[cynthia]

Okay great, I can get some weights and attach them to the teeter, or even maybe some tunnel bags. I didn’t really notice that it was bouncing a lot. It’s a Mark’s teeter, I think a good one, but my lawn is kinda lumpy too so it’s not a solid flat surface.

I’m glad I made a good call just doing the two reps. :). I’ll try in another day or two again, see what he thinks. 🙂

Today when I left Dreamer at the vet I was close to the agility barn again so took Kaz over. I was hoping to bring both dogs, but just took Kaz. He definitely can’t work for a full hour! But we had some fun. I did set up the straight lines exercise which was a lot of fun. He only did it this once, though. I tried again later the other direction and nope, he was done, so I didn’t push it. I think he’s gonna be a speedy little guy!

I also took him outside because there was stuff set up, and for him outside is a whole new environment. It was cooler outside too. But he still can’t play with toys there. Thanks for telling me to keep at it with the toys, and they will come back. I think I gave up on toys with Jet and Connor early because they were the same way. Play at home but not in different locations. And I so do love using toys! So this is just a little clip of having him run through a straight tunnel outside. I threw the toy, but he didn’t play. And he really needed outside sniffing time so most of the time I just let him sniff and walked around with him. Which was good anyway because we had too much time to work. :). I don’t know if this video is useful at all, lol, but thought I would include it. I didn’t do any teeter work, or much else. 🙂

[cynthia]

Hehe yeah I don’t give them butter very often for fear of it being too fatty, but they sure love it! And it’s the only thing my Kromi Maze will take a pill inside. :). Gotta be sneaky with him! I’m not sure if the fat content is higher than cream cheese or not, I need to look! Pouring some melted butter on some other kind of treat is also a great idea, even kibble might work! And yeah everyone loves butter! 😀

So I’m feeling a little better but didn’t have much time today, so just tried the mountain climber again with just a little bit of movement to the teeter. It did worry him a little! I hope I didn’t do too much. And since he was worried, I only did two reps. Should I go back to a non-moving teeter, or should I do this again in a couple of days?

[cynthia]

Thank you! He still won’t really play with toys outside of home or the barn, places he’s familiar with, and I don’t really push it. But I do try to play a little and I hope he’ll be more comfortable with play in all sorts of places eventually.

I haven’t done much training ’cause I tend to sit and worry when one of my dogs isn’t at full health, so I’ve just been waiting around for Dreamer’s tail to heal. I think it’s healing well and he should get his stitches out on Tuesday. Hopefully, then we’ll be back to normal activity.

I did get out in the back yard a little this morning. Though now I’m having another stupid physical thing of my own that’s flaring up, so I kept things short with Kaz. And I was out of cream cheese so I used butter for the teeter. LOL he loves butter! He was so into the butter that he forgot how to wrap. So we did some mountain climber reps, then we did a couple of wrap reps to let him know he really can think and eat butter at the same time. LOL. Then we did a couple more mountain climbers. Boy he sure darts right up that teeter for butter! 🙂

[cynthia]

Thanks for the detail about the say! I will change my tactic a bit. 🙂 Yeah I don’t want my moving to be his release.

So I have bad news about Dreamer’s tail, the end has to be amputated because one of the vertebrae is in pieces. That’s why it’s not healing. So he’s kinda out for the count and will be for a couple more weeks until he heals up.

Also it’s so hot here, 80 at 8:00 am, and my backyard has been taken up by my deck guy putting in my deck in the mornings. No way Kaz can work through that, so I haven’t been training at home much. Though I could bring the wobbly plank indoors and work that on the tile.

I did the following training after I found out about Dreamer (we’d just come from the vet, this was last Friday) so I wasn’t thinking great so I just stuck with the regular stuff with Kaz. It was also hot again and so we didn’t do much.

I did the teeter and was a bit ahead of him so he would run to the top, I think he did well. The first rep I was a little too far ahead.

A little more lazy game:

And a little bit with the toy, I didn’t really try to send him to a jump out of the tunnel :p

[cynthia]

<<<Some dogs don’t really understand the traditional ways of teaching stays – my 5 year old dog had ZERO idea what I wanted when I tried to teach her a stay using what I had done with the others. So, I switched to throwing the reward back to her, making the release the key information point – and the lightbulb went on immediately 🙂 Yay! Kat is just like her, so I know we will get his stay going really well too 🙂>>>

I think what is confusing me a bit, as I was working the stay today, is it seems like if I move when I release, will I be releasing with motion? Instead of releasing in motion. So if I release AND move at the same time, will he think that when I move it’s the release, not my verbal?

I’ve been trying to teach Dreamer Left and Right since we have some downtime, and he is just not getting it at all. Maybe I should ask in camp. My verbals suck. LOL Half my dogs don’t know Sit or Down on cue in lots of different situations.

What I’m understanding about the stay. then, is that really I’m actually training the release, not really the stay. Is that right? I swear this should be an easy concept for me after training dogs for 19 years!

Here’s our attempt at the stays today.

We worked early at the barn today, 8:30 to 9:30., and dangit it was already 80 outside. Pfft. The agility barn is close to Dreamer’s vet, and he’s getting laser on his tail, so I figured I should just rent the barn while we are out there. I keep everything really short for both Kaz and Dreamer.

This was Kaz’s first time doing the mountain climber game not at home. Only did 3 reps, and I did put the cream cheese on the top on tape. He loves cream cheese! It’s tricky loading it and leading him around so he won’t go up by himself. But I think it worked out okay. I didn’t do a wrap (thought about it, had the jump out as you could see) but since it was a new place to do the game I figured he probably needed baby steps again. I think he did really well.

We also worked the lazy game with the jumps and tunnel. My treat throws were awful, lol, but he seemed to figure it out anyway!

Then I ran with him more… I was happy he was able to switch from treats to the toy. :). At the end of the video I considered resetting the jump and going again, then decided nope, that was enough, especially when it was already so hot. And boy does he love the barn. He doesn’t want to leave!

There’s also a little tire set up in the barn so I thought we’d try some lazy game with that. I did it last time we were there, and he was a bit worried about going through. But today he was great! And with the heat I didn’t want to do too many running games that made him too hot and tired.

[cynthia]

Thank you for your feedback! Yeah, I figured he was just being a puppy and we just needed to have some fun anyway. That makes sense that his brain couldn’t prioritize both the jumps and the motion so he could only do the motion. 🙂 I can definitely do some of the pattern game, and then go back to the lazy game when we are there. Baby steps for both of us. 🙂

Sounds good about the stays too! He is a tough guy for me to get to stay, I swear my other dogs were not this challenging :p. They all seemed to really pick up just staying. Or else I’ve forgotten, which is also a possibility!

I will try your methods the next time! I’m trying to get a deck installed too so I have too many things going on now and for the next couple of days.

[cynthia]

Thanks! I should not train on so little sleep, but I think it worked out okay. :p. Today I felt much better and we went to the agility barn and just had fun.

After I trained yesterday I did also think I should have just worked the wraps front-ways to remind him. And I can definitely stop saying Yes for every stanchion. LOL. I definitely don’t want him to look at me all the time.

I will put Cream Cheese on the teeter for that, he loves cream cheese. That’ll be better than squeeze cheese in the can which I think is just not healthy for anyone LOL.

So today I felt happy and went to the barn because I had an errand in the area. Though it was already getting hot so we didn’t do very much. I tried running Kaz around the jumps and tunnels. I had the jumps at 4″ and he just did not want to do them, silly guy!

So the next time I did it after a little break I mainly just rewarded for him going over the little jumps.

And since it was hot I didn’t want to work on much running, so we worked on some puppy stays o the mat. He still doesn’t have much of a stay, but he’s getting a bit better. 🙂

[cynthia]

Well life got away from me again. :p. So I haven’t been training, but I got out this morning. I worked on some more counter-motion but he kinda forgot how it was done, so I had to go back to baby steps. Plus I didn’t sleep well last night so maybe I shouldn’t have trained this morning.

Then I did some teeter reps again which I think he did well at!

[cynthia]

Thanks! Yeah, it was a fun short session. I actually worked a bit this morning too before I got your reply, and we had fun again. I’m starting him on a flyball box turn too, just on a flat surface, the on and off, which is is doing well with. 🙂

I wanted to see if he would send more to the tunnel, and yup he did. :). So I was able to get a blind in better! This was our whole short training session for this one, another short and sweet one.

And I put the teeter flat on the ground and used it as the flat board, which he also had fun doing. :). I need to look at week 3 stuff!

Edit —
I was watching the counter-motion video lesson and that looked fun! So I set it up this evening and did a little with both Dreamer and Kaz. 🙂 Dreamer also needs counter-motion.

Here is Kaz’s video. I kept it short again and I think he did good!

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by cynthia.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by cynthia.

[cynthia]

Oookay. Keeping things short is hard 🙁 Especially when it’s fun. But I was successful today. hah. I first did the tunnel and jumps again, but I still felt like he was pooping out before I got to more than just running around in the circle. So we stopped pretty quickly. And I feel like I still have to run up to the tunnel quite a bit to support it so he’ll go in, which makes it hard for me to get where I need to be for the blinds. But he had fun and loved the toy.

I haven’t worked. his teeter since I last posted, so today we only did two reps, one with me on each side. and he seemed to think that was fun and wanted more. 🙂

We also worked a little wobbly-plank (I always say that because of Professor Grubbly-Plank from Harry Potter lol). When he was a wee tot at his breeder’s, she had a puppy teeter out for the litter and he would ride it up and down, which was awesome. Though I would worry some of the puppies would be under the down end and get squished! Fortunately, that didn’t happen. 😛

[cynthia]

All sounds good about the teeter. I haven’t trained it again since that last video. I may try a little bit this evening after it cools off, see how he does with just a couple reps with high-value treats!

I am loving running with him! I also think he has the potential to be really fast. I am hoping his shorter stride will make it a bit easier for me to handle him LOL. But his little legs seem to pump really quickly!

Oh yeah, I forget about the darn lotus ball. LOL. He’s getting good at getting the cookies out of it, so I can try that next time and see how he does. I really love how he’s running after the tug too! I put the tunnel in today. Did a couple of reps of the lazy game with treats. Then switched to the toy and was so glad he was able to switch to the toy and keep him engaged. I think he’s loving this game too. I tried a few circles and he seemed to love them even with a delayed reward. And at the end I tried to put some blinds in. I did realize I would need more room between the jumps to even get the blinds in, lol, so I moved the jumps out further. He seemed fine with the distance, what do you think?

[cynthia]

Okay, so walking helped a lot LOL. I will admit my silliness! Keeping moving in the small area with the chairs in the way is actually a little bit difficult!

One of these days I’m going to have a dedicated agility yard so I don’t have to set everything up and do poop cleanup before I train every time. :p.

I still felt like my movement was pretty minimal, but I guess with Dreamer that’s all he needs. We only ran it these three times and I was really happy with how we both did!

I do need to look at some of the other little course popouts and see what we can do. I do plan on renting an agility yard next week though, that will expand what we can do. 🙂

[cynthia]

That sounds good not doing the teeter too much! I’ll just do it two or three times a week, and only a couple of reps. We will both like that better. 🙂 I definitely don’t want to stress him out by pushing too hard. Thanks for that feedback, I will do those things!

I actually posted another post up there too, with two videos, one of the teeter and one more of the lazy game. Sorry, I posted twice in a row. :p

This evening I went out just for a couple of minutes and put the toy and running into the lazy game. It was just short and fun. And my husband walked out in the middle (you can see him in the garden) so Kaz had to go say hi, but he came right back. :). Since he still doesn’t have a wait it makes starting a big hard. :p

[cynthia]

So maybe it’s not the sun and he’s just unsure about the height after all. :p I took Kaz out again this evening when it was cooler and tried to teeter again, and he still wants to jump off. So maybe I should give him a break tomorrow and work something else then go back to the teeter.

As for the long flat board game, I don’t actually have a long flat board that is as long as a dog walk plank. Would it be okay for me to lay the teeter flat and use that? It can lay completely flat and I can make it so it doesn’t move.

Thanks!

[cynthia]

He did seem to like the lazy game! I did some more this morning and had him go over more jumps at once before the reward. I also went back and forth between sides, being super lazy, but he seemed fine with that. I wasn’t sure if I should just do one side then the other.

He is still searching for treats in the grass a little. I’m using string cheese, which is only semi-high value for him, but is more visible in the grass. Though he’s using his nose more. He still has zero stay, and he won’t bring a toy back to me yet. He is getting the idea that if he brings me a toy or ball it’s more fun ’cause I’ll play with him. But that is slow progress. :p. So I stuck with the cheese today. And I moved the jumps into the shade because I know he doesn’t like the sun…

As for the teeter, I left that in the sun, which was probably a mistake. He was jumping off again and going into the shade. And again he was better on the first side than the second side. I did smoosh some cheese onto the end of the teeter on a clip (the spoon idea is great too!), but I may need to go back to the liver treats since it’s higher value. I’m pushing the teeter over onto its side when we are not training, which is easy, and will keep him off it unless we are training. Though sometimes he seems like a teenager who isn’t sure about doing what I ask, then goes and does it on his own when he thinks no one is watching. LOL

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