Teeter , Ugh!!!!!!!

So Miley wont get on my teeter at home at all. She just runs by. Great. I guess I'm going to put it back on the adjustable base and lower it all the way down again. I'm thinking that I will never put her on that teeter at the training field again. Well, she didn't get on it on Monday but we worked on banging and treating. And just doing that has caused problems. On a positive, she is running through the stick in the ground weave poles without any hesitation. So that is good. I'm not sure what is going on with her. Things she did well, she is now hesitant on. I didn't practice the dogwalk yesterday but Ive notice the last few days she is stopping and looking at me on the straight plank like she is unsure what I want her to do. I don't think Ive change anything I'm doing but obviously something is amidst. And last but not least she just kept running her own course yesterday. I couldn't get her to do rear cross . I read an article in the new issue of "Dog Sports" and it talked about rear crosses. I thought that my using my arm over the jump was causing her to drop the bar on Monday. So I didn't use an arm at all. Maybe that was the problem. I don't know. Yesterday was all very weird. Nothing was working. So we just stopped.

Teeter trouble and then some

No class this weekend. Everyone was at a Rhonda Carter and Jen Pinder seminar in North Carolina. I went to the training field to work on the teeter trouble. I think the problem is the noise. So we worked on me banging the teeter and giving her a treat if she stayed close. We ran some dogwalks and did some handling work. She kept getting sucked into the tunnel. As I was thinking about things, I realized my dog finds contacts and tunnels very rewarding. Ive decided this week to not work on contacts or do any tunnels. I went back out the the training field yesterday after walking the dogs at the park. Again we worked on banging the teeter and giving treats. She did a little better. I also had Guiness run over the teeter with Miley watching. I need to bring another person with me to run Guiness over the teeter while I just work on giving Miley treats for not being scared. I also worked on jump sequences and Miley did very well. I wish I have video taped it because 3 times when I rear crossed she dropped the bar. So I must be doing something wrong.
The only bad thing that happened was with Guiness. Miley likes to chase cars, while Guiness likes to chase bikes. I was letting the dogs run round at the practice field and I didnt see the person riding the bike. All of a sudden Guiness is running and dives over the teeter and under the weaves with guide wires that were next to the fence. I just didn't react fast enough, all I said was "no" . He hit the fence. ( The fence is that square wire stuff that is attached to wooden post ) Luckily he tucked his head just before he hit. He seemed fine but that was very scary. Why didn't I call him off or say "wait". "No" doesn't mean anything to him. We went home after that.

Running contacts, again

Here is Miley running the contacts with the stride regulators. I know they are very big stride regulators but that's what it took for her to acknowledge them. I first did it with the dogwalk at 2 feet off the ground. Now its 3 feet off the ground. I probably will keep it here until I don't see the hesitation that I'm seeing when she is going down the down side of the DW. Just a side note: when Miley hears the video play she starts running around the room like she is looking for the equipment.

Today my handling was terrible. I didn't put any video of that on here because I would be embarrassed. Hopefully next time I will be better. When I watched the video I wasn't moving to cue her. I'm not sure what I was thinking.

CGC class

I went to a CGC class last night. Mostly to get Miley working around other dogs. There were only 6 people in the class. Eight people signed up. Everyone felt that they needed to work on loose leash walking and jumping up on people. We practiced loose leash walking and how to get your dog to come back to you if the leash gets tight. O'course Miley walked great the whole time. Heeling right at my side looking up at me and doing the sheltie prance. Which just cracked me up because she never walks loose leash on our walks. I told them they needed to bring in some bunnies, cars and joggers to really see how my dog walks. She doesn't have a big problem with jumping up on people unless she is really excited. So no matter what I did I couldn't get her to jump up. I guess will just have to practice these things at home. One thing that I found out was, the CGC isn't a title. Its not suppose to be written at the end of the dogs name. Its just an award. I didn't know that. Learn something new every day.
Running contacts: I put" big" stride regulators up on the dog walk yesterday. I had to make them big so that she would really have to think about what she is doing. I watched the videos over and over trying to decide where to put them. I'm only using 2 because of how long her stride is on the dogwalk. It was very successful. I ran her again this morning and it still worked except one time she took a huge jump. Not good. I felt is was dangerous. So I immediately sad,"no" and we redid it. That time was in the zone.

The good , the bad and the ugly

When dogs play like this, it always reminds me of those seals you see on T.V. It cracks me up.

Ive been trying to video my practice sessions just so I can see what is happening. I reviewed the video from Saturday and I really felt like Miley was running slow. But then yesterday she was on fire. I just couldn't believe it. Not only was she fast but was picking up cues very nicely. (come to heels, push and pulls) It was great. I think it was because the high temperature outside dropped 10 degrees because of the storms that came through.Then yesterday I raised the dogwalk about 4-5 inches. And she started just barely making the contact. Ugh!! I was so depressed. I started thinking I should just do a 2o/2o. But I really don't want to do that. I think it will confuse her right now. So after a few hours I watched the video again of the contacts and it wasn't as bad as I thought. She is striding through the contact about 50% of the time. I just need to work it some more. I think I might put a target down again and see how that works.

I know I haven't posted about Guiness. He is doing ok. He can at least run in the house and play with the other dogs without limping. He does ok running in the yard. But if I do any agility at all, he will limp. So no more agility for Guiness. He still seems happy to me so that is what is important.

The ugly? That's just the picture I posted. It looks ugly but they were just playing.

Happy Mother's Day

Here is what my daughter gave me for mothers day. They are real stamps with my dogs pictures on them. Happy Mother's Day to everyone!

The heat is on

For the last several days it has been over 80 degrees after 8 pm. at night. Miley is miserable. I can only work her a few minutes before she is just to hot. Poor Miley, its going to get a lot hotter. Once summer starts it will be between 95-104 degrees everyday. Even this morning it was 72 by 7am.

Dogwalk: I moved the dogwalk up 5 inches and she is still in the yellow. I will keep it there for a few more days and then up it again. The hit-it board is not a hit. She hates it. I cant get her to run to it no matter what I do. Treats , toys or movement doesn't help. She just saunters up and puts her front feet on it and looks at me. I feel like she is saying " ok, I did it. Are you happy?" I decided to forget the hit-it board. I am using the clicker for the bottom of the dogwalk and a-frame. She was hitting the contact on the a-frame but not running all the way to the bottom. So I back chained it a couple of times using the clicker at the bottom and she seem to understand now. Or at least she is now running all the way to the bottom.

Weaves: This week I decided to start weave pole training. She has done some weave pole chutes but not a while. I was planning on using a WAM to teach her like I did Guiness but it's not working so well. She is just not understanding to go down the middle and step over the poles. I even shortened the WAM to 3 poles. It didn't help. So I decided to use the stick in the ground poles and slant them. That way there is no poles down the middle on the ground. I think maybe that was the problem. She is much smaller than Guiness.

Training: I took her this morning out to the training field. We went at 7am since it was already getting hot. No problems at all with the chute. We worked on the teeter that she doesn't like. I lured her on it 3 times and left it at that. Not the way I want to train a teeter but I'm at a lost on how to fix the problem. As soon as it starts to tip, she wants to bale. Even if I'm holding the end so it goes down slower. So I figure , each time I go out there I will work a little on it. We did some jump training. All that seemed to go well. A few misses but not much. Before starting she kept barking at the horses who were feeding right by the fence. But once we started training she ignored them. She ignored the cars too, until the last one . I was able to call her off. So all in all a good practice.