 hours while the owners were out - just a small case of S.A. methinks. Lucky I've gone 'dog deaf' from flyball! lol.

CK has also worked out the flyball box!! Now i just have to get him to learn to catch - imagin a ball obsessed BC that can't catch!

Xena seems to have all her confidnece back as well - I haven't seen her retrieving like she did in the park this morning for a long time - she even declined to give CK the ball where normally she drops it if he comes within 2m of her.!

All is good again after an ordinary week last week.

Happy monday everyone.

[MonElite]

I had a friend fix my bathroom door and he had to use an electric saw. Both dogs howled like wolves when it was in operation. Time and time again. And I didnt film it........

[Clicking Mad]

Edited January 22, 2008 by Clicking Mad

[Mooper]

I was very proud of her, especially as the boy just eyeballed me and ignored the box (I shaped him into looking at it, but he was still "eh, what?")

Ah yes. Jack sounds like your boy ... he's very well trained to STARE at a box but had no clue what else to do with it

Free shaping with him involves a repertoire of (usually in this order) sit, shake (right), wave (right), drop, roll (always rolls to his right!), speak, then I get just about every toy from his box placed neatly on my lap.

He's always been good at putting toys back in the box but I never trained him to do so He usually just carries whatever he has over there and drops it in order to pick up a different toy. I'm not complaining, although I'm still trying to teach him to put away the laundry ...

[ruffnut]

I decided to give the pups something different to play with so made a see-saw for them . They loved going up and down or just sitting on it !

[Reddii]

Anyone want a reasonable well trained 14 month old BC pup CHEAP????? CK has always been the laziest dog on the face of the planet until you ask him to do something. Once he stops he stops and goes to sleep just that quickly.

I've been thinking I'm really clever working on his confidence and drive lately and it is coming along really well........too well it seems. Last night I made the mistake of leaving a tennis ball on the lounge when went to bed. One of them had stolen it out of the ball bucket - both are ball obsessed, but only allowed tb's at flyball.

I got woken from a dead sleep (still no idea what time - I didn't really wake up) at some point in the night by CK's 'come and help me' bark. There was the little man in the lounge, nose under the lounge chair trying to fish out a tennis ball. Needless to say I wasn't that impressed and took the ball, put him back on his bed and went back to bed myself. At least he's starting to play a little I guess...would just be nice if it wasn't at sometime in the am.

[Lablover]

Very good diarrhoea detection lablover . I know more about dog poo than I ever wanted to know ;) .

The next morning, my husband accidently shut the back door. What a mess I found. O well, that life with dogs and carpet.

Today I was doing a bit of weeding. I had cleaned out the largish fish pond in front of our house. Yank noted fish swimming about. I turned my head, pretending to ignore him, so he jumped in. Yo of course joined him.

[Rom]

Since I taught my girl the formal retrieve if I'm busy doing something and she wants my attention, she'll pick up anything that comes to hand (or mouth!) and bring it to me and sit in front with an expectant look on her face. She brings me socks from the laundry basket, shoes, pens from the coffee table, tools from the shed, my hair brush, what ever takes her fancy at the time.

Today took the cake though....and I'm sure that it was just co-incidental....she bought me a packet of feminine hygiene products.....funny thing is, her timing was spot on (pardon the pun)

[J...]

Today I took Darcy down the beach, great spot where the river meets the sea and tide was right out so heaps of space on the flats in water varying between mid-leg (hers) through to elbow/chest deep and then into swimming depth.

We spent over an hour there with the ball chucker and a ball, great workout for her especially having to leap through the deeper water to get the ball.

Barely even took the edge off her - anyone know how to take the batteries out of this dog?? And she's not even that fit at the moment

Mind you she is sleeping right now, but I'm sure she'd find her second wind pretty quick if she needed it

[Reddii]

My boy did his first full flyball run last night!!!! He still stopped to say hello to the box loader and have a sniff around the box (with ball in mouth - idiot), but he did come back over all 4 hurdles, albeit with HEAPS of encouragement. WOO HOO Beginners in Canberra here we come!

My girl is finally back to her old self after she was attacked the other week. She will never be a super confident strutting around saying hello dog, but works really well and let's not much bother her because she is too focussed. In recent weeks she's lost a bit of focus and has worried too much about what is going on around her, but last night all that mattered was the job at hand!!!!! Only problem was when OH was box loading in the other lane and Xena kept running to the centre line to have a look at her and then missing the first hurdle on the way back. At first we thought it was the dog in the other lane, but her body language was all wrong for that so we moved OH - Bingo! Good thing is that she won't be boxloading at comps!!

Have a good weekend everyone.