Posts from — October 2007

Tuesday has been dubbed “Toesday” so that I can remember to do the dogs’ nails once a week. I hate clipping them with regular nail clippers because I’m afraid of hitting the quick so I use a Dremmel and grind them down. Gel hates having his feet touched, but he knows he needs to stand still while I do them. Midge tolerates it. In addition to using the Dremmel on their nails, once a month I trim the hair between their paw pads, which Gel hates even more. I started using the Dremmel on the puppies when they were about a week old. Last night when I held Fern in my lap doing her nails, I realized how much she’s grown in the past eleven weeks. She’s still quite small, not much bigger than the cats, but compared to how small she was at a week old, she’s grown a lot!

Last night I managed to get some training done outdoors on all three dogs before it got too dark to see. I worked Gel on weave pole entries at speed. There has been recent discussion on the Clean Run Mailing List at Yahoo Groups about weave pole entries and how many dogs in the Open (and sometimes Excellent) level of AKC cannot make correct weave pole entries. I asked the original poster if this was because people go into Open from Novice too soon and she confirmed this, further stating that many of the dogs in the Open level and even some in Excellent B are ill-prepared to be at that level. I hope Gel and I do not end up there. His weave pole entries are still not great, but he’s getting better. Weaves were the last thing I trained prior to quiting agility to focus solely on herding. Prior to selling my equipment, I had a set of weave-o-matic weaves (”WAM”), but when buying new equipment, I elected not to use WAM because I felt it taught Gel to slam through the poles rather than to bend his body around them. No matter how tight you screw the bolts holding the WAM weave poles in position, after a time or two going through them, they loosen. Gel discovered he could essentially plow the weaves out of the way, which is what he did when introduced to competition style weaves. Since he hasn’t done WAM weaves in about six months, he’s finally learning to bend around them. Hopefully this weekend I can get a video of him weaving. He lowers his head and body and drives through them with purpose. His footwork is very nice as well.

When I train Midge for weaves, I’ll use the 2×2 method as I believe that type of training teaches entries and breaks down the task into small pieces making it easier for the dog to understand.

I worked Midge in a jump grid, which she seemed to enjoy. Then I played around with her on the teeter board which I set on top of a piece of wood so it tipped like a teeter. I was pleased that she didn’t seem too concerned about the movement. I am looking forward to my lesson with Lynne Stephens on Saturday as I think she’ll have some good pointers for working with Midge.

I had Midge and Fern tied to the fence (on light chains) while I worked Gel. Unfortunately I forgot to put Gel’s collar on prior to taking him out so when it was time to work Midge, I lied Gel down near the fence, and he stayed, until I said “okay” which is his release word, but in this instance, it was directed at Midge. Fern screamed the whole time, which is frustrating, but she needs to learn to be tied. The next time I attempt to train outside, I will put the dogs I am not working in my car in crates. I guess I’m not terribly organized about my training routines.

Training sessions with Fern are going extremely well. She’s extremely quick to learn new behaviors. Last night we played the “cheese ball game” and it was as if she’d been doing it her whole life. The “cheese ball game” is intended to teach fast recalls straight to the handler. You throw a small piece of food (puffed cheese balls such as the ones made by Frito-Lay work well, but I use small bits of real cheese or cooked liver) out away from you and tell the dog to get it. As soon as the dog lowers his head for the food you recall him back and as he’s approaching you, throw the food (using two hands) between your legs and ideally the dog runs between your legs after the food. You then spin to face the dog and recall again. This is one of Gel’s favorite games and he protested greatly while I was playing it with Fern. At this point in time, Midge isn’t confident enough to go between my legs so I don’t play it with her yet.

Fern is twelve weeks old today. She did not go through a “fear period” that I understand most puppies go through. She hasn’t missed a beat since she was born. Monty went through a slight fear period right after he went to his new home. Pyro did not, in fact, she’s now going to fly ball practice with her caregivers and has no fear or noise sensitivity issues.

Unfortunately, I lost contact with the two puppies in Canada. I was not happy with the circumstances surrounding the placement of Scorch and letting my feelings be known caused a rift that will not be able to be repaired. Scorch was placed in what I assume is a good home, but for reasons unknown to me, their contact information is being kept from me. I made a lot of mistakes with this litter, hopefully I’ve learned from them and won’t repeat them. One thing I learned was not to discount myself and what I can do. I have very little self-confidence and easily get overwhelmed when doing things I am not familiar with, such as raising puppies. I should not have sent the two puppies to Canada under the circumstances which I did, but they are there now and I can’t change things. I only hope whomever has them appreciates what they have.

Unfortunately it seems I painted my teeter board for nothing. I bought a 12 foot long, two inch thick pressure-treated board. The teeter base I decided on (it is aluminum which will be a lot easier to move when necessary) won’t hold up to continued use with a board that heavy. Oh well, I can use the pressure-treated board for other things, such as, screw a piece of PVC pipe in the middle of it to make a tippy board or simply use it as a board on the ground to teach Midge and Fern to run as fast as they can across it. Luckily I kept the 12 foot long, one inch thick ramp made from pine board from an old dog walk which is painted, I just need to paint the contact on one end. Last summer, the goats broke the opposite end of the ramp to the dog walk so I replaced the up and down ramps with two inch thick, pressure-treated ramps.

We went from extreme hot to quite cold temperatures. This morning, it was in the low 30’s and there was frost on the grass. It’s hard to adapt to such a change. It’s also almost dark by the time I get home from work. I really need to hire an electrician to install additional flood lights around my house so I can easily work outside. When it gets dark so early, it’s hard to stay motivated to train after work, especially when it’s cold! I hope the type of weather we’ve had this year is not the way things are going to be in the future.

On Saturday I drove to Salisbury for classes. The first class starts at 2:00 and is the puppy/beginner agility class. I took this class last week with Midge, but decided to switch her out with Fern and then at home, practice on what I learned with Midge. Fern did well for about 30 minutes, then I could see she was starting to crash, so I finished the class with Midge. An hour long class is a bit too much for an eleven week old puppy. Midge enjoyed herself in the class. She got to run over a flattened A-frame, go through weave-o-matic weave poles which we gradually moved up into a straight position so she had to weave through them, which she did. We also started with single box jump drills.

For the Master’s level class (Gel’s class), the instructor had set up a USDAA Grand Prix course. It was brutal! As always, she broke the course into two segments and then once we had all had the opportunity to run half the course, we ran the entire course. I almost fell over in exhaustion and frustration! There was so much handling involved. I got very frustrated with myself because my handling felt so awful. The instructor came out and talked to me about that (my frustration), which was a good thing! She told me afterwards that Gel is running really, really nice, which he is. Luckily Gel is immune to my frustration; Midge isn’t going to be so I need to get better about that.

While I had Fern and then Midge in their class, Gel was in the car in his crate carrying on loudly about being left behind. He thinks he should be the center of my universe (he is, but I can’t let him know that) all the time. While we were waiting for the other dogs to run, I lie Gel down by my car in the shade. He may pop up to look at a particularly svelte female Border Collie running the course, but in general, he stays put. Several of the handlers asked me how long it took me to teach him to stay like that. I thought about it and said, he’s always done it. I taught start line stays as part of my foundation work. When I tell Gel to stay put, he’s pretty darned good about doing so. He never blows start line stays.

I wish I had a dollar for everyone who comments on how nice my dogs are. Even though Gel can be rude when greeting people (he is getting better at it); this initial rudeness is soon forgotten when they watch him work and just be Gel. Midge is simply a pleasant dog to be around. I had nothing to do with this, this is how she came to me. Fern loves to be handed off to anyone who wants to hold her and expresses her appreciation with tons of kisses. She’s very appropriate when meeting new dogs, she doesn’t run into a strange dog’s space, she’s not afraid, just appropriate. She travels wonderfully (they all do) and is quiet in her crate, even when she’s left alone in the car.

On Sunday I brought the flock of sheep out into the back fields and worked both dogs, which was a lot of fun. I haven’t had the dogs on sheep, except for moving them around to graze in quite a while. I knew Midge was happy, she had a huge smile on her face! I had intended to get some photographs on Sunday, but that didn’t happen. Later in the evening, I worked Gel on weave pole entries at speed.

I did finish painting the contact areas on my A-frame and teeter board as well as putting a fresh coat of paint on the dog walk. Now all I need is someone to help me carry the A-frame over to where I practice and to buy a teeter base to mount the board one. My table is done too, except for buying the PVC connectors to make the legs it will sit on. For now, I can use it on the ground.

Next Saturday I go to Lynne Stephen’s facility for a lesson. Lynne helped me start Gel in agility. Her foundation training has really paid off. I am looking forward to her assistance in getting Midge going as she’s a very different dog than Gel.

I go to three different agility instructors, all within 70 miles. I get something useful out of all of them and do not find their styles conflicting at all. I take what I can from them and then go from there. It is very, very nice to be able to get to such qualified instructors without having to drive three hours one way as I was doing for herding instruction.

How cool is this: I now have two people on a waiting list for a puppy should I breed again! I’m pleased, but I told both individuals, if I repeat this breeding, it won’t be until the puppies are at least two years old and I can see how they’ve turned out. A lot can happen between now and August, 2009.

The AKC National Agility Trial is going to be held in Concord in 2009. I would love to have Gel qualified for that. It is going to be at the same location that the trial November 16-18 is going to be held.

Filled out entry forms for two upcoming USDAA trials. The entries cost me a bit over $100 each. This is not a cheap sport! I am so enjoying it though, as are my dogs.

Inferno (Fern) loves them. Unlike most puppies, she doesn’t try to chase them just because they run (prey drive), nor does she try to herd them, instead, she runs them down to kiss their faces. I’ve been watching her closely to see if it was something that I needed to nip in the bud, but that is all she’s doing: kissing their faces. Of course, the cats don’t think much of it. Some of them tolerate it for a few minutes, then hiss and hit her, at which time she acts appropriately and stops. It’s rather odd behavior, but I guess she just loves cats. Can’t say I blame her.

Had a good training session last night with all three dogs. Finally got Midge to spin while tugging. I followed Greg Derrett’s method of teaching directional commands by tugging with the dog and then flipping them right or left and at the same time, saying “right” or “left”; that progresses to using a hand signal to flip the dog right or left (rewarding with the tug) and then fading the hand signal out to voice commands alone. It took a long time for Gel to follow my directions while running an agility course (which I now know is because I didn’t reward his spins enough in the beginning), but now that he does, it’s a very useful tool, especially if I give the right directional command. Poor dog, first I muck with his head by giving him the wrong flank commands while herding, now I’m giving him wrong direction commands while running agility. It’s a good thing he’s as forgiving as he is.

Of course, it helped that I was tugging with Midge on the linoleum floor which made spinning her around easy … we’ve got to start somewhere though.

I’ve been a bit “clogged” on training after work. This is partially because of having a lot to do after work lately and I also think I get more tired this time of year right before the time change. While it’s a week later this year, I am still feeling it. It will be nice to have an extra hour of sleep, that is assuming Fern recognizes the time change. Right now, she’s my alarm clock, waking me up at pretty much 5:00 on the dot every morning.

Rain! Glorious rain! We’ve received at least two inches since Monday. It is so nice to see puddles and muddy dogs! It’s cool too. I hope the dry trend has been broken and we start to get rain on a regular basis. If it stays reasonably warm, we could get some grass growth which will be helpful for feeding the sheep over the winter.

Midge has been giving me a hard time by running off after deer when we are out walking. She’s normally very responsive to “calling off” stock, but deer are not stock and when she’s after deer, she zones out. This behavior is typical of rabies “vaccinosis” (a term used to describe chronic disease caused by vaccines). According to Dr. Jeffrey Levy (a homeopathic vet in Massachusetts), this trigger reaction (which is usually visual) is a milder chronic form of the mental derangement that is seen in the encephalomyelitis of rabid dogs. I made time to sit down and work her case homeopathically. I gave her the remedy I chose (which I will not name because I don’t want everyone [or anyone] who might be reading this Blog to go off and give their dog that particular remedy because it chases deer) two days ago. Last night while we were out walking (I was throwing a Kong on a rope for the adult dogs so they were a good distance away from me retrieving the Kong) they scared up some deer and Midge took off after them. I swore under my breath, but I yelled her name and “that’ll do,” honestly not expecting her to come back. Was I surprised when she did! That she was so responsive during our training session last night and that I could call her off deer means that the remedy may be working. Let’s hope.

Typical signs of rabies vaccinosis are behavior changes (aggression for example); increased noise sensitivity (common in Border Collies), obsessive behavior such as shadow or light chasing (common in Border Collies), self mutulation, pica (eating undigestible things) and destructive behavior. All of these behavior issues are very common in all dogs today, which only makes sense given most dogs are frequently vaccinated for rabies. Here is a good article written by a veterinarian on problems associated with rabies vaccination. Another good article on the correlation between vaccinosis and the acute disease the vaccines are supposed to protect against is one written by another homeopathic vet, Richard Pitcairn.

What I found particularly interesting in Pitcairn’s comparison between acute rabies and rabies vaccinosis is this chronic symptom: “Attempt at restraint results in hysterical, violent behavior. Resistance can be so extreme as to cause self-injury.” While I was having the puppies temperament tested, one of the tests was to lift the puppy up off the floor and let it dangle there for a few minutes to see if the puppy fought the restraint or not. None of mine did. I questioned that, asking if puppies really did fight that type of restraint (which I didn’t think was extreme) and I was told they did and sometimes they bit the testor. That’s hard to believe, but then again, maybe not.

Please consider donating to the Rabies Challenge Fund which is a nonprofit organization doing research to determine the duration of immunity conveyed by rabies vaccines. Maybe someday the legal requirement for rabies vaccination will be every five or seven years rather than yearly as is required by many states and counties.

Heatwave (now Monty) went to a lawyer that I work with (Charlie) and his family. I convinced them to feed raw by asking them to sniff Gel and Midge’s breath. No awful dog odor. I was surprised at how easy it was to convince them.

Charlie’s wife initially had some difficulties in feeding the puppy raw; she mentioned to a few friends and family members that she was feeding raw and they expressed concerns about bacteria, etc. which frightened her. She was also concerned about keeping his diet balanced. I then went to Plan B and suggested high quality canned or freeze-dried food, which she expressed an interest in. At that point, however, Charlie took over the feeding responsibilities and Monty is still on raw food. Charlie’s wife has settled down and now raw is not a problem. That’s great news!

What is even better is another lawyer came to me today asking questions about feeding a raw diet to her Papillon. She’s been considering getting a second Papillon and in talking to a local breeder, discovered that the breeder feeds raw. She had never heard of feeding a raw diet to a dog until Charlie told her about feeding raw to Monty and now this breeder. I gave her some reading material and will be bringing her in some ground rabbit to feed her dog to see how she does on it. She is concerned about what she herself eats (she shops for all organic food) so she’s a prime candidate for raw feeding. Soon we’ll have a raw feeding cult here at my office.

There is a good chance for rain in the forecast for the next five days. That’s wonderful news (except is it going to curtail my painting project). The puppies are eleven weeks old today and I think they may have seen rain three times in their lives. A short rain shower woke me up this morning: rain, it’s a foreign sound to me these days.

It will be disappointing if my agility class on Wednesday gets cancelled due to rain. I’ve been having such a good time in agility classes lately. On Saturday, after class, I hung around and visited with several of the other handlers for about 45 minutes. It was nice to discuss training techniques and dogs in general.

Dogs still feel foreign to me. I was complaining to a friend today that I was frustrated in working with Midge. I felt like I had two left feet, and she was standing on both of them! Gel and I have learned to dance and we do pretty well together, but I forget how long it took me to get to where we are now. Gel still surprises me when I take him out to a class or a show. He’s a different dog than he was a year ago. He has so much more drive and focus. It’s all a learning process; I do not want to get to the point of knowing everything there is to know about training dogs. Learning is fun and rewarding.

We had another very busy weekend. Saturday morning was spent at Lowe’s buying materials for my A-frame, table and teeter and then constructing the A-frame and table. Left home at around noon, heading to Statesville to pick up 60 pounds of frozen rabbit and then off to Salisbury for a double agility lesson. The first one was geared towards puppies/beginner dogs (which I took with Midge) and then my regular class with Gel. While the class with Midge went well, she was bored so I won’t do the class again with her, but will with Fern. As soon as the instructor saw me working with Midge, she told me that I couldn’t run with her through obstacles. Instead, I had to “backchain” everything.

That threw me, “backchaining?” Geez, I wonder how I ever managed to train Gel to the level he’s at. “Backchaining” means to perform obstacles or sequences backwards. That’s a hard thing for this type-A type human to do, but that’s what Midge needs. Midge will happily run along side me now, either going over jumps, if she happens to tear her eyes away from me in time to see the jump, or if she doesn’t see the jump plowing through it. Gel has a very reliable “go on” command. If I point him at a series of jumps or obstacles and say “go on” he’ll go, taking every obstacle in his path until I tell him otherwise. Gel is very obstacle focused, which was frustrating at first, but now I can, in most instances, switch him from obstacle to handler focus. It took me a while to learn how to run this type of dog, I drive him from behind, but now that I’m doing it, I like it.

Maybe I should re-consider doing agility with Midge, but whatever I learn from her is only going to make me a better dog trainer, so I’ll keep going for now and hope that she learns to “go on.”

On Sunday I got up early and went to the laundry mat to wash my clothes. Because of the drought, I’ve been going to the laundry mat to wash my clothes rather than doing them at home. Then I went over to Wally’s house and off-loaded the 900 pound bale of hay he picked up for me on Saturday. After that, I went home and started painting. I hate painting. I do not have the patience for it. I painted the A-frame fully put together; it is up on two cinder blocks so I can paint most of the underside. Putting the coat of primer on all but crippled me so I headed back to Lowe’s and bought a paint spray gun, which made the job much easier. I have the blue coats, including the grip coat, pretty much set, just need to do the contact areas, which is going to have to wait for next weekend.

Don’t you know, now that I’ve started painting, there’s rain in the forecast for the next four days. I’m not going to complain, we need the rain. If beginning a painting project was actually a rain dance, guess I had better do more painting.

The dogs are all doing well; I just wish I had more time to spend with them. I’ll be glad when the agility equipment building project is done. The dogs will be happy as will my body!

Work is now busy so I don’t have much free time to write. Went to class last night. Gel ran wonderfully! All of a sudden, his weave pole performance has gone from mediocre to phenomenal. Yes, he still sometimes misses entrances and pops out, but he’s driving to and through the poles like a demon. His head goes down, he digs in and drives. The first time I saw him do this (Tuesday night) I thought to myself, where did the old Gel go?

After we finished class, I brought Midge in and worked her. I was able to run the course that was set up, just doing the jumps, and she did quite well. Fern gets passed around from handler to handler during the class so she’s getting good socialization.

Here is Gel’s Novice Standard run on Sunday, October 14. Watch the dog walk performance, he almost went off the up ramp. As a general rule, I don’t like slats on agility equipment, but I think it was the slats that kept him on in this instance. If he had fallen off, we would have been disqualified.

Monday morning I was out walking the dogs in the dark. I have a head lamp that I use to see enough to be able to walk in the dark. I keep track of the dogs by turning my head, shining the light until I see the reflection of their eyes. If I don’t see them, I call them back to me. They tend to stick pretty close to me when it’s dark.

We were almost home when Gel started alarm barking. Gel rarely alarm barks. I called him back to me and he came immediately. I shined my light out to where he came from and saw something large and light colored about 30 feet away. Midge came back with Gel and both dogs were growling. I cannot remember the last time I heard Gel growl. I slowly approached the “thing,” ready to run if I had to. I thought to myself, could it be a sheep, a dog, a person? It wasn’t moving and I couldn’t see eye reflection from my light. I considered going back home and driving my car out there so I could use the headlamps from the car and be safe in the car, but it would have been hard to get my car out there.

When I got close enough to see what it was, I laughed out loud. It was a large bunch of partially deflated balloons! Gel and Midge were both still growling at it, but when I told them it was okay, Gel gradually approached and touched it with his nose. Then Fern touched it. After a couple of seconds, Midge did too. Then Gel grabbed hold of the balloon strings and started running across the field dragging the balloons. I hoped that he wouldn’t pop them because that would probably get them all going again.

Never a dull moment.

Here’s another video of one of Gel’s agility runs. This is the Jumpers with Weaves class where he knocked the bar (which was my fault) and we didn’t qualify: