Figured I'd do a Groovy only update...
Disc work: She's doing great. She really loves to play and that's what she wants to do most when we are at home. If we are in motion in the house in any way and make any motion towards the front door she runs and stands there looking at you like "I'm ready to play - you wanna?". It's so cute and just what we wanted in our next dog. Yesterday was agility class day so she wasn't allowed to practice disc like the rest of the dogs. She was pretty upset about that and snuck out the door twice running into the front field to play. The first time she came back voluntarily. The second time however I think she had figured out she wasn't playing that day so there was no volunteering to come back. It was Jack who let her out so it was Jack who got to wrangle her back in. He told me that by the time he got out there (he had to put shoes on first) she was way out in the cow pasture. That used to be a problem - her going after the cows - but for the past month or two she has chosen disc over cows every time. The problem still comes when we aren't out there to play disc... she opts for cows. Anyway... she was WAY out in the cow pasture just running (no cows around this time). Jack said he grabbed two discs and clapped them together and the moment he did she came haulin' butt back to him. Very cool. It'd be nice if she responded to her name that way but alas... we'll get there someday!
As for her disc skills... she's doing much better about not circling as bad. She can now stop in front of you and wait for the next move. This seems like a small thing but seriously... she would get started circling and never stop. She's like a shark or something that way (or worse yet - a Border Collie :) ). She's getting the hang of butterflies and catching the disc at varying angles and spins. I think she'll likely never be as accurate and agile as Tali is. Tali can read the discs so well and adjust her speed and direction very quickly to get the disc. Groovy is more of a freight train and can't adjust her body as quick - however she is still under a year old and seems to be getting better. She's faster than Tali that is for sure, so disc placement is more important in terms of getting them in front of her - whereas Tali you just don't want to get them too far ahead of her. It's definitely a different game with Groovy and Jack is really enjoying learning ways to work the differences. Below is a video of her from this past weekend.
As soon as she conquers or at least gets a lot better with her fear of people in public and she'll be ready to compete in toss n fetch. Fingers crossed that her disc drive is going to start overriding her fear stuff.
Agility:
Groovy is doing very well. Our weak areas are stay, weaves, men near by and loud unexpected noises. Stay - we are working on. Weaves - well we are starting to work on them. She isn't quite yet a year yet after all. Men and noises... well we've been working on that from day 1. She's playing tug a lot more in class now and if she does freak herself out seems to be able to recover better. Her teeter the other night was quite good considering what a scary obstacle that has been for her in the past due to the loud noise it emits. Overall I'm pleased with her progress considering her age. In another month or so I'll (get this) "decide to assume" that her growth plates are closed and start getting more serious about weaves, jumping, etc. She'll be 1 on April 2nd so I think it's a pretty safe assumption. I really want to get her hips pre-limmed (and thus know her growth plate status) but I can't imagine that whole process will do anything to bolster her confidence about strangers so I haven't done it yet.
All in all the kiddo is doing well... of course as always it's a few steps forward and a couple back but we are indeed making progress and having fun along the way.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
CPE weekend
Last weekend Tali and I went to a CPE trial in Groveland. We had a lot of fun. She Q'd 3 out of 5 on Saturday and 3 out of 4 on Sunday. Her weaves rocked all weekend! We NQ'd in Jackpot due to time (I mis-judged the timing in the opening - grrr) and it was a traditional gamble to boot - oh well. We NQ'd in standard due to a teeter issue and a tunnel vortex. I forgot what we NQ'd in on Sunday... oh she went under the tire and then back jumped it in colors. Oh well... the teeter issue is troublesome - the tunnel vortex is just lack of practice. I'm still pretty happy about the weaves though!
Groovy came along both days. She and I had a fun time playing frisbee in the field on Saturday - she did really great. She wasn't comfortable going too close to the rings so we took it easy and stayed where she was comfortable. On Sunday Jack came and met some of the disc dog guys to practice. Jam came too! She did pretty good practicing in the field - for Jam anyway. Groovy totally wigged out about there being people in the field that was empty yesterday but after watching Tali play a little frisbee with Jack she snapped out of it and played with him though a good distance away from the strange men. She did awesome though. She was a little braver walking around the trial site and even took cookies from our friend Sherri. Hopefully soon she'll get a little braver and be ready to compete a little in toss n fetch. We shall see...
The time changed on Sunday - woo hoo! I've been tired all week but it's totally worth it to have it be lighter later. Groovy and I have practiced agility twice already this week (normally that practice only occurs on Sat. and Sun. due to lack of light) and Jack has had some really great sessions with all the dogs including Maximo. Max is learning quickly and his drop at a distance is coming along - he can drop it about 4 feet out now which is a huge improvement. He is really getting the hang of some of the vaults too! We tried the "Ron Watson barrel" vault training method with him... the little weirdo refuses to get on the barrel. So much for that! Jam however thinks the barrel is awesome and in just a few days her vaulting off of Jack's body has improved tremendously. Vaults and skip tosses are her favorite disc moves I think. She's so silly. Meanwhile Groovy is becoming the queen of zig zags which is also a big accomplishment because for a while we couldn't get her to stop herding us and were starting to think that her whole routine in the future would have to be nothing but around the worlds! Tali now has somewhat of an opening "routine" - something Jack's never bothered with before. Nothing fancy but it's something that will help fire her up so that's a bonus!
This weekend we don't have much planned. Some disc practice with our friend Chris, dinner with Jack's family, church on Sunday and that's about it. Then next weekend we have a UFO local - woo hoo!
Groovy came along both days. She and I had a fun time playing frisbee in the field on Saturday - she did really great. She wasn't comfortable going too close to the rings so we took it easy and stayed where she was comfortable. On Sunday Jack came and met some of the disc dog guys to practice. Jam came too! She did pretty good practicing in the field - for Jam anyway. Groovy totally wigged out about there being people in the field that was empty yesterday but after watching Tali play a little frisbee with Jack she snapped out of it and played with him though a good distance away from the strange men. She did awesome though. She was a little braver walking around the trial site and even took cookies from our friend Sherri. Hopefully soon she'll get a little braver and be ready to compete a little in toss n fetch. We shall see...
The time changed on Sunday - woo hoo! I've been tired all week but it's totally worth it to have it be lighter later. Groovy and I have practiced agility twice already this week (normally that practice only occurs on Sat. and Sun. due to lack of light) and Jack has had some really great sessions with all the dogs including Maximo. Max is learning quickly and his drop at a distance is coming along - he can drop it about 4 feet out now which is a huge improvement. He is really getting the hang of some of the vaults too! We tried the "Ron Watson barrel" vault training method with him... the little weirdo refuses to get on the barrel. So much for that! Jam however thinks the barrel is awesome and in just a few days her vaulting off of Jack's body has improved tremendously. Vaults and skip tosses are her favorite disc moves I think. She's so silly. Meanwhile Groovy is becoming the queen of zig zags which is also a big accomplishment because for a while we couldn't get her to stop herding us and were starting to think that her whole routine in the future would have to be nothing but around the worlds! Tali now has somewhat of an opening "routine" - something Jack's never bothered with before. Nothing fancy but it's something that will help fire her up so that's a bonus!
This weekend we don't have much planned. Some disc practice with our friend Chris, dinner with Jack's family, church on Sunday and that's about it. Then next weekend we have a UFO local - woo hoo!
Monday, March 8, 2010
USDDN Fun N The Sun
This past Saturday our disc dog club held a USDDN qualifier. Kind of a small event for a qualifying event but that doesn't take away from the fun! It was pretty windy and that impacted almost everyone's game, including Jack's of course. He did well on his first round with Tali and well on his toss n fetch round with her however he tried to alter his routine on the 2nd round to account for the wind and very quickly found himself in a mess so half way through he just quit trying and was laughing his way through it. Needless to say it was his worst freestyle in a long time! The good news is that almost everyone seemed to have similar problems and thus despite his issues he and Tali still qualified for USDDN finals in freestyle. They almost qualified in toss n fetch as well and that was with Jack throwing short tosses to build Tali's confidence back up. Seems she is still a little spooked from her quad experience and wasn't going all out for the tosses but I think that last round of TNF and going short really helped. We plan to get her out several places between now and the UFO local to continue to rebuild her confidence.
Jack played with Maximo in freestyle just to give the little guy experience of doing freestyle in a competition environment. They have no routine and certainly don't have several of the elements required of USDDN freestyle but it was all for fun and for experience. Max did good in his first round (with a little bit of getting side tracked looking for french fries on the sideline) and great in his 2nd round. Jack made a point to keep him more engaged and reward him with tugging in that round. Even with his modified freestyle Maximo was a crowd favorite. He had a lot of folks coming up to him telling him how cute he was and such. He was eating it up! He's a cool little dog! My mom, dad, Aunt Barbara, sister, brother in law and nephews all came out to the competition and got to see him play. He's got quite the little fan club going! It's really going to be fun to see Jack and Max grow as a team as Maximo plays so much different than our other dogs. He'll definitely teach Jack as much or more as Jack teaches him!
On a Groovy note... I brought her along this weekend and made a point to take time to be there for her and work through some of her fear. There were definitely points where she didn't want to come out of her crate but she was never shaking like at the Challenge. I had planned to even crate her out of the car but she seemed to be doing well so kept her at the tent. Towards the last part of the day I took her out and played some disc with her on the side and she did great. After the competition was over Jack did the same and again she did great. I think she's gonna be alright in the long run... we just have to be patient and not overwhelm her. I also think I've figured out that she does better if her crate isn't covered. That way she can see what the noises are and not get so freaked out by them. It's a theory anyway... we'll see if it holds true.
This weekend coming up Tali and I have a CPE trial. Groovy will be along for the ride. It's a really small trial and at the same location where we herd so I'm betting she'll do well but we'll still take it all in in very small doses.
Jack played with Maximo in freestyle just to give the little guy experience of doing freestyle in a competition environment. They have no routine and certainly don't have several of the elements required of USDDN freestyle but it was all for fun and for experience. Max did good in his first round (with a little bit of getting side tracked looking for french fries on the sideline) and great in his 2nd round. Jack made a point to keep him more engaged and reward him with tugging in that round. Even with his modified freestyle Maximo was a crowd favorite. He had a lot of folks coming up to him telling him how cute he was and such. He was eating it up! He's a cool little dog! My mom, dad, Aunt Barbara, sister, brother in law and nephews all came out to the competition and got to see him play. He's got quite the little fan club going! It's really going to be fun to see Jack and Max grow as a team as Maximo plays so much different than our other dogs. He'll definitely teach Jack as much or more as Jack teaches him!
On a Groovy note... I brought her along this weekend and made a point to take time to be there for her and work through some of her fear. There were definitely points where she didn't want to come out of her crate but she was never shaking like at the Challenge. I had planned to even crate her out of the car but she seemed to be doing well so kept her at the tent. Towards the last part of the day I took her out and played some disc with her on the side and she did great. After the competition was over Jack did the same and again she did great. I think she's gonna be alright in the long run... we just have to be patient and not overwhelm her. I also think I've figured out that she does better if her crate isn't covered. That way she can see what the noises are and not get so freaked out by them. It's a theory anyway... we'll see if it holds true.
This weekend coming up Tali and I have a CPE trial. Groovy will be along for the ride. It's a really small trial and at the same location where we herd so I'm betting she'll do well but we'll still take it all in in very small doses.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Purina bound!
Jack got awesome news this week! He and Tali were invited to compete at the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge - Eastern Regional! It will be held in St. Pete, FL April 16-17. I am so proud of them and how far they've come!!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Seminar/Challenge/AWI/Quad weekend Part 2
OK... so we covered all the awesome news about Tali... now on to the rest of us.
Friday's seminar with Ron Watson and Apryl Lea - We had a great time. It was really cool to have disc dog training in a format that I'm used to learning dog stuff. Up till now so much of disc dog training has been "figure it out yourself". I find it kind of nice to have someone actually talk about in depth foundation training, etc. Of course coming from an agility background that's what I'm used to so it makes sense that part of the seminar would appeal to me. Jack isn't the best student in the world (teachers often are not) but he enjoyed it very much and we both learned a lot. Jack worked Tali in the seminar and I worked Max. I did play with Groovy during down time and she did quite well. Very focused on me and the disc and considering I was playing in a sheep pasture filled with sheep treats I was pretty happy about that!
Exciting side note!!! In a change of events... Maximo is staying! Mom had a change of heart the Thursday before we left for Orlando. She wants to give it a go with Max. They are going to fence in their yard which should help get him some exercise without him having to be leash walked for it. Hopefully this works out well for them, for Max and for us too. It's very exciting to see Jack work frisbee with Max. It'll take a while for them to become competitive for various reasons 1) he doesn't live with us and they only get to work together 2-3 days per week 2) Max has some foundation stuff to learn (like "drop") but he gets better every session. Someday though I think they will be a very competitive team.
Challenge/Quad: Max did OK with me in toss n fetch. While he is a freestyle maniac he loses focus in distracting environments in toss n fetch. Nothing that can't be overcome and he was getting better as the weekend progressed. I played with Max in the quad. We don't really have any timing down so we didn't do all that well but we did get a 34 yard catch and that isn't too bad. He was a good boy all weekend and the girls (Tali, Jam and Groovy) ended up loving him by the time the weekend was over.
Groovy - Groovy did great on Friday as I mentioned. I didn't work her in the seminar as I thought it'd be too much on her not to mention she isn't really old enough to be doing a lot of the disc dog stuff. She did do great the times I did play with her. Her focus and drive are really coming along nicely. We learned several tidbits at the seminar that will help us in our training with her and I'm already seeing a difference in her since then. Groovy also did great at the hotel (minus a few minus of slipping her leash and not wanting to come back - giving me a heart attack because she went both near a pond - think gator bait - and near a road at 10pm at night). She slept well, she did well with the hallways, elevators, strangers with just a few woofs here or there. Groovy did not do well at the competition site however. Saturday morning she got out of the car all happy and seemed quite normal walking over to the tent. A couple of hours later I went to get her out of the crate to walk her and have her meet my aunt who came to watch. She was huddling in the back corner shaking. Not good and I have no idea what set her off as her crate was covered and it was Jack on the sound system. It might have been a barking dog in the next tent but who knows. She had done so well at the Canis Majors in November I thought we had made it over this hurdle but I guess it's 2 steps forward 1 step back... or maybe 1 step forwards and 2 steps back some days. After I did get her out of the crate I let her spend the rest of the day crated in the car which she was much happier about. When I walked her I kept her away from the crowd and she did fine. She even played some frisbee with me later that night as Jack was helping pack up the club stuff. I was impressed again with her drive and focus - but mind you - there were maybe only 15 people left and there were quite a ways away - but you got to start somewhere. Interestingly enough she was "normal" back at the hotel that night. Sunday we didn't even get her out much - again she was crated in the car and was very happy about that. We just walked her a time or two and kept her at a distance. This weekend we have a competition that's local. I'm going to bring her but I'm going to keep her crated in the car and I plan to make a point of walking her, rewarding for confidence and playing disc as close to the competition as she is comfortable. We'll see what happens. She really is at the age where aussies generally get spooky about stuff... the "problem" with Groovy is that she's been spooky on and off since she was 11 weeks old. Last weekend aside I think we are making progress and I really see her drive for the disc increasing every week so I'm sure that will help when we can play in some of these places that scare her.
Speaking of drive increasing... I played disc with her Monday night. Jack usually gets home first and gets to play disc with her on the weekdays. Well he had to work late so I got home first. I didn't feel well and was missing her agility class so I made a point to at least get her out for a few minutes to get the beans out. WOW! We had an awesome session! Here's a pic of her from Sunday - she turned 11 months old on Tuesday!
Friday's seminar with Ron Watson and Apryl Lea - We had a great time. It was really cool to have disc dog training in a format that I'm used to learning dog stuff. Up till now so much of disc dog training has been "figure it out yourself". I find it kind of nice to have someone actually talk about in depth foundation training, etc. Of course coming from an agility background that's what I'm used to so it makes sense that part of the seminar would appeal to me. Jack isn't the best student in the world (teachers often are not) but he enjoyed it very much and we both learned a lot. Jack worked Tali in the seminar and I worked Max. I did play with Groovy during down time and she did quite well. Very focused on me and the disc and considering I was playing in a sheep pasture filled with sheep treats I was pretty happy about that!
Exciting side note!!! In a change of events... Maximo is staying! Mom had a change of heart the Thursday before we left for Orlando. She wants to give it a go with Max. They are going to fence in their yard which should help get him some exercise without him having to be leash walked for it. Hopefully this works out well for them, for Max and for us too. It's very exciting to see Jack work frisbee with Max. It'll take a while for them to become competitive for various reasons 1) he doesn't live with us and they only get to work together 2-3 days per week 2) Max has some foundation stuff to learn (like "drop") but he gets better every session. Someday though I think they will be a very competitive team.
Challenge/Quad: Max did OK with me in toss n fetch. While he is a freestyle maniac he loses focus in distracting environments in toss n fetch. Nothing that can't be overcome and he was getting better as the weekend progressed. I played with Max in the quad. We don't really have any timing down so we didn't do all that well but we did get a 34 yard catch and that isn't too bad. He was a good boy all weekend and the girls (Tali, Jam and Groovy) ended up loving him by the time the weekend was over.
Groovy - Groovy did great on Friday as I mentioned. I didn't work her in the seminar as I thought it'd be too much on her not to mention she isn't really old enough to be doing a lot of the disc dog stuff. She did do great the times I did play with her. Her focus and drive are really coming along nicely. We learned several tidbits at the seminar that will help us in our training with her and I'm already seeing a difference in her since then. Groovy also did great at the hotel (minus a few minus of slipping her leash and not wanting to come back - giving me a heart attack because she went both near a pond - think gator bait - and near a road at 10pm at night). She slept well, she did well with the hallways, elevators, strangers with just a few woofs here or there. Groovy did not do well at the competition site however. Saturday morning she got out of the car all happy and seemed quite normal walking over to the tent. A couple of hours later I went to get her out of the crate to walk her and have her meet my aunt who came to watch. She was huddling in the back corner shaking. Not good and I have no idea what set her off as her crate was covered and it was Jack on the sound system. It might have been a barking dog in the next tent but who knows. She had done so well at the Canis Majors in November I thought we had made it over this hurdle but I guess it's 2 steps forward 1 step back... or maybe 1 step forwards and 2 steps back some days. After I did get her out of the crate I let her spend the rest of the day crated in the car which she was much happier about. When I walked her I kept her away from the crowd and she did fine. She even played some frisbee with me later that night as Jack was helping pack up the club stuff. I was impressed again with her drive and focus - but mind you - there were maybe only 15 people left and there were quite a ways away - but you got to start somewhere. Interestingly enough she was "normal" back at the hotel that night. Sunday we didn't even get her out much - again she was crated in the car and was very happy about that. We just walked her a time or two and kept her at a distance. This weekend we have a competition that's local. I'm going to bring her but I'm going to keep her crated in the car and I plan to make a point of walking her, rewarding for confidence and playing disc as close to the competition as she is comfortable. We'll see what happens. She really is at the age where aussies generally get spooky about stuff... the "problem" with Groovy is that she's been spooky on and off since she was 11 weeks old. Last weekend aside I think we are making progress and I really see her drive for the disc increasing every week so I'm sure that will help when we can play in some of these places that scare her.
Speaking of drive increasing... I played disc with her Monday night. Jack usually gets home first and gets to play disc with her on the weekdays. Well he had to work late so I got home first. I didn't feel well and was missing her agility class so I made a point to at least get her out for a few minutes to get the beans out. WOW! We had an awesome session! Here's a pic of her from Sunday - she turned 11 months old on Tuesday!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)