More Bay Photos

Tessa swims out to get her ball . . . 

 Speedy looking goofy as he retrieves a bumper . . .

A super nice picture of Dean.  He is very happy after playing in the water.

Turning to swim back . . . .

A shot of the bridge from the Jellyfish Beach.

Down the Shore

Tessa, Speedy, and Dean are all having fun at Dewey Beach!  Sammie stayed with a friend, so I have, for the first time in many, many, many years, only three dogs to handle.

Tessa wasn't as confident in the suite this year as she was last year.  I think that Maddie being here last year helped her a lot along those lines, but she is more comfortable now, after a couple of days.

We took them to the beach on our first night here, and they had a great time playing in the surf.  They were eager, eager, eager to GO!  Speedy and Dean are old hands at this beach trip thing and they know what the best part is!

Yesterday we went to the James Farm Ecological Preserve.  Otherwise known (to us) as Jellyfish Beach.  The first time we were there with dogs, the tide was out and there were Jellyfish everywhere!  We try to go at high tide now!

It's a great place.  Apparently a wealthy landowner left the land to the state on the condition that it is to be open to the public.  Even when there are a lot of people there, as there were yesterday, it's not crowded.

You walk though the woods, I'd say for about 1/2 mile, before getting to the beach on the bay.  It's nice and clean and a great place for the dogs to play in the water!

On the way there - they have been constructing this bridge for years, and it is finally finished!

In the bay!  Tessa swims to shore with her ball.

Speedy and Dean swimming in with their bumpers.

Tessa doesn't just retrieve!  She shoves the ball into the sand, pounces on it, paws it, and has a great time getting covered with sand as she plays with it!

 Little Miss Sandy Face!

Tessa - CRO - 1!!!

Last Saturday Stephanie and I met at the training building to do some stuff with our dogs.  She wanted to work with her dogs a bit on BAT and I wanted to set up a Cyber Rally course to try to get a film of Tessa for her 3rd leg in Level 1.

The BAT session worked out well.  Even though Tessa and I were the decoy, I learned from it.  It was interesting to see Liam get the idea of what was desired, and to see the effect that putting space between himself and Tessa had on the learning process.

Afterward, we set up Course 5 from Level 1.  I had actually done this course with Dean, but when he did it, we had it squashed in the Rainbow Room.  It was really different out in the big room.

Tessa did a nice job.  We just did two takes, and I submitted the second one.  Here it is:



She really, really, really enjoys this.  I'm not sure why, but she finds it particularly delightful!

I love the way she moves when she comes up into heel and moves with me.  This is exactly what I am going for in our Freestyle!

We did get the Q, so this is her 3rd Leg, so she earned her CRO-1 Title!!

That means that she has earned two Tricks Titles, one Freestyle Title (plus two legs toward another), one Agility Title (and she is one leg away from 4 others!), and now a Rally Title!!!

I am so proud of her.  It's not just the titles, but they really mark how far she has come.

Congrats to Tessa - ITD, WFD-MF, CL1-S, CRO-1

More Walking Club

Yesterday I took Tessa and Dean out to Colonel Denning for Walking Club.  Usually, of course, Speedy goes, but Speedy has a bit of a sinus infection and I felt it might not be so good for him to take a walk through the woods in the heat.  So, Dean joined us.

Dean isn't the best leash walker.  I actually had to put his Easy Walker harness on him, but once I had done that, he did well.

We took the lower portion of the Nature Trail and walked along the creek. It was nice, except for the fact that there were tons of bugs!

On a bridge on the trail back:

Dean:

And a nature shot!!

I love this park!!

Bits of Progress

This morning I worked with Tessa with the platform again.  She really has gotten perfectly comfortable with me moving all around her, so I went on to the next step.


I tossed a treat into the kitchen and as she scrambled to get it, I set myself up in position and then called her to position (on the platform) and c/t for getting into position and c/t for holding the position for a couple of seconds.


She did very well with that.  She did offer me 2 on 2 off a couple of times!  Hahahah!!  That's fine.  We are cross training, and it will actually do her some good to know that there are different uses for platforms.


I only did easy calls into position, and will continue with that for a couple more sessions.  I think that by the time I make it more challenging, she will be ready!


She wanted to do her pivots, so I got a low round pedestal out and we did those.


Then we worked a bit with the hula hoops, sans most of the beans that I removed last time!


She was hesitant to offer going through a hoop, but she did it.  By the time she had done a few, she was offering it a bit more willingly.  I think that soon she will be doing this quite eagerly!


Then we ended up with some short moving position work.  I got her into position - already her attention in position is markedly improved - and took a single step and clicked as she moved with me, treat stationary.  We did that on both sides, twice.


I am happy with her progress.  I think that she is going to be heeling beautifully, on both sides, very soon!!!

Focus on Training

Today I took time to do training with all four dogs.

As always, Speedy was first.  I got the platform out to do some platform work with Tessa (more on that below), so I let Speedy play with it a bit.  He LOVES to play with the platform.

After we did stationary position refreshers on the platform, I put him in front with the platform in heel to see if he could find heel on the platform.  That was amusing.  He got into position with his front paws, but didn't quite know what to do with his back paws!!  He wiggled around and tried to find where I was waiting for him to be.  He finally did put one back paw up on the platform, so he got a click/treat for that.  Then I helped him (with a treat) get his other back paw up.

After that, we did some moving position exercises.  I had a cone in the Fireplace Room and a chair in the Dining Room.  We did outside heel around the cone, through the kitchen, around the chair, back through the kitchen, switch to outside right side, around the cone, through the kitchen, around the chair, through the kitchen, and then the whole pattern again inside heel, and inside right side.  He did really well with it.  I focused on clicking when he was driving strongly in the correct position.  He still LOVES this work!

Then we did a trick.  I rolled treats in a mat, so he could work on pushing it to unroll it.

Finally, we went through a sequence that I hope to use in an improv routine.

Next it was Dean's turn.  He did the platform work, too.  He was funny about it.  I had to click fast or he started to offer paws off the platform!!  But he got it.

Then we did the heel work that Speedy had done.  He did well with that.  He also got lots of clicks and treats for driving strongly in the correct position.

For his trick work, I introduced putting toys in a basket.  I am hoping to train him to open the basket, put toys in, and close the basket.  For today I had him pick up a ball, and put it into the basket, which I was holding, and then go get the other one and do the same.  It was a challenge, but he seemed to enjoy it.

We also did a bit of distance work.

After Dean, it was Tessa's turn.

I got the platform out for her because I want to try using the platform to teach her clearer position.  Last year when I did platform work with her, I could not do the exercise where she stood on the platform and I moved from heel to side to front because my movement toward her spooked her.  Now she is really ready, and she did well with the exercise.  Last year she was suspicious and ready to bail off the platform if I moved into her space.  This year she had bright eyes, a waggling tail, and she seemed very amused by the whole proceeding.

After we had done that, I did the same exercise with her that I had done with Speedy and Dean, but Tessa is working with a food lure because she is just starting to learn to drive strongly in position.  I'm not sure if this approach is going to get me the results that I want, but I'm willing to give it a shot.  It certainly won't hurt.

For her trick work, we worked on backing.  This will also serve us in Freestyle.  She is starting to get the hang of it when I move with her, but I want her to learn to back away from me independently.  So, I set up two chairs and lured her in between them in front of me.  Then I gave her "back" cue (which she seems to understand), and she did take two steps back!  I clicked and tossed a treat behind her.  We did this about 5 times, and each time she took a step or two back.

After we stopped that, I put a hula hoop on the floor and clicked and tossed treats when she put her paws into the middle of it.  The sound of the beans inside the hoop still bothers the heck out of her, and I remedied that after the training sessions were over!

Sammie was last.  I played the hoop game with him, too, and I had him unroll the mat for treats, as Speedy had.  Sammie loves these trick training sessions!  He may not become fluent in any of them, but he loves the games we play to teach them!

After I was finished, I decided to drill a hole in my two hula hoops to take the beans out.  Yes, I could desensitize Tessa to the sound, but it's not something I want to make an issue of, so out the beans went.  There was a heck of a lot more of the stuff inside each hoop than I expected!  It took a while to get most of it out.  After I did that, I let Speedy hop through them!  He gets a kick out of that.

I'm hoping to follow up on this session at least two more times this week.  It's time to get more focused about training!!

Tunnels

Tessa has a rather odd tunnel quirk.  She often runs to them, and into them, but then comes moseying out instead of running.

I had a theory and I tried it out tonight.  Nobody else came to Dean's class, so after he had done his work on the course, I took Dean and Tessa out together and sent Dean into the tunnel.  She not only ran in and ran out, but she kept right up with him.  And Dean is FAST on tunnels!!

When this super hot weather breaks, I need to get my tunnel out and play with this a bit.  Maybe she will learn to run in and out of the tunnels!!!