Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

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)

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)

Saturday Freya: last class of the session

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Today was the last class of Freya’s current group obedience class session. Much of the class was devoted to our final exams, where we each ran through a series of exercises similar to a Novice obedience routine, and received an oral critique from our instructor afterwards. The best-performing Intermediate dog and the best-performing Advanced dog each get small trophies.

Today the best-performing Advanced dog was Freya! It was nice to have the star student at the other end of the leash. I’m more accustomed to my canine teammates being class clown or junior gang banger, although they all come around eventually.

Freya always spends a good part of the afternoon napping after we return home from class. Thinking apparently wears her out.

I took the opportunity to work with Axel on the AKC Rally Novice exercises he hasn’t learned yet. The Call Front-1, 2, 3 Steps Backward actually went very well. He caught on right away to what he was supposed to do. Stop and Down didn’t go quite as easily, so I stopped before he… make that I… really screwed something up and we’ll work on that tomorrow.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 17 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 239 of 274)

What do you mean, Stop and Down?

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You might remember that we started out training for rally obedience with Freya doing the AKC novice exercises. We switched over to UKC in late spring since there were going to be UKC trials during the summer and fall. When Axel’s conformation handler offered to do his Rally Novice title as well, I started running Axel through the practice courses I’d set up for Freya.

Before Freya’s trial, I posted about the exercises in UKC Rally Obedience 1 that are not used in AKC Rally Novice. Because I am so smart and organized, I neglected to check on the AKC Rally Novice exercises that Axel hasn’t learned or practiced from Freya’s UKC courses. Much to my horror, there are five of them. FIVE.

Okay, breathe. Breathe!

Halt, 1-2 and 3 Steps Forward: This one shouldn’t be a problem since we’ve done it in general heeling practice since beginner classes.

Call Front, 1-2 and 3 Steps Backward: This one we will need to work on for the first time. Yikes!

Stop and Down: Dog downs as I stop? So it’s not a down, it’s not quite a moving down… again, yikes!

Halt, Fast Forward from Sit: Should not be a problem since Axel likes to move fast. Unless of course he moves too fast!

Left About Turn: As in a Schutzhund-style about turn. Since I constantly labor under the delusion that one day I will go back to training in Schutzhund, all my dogs have learned this early on. Whew!

Okay, maybe this isn’t the major crisis I thought it was after all! Now if it would just stop raining…

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 15 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 237 of 274)

Counting down the last two weeks

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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)