late winter agility

Late Winter but starting to think about Spring! New garden boxes for my husband to build for me, hose projects, got my seeds from last year out of the fridge to look at (tomato, crook neck squash, green beans, spinach). Pretty soon all my veggies will be bone dry and I will want nothing to do with them! For now I am dreaming of eating fresh strawberries from my garden.
Here is late February in Boise. A few inches of new snow overnight and we woke up to this. By afternoon it had all melted off again.

My yard is small, small and soggy right now. We have room for all of the normal agility equipment but just barely. Indi can't build up too much speed in my little yard so we work on tight turns, contacts, weave entries.

 

What we really need work on is running a full sized course together! At class today we did a small sequence. It was only the second time she has been able to run on a full scale course. We started out pretty good, three jumps to the tunnel, jump, front cross, jump jump, throw ball. Then on our next turn we tried to go a little further into a slightly more challenging section of course. It showed me just how much more work we will need before we will be able to run a real course together! She is way out ahead of me. How the heck am I supposed to direct her from so far behind?!? I have never taught my dogs left and right commands, only "turn" and that always worked in the past. Whichever side my dog is on, turn means to turn your head away from me while I cross behind you. Maybe I need left and right? Maybe I need a faster brain/legs/body!

  I must say, she is everything I wanted in my next agility dog. Lots of drive!

 Now that I have her, what do I do with her? 

a handful

 Our daily routine involves something to tire out the puppy physically. Weekends we can almost always go on a hike of some kind somewhere. Weekdays I still take her to work with me and I take her out throughout the day to throw a ball and lately I've been practicing with a single agility jump there as well.
A first attempt at a jumping shot.

I've also started taking her to the park after work to throw her frisbee since it seems she is the most insane when we first come home. This helps a little to curb that enthusiasm!

I call this "Indiglow in the dark". Terrible picture but I had to try!

There is a little tree at this park that we've been using for "out" practice. We started close and I can now send her out around the tree from about 15 feet away, right or left, right side being easier for some reason. I send her out, she comes back in to my side, heel, turn, throw the frisbee and she's off like a 65 pound bullet.

I am using the advise given on one of Denise Fenzi's blogs (again). That of "placement of reward". Indi tends to wrap around my front when we heel, she wants to see my face and watch my frisbee hand. Her advise for this was a left hand turn (her head is turning away from me) and then throw the reward. Heel, heel, heel, TURN, throw toy. It feels like I am helping her get unbent somehow. It has definitely helped! But now she has started adding a turn where she thinks I might tell her to turn, anticipating. I am being too predictable!


So this snow we've had isn't too big a deal. It has kept us from doing any contact training though. It has canceled our agility classes too, booo. It makes for some beautiful hikes in the foothills though!

Boise in the background. We don't normally have this much snow for this long on the ground in Boise.

What we really disliked was the ice that came last week! A night of freezing rain and we woke up to the thickest, hardest to scrape ice on the windshields and roads and all that soft snow was covered in a layer of solid ice.
That meant no hikes in the hills, no frisbee at the park, not even any walks around the block!  Whatever is a certain black angel to do at such a time?

We can do obedience in the house, hiding games, throw food down the hall, it all helps a little but what she really wants is something involving RUNNING.
We have also resorted to the chews.
I found some cow's ears that seem to last a long time, like up to a half an hour. Bully sticks don't seem to last as long as I'd think they would but we use them sometimes. She does chew the antler we have but gets bored with it after not too long. I put stuff in kongs and offer those sometimes. Tonight I made a doggy quiche with turkey burger, eggs, ground parsley and turmeric, added for the crazy nutritive values it has (all mixed together and then baked).  That combo worked nicely shoved into a kong! The kitties loved it too.

This is Indi's preferred place to chew a bone, my lap. If she can't be on top of me chewing her bone, she likes to press it up against me while she chews it.

And one final shot, this was last weekend when I wasn't able to tire her out and decided it would be a good time to paint a little table I found at the thrift store.

Apparently No, leave it, means, Yes, touch it!

she weaves again and Christmas pictures

My dad bought me a set of 12 weaves when Amber was first starting to learn agility. They're spaced 20" apart. Amber and Rye never had a problem practicing on them even though at trials they used weaves set 24" apart for a long time. Indi has been learning on stick in the ground weave poles which feel a lot different than a real set of poles with a solid base. When she got the hang of six straight poles I attempted once to run her through my set of 20 inchers but quickly realized she is much too long and tall for them!

So Indi's Christmas present came a day late. A new set of six 24" weaves! (I'll have to save up for that second set)

Here she is the morning after bringing them home, weaving a real set for the first time. I thought maybe it would look and feel different enough that she wouldn't be able to do them right away but that was not the case. She does every once in a while get caught in them like I've seen larger dogs do.

She still doesn't always want to bring me back her toy and I think we need to work more on recalls! She was super excited though and that makes her more likely to do victory laps instead of returning.

The weekend before Christmas we went to visit our family in New Meadows, Idaho.
There, Indi got to drag Emma, my inlaw's Vizsla around with a toy.

Help open presents.

Help break down boxes for recycling.

And best of all, play frisbee in the snow!

We hope you all had a most beautiful Christmas day!

the river in December

Our once weekly foray to the river. It's getting low and that means, a little swampy and green. I really should give Indi a bath after getting in it but I am lazy. I use a spray on shampoo (argh, how do I get rid of these link thingies?) and brush her coat really well instead.
I gave Rye a haircut on Thursday. I love how shaving his coat down a bit really makes his spots show.
Here he is on duck watch, his favorite passtime. He usually doesn't get out any deeper than this in the water so he doesn't get smelly.

Indi has started to point!

Indi loves to stick her whole head in the water and take big mouthfuls and then turn around and RUN straight at me. She gets wild!

The scratch between her eyes happened while playing with another dog. I really hope the hair grows back in!

And finally, here is Rye being his beautiful setter self.

 

she weaves!

Four poles!
We've been doing the two by two method which is how Rye learned. Amber learned with channel weaves. I can't say either one was better for us since Amber almost always had really solid weaves and Rye didn't in competition but that may just be an individual dog thing. I do like the idea of the two by two method better. It feels to me that the dog really learns it well independently. It is working well for Indi since she is so toy motivated.

Next up, add two more off to the side and slowly move those in line with the other four. I started these about two weeks ago, working a few times a week and just yesterday she really had the idea down.