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)

Surf’s up!

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We are in Honolulu for a week or two every winter, so we have had many opportunities to see the world-famous big waves of the North Shore of Oahu. Theoretically, that is. Despite the fact that Waimea Bay is internationally known for big waves, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gone by there during the 18 years I lived there, and during yearly trips ever after, and seen it looking as flat as a glass tabletop.

Dan and I have been married for 16 years, or 17 trips to Hawaii for him, and he can count the number of times he’s seen big surf on Waimea Bay on one hand, and still have fingers left over.

We once again missed the really big stuff during November’s trip, although it was out there. I had to laugh when I heard one of the news interviews with various surfers and surf watchers. A woman who had moved to Hawaii in 2004 said that it was the first time in the five years she’d lived there that she’d seen big waves on Waimea Bay. I heard her loud and clear!

The really big thing that we missed was “The Eddie” — the 2009/2010 Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau. This tournament is held in memory of legendary Hawaiian surfer and waterman Eddie Aikau, who was lost at sea in 1978 when the voyaging canoe Hokule’a capsized. Aikau was lost in the last rescue attempt of his life as he went to seek help for the rest of the crew. The tournament holding period runs from December 1 through the end of February, and wave face height must be 40 feet or more for the tournament to be held. It has been held only eight times since its inception in 1984, including this year’s exciting competition held on December 8, won by Greg Long.

You can see videos online at Quiksilver’s site, like this highlights video:

Watch the video for Heat 8 (actually Heat 4 of Round 2); you’ll see 100-point rides from winner Long and Ramon Navarro:

Also check out these highlights from Riff Raff Surfboards. We encountered some heavy traffic and crowded conditions on the one day we headed up to the North Shore, but nothing like what you’ll see in this video!

Although I grew up in Hawaii, I’ve never gone board surfing and certainly I’ve never surfed big waves! I was never a really strong swimmer and always nearsighted, so water sports weren’t a huge draw for me. I could sit and watch the ocean and surfers for hours, though. I love the Internet for making it possible for me to watch the entire tournament online on a frigid December day in Chicago.

Urban wildlife – spotted!

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As you may already know, we have been watching a squirrel’s nest outside our office window for a while now. We have seen him? her? in the courtyard area and in the alley, but the only time it was seen entering or leaving its nest, we did not have a camera handy.

Until this afternoon!

You can see it holding an object (probably some food item) as it enters the nest, remains only long enough to put away the object, exits the nest, and then scampers down and across to the second floor deck area.

Okay, so maybe it’s not that exciting to those of you who live in areas where wildlife is abundant, but hey, this is downtown Chicago and I’ll take what I can get in the way of critters. But no, I will not be filming urban rats as my next wildlife project!

(NaBloPoMo | November ’09: 9 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 254 of 274)

Freya’s Midweek Mischief – not our best work

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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!