Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

Freya: class notes 1/16/10

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You can check out all of the videos from Allan Ross’s Saturday morning Rally Obedience class at Best Friends/American Pet Motel on his YouTube channel. While you are here at Rottweilers Ate My Laptop, though, you can only watch Freya and me. We are selfish like that!

The APDT trial at For Your Canine is now less than a week away, so I will be making an extra effort to get to a Wednesday evening rally practice session, as well as working on cleaning up our least successful exercises at home. We are still possibly doomed if faced with my personal nemesis, sign #24: HALT – 90 Degree Pivot Left – HALT. We are entered in two trials on Sunday only.

Here is the course map, using APDT signs (click for a larger view). One of these days I will learn to draw nicer course maps. Today is not that day.

Once again, you can follow along with us:

Start: Again, I would like to get better attention from Freya whether it is required or not. If she starts out too distracted, it doesn’t get better until almost halfway into the run.

1. 19-Slow Pace.
2. 21-Normal Pace. Better than last week, she didn’t try to sit during the slow pace. I think I still need to show more of a change between the different paces.

3. 10-About “U” Turn. Ugh, miscue on my part. Should have been “back” not “fuss.”

4. 5-HALT – Sit – Walk Around. Freya seems to have lost her automatic sit somewhere along the line. Strange, because she hasn’t been in a conformation ring in literally years. Errors here are mostly mine, though. On the walk around, I’m holding the leash way too low, so I gave her an accidental correction when taking off again. Not to mention there would have points off for a tight leash, too.

5. 16- Call Front – Forward Left. Here, too, I’m holding the leash too low, again giving an accidental correction on the call front, with the leash too tight until the finish was completed.

6. 11-270-Degree Right.
7. 8-Left Turn. Sloppy turns.

8. 29-Straight Figure 8. I need to pay more attention on the walkthroughs, especially for spots like this where the path between signs is slightly offset for space reasons. Need to work on our pace through the cones. On the bright side, Freya totally ignored the barking from the gallery.

9. 9-About Turn – Right. Slightly sloppy.

10. 20-Fast Pace.
11. 21-Normal Pace. Again, need to work on finding the right pace for us. She almost got away on the fast!

12. 23-HALT – 90 Degree Pivot Right – HALT. Better than last week, only one try needed and she did actually move with me.

13. 7-Right Turn. Sloppy turn.

14. 26-Spiral Left – Dog Inside. Not too bad.

Bonus: Halt, Leave Dog, Call To Heel. That went better than I expected, except for where I almost whacked her in the face when she came to heel!

I still have much more of an issue with holding the leash too tight than I realized. Good thing to have video like this to bring that point home.

Is anyone besides me interested in seeing class notes every week? I can see where it might get boring to anyone who isn’t 1) me, 2) Freya, or 3) our instructor or classmates. And it probably isn’t that exciting to 3) after a while either!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 18 of 31)

Freya: class notes

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Allan has been posting videos from the group classes, Board and Train, and private lessons on his YouTube channel. Here is our video from the first Saturday morning Rally Obedience class at Best Friends/American Pet Motel. You can see that the holiday break went on a little too long for us, and there are areas that need improvement, but I think we can be ready for the APDT trial at For Your Canine on January 23-24.

I don’t really know how to draw proper course maps, but this should give you an idea of the layout (click the map for a larger view). This course uses APDT signs:

Follow along, if you’d like:

Start: The rules, unlike traditional obedience, do not require the dog to be sitting at heel at the start. But I have found that if I do not require a sit and attention, things will usually go south pretty quickly.

1. 19-Slow Pace. We need to work on finding a pace that is slow, but not so slow that Freya wants to sit, as she did here.

2. 21-Normal Pace. We need a better transition between speeds in general.

3. 10-About “U” Turn. Not bad.

4. 3-HALT – Sit – Down. She tends to turn towards me on sits, and even more so on downs.

5. 13-360-Degree Right.
6. 11-270-Degree Right. Turns were sloppy.

7. 6-HALT – Sit – Down – Walk Around. Tight leash and a correction. Even though this was training, I really need to watch that, and the tendency to fold the leash one or two loops too tight.

8. 26-Spiral Left – Dog Inside. Not too bad.

9. 23-HALT – 90 Degree Pivot Right – HALT. Pivots definitely need work. Maybe a prayer for no left pivot at our next trial would also be in order.

10. 27-HALT – 1, 2, 3 steps forward. Ugh. I need to give her a better cue to begin moving. And also… remember to give it. Sorry, Freya!

11. 12-270-Degree Left.
12. 7-Right Turn. More sloppy turns.

13. 18-Call Front Finish Left. Not sure what happened here. Her fronts are usually much better than this. At least she finished in the correct direction, so that problem seems to be fixed.

Finish: Not a moment too soon!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 12 of 31)

Back to school

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Classes start again for Freya and me tomorrow after a three-week break. I originally thought we’d just be returning to our usual intermediate/advanced group obedience class. But there has been a rally obedience class added to the schedule immediately following the group class.

I’m not sure how it is going to work for us to take two hour-long classes in a row, but the times and locations for the weeknight classes I was considering aren’t going to work for us either for the first few months of the year. So I’ve decided to try the consecutive classes for a week or two and see how it goes. If it turns out to be too much in any way for either Freya or me, we’ll go to the as-yet-to-be developed Plan B.

I’m going to take some time now to figure out some goals for this set of classes. The immediate priority is to prepare for our first APDT trial, and also decide whether it will be the trials on January 23-24 or the trials on February 6-7. APDT does not allow choke collars for trialing, as UKC and AKC do, so I also need to get Freya accustomed to working in a martingale collar.

Of course, these goals may be modified, depending upon what happens tomorrow!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 8 of 31)

Almost forgot to show the proof!

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Freya finished her UKC Rally Obedience 1 title back in November, but I never did finish discussing our performance at those two trials. I should still do that before I’ve blocked a less-than-stellar performance from my memory.

But enough about the missing play-by-play. I forgot something really important: visual proof that we got the title!

Here’s the official certificate:

Here’s our bit of the New Titleholders section of UKC’s website:

I will get to the details of the trials, but probably not until later this week. Axel’s heading back to the shows tomorrow, so we all need to spend some quality time together tonight!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 3 of 31)

Saturday Freya: still on break

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I normally attend a group obedience class with Freya on Saturday mornings. We are still on break for the holidays, though. Since we skipped the last class of the previous session so I could watch Axel from afar as he competed in Rally Obedience at the Christmas Cluster, we have been off for three weeks.

Class starts up again next Saturday and it’s not a moment too soon! Three weeks off in winter is just a little too much downtime, since we don’t have as many opportunities to play or train outdoors. Rottweilers don’t seem to mind the cold, or at least my Rottweilers don’t mind it. This week’s single-digit temperatures don’t seem to faze them at all, except that they can’t pick up frozen Jolly Balls. I’m fearing frostbite and hypothermia because they don’t want to come in, and I’m the only one that seems to be suffering any ill effects from the extreme cold!

I’m still hoping that we will be ready for an APDT Rally Obedience trial on January 23-24. Freya’s attitude and performance in our first class back from break will give me some idea of whether we should shoot for that trial, or for one on February 6-7 instead. Both are at locations where we’ve trialed and/or trained before so at least the grounds won’t be unfamiliar to either Freya or me.

I haven’t been doing any training to speak of during the break. We have done some quick reviews of stationary rally exercises in the kitchen before meals, but not every day. On the days that weren’t too frigid, we did some heeling practice on the back walk before and after potty breaks. I should have done a little more with Axel since he will be trialing again next weekend, and I will do a “real” training session with him tomorrow. On Monday, we’ll go on a brief road trip to get him back to Julia, and then he’s off to shows in Texas and Florida. It is nice that at least one family member will get a vacation in some hopefully warmer spots of the country!

(NaBloPoMo | January ’10: 2 of 31)