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’s Midweek Mischief – not our best work

by

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!

Freya’s Midweek Mischief

by

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

by

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

by

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?

by

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)