Been a long time

I'm not even sure if anyone follows this blog anymore. It's really been so long since I've updated over here.

One of my last posts was my Goals for 2013 post.

I had some pretty decent goals. Unfortunately, much of that went by the wayside very early on in the year. In mid-January, Dahlia was attacked at a play group by another dog. She's had dogs go after her before, but this time was different. This time she got injured. A minor one to be sure (she had one small, shallow puncture wound on her shoulder), but that was enough to make her nervous of other dogs being around, especially when she was working.

I took her to a trial late in January and she was so stressed out that she just shut down and refused to move off the start line. Twice. I ended up pulling her from the trial and went home to cry.

I decided not to go back to another trial until I could be at an outdoor one, so I decided that I would go back to Max 200 in April. It was a small trial with terrible weather (about 45 degrees and cold and windy) and so she did ok. I won't say she did great. She stayed with me. She at least took off from the start line even if she wasn't brilliant. Sometimes I had to babysit the obstacles. Sometimes she took off flying. It was really a hit or miss kind of thing. She ended up getting Q's in both Colors and Wildcard, which resulted in getting her first Level 2 title (CTL2-H).





I was incredibly proud of her.

But then we ran into more problems. She started to get so distracted in class she couldn't work all that well. We tried to work through that and I brought her to a trial in July. It was hot and humid and so she was lackadaisical to start with. She refused to do anything on the first run at all. I decided to try her for one more run. Between runs, a couple of dogs went for her. They were on long lines and didn't make contact with her so I thought nothing of it. I wet her down, got her excited, and she took off flying from the start. Over a jump, right into a tunnel. I was so pleased. But then the end of the tunnel faced directly where the two dogs were. She stopped and could not work with those two dogs staring at her from the other side of the ring (some 20-30 feet away).

We ended up going home in shame. The judge stopped to talk to us about it because she couldn't figure out what had happened. She was moving so well and then just...nothing.

She got worse in class at that point. I had a couple weeks of classes where she simply would not move. Every little thing distracted her. It was a struggle and I was ready to throw in the towel. My instructor suggested taking time off of trials (which ultimately had to happen anyway as I had no money for them) and focusing on getting her used to dealing with distractions. She said there are two types of dogs in agility: (1) Dogs who are distracted from the get go and who need to be worked with on that right from the start and (2) Dogs who go out to several trials, do well, and then suddenly realize there are distractions there and shut down. Dahlia is the latter. One of her dogs was too, so she sympathized.

I ended up taking Dahlia down to the park with one single jump and a ball that velcros closed to hide treats in it. One jump, ball o' treats. Another jump, ball o' treats. We did this until she could get excited and do it every time in a quiet place. We did a couple weeks of it where no one was around.

Then we upped the ante and moved it to a busier area of the park. And then nearer to the kids playing on the playground. Then nearer to where some dogs were. Eventually I added more than one jump and was able to keep her focus even with her Daddy laying just underneath the jump with a wide-angle lens, which enabled us to get photos of her that looked like this.


 

Working on distractions also enabled me to get this photo. I never could recall her over a jump while facing her with a camera before.


 

Isn't she gorgeous?

So that helped, but it still didn't quite get her where I wanted her to be. So my instructor suggested teaching her to bark since barking is naturally exciting to dogs. Perhaps I'll discuss how I went about doing that in another post. But suffice it to say, I taught my super quiet dog how to bark on command.




This has freed her in ways I never would have imagined. She's become a happier more focused dog in class. She now barks at us to play and even recently barked at me to tell me she really really had to go out because she wasn't feeling well. She is a changed dog and I didn't think that was possible.




So what will this year hold? I don't know. I'm not making any goals except to enjoy the experience with my dog. We'll try to get back to at least a trial or two, depending on the state of my finances. If she's not the same joyful dog she is in class, then it may ultimately not be worth it. I'll take her to class and have fun with her. If she turns out to be just a dog who enjoys class settings and fun matches, then so be it! I'll be ok with that in the end. Because just watching her on that video, just seeing how far she's come, that is the important thing.

Agility photos

This weekend was beautiful. Temperatures near 60, sunny. It was the perfect day to take Dahlia out and get some photos of some of her new agility moves. I only have one jump (which I bought from Affordable Agility) and a cheap tunnel (which I got off eBay for a whopping $24!), but that was enough for some good photos.  As the person who has been working with Dahlia in agility class, I ran her through the jumps and tunnels.  Photos were taken by my partner.

The first thing I did was to set Dahlia up in front of the jump. I turned around and saw THIS look. I'm so glad we got a photo of it.  Some people thought this look was disgruntled.  But it's not.  It's her happy excited, something fun is going to happen crooked "Elvis grin."  I often get it when I pull out treats or grab a tug toy to play with.

(The bottom looks kind of weird and crooked because one of the bars of the jump was there.)


Dahlia looks up at me while I get her into position.



We started with the bar fairly low. She had to jump, but it wasn't a huge jump.



She cleared it rather easily.







So then we raised it up quite a bit. As you can see, she cleared THAT rather easily too. Go Dahlia!
>


Then we pulled out the tunnel. It can extend to 18 feet and bend, but we're not quite ready for it to bend just yet, so we left it out mostly extended and straight.











We went back to the jump for one last try.





And then got this!



Awww Mom I'm tired.



After that, she just basically collapsed into a puddle of Dahlia and we packed up and headed home.

It's a beautiful thing (aka A little bit of Rebel)

Ever since I began agility classes at the place I'm currently taking classes at, I've noticed a change come over Dahlia.  It happened quickly and it took me by surprise.  She was never a timid dog, but she was a soft dog who was overly sensitive to certain things: being run into, loud noises, and dogs who wanted to play rough, specifically.

I had her for over two years before we began classes here and she had yet to overcome any of these things.  Some of that was because I simply allowed to it be.  I didn't work on acclimating her to being run into.  I didn't work on getting her used to loud noises.  And I kept rougher dogs away from her.

The first of the trio of "issues" she has (being run into) has been successfully solved through this class.  We got her so involved in tug that I started to incorporate running into her as part of the game.  We'd play tug for a time and then I'd step forward and run into her side, or use my legs to manipulate her side.  She would hang into the tug and growl and start tugging harder.  It was a signal for "amp up the play, girl!" and she took to it brilliantly.  Once she was comfortable with my running into her during play, I would begin to run into her on purpose and then offer her the tug toy.  She'd grab onto it and play.  Now she sees running into her as a signal to play and she is instantly up and excited.  If I don't have a toy there, she settles right down.  But she's not shutting down and that's the important thing!

The second of the trio I'm only beginning to work on more, so we'll leave that for another day.

It's the third of this trio of "issues" that is the real subject of this post, though seeing her play with the tug toy the way she has been is also beautiful in and of itself.  But this last one, playing with dogs who are rough, has been something that has weighed on my mind for some time.  Generally, interaction with a wrestle play type dog goes like this:


1. Dog approaches.
2. Dahlia gets super excited about meeting this dog.
3. Dog jumps on Dahlia.
4. Dahlia issues a pretty clear warning growl.
5. Dog either persists and gets more warning growls or the owner pulls the dog away because my dog is "aggressive."  (This depends on the person at the other end of the dog's leash.  More knowledgeable people recognize the warning.  Less knowledgeable people think she's starting a fight.)

I've gotten used to this.  I really have.  And I've explained to other people so many times that my dog "is really just a chaser and doesn't like to be jumped on."  I've apologized countless times and tried to explain to the less knowledgeable that "no, she's really not aggressive...this is just how dogs communicate."

Saturday morning before class we saw one of the other dogs approach us.  Rebel is a lab puppy who is approximately 8 months old at this time.  Dahlia has met him before and he has certainly gotten the warning growl.  His owner is, thankfully, one of the more knowledgeable people and recognizes that Dahlia is helping to teach him something.  On Saturday morning Rebel clearly had a lot of excess energy to burn because as soon as he saw Dahlia and I, he took a flying leap...straight up into the air.  And then he came bounding toward Dahlia, alternately leaping in the air and rearing up.

I was expecting to experience my list above, step by step.

But I didn't get that.

Instead, he immediately rushed up and jumped on Dahlia.  Dahlia backed up briefly, but then launched herself at him with a big excited growly play face on and leapt on him.  She just pounced, like she pounces on her stuffed toys.  He jumped back.  She rushed forward and jumped on him again.  And they briefly wrestled.

It brought tears to my eyes.  Yes.  For real.  I admit to being a complete sucker when it comes to my dog.  Any time I see her grow like this, I get all teary-eyed.  I told Rebel's owner that this was amazing and I'd never seen her do that before.

And her response?

"I guess all she needed was a little bit of Rebel in her life."

Yes.  I think we all need a little bit of Rebel in our lives!