Go watch it, and then come back here.

What did you see? Looks like a pretty disastrous run, right? But no… I saw Dancer start slowly–looking back at the leash runner coming in behind her. She stops on the a-frame and looks at the judge, then moves toward her as she leaves the a-frame. Back on track, she slows down in the weaves as the judge stares at her, then comes off the side of the teeter as the judge steps toward her, then jumps off the dog-walk as the judge steps toward her again. By the time she gets to the triple jump, it’s just too much work to jump it, and she chooses to go around it.

So why was it a disaster? Not my handling (except for pushing her off the table). She was nervous and stressed and not having a good time. No wonder things didn’t go well.

And that’s why I focused on reducing her stress for the CPE trial.

She’s been stressed about the judge and the spectators lately, and Argus is a loud venue, so perhaps that’s all part of it. But… she did the teeter all the times I asked her to; her a-frame contacts were excellent; she worked with me every single run, even when she was a bit nervous at the start. On the whole, it was a far better weekend than our last trip to Argus (for Poodle Club), where her worries kind of overcame her.

Rush had a somewhat difficult weekend. Friday night something he ate did not agree with him, and at 2 AM he woke me, urgently needing to go out. And again at 3 AM. He didn’t eat all day Saturday and was very quiet, content to rest in his crate. By Sunday morning, however, he was interested in food again and feeling somewhat more energetic. This morning he’s back to his usual self.

She set up a course that looked like this
_ first jump/fifth jump (no wing)
_ second jump/fourth jump (winged jump)
| | third jump (turn right or turn left) (no wing)
_ off course jump (no wing)

This is classic box work, at the simplest level.

First, we led out to just before the second jump (just to where you can reach out and touch the wing). Then we released the dog without motion; if you’ve correctly taught the motion cue, he will take jump 1 and jump 2, and wrap tightly around the wing of jump 2 to you.

After testing that, we led out to the front cross line between jump 2 and jump 3; handler was to make a front cross to signal jump 3 with a wrap to the far side; the dog was to wrap to the far side of jump 3, then follow the handler’s post turn to turn back to jump 4 and go! to jump 5 (Debbie threw a toy to land after jump 5 as the dog committed to jump 4).

Some of the people in the class are new to agility (but experienced obedience trainers) and some of us are on our second or third or more agility dog. Debbie stressed the technical aspects of doing a front cross, including the exact footwork and the exact line, which was great; I saw Rush take a very tight line because of the precision line I was setting for him. We worked the pattern in both directions, with front crosses in both directions.

Next she moved jump 3 so that it was a 180-degree turn from jump 2; same leadout, but now we had to signal jump 3 correctly by moving in a straight line to the closest jump standard of jump 3. I was so proud of Rush; when I turned slightly too hard, he came with me, right between the jumps; he read my body language beautifully.

Finally, Debbie set up three jumps in a straight line, but each of them turned slightly: the beginnings of a serpentine. Some were winged, some not. We ran it with the dog on both sides. Again, Rush read my body language beautifully; at one point, he corrected himself to turn to the jump when he saw I was running straight along.

I was proud of Rush’s focus! We were outside on grass for the first time ever, and he clearly loved it. And there was a bitch in heat in the class (there are two intact bitches in the class; this is his second encounter) and he did not get distracted! He’s one year old today–pretty good for a boy with all his parts.

Riva dog vest from BikeTiresDirect.com

(You can buy them at this link.)

The vest is theoretically a wind vest for cycling, and works really well for that, too, but it is absolutely amazing for using during dog training. You can fit a tennis ball, a couple of tug toys, and a whole lot of treats in those pockets–and they’re out of your hands but easy to get to.

Buy one, buy two…

Rush at 363 days old

You can see a picture of what he looked like at one week old by going here, but I can save you time: he looked like a black furry potato with legs. Rush weighed a little less than a pound when he was born; he weighed 53.4 pounds when I took him to the vet on Monday (Elly was getting an Adequan shot, so I took Rush along and weighed him and gave him cookies.

When I’m feeling frustrated with how Rush’s training is going, I find it helpful to think about what he does know, instead of what I’m having trouble teaching him. Here are some of the things he’s learned in the past year:

*To pee on cue
*To walk nicely into a training center (most of the time)
*To wait until he’s given permission to start eating his dinner
*To counter-surf only when I’m not in the room
*To love doing tunnels at top speed
*To behave pretty nicely while being groomed–except for his left front paw, which is very ticklish indeed
*To just hang out with us in the morning, resting quietly on the bed next to Jay (whom he adores), and while we’re watching TV
*To play with Dancer and Elly nicely enough that he doesn’t get yelled at much
*To come to me for a treat when the other dogs are barking out the window
*To join in the crazy play when Jay comes home from work

In short, he’s gone from being an untrained puppy to a pretty nice adolescent dog… although sometimes he can be a little nuts, mostly if he’s really tired.

I really hate how much dog shit I put in the garbage. I try to compost as much as possible, and the city of Portland (OR), where I live, is happy to let me put all kinds of food waste into its yard waste bin, so I can compost that stuff too without worrying about rats… but no one (seemingly) has a good method for dealing with dog shit.

The state of Alaska has published a lovely booklet on composting dog waste (as they call it)–but you have to have ten dogs before it works. I don’t reach that threshold.

For a while, I tried burying it in various holes, which did work, but also meant that I was digging a hole every time I did a poop patrol in the yard, and that didn’t work for me. I wanted something faster and easier.

I investigated the old-fashioned Doggie Dooley but when you read the details, it’s a lot of work, and placement is an issue–you don’t want the drainage to be anywhere near anything you plan to eat, and I have vegetables and fruit trees and blueberry bushes all over my yard–and the recommendation is 25 feet or more, because basically the Doggie Dooley is a small septic tank. (I think it would work beautifully in places with more space.)

I also investigated worm composters, but those seem to work best for small quantities of dog shit–the amount produced by a single small dog, for example–combined with a fair amount of food waste. And, speaking honestly, worm composters don’t really appeal to me.

My daughter mentioned the very old-fashioned French hot bed method of growing winter lettuces and that got me thinking. In a hot bed, fresh horse manure is layered with dirt to create a composting bed that runs very hot–and thus can grow lettuces even in the winter in France, which is much colder than our winters here in Portland. (French hot beds date back to the French royalty, who apparently ate very well, even in winter.)

My daughter did a Master Gardener course, and knows a lot about compost. After much discussion with her (and a lot of reading of blogs and so forth), I’ve come up with a method for composting dog shit safely (at least, we think so) and without too much trouble.

So here’s what I’m trying: I have several very large garden pots–the decorative kind–and I am using them to create a small composter/planter using the dog shit. I put a pot in an out-of-the-way place, next to the compost bins, not up-drainage from the vegetable garden, nowhere near the fruit trees, etc. First, a layer of gravel. Second, a layer of nice clean potting soil. Then I started layering dog shit and potting soil every time I did poop pickup around the yard. The layer of potting soil kept the flies down, and the odor. It took about 6 weeks of dog shit to fill that pot (keep in mind that three standard poodles (50 pounds each) produce a lot of shit). Then I put a small flowering shrub that likes its roots warm in the pot in a top layer of soil that’s deep enough for its roots. That was two months ago, and I’m still filling the second pot (a larger one).

As the dog shit is digested and composted by the worms and the sanitizing effects of time, the shrub should grow to a very nice size, suitable for transplanting into the garden when it gets too big for its pot. All the sources I’ve found say that two-year-old dog shit compost is pretty safe to use on a flower garden (which makes sense to me). It’s an experiment and we’ll see how it goes over time. Right now, the first pot is thriving and its hydrangea looks very happy. Worst case, if two years from now the dog shit is still dog shit and not properly composted, I’ll just have to dig some nice holes in the garden and bury the stuff.