This Week with the Spotted boy.

This week has been a busy week for Steeler. Monday night is Obedience Night. He does very well in class these days. Stays are a bit difficult, especially with agility class running in the next ring - but we are getting there. We were told that we need to spend some time refreshing our Stand for Exam - so we have been practicing that this week. Tuesday night Steeler made a new Border Collie friend. Wednesday night we didn't do much because Tuesday night we got no sleep when the sump pump hose blew a hole at 2AM and sprayed water all over my basement. What fun that was. Thursday night was the first night of our Communications class. The first class was without dogs so that we could go over some of the rules and the basics of what Katrin would like us to start at home. On Friday we went up to Uxbridge and went for a 5 mile walk with Lisa and Brew. We ran into three dogs on Friday. The first one as we were starting our walk, was not a problem. The second one I could have handled better - as is usually the case. The lab was on a leash and at the end of it and pulling - so Lisa and I leashed up the boys and walked off into the woods so they could pass. Both boys took offence at the fact that they were sitting politely and this lab kept heading towards them rather than just passing them by. In retrospect what I think we should have done was asked the guy that was walking if he could move his dog to his left so we could just keep moving by the dog. Oh well - hindsight is always 20/20. The last dog was an off leash golden. Brew had already met the dog before but I am still nervous about Steeler meeting dogs that I don't know. So I leashed him up and just moved on past the dog. Well ... the golden's owner after being told 3 times that Steeler is not always good with other dogs just stood there and called her as she followed Steeler on down the path. It felt like it took forever for Lisa to grab the golden and escort her back to the owner. But - while Steeler was not happy about the golden - he didn't erupt into a barking lunging mess. :-) I found out after that the golden was only 2 - she looked much older probably because she was carrying about 50 extra pounds. :-(((

After walking with Lisa I met Dawn and Ghost at Dunkin Donuts. Dawn came down for the night for the agility trial today. We took the boys for a short walk around the show site and then went up to the NADAC site for "Fun Runs". Fun Runs are a tunnelers run. Oh boy! ALL TUNNELS! This time around there were a lot more dogs and people around. Still not as many as an actual trial - but more than last week. The course was also harder. The first run (that I didn't get on video) was pretty good. Just a little bit of drifting between the first and second tunnel. The second run about the same. I have not been asking for much in the way of Start line behavior -
because as soon as I start to
fuss with him, my anxiety builds and Steeler gets stressed out. So I couldn't beat him to the end of the first tunnel and he was drifting in the middle. So the third run I asked for a sit stay at the start and was able to lead out to the end of the first tunnel! You can tell that he is tired by this point. By the end of the run he was really starting to slow down.

Today we hung out at the AKC trial that Dawn and Ghost were entered in. We shared tent space with Maria and Kirby and the boys all did well together. I had Steeler out quite a bit and Steeler did great. Here he is hanging out in the tent ring side. He was very good in his crate while I was not around. Not so good if I was sitting right there with him, but he got better as the afternoon went by. At the end of the afternoon we did the practice jump a few times. I tend to get nervous about taking his leash off around lots of distractions, but he sat, stayed and jumped when I asked him to without getting distracted and wandering off! I think there is hope for us yet. Tonight he is EXHAUSTED (and so am I)! Tomorrow we have to do Katrins homework a couple of times to make up for not doing it today.