Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Tara and Orion

so hmm... what is Tara thinking all the time -- hmm... which of Orion's toys should I use to lure him off the couch or chair or wherever to get him to chase/play with me, hmm.... which side of the room should I keep Orion on or from... hmmm.... is he not paying attention now so I can run up behind him and sneak attack him? She's all about using her brains -- she's so smart and so funny and Orion either forgets or deliberately walks away from a toy (like right now with the squeaky hamburger) and then Tara grabs it and the game begins all over again -- She dances around squeaking whatever toy she thinks ORion might want in front of his nose coming close and then backing off sometimes being so bold as to briefly rest it in front of his nose right on the couch before quickly snatching it away again until Orion pursues her. Then she dances around up and down in and and out and behind and under and around coffee tables, dinner tables and chairs and sometimes even leaping over Orion or any other dogs in her path with the toy around and around until she drops it (either by accident or deliberately) and then Orion grabs it -- then starts the okay let's stop Orion from going over here, the over here usually being the couch, which Tara isn't allowed on (except for her front feet) and a new dance begins. It's pretty much hysterical around Orion and Tara whenever they are awake. What a pair. : )

Anyway, so its been awhile again -- too long really between updates -- I do have some photos too, but I killed my laptop by spilling a beverage on it and am hoping that my friends can retrieve all of my important things from the harddrive *crossing fingers!* So until I get another comp -- no pics can be posted from the good camera -- sorry all!!! You'll have to wait to see how big she's getting and how much her coat is really changing now, into what seems to be a much easier to brush version. : )

Anyway obedience has been going really well we've been working on lots of longer time and greater distance stays in lots of parking lots, at home and in class, and other places too occasionallly (but probably not enough) and she's getting quite good. Tonight we really challenged her in obedience class by working on stays downstairs in the big training room where agility was going on with lots of dogs running by and playing with toys and basically having lots more fun than her. Overall--- she did very, very well. She's only a 5 month old puppy! : ) Paul was very impressed with her tonight. After the hard work in the agility room we came upstairs and worked on stays with Paul wheeling around the room in a wheelchair, with a cane, and rolling/bouncing/throwing a tennis ball, sometimes all at the same time. She only broke a couple of the stays at the very beginning and then began offering a down when the wheelchair would come by! Smart puppy : ) I told Paul, and will tell anyone that asks that she really is perfect and I have no complaints!! Btw, are you're collie puppies really into retrieving too? She really likes it a lot, I have reinforced it in the past with treats and lots of fun, but not for a long time, of course there's always fun, but she loves retrieving, especially harder type plastic balls, big bouncy superballs, and wiffle balls, tennis balls are on the bottom of the list. She also really likes retreiving all those super annoying dog toys that sing songs, quack, chirp, etc. I've never had a dog go real nuts for such noisy toys before its pretty funny! Anyway, back to class; we also worked on sit-stays for petting and recalls away from paul holding food, balls, toys, and playing with her --- her recall is fantastic -- just awesome we've gotta try some real hard ones soon, lol, like being called away from a whole steak or something. : ) Her leave it is great -- I mean she's just awesome -- am I raving about her enough? Maybe if we're lucky we can skip the CGC class and just take the test : ) And maybe if we are really lucky we can enter the Rally trial at Gemini in Oct. as far as I know for novice you are allowed to take food in the ring with you! How hard can it be?! So yeah -- she's doing awesome.

I stil have to get cracking trying to do tracking with her...
I'm going to email the herding person in Maine this week and see when we should get started? I would definitely say she has instinct! Maybe -- not I don't really know how these things work, but.. -- she could go for her herding instinct cert. this winter? We'll see... exciting it all is anyway.

Here's my far-fetched Tara goals for the year -- yes far-fetched -- I would love for her to be Tamarack's Autumn Rain CGC, HIC, RN before '07 rolls around -- I'd love to througha TD in there but maybe we'll shoot for spring of '07 with that... yup, i'm nuts, but I've got a great, smart dog -- so maybe! We'll see. It would be very awesome to get those titles on a 9 month old... then we'll shoot for the upper Rally titles and our CD before we can even really get crakcing in agility. Gotta looking into those backpacking dog titles too. The American Working Collie Assoc. has yet to respond to my letter for membership that I sent close to two months ago!

Also, Tara and I have started working on jumps at 4" (don't want to hurt her joints!), tunnels now with a cue, walking through a ladder on the ground (teaches her where her rear legs/end are/is), walking on sandy planks (the material of dog walk/aframes/teeter) all in ernest. She catches on fast. I Also started her on weaves, but through poles set at an angle cause thats for sure not something shes supposed to do for real until she's done growing -- apparently its one of the hardest pieces of agility equipment on a dogs body, so yeah we're taking it very slow!! We've got 9 months or so til her growth plates close! So anyway Tara kicks ass, lol. Hope you're all having fun too!

Saturday, August 05, 2006

now the update

So, Tara's getting so big! She's really teething now too! I've found two teeth so far (one of which I meant to keep but lost already). She's really smart and fun to work with. I assist in dog training classes as you all now, and we started a new class on Wed. night and she got to work with me in class (and like 5 - 6 other people) as a demo dog. She did a great food bowl sit stay for a demo, and did watch me, hand targeting, sit, down and come for all the people in our group. I swear she would work for me all day if I asked. I guess that she's a working dog for sure. : ) So anyway, we're doing really well in obedience still and since there is no flex 3 currently we are still in flex 2. But basically she has everything down and I probably need to sign her up for an L2 soon. L2 is mostly the same stuff is L1, with more distractions, they learn a couple of other things too, like to stand on cue, but its really building distractions and stuff. Then there's L3 which I've never done with Orion, because I don't trust him off-leash, but that class is kinda an agility prep/off-leash obedience class -- I don't know what new stuff we do it in though, cause I've never taken it. We're starting the next CGC Prep class that starts too, which I don't know when that is, but fairly soon. So we're booked solid. I think Tara misses Luke who was here for 20 days, they really tired each other out. Now its my job to tire her out! She's really good though. The only growing problem is her barkiness, but hell she's a collie, its part of who she is! She barks in class when I am not keeping her busy (she loves to work!), and when she wants Orion to play with her, or us to play with her, or food, or whatever. We ignore, ignore, ignore -- barking dogs don't exist! Just like jumping dogs don't exist and get a back turned toward them. I really thought we were going to miss alot of the jumping cause I never allowed it, right from day one, but boy does she want to jump up on everyone now, she's making up for being not jumpy at all most of the time I've had her. We only pat when all 4 feet are on the floor though. She'll get it. She's just so happy to meet everyone. She's great. She's perfect, I really have no complaints, she's so far everything I hoped for. I'm afraid to jinx myself, but hopefully she'll stay this way. We're well on the right path as far as I can tell. Tomorrow we go down to Cambridge to see a friend's concert, so she'll get her 3rd trip into the city on a busy Sunday. That'll be good for her. Next weekend we have a local pet fest, so I'll bring both my guys to that too. Orion, Tara, Oen and I have been going on some longer walks too. I think she can handle it more now. We're definitely not overdoing it, but we'll go for a casual 1 hr or so walk and when we come back she really crashes. I got my new books and have been reading up on competitive obedience, tracking and building a good relationship with my performance puppy. We also got a working collie book, and there are like 30 different activities in the book that collies are doing, so it's inspiring to see something like that. gives us something to work toward, lol. Anyway, I don't feel like I have a whole lot to report on, we were really busy with Luke for those 20 days, and that was where most of Tara's amusement came from. We're now cracking down on training again, the past few weeks were mostly fun and not a lot of work, now Tara is sleeping belly up. LOL. I always think its so funny when she does that! Her stays have a gotten alot better. We need her stays to get good enough so that I can walk 25 ft away from her for the CGC Test, I'm sure we'll be there. She's gotten a lot better about brushing too. I really need to get a grooming table, because just putting her on a table makes it that much easier to brush her out. So a grooming table would be wonderful for both of them. Anyway, if I think of anything I need to add, I'll be back. Basically I'm very proud of Tara, especially when she was such a good demo dog on Wed. that was so cool! Goodnight all. : )

Pics from today

Happy Tara and what's with the wavy coat? huh?


Puppy play photos finally!

So these pics are from Mon. July24th






wow -- its really been a long time since I posted pics

so here you go -- pics then post!
These pics are from the weekend of 7/15
Luke was the shepx (about 10-11 months) that boarded with us for 20 days!