Obedience Disapointment.

Bell was entered in an Obedience show in Madison today. She did really great things and a bunca not-so-great stuff too.

Before Utility she was in a GREAT mood! I was so excited she seemed to want to do somthing and was all happy n all. To start it off she didn't sit when I told her to on a Go out (-3) points. It's not a failure. It's kinda a good thing for her cause she was excited about doing her jumping. So I didn't tell her to sit again which would have failed us. But she had some nice fronts and finishes on that excercize. Then came the Moving stand which she NAILED! She has to stop when I tell her to while heeling and then stay there untill I call her back to me. I tell her to jump up when she comes to encourage her to come fast. Usually she does great but this time she LEPT up with ALL FOUR FEET and came racing to heel. LOVE IT!! Next came Gloves and for the first time EVER she took the wrong glove. I must have pivioted too much and she took the middle one instead of the far right one. I haven't trained Gloves lately though. So that failed us. Then came Scent Articles. We have always had a hard time with them. She shops around by picking the right one up and then droping it...then looking around some more...then picking up the right one again and coming part way....then she will throw it at me then go back and seach the pile again to make sure. Then she will bring the right one back....all as I am sitting there stressin out! Well today she went out picked up the right one and came directly to me and gave me nice fronts and finishes to boot....ON BOTH LEATHER AND METAL!!! WHOOO HOO!!!! HUGE in our book! We have been training that ALOT lately! So our work paid off! Then came signals. You cant talk to your dog at all, you can only use hand signals. Bell started off great but then went back into her old anticipation/stressin out crap. She did awful for part of the excercize. I was ticked. We have been working so hard on it!!! I am at a loss for where to go from here. I have tried so many different things. It all comes down to that I didn't teach her correctly from the beginning. Poor dog was my first dog and had to put up with my crap. Qwik is SOOOO much farther along in the beginning stages of heeling cause I taught her correctly. Unlike Bell. I dono if I can ever get her to the point of being competitive again.....we will see!!!

Bell did sorta better in Open. But same exact thing with her heeling. She also was being a brat and kept trying to suck up to the stewards and leave the ring to go get some liversausage! I have LOTS to work on before this weekend. I have her entered on Saturday and Sunday in Racine. Its a busy show with LOTS of entries.

One other side note is I worked both girls at a park today, outside on a soccer field! It was very dry! Prolly the only NON soggy grass in the county!!! Well Miss Qwik is having her Novice Debut the end of April, at the Curly Coat National Specialty. The show is being held ouside though. I have a hard time walking a strait line on matts indoors...we will see how it goes outside! But Qwik did AWESOME! I was soo proud of her! I have to remember to keep working with her outside. Being the little scatterbrain, I gotta keep her focused. I am getting so excited to start her actual showing!!! :)

Could the baby pigeons have gotten uglier????

YIKES! Glad human babies don't get uglier with age! YIKES!


It looks to me that they are doing well though! Wouldn't you say? I ordered some Bands from FOY's pigeon supplies. That way I can mark the pairs so I don't split up the happy couples. I also want to mark the babies. Hopefully I will be able to turn them loose and they will come back to the coup. Or if they escape while training they will return home. Me and my dad are hoping to do some remodeling of the coup soon. Giving them a bigger oustide area to chill and some more bigger next boxes that are easier to clean. Hopefully if I have more boxes the others will pair up. I ordered some paper mache nest bowls so I won't have to have straw in there to make more of a mess.

This past Sunday I had a private lesson for Agility with a friend of a friend. I worked both girls in the indoor horse arena. They both did good and I learned some new things and saw some spots that I need to work on! I had a really good time and got some GREAT ideas to train! Qwik did better than I thought she would in the new place. She was a bit distracted but still worked nice. Bell had a hard time with the barn cats....she likes to chase cats and it was a tough distraction for her. But did well otherwise.

We start field training today with Kyle from Chesapeake Waters. The girls are WAY excited. Its kinda cruddy out rain and fog.....but they like to get down and dirty.

I took the girls swimming at my old bosses new place in Oconomowoc. The girls just LOVE the pool. I have some video I want to make a montage of once I have a few hours to waste. I really should get a laptop for when I am sittin around at shows!!

Bell has an Obedience show on Sunday in Madison. I dono how we will do. She is just stressin! I use lots of food and toys and rewards. But she still kinda goes "over the edge" with stress! Hopefully once we get back into the swing of things in the ring we will get our rythem back. I have off next week Saturday for an Obedince show in Racine. We will see how she does!

more odd topic updates....

My pigeons had laid some eggs that I posted about a while ago....well those eggs ended up freezing into eggsickles. Then I noticed that they were sitting in the corner again.....So I shooed them away and they had 2 new eggs! Well these eggs have been around for a while and I checked on them today and they HATCHED!!!



Yin n Yang...the babies!!! AREN'T THEY CUTE!!! hahahaha Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!




The proud parents and part of the babies. I nailed the coup shut so it won't be as cold in there. Hopefully it will warm up soon!


Then the other odd topic news is my Orcids!!! I bought one for my mom for Christmas 2 years ago at Home Depot. It has lasted this long and is SOOOO pretty! The blooms last for like a month! Way cool. The branches had died off and just grew back and the flowers just opened! Aren't they pretty!


But the news is I bought another one at Steins. It had TONS of blossums and they are starting to open. It's cool too.


I am finally getting some rest after a busy but EXTREMLY fun weekend. I had a good friend stay over from Minnesota. Darcy and her two golden boys Sota and Rouser. They are from Yvonnes breedings and I welped Rouser when he was born. She was attending the Susan Garrett seminars too. Fun Fun.

Sounds like it supposed to be a warmer week....lets hope they aren't lying!!!

Lotsa learning and a new obedience title!

I attended a 3 day dog training seminar last week Thursday-Saturday. It was put on by my old boss Katie. She owns www.thinkpawsitivedog.com. She had Susan Garrett come down from Cadada and put on several seminars. I went to the Advances in Dog Training on Thursday and Friday. Friday night was a weave pole seminar and Saturday was a jumping drill day. Fun Fun Fun. I have LOTS to work on and I started tonight at work. I got lots to do before the Curly National Specialty the end of April!!! Qwik won't know what hit her!

On Sunday I entered Bell at an obedience show held at State Fair Park in Milwaukee. She did OK and Qualifyed in both Utility and Open. By Qualifying in both classes on the same day she earned her 20th UDX leg, giving her a new title!! UDX2 She did kinda crappy in Utility. Her heeling sucked like usual. She stresses in Utility and just goes in this autopilot mode....sucks. In Open she did really well. But everyone else did well too. No Placements but I'll take the Q's!!!

I am fighting cold...hopefully it wont last!

NADAC Games trial.

Me n the girls had an early morning. (YAWN!!!) We left at 6am for Madison, Mad City Dog Training Club. It was just a Games trial meaning they had all the fun stuff;

Tunnelers: A course made up of just tunnels. The dogs LOVE this game. They get to run really fast and it's fun to try to keep up and keep them on track!

Touch and Go: A course made up of an A-Frame, Dog Walk and tunnels. It's just like tunnelers but with the contacts in the way. The dogs have to be keen to your direction since they make it tough by putting the contacts right next to the tunnels. And tunnels are hard to resist!

Hoopers: This is a new class made up of hoops that the dog goes through. There is no height to it. You have to plan a strategy similar to Snooker in USDAA. Makes the handler think but the hoops are SOO simple for the dog to do.



To start we had Touch and Go. Qwik was up first being in Novice. Her first run she Qualified and had the fastest Novice time of ALL the heights! She did an awesome job taking direction from me. We need to work on rear crosses but she did good. She got first place and her first TnG Q! Yeah for her. Bell was up next and was a sassy pants for her contacts. We have been working on them in training and I need to be consistent across the board for her....So she didn't hold her front feet off and back feet on like I asked her to so we stopped and I had her repeat the A frame, and then she did what I asked. Then on the dogwalk she stopped with all 4 in the yellow....I waited and asked her to "touch" again and she did, and then we went on, and had to do the A-frame one more time....she went ALL the way to the bottom and put her front feet off and kept her back feet on . Hopefully I can continue to be consistent for both the girls sake in the future!

The Second round of Touch and Go I was a crappy handler for Qwik and she NQ'd...no fault of her own. Bell did AWESOME and finished her TN-E aka Elite Touch n GO. YEAH! The first "training" run paid off and she did what she should do on her contacts.

Next came Tunnelers. Both girls FAVORITE CLASS EVER!!!! They Q'd all 4 runs. Me and Qwik had some mis-directions...but we able to save the runs. Qwik finished her NOVICE TUNNELERS title, and Bell finished her ELITE TUNNELERS title. Fun Fun Fun Fun! I just love the enthusiasm for it. Both girls like to watch the dog ahead of them run and they bark or strain at the end of the leash.

Hoopers was next. We again Q'd all 4 runs. Qwik was a lill shit and could not stay focused. I think she needs something more to do....the hoops were small and not really attention getting so she had to be called back all the time.....not what I wanted but OK. Bell had an AWESOME second run with a time of 16 seconds......She placed first, the second place dog was at 30 seconds! She SMOKED it!!!

I will get our video'd runs up soon. My computer programs are acting up so I have to figure out something new. Soon soon.

Busy week coming up. Work Mon-Wed and Training Seminar Thurs-Sat. Sunday is the Wisconsin Kennel Club show at State fair park. Should be an EXHAUSTING week!

Another UKC Agility trial

A club from Illinois rented the WWCDTC building and held a UKC agility show there today. I had Bell entered in trial one, level 1. She needed that leg to earn her UAG1 title, and also to advance to the next level. And she did it! She had a great run and did the teeter well.



I then had her entered in Trial 2 level 1 & 2 and she was going for points! She had to run fairly clean to get any points. She could not have ANY redo's. Well in level 2 she had 3 redo's so no points there. In level 1 she got a perfect score of 200 and 10 points! Yahoo! You need 100 points for the UACH title. So we are on our way there!



I also showed a friend of mine's golden DeeDee. She's a great dog. Her mom hurt her back so she can't run her. She runs for me and did awesome today! She earned her UAG1 title and 2 legs towards her UAG2 title! I was very proud of her too.

I was hoping to have Qwik ready for this show....but she would need to be weaving. She is doing OK in her training. I am not 100% sure why we aren't progressing. It's like sometimes she's great and others I feel we need to go back to square one. We will see. I have video'd ALL of her sessions so I will have a video up soon of what we are doing.

I really want spring now...I wanna train the dogs outside and am iching to get my a-frame up. Maybe we will get an early sping!

Pheasant Fest

I took Qwik and Diesel to Pheasant Fest in Madison yesterday. http://www.pheasantfest.org/ It was a HUGE event! We sat in the Curly-Coated Retriever Club of America booth doing some breed education! D and Qwik were GREAT breed ambassadors. They were holding brocures and letting everyone pet and rub them. Diesel almost fell off the table a buncha times leaning against people.

We got lots of questions like. "Are these Labradoodles?", "Do they shed?" What kinda mix is this?" "Is this a curly lab?" "Did you curl their hair?" "Did you shave their faces?" "Do you have to trim their hair?" It was LOTS of fun! I got to talk to some curly people about the specialty and am getting excited for it.....its the end of April but I can't wait!

It was SOOO funny too I was sitting in the booth and Kyle my Field Trainer walked by. Him and his wife were sitting in the booth behind us and I didn't even know it! I was bugging him to start training soon! I gotta get the girls goin! Qwik has lots of stuff to get training on this year. Especially before the speciality in April!

All the snow is melting and its yucky out. Hopefully we will get the inch of snow on Thursday to cover up all this yuckyness!