March 2009Monthly Archives

Teaching Tatum to Heel

Teaching the Heel has always been difficult for me. Plus, it is what Novice Obedience is all about! Ugh.

Tatum Sleeping

So it’s time to teach Tatum to heel. And I want her to have a nice solid fun heeling that she will do even without treats. Ha! It’s a challenge with this girl, because she is very sassy and wants to know what’s in it for her.

So in order to get her to do things without treats, we are, of course, starting with treats. I have a target stick that I put under my wrist watch (I want to get some videos to post about, easier to see than tell) and it’s in a good place in front of her nose. My trainer and I are thinking that Tatum doesn’t have very good peripheral vision. She can see right in front of her, but if something isn’t right in front of her it’s hard for her to see. So this puts the the treat right on front of her eyes.

So I walk only a few steps, making sure she is staring at the treat. Then I tell her to get it. After she gets it, I tell her to tap, and she taps the stick with her nose. This will establish, we hope, that she has to do something in addition to just following the treat around!

Then maybe, once she is doing awesome in obedience, we can stay in a New York City hotel and go to one of the big shows! That’d be fun. Tatum does have a nice heel so far, and I want to train her right, make it fun, and have good heeling with her! I swear, heeling is one of the most difficult things for a dog to understand. And, novice obedience is mostly heeling, with a couple other things thrown in!

Cynthia

March 9, 2009

Obedience, Tatum, Training

3 comments

Obedience, Tatum

Levi Has Arthritis

Levi

Levi was limping a week ago when I took him to obedience practice. It was odd, because he hasn’t shown any lameness before that. But he had been a bit low energy.

So my husband took him to our vet. They moved his legs around and he even yelped because it hurt, poor guy! She said he has all the symptoms of arthritis. Darnit!

Levi is getting old. He is 9.. almost 9 and a half. So I know I have to keep an eye on him for any symptoms of old age. And this is one! My poor collie boy, I hate that he has arthritis. And I hate that he is getting older.

So I turned on the wall fountains for some soothing sounds at home, and we gave him some metacam. We are also giving him Duralactin, which people have had a lot of success with. It’s milk from hyper-immunized cows. I haven’t been able to find how these cows are treated, as that concerns me. It can’t be good to hyper immunize an animal, I don’t think! I’ll look into it a bit more.

For now Levi is doing better. He’s not going to compete in any AKC Obedience, because they don’t have a preferred jump height in Obedience, so he’d have to jump 24″ and that is just too high for him. We’ll continue in ASCA Obedience as he only has to jump 16″ there.

And he’s entered in DOCNA agility this weekend. If he does okay, I’ll run him. If not, then he can just come and be with Mom.

I love my Levi Collie Boy.

Update on Muffit’s Training

Muffit and a Toy

Well I am pleased to say that Muffit’s training is coming along very well! He is such a good boy. We had a private lesson last Friday and my instructor was actually very happy with how far he has already come.

Muffit Calm!

I discovered while training him at the local agility barn, that he was best if he had a clear beginning point and ending point. So last Friday we tried this with him, and it worked wonderful. Both his beginning point and his ending point will be a mat. He loves his mat, has a great down on the mat, and it’s like something that is very clear to him that he understands and can perform very successfully. And it’s a good calming place for him, too. Maybe if he had one of those mats with magnets it would help him even more! LOL I’ve been working with Muffit at home to teach him to calm down. This picture is of Muffit’s chin in my hand. This is his signal to be calm. When his tail stops wagging and he’s calm, then I slip a treat into his mouth. I haven’t been saying ‘good’ or ‘yes’ or clicking, because those things all bring his drive up. And he has so much frantic drive that I want to teach him to be calm and relax.

Muffit and a Toy

On his mat in the private lesson he was being much more calm than he has been in the past. We set up a tunnel, too, and he’d start on his mat, go through the tunnel, get a treat off the target plate, and then go back onto his mat. He does all this in the blink of an eye, LOL, he’s fast but he does seem like he’s thinking about it. And the tunnel was C shaped so that we could use the same mat for the beginning and the end.I was thrilled with Muffit’s progress. And he’s been there before, which helps him calm down, too. But that is okay because anything that helps him be calm, so he can think, and not be frantic, is great!

So flyball is on hold for him for a while. I’m actually not sure if he’ll ever be able to function in the environment. But I think he will be able to do agility. As soon as we start practicing on a weekly basis this summer, I bet his progress will go forward in leaps and bounds!

He is such a good boy. I love seeing him learn, seeing him relax. He loves to learn and he’s such a typical goofy boy. He just wants to make me happy and the treat slipped into his mouth may not even be something he really notices. But we’ll keep giving him treats, teaching him to be calm, and go over all the obstacles in agility.

Maybe we’ll even do some obedience with him. It’s going to be hard for him once he gets in trial environments, though. But I have a plan for that too. I’m excited for Muffit!

Protected: Secret Post!

Cynthia

March 2, 2009

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Chatter

There’s no H in Lucy

Silly Lucy

We have a soft-tile floor in our basement and we often have to tear it up if one of the dogs has a peeing accident on them. So quite often the tiles are up and being washed, some of them are scattered around drying. The tiles have our dogs’ names spelled in them, and our cats. Though we don’t have Muffit and Tatum’s names because they came after the floor.

So Lucy is feeling better! When she feels good and she wants dinner she brings me toys. With her megaesophagus she hasn’t been bringing me many toys in the recent past. But last night she was bringing me the H out of one of the floor tiles. I kept telling here there is no H in Lucy but she didn’t want to listen! I had to hide the H under the tv stands and then go and get her some dinner.

Oh but before I hid the H, I threw it for her a couple of times and she went and fetched it. She had fun and was prancing around like she used to. I’m so glad she is feeling better. We have been feeding her smaller meals, too, and she’s not throwing up quite as much.

She is still quite incontenent though and so can’t sleep on the bed with me. I really want to find some good diapers for her but I haven’t seen any that I really liked online yet. Anyone have any recommendations?