Agility Class Results #17

Tilda did pretty good at class last night. I took her collar off for the whole night. She actually had some trouble with the weave poles! We didn't have twelve poles weaves but had two sets of six and did a total of eighteen weaves in the full course. The one set where she really had trouble with was kind of in a weird spot, for a dog anyways. She did have a problem where she started to take the a-frame instead of the tunnel. She never did take the whole a-frame though. She also didn't take a jump. We ran parts of the course and then ran the full course at the end of class. Tilda's time was one minute and twenty seconds. She did pretty good, but I don't know if I'd call it her best night. She did have very good contacts though.

Walk

Today we went to a park for a walk. We haven't been out in any different places for a walk with Tilda for a while. So it was good to get her out somewhere else. I used her harness we got for her a little while ago. She was pretty excited when we first got there, but she settled in pretty quick. It's so nice to walk a dog when they don't pull your arm off. :)

Agility Class Results #16

Last night at agility class when we ran the course right away Tilda did great. It was a very good run. After everyone ran the course we broke the course up into a few parts and ran the parts. Then we ran the course again. Well, Tilda was not focused on the second run. She was all over the place. She didn't even weave right! She almost seemed like she could get the zoom zooms! I didn't run with any treats or the treat bag the second run. So that maybe had a little something to do with it too. While we were running it the second time Tilda ran over to my chair where we had been sitting and looked up at the treat bag. The instructor grabbed it and just held on to it. The instructor said Tilda ran back over (I don't really remember that, but so much happened) and looked for the treat bag again. But it wasn't there. The instructor said that Tilda looked kind of confused! :) I also took Tilda's collar off for the practice.

Last night I worked on her contacts. Sometimes she kind of skips them and I don't want to get into a habit. :)

Practicing Agility

I've been practicing agility in the backyard with Tilda lately. I set up a course that is more spread out and seems to be good practice for Tilda. It seems like she doesn't focus as well. But, it's hard to say because it is the backyard. The yard where she usually plays fetch. I'm thinking I should set up spread out courses most of the time. That is the way it is at a trial, so why not practice it that way?  

Grooming

I did a little grooming on Tilda today. Like most of the other times I could have done more, but didn't want to spend hours doing so. So, here are some pictures . . .

Before

After

Creeping Up To The Ball

Tilda sometimes will creep up on her tennis ball. She doesn't do it all the time, but when she does it's pretty funny.

Here is a short video.

Agility Class Results #15

Tilda did very good last night at class. Her first time was 54 seconds and her second time was 53 seconds. The dog walk and tunnel were right next to each other. The tunnel wasn't the same length as the dog walk. The tunnel was lined up to the dog walk at one side but was short at the other. So, Tilda came out of the tunnel and hopped on the dog walk and finished the dog walk. So to get rid of the problem I ran fast to the other end of the tunnel trying to beat Tilda and said table, which was the next obstacle. Tilda wasn't sure about a walled jump at first, but she got used to that. Also at the start of the course she didn't stay in a sit, but there were a lot of dogs around. I think she seemed to get used to it. She didn't really have that many problems though.

The one instructor had us run our dogs though part of the course without a collar on our dog's. I was going to put it back on after that part, but I decided to keep it off for the practice.  

Fetch Monster

I've decided that Tilda needs to learn she has to be quieter and can't always have her way. She has become a little bit to big of a fetch monster. :) Now don't think I don't want her to play fetch. She also doesn't have a barking problem. That's not the case. I think she has got into a habit that after we go for a walk we might play fetch. So, she paces around inside and will whine wanting to go outside and play fetch. It can get a little annoying. She doesn't  have to have her way. If I don't want to take her outside and play fetch, she will be fine. It's not like she didn't have any exercise. The other thing is in winter we can't take her out every time she wants to go out. I feel like if I take her outside to play fetch when she is whining that is like rewarding her.

Next Trial

Today I sent in the entry form for our next agility trial. It is just a fun match, so it isn't with AKC and won't count for anything. But it should still be fun. Besides, the dogs don't know if it is a real trial or not. It will be good to get Tilda out and get her ready for our next AKC trials. This won't be until September. Maybe this time Tilda will stay in the ring. :) :)

Agility Class Results #14

Last night at agility class we ran the course right away and Tilda's time was 60 seconds. There must have been something in the tunnel or something smelled interesting to Tilda because she was sniffing around in the tunnel and didn't come right out. We got to start over at least once if not more. Treats sure work good though. :) When I got a treat out Tilda went right though the tunnel. Tilda also saw the triple bar jump for the first time and she wasn't so sure of it. I think part of the problem was that the jump was right after the tunnel which Tilda didn't run right out of. Since she was going slower she maybe had time to notice the jump was quite a bit different. And to make things worse Tilda took the triple bar jump the wrong way and knocked all the bars off. But it didn't take Tilda long to get used to it.

After we ran the course we worked on parts of the course and then ran the course again. I can't really remember Tilda's second course time, but it might have been something like 1 minute and 8 seconds. The second time running the course Tilda went in a tunnel when she wasn't supposed to so that might have added a little more time.

Fetch

Here are some pictures of Tilda. 

Tilda waiting for the ball to be thrown.

Pictures Of Chip

Here are some pictures of Chip from when I was training him the other day. 

Grooming

Yesterday I groomed Tilda up a little. Here are the before and after pictures.

Before

After

After #2

After #3

I could have done more on Tilda, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time grooming. I can always do more soon if I want to.

Also, last night Tilda was howling with us again. :)

Howling

Last night we were howling at Tilda, we sometimes do that for fun and she seems to like it. But last night she joined in! It was pretty cute.

Here is a video. We were doing quite a bit of howling so it's kind of hard to hear Tilda. We might not sound the best either. :)

Chip Again

Today I worked with Chip again, the Papillon x Chihuahua mix. He did pretty good. To start with I took him for a walk to release some of his energy. Most of the time he walked good without a lot of pulling. It is always nice when a dog walks good.

He barks quite a bit and also jumps on people. So to help with the barking we used a spray bottle with water and gave him a little spray when he barked a lot. We didn't have to use that too much. We were going to use the bitter apple, but a spray bottle with water was easier. With bitter apple you have to get it in the corner of the mouth. Where with a water spray bottle you can quick give him a spray. You can also put a command with it like "no barks" or "be quiet". Hopefully you won't need the spray bottle and can just use a command after awhile. Chip needs to learn that a lot of barking is not allowed. A little barking here and there is okay. He will learn that he gets attention when he is quiet.


So now about the jumping. Even though he is a small dog he still shouldn't jump on people. To help with this we were pushing him off with our legs or knees and told him the command "off" when he jumped.

Of course I had him sit, but I also worked on the down command. We went from me having to pull out his front legs and holding his back end down to him doing it all by himself! He learned it in one day! I also worked on "comes" but didn't focus on that for the day.

With all that we worked on, we still threw in teaching him to ring a bell to go outside. Of course he didn't get the idea today, that is something that will take time.

Agility Class Results #13

Tilda did very good at agility class last night. We ran the course first and then worked on parts of the course and then ran the course again. Tilda's first time was one minute and two seconds. Her second time was one minute and nineteen seconds. Tilda knocked a jump bar, so we worked on that. We tried a lot of different things, so I will have to practice on that with Tilda in the back yard.

We did a weave pole, jump, jump, tire sequence and Tilda took the a-frame when she wasn't supposed to.

The last time we ran the course Tilda took the tunnel and didn't come out and then turned around and came out the way she went in. So I had to send her back in. That's maybe were we lost some of our time. Other than that Tilda did good.

This was also our first class in a new session. Since it was a new session there was a new dog in the class, she is a bigger dog and barked quite a bit. Tilda did pretty good though. I also knew this dog from when I did classes with Buddy. 

Tilda, Buddy, And Gracie

Sorry I haven't posted for a little while. There isn't really anything new going on around here. We've been at Buddy and Gracie's house, but other than that, nothing really exciting. Tilda of course had fun with Buddy and Gracie. I took my camera along, but I forgot to use it, I guess I forgot I brought it. So, I don't even have a video or pictures to post. I wanted to get a video of all three dogs playing together.

It gets pretty wild, but it's all play. Tilda jumps all around Buddy and almost jumps over him. Sometimes just Tilda and Gracie will play together, they're about the same size, so they climb all over each other. Then Buddy sometimes tries to join in and then it kind of goes back to Tilda jumping all around and going up on her hind legs to lick his face or to just play. Buddy and Tilda also play tug of war together which is fun to watch.