Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

Rescue me (this time, not the TV show)

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These days, I’m not able to contribute as much time and money as I would like to… well, a number of very good causes. One of those causes is Rottweiler rescue. Today I gave a few hours of my time to help get Rollo, an abandoned Rottweiler, from his temporary foster home in Ohio to the rescue in Wisconsin who will be getting him ready for his next chance at a good life. He was a little scared, but he was a nice dog, not aggressive or wild, and traveled well for me as we went from a meeting spot in the southwest suburbs to the next meeting spot just over the Illinois/Wisconsin state line.

Although many potential adopters are now aware of the number of purebred dogs that find themselves homeless each year, I am not sure that the advantages of adopting from a breed rescue rather than a shelter could be considered widespread common knowledge yet.

In most cases, a dog adopted through breed rescue has been evaluated by people familiar with and knowledgeable about the breed. The dog may have also spent time with a foster family where any problems would be noted and worked on, and information passed on to the adopter.

If you are concerned that adopting a dog through breed rescue means condemning a shelter dog to death, please know that in many cases, purebred rescue dogs do come from shelters. Many of the transports I have assisted with are to move a dog from a high-kill shelter to a breed rescue foster home.

My current dogs were both acquired as show prospects. This does not mean that I do not support rescue, just that I wanted a show dog. Our last rescued Rottweiler was a very important part of our family and we miss her to this day. She was a very maternal presence of the tough love variety and when Freya and Axel were puppies, I always wished that Missy were still around to “raise” them.

If you are looking to add a purebred dog to your family, and are not interested in showing or breeding, please consider your local breed rescue as you go about your search.

(NaBloPoMo | November ’09: 1 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 246 of 274)

Freya’s Midweek Mischief – not our best work

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Sometimes Freya and I work in perfect harmony. Wednesday evening’s class was not one of those times.

I’m posting a video from our training session anyway. It doesn’t show our best work (I sincerely pray that is not our best work, anyway) but it does demonstrate how video can be a huge help in identifying areas to work on.

For example, I could feel she was sometimes lagging behind me, particularly on the straight figure 8 through the cones. What I didn’t realize is just how much she was lagging at points, and how little encouragement I was giving her to keep up, until I watched the video.

One thing that we lost most of our points on in our first trial in July was for not having a loose leash. Video is almost essential to help with this, because the leash doesn’t always feel particularly tight in your hands (or maybe that should say my hands) even when it is tight enough to warrant a point deduction.

So here we are. Don’t laugh too hard, and hopefully next week’s video will show our better sides!

Axel’s on the road again!

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It has been much quieter around the house for the last few days. There are four fewer paws of doom thumping and jumping about since Axel left on Sunday. The next couple of weeks will be devoted to Remedial Show Dog 101, where Julia magically turns him back into a show dog after a summer of wild abandon. Then it’s off to the shows, and hopefully there will be enough majors available this fall. If all goes well, he will be back in Chicago in mid-December as a new AKC Champion with a Rally Novice title.

I don’t really want to think about it yet, but I have to figure out what to do if all doesn’t go well. I want Axe to have a championship. But I don’t want him to be one of those dogs that lives his whole life on the road.

So, it has to go well. And that’s that.

I miss Axe (although I don’t miss him acting out his dislike of anyone getting too close to me or our house, and he defines “too close” as “in the same county”). Freya misses her little brother even more. They fight like closely-aged human siblings and there are days it really seems like they hate each other. But whenever one is away, the one still at home so obviously misses the traveler. It would almost be cute if she didn’t look so depressed.

(NaBloPoMo | 75% Challenge: 244 of 274)

Freya’s Midweek Mischief

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Last Saturday, Sue kindly offered to share her Wednesday evening private lesson time with anyone in the group obedience class who wanted to do Rally Obedience. Since I got home from work just early enough to make the drive in time, Freya and I took her up on the offer.

There were just three of us with a total of four dogs, so it was a good opportunity to run through a couple of typical novice-level courses and get critiques from each other and our instructor.

Freya wasn’t working particularly well. She was very distracted and I just could not get her to focus until the hour was almost over. I think part of the problem was that we should have taken more time to warm up, both at home before leaving and before joining the group. It was still a worthwhile evening, though. We can really use all of the practice time available before the next trial, and the more of it that is away from home, the better.

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my video camera, and we are all at the point where it will help us to be able to see our own performances and note things that need correcting, as well as being told what to watch for. I’ve now added a “bring video camera” reminder to all of the training dates on my calendar.

As usual, Freya is having a post-training nap. Axel is wide awake and looking for trouble. I’d better go and find him some!

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 21 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 243 of 274)

Overthinking the Stop and Down

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It turns out I was overthinking the Stop and Down. I reread the exercise description:

While moving with the dog in heel position, the handler commands and/or signals the dog to down as the handler comes to a stop next to the dog. Once the dog is completely down, the handler moves forward, commanding the dog to move forward from down position. (from the AKC Rally Regulations)

Then I read some past posts about the exercise on the Rally-obed Yahoo! Group.

One main point is that the dog cannot sit before the down, so the timing of the “down” command is pretty important. It has to come just before the handler actually stops, since most obedience trained dogs will automatically sit when the handler stops. Axel doesn’t really have an automatic sit at the moment, since he’s been shown mostly in conformation and has been taught to stand and hopefully stack handsomely when stopping. For the purposes of this exercise, it sort of helps that he doesn’t sit automatically

He does know down in motion (my delusions about one day returning to Schutzhund have actually been quite useful for Rally), so it became a matter of timing the “down” command and timing a smooth stop on my part. Going straight back into heeling from the down wasn’t a problem either so I think we’re good on this exercise.

I have to make sure Axel is still bilingual and practice with English commands this week. I usually train and trial using German commands. Yes, again partly due to the Schutzhund delusions. But my original reason for switching to German commands for training is because it’s so nice to have both casual and strict commands. So if I tell a dog “down” in the house, I don’t really care if he takes a little while to get comfortable or if he lies down next to me or in the other room, or if he gets up and lies down again somewhere else. “Platz” on the other hand means drop like a rock on my command and don’t move at all till I tell you to.

Just a week to go, I’m going to miss my big obnoxious puppy!

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 18 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 240 of 274)