Happy Birthday Cricket- Her Story!

GUESS WHO IS TWO YEARS OLD! ;-) can you believe it?
















Today is Crickets SECOND birthday. I can not believe how time is flying. I could not have asked for a dog that is more perfect for me. She is so much fun to play with, so exciting to train with, and so comforting to snuggle with. I just plain could not think of anything I would change about her.

In honor of the big day I figured I would share Crickets story...especially since her birthday has me remembering...

I had been looking for a puppy when I found that her litter had been planned. I asked around and friends in the area told me that they really liked the puppies her dad had produced, everyone from the area said all of his puppies that they knew were fun dogs.

I talked to her breeder and got on the list to get a puppy, but I got cold feet and backed out right before the pups were born. The pups were all spoken for when they were born, I was pretty comfortable knowing those pups were not meant for me.

Weirdly enough, as often happens with litters, plans changed and things fell through so a couple of the pups were looking for homes when it was time for them to go to their forever homes. I saw a video posted of "Abby" (Cricket's litter name), playing with her moms co-owner Lori,little Abby was available to the right home. I plain nad simple fell in love with her. I thought she was as cute as a bug, and I loved that she just seemed focused on the people and on playing. I got a really good feeling about her, it just seemed so right to get her.

Once I talked to Crickets breeder things moved fast and Cricket was on her way to Southern California in about two days. I spent the day after I found out that Cricket was mine on a buying spree -making puppy food, setting up xpens, buying toys and assembling everything for her arrival. Cricket arrived her on the Thanksgiving weekend so I was not able to get a ticket to go pick her up so she had to fly here alone ;-(, that was the first time I had ever had to do that and the first time I have had a dog that has flown anywhere.

I got to the airport about an hour before Cricket was to arrive because I was worried about holiday traffic, and Cricket was about an hour late getting to the cargo area, so I sat waiting for a long time, I was sooo nervous.

When I finally got to go and get my puppy I will never forget seeing that little freckled face looking out of her crate at me. She did not look anything like I had expected, she was fluffier and had freckles which I had not seen before and she just had such a cute expression on her face.

I had talked to some other people picking up pups and they clued me in on the best potty places for puppies just coming off of the planes. Poor Cricket had some horrible diarrhea before I got her, when I took her to potty and try to clean her up a bit she only wanted to cuddle with me, for about ten minutes she just cuddled her diarrhea soaked body into my neck, LOL. After she got her fill of cuddles she got down on the grass and immediately started playing and tugging with me. From those very first seconds it just always felt so right.

For the last two years I have not spent more then a few hours here and there away from my Crickster and we have just had the most amazing journey. I have learned so much and of course I think my relationship with Cricket has benefited from all I have learned and all the mistakes I have made with my other dogs. I do not think environment or training explains just how perfectly she fits with me, and how I think we both bring the best out of each other, she is just an amazing dog and I am so lucky I found her. I really think the way it worked out we were really meant to be together.

So anyway, on Crickets SECOND birthday I thought I would share the video I did on her FIRST birthday.

seminars and DVD's

I am not a natural player with my dogs and in the past I have managed to kill the play instinct of my first few dogs before I learned more....so I am always very interested in learning all I can about playing with my dogs because I really value my dogs play drive and can not believe how much fun it is to train with play. Who knew that someone could do a full 5 1/2 video or a whole seminar day on playing and tugging, but ya know, like so many things I guess there is whole lot more to the subject then you would think.

The last seminar I attended with Marla Friedler-Cooper http://southcoastdogtraining.com/SCDT/Home.html was about creating desire and passion for play. It was a great seminar. I know Marla had worked with Michael Ellis recently so I was interested in checking out some of his info.



I was able to watch his DVD The Power of Playing Tug with Your Dog, from his Building Focus and Drive series http://leerburg.com/221.htm. I do have some mixed feelings because another DVD in his series is about how to effectively use electric collars for training- I am very against that type of adversives.., but I also do feel like sometimes you need to look at things and take the parts that are useful to you and learn from those even if there are some parts that are definitely not in my belief system. The interesting thing is that Michael Ellis's system does use a lot of familiar things, ...markers...making sure to mark what you want, the premack principle, short sessions and making sure to find things the dog wants and highly reward with that. Michael and Marla both talked about making sure that you make any rewards food/toys that you give your dogs an event. You don't just hand your dog a toy or a piece of food you make it exciting and they both showed us how to do that.

One of the interesting things Michael talked about in this DVD was his view of socializing dogs. Instead of wanting people to take their puppies or dogs to lots of places and encouraging dogs to check out things, going to visit lots of people he feels that how socializing should be handled is that you take your dog/puppy to lots of places...when you get to a new place you take your dog and ask for some attention and you play around the new environment. You have a great play session, or use food in an exciting way and you just have a lot of fun with your dog. Keep it short and leave when you are done. He says that by just interacting with your own dog and just having the new things around, you can make sure your dog does not have bad experiences because if you just encourage your dog to go up to everyone and everything you can not control what other people are going to be doing. He feels that by playing with your dog around new people and places the dog relaxes and has a positive experience and feels safe because they are playing with you.

Your dog also gets used to just going to a new place and it becomes automatic that they expect they will be interacting with you and it will be fun so when you go to distracting places they will automatically look to you to find out what sort of fun will be coming up next. I also was interested because when something scary did happen-like say a loud noise, he would just start a game with the dog, so the dog would associate the loud noise with something fun and not scary. I remember Susan Garrett talking about her dog being jumped on at a start line by a loose dog and so she just called her dog and started a wonderful game of tug.

Another thing that I found interesting was that Michael does not put many rules on play or puppies until they get pretty excited about what he has to offer (play) and until they are into the game. He wants a puppy to be a little wild and pushy. I like hearing that because it does seem like sometimes there can be so many controls put on playing before the puppy is really into the game and ya gotta think that has to have something to do with the puppy not thinking play is as fun as it could be.

As far as tug, Michael goes into the mechanics, which who knew playing might be something I should practice and sharpen up my mechanical skills? By mechanics he shows how you can keep the tug so it is easy for the dog to target to the tug. I know you do not shove the toy at the dog but I did not realize that say when I would move the toy to my side for Cricket to get I was bringing the toy behind me at my side so my hand was right in front of her and the tug was actually positioned so that the place I would like her to bite on the tug was hard to get to. By learning body mechanics and learning how to step away from the tug an rotate my arms so the tug always stays right in front of the dog, the biting surface is oriented right at the dog. The dog can become way more confident in grabbing it and learns to target to the toy better, not your hands. Poor Cricket when Marla was having us try moving the tug to our side I saw that when Cricket goes to grab the tug she would stop and check to make sure I had not move the tug out of her way and my hands into the way- she had to reorient to where things were before she could leap at the toy and bite. I would not have believed I was doing that until I was shown how to do it properly ;-). Michael and Marla both spend a lot of time helping with body mechanics so that you could have your toy be more predictable to your dog which makes it more fun for the dog and safer for you when you play tug.

Once the dog really was into the game and really loved tug, then Michael says you can teach the "out". To teach the out he would just be playing and tugging and stop, he showed how to keep the toy totally still and when the dog should let go, you would mark the behavior and immediately start tugging again. Soon the "out" is a happy thing that just starts the game again. As the dog really understands the "out" you can slowly add in duration.

To teach the retrieve once your dog understands tug you just let go of the tug and back up as your dog is playing, encourage your dog to return the tug to your hand as you back up. Soon you can throw your tug and your dog just wants to get the toy back to you so the game can start again.

I do not think this DVD was necessarily aimed at starting your dog to tug, although he did talk about not having rules on the game for puppies and using different types of soft, floppy toys for babies, and being soft and not expecting a lot of tug drive until puppies are beyond the teething stage. Most of the DVD seemed focused on dogs that were playing,how to keep it safe and fun for all players-the people and the dog, and how to use that play to build your relationship with your dog. I was just surprised there were actual mechanical skills that I did not have-who knew????


Marla presented material based on the training she has done with Michael but of course with her twist on it, she had a few different points, and it was really great to be able to practice some of the mechanics and have someone watch and critique. If you are in the So CA area and get a chance to attend one of her play and motivation seminars it was a lot of fun, I learned a lot and had a great day.

Another seminar weekend, one on one time with the Crickster!

I am so happy it sounds like my fellow bloggers weathered the weekend storm safely! Reading every ones descriptions it sure sounds like a scary weekend ;-(.

This is a picture of My fellow seminar participants and Marla C who put on our weekend seminar -this was at lunch with all our doggies. There was one other BC and his mom who were not in the picture but also attended the seminar. Check out Cricket begging for food....I think she figured with the picture taking in progress she might have found an opening to get her lunch!



I was so proud of my girl Cricket this last weekend. While everyone on the East coast was having to deal with the storms and had such a scary weekend we were dealing with a heat wave. I was lucky enough to get to go to a seminar that was on Puppy Motivation and Play the first day and Tight Turns and weaves the second day. I would like to talk more about what I learned and I will in a couple of days!

The seminar was in San Clemente-about 2 hours from me- it is apparently a very dog friendly town The seminar was held just a few blocks from the beach-how cool is that? I got to stay at Marla's house who was the one who put on the seminar- Daisy Peel had slept in the bed I slept in the week before, too bad her awesome agility handling did not seem to rub off onto the sheets and then to me, I was less then amazing,....I was OK-but definitely not amazing, I really did not see any signs of any sort of greatness that had rubbed off on me, what a shame,hahahaha.

In her agility classes Cricket had been awful the first few classes of the series with her barking in the crate, but I had worked with her a lot during that series of classes-clicking and treating for quiet behavior, taking her out and doing tricks, and leaving the door open and playing crate games so she would sit and watch the other dogs quietly. LUCKILY it seems like it helped because Cricket was a good little girl for the seminar and waited pretty nicely in her crate for her turn. There were a few times she was barking but she really did much better then I thought she would.

The other great part is that she was able to play, tug, do agility in a brand new place and she did great in the first seminar she has attended. She was doing her cik/cap turns (tight turns on jumps and understanding when to jump in collection to get ready for a turn), the whole weekend made me feel like we have been making a lot of progress.

The best part of the weekend was when we all went out for lunch together. It was the neatest feeling in the world to have a dog that was able to climb into the back of a Volvo with a HUGE Doberman and a 30 lb terrier-loose in the back of a car with dogs she did not know-the dogs were all perfect. I wish I had got a picture of those three dogs riding in the back of the car.

The restaurants were so neat, we went out a few times during the weekend with all the dogs. All the restaurants with patio tables welcomed dogs and brought out bowls of water for the dogs, it was really fun to have a weekend with just Cricket and I-able to hang out and do a lot of things we do not normally do.

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One of the exciting events I have been following is the arrival of these two cuties- they are Crickets Brother Jive's babies-Cricket is an auntie!!! Their mom is Nakita who is an amazing and beautiful girl who is a great agility dog. Aren't they cute? I wish I had a bigger picture but there is a super cute video if you go to Jive's blog. http://jumpnjive.blogspot.com/ Some of you might remember Jive participating in our weave pole challenge.

Daisy Peel seminar, taking breaks and boots

WELL, it feels like I have been gone forever. After I had got bowled over and hurt my foot I was pretty bummed, esp. when I ended up wearing a boot-well, I guess I am still wearing a boot because of my injury. I was bummed enough to take a little break from life, but I am back! The boot is hard to move around in and it will be a miracle if I am not injured BECAUSE of the boot, LOL.

Last weekend I got to go to a Daisy Peel seminar-boot and all!. It was like a vacation weekend. I did not bring dogs because with the boot I did not want to haul around crates and shade, etc... so I stayed in a hotel by San Diego for the weekend since the seminar was in that area. I swam and went out to dinner and then spent the day immersed in agility, learned some great things, got great things to think about, I could not have planned a better weekend!!!

I went to a Daisy Peel seminar a few months ago, and liked that one, but loved this one even more. If anyone has the chance to go to a Daisy seminar I would highly recommend going. Of course what I say about what I heard at the seminar is my interpretation so...keep that in mind but it did leave me excited and with things to think about so I have to share ;-)!

One of the most interesting things that seemed to be the theme of the weekend was that there are certain points on course that if you support them better.....you can actually get further down stream where you need to be later. WHAT????? Go deeper into the pocket????? I just spent months trying to figure out how not to support things and move further away, so go figure. Also you can be moving too fast on the course, SERIOUSLY!!! To prove that point on our first course and the last course Daisy had people WALK, they were not allowed to run and so they moved more efficiently and didn't stop and some people who could not get where they needed to be running could do it walking-so hurrying is not always the best thing, sometimes you need to slow down and handle what needs to be handled. Now if only I can remember that and figure out the places where that is appropriate and the places I just need to haul butt...I figure I will be in good shape.

I got to hear what Daisy said about cik/cap turns (Sylvia Trkmans method of teaching tight turns) that Crick and I have been working on, and my interpretation of what she said is that she feels they are just sends, and your movement should still support the direction, and it is basically what she uses her OVER command for.

Just like in the last seminar that I went to with Daisy she talked about how a handling system is just a great frame work for creating your own handling system that works for you and your dog. You just need to be consistent. That just makes so much sense.

I thought the thing that made me smile the most was when Daisy talked to us about how now days everyone trains things so much that we forget it is sometimes great to know how to handle things ourselves, like to smoosh a dog into the weaves if we know they are not going to get an entry it is still good to know that we can get up there and position ourselves so the dog will get the entry even if it is because of our handling, or there is nothing wrong with sometimes if you know your dog might blow a contact and you get get there and handle it so the dog is not going to miss the contact sometimes that is appropriate, LOL. I do not know why but listening to her talk about that made me smile, like we do not always have to have perfect training, sometimes you just use your old fashioned skills.


There was a GREAT group of handlers/dogs at the seminar and some of my friends from Arizona so it could not have been a better weekend.

Yesterday I could not stand it any more after listening to agility talk all weekend and watching everyone playing with their dogs, so I went out and did a little boot agility, so not the most graceful and not the best movement on my part, but it felt good to be playing!

Can you spot someone new????

Kinetic, Breeze, Cricket, Lizzie
Kinetic and Breeze playing with the egg ball, while Liz and Cricket wrestle behind them

Little Kinetic, or Kenny as we call her



A Mosh Pitt, you might want to wear protection to be in the middle of that game


Cricket and Kinney, Kinetic has MADE Cricket learn how to play bitey-face-she never knew how to play that before, she prefers a good game of chase


Do ya all notice something/someone different? Yep there is a fourth BC running around. Not a permanent addition --she is a dog named Kinetic/ a red/white five month old BC who will eventually be moving to Japan-right now she is hanging at my house for a few weeks. She is a cutie! And she adds a LOT of energy to the house.

Well, it seems like FOREVER since I have posted.....lately it is just hard to blog some days, it seems like I am really busy but not with anything interesting ;-).


Cricket was a nut at class, and who knows why but she tried to run in a tunnel, turned around and ran out the entrance. When she got out of the tunnel the first time she found the toy I had thrown at the exit of the tunnel and I think she thought she was getting a huge reward. That was all she needed to KNOW the way you do tunnels is run in, turn around and run out the entrance. We had to finally have one person hold Cricket on one side of the tunnel while I called from the exit to help her remember how tunnels worked! LOL, what a nut! She loves tunnels and it was the exact same tunnel and set up as the week before, so it was really weird. To make class even more challenging my ankle is still killing me from when Cricket tripped me last week-I might have to break down and go get it checked out ;-(.

For the first time I feel like I am so far behind with Cricket. BEHIND???? Who is making up this time line? LOL, but I have to say I feel discouraged. I keep telling myself that when ever things seem to be falling apart is usually about the time they all magically come together, and when I look back I do think we have made a ton of progress lately, but it is still pretty WILD and Crazy when we do agility ;-). I am feeling pressure to get going-and feeling panicky thinking I just don't know how we are going to get it together-but what is the worst that could happen, we don't get it together and we keep having fun playing around, guess even in the worst case scenario it isn't that bad....Right???.

I think we are getting a new level of excitement and a new level of speed and Cricket has a lot more confidence, all good things but it might take us awhile to sort of learn how to use those new SKILZ.

Two steps forward...one step back

We had class last night and I think Cricket and I had a classic conflict of differing opinions about what our goals for the night were. Poor Cricket.

Crickets goal seemed to be to get me to understand to stay out of her way. I think she feels she is running full out and collection is a bit of a pain, so people need to learn to stay out of her way.

My goal was that say coming out of tunnels if I am standing/running right in front to her Cricket should collect a bit and avoid crashing into me like a freight train.

CRICKET IS LIKE A BULLDOG, NO HANDLER WILL SLOW HER DOWN-GET MOVIN' OR GET OUTTA THE WAY!!!


I think we have a little hole in our training.....LOL, I SWEAR I am pretty brave when my dogs really run at me I have never had dogs that do not make sure they do not run into me so I am pretty comfortable with them driving pretty close into me....I don't think anyone has actually run into me....until now and tonight it just kept almost happening.

The first close call of the night was at our first tunnel-it was a curved tunnel and Cricket and I almost collided when I was in running past the tunnel as she came out. I stopped and rewarded her coming to my side a few times.

After our near collision we did a few obstacles then a table to a tunnel, this tunnel was a straight tunnel, and as she came out she kept running really fast right to my side then right under my feet, she totally took me out,OUCH, she took my feet right out from underneath me without slowing her stride.

I am much too fragile to be falling, hahahaha, I really hurt in lots of places now....for a little dog she packs a lot of punch.

Not our best class, Cricket was just so over the top excited and was stuck on extension and going at hyper speed, which is good at some places on course, but at sometimes speed can kill if you do not use a little collection occasionally. I just think that it would be hard to do too much collection work with the Crickster, that extension sure comes naturally!

Our aframe seemed to have fallen apart a bit, If you saw Cricket tonight you would not think she has ever heard of a start line stay.....ahhhhhhhhh....lots of things to put on our to train better list. She was an excited little girl.


LUCKILY it was not all CACA, the parts of the course we have had trouble with in the past, sending to obstacles, reading lines, driving to the table, those were all GORGEOUS. Her weaves were sooooo fast and soooo good, there were some TIGHT turns and great obstacle discrimination that I was not sure she could do. Guess all the tweaking is just part of the process, we worked on some object focus and now I need to pull back and work on a little more handler focus again.

I SWEAR Cricket is just so different then any other dog I have worked with, she is such a trip and so fun, after tonight though I just hope I am up to the challenge. I was beginning to think we had it all under control and we were pretty hot stuff, LOL, but I feel knocked down a few pegs after tonight's class, but at the same time I feel so excited for what is to come, she has soooo much potential and she looks so good when I look at the big picture, but there sure needs to be a lot of little adjustments!

Not your mothers duct tape!

My poor tire needs to be re taped, so I went to the store to get some duct tape. Who knew duct tape comes in camouflage, all colors of the rainbow, zebra print, wild animal print, polka dots on turquoise, AND HELLO KITTIE print, too funny! This is just a picture of Targets selection, there was even more different choices at Walmart! LOL.


What a great time we live in that we have so many more choices then just the grey duct tape of yesterday!

Cricket and the contacts ;-)

We had a great weekend here-really quiet but nice, with some thunderstorms and no agility practice.....

Today we did a few contacts-I would like to speed up our dog walk a little, although sometimes it is pretty fast and they are getting faster I think, but I decided to time them so I will know if we are getting better over time ;-).

I have not done a full teeter in a bit and was playing around with some games I saw in clean run to speed that up, so today was the first time I tried a full teeter again, and not sure the games were helping ;-).

THE cool thing is the aframe is at 5 ft 3, and NO PROPS, look mom no training wheels and I think it still is doing OK.