Spring Photo Drop

Already growing up too fast.

Everyone's playing Chase Demo (a favorite game) around here.

High flyin' Panda Bears

Tug wiff me!

She has her own little water bowl, but she wants to be a big dog.

Happy Gotcha Day Shiner!

Happy 5th Gotcha Day, Shiner! 

'Spot' On

Trophy's contacts tonight were fantastic.  The one time he hit his contact a bit too enthusiastically on the A-frame and sort of popped right off (it was like he drove it in too deep and his butt wasn't quite ready to stop or something) he immidately got back on.  Yay for a proofed "Spot" behavior!  Weaves are still killing us >_<  need more hours in the day.

Need to win the lotto tonight so I can quit my day job and play with my dogs all day everyday.  Yeah, could you all just cross your fingers for my so THAT dream could come true? Thanks!

Pan was a bit crazy tonight again.  Silly section, curved tunnel in a corner, jump on the straight away and the table slightly off to the side.  Tire jump in line with the exit of the tunnel and the jump.  I'm expecting Pan to blast out of the tunnel and hit both jumps.  Instead she bypasses both jumps and springboards off the table.  Uberdork, that one.  My sister and I switched dogs the last run of the night.  I sent Pan into that tunnel (and my sister said she saw her ricochet off the WALL OF THE TUNNEL she single strided from her landing out of the tunnel all the way over that first jump.  AT LEAST 15 feet.  It looked like she was trying to clear the jump and land on the table straight from leaving the tunnel.  The girl has mad extension and some pretty sick bounce. :)

Had 5 dogs adjusted by the chiropractor tonight.  So I'm hoping to have 5 fluid dogs tomorrow.  Demo and Qwill's backs were pretty wonky.  Trophy wasn't actually that bad, although Pan's neck was pretty out of wack.  Shiner's very lower back was out (which doesn't surprise me) and his neck was off a bit.  We'll see how they feel.

 Trophy was feeling much better today.  His jumping was more fluid.  Encountered a problem with jumps perpendicular to contact obstacles, but I think I need to rev him up a bit more first.

Always learning, we are!

Signed up for an online class in Treiball basics.  They pushed back the start date to Friday April 6th. boo!  I'm SOOOOO excited for this class to start!

What We Do For Our Dogs

Tonight at Agility my sister was feeling better so I only ran Trophy.  He was not his normal spunky self.  He was even slow when the teeter sucked him on board while we were heading towards another obstacle.  My agility instructor said he looked like he wasn't extending his stride and he looked a bit roach backed.  My instructor is also a canine massage therapist, so she felt his spine and when she touched one vertebrae on his back I thought he was going to jump out of his skin he jumped up and flipped around so fast.  She worked on his muscles a bit to ease the spasms, but by the last run of the class he was knocking bars.

So now I have an ice pack and I'm trying to figure out the best way to ice his lower back...

I wasn't planning on having him adjusted at the chiropractor next week since I've been taking it really easy on them in their flyball training... but, well, now I am.

Amazing what people do for their dogs this day in age, isn't it?

Last month when the chiropractor was at our agility building adjusting dogs I took Shiner, Pan and Trophy.  Shiner has a completely smashed pelvis from a run in with a car before he was even picked up by the shelter.  He's also a little shit to the other dogs sometimes.  Ok, a lot of times.  He has been quite chipper and much more zoomie since I had him adjusted.  It's going to be a monthly thing for him.  I'm also hoping to take Qwill this time to see if it helps him and his broken butt.

Anyway, so no major disasters for us in agility, although Trophy wasn't fully in the game physically...  Pan, on the other hand, had her little setter head screwed on straight tonight.  She was amazing.  She was actually hitting and holding her contacts.  She was right with Tasha for directions to either the A-frame or the teeter (which were almost next to each other).  She was taking directions to correct jumps and she was just SOARing.  She's going to be a beautiful dog to watch run when she's finally to that point - her weaves are still a train wreck :).

Handstands and Boxturns

Yesterday I worked early, took a wonderful nap curled up with my puppies afterwards, and spent the evening training the dogs.  I'm working on Pan, Shiner, Trophy and Demo to teach them handstands, or the "Circus" Trick as I will eventually call it.

Pan needs more work with hind end awareness, and since my sister won't work with her, I am training her on this since it will also help with flyball (hopefully?).  I didn't work with Pan for this video, however.  I'm always trying out new tricks with Trophy, who picks up on new behaviors VERY quickly and he seems to be quite enjoying this one.

I'm using this currently as foundation 2 on 2 off work with Demo with full intentions of turning it into a handstand eventually.

And Shiner?  Anyone who knows Shiner personally and knows his extreme aversion to anything resembling work has to be asking how Shiner got roped into this... well, Shiner loves freeshaping, and I've gotten him to do a few fun tricks.  Quite honestly the thought of Shiner doing a handstand amuses the snot out of me, so I decided to teach it to him.  I don't know if his body will let him do it in the end, but we're trying anyway.

So I started teaching this several weeks ago.  Trophy knows exactly what I want, but he doesn't have the muscle to quite do it yet.  I'm working on just holding the position over and over with him and occasionally asking him to offer it without the prop board (like when I show people at work what we're working on).

Trophy's part starts at 2:40 and Demo at 4:45.  Also, I messed up the dates in the video, they were all taped on 3.12.12.



Also, sorry for all the dog butt in the video, It was hard to get a good angle.


Now, today was my day off.  I worked Demo on his boxturns again.  I'm SO thrilled with his progress in this one session!!



I think the video speaks for itself.

I WOULD have a video of Trophy working on 2x2 weaves, but Trophy's brain decided to take the day off.  We went outside, he pottied, he took some treats and he chased one "warm up" ball... and then he wouldn't pick his nose off the ground to even try to run through the weaves.

I'm just hoping that whatever is wrong with him isn't going to affect our agility class tonight as we are leaving in half an hour...