Sunday, March 13, 2011

Things

Sorry I havent posted much.  I guess when your husband says, "Arent you blogging anymore?", its time to put up a post. LOL  I really dont have much to post about.  I just feel like a big complainer.  My back and my ankle just dont want to make my life better. Who wants to hear about that? I dont even want to hear about it and its me.   Works been full of lots of bad things too. I know you are probably thinking, you are just a school nurse. What bad things can happen there?  I cant really talk about it but lets just say, DSS calls, police, epi-pens and bleeding disorders playing contact sports. Ugh! 

Yesterday was a beautiful day.  I wanted to work on Miley's teeter.  I ordered the DVD by Wendy Pape, "Teeters from start to finish".  The only thing I didnt like about the DVD was somethings require your dog to be a good tugger.  Not Mileys strong point.  She will tug, just not in connection to agility. I know thats my fault but doesnt help with this video.   Anyway the DVD has some really good information that I didnt think about.  When Miley is leaving the teeter early, I thought she didnt like the tipping.  But she will get all over a wobble board with no problems.  The DVD talked about some dogs  not liking the height of the teeter. So I thought I would see where Miley was with that.  You keep the teeter so the board cant tip. Put the dog at the end of the teeter and reward with your hand under the board. Then take the dog off.  I started this at home.  I had the camera out but Im blocking the camera so you cant see what she is doing. The first time I put her on, you could tell she was scared and didnt want to go to the end. Once she got a few treats , she go over that pretty quickly.   I also used Jen Pinder's teeter article in Clean Run, Nov. 2009 to teach her end behavior.  So Im changing the end behavior , now she has to wait for a release. Before she was suppose to wait until the board hit and then she could leave. But she was leaving early.  I then took her too the field and used the teeter there. It drops faster than my teeter and is really noisy.



I did work both sides of the teeter but took it out of the video. I just wanted to give you the basic idea.

Next we worked on weave poles. Im not sure what happened but she was really slow. I was using the Ready Treat because I wanted to work on distance but the box wouldnt open. I thought maybe because it was so sunny but when I got up close it wouldnt open. I tried it several times and Im not sure if the box not opening right away made her think she was wrong so she was slow. Or if something else was going on. We stopped working that. ( the remote for the Ready Treat needed new batteries. It works fine now.) Then we worked tables. I had one of those lint rollers with the tape on it. I figured I use it as a distraction. She goes crazy over that thing in the house. It was to funny, she couldnt have cared less when I got that thing out. It cracked me up. So much for distraction training. I decided to use the plastic bag with the treats in it as a distraction. I put it on the ground next to the table. She did pretty well but not perfect. The first time she got on the table, but then tried to reach over and get the bag and her front feet slipped off. She got the bag and back up and onto the table. It was to funny. The next time she was unsure and just got on with her front feet. When I said, "good girl" she got the rest the way on. Then after that she got straight on , even with the bag of food right in front of her approach to the table. I tried to load that video but it would load to YouTube.  Im not having good luck today.  Anyway the video showed poor training methods on my part. I need to remember to put her leash when Im thinking or setting up again. Ugh, she practice circling me several times at the table which I didnt noticed until I watched the video.

This morning I took a walk with the dogs. It was so peaceful and nice. I didnt see one person the whole time I was there.


I dont know whats with blogger but I cant get any more pictures to load.  So I'll try tomorrow.

11 comments:

Sara said...

It looks so sunny and warm in the video! Miley's last teeter was beautiful in that video.

Amy / Layla the Malamute said...

I know what you mean about feeling like you're complaining. I had a HORRIBLE day at work Friday, from the minute I walked in and a lady ran up to the counter screaming at me calling me a stupid bitch (she thought that I had sold her the wrong prescription, when in fact I wasn't even there), through the entire day. I ended up not even posting it because I thought the same thing; people would be like, "You work in a pharmacy, how bad can it be?" Well, a quick example (besides getting profanities screamed at you): The day before (Thursday) a woman dropped off an rx for Oxycodone liquid. It comes 20mg per 1 ml. The doctor had written for 5mg, which would have been 0.25 mL. The person who typed it (thank God it wasn't me), typed it for 5 ml, or one teaspoon - the poor woman took TWENTY TIMES the recommended dosage. Of course the person who made the error wasn't even there, so I had to take care of that.

So that huge post is just sitting in my drafts, because I got really aggravated halfway through about how I just sound like I'm complaining and whining, which made me feel worse. Ugh!

Anyway, I like the teeter game where you put something under the high end.

I wish some trainers realized that tugging isn't something that all dogs do. Yes, all dogs can but sometimes it causes more stress than anything. Instead of saying to just teach the dogs to tug, they should come up with another method to training if they want to be considered great trainers.

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

Sounds like you got some great work in! Miley looks great, I had never thought about the height thing with the teeter, I found with the video that just rewarding with what the dog likes can easily be put in, I used it with Chloe and she is not a tugger, but Wendy Pape is big on the tugging ;-)

Chris and Ricky said...

I enjoyed seeing your teeter video - Miley looked really good flying to the end and waiting. I don't know anything about training the teeter and wish I had a real one at home to work with.

I love walks like that with no one around in a place the dogs can be off leash. Walking like that is often more fun than agility to me.

Marie said...

Miley's teeter video looks like you had a great idea. It looked like she figured out what you were asking for really quickly.

I go through big long stretches of not wanting to blog, especially on Dare's blog because I don't feel like we're making any progress on our jumping and I think people get sick of hearing about it.

Look at all that green on your walk! I love it! We've been walking, A LOT lately. Today we did see some things greening up a bit here too. It's so nice. I agree the best walks are when you don't run into any other people.

Dawn said...

Yes, the best walks are those where we don't run into anyone else. :) I think you have a right to complain about anything you want. A school nurse job has to be stressful! Wish we could all just retire and play with the dogs! I've been feeling restless and like complaining myself. Might just let it all fly! :)

Unknown said...

I like your teeter video and those beautiful pictures too.
We hope spring is there with you soon so it's sunny and beautiful. Warm weather is better for our health too.
Don't worry about the complaints that you've, we all have tons of them :)
Just share with us, it's the beauty of blogging too!!!

Dawn P said...

tugging is overrated.

tervnmal said...

That's what blogs are for sometimes, to unload, get feedback and then feel better.

The walk looks wonderful, not only green but sunshine, too.

Amy Wood said...

Good job on the teeter! Looks like a nice walk. Can't wait to see more pics!

Morganne said...

Interesting about the height on the teeter being and issue. I wonder why it isn't on the dogwalk?

How did you teach the 4-on? What was your criteria? Soleil is my first dog to teach a 4-0n on the teeter.