"Crash"

Steeler was given a new nickname Monday night at obedience class. His buddies are now calling him "Crash"

I can't wait till his stitches come out! We did go to obedience class last night though. We mostly just worked on some heeling, recalls and Stays. He still has a little bit of trouble with one 8 month old puppy in the class - but he is getting better and better every week. So it was a good class for not putting to much stress on his left front leg. The other incisions look great ... but that left front he definitely did a number on. Poor boy. On top of that he is ITCHY ITCHY. *sigh* I am guessing that the kibble I tried for the week I was gone is the culprit ..., or maybe a delayed stress reaction? At the moment he is crashed out next to me though and not chewing on his feet anymore. Hopefully going back on raw will get the itchies back under control. For the past couple of months we had been doing a really strict no grain, no dairy and no root veggies diet and his feet were doing GREAT! The kibble was no grain - but one I hadn't used before.

On Sunday we were up in Westford at the agility trial to watch some friends compete. Steeler was an awesome boy! He made a couple of new friends, and didn't react much to the ridgeback that lunged at him - he just looked at me .... "Did you see that? Where's my cookie!" It was great to see old friends that I haven't seen in a while! Steeler was even polite to a friends 5 month old puppy! What a good dog!

Tomorrow night is agility class .... and I think Steeler needs another week to heel before we are doing a lot of running and jumping. *sigh* I will probably go help set up and then work him in the obedience for agility class - that won't be too taxing for him. Thursday there is nothing on the calender and then Friday we are going to a Rally Training party. And then I will have survived the week at work. :-)

Bad Blogger!

WOW - the end of March was my last post. I guess things kind of got away from me.

Steeler has been doing pretty well the last few weeks in agility and obedience class. I'm sure I have lots of video of various activities. Check out for his latest activities. I actually took a week off and went to the beach with my folks, and my sisters family. For the first time ever I boarded Steeler. Poor Steeler - he is officially a serious mamma's boy. He ended up going through a glass plate in a screen door less than 20 min after I left him. He ended up with a trip to the emergency room and stitches in 4 spots. The first 48 hours were kind of rough for him - but he got better every day and Katrin took excellent care of him. For the most part he got along with the 3 resident dogs as well which made me very happy.

Logan got to stay with my friends Ann and Paul and I think she wants to go back! She got to go for a walk in the woods every day with Nico and Brandy and basically took over the furniture at their house. I think she is officially going deaf though. She didn't hear me come through the gate or talking to her when I picked her up. She definitely was not going to let me leave their house with out her though.

Keegan stayed with Brian who always takes great care of him when I go away. I am sure he was happy to have some time away from the other two and some undivided attention.

It is HOT back here at home! It was so nice at the beach! Hopefully I will be back to getting some video soon! steeler is out of commission for a little bit longer - so probably no agility this coming week.

Steeler meets his match

After Wednesday's agility class Steeler got to play with Trixie. Keegan will sometimes play with Steeler - but he can't really keep up with him and Logan wants nothing to do with the chase me game. BUT Trixie .... LOL she can keep up with him and give him a run for his money.

Noseworks - training party

On Friday we got together with Scott and a bunch of classmates to work on some noseworks stuff. We did the first two runs with food and scent in the box, then the remaining runs were scent only in the box. This was the first time Steeler had done "scent only". He's such a good boy! He didn't seem to have much trouble making the transition from food + scent to scent only. I totally mucked up his last run though - oh well....

Wednesday Agility class

Last weeks agility class went pretty well, though Steeler was a bit distracted this week. Apparently people hanging out behind the tunnel was just too inviting this week. Everyone was good though and just ignored him. No attention for the spotty boy when he is supposed to be playing with his Mom! Class was also a bit louder than usual - not sure if that really bothered him or not. A couple of times I thought he was a bit concerned by Cheyenne barking. I was really happy with his weave poles this week! He seemed to have more enthusiasm this week than in the past couple of months. I think there were also several places were I could have given him a cookie and I would have a more focus. Oh well - can't do much about that now. Just try to be more aware in the future.

Yup - definitely needed more cookies! Bad Handler!


second time thru....


Last exercise ...

Bad Dog?

Ok - really I have only myself to blame here ....

Left my chicken in the crock pot on the counter when I took Steeler to agility class. Left Keegan in the dining room behind the baby gate. Any guesses on where this is going? LOL Keegan was NOT behind the baby gate when I got home. And my chicken was NOT in the crock pot! *sigh* At least he didn't break the crock pot this time.

Catching up ...

So behind again ... sigh. Oh well. Here is some video from noseworks class number 6. Unfortunately I don't think we are going to do the next session as I already know that I would miss two classes out of the six. We'll continue to do some work at home and with friends though.



Other stuff that has been going on -

we did an obedience show n go on Sunday last week, Steeler had two novice runs that went pretty well. The only exception being when I lost his focus during the first run. In watching the video and talking to E about the runs - I think Steeler does not find our targeting game as much fun as I thought he did. We talked about some other ways to reward between exercises as well. Obedience class is going pretty well. Last Monday there were puppies around outside the ring while we were working on heeling. Steeler isn't too sure what he thinks about puppies and used to bark at them. Outside the ring this week was a newfie puppy (already weighs more than Steeler!) and a 8 or 10 week old Aussie puppy in the owners lap. Steeler was able to heel towards the puppies and then turn around and heel in the other direction without a backward glance! YAY! I think we got probably within 5 feet or so of the puppies - I wasn't really paying attention to the dogs - I was focused on Steeler and what we were doing because I trust E to not send us over what Steeler can handle. Steeler and I can do great things when I can focus on him and the job at hand rather than trying to scan the environment for problems. And I am learning - that focusing on Steeler and our activities - Steeler doesn't even see the other distractions that I used to obsess over. Here's one of his runs. We still have a few things to work on, like getting into the ring with the long line not so tangled.



On Wednesday Steeler had a great agility class - but I forgot the camera! And now I can't remember at all what we worked on. I know it was short sequences again .... but I can't for the life of me remember what specific skill we were working on! I think my brain is full.

Today we went to the barn for an agility match. Steeler had three runs. The first two at 20 inches and the third at 24. Laurie was there with our old classmate Solo the Briard, and her husband was nice enough to video for me! (Thanks Dave!!) Steeler's first run was ok. Not great but not horrible. He got distracted after the teeter by something that must have smelled really good! I probably didn't react quickly enough to Steeler deserting me. But I did get him back and working.



I think I must have worked out what ever nerves I had during the first run because his next two runs were much better I thought.



For his third run I had Lisa and Trixie hang out in the ring. I really need (in my mind) to work on things that I think are distracting. So since Steeler likes Trixi and I don't worry about what MIGHT happen with her I decided to start with pretending that they were hanging out near the ring. Lisa is great because she does exactly what you ask her to! So we will work up to having Trix moving and work on maintaining focus! He is clearly not bothered in the slightest by Trixie just hanging out which makes me very happy! :-) Steeler has made so much progress in the last 9 months since we started class with Catie! I was so happy with the spotty boy today!