Flying Poodles

Baited plates… or I try breaking a few rules…

I’ve been told by many people not to bait a target plate. Other people I know seem to be fairly successful with them. I’ve been working with Dancer on motivation and speed, and more than one poodle trainer I know uses baited plates to speed up their dogs’ dogwalk performance. I thought I’d try it.

I put the plate in position, I baited it, and then I told Dancer to come with me. I had to be very firm with a LEAVE IT! but she did come with me. Then she was a bit hesitant on the dogwalk, until I told her to GET IT! I repeated it with a tunnel-dogwalk sequence, and she got definitely faster, and I got a great contact performance as well. I asked for three or four more dogwalks, each with a slightly different short sequence before the dogwalk, and I watched her enthusiasm build. Then I picked up the contact plate, and asked for the dogwalk again. I got great speed, AND I GOT A GOOD CONTACT performance.

I gave her a break while I worked with Elly. I’ve been experimenting with various startline routines. Bizarrely, one that works well is to set her up facing away from the first obstacle, facing me instead, with me facing that first obstacle Then I start moving and call her to come with me, and I can get about two steps ahead of her before she gets going. It’s better than starting behind her (since we have no startline stay)–and I don’t lose her attention.

After we worked on that for a while, I went back to Dancer and asked her to do the A-frame only twice with a baited plate, but I got good contacts there too. So I pushed my luck, I picked up the contact plates, and I did a longer sequence with both the A-frame and the dogwalk. And I got good speed (great speed!) and great contacts (really!)–so it was time to quit.

The best crate ever…. (Or, my husband is pretty cool)

We moved recently and part of moving is always making stuff fit into the available space. Once I had the chairs and table I wanted in my office, the two crates really made it VERY crowded.

Hence, Jay’s solution to the problem:

Elly and Dancer in their new crate

We took apart and reassembled one small and one large dog gate from this company: Dog Beds and Crates. Then we added a piece of plywood across the back and slid the big crate into place under my table. The girls seem to like it, and there is now NO WASTED SPACE in my office.

And if you’re wondering… Dancer curls up to sleep in the pink bed, and Elly sprawls in the orange one.

More on the Poop Problem

Here’s a worm-composting solution: Pet Poo Worm Composter.

The Poop Problem

My daughter is appalled at the number of plastic bags I use every day to pick up dog poop. I expect she’d be more appalled if I just left the poop sitting in the middle of the path. But anyway, she told me she’d seen something on the web about composting dog poop. This is generally not recommended–you’ll see numerous sources telling you how dangerous it is to use dog poop compost on plants–but the Alaska government, faced with the problem of dog mushers who generate two tons of dog poop a year, did a little research and came up with a method to safely compost dog waste (dog excrement, dog poop, dog shit). They then wrote it up into a nifty little pamphlet:
Alaska’s nifty dog waste composting pamphlet.

What’s the catch? Well, apparently the method doesn’t work well if you have less than ten (yes, ten) dogs.

I think I’ll go back to the method where you bury the waste in a corner of the garden and don’t plant any vegetables nearby.

Massage training

I went to a wonderful seminar at High Voltage Agility last weekend. Cindy DiFranco presented her canine massage methodology and then was available for individual training. Three hours of lecture; one hour of hands-on. We worked together on Elly, who clearly had a wonderul time. Two days later I’m still seeing the effects of the thorough going-over that she got as we worked. She just seems to be better connected and less sore.

Progress in training

I have signed up for barn time, and for the first time I am systematically practicing on my own.

This requires that I actually do my own planning, and since I’m training this summer, not trialing, I want to focus on cleaning up our team weaknesses.What are those weaknesses? Well, Dancer’s contacts. Both girls’ weaves. Elly’s start-line stay. Elly’s general fitness. Motivation is always a challenge–I need to make sure neither of them thinks agility is work, rather than the most fun you can have.

I have been working on what I think of as the “five-year plan.” That is–the plan for when Dancer is five years old. To my mind, the most successful agility dogs are five-to-seven years old, and I want Dancer to be there at age 5. Her father is still competing at age 11… I don’t see why Dancer can’t be doing that, if I plan for it now. Part of the five-year plan is for me (skinnier, faster); part is for Dancer (better contacts, faster weaves, more distance).

Establishing a regular training routine after a year of coping and chaos (it started with my daughter’s bicycle accident, continued with the fire, went on with the move… and I’m hoping that’s it for a while) is a part of the five-year plan.

SO: for the next few weeks, this is the plan: work on contacts, weave entries (and weaves), enthusiasm, start-line stays and leadouts.

And for the skinnier, faster part: more walking. Less eating.

Back to training

When I went out to my barn time on Monday, to do some training for the first time in almost a month, my only goal was to get Dancer motivated to work with me and run fast. I took her new favorite toy. She spent 15 minutes happily chasing and tugging and doing the occasional obstacle, and then she was done. It was hot and dusty and she wasn’t interested in doing one more thing. We went home.

Of course I spent Tuesday obsessing that she wouldn’t want to do agility at our Tuesday night class either… but she was fine, never losing focus, very in tune with me.

I am taking the summer off from trialing to focus on training and the house. My current plan is to trial next in early September.

What I’ve been doing lately

What I’ve been doing lately:

12 days in Italy (Venice, Padova, Rovigo, a little Milan) with my sister (see previous post)–notice that this does not involve dog training

moving–this doesn’t involve dog training either

unpacking–no dog training here

(The dogs were at their friend Cat’s for 17 days. Fortunately they adore her and she adores them. She is the finest poodle sitter in the world.)

However… the travel was good, the food was amazing, it was great to spend time with my sister, and when I got home, we moved because our house in Sammamish has sold. We only own one house now, the one in Portland.  Jay has a ten minute commute (by car) or a forty-five minute commute (bicycle) instead of a three-hour one (by car) or a fifteen hour bike ride.

So what I’ve been doing, mostly, is unpacking. We have an astonishing amount of stuff. We got rid of truckloads and boxes of stuff before we moved (seriously, it took six months to get the house ready to go on the market) and I’m still opening boxes and looking at them and saying to myself “why did I keep this?”

The dogs keep me company during this effort. I have their two favorite beat-up leather chairs (they’re 25 years old) in my office and they curl into them and doze while I unpack. Yesterday I took them to Chimney Park and you could see their relief that they got to run around like maniacs instead of relaxing in a chair.

I’m working on a fence plan for the yard so that they’ll be able to run around here too. There will ultimately even be a snmall grassed training area.

Italian Dogs, 2009

Last week I got back from 12 days in Italy with my sister. While much of our trip revolved around food–we took a cooking class and ate a lot besides–we also spent a lot of time just wandering around. I did see a few dogs. Most of the male dogs I saw were unneutered, interestingly, but I never saw a dog get snarky or aggressive. I think that city life must really require socialization–and I expect the snarky and aggressive dogs stay home.

We saw this dog in Venice:

Venetian dog, hanging out while his dad opened the shop, 6 AM

And this dog was with his mom at the market in Padua

Small poodle at the market in Padova, Italy

And this little girl was one of two resident dogs at the Castel Tenuta Venezze, in Rovigo, which was a 15th century villa renovated as a country hotel. Wonderful place.

Resident Dog at Castel Tenuta Venezze

Taking the dogs for a walk

Stacia and I took the curly girlies up to Mt. Tabor park to admire the view on a gorgeous sunny day:

Stacia, Elly, and Dancer

And in this photo you can actually see downtown Portland (NW):

View from Mt. Tabor toward downtown Portland

After our walk, we walked over to Stark Street for an iced tea and an iced coffee at Cooper’s. On the way we saw these lovely old steps:

Stark Street Steps

And yes, I do have a new (to me, anyway) camera. Why do you ask?