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 :)

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.

Weekend Update

We had a two day trial at the GKC this weekend. I think it went really well actually. A lot of enthusiastic fast runs. Some were disastrous, some were quite pretty. Only one huge catastrophic run which was like 50% my fault.

The theme of this trial was trying to find a good pre-run routine for Gauis and I before stepping into the ring. Something that will make him excited and ready to run but at the same time keep him focused and concentrating on me. So he'll want to run hard but not be so over the top that he ignores me and goes nuts once we get out there. We used to do tricks before going into the ring followed by lots of treats. But I felt this made him concentrate on the food too much. He knew exactly when I didn't have anymore and it didn't get him excited enough to make him fast. So this trial we tugged using a tug it.

I really need to do a whole post on tug drive as it's been something we're working really hard on right now. But I'll save that till later. Basically the tug it has food on the inside. When Gauis really latched on and we got a good game of tug going I'd ask him to drop the toy and open it, then let him shove his head inside and get some food. I'm trying to transfer the value he has for food on to tug (more on transferring value, and how I'm puzzled by it, later). We tugged before every run this weekend and I do think it made him faster. With one disastrous exception.

So let's do our weekly run break down. But first here's the video tape!



JWW Sat: Beautiful run. By far the prettiest run all weekend, with the exception of that front cross right at the start. In Gauis' defense it was a pretty ambiguously poorly timed cross. In my defence that still didn't give him the right to blind cross me. But except for that little mishap gorgeous run. Look at how fast those weaves are. Much more like the ones we have in class. And I was the only one to see that serpentine when we walked the course. And he read it beautifully.

STD Sat: Was a mess. He ran off to star at the ring crew after the first jump but didn't bark and eventually came back. Then everything we relatively well until the weaves. There was a little kid stationed right by the entrance that he was obviously concerned about. It took us three tries to get it right be he eventually managed to do them and with no barking. Improvement defiantly. Then we ran into the wrong end of the tunnel (again my bad I wasn't 100% clear. I think he needed an arm there). All and all an enthusiastic and fast run.

I wet Gauis down with water a lot during the trial to keep him cool. It was very hot. I think this is our last outdoor trial until fall. Even if he can take the humidity down here in VA I certainly can't.

Sun STD: Was a disaster but I know exactly what went wrong. We were the first in the ring. I had just got Gauis tugging and we got called to go in. I wasn't ready and wrenched the toy out of his mouth and threw it a few feet away without him getting a treat. Now we do this at home all the time. Tug tug tug mom takes the toy and throws it. And it always means the same thing. Now it's time to race for the toy. When he gets to the toy we trow a big party play more tug and there are cookies. But now I was dragging him away from his tug toy into the ring. So basically he spent this whole run doing a few obstacles and then desperately trying to run out of the ring and find his toy. I can't be too angry at him. I've trained this behavior. (Though he should still run with me). Lesson learned. hand the toy to someone don't throw it onto the ground before heading into he ring. We're still figuring this whole trialing thing out. Anyway I left the course with him. No cookies for that run. Too naughty.

Sun JWW: Was a lovely run. Slower than his Sat runs but really pretty. Slower weaves then I would have liked but he came off the start line fast out of his stay which was really good when I look back at the footage from other trials. Read my body language, well seemed actually trained. He nicked the triple and I was sure he'd brought down the bar but some unforeseen force kept it up which was great. :P And it was a 1st place and our second leg in jumpers too so you can't complain about that :) One more leg and we enter the scary world that is excellent. I don't think we're ready for that.

Obligatory Ribbon Picture:

I may get more pics of this weekend. I'll post them if they come in. Three day trial this weekend.

All pictures from Club Creek Runs

We Take the Bad With The Good

Gallery: OP Std 08 inch-B0511

Well we had an agility trail this weekend. We just did Sunday so that means two runs. This was our first trail after our three day extravaganza where we taught Gauis not to bark at judges... or ring crew... or helpless bystanders. And the verdict is, the lesson stuck! We had no barking this weekend. He did run off from me in Standard and sniffed the leash runner but then came right back and completed the course. So huge progress!

Now on the subject of our actual runs.... well they were sort of a disaster. But a fast happy enthusiastic disaster. Which is really sort of the best kind of disaster I guess. Here they are in all of their embarrassing glory.


Sorry it's really hard to see. Sean was far away for parts of it.


Sometimes I wonder if I should put my bad runs up here. But then I think, what would I learn if I only kept the good runs. The pretty runs. This blog is suppose to be all about record keeping. If I want to make progress I need an accurate account of where I am so I can know where I'm going. Besides Sean is a journalist and would never let me give you all biased reporting. So you get it all, the good the bad and the ugly.

Speaking of ugly look at this very unflattering picture of Gaius charging off the end of the teeter.


Gallery: OP Std 08 inch-B0511

So here's the breakdown.

Standard: Started off VERY enthusiastically. Gaius loves the teeter so having it early on is good for him. I was a little unclear about which jump to go to next which caused him to dart off (and sniff the leash runner as mentioned before). But no barking and he came right back. I think table after the A-Frame is hard for him because he's just going so fast and he slid right off of it but then hopped right back on. Next was the tunnel, which he refused to go through. But it had standing water in it so he was just being a prissy purse dog who didn't want to get his little footsie wootsie's wet, which I can tease him for but can't really get upset about. After that lovely weaves!

Gallery: OP Std 08 inch-B0511

Actually we had lovely weaves in both runs. Can you tell we've been working on that? Sometimes I feel like agility is a bucket with a bunch of holes in it. Once you plug one hole another shows up. But maybe that's what makes it fun. There is always something to work on. Well after pretty weaves he missed his dogwalk contact. Something he has NEVER done before, not even in class. I've known for a while that he needs work on his dogwalk contact so I'm not super surprised. I know how to fix that. His teeter was pretty too looking back at it, look how close to the end he got and let it drop out from under him. He dose love that teeter.

Gallery: OP Std 08 inch-B0511


All an all it was a disaster of a run, but a really fun disaster. I'd rather run him when he's having a blast and running his heart out, than get a Q with a run that had mediocre enuthsiasum where I have to cheer-lead the whole thing, and it's like I"m pulling teeth. He really liked that run.

Jumpers: Jumpers was less enthusiastic. It was a bit hotter, and it did start with weaves not his favorite. Then he refused a jump which confused me. Then my handling got wonky so I don't really blame him for that. I think he spent most of the run thinking "Mom, what the heck are you doing?" I count that one was my bad, being that every time I was being clear he sped up and looked like he was having a good time. My brain just wasn't in it. So we had I think one more refusal and were a bit over time. I sort of lost my place too somewhere in there. That's a bad mommy, no cookie for her!

His ears really do have a mind of their own during agility don't they?

Gallery: OP JWW 08 inch-B0511

Gallery: OP Std 08 inch-B0511

No Qs this weekend but a good time had by all. We have a two day trail next weekend in the same location and then the weekend after that it's a three day trail indoors. Then after that a Tracy Skelnar seminar. An agility filled month. I'll keep you all informed.

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)

It's Not all About the Ribbons

So a three day agility trail and Qualification wise we are 1 in 6 . The last run on the last day we managed to pull out a Q (skin of our teeth). I'm sure you would surprised to hear me say that I think this has been our most successful trail yet. I mean in the past we've gone 3 in 4 at a trail (I think we have, may have been two in four). Well that's because there are things more important than the ribbons.

My goal was to get Gauis to stop running off form me at trails to bark at the judge (And ring crew, and trial secretaries, and the audience). It's something we've been working on since we started trailing. Well actually it's something I've been working on with Gauis since he was about 5 months old. Which I think is one reason it's such a frustrating issue. It's like he can learn so much but I just can't get him completely over this one little issue. Here's some really yucky runs, with a very distracted dog that had a tendency to run off and yell at people.

So I've talked to about a million people trying to get advice on how to fix the problem. I was told more run throughs. Which as far as I'm concerned is never a bad idea, but he doesn't bark at folks in practice, or in class. I only see this behavior at trails. The fact that this is a tricky issue to deal with was brought home to me when Laura Derrett said this when I asked her about the issue. "Hmmm, that's a tough one. I don't know." So I decided to go with another Laura's advice and she said 'naughty mean dogs that bark at folks don't get to play the game, and get put in their crates with no cookies.' or something like that.

And that was the goal of this weekend, not Qs. So the question of the day is how did it work?

Well as predicted, first run on Friday Gauis runs off from me to bark at the Judge (It was a poor provisional judge at her first trial. Gauis was the second dog she had ever judged and of course he ran at her and barked. Not a very warm welcome committee my little dog). So I gave him a negative reward marker (AHOH) and then walked over to grab his collar (Not hard, just to take hold of it, something I do in his normal life all the time and that he doesn't find intimating.) . He saw me coming and took off which resulted in a bit of a benny hill moment (He was not scared of me he just doesn't like being penalty walked anywhere and he knew that's what was coming) But after I finally got a hold of him he was walked by his collar out of the ring straight to his crate which he was unceremoniously chucked into.

He was furious at me. When I came back in fifteen minutes to take him out to use the bathroom he had shoved the blanket I kept in there with him and his water bowl up against the wire door so that they covered it almost completely. Through the tiny crack that was left I could see him sitting (not laying down comfortably as he normally is) with his back to the door staring at the solid plastic wall of his crate. He didn't move from this position until after I had put his leash on, and he wouldn't make eye contact with me the entire time I took him out to pee. No calming signals, no ears back, just simply pretending the other end of the leash didn't exist.

After that he seemed to get over it, especially when I didn't take him back to his crate and let him sleep in my lap till his next run. For being so ring 'stressed' he sure isn't stressed by the trail environment, even with all of the new dogs and people. He spent most of the trail out like a light some of the time on his back, spread eagle.

So next was jumpers which started around 7 pm (Oh my gosh it was a long trail, we got there at 11 am). And you know what, he stayed with me. Not a peep. I defiantly saw his ears go back a few times when he caught sight of the judge out of the corner his eyes. but he managed to resist the urge to be naughty. He worked through it. Granted we were slow as molasses but hey I'll take it. He gets more comfortable rehearsing the good behavior we'll get the speed back. We ran clean, just ten seconds over time on Friday.

And that was sort of the theme for the rest of the weekend. No barking except for that first run. He was slow and tentative but manage to restrain himself. In fact he got a little faster throughout the weekend. And his last run on Sunday was only two seconds over time which was a small enough time fault that we still managed to Q! (Hence the ribbon picture and out first leg in open!). Other than being over time we had some refusals, some knocked bars, and some off courses. But none of those are a big deal, I'll take a million of them over the barking. The standard courses especially were pretty rough (some I thought were harder than the excellent courses. One had three different discrimination between tunnels and contact obstacles in it).

I was really proud of him. I hope I never have to walk him off a course like that again. Hopefully he'll remember that lesson and we won't have to worry about it anymore. But it just feels good to have a way of dealing with the problem that works.

Tricks to Teach After Pet Expo

So I have been thinking about dog tricks I want to teach Gaius after the pet expo, or tricks I want to perfect. But I thought I’d get organized an make a list so I can keep up with my progress. That way whenever I feel like I have nothing to train I can come back to this post.

Bow

Back up

-Heel Backwards

- Do backwards Figures 8s around my legs.

Go around me in a circle

- forwards

- backwards

Jump on Command

-Jump rope

-Hop to the side (into heel position)

Run through a hoop rolled on the ground

Nod Your Head Yes

Limp

Crawl

Object discrimination (Hold up an object and ask your dog to pick the same out of a list of choices)

Two Dog Tricks

- Under

- Over

- Leap frog (Jump several dogs in a row)

-Weave between another dogs legs

- Sit in between another dogs front legs

- Circle another dog

- Ride another dog (Stand on it’s back)

- Kiss (Noses touch other dog) Would need a very tolerant partner

- There is a bunch of other stuff that could be done here.

Hide your head under a pillow

Dig the Ground on Command

Cross your paws while laying down (Legs may be too short for this)

Hold a Cookie on your nose without going for it (HA! I’ve tried to teach this several times and each time I sort of give up. He just doesn’t have that much self control)

Things we have been working on that need to be perfected

How embarrassed (Paw held over nose)

Mark (Lift his leg on something on command)

Skateboarding

Lift and go through a hoop which is stationary on the ground.

Nod your head No

Caught your tail and spin

Blow bubbles in water

Here is a video that shows the object discrimination game I'm dieing to teach.There is a better one that describes the raining process with a standard black poodle I think, but for the life of me I can't find it on you tube. If you have the link PLEASE let me know. I'd really love to watch it again.

All Quiet Here

Having a sleepy quiet winter

Hey guys!

I wish I had more to say, I would defiantly post more. Winter is the agility off season so I have no trials to speak about. Trick wise, I have a few new ones, most are difficult to self record, but mostly we have been working on cleaning up the ones we already know. Making them sharper and gaining distance and consistency of performance, at home and in new places. Cindy keeps telling me that distance isn't gained by training it directly. It's gained by building value for doing the work close in! I need that on my refrigerator or something to keep reminding me. I want to move to fast in training.

All this detail work is mainly because of the Pet Expo in February where Gauis will be doing a tricks demo in front of a crowd. He will also be participating in the agility demo. Come on down and see us if you are in the area :) I'll have someone record us this year and put it up here for you all to watch.

Here's a video of Gauis in the pet Expo last year. (Both in the obedience and agility demo)



This is the first time I have embedded through facebook. I changed the privacy settings to everyone so it should work. If it doesn't let me know and I'll try and get it on you tube.

We had just started learning weaves, so he really wasn't ready to do them, but bless his heart he tried. The obedience stuff made him nervous when he had to have his back to some kids and a bunch of strangers which is why he broke the stay, but other than that I remeber being really proud of him. It will be exciting to see how much progress he's made in a year!

No news on the foster front yet. We are still currently a single dog household. I will let you know when that changes. I think we are still getting Buckwheat but I'm not as sure. Rescue seems to change plans by the hour. We just try and roll with the punches.

In other news I am now an instructor at my local agility school teaching level 1 and level 2 agility. Just the basic stuff. How to go through a tunnel and chute, start line stays, the beginning of front and rear crosses. It is so strange that only a year and a bit ago I was just starting to learn this stuff and now people are confident enough to let me teach! Almost all of my students have really big dogs too which I don't have much experience with (Though I guess anything is big compared with ten pounds). But the principles of training are the same I guess.

Gauis was a lovely demo dog and worked really well despite all the new dogs and people. He wasn't such a fan of hanging out in the crate while I taught though and whined a bit and once got to come see me which he NEVER does (I usually leave his crate door open because he knows not to come out unless released. g-d bless crate games). I think he'll get used to it though.

We have an agility trial coming up in February and one in March. I'll keep you all up to date on the status of our agility career. Especially that last Jumpers with Weaves Q we need to finish up Novice. I hope he gets it in February before he turns three. That would be a nice birthday present.

Earth dog trials won't be until the spring, but will be his first time in Senior (Sean hasn't practiced recalls with him at all though so I'm not holding out much hope for qualifying) but he'll love it either way.

I guess I need to get on the stick about his obedience. I'm still nervous about his stand for examinations. I just need to flood him with new folks until he's totally comfortable. Our weekly trips to Stony Point and class on Monday's might not be enough. I should find some obediance trails to crash in my area and just get everyone there to put their hands on him. It's such a boomer to know that we're really ready to compete in open if I could just get him to tolerate strangers for a few seconds.

A Busy Holiday Season

Perfect pointing at squirrels in the neighbor's yard.

We're Back!

Shesh December was busy. But I'm back an boy do I have a bunch of news.For one thing we were invited to a bunch of holiday parties. The only one we made it to was our Dog Scout Party (Mom got sick so Gauis had to cancel his other engagements. He has quite a demanding social schedule) Well he won three little troop awards at the party and we got these very cute ornaments commemorating made by our friend Ms. Raliey (Garth the golden lab's mommy).

All of the awards revolve around being tiny. I think Gauis is the smallest dog in the troop so that makes sense.

We could get used to mom sleeping on the couch. She should get sick more often.

After the parties and moms recovery we got into the Christmas spirit. Now that I have a house and a fireplace I thought we should have stockings. A good idea in theory but Gauis found unatainable food hanging just out of reach for a week to be a little stressful.



But he was happy enough when he got into it. We went to my parents for Christmas (well Gauis and I). He got to play with his favorite cat in the world Oolong. They chased each other around all weekend. And he earned some well deserved scratches on the nose from Pekoe, my parents less dog enthusiastic cat. we played retrieve games with the smaller presents during Christmas. It went well, with Gauis bring the gifts to my mom (though she needs to learn how to maintain criteria. It was a very "good enough" retrieve. Drop it sort of near me and that's good enough.) It was fun though. Gauis has never had to take an object from me and give it to someone else, so it was an interesting experiment.



Snickers and Sean stayed home for the holidays.

Speaking of our favorite 10 year old dachshund, huge news!

I was going to rotate this picture... but then I got lazy and didn't.

Snickers is officially spending the new year in her forever home. She went home to a lovely couple in Herdon Virgina. They have two adult children (Her daughter came, and is in the above picture with Snickers the night she left), and an 11 year old low key beagle. She'll be getting lots of attention and three long walks a day. What more could you ask for?

The couple in Alexandria, who are also lovely, alas didn't email Claire back for a week and therefore missed their shot at Snickers. But they are looking at other older dachshunds in the organization to give a good home. There certainly enough senior dogs to go around. So it's a win win.

In other news we should be getting a new foster sometime next week! A black and tan 6 year old wire haired boy named Buckwheat (pictured below). The owner is giving him up because he's apperently "Food and toy aggressive and bad with children". Should be interesting. Then again I am not sure how seriously to take that. Snickers was given to us with the excuse of "potty issues". Since she had a perfect record of no accidents at my house, I think he was just looking for an excuse to get rid of the dog. When I get Buckwheat I'll evaluate him myself and see if he has trouble spots and where they lie.

But I like to be prepared. Do any of you out there have any fun games I can play with him to help overcome his resource guarding behavior? I have a few idea's but I'd love some input from folks that have dealt with this issue. Positive training techniques only please. Harshly correcting anxiety and aggression only begets more aggression.

Now do I look like I'm mean to you?

Gaius' Rockettes Audition

Stoney Point too was delayed due to a dead battery in my camera, but look for it in the future.
Here's a new trick We're working on.



It's not perfect yet, but certainly coming along. A VERY difficult video to shot though :)
He's licking his lips the whole time (calming signal) because I think that he's nervous that I'll step on him. But Cindy says he'll gain more confidence the more we do it. It also might come from a puppyhood filled with "DAMN IT GAUIS, DON'T GET UNDER FOOT. I'M GOING TO SQUISH YOU LIKE A BUG ONE DAY" Again, the more cookies he gets for it, the more comfortable he will get.

This is one in a long line of tricks that Cindy wants me to teach so we can do a "freestyle-esq" routine at the Richmond Pet Expo this year. I'll keep you all updated on what he's learning :)

If you don't know what free style is, here's a video of a woman (and her dachshund of course) doing a routine. Gauis' and I are no where near that, but we'll come up with something fun!

Stony Point: Part I

One of my favorite places in Richmond to train is Stony Point Fashion Park, a local dog friendly mall.

Sorry for the fuzziness, I have the cheapest camera Target sells! Which means 10 blurry pictures to every one good picture.

I'd say about 75% of the stores allow dogs. Which is just an amazing training opportunity. Not only for obedience, but for socialization of new puppies. And for the training of service and therapy dogs. All you have to do is look for the little puppy sticker in the window.

I think the dog on the sign looks like a dachshund. Don't you? They also have stores that only allow small dogs, but that doesn't effect us here any.

The place even has all of these cute dog statues everywhere (You might remember them from Gauis' short movie Play?)

If I can't take a picture of a still dog that isn't blurry! What hope do I have with moving dogs?

Gauis and I head to Stony Point every Friday to work on Obedience training (more on that later). It's really a lovely mall, but defiantly a bit to pricey for me. Window shopping is the name of the game at Stony Point. College students and Saks Fifth Avenue just don't go hand and hand. The major shopping demographic at this mall is old rich ladies and trophy wives.

But today I was on another mission. No obedience training involved. I was on the get Snickers a forever home mission. So her and I trudged off to the mall with a pocket full of left over turkey and a handful of home made business cards that I made for her. And talked to folks.

I was hoping to really talk to costumers but my greatest success was with the store employees. They just loved her. She was a super good girl and let everyone pet her (It will be a cold day in hell before Gauis is that friendly with strangers. She shows me daily what a long way I have to go with him). She even let children pet her. I think she's very used to them. I was also planing on working on loss lead walking with her. She dose pull a bit. But in the end I sort of gave up and decided the meet and great was more important. I mean she's 10 and only 15 pounds (might be 14 now, she's lost a bunch of weight which pleases me.). She also not TERRIBLE on a leash, just not up to the standards I hold Gauis too (But I try not to let him pull EVER). I figure I'll just let her pull a bit on her harness, she's so well behaved on everything else. Maybe something to work on later.

She is by far the hardest dog to take a picture of, this was the best out of 20 pictures!

I got a bunch of people to take the cards at least. So we'll see if anything comes of this trip. Defiantly going to make the Thursday Stony Point excursion a habit with my foster dogs. The place is a gold mine :)

Snickers says "Leave him in there!"

Gauis however was not so happy with this little trip. Usually the evening jaunt is reserved for Gauis and mommy alone time. No foster dogs allowed (Snickers barks when kept in a crate during class, so she usually spends the time at home so I don't annoy everyone). Today when I put him in the room and put a leash on Snickers he threw a fit. This was his special quality time gosh darn it! I just leave the puppy gate up when I leave but when we got home he had slammed the door as well in protest (Serves me right for teaching him to close doors). We are currently not on speaking terms, but he'll get his weekly Stony Point trip tomorrow.