It seems like Axel just got home from his last road trip and now we’re getting ready to send him back out again. He’s been home since March 16, but it sure doesn’t seem like seven months have gone by.
Since he’s still current on his immunizations and licenses and hasn’t changed handlers, my list of things to do to get ready isn’t that long. I picked up his health record at the vet on Saturday when Freya went in for her nail trim and medicine refills, and I’ve already put it in an envelope with photocopies of his registration, pedigree, microchip information, license, and emergency and non-emergency contact information. I hope I remember the envelope. Not too much shopping to do either: enough food and topical flea preventative for a couple of months, and a couple of new toys that will take a couple of months to destroy.
This may sound silly, but we always practice a few things just before a trip. They normally have warm water and sometimes miscellaneous goodies mixed in with their kibble. I make sure they’re ok with eating it plain and dry, and not just in the kitchen, but in their crates, in the van, or in their crates in the van. They normally have the run of the back yard for potty breaks. Just before a trip, they get some of the potty breaks on leash, and get rewarded for speedier output. After standing in bitter cold with one of “those” females who thinks they can only potty in their yard in their special place while no one is looking, I will never again underestimate the value of teaching a dog to go on command.
Julia will spend a week or two on a show training “refresher course” before Axe’s first time back in the ring. And I have these last two weeks to make sure he’s learned all of the AKC Rally Novice exercises well enough to get through any trials that might be available at the shows he is going to.
Even with the relatively short list of things to do, this will probably still turn out to be a busy couple of weeks!
(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 11 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 233 of 274)
Pat Steer (Gaelen) says
Kathi – I love your readying-for-road-trip routine; these are all the types of things I have always encouraged my students to do, even if their dogs weren’t show dogs or likely to get out of the yard for more than a trip to the dog park or vet. It’s so important to give our dogs the skills to be good travelers, to adapt to changes in situations so that they don’t get unnecessarily stressed at the vet or kennel, and most important (and my favorite) — how very important to have relieve-yourself-on-command in a dog’s skill set! We get snow, rain, freezes here in Central NY, too.
I read through several of your posts and am enjoying your blog tremendously.
.-= Pat Steer (Gaelen)´s last blog ..The 3 things that help me take training from backyard to competition =-.
kathi says
Thanks for stopping by, Pat! I wish I had done more with the “go-on-command” thing when these two were younger. The boys seem to get with the program pretty quickly, but not the girls.