Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

Worst dog handler in the world (13 of 30/79 of 274)

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EDIT: In addition to being the worst dog handler in the world, I am apparently also still clueless on properly auto-scheduling my posts. Working on it!

It’s been raining all day, and it’s cold and dreary out. The yard isn’t providing a very inviting place to practice obedience with Freya, so I decided to read up on the rules and prepare myself for our stated goal of Freya’s Rally Obedience titles.

It sounds simple enough on paper. All of the exercises are things that Freya already knows from going to group classes for most of her life. She will be handicapped by having the worst dog handler in the world (me) on the other end of the leash.

I really enjoy working with the dogs. I am also not very good at it. I’m not too bad at reading a dog, but my timing for rewards and corrections is not very good. My reaction time is mediocre in general: I wasn’t any good at drag racing either. I almost tripped over my own dog at a big Rottweiler specialty. It was definitely my fault. Judge said “forward” and dog went forward, but I almost went left. I have not been in an obedience ring since then. Oh, yes… I was on a trial field, which isn’t technically a ring. Same dog, similar disastrous results. Her fault that time for getting up from the long down.

So I am trying to visualize a perfect performance. They say it helps. When it stops raining, I will get back to reality and visualize (and by that, I mean stumble through) our actual performance. I only hope Freya doesn’t love the sound of laughter from outside the ring the way that Heidi did, or we truly are doomed!

Freya: time to get some working titles (12 of 30/78 of 274)

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A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I’d like to set some training goals and try to earn some titles with Freya. We just completed an eight-week intermediate/advanced obedience class yesterday, and we’ll begin another eight-week session right away. The obedience club that we used to train at, and that we are still members of, is having a Rally Obedience trial in nine weeks. This is the trial date we’ll be shooting for, and I’ll have to make the final decision as to whether we are ready or not over Memorial Day weekend.

I did participate in a few conventional Obedience trials with my dear departed Heidi. We failed miserably, except in the sense of providing comic relief for any spectators who happened to see us. Rally Obedience is similar to conventional Obedience in that the same or similar exercises are performed. In conventional Obedience, the handler can give commands with or without an accompanying hand signal to the dog only once, and cannot give verbal or other encouragement. In Rally Obedience, multiple commands, praise and other verbal encouragement, and extra hand signals or clapping are allowed as long as you do not physically guide or correct the dog. Heidi was Queen of the Double/Triple/Quadruple Command and we might have done okay if Rally Obedience had been around back then.

The Novice level of conventional Obedience has some exercises that are performed off-leash while the Novice level of Rally Obedience is done all on-leash. Freya has an unfortunate tendency to be the “fun police” if any other dogs in the immediate vicinity are getting loud or hyper or for some breeds, just breathing. We have made a good deal of progress on that particular training issue during the last class, but I will still feel much better about life in general if Freya is totally on-leash in her first competition situation.

That’s the background on our plans so far. We’ll also be doing an ATTS Temperament Test early next month. That is a certification, not a working title, so there’s not much preparation involved.

I’ll be keeping Freya’s training diary either here or at one of my other online places, and I hope you don’t mind following along with our story, hopefully to have a happy ending in June!

Growing a place on the ‘net (5 of 30/71 of 274)

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During the last few months, I’ve thought about refocusing this blog completely on pet-related matters. So the title of a recent post on the Dolittler veterinary blog, How to start and grow a top pet health site…with love, intrigued me. My original blog was devoted almost entirely to pet health. As I am not a veterinarian or a journalist, it was a personal blog discussing only the pets owned by me and my husband, and occasionally those of family members or friends. At the time, our pets numbered four dogs, three cats and two birds, so there was ample material for me to write about. After the two oldest dogs passed on, I didn’t have it in me to keep writing regularly. Effective tools for fighting comment spam were not quite ready for prime time then, and trying to keep up with it sapped any enthuasiasm still remaining.

Comment spam isn’t the problem it once was. I would probably need to expand the focus of a new version to include dog training, dog showing, dog sports competition and pet-related legislative issues, because most of my pets are thankfully young and healthy, and I won’t have many health issues to write about, hopefully for a while yet. I’ll need to give this a bit more thought before I make any changes. My pets are my favorite subject, but I do enjoy writing on other topics now and then, too.

Back to the Dolittler post, though. One of the pet health sites profiled was Tripawds, a site inspired by and supporting all three-legged dogs, primarily cancer patient amputees. My own three-legged dog Jake passed away in 2002, so I had no idea this site existed until this week. Back in 1998, there was not much information on the ‘net to help owners of amputee dogs. I think I found just one site, Cassie’s Three-Legged Dog Club, which still exists and has expanded quite a bit since then. Back then, I wrote to Cassie’s Club founder Cynthia Davis, got some good information, and had Jake join the club (he is the bottom Jake on this page). I updated my then-website to add a page about Jake’s accident and amputation, which I have never taken down.

I still get email from that page occasionally, and as I have done since the beginning, I always try to respond to those emails as quickly as possible. I never thought of the possibility of an entire site to support tripod dogs, but I am very glad that Jim and Rene were inspired by their Jerry’s illness and amputation to create the Tripawds site to provide an awesome resource for those facing the same issues.

Times are tough for all of us, but if by chance you have a bit to spare, please consider visiting the Tripawds site and donating towards their server upgrade. Back in 1998, I would have loved to have a site like that, with not only information available, but a forum and chat to actually talk to others in the same situation. I was glad to be able to make a small donation today in Jake’s memory.

Rottweiler rambles (28 of 31/63 of 274)

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Saturday is obedience class day for the lovely Freya. I consider group training classes a lifelong activity for my dogs, and I’m always happy to find those classes, clubs and instructors that can make those classes a good experience for both me and my dogs.

We like our current class very much. It is an intermediate/advanced class, which means some of the dogs are fresh out of beginner class, some are more experienced and some are working on off-lead or competition. Class size is small: 10 dogs when everyone is there. We use mostly positive training with food and praise, but correction collars and corrections are not forbidden. After owning six rather stubborn Rottweilers, I no longer believe that all dogs can be trained solely with pure positive methods. If you do, that is fine, and we will just have to agree to disagree.

What I really like about our instructor is that he is able to help reactive and unruly dogs work in class, without undermining the experience for the other dogs. The hall is large enough to provide enough space for dogs to work at a comfortable distance. Over the past few weeks, an extremely reactive dog has gone from working outside the group at one edge of the training room, slowly moving closer to the group, to being able to work with the group for at least half the class period now. Freya is reactive herself to small hyper dogs, so this has also been a good opportunity to get help in teaching her to work through what to her is a huge distraction. This has been so much better for me than having to rely on random public encounters where I have no control over the skill or intelligence of the other dog and its handler.

I need to set up some specific training goals for Freya, and make them more real by picking out some actual trial dates to shoot for. She is a pretty smart dog whose lack of working titles is due mostly to my own procrastination and somewhat weak dog training skills when it comes to competitive obedience.

I am so glad there is such a thing as Rally Obedience now. When our first Rottweiler Heidi came to live with us in 1994, the sport did not exist. All of our Rottweilers go through obedience classes, and we actually did trial with Heidi and her little brother Oscar, but never did title them. Traditional obedience competition demands a lot of precision, which is something I am terrible at. Rally Obedience requires the same routines and exercises as traditional obedience, but it is more relaxed for both dog and handler. This I can probably do, so this is what I will work towards.

My real dog sport love is Schutzhund, but I don’t know if I will ever get back to it. It requires even more commitment in training time and practice time than many other dog sports. Since it involves a protection component, you really cannot do this without a club with an experienced and safe helper. With the current legal climate for all dog owners, there is a particular responsibility for dog owners participating in protection sports and unfortunately, that is not something that can be ignored these days.

Did I not mention Axel yet? No, apparently I did not. I am still deciding on what his activities should be while he is taking a break from conformation showing. We were doing private lessons before he left in December, and I’m not opposed to continuing those, but I also feel he needs to get back into group classes so he remains accustomed to seeing dogs of different breeds on a regular basis. I won’t even think about working titles for him until after he completes his championship.

Nothing to give (26 of 31/61 of 274)

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I have nothing to give tonight.

Nothing to say, unless you count some earlier profanity directed at Axel, who was A Very Bad Dog, and Freya, who was A Very Bad Dog’s All-Too-Willing Very Bad Sidekick. It might be the other way around.

Nothing was actually destroyed except my hopes for a peaceful dinner, so I’m well on my way to being over it. The dogs, of course, are over it already. They look like sweet angels when they are napping, instead of Very Bad Dogs.