What are you and your dogs up to today? Part 2

[Sanna]

Finally! We are making some real progress I think. Walked Precious around the park today, where lots of playing dogs and their owners tend to congregate in the middle. We haven't gone that way in ages when it's been busy, as P would always get agitated/ reactive/ refuse to move on/ fixate on a dog he didn't like the look of. But today I kinda just felt like he was ready to give it a try- we strolled all around the edges of the park, on a loose lead, happily sniffing and just occasionally looking over at the other dogs. He was quite relaxed the entire time, happy to come along whenever I asked him to; and even offered me some lovely attention and eye contact
It sounds like such a small thing, but it really was a big deal for us (it's only taken me 2 years to achieve.. )- so it felt bloody great!

I always knew Jasper was a Genius Dog

[delladooo]

Clever Jasper! Laufey has a knack of knowing when I'm going to get up before I even move.
Also, well done to Precious!! I hope things continue to go well for you.

After agility today, mum brought MiMi up to meet our trainer and her dogs. Basically, I was right in my thoughts that she's just really scared of new dogs and what they're going to do to her but once she knows they're not going to do anything she's okay. To help her, I just need to expose her to "good dogs" and give her good experiences. However, that's much easier said than done in our area and I think the only human candidate I've met is trying to help his own reactive dog and so isn't in the best position to help us! although, on a related note I was very proud of Laufey - he was very calm and focused on me whilst our trainer's dogs were about and didn't get over excited. I will manage to have two lovely dogs who don't go into meltdown at the sight of other dogs!!

[MPbandmom]

Clever Jasper, way to go Precious, and Laufey.

Our little walk around the park didn't go as well today. OH seems to have become very relaxed with Sirius and the walkabelt. He tends to stroll down the sidewalk as if he hasn't a care in the world with Sirius at full 8' leash length plus 18" or so bungee section. So far, this hasn't been much of a problem. Today was very different.

We got off to a bad start while going down the hill towards the park. There was a youngster on the other side of the road who seemed fascinated with the dogs, so essentially kept to the side of us. This might have been reasonably okay had the child not been wearing roller blades. We crossed the street and Sirius decided to take care of business right away. Child and responsible adult turned out to be headed to the park as well. OH was more focused on keeping track of where I needed to clean up than heeding my warning that skates were coming up behind him. Sirius went off at the child. While OH struggled to get a close up grip on her lead and get her under control. I explained to responsible adult that the sound of the skates scared her so she was trying to chase scary away. Child never got close enough to be in any danger and responsible adult said it was okay as they dodged around and went on their way.

There were two more instances as we took two loops around the park. OH was very shaken, but at the same time didn't want to listen to my suggestions as to how to manage the situation better. He did shorten her lead to 4' plus the bungee section for the trip home. Only because I stopped and did the same for Sky. However, he took that as sufficient control and when an SUV came down the street towards her, he made no attempt to further shorten her lead to prevent her from charging towards the vehicle. Which she did, and he managed to once again grab her in the nick of time. I refreshed his memory that he needs to anticipate anything she might go for. He wanted to know what that would be, so I said anything noisy. The response was that the SUV hadn't been that noisy. When we got home, I explained that she will also look at drivers of vehicles coming towards her and if the driver looks back at her, she will go for the vehicle.

OH is thinking he will have to start walking her by herself in the middle of the day. I don't have any problem with this except he probably won't take the required DSA items for her traildog titles and keep track of the mileage. Of course the alternative would be for him to be more proactive, but as has been discussed many times, this seems to be a skill that is not well represented in the male population.

[MPbandmom]

OH and I have traded dogs. Last night I walked both dogs separately because OH didn't feel like going out. However, I did suggest that perhaps we should trade which dog we walk. That way I can keep a handle on Sirius. Sky is generally much more mellow these days and with the walkabelt, OH seemed to have no problems keeping up with her. Although I noticed Sirius and I kept ending up in front which is usually where Sky and I are. There are placed where a lookout in front of Sirius is helpful.

We shall see how it goes.

[Nettle]

Good bit of lateral thinking there, MPb

[katej215]

I would normally be scowling like mad at someone hauling their dog up the road, whether they had a harness on or not...today that person was me...
Both dogs normally walk on a loose lead past any stationary cats...and of course both look extremely interested at cats on the move, but never charge or bark, just walk a bit quicker with their oooh faces on
today we walked past a driveway with a cat at the other end...both dogs stopped to have a look (nothing unusual), I waited for a sec, was about to ask the dogs to walk on, when the cat came trotting up the drive towards us Hattie would have been fine, she's greeted confident cats before, but Mostyn immediately went into low crouch prey drive mode, so i needed to get the heck outta there asap....hence me hauling him up the road.. poor lad

[MPbandmom]

Sometimes ya just gotta get a move on.

Our dog trading was short lived. I guess what seemed to me like OH managing Sky easily, didn't seem the same way to him. As we prepared to go out tonight he asked that we trade dogs, he was tired of walking Sky. Oh well. He did apparently do some observing of how I was handling Sirius and was following the example tonight. We shall see how long it lasts.

[Erica]

I have been doing some of the teeter-totter exercises in the "shape for demand" article I linked to...and guess who did his first not-held-up chute AND proper(ish) teeter today? After only a week of playing on some planks elevated to a lousy 4" height fulcrum! Delta completely stunned me when he went through the chute, then later I was calling him to skip the teeter and he jumped on it like “no let’s do this” and I said “off” and he said “lol no i like wobbly surfaces." So the instructor and I held the teeter so it went down slow. He was fine with it! And he had no regression on the dog walk like he has the past few times he's been on the teeter. The next time the teeter came up he almost went up too fast, but he DID listen to my “woah” so yeah that was fun

He doesn’t like tunnels much and was refusing them sometimes. I think the chute put him off them a bit. We’ll see how he is next week; I may bring some tennis balls to make tunnels really worth his while.

Also the punk knocked over the wall thing separating our waiting area from the course. I'm glad that the dog on the course was friendly and not aggressive (the dog on the course was new to us and unfocused with no distractions-putting dogs in the same room made him completely impossible to direct), but gosh darnit Delta don’t doooo that.

I think both of us are completely pooped after that. Our instructor sets up really difficult courses so we can refine our handling skills, so my brain is scrambling to keep up and not trip over myself, and keep the treats in the correct hand and remember what to do when...and also pay attention to Delta and see when he needs support and direction. Delta is learning so much so quickly; I bet his brain is fried too.

Bonus picture of Funny Hair:


and fall fashion:

[Nettle]

ha ha: now you KNOW what you always suspected about that awesome poodle intelligence

[WufWuf]

Hello folks! We've been a little bit quiet here lately We had some building works going on and things were crazy but they are finally done now and life is slowly getting back to normal (whatever that is lol)

Honey thinks it's awesome as now she has space to play like a real dog (see below for evidence!) AND her very own garden to cause chaos in .

So I just wanted to say hello before I go catch up with all I've missed!

Some pics of the girly!

[Nettle]

She just gets more and more gorgeous!

[minkee]

I would normally be scowling like mad at someone hauling their dog up the road, whether they had a harness on or not...today that person was me...
Both dogs normally walk on a loose lead past any stationary cats...and of course both look extremely interested at cats on the move, but never charge or bark, just walk a bit quicker with their oooh faces on
today we walked past a driveway with a cat at the other end...both dogs stopped to have a look (nothing unusual), I waited for a sec, was about to ask the dogs to walk on, when the cat came trotting up the drive towards us Hattie would have been fine, she's greeted confident cats before, but Mostyn immediately went into low crouch prey drive mode, so i needed to get the heck outta there asap....hence me hauling him up the road.. poor lad

I'm doing a little catching up.... but it looks like I have a LOT of catching up to do .... BOTH dogs? Mostyn?! Wow!

[Sanna]

waaaah that's just too much cute Ooh the scarf! The hair! The brains! The poodle-ness what a gorgeous boy Delta is. And check out that lovely Honey-monster posing for the camera

[MPbandmom]

Great pictures of Delta and Honey!

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who gets their brains fried by things like agility and rally. It looks so easy when you watch someone else doing it at a dog show.

OH and I have continued with our regular dogs. Sky about drove me crazy at the park tonight. There were a couple of baseball fields occupied by people doing some batting practice and at one field the person batting had managed to hit two over the fence. Sky HAD to go get the ball that she saw fall. Then she was very disappointed to discover it was a softball. Then I dared to pick them up and toss them back over the fence to join the other balls that were hitting the fence and collecting on the inside.

OH has been managing Sirius well.

[WufWuf]

I had one of those amazing moments with Honey today where all the time and training paid off!

I was in the park and it was empty apart from some young lads sitting on a bench, I made a mistake initially of not engaging Honey before she spotted them (People are her favourite thing!) so she went to say hello. I whistled her back just after she reached them and kept working with her at a distance as no dogs in the park is a rare and wonderful thing for us

Nothing flashy really just downs, spins, bit of leg weave and jump through legs stuff. Then one of the young lads whistles really loudly and Honey turns and runs towards him (with his mates laughing that my dog was abandoning me!). I said her name and she whipped around instantly and FLEW back to me Cue much slagging and laughing at YUM from his mates and much fuss and liver cake for the Honey Monster

Here's a pic of us posing for the camera just because