The day after Jill wrote that she found Swing's 1st tooth I found one from Ella.
She's enjoying her puppy agility class where she added the tire to straight tunnels as equipment she's familiar with. She's doing a good job of being quiet in her crate during class but when she shared a private with big brother Stanford we learned she has a long way to go to be quiet during his turns. I'm thankful for the Manners Minder my trainer let me borrow. I found it to be so helpful I bought one for myself.
I'll close with a few photos of the dogs enjoying the sun that we occasionally see up here in Northern NY.
It looked like a glorious day Ann, thanks for the note!
Last weekend the grey guys and I took a trip to Bloomsburg for the Back Mt Kennel Club all breed show and obedience trials. I had Dodge entered in Open A and while we did not qualify I did learn a few things about what I thought we had mastered and what the reality of what we had, or rather had NOT, mastered. I was feeling pretty good about us picking up our first leg in Open and then things just fell apart. He worked each exercise, but not to the level that I know he is capable of and certainly not with the understanding that I would have liked to have seen. The "been there, done that, know what you need to do" fairies must have sensed my disappointment at our Sunday performance because just before I left the show I received word that a working spot had opened in a weekend seminar just down the road and I knew I had to take it. But before I get to that, I took Swing along to the show and set up her crate in the obedience area so that she could get use to the environment and get the chance to meet some new people and experience some new things. Lucky for us, a number of the obedience competitors had pups/young dogs there doing the same thing I was doing. She behaved herself quite well in the soft crate while I warmed Dodge up and eventually took him in the ring. I had some friends keep an eye on her and only once did someone have to remind her to be quiet. All in all she was perfectly behaved and she got to do a little training as well as a quick jaunt through the one building where most of the grooming was being done (I have a friend who owns Aussies so I took Swing back to her set up and let her take in the sights, sounds and smells of a grooming area). It is important in my eyes that our puppies get this type of exposure before stepping in to any ring, be it conformation, obedience or agility.
I made mention of the "been there, done that, know what you need to do fairies" and the seminar that came about was called Fun with Fundamentals with Betsy and Linda from Top Dog Obedience School (located in Flanders, NJ). I've attended weekend workshops with Betsy and Linda as well as a Sylvia Bishop seminar hosted by Top Dog. Top Dog students are seen just about every weekend at shows here in the East and they use mostly positive methods with some corrections and negative reinforcement when necessary. And my trainer has worked with the Top Dog trainers so a lot of the information was very familiar to the dogs and I. What was great about this seminar was that they focused on the fundamentals of obedience, stressing that in order to have any success you need to have dog attention! So all of the exercises and games they had us working on this weekend were geared towards building that connection and I came away with more notes but also a clearer sense of the direction I need to take in order to make our ring performances more successful. You can't be lazy in your training, regardless of the discipline, because if you are then you will train undesirable skills that will frustrate both your dog and you.
More on the seminar in the next post.
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