Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Tara's upcoming schedule : )

So now that we have our RL1 we have to go out and attempt to get our RN (Rally Novice Title) through the AKC. So I'm doing this to help me see what I have planned coming up, and to let you all know what our plan is, if you are interested.

Nov. 5, 2006 Tara's Herding Instinct Test (which I have yet to register for and pay for because I've been poor, so hopefully there is space left!), this would give her HIC after her name, lol. It's being put on by the Collie Club of Maine, I'm really crossing my fingers that there is space left!

Nov. 18, 2006 Pet Expo in Maine, may go for our CGC, depending on how we are feeling that day and how they have the test setup. Not sure though, I might wait to go for this one until she's a little older, we'll see.

Nov. 27, 2006 Rally Trial in W. Springfield, MA, the last day of the huge and very well-known Thanksgiving Cluster. Sooo many dogs! We'll be going for our first RN leg.

Dec. 1, 2006 Rally Trial through GSD club I think, in Fitchburg, MA. We'll be going for a RN leg.
Dec. 8, 2006 Rally Trial at Bay Colony Dog Show in Boston, again we'd be trying for a RN leg.

So I guess I should try to get down to MA for a few more rally classes between now and then! I'm going to take 2 wks off (this week was one of them) from going to MA on Mondays and then maybe come down on 11/6 and 11/20 for sure, then I'll be here the 27th if I enter the trial in Springfield. Maybe I'll come down on 11/13 for another class, probably not though, and probably not 12/4 either, since I will have spent the past week in MA, more than usual. So that's the plan for us I guess. Maybe over the winter we can start up herding lessons, if I can get the money. I really want to find some place local to drop in to rally and obedience classes too, because I really want to start training for her CD (companion dog title through the AKC).

In March the CCofME is holding a Rally trial on 3/2, so we'll definitely be there, and also a few weeks before that, the CCof CT is holding a Rally trial all weekend long, 2/9, 2/10, and 2/11, so hopefully we can make it to that as well. In March there is also the CCNational in NC (where I have friends), around my bday, so it might be nice little vacation, if we could go. I think that would be very cool, to get to hang out with lots of other performance collies. Then of course we really need to look for APDT trials too, because they are few and far between and really fun, if this past weekend was any indication of what's normal. So yeah. We only have a few plans, lol. : ) We are going to be busy, busy, busy training. Tara's so eager to learn and has so much fun doing it though, that I'm not worried about her at all, she is always enjoying herself, and she has plenty of oppurtunities to play with other dogs and be a puppy too. : ) Tara rocks. Goodnite all.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Tamarack's Autumn Rain, RL1


Just a quick note to let you all know (I'm actually stealing internet outside a random house in town, because ours wasn't working when I got home today!) that Tara got her RL1 this weekend! My wonderful seven month old was all perfect puppy and no bratty adolescent. In our first run yesterday I was really nervous, and Tara was really silly (but very happy!) and I was sure that we didn't Q. We got a 180 though (you have to get a 170/200 to qualify and there are also 10 bonus points available if you do the bonus exerciese) and I was thrilled! (I didn't expect us to get any legs really, as we've only been practicing rally a little and only been to 3 rally classes). Our second run yesterday was awesome, we got a 203 and fifth place. Today was awesome also, we got a 201 and second place. So yeah little Tara this is just the beginning. : ) I'm so excited and so proud of her, she was so focused, and definitely the youngest dog there. Thank you all for your help!

Monday, October 16, 2006

Forgot to mention a couple of things


Video of Tara playing with dogs (the little one Freddy is a hairless crested) at Shirley's house.

First off I forgot to mention Tara and I's major stand-off we had on Thurs. Little brat. She's not perfect all the time anymore! We were training at a rest area in NH on our way back up to Maine and I was walking the dogs individually. So I asked Tara to down for me and she wouldn't. She wouldn't look at me, she kept turning her head not to make eye contact, and sniffing the breeze and completely ignoring me. I waited and waited and waited. I've been taught not to repeat commands, because there is no need. A dog can hear a bag crinkle clear across the house, they can hear you say a word directed at them. Especially when they were paying attention to when you asked! I also will not force a dog into position. No leash corrections. No yelling. Just patience, which let me tell you is really hard for a long period of time to maintain, especially when you know she knows what you asked, and you know you look like an idiot standing in the middle of the lawn staring at the ground, waiting for your dog to down. But I waited, I blocked her view with my body of the most interesting things, i.e. people and dogs walking by. She was not going to be allowed to move from the spot we were in until she complied. If she had done iteagerly, I was going to reward the behavior, but since she didn't her reward for compliance would be the ability to move freely again. Not that I was holding her leash tight, or she was trying to leave, or anything, but I stepped in front of any hint of movement away from "the spot". : ) So we waited. A few minutes passed and I asked her to down again. Still no down. I honestly think I asked her about 5 times for a down and I think it took about 10 mins of standing (her actually sitting most of the time) for her to down. As soon as she did, I released all "pressure" (again -- there was no physical pressure at all) on her, praised her and let her go explore again. Phew! 10 minutes for one lousy down! A down that she can do anywhere, pretty much anytime I ask, because we practice everywhere we go and we go lots of places because she is always, and I mean always, with me. Stubborn adolescent puppy! So I had already decided, while waiting that we were not leaving the rest area until we could have a few quick response, rewardly downs occur. So after a couple minutes of exploring again, and yes she had already done both, so it had nothing to do with that, I asked again. This time it took about half as long, maybe 5 minutes or so for a down to occur. The next couple took about 2 mins each, and by the end we had rapid, rewardly downs going. So we happily returned to the car doing fun heelwork, spins, practicing halts, etc, things that Tara likes alot, along the way. So it all ended on a fun positive note, and once in the car she got her breakfast in her kongs, so that was even more of a reward. (We have been driving up to Maine on Thurs, very early in the morning, leaving Gemini before 7am, so this was about 8am or a little before that all this occurred) So yeah 25-30 mins of serious work at a rest area. Crazy Tara, she knows how to down, but I needed to make sure that she understood that just because she pulled this stubborn crap that its not going to make her not have to comply. She always has to comply, especially if we are planning on doing this competitively. I want her to always think that she has a choice, but that it is much more rewarding to do what I ask for than anything else she might choose.

I also wanted to write about our afternoon that day at Petco. We don't go to Petco's that often, as I don't shop there, I only shop really at mom and pop pet stores, and usually only ones that don't sell any animals, cause I don't like to support pet store pets of any kind, so Tara has probably only been to Petco 3 or 4 times in her little life. But anyway, we trained some more there working on heeling and lots and lots of downs, seeing as how that is what she had trouble with in the morning, and we were quite successful. She was really, really good there. In fact she was pretty much back to perfect little Tara, after her morning "outburst", lol. She was very fun with the small animals, wagging her tail like she wanted to play with them, and I'm sure she did want to play with them, but her recall away from all the little critters was perfect. So she was a very good girl at Petco.

So tonight we have our last rally class (yikes!) before the trial, we've really crammed for this trial, we've only gone to 3 classes of rally! So we (read me!) are very nervous about this weekend. I go back and forth on whether I think we might get a leg or not. : O I have to remember I am doing all of this to have fun, and she's just a puppy, and having fun is the most important thing... so I'll try. I would never be mad if she didn't comply, mostly I'll just be mad at myself for a) entering her at such a young age and with little prep or b)not practicing with her enough, or something. So we'll see. You all will be the first to know how it goes... : ) C ya.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Whoa we have our first Rally trial next weekend!



So it looks like I've been slacking off on the picture end of things again, I'll try to take some this week and for sure I will have someone get a couple shots of us doing our rally runs. So let's see what has been going on. (Just found these, my friends took them when they were visiting.)

The first weekend in Oct. I went to a dog seminar and at times had Tara inside with me lying on her mat gnawing away at a kong and just hanging out. She never really fully settled though. We were in a room of about 90 people at gemini and quite a few of them had dogs. At least we got some practice, but its hard for a puppy that's not really tuckered out to settle in a space like that : )

I came back home that weekend and my friends Kate and Mike came up with their new daughter Emerson, who just turned 4 months old. Tara was very good about not bothering the baby. She figured out she was off-limits and never really tried to interact with her, although she was quite intrigued by the funny noises that came out of that little body. : )

We've been going on off-leash walks up a dirt road near my house and practicing lots of obedience and recalls on the way. A couple of weeks ago, we were doing this walk and Tara was ahead of me stirring up birds and stuff, everytime she kicked up the birds and started following them a little bit, I'd call her to return to me, because I didn't really want her bothering the birds and I really didn't want her getting too interested in them (which she doesn't really cause as soon as they fly up into the sky she's like 'oh, can't get them now', it's so cool that she realizes that they can evade her.). By the third time I called her away from the birds, she had figured that her spooking the birds was now a cue to return to me and I didn't need to call her again. : ) Smart girl.

But in other news her leave it has gotten weaker, as has her recall when around other dogs, I think adolescence hit last weekend, lol, just in time for our rally trial. : )

Ok, so after my friends were here that weekend we came down for our regular classes, and guess what? We've been asked to join a freestyle team! : ) I think Tara would love it. It'll probably be a lot of fun. We're not going to get involved until 2007 though, I think. We'll see how much time we have. Freestyle is something I have a lot of interest in, I think it's really cool.

BTW, Tara now absolutely loves the A-frame and it was our biggest distraction at Rally class on Mon. night, she just wanted to through herself at that instead of doing our "boring" rally work. Silly pup.

Did I mention Tara got to play with my friend Kim's crazy ACD (Australian Cattle Dog) Wylie a couple of weeks ago? They were such a good pair. Hopefully they'll get to play again.

This past week I've really been cracking down on our obedience, trying to get ready for the rally trial. It has been difficult for her to understand that barking sits and downs don't count. LOL. No barking is a tough thing for a collie. If she barks when she sits or downs, I ignore it and we have to try again. She's gotten a lot better, its just hard not to an exuberant puppy and bark. We've also been not allowing greetings at all if she jumps, just completely turning around and walking away and trying again to approach with a loose leash and then to sit for petting. She's gotten much better at that too. The hardest one of all though is to great dogs with loose leashes and to come away from them when called, but she is getting better at that too. It's the dogs she meets for the first time that she has a tough time with the recall away from, not dogs that she already knows. If she knows I'm going to practice recalls with her around other dogs she knows, she won't even go say hi, because she knows she will be rewarded for working with me.

So we still really haven't mastered stand yet, yikes! I can get her into a stand, but she only stays for a split second, I really would like her stand to be for a couple of secs, but its definitely a hard thing to teach.

This past week in MA she played with a bunch of dogs at my friend Shirley's house, a couple of 10 wk old mix puppies that are being called the muppet babies, a beagle?/boxer mix puppy that was a really nice dog and Shirley's two dogs Freddy, a crested, and Lulu (who didn't want to play anyway), a bagel (basset/beagle mix). They had a great time tearing it up in Shirley's yard.

Other things we are really cracking down on include sitting to get in and out of crates, cars, yards, etc, and staying and leaving her food for as long as I say (it's really great to watch her fly out of whatever position she is in to go get her food then when I say the magic "okay!"). She really is quite good.

Agility has also been going well, and this week we started on the dog walk, which she wasn't crazy about, but I'm sure she'll be much more enthusiastic about it in the next couple weeks. I love how she just totally throws herself at new things, I'm saying she didn' really like the dogwalk, but that doesn't mean she wasn't eager to try it and do it a few times, you could just tell by her body language that she was a little unsure, but she's eager to try anways. That's what I love about the type of training we do. Clicker Training. I really don't discourage anything she does, I greatly encourage anything that I like that she does. She always has a choice. She always chooses how far she wants to go. She's funny and so willing to try and learn and show me new things all the time.

We just came in from our wonderful yard, its a very cool day out up here. The pups were romping in the leaves and chasing sticks and frisbees and then my friend/petsitter Sarah came over with her 3 dogs, a 6yr old shih-poo Bear, her 2-yr old Dobie Zeus and her 4-month old Dobie puppy Rocky. There was a crazy 5 dog party in my back yard. : ) Tara just runs around like a maniac encouraging everyone to play with her. She and Zeus played the most, Rocky was a little shy with her at first and came around more at the end. Rocky and Tara are the same size right now.

BTW, do any of you know how much your puppies weigh? I measured Tara at the withers last weekend and she's just about 20 inches, I think she weighs about 35lbs, but I'm not sure. I don't if she's gonna gain 20 more lbs before she's an adult. We'll see, she's going to be a tiny collie I think. I still pick her up and always will. : )

We also met a boxer puppy the other day in town who's the same age asTara that we might have playdates with. So yeah for puppies in Maine, they don't seem to be easy to come by.

In other news, I'm really trying to get a full-time doggy-daycare/boarding/training/pet-sitting program going up here in Maine, as I am very sick of commuting to MA. I just wish there were more places to train up here. So I'll probably always go down to MA some. Hope you all are well.