Any ideas on Breeze's latest quirk?

Look in any dictionary and right there next to the definition for QUIRKY will be a picture of my Breeze. Breeze is a great dog but she does have her little quirks for sure. So the newest quirky is a twist on an old quirk.

I really could use some ideas on how to handle it so she does not get hurt and so this behavior doesn't become a ingraned habit that will be harder to handle. It is quickly becoming a habit and I did try to tell her to stop it, but she was not listening, LOL.

Breeze has always had a bit of seperating anxiety. She used to have some full blown seperation anxiety as a pup but I worked with it and she does fine when I am gone, but she will panic when I am leaving her say in a crate in the car when I take one of the other dogs out, or when I leave our little camp at a trial and she is in her crate and even the last few days when I walk the course in class. She was always a little panicky but did ok if I sort of covered her and did not make a big deal of comings and goings-the things we origionally did to handle her seperation anxiety as a pup. So that has worked fine until lately and now she is getting in the habit of sitting and rubbing her nose against the bars or side of the crate until it bleeds. It looks horrible and she is really making the cut deeper and deeper. This just started and I do not want it to become a real habit. She is uninterested in chewing on bones or anything like that when this is going on. I had the vet look at it yesterday and she told me what I could put on it, but it sure seems like it is quickly becoming a habit of hers. She has only been doing it a week or two but now she is doing it every time I leave her. Yesterday I had to leave her in the crate while I took Skyler in to get blood drawn and came out to fresh blood all over her now. I have thought of just mostly leaving her out on a mat in a stay for when I can do that but I can not do that all the time. Last weekend at the trial I put her in a soft crate and she still got her nose bloody.

As far as good news for the Breezie girl, ...I took her for her acupuncture and chiro adjustment and keep in mind she has been working more then she ever has...and Dr. Modglin said she feels more in alignment and better balanced then she ever has. YIPPIE, she is holding up really well even with the increased amount of agility. I think the warm weather is really helping.





SPARKY UPDATE-I have worked my little computer to the bone and think I may have found something to help little Sparky from my post yesterday. Please everyone say a little prayer because this could be cool for the little guy...I think I have figured out who his owner is and now just to find how to get ahold of them...and if I am right Sparky came from a very good life, so hopefully we can get him hooked up with is old life-I just have a feeling about poor Sparky so I am praying this all works out.

CHECK THOSE TAGS....your dogs life could depend on it...

This is Sparky, a purebred Westie. At least I am assuming this is Sparky....Poor guy has almost no chance of living to the end of the week ;-(-unless a little miracle happens, and that makes me sick to my stomach. Sparky STINKS to high heaven, I am sure with all that must have happened with him in the last few days he must have had a little upset stomach and so he had some diarrhea and his little butt is all caked with poo. And he really is not matted, his coat is actually in pretty good condition, he has been fairly recently groomed, and he is a little chunky, someone has been feeding him a little too well. Sparkys eyes are a little cloudy, but his teeth look like he is younger, like I am guessing about four or five???

So this is the part that makes me really feel sick. Sparky had a collar on when he got picked up as a stray. A collar with a READABLE tag, with his name and phone number and address. So WHY is Sparky still sitting at the shelter with little chance of walking out? Well, the tag has a phone number from a city about 1 1/2 hours away and it is disconnected. He was picked up in a Hesperia, CA. I spent all afternoon yesterday googling and I found what I believe is his owners name, but everything lists their address as the address that is on the collar, and I can only find the phone number that is on the tag and it is disconnected. I even talked to a mail man at agility class last night to see if he could help me find any sort of new address or forwarding info for these people. The shelter told me they sent a letter to the address on the tag and have received no response. What I am GUESSING is that these people moved and Sparky got out, but no one has come looking. It might be that they just are not that concerned but what makes me feel so bad is what if they do care? And Sparky is not going to get another home, this shelter is a very high kill shelter and he is stuck in the corner and he is pretty depressed, and he is pretty ugly looking right now.

WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP A TAG IN GOOD CONDITION ON THEIR DOG AND NOT UPDATE THE INFORMATION? Ughghghg. It could mean a dogs life, so I hope everyone will look at their dogs tags and make sure they are READABLE, CURRENT, and I really like to put a couple of phone numbers and even usually put a friends cell in case something happens on vacation or something like that. My favorite tags that I use for all my dogs now is the boomerang tags-I like the collar tags because they do not make noise, the dogs do not get them caught in anything and no chance of teeth getting caught on them when they are playing (I have wild players) and I have some of these tags that have been on my dogs for years and they look like the day I got them. I have never had one come off, and they are super easy to move from one collar to another if I want to change collars, so I got one of two or three sizes for each dog, then when I switch collars I just find the size for that collar stick it on and my dogs are all set with their ID. I can get a lot of info and numbers on these tags which is a huge thing. http://www.boomerangtags.com/






Another thing I wish people did is to make some sort of concrete plans for what happens to their dogs if the unthinkable happens and we are hurt or die. This morning I am taking Maynard whose owner died a couple of days ago, they had made arrangements for Maynard-another westie, a 4 yr old male. The son had been instructed to make arrangements for his breed rescue to take him and they left a donation to make sure he would get taken in. Two months ago I had a pair of female westie sisters that the owners loved. The owners were 80 years old when the family got them the two sisters as puppies for a birthday gift, ughghhg. One of the parents was taking care of the other who had altzheimers. The care giver spouses health was going down hill so they made arrangements for the rescue I work with to take the dogs in so the sisters who had always been together would get a good home and would stay together. The caregiven made a sudden down hill slide and had to go to the hospital and so the other spouse was sent to a home and the dogs were left in the house by themselves. The family who were put out having to handle their parents sudden change of circumstances went back to the parents home and just let the dogs out, loose to fend for themselves. I tried to catch the dogs but animal control got ahold of them first, and the sisters did find homes, I was able to get one for the rescue but another lady took the other one so they did end up seperated but at least they ended up safe. Anyway, always good to tell someone what you would like done with your dog so that they are safe even if we can not be there with them. Glad Maynards owners thought about him in advance and he will be going to San Diego today to be groomed then to meet his new adoptive family.

So what will happen to Sparky. I don't know. If this was my shelter that is by my house, I have worked there as a volunteer doing temperment testing and I know them and I know they would let me take little Sparky and get him cleaned up so he had a chance. This particular shelter will not let anyone touch the dogs. I talked to the kennel worker there and offered to pay for grooming, and she said that if the grooming van was able to get there she would try to get him in. Dogs like Sparky don't have a lot of safety nets, lots of people are willing to adopt young, great looking dogs, but poop encrusted middle aged dogs are not so lucky, and then there are dogs like Maynard that are the lucky dogs-that one is a good story I guess ;-).

Breeze and her Bling

I made Breeze try to wear her bling she got this weekend, LOL, she really was not impressed, but the ball she found while I was trying to put those ribbons on her went over better!

Another standard Q and a first, and then an ....interesting run, LOL

Quick trial update: 2 days, 4 runs, 3 firsts and 3 Q's, one title! Not too bad. 3 start lines beautiful, one well..., three contacts done wonderfully and a pretty iffy dog walk contact on the second day. two times we got the weaves first time and two times I had to restart the weaves, so you know what we will have to work on!

Quite a roller coaster for our second trial day. It was a rainy morning, and then a sort of hot and muggy afternoon. It was still very quiet at the trial venue because it is Friday, and by the time I had to be there the excellent people who are most of the trial....;-) were leaving. I did not see a lot of familiar faces, so it was a good day to meet people. I brought Cricket and Breeze. Cricket did pretty good with her relaxation work and just hanging out. Breeze did not pee all day which was worrisome and right before she went in for the second run I was really imagining her peeing in the ring because she was doing a lot of sniffing, but she just would not go. I told her she better hold it for another minute if she was not willing to go the million times I took her out-scouting out the best looking pee spots, LOL. We had hours, and hours between our two runs which was rough....but what is new?

So since I really only knew a handful of people and most of the people I talked to were running in my run....no video ;-(.

First run-
A run to be remembered, no Q but a lot of laughs and I wish I could say a learning experience,....but not a lot of training going on in that run.



Actually really seemed like and walked like a very easy course. I had what I thought was a FANTASTIC plan, and I felt very good. I should have known that would spell trouble with a capital "T".



I lined Breeze up and stood on the take off side of the second jump, and the plan was to decelerate-make sure she was in handler focus mode-stand all the way to the side and make sure I was pointing way past the right side to go in the tunnel-we do lots harder discrimination. Well, ....I do not know if I did not decelerate and just thought I did (which is what I suspect), or if my feet were pointing the other way, or who knows because Breeze took off of the start line-BREAKING HER STAY (not by much, but she did!) and shot into the wrong side of the tunnel. It was really all over then, but Breeze and I bravely carried on. LOL.

The rest of the run is what comedy shows are made of. Maybe I thought I was doing a video on what not to do in an agility run. Ughghghghg. When Breeze came out of the tunnel I tried to put her in the right side, well, she turned and came back out...I put her back in,

This is the point that I should have just sat back and maybe even left the ring??? Or at least slowed down and taken a breath because at that point we were going down hill fast. So when Breeze came out correctly she did not drive to the jump at the top of the pin wheel. I went WAY out to support it, and I knew so much better but I was out so far that I did a front cross on the TAKE OFF side of the wing that was the third jump of the pin wheel. Not only did I make that tragic mistake, but I was way to the inside of a WING jump doing that silly maneuver. So with my fast long strided dog I found myself with no way to get around the wing on the jump and hopelessly behind and we were just at the start of the course. I raced around the wing and by that time Breeze is STANDING at the jump that goes around into the arc of jumps, we missed the weave entrance, everything that could go wrong did.

The only good thing about that run is :
A. It ended

B. No one was hurt-except a little embarrassed (me)

C. With how frustrating that must have been for Breeze to be trying to run fast and
to listen when there were NO directions that made sense coming from me MY BABY DOG
STILL RAN FAST AND KEPT WORKING. That takes a lot of drive and heart....Chloe my
first dog would have stopped and stood them until I got my crap together, and Lizzie would have left.

I am usually pretty good about going into another plan and can usually save a lot of runs, I think I am pretty good about substituting a front cross for a back, or decelerating at just the right minute but you would not have believed that if you saw us today.

NEEDLESS TO SAY NO Q AND MY FAST BORDER COLLIE....HAD 4 TIME FAULTS, LIKE 4 REFUSALS, 3 WRONG COURSES, WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE?


After that run I would have liked to go home and take a bath, LOL. But noooo we still had a standard run.



I was pretty calm and the ring nerves had gone, like how could it go any worse then our first run...knowing that made it a little ....freeing...although it did keep crossing my mind...what if we do that all the time??? YIKES!

The standard run looked wonderful on paper, but when we walked it, it was brutal. The challenges on this course were the two first jumps were a real hard angle, and then there was very little place to turn your dog for the dog walk. If you had a huge lead out and Susan Garrett type arms where you could switch one hand then the other to signal different directions it would have been neat handled as a serpentine, but we don't have those skills and it is not something we would do. I had to settle for putting Breeze way over to the side of the jump and standing in just the right place so it was a straight line over the first two jumps, then run toward the dog walk and depend on her object recognition and rear cross the dog walk. I was not sure she would have enough momentum catching the dog walk to handle the rear cross and I did not want her to get hurt if she fell off or pulled off ;-(. Anyway, she did that marvelously. At the end of the dog walk she did not want to do her contact and I had to STOP, but it was after a few steps, I made her hold her down for a second, but I think that is where I got called for a refusal of the next jump.....what ever!

The last BIG hard part was that Aframe was all the way across the ring from the chute. Yikes, with a fast dog in high acceleration, I had to pull her over to the teeter, yell at her to stop on the end and do a rear cross while she held her teeter. People with small dogs that were slower were doing some pretty front crosses after the chute, but I just could not get there. After the teeter I slowed Breeze down on purpose and managed the weaves so she got the entry first time. I did not want to do that, she should be able to do it herself but she is not catching those first poles the first time when she gets all hyped up running a course. Another thing to work on.

ANYWAY, WE GOT A Q AND A FIRST, ONE REFUSAL, BUT IT WAS FAST AND IT WAS GORGEOUS.
After our disastrous first run, it was cool!

Weird as it might sound I am SOOOOOO glad to have such a disastrous run out of the way. It was sooooo UGLY, and I have never run a course even in class like that...not anytime that I remember...maybe when I first started??? It felt strangely like a relief though to have something handled that bad and to see no one even noticed, no one cared, and the few people that commented or were paying attention just shook their head and I knew in that moment they were letting me know they had been there before too!!! And I was so proud of my doggie to be out there trying so hard when she was getting nothing useful from me. So hope we don't have many more repeats of that run...but it did not kill me!

Oh soooo luckily there might be a video of that run out there, LOL. A friend thinks she got it on her Iphone, and I would like to see it so I can tell for sure what went so wrong, but not sure I will have the courage to post that little lovely thing. LOL.

CP BLEW BREEZE NAJ, TN-N...its official!

Thanks everyone for the well wishes-they seem to have worked!!!

I got to the trial about 12:30, it was a one ring trial so novice check in was not until 1:30, which made for a long day. I think it was about 4pm when I finally got to run.

I did a good job of keeping my nerves in check, although I had a little upset tummy when I woke up in the morning, but I did not do too bad I think in the ring nerves department.

JUMPERS
First up was Novice Jumpers with weaves. Ann Croft judging. I left my course map at the trial so I do not have a course map ;-(. It was not a bad course and the biggest challenge was a point where you had to do a rear cross into the weaves and it was a hard angle. Breeze Held her start line stay, did the first part which was a pinwheel, then you drove to the jump that you had to rear cross-let the dog float out into the weaves....Breeze tried but she caught the second pole, so good girl, got right out and re approached with some gorgeous weaves. next there was an arc of jumps going out to a non wing jump, so the biggest challenge there was to RUN LIKE HELL, so I could support that jump that was WAY out there, with no wings so harder to see, then there was another rear cross and the last jump off at an angle. It was gorgeous, take a look for yourself on video....well, there is only video of the ground, the camera did not get turned on, so like the fish that got away you will have to believe me when I say it went without a hitch. No spins, no whirls, no frustrated barking, I was pretty silent, no waving arms, yippie. The course time was 48 seconds, and we ran it in 24:11, and that included the refusal at the weaves.

SOOOOOO WE GOT OUR NOVICE JUMPERS WITH WEAVES TITLE, making Breeze officially CP Blew Breeze NAJ, TN-N. Whoo hooo, so that means we go to open tomorrow in jumpers with weaves.



STANDARDFirst and our first ever Q in standard. Standard course time was 79 second and we did it in 43 seconds. One refusal for the table.

Second course was right after the first, the building was scary silent by then, and I could hear all my commands so well, it was weird.

First challenge wss a tire as the first obstacle, followed by a wing and a weird angle to the Aframe.
Mistake one-I wish I had led out a few LESS feet, maybe right before the wing, I was worried about her going around the tire, she didn't but that would have supported that more and what was I in a hurry for? I knew she would go to the aframe, so if I hung back and ran with her I do not think she would have started running for me and then I had to push her out a little bit and made the approach to the Aframe a little less pretty.

Excellent contact on the Aframe, she was rock solid.

Mistake TWO-I have been practicing the table with my table in the back yard and duhhhh, I left the high legs on it, AND this is another point I feel I should have hung back and not tried to get so far ahead, the lateral distance did nothing for me except make it harder to show movement to the table. So she refused the table, but once on she did her sit (I never train the sit so I was concerned over that one).

Next good thing is from the table to the weaves, I let her know right away, but she missed the entrance again, but she came back and caught them and did some gorgeous weaves.

Still more good things, a slight decel to let Breeze know to switch to handler focus and not keep blasting into the dog walk...which looked to make sense, so she read the turn to the chute, and I did another good thing yelling tunnel way early so as she came out from the chute she knew she was heading for the tunnel.

NEXT BAD THING-I did not push out on her line out of the tunnel, or go in and support her line to the teeter,....bad handler!

Next good thing was I know she almost blasted off the dog walk without doing her mat behavior, but I stopped and made her hold it for a second.

BAD THING, I was concerned about the broad jump, we never do those and this one looked way different then anyone we have ever seen....so I think I just sort of did not keep driving forward after the broad jump, or perhaps I should have just front crossed after the dog walk, I did get a spin and a bark before the last obstacle, so Breeze did not know where she was going--bad handler--too little info ;-).




ANYWAY, we met our goals, contacts and start lines stayed awesome, I was glad I did not have to do any longer lead outs because I was trying to set Breeze up for success. Weaves, well, she was not checking her stride and catching the first pole either time,...so guess we will still need some work on that! All in all I am very happy with both of us!!! I think we did good, not perfect but very good!

Poor Mini Me,...not safe from the Cricket

Tomorrow Breeze makes her debut run in a Standard run. I was working with a trainer who did not feel we should run Breeze on the dog walk because she was a bit of a spazz-so she has not done a standard run. I went home and trained lots of rear end awareness and playing on the board, then we spent the autumn and winter with frequent injuries,...but now she is ready to go....I hope ;-). So this will be our first standard run, and Ann Croft will be judging (she wrote the articles on Four on the Floor contacts that I used to train them originally) so how cool would it be if our Four on the floor works and looks pretty? I am not counting on it though, Breeze has been doing FANTASTIC with her contacts...but she always gets really over excited and it could all fall apart once we get into a trial. My goals for tomorrow and Friday are the weave entries, we have worked a lot on Breeze being able to check her stride and hit the entries, so hopefully....the contacts-hopefully they will hold up in the excitement of a trial and the start line. The start line is the iffy one, if Breeze feels a little nervous she will break and go around the first jump, so we have been working and lots of rewards for holding the start line until released and for going over the first jump...so we will see. So my goal is not to Q but to make sure my training holds up in the ring-so wish us luck!


The fun part of having a black/white border collie after having two more unusual looking dogs is.....YOU CAN GET LITTLE TRINKETS THAT LOOK LIKE YOUR DOG, LOL. This is a Build a Bear Border Collie, I got this way before I got Cricket, I thought I would get a cute like picture with Cricket ...seriously I thought she would just sit and get her picture taken....like what was I thinking...have I met Cricket??? I should have known, no sweet little sitting pictures today.



Check out that EVIL look she is giving that stuffed dog, hummm...what shall I do to that silly thing first?


As soon as I snapped the first picture Cricket grabbed poor Mini Me and ran to the chair-


Poor Mini Me was manhandled in the space of seconds...I have a sound box that barks in the poor stuffed dog, and Cricket thought the mini me was magical and was egging her on, just daring her to tear her stuffing out...



There is no mercy for stuffed dogs when Cricket is around...





Time to rescue poor Mini Me before my Build a Bear border collie is permanently damaged ;-) .

Foundation Seminar VOD has me thinking about my own handling system

I have been fascinated by handling systems trying to understand what the deal was for about the last year or two. I love to discuss handling systems or read about them, but it is not a popular topic of conversation and I notice if I bring them up most people get a glazed look in their eyes-on the surface I think they do seem pretty boring but gosh it is so interesting if you figure out the handling system you want to use and really try to understand it, and I think understanding it makes life so much more fun for the dog because a good system eliminates confusion, and who wants to run around while they are confused?.

Recently Diana http://4dogcraziness.blogspot.com/ posted that she was watching the Linda M. Handling Foundation seminar, (Awesome Paws Handling System) and the price had been discounted to $75 (from $175), and you now get a week to watch it (you used to just get 48 hours). http://www.awesomepaws.us/ I have read the series of articles and Linda's jumping book, and struggled to learn the APHS so I had always wanted to watch the seminar, but sitting for six hours with less then 48 hours and paying all that money if I could not get through it....those things always kept me from paying for the VOD until I saw Diana's post. I had an instructor that was teaching APHS when I started the border collies out, which was when I started to understand WHAT a handling system was, and why I wanted to bother learning about it, it was the system I learned with when I really started trying to understand handling-in another hundred years I am sure I will have a pretty good understanding, LOL.


I had originally trained Chloe in classes where I was not taught that I was using a handling system-I had no idea I was using a system, but I was....so I really was originally taught using a Gregg Darrett handling system, although I did not know that at the time. Because the dogs in my class are handled with GD, I really notice there are some things they do that seem easier for them and their dogs, and there are some things my dogs ROCK doing that are very hard for the other dogs (I love when that happens), so always good and bad. But I have to say I LOVE my handling system and really love its benefits.

Why use a handling system and what is the point of having one? Well, I just think it gives you some structure and helps you make sure you are being consistent in your cues and how you handle your dog. Consistency makes for confident, fast dogs. Consistent cues in your handling system keeps you from training your dog NOT to do something one day and then asking them to do it the next in another situation and then not understand why the dog gets confused, or stops listening to you, or slows down because they do not feel confident of what is going to happen. It is like driving with a person that has a habit of yelling to turn NOW at the last second, soon you do not trust them to tell you when to get on the right freeway, you will probably slow down, drive in the right hand lane and do a lot of the sign reading yourself.


At first it was REALLY hard in class to stay consistent because Deanna usually gives her explanations based on what would work in a GD handling system, I would work on something in class and go home and think about it and realize that I have really disregarded some of the concepts of my handling system so I have to rethink and be happy Breeze is very forgiving. Some days it feels like I speak a foreign language and it feels like Deanna my instructor is speaking French-or GD, I need to listen and translate it to my home language English-or APHS, then re translate it to French to ask Deanna how to handle it and state the problems that I am having in relation to my system and how can I make it work and not be inconsistent so my dog stays happy and knows what I am doing. Deanna my instructor understands her handling system VERY WELL and the basics of APHS so she does try to help me out and when I feel stuck and am not sure how to handle something, but I think because she understands her system of handling so well, it is easier for her to help me with mine ;-).



So watching Linda's foundation video, I had my own V8 moment as soon as the video was on about five minutes, so I knew right away the money I had spent was SOOOOOO Well, worth it. I have been having a trouble with the backy up move, where you go up to a jump, maybe move backwards a few steps, open your shoulders and that is a cue to the dog that they need to collect and come around the jump to my side and we will go on. Breeze has been running RIGHT up to the jump, to where she is almost hitting it and STOPS COLD. A definite refusal, and of course the silly dogs fault.....OR WAS IT???? Yep you guess it, MY FAULT TOTALLY, I was forgetting forward motion, it all of a sudden hit me I go up there, think my dog really used to be terrific at that and I start thinking about where I am going next or worse yet stopping, Breeze reads my motion soooo well, that she just stops, wow, how cool would that be if I needed to pull her off a jump, LOL, not so cool when I want her to go over, but she was being a good doggie and doing exactly what I taught her. That is sort of the basic rule of my handling system and here I have been messing it up and did not even realize it, whoops! So how easily fixed is that, I just have to show forward movement toward the jump, even if I walk backwards toward the jump to do it. Whooo hoooo!

I was also really interested in watching the foundation video because Cricket is getting to that age where I have to make some decisions soon how I want to train her for agility. Unfortunately the classes they have here, based on GD use a lot of methods that are really not going to work if I want to train Cricket with the system I currently use, so the bummer is that I will probably have to train her at home, and with some privates occasionally as I can afford them until she has started trialing and is ready for the advanced handlers classes here locally. I have not had to train a dog from scratch totally by myself, so whew I am hopeful I will be able to do it. If not,....well, it is just dog agility...so thankfully no one will be horribly hurt and I will re evaluate ;-).

One thing that really stands out is that in the APHS there are really not a lot of things to teach the dogs...most of it is teaching the handler to handle things correctly based on what dogs naturally read about movement from their handlers. I have always been a little confused about how Linda starts dogs out so they get an understanding of reading the motion and in the very beginning stages I do think it is hard while the dogs are figuring it out. I remember not being sure if Breeze would ever get some of the ideas I was trying to "teach" and understand what we were doing as she ran courses with her head backwards almost the whole course, LOL, but it is pretty cool now that she has figured out what we are doing, and a lot of it sounds like you just have to give the dog time to figure it out. Watching the VOD helped me understand a little more about how Linda starts dogs out and listening to her I do think some of our earlier problems were just part of the learning process when using this system. Now most of Liz/Breeze/my problems are from times I stop dead in my tracks or am inconsistent using deceleration or motion.


Anyway, if you have a weekend to kill the VOD basically cost what it would cost to audit a seminar around here. It was really nice to be able to stop the VOD and rewind or replay parts I wanted to clarify, so that was nicer then auditing a seminar, although going to audit a seminar is an outing and this was sitting in front of my computer, LOL, not as glamorous for sure. I think there are some things that relate to any handling system you are using and some natural cues you may be giving your dog unknowingly that give some food for thought, so I would have to give the seminar a big thumbs up. Hopefully she will do another one with common sequences or some more advanced concepts. I really enjoyed learning about the converging lines when I was working with my former instructor and would love to hear her talk about them, but that would be in a more advanced seminar-so hopefully one day.

Herding ...instinct kicks in! Whooo Hooooo!

At 5 1/2 months old I had Cricket instinct tested, and she was not interested in sheep at all. I took her out yesterday and someone had flipped a switch, she just got a few minutes with the sheep,....but I think she was pretty interested! It is so cool to see baby dogs growing up and changing!





Lizzie herding: the time before this Lizzie had done one nice fetch and then was DONE, so I had asked Robin to work with her this lesson. Have you noticed kids and dogs are always better behaved when other people work with them? Liz always does good with Robin-I think sometimes I stress her out because I am learning too! Actually I have way more of a learning curve then any of my dogs do!

Ok

I am sorry, I feel like a proud Mom...this is just a little more of Cricket seeing sheep the second time, with no music, etc... but a little more of how she did then the first video shows. She was only with the sheep a VERY SHORT time, I just wanted to see if she had any more interest then last time.