As Ella approaches 9 months she's grown tall and lanky. She's getting close to being as tall as her "brother" Stanford, but she's got a lot of maturing and filling out to do. She doesn't seem to do anything casually, if she likes something it's an obsession, and most recently that's been tennis balls. She LOVES them! So, I've restricted her access to them to only when she's playing with me and this obsession is turning her into quite the retriever. Since the weather is bad and our yard is a muddy and sometimes snow-covered mess, we go to the basement to play with the tennis ball, burn off some of her energy and work on retrieving behavior. Now all I have to do is ask her if she wants to go play with her ball and her eyes light up and she heads for the basement door.
Ella is enrolled in a competitive obedience foundations class where much of the learning is based on shaping behaviors. She is going to be a heeler who tends to forge rather than lagging but I think she will be quick and attentive which will be fun. We've begun the foundation for the directed jumping exercise with her leaving me to go to her go-out box. She's also "jumping" with me directing her to the jump from the other side - moving from directly across from her centered in front of the jump to moving toward the center between the two jumps. She loves to play any game and she soaks up what we're working on quickly.
She's a natural at agility - accepting each new exercise and piece of equipment with great enthusiasm. Most recently she was introduced to hoops and the A-frame. We worked with the hoops on the flat first to shape her to go through them. Having been shaped in so many other things she quickly figured out that the desired behavior was to offer to go through the hoops. She made it clear that she was ready for the next challenge so the hoops were placed on both ends of the lowered A-frame. She took a little coaxing the first time she approached the frame to climb up and over, but then the light bulb came on and the game was on. She went back and forth so eagerly that we added a tunnel at the beginning to give me a bit of a head start. She loved it!
Hopefully soon I'll have some good new photos to share.
I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of Ella when you can send them Ann. Thanks so much for the update, she sounds like she is coming along beautifully.
Swing and Hank had a full day starting with a drop in handling class and then a nice walk with our friend Helen and her Samoyed's. You will recall that I posted pictures of Ravi a few weeks ago and he is growing like a weed! Everyone had a good time running through the fields, playing with a glove and slopping through the numerous puddles on the grounds. We will see our friends again tomorrow when we all head up to a breed match. I'll report on how everyone does in the next blog. In the meantime enjoy our friend Ravi who was smiling like crazy on our walk this afternoon.
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