Training Update #42

Both Dante and Atia got a break from our weekly obedience/conformation training session this week as the club training day fell on the Wednesday which just happened to be Canada Day this year. A nice break once in a while for all of us I guess!

Our weekly agility lesson went on as planned yesterday evening, and I was happy that it wasn’t sweltering hot or pouring rain … actually, the weather was nice and cool and breezy, a tad chilly for us humans but perfect weather for the dogs doing agility!

I think yesterday was our best agility session yet. We continued with various obstacle sequences, focusing on teaching Dante to slow down and take direction with the use of tight turns and odd angles. Actually got quite a few “Beautiful!” comments from the instructor for our runs, which made me feel great, since, now that I know the instructor better I know that she is quite the tough cookie to please ;) Dante is getting better in tightening up his runs and not assuming the sequence courses on his own.

Oh, and we even did our very first starter jumpers course, and Dante did exceptionally well with the 5 jumps and two tunnels arranged in a semi-circle but with tight turns and skewed angles between each obstacle. Yay!!!

I’m happy too that I’m doing much better with my front crosses (it’s almost second nature now!) and directional cuing, although I still need to work on making my cues smooth and less jerky. Again, I need to worry less about Dante (constantly on the lookout for him to make sure he catches up when he’s 10x as fast as me … DOH!), who does fabulously, and more on ME – my body language, my cues, and most importantly my TIMING. Gosh, the timing part is a hard thing to master! Still, even the instructor said I did pretty good yesterday in terms of handling … I was just glad I didn’t screw up too much! It’s all about teamwork!

We did some obstacle and table work, and Dante did well for not having done the table for months and months!

Worked on weaves on the “chute method”. The first few tries Dante was all confused and tried to evade each weave pole. After that, he was consistently shooting through the center of the weave poles to get the treat from either of us at both ends, and the instructor was pleased with that. She said that once Dante “gets it”, it’ll be quite an impressive sight to see him weaving at high speed through the poles. She jokingly quipped at the beginning when we started that Dante was really thinking very hard about it because as he navigated the poles his brow was really creased and he had this intense concentrating look on his face! Well, at least we know he’s taking it seriously and putting good thought into what he’s doing, and learning!

Did some work on contacts as well, and Dante is coming along nicely with his 2o2o. No more bulldozing through and slipping helter skelter all over the place at the end. Now that he has slowed down more and seems to have the idea of the 2o2o more firmly in his head, we’ve reintroduced the target plate again to help encourage him to look down and not look up and around for me. The instructor said she doesn’t want to work him on the actual contact obstacles yet until he is 100% solid on his 2o2o, and I absolutely concur. With his wide stride, size and speed, an accident can only too easily occur if it’s not done properly! Besides, we are in no rush :)

I’m really having so much fun with agility, and Dante appears to be enjoying himself a lot too! It’s such a joy to watch him work the sequences, and does SO WELL when he’s focused and paying attention (as is the case with everything else we work on!)! The instructor said she was really pleased with our session yesterday, we got a lot done, introduced lots of new things to Dante and he took everything in stride and performed fantastically boot! She said I should be proud of how Dante is coming along so nicely and I totally am! :)

I am really liking this instructor too – she’s all business but still has a great sense of humour and never pushes the dog or handler beyond their limits. She’s great at reading Dante and we both never have time to wait or get bored at each session! She really keeps track of where we are and remembers all the various quirks and challenges that we need to work on.

Off-track, but I really think that Dante would have made a PHENOMENAL performance sport dog if he had just had the right “start” to his training and puppyhood. He’s wever so quick to catch on to anything new that is taught, he’s great with technical preciosion and when he’s focused, gosh, he’s beautiful to watch! Oh well, I guess this is one big regret I’m going to have for the rest of my life with Dante …

Anyways, I’m very much looking forward to next week’s agility lesson!

In terms of Atia’s training progress, I haven’t introduced any new elements or components to what she already knows this week. Just working on solidifying the various commands and exercises I’ve taught her and slowly add challenges such as duration, distance and precision.

Atia’s training priority now is, of course, in conformation, so we’ve just been practicing her stacking (focusing on free baiting/stacking) and movement for the show ring. The professionals make it look so deceivingly simple, but boy oh boy is it a lot of work and requires so much finesse and nuances in terms of technique! As long as we both show improvement at every session, I’m happy :)

I’m very pleased so far with managing to keep the “work” challenging but fun for both Dante and Atia. It’d be pointless if they both weren’t enjoying doing all this together with me!

Atia stacked at 5 months old

The weather last weekend was just wonky – baking hot one day and soaking wet the next! Fortunately we managed to get a few stacked shots of Atia as planned, although even when the sun came out briefly in between downpours there was quite a chilly breeze blowing and I had a hard time getting her tail to stay up! This time round I made a point to keep the session as short as possible, with frequent interludes and shorter stack-and-snap durations. This meant I didn’t get to fuss around as much as the anal perfectionist that I am, but ultimately it turned out for the better because Atia was more cheerful and wasn’t as “blah” when we called it wraps! Here are some of the “better” (pretty subjective term at this point I guess!) shots.

I think of all the shots we took this one had her front feet the nicest and straightest, although the camera was unfortunately at an angle so it’s not as nice as it should have been. Ignore my funky looking “stance”! I had Atia stacked on the patio (so that we can see her feet without grass obscuring them) while I found myself having to hop up and down from the patio to the ground depending on what I was trying to do … I really need to try to get her neck held higher though I think :


A sorta-attempt at free stacking (and I’m happy to say since last week we’ve made vast improvements in that!!!) but I got careless and the collar slipped further down her neck … oooops:


This one isn’t too bad, but Atia had started rocking back again, hence the slanted front feet (*sigh*) and unparallel back feet. Also her head was turned towards me:


I liked this one too … her topline is nice and level, and her neck is slightly raised too. Front feet still slanted though … argh … that’s going to be the death of me:


I included this one to show the difference when she leans further forward and her front feet is no longer as slanted. Unfortunately the snapshot was captured as she was trying to wolf down the treat in my hand, so, not really an overall nicely stacked shot. Still, we’re getting there!


I ended the session shortly after the last photo was taken and rewarded Atia with some extra treats and a happy play session. That way she’s still upbeat when we wrap things up and will hopefully look forward to more of it the next time round! It also helps to keep me from getting too anal about things and ending up frustrated!

I’m getting better at keeping her front feet straight and preventing her from rocking back too much. Atia is also improving on a daily basis on her free stacking! Been working on her movement too, running around the ring and the down and back. Hopefully we keep improving and I can be a half decent owner handler the next time we go back into the show ring!

Atia does look kind of slim in the photos. She’s already eating over 4lbs per day (that’s more than double Dante’s portion!) but the pounds just keep melting off her every couple of days as she seemingly goes through yet another growth spurt! I think she’ll look really nice once she’s all filled out!

I beat the Tooth Fairy to this one!

Guess what???

I found one of Atia's baby teeth that had fallen out!

Guess where???

On Dante!

They were having another one of their rough and tumble play-wrestle sessions. There was a lull whereby both of them took a breather, and what do i see but this gleaming, bloody little shard of a tooth sitting pretty right on Dante's thigh!

How funny that i would be so much in glee over a tooth, ha!

So of course, i picked it up. I doubt the squeamish Husband will let me keep it, so i took a photo of it ... for posterity haha:

And they all fall out …

I have very vague memories of Dante when he was teething and his baby teeth were being replaced by the new set of adult teeth. I remember, as a nervous, first time dog owner, I would read all these anecdotes from other dog owners about how teething pups are such horrible chewers and destroyers of anything they manage to sink their teeth into. Interestingly enough, we never had a problem with Dante “excessively” chewing or destroying furniture and/or other household items during his teething phase.

I don’t really remember keeping track of when and which of his baby teeth fell out either. If we played too hard at tug on a particular day, then the tug toy would get all bloody (from jiggling his loose baby teeth, I gather), but it never seemed to bother Dante one bit.

There was once (and the only occasion) though when I actually found one of his baby teeth lying bloody on the floor. I had planned to keep it sealed in a jar or something, but The Husband got all grossed out and insisted that I toss it out. Sheesh.

Now it’s Atia’s turn to go through the teething phase. Interestingly enough, she seems to be more of a “chewer” than Dante – she’ll go grab one of her toys and chew on it for periods of time, while Dante was never a toy chewer (bones, that’s another matter …). During the last few days Atia’s been running around with a bloody mouth on more than one occasion. This usually happens when she plays too rough with her toys and/or rough houses too much with Dante playing “bitey face”. I checked her teeth last night and it appears that several of her baby teeth have already fallen out, with the emerging new adult set visible at the gum line. If that’s the case though, where are all the teeth that have fallen out????? How come I never see or come across any of them???? Hmmmm …

Speaking of baby teeth that had fallen out, something really weird happened yesterday. I was sitting at the dining table having a snack, and Atia had some time to play and lounge loose in the house (under my supervision of course) after coming in from a potty break. She was going through her usual motions, bugging Dante, sniffing around, “hunting” kitties, grabbing toys to play with and poking her little nose at me trying to beg for table scraps. I hear this loud, sharp crunching noise to my right, so I looked to the source of the noise and saw that Atia was really chomping and chewing down on something. Now the floors in the house are usually kept pretty free of debris and loose items 99% of the time, so I was a little baffled at what she could have gotten into her mouth as it didn’t sound like any thing hard (decorative rocks in the plant pots, kitty kibble etc.) that she usually gets into trouble with. I told Atia to “drop it” and she did, but it was clear that she only dropped part of it because the other part was in her mouth and halfway down her throat. I squinted from my seat at “it”, and noticed that it was maybe the size of half a corn kernel, pinkish-whitish in colour. I didn’t stoop down to investigate further because I was in a hurry to take Atia to the vet for her weigh-in, and didn’t think much of it then as Atia just left it alone when I asked her to (when I got back later that little “thing” was gone). However, in hindsight, come to think of it now it looked like it was a piece of tooth maybe?????? I don’t know how hard a baby tooth is supposed to be, but is it even plausible that Atia was breaking it and chewing it up????? If that’s the case, uhm … ewwww …

Guess I’ll never know for sure now.

They don't stay little for long!

Took Atia in to the vet's today to be weighed for her monthly Advantage dose. The scale registered her weight at 36lbs -- that's almost an additional 10lbs since her last weigh-in a month ago! At 5 months of age, she's definitely going through quite the growth spurt!

Training Update #41b

Well, it turned out that the forecasted severe thunderstorm did not come to pass on Thursday evening, so Dante did get to go to his originally scheduled agility lesson after all!

Threat of the storm was a good thing in the sense that it lowered the hot and humid temperature by a few degrees. When we first arrived at the training field it was actually quite cool and breezy. 10 minutes later though the sun came out and that was when it started to get really warm again.

We did a lot of interesting sequences in the lesson. Still mainly jump sequences with the tunnel incorporated here and there, but lots more tight and angled turns. The instructor said I’m really coming along with my front crosses :) I don’t have to think about them as much as I did anymore, I just “do it” – yay, progress!

One of the main things we focused on in the lesson was teaching Dante how to SLOW DOWN. This was especially important as we were starting to do increasingly complex sequences and tight turns. Dante is so fast, just imagine a close to 100lb dog zipping around at full speed – not a laughing matter if you’re the one being hit or run over by said dog! With Dante, the speed and “go go go!” aspect of agility was not the issue, it was teaching him how and when to put brakes on at the appropriate moments that was the challenge! When Dante gets going, he GOES. So, we broke up complex sequences and their various turns into little bits and worked on them individual to teach him to slow down by rewarding at key points with treats and toys, and then pieced the entire sequence together. At the end of the lesson, we had made SOME progress, but Dante is still going way too fast too often. This will be a work in progress, I imagine.

Oh, and we did our first serpentine :) The instructor didn’t actually tell us that we were doing a serpentine until we had completed it – she just pointed out the course she wanted us to run and we went for it, and completed it nicely! Woohoo!

We also started incorporating the tire jump into the sequences. Dante hasn’t done the tire in quite a while, so when I looked at the tire jump, I found myself wondering: “Gee, that’s so small, how is Dante ever going to fit through there at high speed without knocking it over???” But turned out that my concerns were unfounded – I don’t know how he did it, but Dante just leapt and flew through the tire without even blinking an eye. Wow. Amazing how dogs learn to estimate and gauge these things!

Nearing the end of the lesson Dante kept heading towards the shade every time we prepared to start a course. It was getting really hot. We got the hint and gave him a rest in the shade for every short sequence performed. We also started toning down the activity level and did some work on his contacts on a travel plank. Not too bad, but we still have a long way to go!

I’m really enjoying our agility lessons. I always learn something new each lesson, the instructor keeps the lessons going at a nice pace for both of us and Dante is always stimulated, engaged and challenged! I just wish it wasn’t so pricey … oh well, I guess you get what you pay for!

Training Update #41a

It’s been so HOT this week (Toronto issued an extreme heat alert yesterday), my brains feel like they are fried.

Yesterday was so hot that Dante and Atia didn’t get their usual walk/run when I got home from work. They were pretty much panting lightly even indoors and I found myself dozing off even when just sitting down. I let them out for their potty break and then pretty much let both of them just meander round the house, stretch their legs, etc. Miraculously despite the blistering heat they still found the will and energy to rough-house, wrestle and tumble all around the house! Oh, and Dante’s ear is doing much better, all scabbed up :) I’m still monitoring it, but I think he’s on his way to it patching itself up. Then it was an early dinner for them and rest time. I tried taking them out for a short walk before we went off to training but it was still sweltering outside, no breeze, and I’m sure the pavement surfaces were heated as well. Still, they did get a short walk and then it was back home to rest.

I decided to take them both to training as per usual as they were acting like they were bored to death and were ready to go ballistic and get up to all sorts of trouble if I didn’t let them burn some mental/physical energy in some way. So off to training we went.

Thankfully I was able to park in the shade. Had all my windows down and the moonroof completely opened as well.

It was Dante’s turn first and boy, even indoors in the building it was BOILING. Only one third of the usual people showed up – probably due to the oppressive heat.

I’ll say right off the bat now that boy, unexpectedly, Dante’s attention and focus on me was PHENOMENAL yesterday evening during our training session. Even though I could see he was feeling the heat, he showed me that he was very eager to work and WANTED to work. Totally unexpected, but I took full advantage of it.

Did heeling, but did some of his heeling retraining before we joined the group. His “Fuss” is coming along nicely. I incorporated left about turns and backwards heeling this time with the “Fuss” command and he did quite well! During group heeling he kept by me nice and tight and changed paces accordingly … I think it was the best heeling we’ve had for the last couple of months! I was very, very happy with his heeling work.

Did a few recalls and drop on recalls. Straight recalls were nice, fast and straight. During the DORs, Dante got confused when I called him right through the marker on the floor where he’s supposed to drop. You could tell that the wheels in his head were turning furiously as he approached the marker, then looked back and forth from me to the marker, trying to decide whether to drop or not or whether to go straight to front to me since I had not commanded him to drop … haha! It’s all good though, because I think we are at a point where I want to avoid him being “rote trained” and perform like an automaton. I want him sharp, and I want him thinking and therefore always paying attention to what I ask of him since he won’t know what it is I want him to do until I actually tell him. A couple of times and he got the idea! Then we placed two markers on the floor instead of one and he went through the same contemplation process. Dante got praised big time every time he made the “right” decicion. At the end though, I think he learnt a valuable lesson to not just assume an exercise, and always listen to Mom’s directions!

Did a couple of moving stands. Nice.

Did ROF. Nice, but came in crooked a couple of times when bringing the dumbbell back. There was some mouthing of the dumbbell but I think it was mainly due to him trying to pant at the same time. The instructor said to cut back the extra commands I’ve been giving him now to help him along and to just do it the way it’s done in an actual trial.

Did some informal sit and down stays. With his sit we’re still having issues with his bum wiggling … argh. His down stay was beautiful. At one point a JRT almost ran head on into him while he was in his down stay because it strayed away from the dumbbell it was supposed to retrieve at the other end of the room. What do you know, Dante stared at it, but did not move even a twitch and held his stay!! This was remarkable, considering that he’s been at odds with a dog aggressive JRT in our neighbourhood since he was a puppy and was attacked by another JRT at a trial. He got huge praise and big rewards for that, and everyone else in the room praise him too!

I think that’s all we did … can’t recall, my brains were probably overheated by then! I did cut his training session by half due to the heat, and made sure he had lots of water breaks to keep him hydrated. A couple of members were outside doing Rally at an adjacent field, and I had thought of doing some Rally with Dante, but decided that I didn’t want to overtax him and that he had already done so well and given me such awesome focus despite the temperature, so off to the car he went for rest.

Atia’s turn. Brought her into the hall and discovered that the members decided to take a break and have “puppy playtime”. There was a 10 month old miniature poodle and a 13 weeks old Aussie puppy there, and Atia completed the trio of “puppies”. They had a great time chasing each other and their toys around. Again, jawdropping how they were sprinting and wrestling at full speed and much vigour despite the unbelievable heat!!!

10-15 minutes later puppy playtime was over and it was back to “business”. I brought Atia in mainly for some conformation handling instruction. I’m doing much better with moving her round the ring, but our down and back still sucks haha. Oh, and I got a valuable demonstration and tip of how to prevent her from rocking back on her front legs – will try this from now on when practicing stacking with her, I’m actually excited. We have actually been working a lot on building up her free stacking/free bait this week, and she’s not doing too bad. She holds a very nice stack, the challenge is getting there in the first place. We’ll get there eventually! Got lots of helpful pointers and advice to further brush up on my handling

On the obedience front, Atia is coming along very nicely and I’m very happy with her progress. Introduced her to the “Setup” command this week. Her touches/targets are nice. Sits, downs and stands are consistent. Have added a bit more distance to her stays this week, including walking around her for each of the stays. Her fronts are so nice! Still working on her finishes … that is the one thing she seems not to be catching on as fast. Started working 2o2o on contacts with her as well just for fun and she is definitely ahead of Dante on that one! I think I might be leaving out a few other items … overall, Atia is just such a joy to work with in obedience!

Have an agility lesson scheduled for Dante this evening. Earlier this week I was worried it was going to be too hot for him, but today there’s a severe thunderstorm warning and the instructor said that class will be cancelled if there’s a downpour, so, not sure if agility is going to go on as planned tonight … we’ll see!

Ok, my brain needs a cool-down now.

Ear, ripped

Late last night as i was getting ready to head upstairs to bed, i noticed Dante scratching hard at his head ever so often, and then licking the toes of the foot that he used to scratch with. I found this very peculiar, so i checked his foot to make sure nothing was awry. Finding nothing, i decided to take a look at his head, and that was when i saw that the inner part of his right ear was all bright red and bloody.

Yikes! I pulled him aside and cleaned out the ear really well. It looked like there was a rip in it, thus all the blood. It probably stung too, which would explain why he kept trying to scratch it. I was completely baffled how he had "hurt" his ear like that. He hasn't run into anything, so i'm thinking it must have been during one of his play-wrestling bouts with Atia that got a little too "ferocious" and Atia must have somehow taken a chomp or big nasty scratch at Dante's inner ear. Well, i guess that that shows which one of them is the rough one here!

After making sure it was really clean, i applied some polysporin to the tear in Dante's ear and we all headed off to bed.

First thing this morning, i checked Dante's ear. It still looked a little raw, but it wasn't bleeding anymore. I felt a little better and applied a little more polysporin before i headed off for work.

Came home today, checked on the ear again. It had gotten all crusty ... ewww, but still no longer bleeding. Cleaned it out well again and applied more polysporin. Two hours later i checked again and noticed that it was looking really raw and pus-sy. Ack! It didn't help that whenever Atia came out to Dante she just couldn't resist trying to lick and poke at Dante's ear. So i had quite the "fun" time making sure that Atia stayed away from poor Dante's ear.

I cleaned it out again, made sure i dried it really well and applied yet more polysporin. Just checked it again and it seems fine under all that polysporin. Poor Dante, he's definitely feeling something's not right with himself. His right ear twitches every now and then and has a funny little bend to it when he's flexing both his ears. He's been acting more sucky than usual all evening and even tried to literally crawl into my lap to be cuddled, despite the dreadful heat we've had all day.

If the ear is not looking significantly better by tomorrow morning i'm going to take him in to the vet. Better to try to heal it before an infection or something worse sets in.

Poor Dante.

Too hot!

It's been HOT HOT HOT! We're finally getting the summer temperatures the weather gurus have been promising us, and, ironically, now that summer is REALLY here, i want it all to just go away and go back to being cool again, haha!

Too hot to get my brain going, so, sorry, you'll have to settle for a filler post! That's what spare photos are for anyways, right? ;)

These photos were taken sometime last week: Relaxing after a looooooooooooong day ...

Dobermans, when curled up, aren't all that big after all:


Little Miss Atia totally lapping up her "lapdog moment":


Zonked, and me watching TV:


Kai wanting some loving too:


Kai gets some loving:


The temperature is pretty much going to feel like 30-32C for the rest of the week! I'm already melting thinking about it ...

"This butt is not waterproof"

Took Dante out in the backyard this evening to do some focused heeling work after the rain when the temperature has cooled down a little. It's been a long time since we've actually done any training in the backyard for one reason or another. Guess what i discovered? Dante has an issue with sitting on the wet grass!! Pffft!! He obviously understood the command, but just went through the motions and HOVERED his butt on the ground, hoping i would not notice that he was not actually sitting! Not so fast Dante! After encouragement cum firm reminders later, he was sitting on the wet grass, but very reluctantly and unhappily so. Guess i can add that to another reason why i won't be trialing in the summertime outdoors with Dante!

Took Atia out in the backyard after Dante's session to do some quick obedience work as well. Guess what? Atia had NO PROBLEMS sitting on the wet grass, no issues whatsoever! Quick, snappy, happy responses!

Bah, Dante you're such a big baby!