Happy Birthday, Holli & Hardy!

 7 years ago two blue smooth puppies were born.

 The little girl thought she was special from day one. 

 

 The boy was goofy, but oh so loveable. 

 

 

The boy wore the collie version of "hairbows." He didn't care. 

 

 

The girl didn't care for fancy 'doos. 

 

 

The boy became a leggy, but very adorable teenager. And he went to live with a family in the country. But he grew up into a lovely dog. And I regretted not keeping him. Live & learn. 

 

The girl grew up and learned how to be a show dog...

 

 

She won her minors and 2 majors, 2 all breed best of varieties over specials, a cut in the group, multiple specialty Reserve Winners Bitch and Winners Bitch awards. She finished her Championship with a Specialty Best of Variety over a lovely entry for her third  major. 

She became my first Homebred Champion. 

More than that she is my dog, my big blue, silly goofy collie girl.

Happy Birthday, Holli! And to brother Hardy.

Lazy Collie

 Darcie loves naps. 

 She says the couch is the best place to nap. 

She also says I should stop taking her picture as she tries to nap. 

The handler is rusty

 

Training makes one sleepy.

We didn't do much today. But did some play retrieve work this afternoon and they are VERY nice. I'm so blessed to have a Collie that loves to retrieve and carry around a variety of objects in her mouth. 

Then tonight Darcie and I worked on backing up. It was slow going. Mostly I think due to me. I know I wasn't splitting enough, and my criteria wasn't clear enough! Shame on me!

I had Tess in an expen about 20 feet away. Darcie is very "aware" of other dogs while she's working (she secretly thinks they are all out to get her food) and I have been slowly introducing another dog chilled out at quite a distance away during training to help her learn yes, she can work, and no, the other dog isn't coming to eat her cookies. I'm seeing more focus and more relaxation each session.

I started with her in front of me while I was sitting in a chair. That went nowhere as she decided to sit, down, offer eye contact, nose touches, and everything else except a hint of backward movement. Tried luring, with some success, but she still wanted to down (lovely fold back down, btw) at the sight of the food. So I stood up and walked toward her. That got her backing up and though it's not my preferred method, it did get me some backward movement to work with. I took it. I just clicked for tiny, tiny movements back, but I can tell it's very hard for her. She's doing a lot of thinking and "huffing" at me.

We worked on stay a bit. I haven't added a "stay" cue yet, right now sit still means sit, and down means down. I really haven't pushed this girl much at all yet, she is very slow maturing emotionally, and is quite different than my other dogs. 

I brought Tess out. Tess is my wild child. Bouncing off the walls, yelling, all sorts of "go go go" about training. Today I watched "Crying for Control", by Deb Jones. And while Tess doesn't currently do agility, I did get a couple of ideas that I wanted to refresh with her. 

We did a lot of work on reinforcing calm sits and downs. No shifting, whining, "jittering around" or barking. Just calm behavior until released.   

Then we worked on some "it's yer choice", or zen, leave it, etc. Whatever you like to call it. She learned it a long time ago, but I have been so busy with the puppy I have noticed she's been really pushy and mugging everyone. So back to square one. Sure enough, she took one look at my hand containing food, and I could almost see a cartoon text bubble popping up with "food!!! sqeeeeeeeee!!! mug the hand!" and she was all over it. She was very determined and it took a bit before I got a clickable moment. Once the "oh yea" lightbulb came on we did start making fast progress and she was leaving food alone in my open palm, AND didn't dive bomb for dropped cookies. Good girl. 

Training 4 dogs keeps me very busy. I need a better schedule! The puppy needs to be worked with every day, but the others might be rotated around to have their own "day" in addition to the puppy. Some days I can't get a session with all four in!

At least I have plenty of time. With a conformation dog in the house now, I will have to focus more on conformation this winter during the local show season. 

We are under a Tornado Watch tonight. So. Muggy. Ugh. Even the Collies are acting hot.

"Hold'

 

Trying again at the whole blogging thing. I know, I say that EVERY TIME. But I have multiple dogs in training and goals, so I'll try to be more faithful about blogging. 

Darcie is in season and is very unhappy about being confined. But that means lots of Kongs and toys and lots of special one on one time with me walking her, so she's surviving. It's only day 5 though, so we'll see. 

Darcie has done a lot of play retrieving, and carrying things of various sizes and materials around, but we haven't worked on a formal retrieve yet. Mostly because I keeping thinking *I* will mess it up, but can't put it off any longer so here we go. When I first started training (years ago) I had only seen the dumbbell retrieve taught in a very harsh manner.and it was never fun to watch and I KNOW it wasn't fun for the dogs. 

I saw somewhere (maybe Chris Bach? I can't remember) about initially teaching the hold with your finger in the dog's mouth, and decided to start there.

I put The Brat on lead and had her sit in front of me. With my right hand holding the collar I slipped my left index finger behind her canines, right where the dumbbell would sit. The first time she tried to move her head, but I stuck with her and as soon as she held still, and her tongue was still I used my verbal marker and rewarded  her. The next time she didn't resist at all. I started marking her mouth and tongue being still the first couple of times, then moved to her holding my finger, the second I felt her tighten up I marked and rewarded. After literally 1 minute she was holding my finger, even when I was gently pulling it away from her. She just held fast and thought the whole thing was hilariously funny. She had a good understanding of what I wanted by the time we finished.  Good deal, a couple more sessions then we can move to the dumbbell. 

I am the very proud owner of my first set of scent articles, 3 Utility gloves, a pair of tongs, article bag, lovely Outward Hound training bag and two more dumbbells. Got an amazing deal on them. 

This winter have SOOO many new training books and DVDs to go through. It will almost feel like I'm in dog training "school." hah!

I still have a couple more pages to finish on the blog. I thought it'd be a good idea to have  a page for each dog, with a few pictures and a bit about them so keeping track of them in the blog posts would be easier.