Hiatus

Blogging Dante will be taking a hiatus for a few days to take care of some personal matters. We'll be back!

...

So disappointed with Dante tonight. So disappointed.

Maybe i should get away from training/working Dante for a while.

Sigh.

Finally!

Atia's not exactly the snuggliest girl, Dante is the cuddle bug in the house. When i thought about getting and having two dogs, i would have these daydreams in my head that they would be fun playmates and loving companions to each other, playing hard and snuggling up to each other at the end of a long day.

Well, that didn't quite turn out that way. As mentioned, Atia is not much of a cuddler, and she'd rather have any cozy spaces all to herself. Dante likes to cuddle, but it's hard to sidle up to a bratty pup who beats him up all day and play best snuggle buddies.

So, i thought i would never ever see such a scene like this:



But it happened!!! They were snuggled up to each other last night! Ok, well, more like Atia was cozying up to Dante because despite all her wiles and charms she could not get him to budge from the bed and the only way she was going to get on it was to get on Dante ;) Dante was more puzzled as to why she was being so nicey-nice and snuggly with him for a change, hahaha.

Oh well, it's a start :)

Built tough

Today while out walking the dogs, we somehow stumbled into a stretch of really icy sidewalk -- and of course i didn't realize that until it was too late -- and i took a big slide and tumble and fell right on my back. Ouch. Well, i supposed it could have been worse, like if i fell right on my face and had a broken nose or twisted my ankle or something slipping at an odd angle.

(And no, this is not another one of those "Ah-the-hazards-of-owning-dogs-let-me-add-yet-another-injury-to-the-list" post, if you are wondering :p)

Anyways, it HURT. I had to halt and ask the dogs to just WAIT and stop moving while i stood for a minute or so, waiting for the smarting and throbbing pain to wear off before we could continue on our walk. Thank goodness for the bum being the fleshiest part of the body, all that extra "cushioning" really came in handy during the fall, ha. It stopped hurting once we were on our way on the walk again, and i didn't start feeling sore again until AFTER my nice warm shower. I'm pretty sure there's a nice colourful bruise on the spot i fell on now, yep.

So it got me thinking. Dante and Atia's bodies really do take ALOT of abuse, especially with them being such active dogs.

Let's see, there's the daily ritual body checks, head slams, paw poundings. In addition to that i have lost count of the numerous times that both of them have skidded/slipped and fell or run into something while in the ecstatic throes of major zoomies or simply having a "Doh!" moment -- Yes, apparently dogs have those too, running into lampposts and stuff ... Dante once walked right into the bumper of a truck, simply because his head was turned as he looked THE OTHER WAY at something else while his feet kept on walking. Result: BAM.

Then we have those cringe-and-grimace moments where you go "Oh that's gotta HURT!".

In Dante's first few weeks home as a puppy, he ran at full speed straight into our glass sliding door leading to the backyard; you know, the way they depict people doing the same thing in comedies, only this was real. It would have been comical had i not been so alarmed seeing him literally go SPLAT right against the glass. I thought for sure he would have broken something in his little puppy body. But nope, he wasn't even done for 3 seconds, sprung right back up again, did a little shake, and continued on his zoomies as if nothing happened. Wow.

Then there was this other time when it was raining and we were at the dog park. Dante was playing chase with this other dog, when, again, at full speed, he slipped on the wet ground and completely wiped out on a stretch of gravel, skidding a good two meters on his side. Did that slow him down? Nope. The minute he stopped sliding around on his side he did a funny little flip, picked himself up and continued his chase as if nothing happened. I examined him closely after and except for some nasty looking scrape marks on one of his elbows, he was perfectly fine.

Atia did a similarly thing the other day running in the snowy fields. She was chasing Dante, and suddenly slipped on a patch of ice. She fell down on her side and went spinning and sliding across a ROUGH patch of icy ground for a good two meters or so. Again, didn't slow her down any. She just picked herself up when she stopped spinning and the chase was on again! Again, i carefully checked her out after that to make sure she hadn't hurt herself, and the only thing i could find was a small inch long scratch that has already scabbed up and healed.

Maybe it's all that fur they have (and really, Dobermans don't have much), but if they do get bruises like humans do from hitting or running into things (or each other, ha), then i can honestly say i've never seen one on them.

If i were my dogs, i'd be in casts and tottering around with a cane or be zipping around in a wheelchair right now, probably a paraplegic.

These dogs, they give a whole new meaning to "built tough"!

Sleeping

It’s funny, I’ve never paid too much attention to how Dante sleeps until Atia joined the family. I suppose it’s a case of comparison which brings two things into sharper relief against each other.

Atia is what I would call a “Floppy Sleeper”. Her idea of sleeping comfortably is flopping down onto the/her bed, all four limbs stretched out and dangling, and sometimes her head as well. When she’s allowed up on to the bed for a “group nap”, she’ll make sure she flops down ON you. Recently she’s been trying to emulate Dante who sleeps all curled up in a ball BESIDES the humans, so she’ll start off all curled up, but minutes later, she’ll grunt and snort and start spreading out her legs and paws further and further apart, until they are back to being all askewed and flopped all over the place again.

Ever wonder what dogs dream about? The question comes up in my mind every now and then, but with Atia, it really gets me wondering. Many a night I’ve been woken up to growling and short, sharp little yips and whines. Initially, I would be all alerted and somewhat alarm, scrambling out of bed to investigate. Then I would realize that it was Atia in the midst and “fit” of having a dream. Her eyes would be tightly shut and I could tell she was dead asleep, but her paws and head would be twitching and shaking as if she were running or chasing something, emitting funny little growls and barks and whines. Sometimes she gets REALLY loud, and you really can’t help but wonder what in the world she is dreaming about!

On the other hand, I have never really realized how SILENTLY Dante sleeps until Atia came along. Snooze time for Dante means curling himself up into as little a ball as possible and closing his eyes. No flailing around, no constant “adjustments”, no grunts or snorts beyond the initial “alright-I’m-plopping-down-on-the-bed-now!” grunt. Not even a snore (Oh yeah, Atia snores sometimes).

I have to admit, due to the prevalence of DCM (Dilated Cardio Myopathy, a heart disease and a sudden killer in many Dobermans) in the breed, I have woken up to the irrational fear more than once of Dante’s heart suddenly stopping while having Dante sleeping away besides me and me not hearing a single peep of sound from him. I usually end up pressing my ear against his heart to make sure I can still hear it beating or squint at him to make sure that his chest is heaving up and down. Like I said, irrational, but Dante is just so QUIET in his sleep.

The really neat thing about Dante is no matter how long he’s been sleeping or how deeply you think he’s lost in Dreamland, all it takes is one whisper of his name and command and BOOM! He’s up and going! Instant “on switch”.

A funny scenario that keeps happening more and more often nowadays is that Dante will be sleeping on The Husband’s side of the bed (not on MY side, because, I’m the QUEEN and #1 Alpha in the house of course, hahaha) and nested comfortably on his pillow. The Husband will come up at some point in time and want to lay down on the bed for a nap or for the rest of the night, and will attempt to “rouse” Dante and liberate his pillow by calling Dante’s name, telling him to get off, poking him, trying to move and shift all 95lbs of him, to no avail. Dante just lays there with his eyes closed, pretending he’s dead asleep and definitely NOT getting up from his cozy spot. Pretending, because once I’m sufficiently amused by The Husband’s futile antics (yes, I’m evil like that, don’t you know :p) I’ll roll over and whisper in Dante’s ear: “Dante. Off.”

And BOOM! Dante is up and leaping off the bed before you can say: “What?!”

Ah, I love my boy!

Also, I don’t recall Dante ever dreaming and vocalizing on the scale that Atia does. I think that once upon a time, in what feels like eons and eons ago when he was a young puppy, I noticed Dante whining softly and his front feet twitching and paddling while he was asleep. That was the only time he ever showed any signs that he was frolicking and gallivanting about in a dream.

Well, I figured that since I’m getting so little of my own, I might as well derive some kind of vicarious joy from watching Dante and Atia SLEEP :p

Training Update #61

Oh where to start!

Well, I guess I’ll start with Rally class this past Friday.

It was the first class in a series of 6 classes, and boy was it COLD that evening! It was easily -25C WITHOUT the windchill. Good thing, of course, that it was an indoors class, but I made sure Dante and Atia were all nicely bundled up in the car.

It turned out that the class we were in (the advanced class) had only two other handlers and their dogs registered. So, a really small class, but hey, I wasn’t complaining!

My arrangement with the instructor was that Dante would be present for the first half of the hour-long class, and then Atia would take up the rest of the time for the second half. Dante is mature enough to work through an hour long class, but I would rather have him have a high energy 30 minute session and end on a really high note with him wanting more. Besides, I wanted to work Atia as well and she is not ready yet for a fully focused hour long training session.

The arrangement worked out perfectly. Dante was first up for the first 30 minutes. He was so delighted to see the instructor again! Dante and I have taken quite a few classes with this instructor since he was a puppy, so he is quite fond of her and immediately wanted to rush over to her for hugs and cuddles when we walked into the hall and he spotted her – big suck!

The class was a fairly “informal” class. The instructor would have advanced/excellent courses set up, and handlers would take turns running their dogs through the courses with comments and suggestions from the instructor. While one handler was working the course, the other handlers were free to work on other things with their dogs as long as they did not directly disrupted the course – this provided excellent distractions, of course! I liked this setup, because it’s like doing a lesson PLUS mat time on the side.

Dante actually did really well. I worked him off leash the entire time on the course, and we went through the course three times with minor changes to stations here and there. He was “up”, and I had quite decent focus from him, in the case that if he “wandered” a little he was immediately brought back to me with a “gentle” verbal reminder. He did all the stations with no problems, except for the stand and leave dog for examination, where he got so excited to be petted by the instructor that he moved forward towards her the first time round, and then at the offset figure 8 OF COURSE he wanted to check out the food bowls! Oh well, since we haven’t done Rally in so long I cut him some slack. After the first time he didn’t bother with the bowls again so it’s probably a matter of practice and getting him used to Rally stations again.

Me, on the other hand, having not done any Rally since probably late May-early June of last year, had to embarrassingly ask the instructor which side the signs were supposed to be on when running the course before I started, haha :) Once we got started though it all “came back”, and we moved through the course pretty smoothly … well, I missed one station in one of the runs. Not surprising since I’ve been known to do that every now and then :p

Then it was Atia’s turn. She walked into the facility and she was SO WIRED. It was her very first time there so of course she wanted to check everything out and make sure she got a sniff over EVERYTHING. It took about 5 minutes of warming up and quick attention exercises, but eventually it clicked in her head that she was supposed to be “working”, and after that she gave me FANTASTIC attention. Fantastic because one, she’s still under a year old; two, she has never done Rally before nor has she ever seen a Rally setup, three, she was in a completely new place for the very first time with strange people and dogs that she has never seen before; four, she’s never had a judge/instructor/person walking behind us trailing us as we ran the course; and five, she has NEVER done Rally before and her very first course run-through was an ADVANCED course :) If Dante pleased me Atia certainly made me want to celebrate, haha.

Atia was happy, animated, and gave me great focus. I worked her on leash, but she performed all the stations with no problems!! Well, except for the offset Figure 8 – of course she had to check out the bowls! The second time around she listened to Mom and just left them alone as we weaved in and out of the bowls :) The instructor asked me if I had been doing Rally with Atia, and I said, no, this is her very first time doing something like this!

Of course, Atia wasn’t as “technically” polished as Dante eg. when doing 270 turns and multiple sit-down-stands in quick succession, but she had a happy attitude and totally rocked the course! I was very, very happy with her :)

So Friday’s Rally class went swimmingly well! Saturday was frigidly cold again but we did go out to have a good walk in the morning all bundled up (lots of scowling from the dogs, haha). Then in the afternoon it warmed considerably more than expected so I rewarded them for doing such a good job in class on the Friday and took them to a different place for a good run and play. We had a blast and everyone was good and tired.

Sunday we had obedience matches lined up for Dante and Atia in the morning – Atia in Novice, of course, and Dante in Open, two runs for each. Took them out for a quick sprint in the fields in the morning, then back for breakfast, and then it was off to the match! Murphy’s Mom came along to cheer us on, so it was great to have the company :)

I was very much looking forward to the match because I wanted to see how “trial-ready” both Dante and Atia were.

Novice runs were first, so Atia was up first for the first hour, doing two separate runs with an interval of about 20 minutes between the two.

Atia didn’t do too bad on heeling. She was a little nervous with all the different people and dogs around, strange smells and sounds, but she stayed with me and completed the heeling patterns. Not as much focus on the heeling as I would have liked to get from her, but hey, it’s her very first match so I can understand if she’s extremely distracted. She gave me a couple of no-sits, more out of stress I think because when reminded verbally she immediately plopped her butt down.

Atia nailed the SFE, no twitching or fidgeting at all! I’ve been really pleased with how she’s been handling completely and total strangers coming up to her to examine her, and not minding a “judge” following us around the ring. This bodes well.

I decided to do the off leash heeling portion completely on leash, just to give her that extra bit of confidence. I’m not worried about her heeling off leash. I think she has better attention/focus foundation work compared to Dante and when she’s ready it won’t be much effort at all transitioning her to off leash fairly quickly.

Her recalls were swift and energectic. Once she anticipated the recall, but after that she came quickly when called into a nice front without running me over, haha. We still need my hand and foot for a “marker” aid for her to continue to straighten up her fronts though, but finishes were nice!

I was most impressed by her stays. It was also Atia’s very first time doing formal stays in a ring environment with strange dogs. She did the 1 minute sit-stay and 3 minute down stay and did not break them! I could tell she was stressed, being in a line up with so many strange dogs, she sniffed around a little, drooled little stringies from her mouth (awwww), and left little sweaty paw prints on the mat, but she held her stays for the entire time, woohoo!!! More practice to allow her to gain more self-confidence should help her ease off the stressing :)

I made sure too that we had time to play in the ring between and after her runs. I wanted to make sure I’m communicating to her that the ring is a FUN place to be and doing a good job means lots and lots of reward and FUN from Mom!

I was very pleased with Atia, but I can tell that she’s not ready yet for a trial. I want to build up her self-confidence more and help her realize that there’s nothing to stress about. Then we have some polishing and tightening up to do eg. straighter fronts, snappier heeling etc.. I don’t want to make the mistake I did with Dante of putting her in a real trial ring before I feel she’s 110% ready. So, we’ll work at it for another month and see where she is when we go for another match at the end of February.

Once the Novice runs were over it was time for Open. Atia went back into her crate for a nap, and out came Dante for his runs. He also had two runs scheduled that were about 20 minutes apart each, and then the group stays at the end, of course.

I’ll say right off the bat that I was simply DISAPPOINTED with Dante, BIG TIME, in both runs :(

Bottomline: He was just “sightseeing” throughout each run, especially when we were heeling.

It wasn’t as bad as pulling teeth when we were heeling, which was the case with Dante just a mere few months before. He stayed with me, he just decided to sight-see and have a wandering gaze throughout. I know he’s a worrier, but I don’t think he was worrying about anything, more like he just wanted to check things out and gawk at stuff.

Which was INFURIATING, considering the fact that one, he knows better (or SHOULD know better by now); two, he’s been doing SO WELL with giving me beautiful attention and focus in the last few weeks; and three, we have trained in this facility many times before so it’s not like it’s a new place where he’s seeing/sniffing everything for the first time!!! In short, he was just giving me really SLOPPY work, and it really boils my blood especially when I know how WELL he can work and that he’s been consistently working well for the last little while.

I tried to keep a lid on my growing annoyance and frustration at him as we went through our runs, wanting to make it a positive and fun experience for him regardless. So, there were no sharp words or “faces” from me, but he did get reminder pops during heeling when he started to drift away and “sightsee”.

His heeling was just disappointing. Lagging big time every step of the way. Funny that he had zero no-sits and his halts were nice and straight, but that’s not saying much.

Figure 8 was not bad, although lagging slightly on the outer post again.

DOR was actually pretty nice, the recall and clean drop part, but then on his way around me for the finish he decided to “go shopping” at a shelf full of treats behind me – BAD BOY! That ruined the DOR for me in my mind, blargh.

ROF was alright, except for his crooked front. CROOKED FRONT! He KNOWS better! Argh.

ROJ was problematic. In the first run he jumped over to retrieve the dumbbell no problem, but when he reached the dumbbell decided to go “shopping” and “sight-seeing” again at a nearby table full of equipment and other knick knacks. I had to physically go TO him and command him to pick up the dumbbell and then run back to the starting point for him to return. We repeated the exercise and he went over the jump, and started making for the table again. I pursed my lips and said nothing, but he eventually twitched and turned back to the dumbbell without making going to the table, and I praised him for making a good choice. On our second run right after I threw the dumbbell over the jump and was ready to send him, a fit of loud barking erupted from beyond the ring – probably some new dogs arriving and having an excited moment, which happens all the time at dog shows and trials. Unfortunately that totally derailed Dante’s focus, and he sat stock still craning his neck at full alert, trying to see where the barking was coming from. I overestimated him (that he would put that distraction aside and return to working) and gave him the command to go retrieve the dumbbell, and in retrospect I shouldn’t have, because of course he was still fixated on the barking and completely ignored my command and I had to physically correct him to pop him back into focus. Sigh. After that he went over and retrieved the dumbbell.

The only part of the runs where Dante redeemed himself was during the broad jump exercise. He did perfectly straight jumps, perfectly straight front, and a perfect finish. Snappy, quick and attentive. Little consolation though after giving me such sloppy work.

After the first run I was so disappointed with him I just couldn’t justify rewarding him with a play on his tug. I just couldn’t reward all that slopping work with multiple reminders from me. After the second run he was making more of an effort so I relented and rewarded him with his tug for a quick few minutes. We also spent some extra time in the ring working on his heeling, but he never did give me the nice attention and animation that he HAS been giving me in the last little while.

So, yes, I’ll say it again: I was SO DISAPPOINTED with Dante. Especially since I really wanted him to have a good run and to show me that he was READY, to let me have that confidence to start registering him for some upcoming trials. But now, after the two dismal runs, I can’t in good conscience still go ahead and line up trials for him, because now I no longer have that confidence that he is ready, especially if he’s still pulling random “oh I think I would rather daze around today than work” sessions like this on me.

The night before Dante was almost up all night hacking away and coughing up bits and pieces of branches and other crap that he was stuffing himself with throughout the day when we went for our run/walk (ugh!!!!). So, it could have been very likely that he was just more tired as usual from not sleeping well and thus more easily distracted and not up to working at his usual level. But still, I wonder if that’s just making excuses for him. I mean, all I’m asking for is 5 minutes of his undivided attention to carry out exercises that he knows by heart and has shown that he can do an excellent job at multiple times already. That really isn’t a lot to ask for.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s ME. Me, the green handler who has screwed up Dante so much with my inexperienced training methods and having him go through so many training and retraining … maybe I’m the reason for us still hacking away at something stupid like ATTENTION. :( I told Murphy’s Mom on the drive back home and I will always have a big regret with regards to Dante, that I was not a better handler/trainer for him, and that I made all my stupid green handler mistakes on him. He has the drive and attitude, and if he started with a much more experience and knowledgeable handler, he would be such an AMAZING working dog NOW.

Sigh. What more can I say.

Need to take a mental break from obedience for a day or two. In the meantime, we have an agility session scheduled this evening with another handler, so hopefully that will go more smoothly than Dante’s match on the weekend!

Fuzzy photos ...

... are better than no photos i guess!

Too tired to write up a coherent post today, so, photos to the rescue! They aren't the best, since i took it on a really grey day with flurries, so the lighting was inadequate straight off the bat, plus, i was trying to get nice action shots. Oh well!

These photos were taken about 3 weeks ago, on a milder winter day (about -2C). I decided to take them out for a quick run at a nearby field. Both Dante and Atia are wearing fursavers, but Atia has a blue long line attached to hers. Yes, Atia still wears a long line when we are in wide open spaces (like fields) to help enforce her recall. She doesn't have the line on when we go hiking though, simply because there are too many things the line can potentially get caught on and choke her.

Alright, enough babbling, on to the photos!

Every outing to a wide open space has to start off with crazy high speed zoomies of course!


Ready, get set, GO!


This would be what is called an “undercut”?


Kung Fu paw!


“Yikes! He’s faster than I thought!”


Emergency braking!


Snarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl … swipe!


Dante’s chipmunk cheeks from munching on snow!


Atia still has NOT figured out that it’s not a good idea to sniff UNDER Dante when he’s taking a leak …


If you look closely you’ll see that in this photo all of Dante’s four feet are completely off the ground!


“Play with me play with me play with me play with me PLAY WITH ME!!!!!!”


“You asked for it!”


Evidence that Dobermans are SMART: Step on the line to prevent escape!


Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd ATTACK!


Atia strikes back … look at that bitey face:


Can’t beat Dante’s expression in this one: “Ok ok ok, STOP BARKING IN MY EAR ALREADY!”


LUNGE!


Atia has the coolest “mean face”:


As I was saying, ahem …


Nothing beats a good wrestle …


And that’s all for now folks! I guess you better hope I’m going to be tired in the next day or two, maybe that will get me to post some recent hiking photos … just kidding :)

Poor Dante!

His “sister” is driving him nuts!

He gets awaken in the morning with a paw/paws in the face, while still curled up in his bed.

He gets mobbed on his way in AND out of the backyard door, for merely just trying/wanting to go potty.

Any toy he sets his eyes/jaws/paws on results in an immediate tussle to liberate said toy from him.

Whenever he tries to nap on the floor he gets 60lbs (I’m just estimating at this point haha) of flailing nails, elbows and teeth landing on him and doing “the wiggles”.

He can’t stand/sit stationary for more than 5 minutes in the last few days without having his ears aggressively licked out and soggy, even while in the car!

He can’t be collared and leashed for a walk without being bounced on and off by a jealous and excited “sibling” not wanting to be “left behind”.

He can’t sniff or pee on his walks in peace without getting repeated and unrequested “assistance” of an extra busy-body nose or paw.

He can’t sidle up to people for hugs and cuddles without fighting off an attempt of being “squeezed out” of the dispensing of affection.

He is pounced on, pawed, barked at, head-butted, ankle-swiped, tackled, body-slammed, nibbled and gnawed on numerous times throughout any given day in exhortations to PLAY PLAY PLAY!

To add insult to injury, lately Atia has been “latching” herself to Dante and commenced HUMPING him. Oh the indignity …

Poor Dante, having to put up with the assortment of onslaughts from Atia now going through a full-out TERRIBLE TEENS RAMPAGE.

Good thing he’s such a sweet, sweet boy, and gives the little brat A LOT of latitude and leeway. I’m finding myself having to step in more often the last few weeks just to ward off some of Atia’s more obnoxious “advances” from Dante. At least Dante gets respite from her during the day too, when I’m away at work and she’s securely crated.

Extra hugs, cuddles and TLC are in order for Dante!

Spooky

Been meaning to write about this for a while now, but i keep forgetting.

There is this house on one of my walking routes around the neighbourhood. It's a newer, two-storey detached house on a corner lot, smack dab in the middle of alot of additional construction of new homes. It's on a fairly well-established street, but to the back of it is just vacant land waiting to be developed and have cookie cutter houses churned out by developers.

There are two ways we usually "arrive" at this house on our walking routes. One is through meandering streets in a quiet neighbourhood corner/crescent, and the other is through a nice long stretch of sidewalk (maybe half a kilometer? I don't know, i'm bad at estimating distances) which ends right at the house and then you have to make a left turn to continue on.

There is something "strange" about this house.

I've walked by this house maybe 4-5 times now in a 4-6 months period, each time with Dante along on one of our walks. Every single time we pass by this particular house, Dante will suddenly switch into what i can only describe as "full alert mode" whenever we approach it. His ears prick up, his eyes busily scanning his surroundings for something amiss. As we pass by the house, i will find Dante constantly trying to turn around to stare at the house, as if he is perturbed by something. He doesn't growl or vocalize in any way, but from his body language and a sudden "jumpiness" in the way he keeps trying to turn around to look towards the house, he gives me the impression that he is spooked by something. Only when we have departed from the vicinity of the house by a good distance, does he start to relax again and resume his normal laid-back walking posture.

One time, we approached the house through the meandering streets, so when we arrived at the corner house we had to make a left to continue on the long stretch of sidewalk. As we came into the vicinity of the house, Dante began to act all spooked again. I kept moving on and we started down the long stretch of sidewalk, but every few steps that we took he would keep trying to swing around towards the house, as if looking out for something. Even when we were a good 100 feet away from the house, he was still trying to turn around and had completely lost interest in sniffing and trotting along in the carefree way that's Dante taking a walk.

The first couple of times we "encountered" this house i found Dante's behaviour/reaction to it kind of weird, but didn't think too much about it. However, after every subsequent time that we passed by the house and Dante acted the same spooked way, i was starting to feel like maybe there's "something" about that house.

There's really nothing unusual about the house, at least not from glancing at it from the street. It looked like any other cookie cutter house built by developers. It had iron fencing around the perimeter of its side yard and the yard seemed to be well cared for and maintained. I don't think i have ever seen cars on the driveway though, although that might just be because they have their cars in the double car garage.

Here's another interesting observation: A couple of times when we passed by the house i would have both Dante and Atia along. Only Dante reacts this way whenever we approach the house. Atia just acts ... normal.

I don't know what's going on with that particular house, but since it's been several times now that Dante gets all spooked when we pass by it, i've decided to just avoid passing by the house altogether on our walks. Who knows, maybe Dante is "sensing" "something" in a way that's imperceptible to us humans. All i know is that it's just starting to creep me out a little too much ...

Training Update #60

Not much of an update in terms of a fair amount of training work done. It’s been one of those weeks where things just haven’t been lining up in terms of time, availability, weather conditions etc.

In terms of obedience, we actually managed to get out this past weekend to do a training session at the instructor’s place. The temperature was hovering around 0C, so not too cold and the ground was dry, but we would get gusts of wind every 10 minutes or so so it wasn’t as nice that way!

Only Dante got brought along though, since Atia was still in the middle of her “hunger strike” at the time :( So, Atia missed out on a good obedience training session, which I regretted, but I didn’t want to be giving her any kind of food, treats included, when she was being so stubborn about eating her meals. Oh well.

Dante has been steadily getting better at working outdoors, but he’s still not up to par in terms of level of attention and focus when we’re working indoors – that’s why we’ll probably never trial in an outdoor trial until he’s like 6 or something haha. This past weekend I don’t know whether it was because of the weather/chilly wind or because he just had a big hike in the morning before going for the training session, Dante was pretty slow to “kickstart” and get focused on work. So, I wasn’t happy with heeling at all, despite the fact that he’s been giving me beautiful heeling in different indoor locations for the last 2-3 formal training sessions. He was just doing a lot of sightseeing and wanting to sniff and checkout stuff rather than “work”. Oh and did I mention that there were LOTS AND LOTS of fresh piles of RABBIT POOP all over the instructor’s yard, so, yeah, he had his mind on chowing down poop rather than doing nice heeling work, being the dog that he is ;)

Dante’s DOR was ok. Actually, it was better than I expected after seeing the half-hearted heeling he gave me. I was actually quite surprised (but pleased) that he didn’t stop halfway on his way back to me to sniff and scoop up another pile of rabbit poop in his jaws.

Then we did ROF. That was fine, no problems.

It was not the case for the ROJ. I even lowered the jump to half his required jump height simply because he already had a big hike in the morning and the ground was hard and not completely thawed out. However, the first two times I threw the dumbbell he wouldn’t go over the jump to retrieve it. He had some kind of “spaced-out” moment where he would just stare mindlessly around him … sigh, I had hoped I had seen the last of those “moments” from him. I was giving him the benefit of doubt, so I threw it again for the 3rd and 4th time and this time had to MAKE HIM go over the jump to retrieve. But then we had the problem of him not retrieving once OVER the jump, doing his little spaced-out act again.

Finally I had had enough and gave him a big hard pop on his collar while pulling him towards the dumbbell on the ground and telling him to TAKE IT. What do you know, that seemed to snap him right out of his reverie and after that I had him do the ROJ several times from both directions and he did it with no problems. Bah, boys!

After the ROJ correction it appeared that Dante had finally been “jumpstarted”. He was more attentive and finally working decently. Sheesh.

We did the broad jump. He got delayed coming back to front the first time because there was an upside down flower pot right at the spot where he landed, so he decided to go check that out and “forgot” about the coming back to front part. Ok, extra command time. Gotta love all the different types of distractions at the instructors place – barking neighbour’s dogs, bird seed, squirrels, birds, piles of rabbit poop, voles, flower pots, a mish mash of gardening implements hiding at various corners in the yard … Dante ignores the barking dogs for the most part now, but whenever something new like rabbit poop pops up, it’s a whole new distraction and proofing challenge! Oh well, I guess when we finally do trial outdoors, I can take comfort in the fact that he’s been pretty much put through the wringer in terms of outdoor distractions, ha!

Anyways, I digress. Did the broad jump again twice and he made nice straight jumps and then a very neat U-turn after clearing it properly and back to me in a nice front. Again, if he’s “on”, he does well!

Did directed jumping next, since it’s something we haven’t been able to practice on our own for a few weeks now. We’re up to 18 feet between jumps now. The first couple of times Dante decided to be a smartass and just take whatever jump he wanted without paying attention to my hand signal – I think he just wanted to JUMP, since we haven’t had agility all week. After getting the “what was that all about” fuss from me he smartened up and watched for my hand signals. No problem doing the directed jumps once he was paying attention! I’ve been gradually increasing our distance from the jumps too. Pretty soon I’ll be feeling confident enough to merge the directed jumping with his go outs.

Then we did go outs. Got beautiful go outs from Dante, down to the automatic turn around and sit facing me at the end. Even the instructor was impressed :) I think I’m sending him to the go out point from about 20-25 feet right now. Will keep increasing this as we go along. I did get hammered on by the instructor though for rewarding Dante for his go outs BEFORE the go out point (I didn’t even think about that!). I am supposed to reward him AT the go out point, even if I have to release him from this sit and then reward. According to the instructor, this will help to curb future “creeping forward” problems when the dog sees the handler approaching and moves forward to be rewarded.

We worked on the glove retrieve next. I showed the instructor how we were doing in terms of a straight line retrieve, and she said we were doing good. Dante went out nice and fast for the glove and brought it back in a nice front. I was glad he was not dropping the glove before I took it from him, a problem which seems to crop up every now and then. I asked the instructor how to discourage Dante from shaking the glove like prey when he picks it up, and she said that when she figures it out she’ll let me know! Jokes aside, I think what I have to do is to break up the pick up and hold part of the retrieve into small parts and drill the “calm holding” into Dante when it comes to the gloves and articles. Yes, he’s starting to “play” with the articles too when he retrieves the scented article (not one single mistake yet, woohoo!), so that’s a big no-no and I will have to work to rectify that.

Then we worked on some signals. This time round Dante didn’t seem to have a problem with me not using verbal signals as well, so, I’m glad we’re making progress. Once I’m confident that he’s solid with just understanding what each signal means, I’ll start increasing my distance from him. His stand in motion is also coming along nicely :)

I have to start deciding what signal I’m going to use for the come front command. Everyone seems to use different signals for all the commands. I just have to find one I’m comfortable with and is clear and distinct to the dog. Hmmm …

At the end we did some out of sight stays. I haven’t done formal stays with Dante in what feels like forever, so I was very pleased when Dante stayed rooted and did not budge at all, even with rabbit poop all around him!

All in all, a good training session. We were able to work on some stuff we haven’t been able to work on recently, and get good feedback from the instructors. Evidently, we need lots more work on attention with outdoors distractions!

Dante and Atia have an obedience match coming up this weekend, so it’ll be a good occasion to gauge where we are at in terms of readiness to trial. I’m really hoping Dante will do well because I want to get him started with Open trials! With Atia, I just want to start getting her used to formal trial environments. It’ll be interesting to see how she does as well.

In terms of agility, well, we haven’t had another lesson or session ever since House League last weekend, since the instructor went for her surgery last Tuesday and will now be recovering for 6 weeks. I had made arrangements with another fellow student/handler to run a session together this evening, but just received notice this morning that due to it having been raining for 48 hours straight the roads at the facility are all a big icy mess, and to not go due to dangerous conditions. So, no agility this evening :( We are trying to set something up for Thursday, so that we don’t miss another entire week without doing some agility. Fingers crossed that that works out!

Rally class also starts this Friday (it was already postponed two weeks from its original start date, so they better not move the date again!!!), and both Dante and Atia will be participating, so I’m definitely looking forward to that!

Here’s hoping that next week will be a better week, training wise!