Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man

 

Okay so every other Wednesday we have a group of folks who get together and practice tricks. Sometimes in an organized fashion, sometimes not so much. Well we also are trying to come up with some big group tricks that we can pull out at trick expos and competitions. Doggy Band is one. Since Gauis is the -cough- smallest (don't tell him) member of our troop, I wanted to think of something similarly adorable fro him to do in our doggie band. I came up with a tambourine. Here's a video of what we've got so far. (WARNING: My voice is very high pitched in this video, I recommend turning the sound down or off)

Sorry the video is a little dark and turned sideways. I was taking it with Sean's i-pod. His command to shake an object is 'kill it'. I started with socks hat he loves to shake anyhow then stuffed animals then to more stiff harder objects and eventually to the tambourine which he wasn't even a fan of holding at fist. I put duck tape over one of the opening because his teeth had a tendency to get caught there (You can see that in the video once in another location). I think he has much improved and it's almost ready to take on the road. 

Below is our bands pianist Garth (Who also has a blog, click the link). We have a singer, drummer, and horn honker too but I can't find good pictures of them applying their art. This was taken at Marti-Paws where Garth played for tips and helped raise $275 for Fetch-a-Cure :)

Trial Report:: Back to the Field House

First let me say that I love the Fredircksburg field house as a trial location. Indoors, nice turf, places to buy food (and beer), free wi-fi, and air conditioning as well as real bathrooms. What more could you ask for. So before I go into these runs I have to start by specifying that this was a weird trial for me because I had to work the overnight shifts (11pm-8am) for both Thursday and Friday. Which means I had already been up about 18-20 hours during each of these runs. I was a little loopy by the time we ran. Hopefully this explains some of my handling errors

So Friday we had one run Ex. A JWW. Gauis had a great peppy attitude during this run. Which is really the only important thing in the end. He missed the second jump but that was so completely my fault I pushed him right past it. We'll call that a lack of sleep thing. Pretty run after that. He tunnel sucked near the end though. Completely ignored my front cross. But hey, he's a dachshund... who can blame him for liking tunnels. They'd be like them putting sheep on the course for all the border collies. Smooth toward the end until my thertle which obviously confused him causing him to blind me but still get the obstacle. In all honesty I should have just done a front there. I think its hard, because all the people that teach me agility run fast big dogs. I mean, I know the handling system is the same, but sometimes these tricks that get you places faster, just aren't the best options for a little slower dog. I think the more we run the better I'll get on making handling decisions that fit us as a team.

Sat we started with Open. Speedy start but a slow dog walk. I think that's because he's confused about whats expected of him. In class I make him touch but at trials I don't. He was a little distracted by the girl scouts who were working the ring but managed to work past it. Run went really smoothly till the end. I treadled him right out the ring (hmmm guess we need to work treadles to tunnels). I managed to call him back (thank heavens that you are allowed one mistake in open) and got him to finish the run. Then the little bugger tried to dart out for his cookie. Would have served him right if that girl scout had touched him (as he hates being touched by strangers). But he came back and we got our second Open Std Q! He just needs to learn getting his leash on is just as important as the last obstacle.

Sat Ex. A JWW was nerve wracking because they had the walk through while I was running open. There for I had to run it without walking. At that point I was near delisional from sleepiness so I didn't care. Also I don't have high expectations for excellent anyhow. Well we ran it beautifully if slow and ran clean! We were 3 seconds over time but you have 5 seconds of leeway with Ex. A so we Qed! First excellent Q ever I was thrilled.

Sunday we started with JWW Ex. A. No film as alas Sean had to go to work and couldn't be our designated camera man. But the Exc. run was gorgeous. another clean run. And guess what?!?! We weren't over time (granted by the skin of our teeth), but we would have Qed in Ex. B! Which is so reassuring. I really didn't think we had much of a shoot of getting anything above AX and AXJ. Granted we wouldn't have gotten any MACH points but who cares. Now the issue was I was pretty out of breath by the end of the run so that doesn't bode so well. Maybe I need more cardio.

Open was another lovely run. We really ended the weekend well. Unfortunately he dropped the triple (our only fault) but we came in ten seconds under time. Even with him stopping to stare at the dropped bar. Poor guy, he hates dropping bars so much. His ears go back and he always stops to look and then I have to be really positive to build up steam again. It's almost as though he knows that disqualifies us, though the movement and sound probably just scare him. But hey, he's a dachshund. Drop bars are just a fact of life. He's doing something he simply isn't built for, it's not his fault. No hurt feelings on this end. As far as I'm concerned it was as good as a Q in my book. A great run.


Well that's the update. Now for some foster news! Oliver has been adopted! By a lovely older couple in Western Virgina. He has a senior sister so he'll never be alone. The home was perfect for him. And we have a new girl around these parts named Charlotte! More about her in my next post.

Doctors Orders

Couldn't even convince him to get on the steps for the picture

We have a new interior design piece at out house. Last week I bought three sets of little steps to help Gauis on and off furniture with out the gigantic leaps (and sometimes wipe outs) he generally has to do.

This was one thing Dr. Regina Schwabe wanted us to try. She's a DVM, acupuncturist and chiropractor who does a lot of work with agility dogs. She also does a lot of work with dachshunds recovering from back issues. We decided to pay her a visit after a Tracy Sklenar seminar where Tracy said Gauis seemed a little sore by the end of the day and should have his back and knees checked. (I have a lot of footage from that seminar I need to compile for a post. It's on the to do list)

So I trucked him off to P.A.W.S. as soon as I could get an appointment. She's a very busy lady Dr. Schwabe. It was a really nice visit. She has a very cool office that doesn't feel like the vets at all. But Gauis is a sharp cookie and he can smell a DVM from a mile away so there was a lot of barking. But he was defiantly more relaxed than at a regular vet clinic. He still ate the whole time and even played with some of the toys she presented to him. At one point she and I were convinced the barking didn't have to do with him being frightened anymore and had more to do with his attempts to shape us into presenting him with new and better interactive toys and treats. He knows how to make the best of any situation.

So she checked him out. She said there was a little bit of twingyness in his back right where his ribs stop. This is a common place for agility dogs to be sore but it's also a common place for dachshunds to slip disks. After she adjusted him she said she couldn't detect any sourness, which is a good sign. She still wants me to get his back X-rayed (something I've wanted to do for a while). But she recommends every dachshund have its back X-rayed at two years old to look for any calcification that could lead to slipped disks, since the causation is mostly genetic. In good news she said his knees look awesome and she doesn't see any luxating patellae in his future.

She gave us some warm up tips (I'll make a whole post on warm ups later) and a few other things to do. She sent him off with a clean bill of health and ants to see him for maintenance every six months. She would like to see him drop about half a pound, he's 10.2 pounds right now, 9.5 ish would be better for an agility dog. His weight is fine for a pet dog but with all his extra activity he needs to be super slim. Actually his regular vet says he's the slimist dachshund she sees (so many pet dachshunds are so fat :( ). But he's a performance dogs so the rules are a bit different.

She also wanted us to get these steps so he doesn't jump up and down and up onto furniture all day every day. She asked me, "How many jumps does your do do in a week?" I said hmmmm.... "Gauis goes to two agility classes a week, we get 4 or 5 turns a class, with about 10 jumps each...... so between 80 - 100" then she told me to add the number of times he jumps on and off of furniture in a week. Lets just say that's a significant increase in the number. So we're trying to reduce the number.


Gauis is not really into cooperating with this plan. He was really excited about the stairs when I got them out of the box, but once he was told they were not giant stuffed animals we bought him to grab, shake, drag around, and play with he lost interest. He'll go up them when lured but he's certainly not offering the behavior. In fact even when lured he looks resigned. We're working on it. He certanly thinks jumping on furniture is a great deal more reinforcing.

Oliver on the other hand is quite enjoying his new found ability to get onto furniture. So maybe even if I can't convince Gauis that stairs are where it's at, future fosters will appreciate them. Speaking of Oliver it's about time I gave you all an update.


Oliver is a giant sweetheart. Not a mean bone in his body. I took him to stoney point and he loved meeting all the new people and kids. He even gave one little girl kisses. We've been taking him on dog scout hikes to get him a little more exposure. He gets along great with the larger dogs and any weakness he had in his back end has virtually disappeared.

He's still very hesitant about stairs but I think that's more of a lack of experience with them then any physical problem. He's still good with the cat though he does try to mess with her more than my other fosters. I get the impression that he was a cat chaser at a young age and has since decided that it isn't worth it. Doesn't mean he's not VERY interested when she walks into a room.


The marking hasn't really improved BLECH. We need to buy stock in diapers. Sean and I used to have this inside joke when we lived with roommates. We'd walk down the aisle of a grocery store with the baby products and I'd always ask "Do we need to buy diapers for the baby?" We'd then laugh and make some disparaging comment about our roommates maturity level or cleanliness (All in love and jest). Well the habit stuck and I still say it even though we don't have roommates. Last the words slipped out I realized we actually were almost out of diapers. It was one of those sort of sad silly, and hilarious moments all in one.

In other news his soiling of his crate is much reduced, which is progress. Not 100% eliminated though.

Also remember when I called him very active for an old bugger. I have come to believe all the constant motion is more anxiety than anything else. So we've been doing a lot of rewarding for all four feet being still (To get a treat, get fed, or be let out of his crate). He is not a big fan of the training and is easily frustrated. Poor thing was never taught to think. He barks at me and circles like a herding dog. It's really odd. But I have see a marked decrease in the 'ants in his pants' fidgeting that he came to us with. Now that could be because of the training, or it could be because he's just been here longer and is more comfortable. But whatever the reason it's better.

Watching him interact with Gauis is interesting. Though he has no fear or discomfort around other dogs, you can tell he wasn't socialized much as his doggie social skills aren't the best. He doesn't read doggie body language signals well, and he doesn't know the all important doggie rule that possession t is 9 10ths of the law. or that walking on top of others and lying on them without warning is not really polite. Gauis is very tolerant so Oliver has been lucky. Something I think a new owner should be aware of though.

All in all he's a good boy and we are happy to have him, diapers and all.

Welcome Oliver

Well we've got a new comer around these parts. Oliver is a miniature (a real mini only 10 pounds) smooth black and tan piebald dachshund. He is 12 years old, which means we are holding our position as the old fogie sunset dachshund retirement home. Poor Gauis, maybe one day we'll have a dachshund he can actually play with. He's a very sweet boy, likes to be petted, not a huge fan of being picked up (Hey, neither am I, and we just met, I understand that. Maybe with trust he'll be more comfortable). No snappiness about it, just a wiggler. Very active for an old man, never stops moving. And the first dachshund I've had that I don't consider fat! (well other than Gauis who I only tease about being fat)

The old men always seem to come with a few health concerns. He gets ear meds twice a day for an ear infection and has pretty big patches of hair missing. He is also probably deaf. He's also had a bunch of his teeth removed, but all in all he's in better shape than Wilbur was. His only issue I can see so far is that he's a marker, yesh, makes me miss the days of perfectly potty trained Snickers. Right now we are jerry rigging him some diapers to wear as literally this dog tries to pee in my house about ever 15 minutes. He is not a fan of this but I'm not a fan of my carpet smelling like urine.

But he's really sweet and has a darling temperament (perhaps another therapy dog candidate). Great around Gauis and the kitty. Haven't tested him around larger dogs and kids yet (We'll take him to Stoney Point this weekend and check it out).

Well here's his information (CLICK HERE). As always if you guys know anyone who is interested in this sweet boy, let me know. I'll keep you updated as always :)

Goodbye Wilbur

Will went off to his forever home last night and we are super happy for him. He will have two young labs as brothers, and a 10 year old dachshund, and a 15 year old beagle. This way he'll never be alone (this is great because he gets nervous by himself). His new mommy also participates in the caring canines (a therapy dog group) and is really excited about taking him on therapy dog visits. And he gets to sleep in the bed :) I'm sad to see him go as he was my favorite foster pup so far, but the fact that his new home is so prefect for him makes me feel much better. Goodbye Wilbur and good luck. My new foster should be arriving tomorrow. I'll let you know all about him soon :)

Three Day Trial

This is my serious intense jumping face

Shesh it was like three weeks ago now or something.
Since our trial in Fredericksburg.
So some good things happened, some not so good things happened. I did things right, I made mistakes, but this is still a learning process and we're figuring it all out. So let's see:

Saturday:
DQ (Double Q)

Both runs were super fast and fun (Less detail this week on the runs because frankly I don't remember the details). Jumpers run was perfect from what I remember, Standard I took him over the wrong side of the triple (bad mommy) and we almost had a fluke there at the end, but it was still our first Q in open standard. So we left Saturday feeling good with a new title (which I was super happy about. If your in the Virgina area you HAVE to go to the capital cocker club trials. They have the best ribbons.)

All the other dogs don't have to down on the table, why should I?

So that meant our fist leg in Open Standard and or Open Jumpers title! I only have video of one run from this weekend. (Luckily it was one of the good ones) So here we go.



Moving on, Sunday:

Total disaster. I got to the trial like four hours before my first run (bad idea) and realized I might have a conflict (I've never had a conflict before. And I got to freak out because I've never run in excellent before! So I was a big giant stress pot. First day of a trial I've ever not had fun in agility. So I should have just gone home I guess. My runs ended up having to be about 5 minutes apart (GAH!). So I had to walk and remember two courses at the same time (never even done that in class before).

Look at me sit stay like a good boy.

We started with open standard. Gauis had a mistake right in the beginning of the run and I fell apart. Totally unable to recover. I'm sure my handling was atrocious from there on out and I was pumping stress hormones from every pore in my body. About three obstacles from the end Gauis said 'F*** this' and stopped running to sniff. I gave him a few chances by calling him but he ignored me completely. Now I don't care how bad I'm stressing out or how poor my handling is, that's just not acceptable. My stress is just another distraction, he's allowed to be slow but he has to keep trying. So I took him by his collar and walked him off the course.

As I was leaving the judge says 'Be careful!' in a warning voice. -Sigh- little dogs are treated with such kit gloves. All I could picture was my friend's dog Preacher (a 65 pound golden) getting dragged off the course practically off his hind legs for blowing a contact in front of the same judge earlier in the afternoon. He didn't say anything to her and I wasn't being anywhere near as rough with Gauis. Half wasy out the ring crew asked me why I didn't pick him up. I said 'Being picked up is a reward'. Besides Tracy Sklenar and Laura Derrett always say 'If you can't do it while training a saint Bernard, don't do it while training your small dog'


Anyhow, after that we had to race over to the Exc JWW run to try it again with only 5 minutes in between. We ran clean but it took us 52 SECONDS! OMG like pulling teeth. So obviously NQ. That seems to be the fallout of dragging him off course. His next few runs are REALLY slow. I think he's just making sure not to make any mistakes. But if he keeps trying that's fine, it's worth it.

Look at this weird ugly jumping form

The next day we started with Exc JWW. We made it around the course nicely we only dropped the triple (got a good picture of him knocking that bar too. Look at the picture below and you can see his back legs were hitting it). He was defiantly slow but much faster than Saturday. We were only two seconds over time. So since we're in Exc A (where you can have a time fault), that would have been a Q if he had kept the triple up.

I am so taking this jump down mom

The Standard Open run started off slow and steady, thought we were going to Q. Weave poles were like the 6th obstacle. Gauis started his usual slow and steady weave poles. Then about halfway through he picked up speed and I got all excited. I started saying "Yay! good boy! Great!" I thought hey we've got something here! He got to the end and suddenly squated and took a gaint dump. EMBARRASSING. Well that's an automatic NQ. He was picked up and carried out of the ring (Gah kill me now)

This picture was taken four weave poles before his 'grand finale'

Pretty humiliating but everyone was really nice about it. Apparently ever ones dog has done it once or twice. Hey, who says we don't end agility weekends with a bang :)

More Pictures

Here are some more pictures from last weekend I thought I'd throw up here for you all to see.

If he thinks happy thoughts maybe he can fly with those ears.

Is it just me? Or dose he look like he's about to slip in this photo.

He's flying here. It's nice to see a jumping picture where he's not a whisker away from taking down the bar.

Another strange ear picture. That's sort of the comb-over look.

The slowest weave poles in the West. A leisurely walk one might say.

Not a very flattering tunnel picture. He could caught bugs like that.

Well, we've got a three day trial this weekend and then Tracy is coming and then a trick demo. Busy busy busy. And I have an interview today at an emergency vet clinic to work as a vet assistant. Wish me luck.

Wilbur Update

Been away for while, but that's because I'm trying to do this whole graduation thing. My life should settle down after my thesis defense and you can expect a ton more posts after that. Anyway I thought hey, I haven't updated you all on Wilbur and he's been up to some things so I should probably do that.

Willie Wonka aka Will aka Wooly Bear aka Wilbur (We've settled on Wilbur being the perfect old man name) is almost 100% health wise now. Phew. So here's the saga. When I first got poor Will he had lost 7 teeth, including his two top canniens, and just been neutered. He had almost no fur on this back end and both ears were ridiculously infected. Also two of his toenails had just been cut so they no longer grew into the pads of his feet and his wobbly back end made stairs and even getting around a problem.

Time and rest helped him recover from the surgery. Many many many baths, vitamin E and Omega 3 pills cured the hair issue. Good nutrition some weight loss and exercise (And weekly massages ) means that not only does he do some stairs now, but he actually runs! There is nothing that makes my day as bright as watching this dog happily run back and forth on my hard wood floors. Even his potty training is coming along. I think it was tough at first because every time I brought him out to pee he would trip and fall down in the grass (He's much steadier on even surfaces) so he never wanted to be outside. But now that he's steadier he doesn't mind as much.

The ears have been..... a saga. First it was cleaning his ears everyday with medication twice a day for about two months. This cleared up the left ear which is now fine, but the right ear was a different story. Nothing worked. We changed medications, we changed cleaning solutions, we increased the number of times a day we cleaned it, nothing worked. And the worst thing was it hurt him. Every time I cleaned it he would yelp and there was always a tiny bit of blood in with all the other gunk. And he'd rub the ear on things every chance he got. It really bothered him.

So the doctor finally decided to do a simple surgery where he would flush the ear canal with saline. In the midst of doing this he found a small polyp. Apparently this polyp was most likely caused by the years of neglect and infection. But now it was the reason we couldn't get rid of the current infection. So in for another surgery to remove the cancer. Now he sort of looks like Frankendog. But we hope the issues have been solved.

Anyhow on to brighter news about old Wilbur. So as I said before Wilbur has the perfect temperament. He's just not fazed by anything. Never met a person dog or situation he doesn't automatically like. So I thought, he's the perfect therapy dog. So to pass the therapy dog test in our region he would have to pass the CGC test plus a couple other things like dealing with a wheel chair, or with someone on a walker and rougher petting. Most of this stuff I thought would be a breeze for Wilbur.

Greeting another dog ✓
Friendly petting ✓
Supervised Separation ✓
Walk through a crowd ✓

I don't even need to teach him loose leash walking cause if you keep a pretty good clip he can't really walk very fast so he doesn't pull. I'm sure he pulled as a younger dog but heck now he is luckily to keep up with you at all.

The tricky part would be sit, down and STAY. Ok sit and down I had already sort of taught him. Stay was a bit tough. He has NO impulse control and all he wants to do is follow me if I walk away. Also I realized I only had like a week to teach him this before the test. We were.... inconsistently staying by the day test time rolled around. But luckily our friend Pat was doing the test and let us do the stay part a few times to prove that he could actually do it which was really nice of her.

Other than that, Wilbur passed both tests with flying colors. There was a little hick-up with the recall. He tried to come but ended up stepping on his leash and tripping himself. Then he was a little scared of continuing to move. So we did it again without the leash and he came right to me. During the test where there is a wheel chair he spent the whole time giving big lovey dovey eyes to Pat's Scottish terrier Pumpkin (she was not interested in his romantic advances). About the third pass with the wheel chair Pat said "-Sigh- He's not even looking. Could you at least get him to glance this way?" I tapped him on the head and pointed at the wheel chair as it glided past. He glanced at it and then looked back up at me as if to say So? and then turned his attention back to Pumpkin. It was pretty funny.

Of course the loud sudden noise part of the test didn't bother him. It made the lab taking the test next to us jump and Wilbur just stared right at me.

The woman with the lab said to me "Wow, he's so good. He didn't even flinch".

"He's deaf" I said.

"What?"

"He's deaf, he didn't finch because he couldn't hear it."

She thought that was pretty funny and laughed. I guess it's sort of like cheating.

During the rough handling portion Pat accidentally grabbed and tugged on the ear with all of Wilbur's stitches. I was like "WAIT! He has stitches! Be careful!" but it was too late. He winced but didn't do anything else except wag his tail. She apologized but said if that didn't prove that he'd never bite anyone, nothing would.

So Wilbur is an official CGC dog and he only needs three supervised visits in the next 6 months to be an official therapy dog (We have to wait until he has his stitches out though. No open wounds on trips is one of the rules). I think this was the job he was made for in life. We can't wait to get started.

Remember! Wilbur is still up for adoption here at DRNA (ignore the stupid jokes in his profile. I didn't write that)

Property Damage

You might not be aware of this but we recently moved out of our teeny one bedroom apartment into a new house.

It's huge compared with our last living accommodations and one of it's biggest selling points when we were looking was it's ginormous fully fenced wooded backyard.

Use Gauis to estimate size :)

One of it's few drawbacks was a single room with carpet. Now Gauis is pretty good about house training when supervised. When left to his own devises, not so much, especially not on carpet. He sort of demolished the carpet at my last place. But I had a plan. You see this house has an extra back bedroom that I was going to make all his.

Complete with a water bowl two doggy beds, kitty towers (for the cat) and chew toys. In essence this is more room than he had to run around in my old apartment! We are even going to put up his title certificates and ribbons and lovely pictures of him on the walls so it's homey! We were even going to make the kitty stay in there with him to keep him company as he loves his kitty. His own room, that's great right? And it sure beats having to stay in a crate.

I did not take this picture in this frame and do not "own it" so ssshhh no tattling on me.

So no proublem? Happy puppy, happy mommy, disgruntled yet resigned kitty right? Wrong.

Gauis would like everyone to know that he does not like being closed in one room. Not even for the measly 2-3 hours he is without human companionship during the day. Even if that room has MORE SPACE then he was used to inhabiting in total.

Extreme damage close up!

This was accomplished in about 3 days and I have no doubt that given a month he would be able to dig himself out. And having to sweep up large chunks of wood every night was not making me happy. He also managed to bang up his noes something awful.

I don't think this is separation anxiety as he never had that at the old place. I think this is just snotty, spoiled, bored behavior. For a while this meant crate time. As I will not give into this and see another carpet ruined. But now we are trying the baby gate.

He has managed to knock it down twice and escape (No accidents in my carpet room, thank the lord). And he hasn't jumped the baby gate yet (Something he has accomplished in the past. Serves me right for all the agility training.) So far so good.

SO I hope this dispels any perfect puppy myth Gauis might have had going for him. Anyone whose read this blog from the start I'm sure knows he's not perfect. But for the new folks. He can cause just as much trouble as any dog :)

P.S. I'm sure you noticed I found my camera's battery charger. Agility trial update tomorrow!

A Side Note

Slow motion running

Up until now I've been pretty good about keeping the blog on topic. That topic being training and not really a chronicle of Gauis' life. So I thought I'd give readers a heads up right here. There is going to be no accounts of training in what is to follow. Just a simple account of a good day in the life of my pup. So if you aren't interested in that you can stop reading here. And I'll return you to your regularly scheduled training blog next post. :) This post is all good times and ice cream.

Baywatch dog. Look out David Hasselhoff.

I took Gauis to a swim party with his dog scout troop. He had a lot of fun.

Juneau is a swimming machine

All of his doggy friends were there...

This is Susie, she's in his obedience class

Here is Gauis' swimming video (Wouldn't be a blog post without a video)


Gauis shaped otter, or the genuine article? You deiced.

This is Dazzle. When we first met her she didn't know how to swim. Now she does dock diving!

Gauis jumped in and out of the pool until he got tried. Then he barked at toys in the pool but was to tired to go get them. Which he enjoyed but was a bit grading on the nerves after a while.

He also can't get out the pool by himself, Sean or I have to pull him out. So instead of swimming to us, signaling his need to leave the pool. He instead swims to the closest edge and just slams his head into it over and over again until someone rounds the pool to where he is to fish him out. He's defiantly lower maintenance when he swims in the River.

On the way home we stopped at an awesome place for dinner.

The weather was really nice so we ate outside.

Sean was really grumpy cause I made him go out of our way to get here. But he cheered up when the food came.

Gauis' got to eat with us which was nice. He was not a fan of our waitress though and barked at her.

Until she brought him a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream and a milk bone in it. Then he decided she was all right.

Uuuummm... I'm still hungry.

He finished the whole thing before we were even half done with our food and he got it after us. Pig.

The End.

Mystery Solved

Gauis looks much larger in this picture than he usually does :P

No the mystery is not how Gauis became a boxer. That is Lisa and Lacey. The mystery we solved was whether Gaius hates agility outside, or if he hates running on mulch. Turns out it's the mulch! YAY. That's really great because a large portion of agility trails are outside on grass. So now I can sign up for those without fear. We learned this at the Agility Show and Go out in Belroi Virgina.

Now Linda (One of my agility instructors) say that Gauis doesn't hate mulch, he just is more enthusastic in a 'trail situation'. Which I'm sure is partially right. But in practice he's only pookey outside, not when we're inside. Even when its really hot (there is no air conditioning in the indoor facility). So it has to be more than just trail excitement I think. I think he doesn't like mulch....

This is Sassy, she is Gauis' girlfriend.
He loves her. She is cranky, neurotic, shy and snaps at him sometimes. So you know, a normal girlfriend. :)

I learned some other things at the practice trail. One of which is that Gauis really has a proublem barking at judges. Ugh, I don't think I'm ever going to escape this issue. He particularly seems to hate it when the judge raises his hand to call a refusal. Which gives the appearance of him arguing with a referee about a bad call when he flips. It makes everyone in the audience laugh. When he did it in his first run, I just grabbed him and jerked him off the course. Crate time! If you can't play nice you can't play at all. That didn't really work. Linda says that only really works when dogs REALLY love agility. I mean Gauis likes agility fine, but he doesn't care enough that being taken off the course is that much of a punishment.

The next run I just called him off the judge. That took a moment, but he finally got back to work and finshed his run spunky and happy. So I guess that's what matters. Linda says this is a better strategy for trails. And a lot more socialization with strange men. Which I hate. I mean you try walking up to people and saying "Hey, my potentially aggressive neurotic dog hates you. Do you mind feeding him a treat?" People aren't really chomping at the bit to help you. I'm lucky he's small and cute.

On our last dog scout hike we were moving along and these two female hikers came in the other direction. Gauis decided to go bark at them and I went to call him off. Of course, they thought he was adorable. I don't think its adorable. But anyway apperently they have a dachshund at home they wanted to tell me all about. Then the strangest thing happened. The shorter woman goes "He's so well behaved. How did you teach him not to bark at people. I mean we can't get ours to stop." I gave her the strangest look. I mean my dog was barking at them. Like that moment, while she asked the question. Screaming his head off. I gave her the only answer I could think of. "I have absolutely no idea." People are weird.

This is Juneau and his mommy Jennifer. She is the lady talking while holding the camera in the video.

Compared to that big issue all the other mistakes he made were cake. He screwed up his weave poles again. I don't understand how he can be so stellar at those in practice but not at trials. I think he's not used to doing them so fast. He's not collecting or something. Something to work on. He refused the A-frame again, but he hasn't been on one in a while so that doesn't really bother me. He slide off the table which got a big laugh from the crowd. That was just because he was trucking. How mad can you get when the mistake is speed? Even if he screw up his entire run he's a crowd pleaser.

So here's the video:

This is Digby. He is our trial buddy.

Oh I also made one of Gauis friend Digby's run. Digby is a norwich terrier and very feisty. So you can watch this video too if you like



P.S. Things I did not know i would learn while writing this blog. How to use basic video editing software. I have moved on from i-movie to edius.

Hollywood Dachshund

Have I ever mentioned that my boyfriend is an aspiring film maker?

Well being that this is only my second post to this blog I'd guess not. But he is! Sean's being making short films ever since we met. There is a wonderful short film festival every month in Richmond called project resolution. A few months ago Sean made a short film featuring Gaius I thought you all might be interested in. (It had to be on Vimo instead of YouTube because Sinatra has a lot of copyright restrictions. So without further ado... Play?

Untitled from Sean Van Damme on Vimeo.

The skills used in this video were a sit stay, a focus forward (great for agility, his skills on this have diminished slightly, something to work on I guess), a retrieve (this wasn't really trained so much as something he did naturally. He'd be much better at this today now that he knows the 'hold it' command), and an off leash, short distance recall with distractions (he needs some work here too but that's another post).

The video took about two days of shooting (five hours each day, which included travel time. Its a good tour of Richmond as far as I'm concerned. This was probably our first hint that Gaius wasn't so good in hot weather. By the end it was pulling teeth to get him to hold the tenis ball. Granted I wasn't using food and know that he knows 'hold it' he'd be better. Still something to keep in mind. Don't push too hard in training... keep it fun. A motto to live by!

It was such a blast to do! I can't wait to make another movie with my best little star. I keep pushing to work him into the 48 hour film festival later this summer. Well see, if I sneak him in it, you can be sure I'll post it :) Anyhow, if you're an aspiring film maker in Richmond and need a little dog to round out your cast drop me a comment. I'd love to do it again!

Tricks: Not Just For Hookers!

How long do I have to hold this down stay......? I think she's going to eat me....


My dachshund knows a lot of tricks... The following is a quick video of Gaius' tricks from almost a year ago (so he's only one year old in this video). Since then he's learned MANY more. I might make a new one at some point. Excuse my ridiculously high pitched voice while training. If you follow this blog you'll just have to get used to it :)



I love training tricks! Its probably my favorite thing to do in the dog training world. Mostly because shaping is just fascinating (I almost ALWAYS use shaping to teach tricks). I love watching my dog's brain work. Letting him figure things out on his own. Its like actively watching his brain grow (But shaping and clicker training is a whole post in and of itself). Another great thing about using shaping to teach tricks is that you never know what kind of trick you're going to end up with. You let the animal lead the way to a certain extent (For example I clicker trained a cat to give me a high five earlier today... but more on that later). Lastly tricks are just freakin adorable. And isn't that what having a dog is all about?

There are other reasons to teach your dog tricks. Its a great way to build a relationship with your dog. I remember when I first started dog training someone said that to me. I have to admit my first reaction was "What the heck does 'build a relationship' with my dog mean". It sounded like some artsy, spiritual crap to me. I was expecting her to pull out crystals and make me hum, but now I think I understand. It means it's a way of making the dog like you more, making you an interesting and fun person to be around. Dogs that are taught tricks have fun, you have fun and they love you more for it.

Another reason to teach tricks is for the ups and the downs. Let me explain... Tricks are a great way to psych your dog up! I use this a lot on hot days when Gaius is dragging on the agility field (Ok, ok I just started doing this, but come on, I'm new here! ). I'll call him out of his crate and ask him to do four or five tricks which he knows like the back of his hand (paw). Then I reward each one. This way he gets excited. He thinks "Oh! these are easy, I can do this, and look at all the treats I'm getting!" Then when I ask him to do the more difficult behavior (running an agility sequence) he is more excited.

The next reason to teach tricks, I think is by far the MOST IMPORTANT REASON is to keep your dog under threshold (the downs). Not all of us have perfectly well adjusted, well socialized dogs (ahem... more on this later). In fact since I've started in dog training (I'd say, for real about 1.5 years ago. I don't think Petsmart counts.) I'd say a HUGE number of dogs have issues with socialization. Tricks are an amazing distractions.

Do you have a pomeranian that hates other dogs? You're out on a walk and the worst thing in the world happens. Suddenly you turn a corner and there is a Saint Bernard pulling its owner down the street! OH NO!! If your pompom knows a few tricks you can turn to them and say. "Cujo shake! (All pom poms should be named Cujo) Cujo dance! Cujo spin!" and before you know it the slobbery lug has gone along his way and Cujo barley even noticed! Its magic!

Now a lot of "serious" dog trainers don't like to teach their dogs tricks (I put serious in quotations because if you are serious when you dog train you are totally doing it wrong). They think that it isn't important or is somehow demeaning to their champion agility border collie or disciplined Doberman Schutzhund. Well let me tell you something, my dachshund doesn't mind being demeaned if cookies are involved! And regardless, even if trick training isn't necessarily what the cool kids do, I think it's awesome! And I was on the chess team in high school, so obviously I'm an expert on cool. (insert picture of me doing a Fonz impression here)

Anyhow I leave you with one last video. This is a video of me in the process of teaching the command IN. We had practiced this several times before but this is the first time I used the wine glass (a much smaller target). Here he isn't yet to the point were I can add the command (Maybe I'll talk to you about the steps of shaping a little later). I make a few mistakes in this training session. The first of which is it went on WAY too long. His best repetitions are at the beginning of the training session (I went on long mostly because this was how he was getting dinner and I wanted to finish feeding him, but still no excuses). I also could have fed him over the wine glass which may have help him understand where his head needed to be. Look at me, record keeping. That is what the blog is here for right? I'm sure there will be many more videos like this to come. Enjoy :)