Neat blog.

If you go to "Jakes Progress" (a dog agility site) http://www.jakesprogress.info/index.html he has a guest book slide show going on right now. It shows what country you are from and a picture of your dogs. I haven't figured how he signed up for the slide show yet. I'm working on it.

What age to spay?

At what age do you think you should spay your dog? The vet says that he thinks Miley was full grown at 10 months. She had her first heat starting on March 21st. I was planning on getting her spayed on May 9th, which is 2 weeks before her first birthday. Recently I read that you should wait until they are 14 months to make sure their growth plates are closed. I don't think Miley has grown since 8 months. At least I cant detect it on my wicket that I made. So what do you all think?

Drop In Class

Miley and I went to a drop-in agility class on Saturday. It was a great class. To bad it is so far away. Its 150 miles one way. In the class there were only 3 people. So we received a lot of one on one attention. We practice our dog walks and a-frames. 2 of us were doing running contacts and one was doing a 2o2o. It was good to have someone else's eye to see where Miley was hitting the contact. She was in the yellow on the dog walk, but just barely. (it was a USDAA contact and I have AKC contacts) I'll have to keep that in mind. I told her I was using hoops and she told me to paint them green so they aren't as visible. She also told me to practice with a tunnel at each end so that I can send her back and forth. If she starts leaping the contact switch the tunnel to a jump or tire to slow her down a little and stop the leaping. She recommend having someone watch her contacts while holding a clicker. When she hits the contacts to click and then treat. It was good practice while I was there. You got multiple runs over the dog walk and a-frame. The only bad part was it was hot. All week it has been 85 degrees and the dogs were hot. I hose her down 3 times during the 1 1/2 hours which did help. But she hates that. O'well better than heat stroke.
We also did a handling session. She gave me some good tips and a couple of jumps sequences to practice. Today I set up an oval with a pinwheel at one end and on the other end 3 jumps that curve and are close together. It worked great. No wide turns. I'm trying to be more conscience of my body, that my shoulder or feet aren't pushing her out. I really liked the instructor. She tells you what was good and what you need to work on. She is interested in how things are progressing at home. She gives you homework and tells you some problems you may have. Then she tells you what to do to fix the problems. Its great.
I probably will go next weekend if I can. Then after that we will be taking a break. Miley gets spayed on May 9th.

More Pinwheels

I know , you are sick of this topic. But.... Today we did more pinwheels and other stuff too. I took this off Susan Salo's jumping exercises when she teaches turning and bending of the dogs body. It was in an issue of Clean Run magazine. It wasn't used with pinwheels but I decided to incorporate it for my work with Miley. By putting the jump down on one side that is suppose to draw the dogs eye to the lower part of the jump, which will help the dog bend. It worked great. I even got some distance from the jump, about 10 feet and could send her. But if I ran that was to much and she went wide. That only happened once. So this was very successful.

Whats up?

On Tuesday Miley had 2 loose stools before I went to work. Then at work I had to stay an hour later for a phone inservice. I was so mad. How hard is it to use a phone. How many times have you started a new job and no one taught you to use the phone. My husband said that most people haven't changed jobs as much as I have. Ha! By the time I got home , I open the door and the sweet smell of roses hits me. (not!!) Poor Miley had diarrhea in her crate. It was everywhere. I take her outside and she has more diarrhea. Then I decided to take the crate bedding outside to rinse off before putting them in the washer. I'm pulling the hose behind me because I want to rinse it in the back of the yard. (My husband used the hose this weekend) While pulling the hose the spray handle comes off in my hand and the hose some how hits my back. Full force water sprays down my back and going inside the back of my pants. Great! My poor husband got an ear full about that. So I finally get everything cleaned up including Miley. She continued to have diarrhea 6-8 more times that evening, but otherwise she was happy and playful. She wasnt happy that everytime she had a stool she had to get her bottom washed in the shower. I guess it turned out to be nothing because she slept all night and hasn't had a stool since. Probably nothing left inside her huh?
I worked Miley yesterday on just 3 jumps in collection. I put the jumps in different positions, straight lines, curves and pinwheels. She crashed the second jump the first time through and didn't want to do it again. Going the opposite direction wasn't an issue. So I move all the jumps to another place in the yard and then she seemed fine. She definitely doesn't like collection. She wants to run full out because that is fun , fun , fun. One thing I notice was that she could make the pinwheel going to the left, but when she went to the right she was wide. All this was done in collection with the jump post touching each other on the pinwheel. If I added any movement she went wide. At lease I know what to work on and what the problem is.

OK, What am I doing wrong?

It took 2 days to up load this.Miley is not getting the pinwheel. She keeps going wide, why? She doesn't understand her job, I giving the wrong signals, I'm to slow, I didn't teach it right? What do you think? All opinions accepted. She did finally get one and I stopped and jack potted that. But I still think I'm not doing something right.

Hair cuts

I gave the dogs hair cuts. Mostly their ears. I hope it looks ok. I try to follow the instructions in a book. I wish I had a video on how to cut your sheltie.

This is funny. Yesterday morning Guiness started licking my husband hand while we were still in bed. So my husband thought that Guiness needed to go out to go the bathroom. My husband got up and Guiness jumped into the bed and laid down in his spot.