Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

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

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

Training in our spare time

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As Axel’s departure date gets closer and the days get shorter, I don’t always have the chance to set up our practice rally courses in the yard, especially when the weather does not cooperate. So I am just trying to fit in little bits of practice wherever I can throughout our normal day.

Here’s the back sidewalk between the house and the garage:

backwalk_0189

Not very long as the entire lot from street to alley is only 125 feet long, but a few trips back and forth after each potty break time will allow us to practice heeling at all paces, 1-2-3 steps forward and backwards, all three types of about turns, and 360° turns.

The kitchen is small even after chasing the cat into the living room or dining room:

kitchen_0190

Small as it is, there is still ample room to practice all varieties and combinations of sits, downs, and finishes. Since the dogs are fed in the kitchen, it is a location where they are even more motivated than usual to do what I ask them to.

It all adds up, right?

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 14 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 236 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)

Saturday Freya… that just doesn’t work, does it?

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“Saturday Freya” just doesn’t work like “Friday Freya” so we’ll have to come up with a better name for Freya’s obedience class posts. The newly forming Rally Obedience classes are probably going to be on Wednesday evenings, so maybe we can have “Freya’s Midweek Mischief” instead.

We often have potential students visiting our class to observe. This is a great idea and I think everyone who is considering a dog obedience class should do this. It’s very frustrating being faced with six to eight weeks in a class with an instructor whose methods you are uncomfortable with, and an hour out of your life to observe a class before signing up is well worth the time. Our visitors today included a young family of four with two elementary school age daughters. Mom was very impressed with Freya, and I appreciated that she took the time to tell us. Freya was on her best behavior today and she really was working nicely. In the interest of truth, I did mention that Freya is almost six and that her younger, wilder days were not quite as impressive.

There were no private lessons scheduled for the hour after class, so we set up a simple Rally course for those who were interested in the upcoming Rally class. There are three of us who are planning and training for November trials, so the opportunity to do run-throughs and “spot” each other’s runs was great. Freya and I are hoping to earn the remaining two legs for UKC RO1 the weekend of November 14-15. Sue and Onslow, and Cathy and Jazzie and Lefty are planning for an APDT trial the following week. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend their trial since we will be leaving for vacation a couple of days earlier.

I hope I don’t confuse myself with the differences between the rules of the various organizations! As you know, I’m also practicing AKC Rally at home with Axel since he will be entered in Rally Novice whenever he is at a show where it is offered and does not conflict with the show ring times. Fortunately the similarities are greater than the differences so hopefully everything will be fine.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 10 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 232 of 274)

Friday… I mean, Saturday… Freya

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When Freya was a puppy, we used to do a “Friday Freya” which was a photo of her with Dan and sometimes Oscar, too. I have sometimes wanted to find a Friday obedience class for her so I could have a weekly Friday Freya update post. But that would be a lot of inconvenience to play upon the fact that Friday is the day named for the Norse goddess Freya, if not the Rottweiler Freya, and of course the alliteration.

But I digress seriously from my real topic. So, anyway!

Saturday is group obedience class day. Since we’ve had a few big (read well-paying) projects at work that required working the weekend, we missed a couple of classes. Plus we had a week off due to Rosh Hashanah. So Freya and I were both eager to get back to class. Freya seems to work especially well after missing a class or two, and I’m not really sure why. If I could somehow use that fact for trials, I’d love it. But I would be very nervous about missing the extra practice close to a trial day, especially the practice in ignoring the distraction of other dogs in close quarters.

We also got the good news that our current instructor will be offering a class specifically for rally obedience soon. He incorporates quite a few rally exercises, such as the 360° and 270° circles, into the regular group obedience classes already to help improve heeling position and body awareness. Plus we learn and practice both left and right finishes. That actually helped us a lot for our first rally trial in July.

It probably won’t start in time to help us for Freya’s next trial (either later this month or in mid-November, or perhaps both of those dates) but definitely in time to help where we will need it most: for Rally Advanced and RO2 which are done off-leash.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 3 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 225 of 274)

More to life, other than being really, really ridiculously good looking?

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Yesterday I mentioned that most dogs have a rather large number of nicknames. My dogs are no exception, and Axel probably has more than his share. Sorry to the poor dog that has only one or two names because Axel has taken so many! One of those came from his budding show career: Zoolander.

His return home after a few months on the show circuit happened to coincide with a showing of Zoolander on cable. I like Ben Stiller, and I have always enjoyed this satire that makes fun of modeling and fashion. And really, what are dog conformation shows? Okay, fine, I guess they are more like beauty pageants. But the thought of Axel as Ben Stiller’s “really, really ridiculously good looking” but slightly dim male model Derek Zoolander character just makes me smile. For the record, though, I don’t think Axel is dim. But he is ridiculously good looking.

If you are not familiar with the movie, Derek Zoolander does have a problem. He is not an ambi-turner: he can’t turn left. This is hugely funny to me as it applies to Axel Zoolander, because in conformation showing, all you do is turn left. Watch the next time a dog show is on Animal Planet or something. The dogs are gaited counterclockwise around the ring, and if you watch when the dogs go down and back individually, the dog usually turns to the left to come back.

This gets even better when practicing Rally Obedience. Derek Zoolander compensated for his inability to turn left by making 270° right turns. Imagine my delight that 270° right is one of the stations for Rally Novice. By now, Axel Zoolander is probably getting a little tired of hearing my stupid jokes about ambi-turning.

Fortunately, even though he has to put up with my lame jokes, Axel is in fact getting very good at ambi-turning, with some very nice work on all of the required turns, including the 270° right and left and 360° right and left turns. I think he knows there’s more to life than just being really, really, really good looking!

(NaBloPoMo | August ’09: 12 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 200 of 274)