Coyotes!

I knew there were coyotes in the suburbs, but somehow I didn't think that meant my neighborhood. Last night I was up around 4am and saw my neighbor's motion-sensor light had gone on, so I peeked out and saw an opossum. No biggie. But then-walking down the middle of the street was a coyote! And then a few minutes later another one came by. I was very freaked out. It looked like a cross between a dog and a fox. I think that's probably what tore the head off that poor robin a few weeks ago. Makes me wonder where they hide during the day. Should I warn my neighbors to keep their cats and children near home?

Terriers are tenacious

Even wonder what they mean when they talk about terriers being tenacious and single-minded? This video certainly shows it.


Terriers will go to the ends of the earth in pursuit of prey, often to their own detriment. Some think it's a good thing that they pursue prey even while not being self-preserving, but sometimes I think it can be a bad thing. A lot of times they get themselves into strange situations!

Shelby was never this bad!

Shelby has been known to rip open a pillow or two, but this takes the cake!

What a wake up!

My plan was to sleep in this morning. Well, the dogs wanted to go out around 8, so no problem. I left them out and go back to bed. After a few minutes I hear Shelby making this excited whining noises, so I go look, and I see Shelby, but no Spot. Then I see Spot running through a neighbor's yard. I run in and put on some clothes then grab a leash. By the time I get over there, Spot is running in the yard, and he comes over and I put the leash on. Then this guy comes over and starts yelling at me about how Spot attacked his cat and his mother, biting her face! I was freaking out. Turns out what happened is that the woman let her cats out, and Spot saw them and burrowed under the fence. The cats ran home, Spot chased them up onto the porch. The woman heard them and opened the door to get her cat. Spot came in too and had the cat by the neck. When she separated them she got scratched on the face. Thankfully she came out and I was able to talk to her. From the look of it, her cat scratched her. Spot didn't have and blood or anything on his paws. I gave them my name and number just in case, but I hope nothing comes of it. I went out in the yard and put some chicken wire up in a couple of places to make it more escape-proof.
One good thing did come out of it. Since I was already up, I went to the 9:30 power dance class at the gym and it was a lot of fun.

PS. I got a call from Animal Control on Monday morning. The woman went to the police! She said she was concerned that my dog wasn't secure because her grandchildren come over frequently and she was worried Spot might get out again and hurt them. So I got in trouble for not having him licensed yet this year, but she didn't fine me, which was nice. So now I have to be sure and get their applications in this week along with the proof of rabies vaccination and it should be fine. I told the officer that I had secured the weak area of the fence and she seemed happy about that. Hopefully this is the end of it!

Layering!

Shelby had agility class last night. The course was interesting, but at first glance not too difficult. Except when you think about adding layering! We haven't really done too much layering up to this point, but Shelby can certainly handle it. Layering is when you cue your dog to an obstacle, but not the obstacle that is right next to you. There is another obstacle between you and the obstacle you want to dog to take. In the video below, the dog takes a jump and then the handler layers the A frame when cueing the weave poles.



Here's the course recreated as best as I can recall. I think there might be a jump missing at the end, but it's mostly correct.


The first layering opportunity was taking a jump and a tunnel while I was on the other side of the dogwalk. So the opening was jump, dogwalk, 180 to a jump, then tunnel. So you could definitely handle the opening on your left. I did the opening on the right, then flipped Shelby over the jump and into the tunnel and ran on the other side of the dogwalk. This took a few repetitions because we don't generally do flips. I kind of think of them as short-cuts and not very graceful, but I guess they do have their uses.

After the tunnel, it was 2 jumps to the teeter and the tunnel. We did a front cross at the end of the teeter, then into the tunnel and another front cross at the other end of the tunnel to the A frame. After the A frame was another layering opportunity. There were 3 jumps, and we tried to do the second one as layered. Shelby wasn't quite able to do it, so I ended up not layering, but I did stay very close to the jump, so we were able to get nice distance. Then after the third jump, I did a front cross to the weaves and a pull to the chute. There was some discussion of doing a front cross to the chute in order to avoid a collision. I just made it, but could have run faster. I just beat Shelby to the end of the chute. Then there were 2 more jumps to end.

So it was a productive night.

Spot's last session of beginner agility at Gemini

Last night was the 6th and last session of beginner agility for Spot. We worked on front and rear crosses on the flat and over a jump. Spot doesn't quite get rear crosses over a jump, so I need to work on that at home. Plus, he's not very good at getting into position and staying there. He wants to do something now! So he's always moving. I need to work on that as well. Front crosses are no problem.

We also started backchaining the contacts. Spot is already pretty familiar with this, and I've been practicing having him stay at the contact until I release for a while. Now I need to start having him stay at the contact when I am in various positions, not just beside him.

We also started rear crossing tunnels. I had started doing this already also, when we were working on the tunnel as a station. Spot was doing pretty well getting this as well, but he did pop out the wrong end once or twice.

So we start advanced beginner next week! Unfortunately we will miss 3 of the classes because I have plans one night and then 2 sessions will be while I am on vacation, but that's ok.

I have to say, it seems like all the dogs in class are doing really well. None of them seem to have issues with any of the equipment. Although, we haven't introduced the teeter yet! And a couple of them did get nervous when all the daycare dogs started barking at one point.

Spot has gotten a lot better with the barking. He's gotten used to the other dogs in class and pretty much ignores them, which is great!

ARFF Fun Day

Today was ARFF's fun day at American K9 Country in Amherst, NH.

I volunteered, so I got myself out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6:45 am so we could get there by 8:30. I ended up being ring crew for the first Standard runs. It was easy. I had to fix the chute and reset a couple of jumps.

It was interesting to see the varied handling techniques. There were a lot of novices, including me. I noted that even though this was a fun match, so you could use toys and food, a lot of people didn't really reward their dogs. In a few cases, dogs were refusing a jump multiple times, and after a few times, the dog finally takes it and the handler doesn't reward!?

I signed up for the second round of Standard. I wasn't really going for perfect performance. I just wanted Shelby to work with me. So we ended up missing a few jumps and the teeter, but I just kept going forward, keeping Shelby with me. I didn't use up my full 2 minutes trying to work out the kinks. I just made sure it was a positive experience. We weren't the best, but we weren't horrible either.

I have to give kudos to the raffle committee. The raffle prizes were awesome. Hopefully I won something, but I'll have to wait and see, since I had to leave before they pulled the tickets.

I got to see Mary and Mattie, and Leslie and Bethoven were there too!

After that we headed to Holly's new barn for a barn-warming party. Spot was off leash and had a great time. Shelby I kept on leash mostly. They were both really friendly to everyone and everyone said how cute they were.

So, it was a long, long day and we are all glad to be home!

Things that go bump in the night

Lately, Shelby has been waking me up in the middle of the night to let her out. Normally if I have let her out before bed, I ignore it. But I've been slacking, so I've been getting up to let her out around 3-4 in the morning. I don't really mind, except when she starts barking at something. I don't think my neighbors appreciate that either, although one of them gets up at 4am to do a paper route, which I think it sometimes the reason Shelby wakes up at all.

Anyway, the other night I opened the door and outside the fence I saw a glimpse of an animal. It had a big fluffy tail and was white, so I assumed it was a cat. The next morning, Shelby was pacing around and trying to poke her head through the fence to get at something on the ground.

I went over to check and saw a dead bird. Then I took a closer look and got freaked out because the bird had NO HEAD!!!! It was totally gone. It looked like it got chopped off. So of course I had to take a photo. My neighbors must think I'm weird.

Three great classes this week

Spot had his third agility session this week. He did really well. He barked so much less than before. It's possible that's because Surf the Great Dane wasn't there. I think he makes Spot nervous. Spot tends to not like bouncy young dogs or really large dogs, and Surf is both!

It was also interesting to see the differences in trainers. Caroline had people run the entire A frame. With Denielle, we back-chained the whole thing for months before she let us run it.

As usual, Spot was fearless. He did everything I asked. We worked on a jump chute, the A frame, the tunnels and the table.

On Friday, Shelby had agility class. The course was 20 obstacles and tricky, with some difficult approach angles and sections requiring lateral distance. I've recreated it to the best of my ability. Some of the angles are off a little bit.



The first jump was set up at an extreme angle, probably a 270. So the dog needed to jump left, but then head to the right to get jump 2. Shelby handled it like a pro. Then there was jump 2 and 3 with Shelby on my left, then a front cross into the right end of the tunnel.

Coming out of the tunnel, it was over jump 5, then to the A frame. The handling choices were to push out of the tunnel exit to the right in order to get a nice line over jump 5 to the A frame, or run up and be on the landing side of 5 laterally and pull the dog toward you then over the A frame. I chose to run up past the jump, just because it motivates Shelby more to see me ahead. For a small dog like Shelby this wasn't too difficult, but for the larger dogs it was necessary to give them a good approach to the A frame.

So, Shelby goes over the A frame on my right, then a front cross to the tunnel underneath the A frame and onto the teeter, then another tunnel to the right of the teeter. This was also a place where you needed to choose between two handling options. You could do a front cross after the tunnel, then the teeter with another from cross at the end, then into the tunnel. Or, you could handle the the teeter on your right, being sure to be in a position at the end of the teeter that indicated the dog needed to exit to the right. That's what I did.

After that there was a double jump to the dogwalk, then a jump staight ahead, a jump to the left and a 180 to another jump. At the end of the dogwalk, you needed to move laterally to the left to indicate the turn. Then you needed to do a post turn for the 180. After that, there was another jump, somewhat angled, then 6 weave poles. Shelby did execellent in this section. I was able to run really fast, and she read all my cues. I was so into going fast that I didn't even have time to be concerned about the weave poles. I knew I was running the right line, so I just went with it and it was no problem!

After the weaves, it was a tunnel under the A frame, to a jump, then another jump and one last jump to finish. Denielle recommended doing a front cross at the end of the weaves and having the tunnel on your left, running around the A frame and doing a rear cross after the tunnel. But I figured why bother with all those crosses? The dog is on your right in the weaves and exiting towards you and the tunnel, so why not handle the tunnel on your right? I guess the thinking is that if you didn't run fast enough, the dog might exit the tunnel and turn back towards you, which would be bad. But I knew if I hoofed it, I could make it. So that's what I did and it was fine, and we breezed through the exit.

We re-did the opening once, but other than that, I ran the whole thing, but did stop and click and treat at a few places. But Denielle didn't have us re-do any of the sections, which was great!


On Saturday Spot had Earthdog class. We're working on Senior. Spot is super fast at entering the tunnels, and this week he was also super fast exiting. I didn't even really have to call him. Once he saw the rats were being taken out he started backing out of the tunnel. Plus, the great thing is, once the rats are gone all he wants are his treats! He doesn't even care where the rats went. I guess in his mind, his job is to get in the tunnel, bark his head off until the rats leave, then exit for treats! In any case, it's really nice to just stand back and let him do his thing. He is one happy dog after getting to do Earthdog.