Making a Teeter Board-and you can drag it in the house or on the road!

It was pouring this last Saturday so I decided to make a little teeter board to play with Cricket on and to work on contact behavior with the other dogs in the house.



This is a SUPER SIMPLE teeter board, I made one in a couple of hours. You can use it in the house, take it on the road and use a different size pipe so the board suits your needs! I did think about cutting several different sizes and drilling the holes to match so I could change the pipes out, but then I thought I was getting a bit obsessive-I can put a board over my little jump bumps if I want a smaller drop.



1. First get a board-you will need to drill some bigger holes though this so I would get a softer wood, not oak-ask me how I know this....BUT anyway you can choose how big you want. I chose a 6 foot long board because I figured it would be big enough for my bigger dogs to hop on and practice their end contact behavior, and still small enough to be easily transportable and I can use it in my tiny, little, microscopic house on rainy days! I got a piece of pine 12 inches wide, 3/4 inch thick, and 6 feet long. You could get an inch thick board if you choose, or an eight foot or even a tiny little board if that suits your needs.




2. Next I went to the plumbing section and found some pipe that is the diameter you want. I took the pipe and put it on the floor, laid my board over it and saw if I liked the drop that I got with that pipe. They have 2 foot long sections of pipe. The pipe is easily cut with a handsaw, that just took a few seconds. I liked the 6 inch diameter pipe-it is a white pipe and in the same area as the pipe shown here that is 4 inches in diameter. The 6 inch pipe I got was a lot more expensive then the 4 inch pipe I have pictured here but it just seemed like it would meet my needs better.




3. I drew a line across the board from side to side in the middle of the board so I knew where to position the holes I was going to drill. I wanted them both in a straight line across the middle.
I also drew a line along the length of the pipe so I knew where to drill holes that were straight along the top of the pipe.

I drilled two holes in the pipe about 2 inches in from each side. I put a pen in the hole I had drilled in the pipe and made a mark on the bottom side of the board along the line I had drawn-this showed me where to drill so the holes would line up perfectly. I was using a 5/16 inch carriage bolt-which is pretty thick, so I started with a small drill bit, then drilled with a slightly bigger one and then an even bigger one-this prevents the wood from splitting.



4. I got a 5/16 inch carriage bolt that is 2 inches long, and a nut and washer. The carriage bolts are rounded on the top so there is nothing to catch on paws ;-D.










5. Next I put the carriage bolts through the holes, and then through the pipe to attach the two together, the bolt goes into the inside of the pipe, then you put the washer right next to the inside of the pipe and then the nut holds it all together.













6. Next I used this little dohickey tool, I believe it is a wrench ??? to tighten the nut on the inside of the pipe, I wanted it nice and tight so it stays stable!






7. Next comes the more fun part and we are on the homestretch! I sanded the sides, I like rounded edges and you want to make sure your board is not going to have splinters. The top of the board is going to be painted with a non slip surface--so do not worry too much about having a perfect top of your board, no one will ever know.

I like to buy the mis-mixed paint. There is usually a section by where they mix paint where they have marked down paint that was mixed with a color and then people changed their minds. It is always less then half the price of new paint, it is unused and perfectly good quality and most of the time I can find a color I do not mind for my agility equipment I make. Today when I went there were not as many good choices as usual, so I was skeptical about this peachy pink, but what the heck for $2 and it was a good quality paint... what the heck.





To paint my non slip surface, I first painted the board-
If I had been smart and had more patience, I might have painted the board AND THEN attached the pipe, but this worked out fine.
I painted the first coat as normal.
The second coat was painted on the top and then I put on some sand and sort of pushed it into the paint a little bit and let it dry.
I did two coats of paint mixed half and half with water, followed by another coat of paint.

Let dry and have fun!
I just sort of guessed on how to make this so of course feel free to adjust the sizes of things to your needs!

SILLY Cricket....

No I do not counter surf when my breakfast is being made....why would you say I did?









WORKING ON CONTACTS-HUMMM.....SOMETHING SEEMS WRONG......

Today I am grateful for training partners....

I am grateful for fun people to train with.

I met my training buddy Denise and her collie Kodi when she first started agility in Acton. She is taking lessons here with Deanna now so we get together at the yard and work when we can. The great thing about training with another person on an on going basis is they really get to know you and your dog and see things from the outside. Denise has been helping me figure out how to more accurately predict when Liz is going to stress and to figure out a strategy for working with that.

Last night that was put to the test when Denise ran Liz. There are very few people I would let run Liz because I am working so hard on not having her frustrated. Denise was AWESOME, she actually did better at doing small sequences of just a few obstacles and then catching and engaging Liz then I do-it was awesome and I learned a lot watching how she was able to work with Liz. I really thought I had been doing that but seeing Denise do it really brought home how I really am pushing past her threshold a little bit and then trying to get her back, I am better then I used to be, but Denise really did a great job of breaking things down. I asked how she had been able to do that when she had never really worked with Liz before and she said it was because she has watched Liz and I so much. Denise is a great dog trainer, she is newer to agility-but she has learned so quickly, I can not think of anyone else who knows Liz as well as she does and would have been able to do that so well.

Wow, what a good girl Liz was, she was happy to work with Denise and even came running when Denise called her. The cool thing was that Denise was stopping more frequently and getting Liz back to a thinking mode, almost no frustrated barking or Liz spinning around to yell, the second time running the same sequence Liz was getting the idea and settling in and able to do just a tad more, I am anxious to try doing more of that.

Who but someone who sits and watches lots of our practices and has a fresh perspective about what is going on, could have accurately seen exactly where Liz is about to go over threshold? Having people to train with is a TERRIFIC resource. THANKS SO MUCH DENISE FOR ALL YOUR HELP!






Cricket was awesome last night and while we were setting up a course she kept running through the dark green tunnel, in the shadows that was curved. I would never have asked her to go through there, it was dark, but little daredevil just kept running over and speeding on through the tunnel. We practiced the table and she will run for the table from a long way away when I tell her to GO TABLE, she is such a cutie!

A picture of Cricket with her beloved bed. This bed was in her crate on her flight here when I got her. She has long since outgrown it, but she will still curl up in it where ever she finds it, she piles her toys in it and just loves her little bed. I was taking pictures of her with her bed, and sort of playing with her bed with her in the morning, later in the day I took a picture of my daughter and Cricket got all excited, raced to the back room to find her bed and brought it back. Guess she liked playing with her bed and having pictures taken. Crazy puppy.

Happy Birthday Buddy-Liz turns 4!

Lizzie and I in Acton last summer when I was teaching-I do not have a lot of pictures of us together....

My best friend in the world has turned 4 years old. Looking back on this journey, who knew when I showed up at a little ranch in Temecula and saw this little split faced curly haired red/white dog how she would change my life. There have been times I did not know if I was up for this journey, but the things most worth while in life can be the things we have to work hardest for.

I have definitely not been the only one who has worked really hard. Liz is a special creature and as hard as I have worked to train her, she has worked just as hard if not harder to try to please me and to figure out what it is I want. It just has not been easy for her. How could I not love and admire a dog that always gives her all, it is just that some things I wanted from her she was just not mature enough, or able to give me, but it was never because she did not want to.....so we both hung in there and kept chipping away.

I have not been perfect at all, and I am still learning but Liz has taught me so many lessons about patience, and love, and being clear, knowing what you want and how to communicate that, and about how important it is to do what I feel is best and act/train in a way I feel good about -other people can think I am an idiot, or not understand why I will not push my dog or use methods that are against my principals of how I want to treat my friend....no one has to agree with me, it is between my dog and me. It has also forced me to define my own parameters of success, who cares what success means to others, Liz and I have our own little definitions and we feel like we are the most successful team in the world. A title or a few blue ribbons would not make me feel differently about either one of us when she cuddles up behind my head at night. We might get those things one day and we might not, but that is not the point of our relationship. Liz has really taught me to look for the little steps, and by making me more consistent and clear with my self and my dogs, she has made me a much better trainer and friend. I wish all this had come easy to me, but I had to be dragged kicking and screaming because I am a real people pleaser and when I felt more unsure there were so many people anxious and eager to tell me all the things I was doing wrong, LOL.

We celebrated Liz birthday by starting our new agility classes.
OH MY GOODNESS-overnight she has just really been maturing very quickly. She did so good during her class, she worked the entire time and did not run off or do any zoomies. This was a class I thought would be way over her head so I would have to just do bits and pieces, but she was awesome and the most comfortable I have ever seen her.

The next day Breeze was not able to go to her class...an even higher level and there was a very hard course, but only two dogs showed for class. I took Liz and figured it would just be a good time to watch what we were missing since Breeze could not be there, and I would use it as an opportunity to work on some small sequences with Liz, nothing too hard. Well, because of the small class and how well she was doing we were able to run her the whole class. A first-two classes in two days and she was amazing. In Breezes class there were some skills she had never been taught because this was a higher level but Deanna patiently helped us work through those and Liz was able to take the frustration of learning some new skills that were not that easy for her.

I have to say that as we hit the four year mark and she is growing up, I almost miss the wild little youngster and the journey because it was so intense, and what a trip to just keep working and having no idea if any of this would all come together, I did not know if I would ever be able to even keep her safe. I wish I could go back and do that all without the worry and knowing it would all be ok, then I could have enjoyed her young years even more. I really do not think that Liz is able to do more now because of anything I have done, I think that she has just matured, her milestones just seem to come over night and I think she just needed to grow and mature at her own timetable. Liz has changed my life and I am really lucky to have been forunate enough to have my world shaken up by a little red headed whirlwind-she has definitely done that and I am better for it.

Susan Salo puppy jumping work-Session 1

Susan Salo- PUPPY JUMPING

http://www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.cfm?ID=DTA345 Dogwise carries this video and if you look on the site there is a link to get a preview of the video ;-).

these are a few of my notes as I was watching this.

This work is designed to start with puppies at 4-6 months of age. This is the formative age for learning problem solving. This work is really designed more for teaching the problem solving not necessarily jumping. This will help with spacial orientation and puppies learn this very quickly. Dogs that learn this as adults may struggle with this and will have a much harder time learning.

Dogs growth plates and the muscle attachments are not totally formed until at least 18 months of age-so go slow with any jumping and things that require a lot of physical work. This work is done using speed jump bumps-no height. The jump bumps are 4" diameter PVC cut in half or the larger ones are 8" diameter cut in half.

Let the puppy experience things in different ways and different surfaces-jump bumps are easy to haul around to new places.

When puppies go through awkward phases do other training, you want to empower the puppy and make sure they are successful.

Use a target, it is only possible to pay close attention to one thing at a time and you want the dog to be paying attention to what they are doing, head forward and looking down. You stand by the target and they will be paying attention but you want them paying attention to their job not to you. As time goes on you will proof by adding in your motion, but to start with the dog needs to concentrate on what they are doing.

Always release the dog when they are focused on the target, not on you.

Here is cute little Cricket. Stays are not our strongest suit and I did not want this to be about that...so I got a helper to hold me, but you will see by the time we got to the second time of jumping my helper magically disappeared, LOL. How does that happen? Guess my daughter does not find puppy jump training very exciting, and I did not sufficiently motivate her....so we did the best we could.

Watching the video (I wanted to make video to be able to see the progress as we go along), I thought it was cool to see her figure out that the jump bump was not just in her way, first she almost steps on it, then she strides over it, then she finally figures out how to go over it, hummm, puppy problem solving.

Breeze is looking better today- YIPPIE!

Breeze went in to our terrific holistic vet, Dr. Modglin for a check to see WHY she is limping when ever she does agility lately.

Good news----she could not find anything serious, her hips are way out of alignment, but that is not that unusual for her, her back is pretty good considering (that is where she really shows it when she has been hurting a lot)

Bad news--might just be the weather, which might mean the arthritis is developing more??? The weather has never bothered her before. Or we were doing a lot of weave entry stuff and that really seems to be bothering her....so hopefully as the weather gets better and she has a little time off that will get better-but if it is that pushing off and torking her body to get into the weaves that is hurting her...not sure how we will handle that long term, but guess we will cross that bridge if it comes.

Breeze got an acupuncture and a chiro adjustment and is going to be rechecked in two weeks and in the meantime we are just working on the back end exercises, working on her core work on the exercise ball, and just taking things slow.

Someone asked about Breeze, and she is 3 1/2 years old now. She has bilateral hip dysplasia that was diagnosed when she was a year old. I knew there was something wrong right when I got her, and my vet also felt there was something wrong, but I kept hoping I was wrong. Right when Breeze turned a year old I had her OFA xray done and the dysplasia was confirmed.

She had about a long period of time where she had a lot of injuries and just had a lot of trouble, and her last big injury was a partially torn ACL which took forever to get healed. I took Breeze to a really terrific rehab vet who set up a full program for Breeze to get her through that injury and then to keep her strong. For the last 9 months Breeze has actually done really well. My vet Dr. Modglin had told me early on that a lot of dogs like Breeze will have a lot of injuries and a hard time when they are young, then go through a pretty quiet couple of years before they have more trouble as they are older. So hopefully we will keep in this relatively quiet period for Breeze for a lot of years, or maybe the rest of her life?


So Breeze is on Adequain shots every month, Cosequin, Sam E, Omega oils, Glucosamine, her Back on Track jacket that is supposed to increase blood flow and reduce inflammation, core exercises to protect her back and exercises like sits to stands, crawling, walking, back end awareness stuff....and acupuncture and Chiro adjustments every week or two when she is having problems and at least every 2 months when things are going well.


Breeze is a very cool dog but I always feel like I have to walk the line with her, keeping her mentally and physically healthy. The vets have said doing agility is good as long as we are really careful with her. I know a lot of people just say run her and no big deal, but she is my buddy and she is with me for the rest of her life and I want to make sure she lives a really good life without a lot of pain for her whole life. Keeping her healthy and mentally happy is the big goal for her life.


Breezes appointment was yesterday and today I took her out and did a very small amount of agility and she looks a lot better after her treatment, YIPPIE!

BREEZE HOW I LIKE TO SEE HER-FEELING GOOD, I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER TODAY SEEING HER LIKE THIS!

Little Victories that mean a ton to me....

whoo hoooo Liz, I am so proud of her....
I took her to Lowes and was walking around the store with a cart looking for materials for the next DIY project..

She was so awesome. The leash was loose the entire way around the store. Even going past people very closely she was focused more on me-in the past she feels it is her duty to say Hello to EVERYONE. While I was looking through the wood she held a stay, even with people walking right by her, that is so huge for her.

The most awesome part of the trip came at the end. We had been working for awhile and we both spied an employee that wanted to say HI to Liz. I stopped and Liz totally reoriented to me instead of launching into the lady-just automatically looked to me to see what I wanted. I indicated she could go and say HI, and Liz still sat looking at me, with her back to the lady until I clearly said BREAK-her release word. I could tell how much self control Liz was using, she got up and scooted to the lady and sat, she was wiggling with a lot of her body but I did not even have to tell her to stay seated, she popped into a sit and sat very nicely for her pets. She is really starting to understand and working so hard to do what I have asked her to do, my heart just swells to see how hard this dog is working.

Liz turns 4 in two days...and has her new agility class tomorrow. It is a class that is definitely above her level but the only one that would work, so I will have to fight off my impatience and keep the real goals in mind and be willing to break down the courses and stop when she needs rewards or things broken down for her, not when I would like to---I hope I am up for the challenge and will remember what the real goals are.

I have made a commitment to take her to the agility yard at least 5 days a week even if I have to get up early. I want to just work on her connecting with me, clicking for attention and doing just two or three obstacles and staying connected. I think even though that is the yard we use for class, the more used to paying attention and working with me without stressing out and without doing zoomies it will help so she can work in that yard and hopefully that will get her used to working like that at all times when she is doing agility and eventually working like that will carry over to other yards ;-). That is the plan.

Cricket has been going to a new location or store every day to work too, she is getting more ready for a little more distraction and new places. She had a HUGE breakthrough moment in a different Lowes earlier in the day--she was able to walk past some KIDS-her highest value people--and look to me without automatically lunging to jump on them-we walked right past them, yippie! It is really cool she wants to say Hi to everyone and wants to be such an ambassador but I would like her to start getting used to having to ask to go and say HI, so she does not feel like EVERYONE needs to say HI to her. Believe it or not, not everyone is happy when my dogs jump on them, imagine that!

Loose leash walking is actually going really well with both of these girls-Liz and Cricket. I am using a program from a book by Brenda Aloff called Getting Connected With your Dog. It has not been the easiest book for me to just sit and read in order...so I have read a little here and a little there and got some good ideas on teaching the loose leash walking-but I am looking forward to reading the full thing. One big light bulb moment is when she said that you should keep your leash a uniform length when the dog is on leash. If your leash is short sometimes and really long others then your dog HAS to pull to figure out how far they can go out, where if you keep your leash basically the same length then the dog knows how far away from you they can get and still keep the leash loose.

RIP poor little Dremmel, gone well before it's time...

JUMP BUMPS:


I have to say I am feeling more then a little embarrassed. Today I did myself proud with my DIY skills. I have the Susan Salo Puppy Jumping Foundation video and it looks like it has some very interesting things to work on....so I decided to get a few jump bumps the program calls for. Sounds like a pretty simple thing, they are just a couple of 46 inch long 4" diameter schedule 40 PVC pipes cut in half, and a couple of 8" pvc pipes cut in half length wise.

I looked around and I have enough of the larger jump bumps out of the 8" pvc, so I looked on the Internet to buy a few more small jump bumps. YIKES, in my opinion they seemed pretty expensive for what they were and the shipping was enough to make my hair curl. Well, I am not going to be taken advantage of that way, LOL! I am no fool, and how hard could making something like that be?

Next I called someone who has a husband who has tools and might do a little odd job. He gave me a quote of $100 for 4 of each size. That still seemed very high to me, or maybe just more then I had to spend, so I went all the way out to the middle of nowhere to our local industrial pipe store. They were very nice and had the pipe in 20 foot lengths which would yield 10 jump bumps for $35, AND they would cut it to length but they were unable to cut it in half lengthwise, so I had half the cutting done anyway. This way I could get just the size I really needed and look how much money I could save.

Not a problem. I asked my hubby to ask his friend if we could give him $20 to cut the pipes in half and of course my husband promptly forgot and it has been weeks and I really got tired of waiting for him and did not want to pull out my nagging routine, it just did not seem worth it and I had other bigger things to nag about anyway.

I have a friend that offered use of her jigsaw if I got a blade, but I never can get ahold of her and I have not seen her in a long time, so who knows how long I would have to wait to go that route-and once I got ahold of her then I would have to figure out what type of blade, you get the picture and I am sure you are seeing what the problems would be for an impatient person such as myself if I wanted to go that route.

Next I thought hey, I got this dremmel, how hard could it be. Another $10 for a cutting wheel and some blades and I was on my way. Well, it actually does work, but the PVC dust is horrible, little bits were flying all over and I went through about a million blades that would split and break and just do some very impressive flights all across the house. I started smelling a little hot smell,......I figured it was the PVC dust right by where the motor was, so I wiped it off and kept going. I was not using the best judgement at that point-I just wanted it done. Minutes later there was a lot of smoke and I got the feeling flames were just seconds away (it had a horrible burning smell that filled the house)...the dremmel was DEAD. I will probably never get the PVC dust out of my nose or hair or eyes...that was not pleasant.

So, because of my impatience and wanting to actually have these before Cricket is grown I spent:
$35 for the PVC for the small bumps-enough to make 10 (I had to buy a 20 foot length)
$10 for the dremmel bit and blades
$40 -at least that is what I am guessing the dremmel cost-it was a nice one with a more powerful motor.
?? Heavens knows the cost to my health with the pvc dust and the aggravation..
YEP, I am such a smart consumer, LOL, guess I did not save anything in the long run.

The results- 6 small jump bumps and 2 pipes still waiting to be cut in half to yield 4 more jump bumps. I am thinking I should not have been so impatient or so cheap ;-), and come up with a better plan. I guess since I still have more pipes I will get to figure out another idea, hummm, how about using the dremmel I have for the dogs nails, LOL, (YIKES, please someone hide that dremmel from me, I can not afford to replace that one). I wish I could say I learned a lesson from my impatience, but I would not really put money on that.

Agility uses many skills, and I figure soon I am going to have to take a shop class! Who knew when I got into agility it would call on so many different skills?

I would give an opinion about the puppy foundation jump skills video....but it has been so long since I watched it and originally started trying to get my things together to do it, that I will have to rewatch it to really remember enough to sound intelligent discussing it-so I will rewatch it and take the jump bumps I do have and then post about it, I am sure everyone will be holding their breath for that, hahahahaha.