All Grown Up - Kenzie at 20 months

Taken up at our country property in Nildottie on Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!





The Out Takes

Introducing Winpara Dream Chaser DWDF.S (Kenzie)

A few photos taken today of Kenzie with her sashes and trophies from Sydney last weekend:

Dances with Dog Comp Sydney - 13 December 2009 Videos

Kenzie's AM Heelwork to Music



Kenzie's first Place win in PM Heelwork to Music Starters



Kenzie's AM and PM Freestyle Videos



Ness's AM Freestyle Qualifier

Kenzie's First Title and a holiday in Sydney

Well its been a while since my last blog post - not a lot been happening in the training department - we have been spending time at the park throwing the ball and aside from training twice a week at club (agility and obedience) Kenzie has really just been growing up and having fun. Life is one big party.

Back in early November I had some hair brain idea that I would take the girls for a trip to Sydney in December and enter the double Dances with Dogs comp with both of them. I thought it might make a nice introduction to the trial ring for Kenzie and thought I might just be add a title to Ness which no other dog in the state has. Kenzie was to tag along for the ride with no expectations attached.

We flew over last Wednesday afternoon to stay with Nic, her partner Bren and her two wonderful dogs - Soaks and Jedi. Wednesday was a getting to know you afternoon and both the girls coped well with the flight over. Kenzie wasn't so keen on Soaks and kept putting her in her place whenever she looked at her.

Thursday morning bright and early we drove over to the Animal Referral Hospital in Strathfield and dropped Kenzie off there for the day so she could have her worn tooth sealed. Kenzie weighed in at 14.37 kg and Ness was her usual 17.3 kg. With Kenzie in safe hands the rest of the day was spent lazing around at Nic's trying not to stress to much. Back in the evening to pick Kenzie up, and the vet said she was very well behaved and if I didn't want her she would take her any day of the week. By the time we got home Kenzie was ready for dinner and a ball game.

Friday morning - woofenpup from DOL came around with her kelpie Abbey and her baby finish lappie Demi - well that was a turning point and a half. Abbey and Soaks decided to play chasy in the yard and Kenzie joined in their mad game and after that Soaks and Kenzie were best of mates. Mitch another finish lappie showed up Friday afternoon and the girls didn't stop playing for 9 hours straight. Kenzie was besotted by him and even seemed to like Mitch's idea of a game which usually involved trying to hump.

Saturday we took all the dogs out to a DOL meet at Erskine Park for a few hours. It was nice to meet all the people especially a few BC people who I have known through the BC thread. I spent my morning throwing the ball for Kenzie in the hope that when we showed up for the competition on Sunday she would have good positive associations with the place.

Sunday was back to Erskine Park bright and early for the double Dances with Dog comp. Silly me had both of them entered in everything so I had 8 routines for the day.

Lisa (PAX from Ozobedience) and Vickie and her daughter came out to watch, as did Jane with Kenzie's half brother Twitch. Was really nice to meet everybody and it was just a shame that I didn't have more time to spend saying hi as I was slightly preoccupied with the days trialling.

Ness was up first in Heelwork to Music. Well she didn't do as badly as I thought - no qualifier but she was the first dog in the ring for the day and the first place getter in starters. Kenzie - well I took her out of her crate, into the room, took her lead off and first thing she does is shoot off out the door. Eeeek I was thinking what the hell have I got myself in for. I retrieved her and revved her up and ran out onto the floor. She was majorly skittish and about 30 seconds into the music I gave up all idea of trying to work through the routine and we just messed around and I tried my best to get her happy and able to work. Well by the end of the routine her tail was wagging and she was at least not trying to leave.

Short time later we were back in the ring for the freestyle. Kenzie was in first to her music "Step in Time" out of Mary Poppins. I had no idea what to expect from her but it was like having my normal backyard Kenzie. She was absolutely full of herself - cheekie/bouncey and happy. Well to my surprise she not only qualified for her first leg of her dances with dogs freestyle starters title but came third. Go Kenzie :). Ness then came out and put in a half decent routine to Surfin USA for her first qualifier.

Onto the afternoon trial - I had considered scratching both girls from HTM. It was extremely hot and I wasn't sure how they would go. In the end I decided to put them both in anyway and just see. Ness was up first again and while she put together some good bits I think not really having a solid plan in mind for her routine cost me a qualification. Ah well she gave me 100% so that is all I can ask for. Now to Kenzie - well after the disaster of her first routine it was like I had a different dog in the ring. She came out all guns blazing and for the nervy dog I had in the morning there were only small signs of any of that and that was only as we were waiting. Once in the ring it was as if she owned it. I got some wonderful stuff out of her. She was pushy, tail wagging, eyes bright and giving me everything she had. Boy was I surprised to find she had not only qualified but won the class as she was the only dog to qualify in heelwork to music starters. Not bad for only her first ANKC competition in anything.

Back into the ring for the freestyle. Kenzie first and she put together a nice performance again for fourth place, her second starters leg and therefore her DWDF.S title. That made her the first and only SA dog with a DWD title as well as the very first DWD title for her breeder. It was also her very first ANKC title.

So Kenzie is now known as Winpara Dream Chaser DWDF.S.

Unfortunately Ness who put in a much better afternoon performance in her freestyle missed out on her title and a qualifier by 1 point. Ah well she gave me everything she had and it might just give me an excuse for a return trip sometime in the new year.

I will post the videos of the girls performances in a separate blog post.

Monday was spent recovering from the weekend with a couple of nice walks around the local park and then off to Hills training monday night. Met with a number of Ozobedience list members including Dianne, Ann and Sandy. I took my two into the pre-trialling class where they were doing start peg work. Kenzie was good until she took 2 paces off the peg and then freaked at the strange person in the ring. Looks like we still have a way to go before we can get into a trial ring. Ness did her usual Ness at the peg so got a few ideas on working with her.

Tuesday we had more walks and Mitch, Soaks and Kenz spent the day playing before we flew out again Tuesday evening. Think both girls were pleased to be home and Ness was back to appreciating that she could actually get some seriously uninterrupted sleep.

Its Official ... I have my 400 Agility Dog

The midget was measured today at the Agility Dog Club games trial and was measured at 453mm and then 452mm (her official height) so just scrapes into the 400 height class for agility. Makes her the same size as her half sister miss Spryte.

Now the fun begins in less than 2 months she could conceivably enter her first agility trial.

Also happened to weigh her the other day and at 16.5 months she weighs 14.2kg.

Think its time for some celebrating couldn't have planned it better if I had tried.

CBS Training 10 August 09 and busy weekend

Might as well do one blog post as I was a bit slack and didn't do an update from the weekend.

Saturday miss Kenzie went duck herding at the canine grounds. I will get around to uploading some video of the weekend eventually however she wasn't entirely sure what to think of the duckies. She shows interest in wanting to do something with them but was quickly moved out of the HT/HIC area into the PT area when she wanted to keep further off her stock. Once in the PT area she would almost get to the heads but didn't quite have enough confidence to go all the way. Never mind hopefully we will get back on some sheep and then try ducks again at another training day. Was a good day out though and she does enjoy her herding.

Tonight we had training at CBS as per usual for a Monday night. Another night of CGC award exercises. I have to say I think both Deb and I were very surprised at how far she had come tonight with all of the exercises.

I am especially proud of her with the walking through a crowd drill. They had a class with dogs, so lots of strangers that she had never met, other strange people walking past, calling out, laughing etc. Deb asked if I wanted to even attempt it and she said if Kenzie started getting too stressed she would stop it. Well I went in with a lets just see attitude and OMG I am so proud of my little girl. Sure I ended up feeding her nearly constantly but she was eating the food, not freezing up, continuing to walk and barely acknowledging the people, she even had a slight prance in her gait. This is the same little girl who would normally freeze up and try and pull me as far away from activity as she can get. The lead didn't go tight at all the entire time and she was able to focus on me and function. Yee Har :). Her obedience trialling career might not be totally without question.

Her stays were a bit questionable tonight she wasn't relaxed and seemed perched ready for a release command.

She managed the vet exam without to many hassles. Not happy but she stands there and lets them do what they need to. Deb was also able to hold her lead and me disappear out of sight and she wasn't unduely stressed.

The only thing that was bothering me tonight was she was a bit resource guardy towards other dogs who encroached on our space while she was working or paying attention to me. I put that down to the fact she was a bit stressed with what we were doing and she was trying her hardest to earn her treats.

She did some nice agility jumping for me prior to class as well as a few sendaways to the box. I have discovered if I reward her by throwing the toy then she is less likely to hang off my sleeve and happer driving forward then if I reward her with a tug toy. Will see how that goes on Wednesday night at agility.

A very good night for my little baby girl :). Might be hope for her yet.

16 Month Agility Update

My little midget dog is officially 16 months next Tuesday were has the time gone. She is growing up oh so quickly. In just over 2 months she could conceivably enter her first agility trial!!!!

Any way just back in from agility training and since I have neglected to do any agility related updates for a while to my blog I thought I would give a run down on what we have been up to.

Her weavers are fantastic. She really drives hard and is pretty good at nailing her 12 poles. She can do both the base plated weavers and the stick in the ground type poles although she is still having issues with the stick in the ground ones. Her right hand side poles are lovely but I need to put in more work with her left hand side as she tends to skip poles in the middle. Has no problems nailing entries 90% of the time.

Tonight I set up Susan Salo's Circle of Death exercise since Sue guru suggested I give it a shot. Kenzie did it easily in both directions as did her bigger sister Ness. So much for my thoughts which were nah she couldn't do that.

We spent some time shaping a down on the table. She will now offer going up and laying down and the best bit is all the down maintain work with no additional commands I have done for obedience translated nicely across to a very solid down on the table. She would only jump off if given her release command. Yee Har clever Kenzie.

I did some figure 8's around a tyre and a bar as well as a simple table, bar, bar, tunnel, bar exercise. She let me do a lead out to the tunnel while she stayed in a drop on the table.

She is a bundle of fun and very driven. I have to watch that she doesn't get frustrated though as she is a bit opinionated and likes to vocalise her way around the sequences, the consequence of this is she stops listening and focusing on the task and just focuses on biting me.

Any way she is doing wonderfully. Now I just need to get stuck into teaching contacts which at the moment are the only thing she hasn't really started.

CBS Training 27 July 09 - CGC Class

Went to training at CBS as per are normal Monday night training. I have been a bit lazy with putting Kenzie into class recently and since our usual IMPROV class is no long running we had the choice of attending either Deb's CGC Award class or Ilona's Freestyle. Not particularly keen on freestyle so I decided I would join the CGC Award class with Kenzie. Thought there were lots of benefits for her even though its not quite so formal.

The CGC exercises consist of a series of 10 separate exercises and we worked through each of the exercises in turn. These exercises including accepting a friendly stranger, sitting politely for petting, apperance and grooming, out for a walk, walking through a crowd, sit and drop on request/staying in place, coming when called, reaction to another dog, reaction to distractions and finally supervised separation.

First up we did the out for a out for a walk exercise where we had to walk with a pretend shopping bag having the dogs on loose leads and then wait at a gate until we were ready to let them out. Kenzie didn't do to badly with this exercise considering her sled dog tendencies on normal walks at the moment. No pulling at all. Need to work on more control at the gate though as my criteria isn't definite enough which is inconsistent of me as she has definite gate/door/crate criteria at home and when we are out.

Second exercise we did was the appearance and grooming. I was feeding her heaps but she let Deb examine her, check teeth, pick up her paw without stressing too much.

We worked on accepting a friendly stranger and sitting politely for petting. Kenzie was pretty good with the approach and she allowed the stranger to touch her all the while I was feeding treats. Lots of LAT game with her from the CU book and I think its paying off

We did a controlled walk with having the dog stop at a pretend street curb then cross under control then left turn, a 360 around the post and then back to a drop. Not bad.

Next up we did a bit of walking through a crowd with the other class members being the crowd. Deb pushed a trolley through. We were under the verandah so Kenzie was a bit spooky with the sounds however she was doing ok and not totally losing the plot.

The rest of the class then did reaction to a distraction with a cardboard box being dropped on the ground 1m behind the dog. I didn't do it with Kenzie as Deb thought it would be to much but I still paid her when she heard the sound of the box drop.

Off over to Bev's class for walking through a crowd. The rest of the class had the handlers waving, calling out but for Kenzie Deb just got them to move around. She was a bit spooky but taking treats and recovering pretty well with more LAT game. She was ok to look at the person and then it was back to me for a treat. Nice recovery time and at no time did she stop taking treats from me.

We also did coming when called (although Kenzie wouldn't leave me alone) and then revving the dog up and leaving them in a stay, walking away and returning.

I need to do plenty more stay work with her at the moment as she has decided she needs to heel with me or follow rather than stay put.

Kenzie did ok with the supervised separation exercise. Deb said she was a bit unsure but when offered a treat ate it and went back to waiting for me.

Any way it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and there is a lot of benefit for Kenzie participating and it was great to see that she has improved to the level she has. Fun class.

A Trip to the River

Only the second time in Kenzie's life that she has gone to the property and the first time she has stayed overnight. Had an absolute ball running around, chasing the bees, going exploring, racing around the place. Any way here are a few photos from the weekend.

Kenzie's Herding Instinct Test

Well we have had a busy weekend with Ness trialling in Obedience and Agility at Gawler today but since this blog is about Kenzie I will focus on her efforts at yesterdays herding trial.

Yesterday we headed out the DogsSA grounds so that Kenzie could have a go on sheep. She did two instinct tests - one under Tull from Tassie and Kristen. She was just wonderful in both. She showed nice sustained interest in the stock. The only problem was with the recall because she decided to switch on a bit too much and the stock were way more interesting then mum. Tull commented on my sheet that she hoped I continued with herding with her :).

I will hopefully get a chance to upload the videos sometime this week.

It was much better then her first time and there was certainly no lacking in confidence. Kristen said she passed in the first 20 seconds of being in the pen when she was judging.

Best part of the day was she was going up to people for pats and even allowed a strange person to pat her while she was standing. Might be hope for our obedience yet.

Today Kenzie just tagged along and did some socialising. I also got the opportunity to get an unofficial height measure on her and she presently measures 430 so I think we can safely say she will end up jumping 400 for agility :). She was a bit unsure today and spent most of the morning in her crate. Having said that she did have fun playing her cone games and doing some practice jumps outside the rings at the trial.

ETA. The videos :)

Test 1: Judge Tull Luttrell (Tassie)



Test 2: Judge Kristen Mack

Gepps Cross Mock Obedience Trial and other weekend news.....

The main reason for this post is to have a bit of a brag about Kenzie's performance in the mock obedience trial today however I thought I would also mention the fact that we trotted off out to the DogsSA show grounds yesterday for a bit more work on socialising Kenzie.

Caught up with Lyndsay and Holly (and Lyndsay's boyfriend James). I thought Kenzie did a great job at the show with not spooking to much. She was entirely happy but she was taking treats from both Lyndsay and her boyfriend without trying to hide behind my legs so we are making slow progress.

Any way off we went to the mock trial today held at Gepps Cross. Kenzie has been to the grounds once before when she was tiny (this time last year when I trialled Ness). I was tossing up between doing CCD and Novice with her but the decision was pretty much made for me when I discovered a huge number of CCD dogs had arrived and not so many Novice dogs. Kenzie was 10th in Novice. As I didn't know I was suppose to take desexing certificates they both had to be vetted and she coped ok with me holding her - again progress. The novice judge today was Neil MacDonald. I wasn't entirely sure how Kenzie would go given her recent freaking episodes out at SAODC training with Keith. She was also a bit spooked and stressy when we first arrived however she met up with with BC buddy Fern and then when she saw Tash her tail started wagging and she seemed to perk up.

Before they started I took Kenzie over to the ring, armed with my clicker, treats and her tuggy lead. I did a lot of C/Ting for having her look at Neil and also look at the stewards. I spent time just playing tug with her outside and chatting to various people. She seemed to be coping really very well. It was good fortune that one of the stewards in our ring was Danielle from SAODC with Holly (and her GSD who's name escapes me right this moment) so at least I didn't have to be too concerned about her spooking at the steward during a figure 8 as it was somebody she knows pretty well.

I then took her back to her crate and crated both her and Ness together for a while. I wasn't too sure about how stressy Kenzie was so I took her off again later and played some 2 toy game with her mini i-squeaks off to one side of the oval. She got pretty heavily involved in that game so I figured I would put her in the ring and see what happened.

Took her over while the dog before was in and we just tugged and played and rough housed. I didn't ask for her to heel into the ring but we tugged our way to the start peg.

I am over the moon with how she performed. It wasn't squeakie technically clean but her errors were genuine "green" dog errors rather than stress related and considering her performance the other Tuesday evening I was soooo happy for her.

Her heelwork was nice. I need to do more work on positions, turns, changes of pace, duration, figure 8s but hey its the longest heel pattern she has done and only the third proper "called" heel pattern we have worked together. I think I was walking a bit to fast and probably could have slowed up a tad with her but I am use to having to walk faster to keep Ness enthused. She did some lovely positions, gave me good attention and if she had crumbled at that point I would have said she had progressed. She was happy to play with her tuggy toy and race after her ball as a reward for her heelwork at the end. I also wasn't having to carry food in my left hand today and was able to have it in my right hand/pocket and reward.

I didn't take my chance by even attempting a stand for exam today so we moved on to a recall. Her halt on the first recall was lovely. She anticipated the command to come but I wasn't to fussed. She had never done one that long before and at least she was keen. I called her to me and rewarded a very nice front. She has a tendency to bounce up at me and throw herself in my lap if she breaks. We went back and tried it again. This time the halt was a bit off and then she went to anticipate coming with me when I left. Took a step back and rewarded the sit before leaving again. This time she waited and came when I called her. Nice present. The judge then said finish your dog and I gave her a command to "heel" with the hand signal. Well duh she hasn't been taught the word heel and I haven't really taught a finish to her yet. She has a flip finish on the command "close" but its not a particularly accurate finish. Reason I haven't taught a around the back finish is because of the GD conflict with agility so I have been undecided about what to do.

Retrieve next. She heeled up and sat nicely. Waited till I threw the DB. Then she got a bit confused. I don't think her brain registered the first time that she was suppose to go and fetch the DB. I gave a second signal she went off after it and returned to a front position with a sit - yee har but then stood up as I took the DB.

The best was yet to come. She did an absolutely gorgeous COP drop. I was worried as Neil left the dog down for what seemed like an enternity before asking the handler to return around behind but Kenzie stayed put. Was a bit distracted but none the less completed the exercise correctly and promptly.

I am so thrilled of my little munchkin's performance. Todays performance gives me hope that I will manage to put an obedience title on her without having her lose the plot in the ring. While we have a long way to go on a stand for exam at least she can hold the rest of the work together, at grounds which she isn't super familiar with and with a strange judge putting us through a pattern. As I said before her errors were just green novice dog errors not stress related errors.

So enough of the chatter - here is the video........

Busy Busy Busy

Well lets see its been a while since I have had a chance to post. What with agility training, obedience training and now herding training to fit in I just don't know where to start.

Agility first.

Lets see her progress with her weaving has been out of this world. Tonight she was comfortably and with a high degree of reliability nailing 12 club base plated weavers as well as doing 12 stick in the ground weavers with both left and right side entries. I am so pleased with her progress and even Ness trying to get in the way tonight didn't phase her one little bit. She was funny as I was standing around at a fair distance to the weavers and thought I would see what she would do - well she ran under the jump but continued on and nailed the weavers driving hard right through to the end. Very pleased. She did a bit of work on a low scramble and also the end of the dogwalk but I do need to actually do more concentrated effort then just mucking around mostly with Ness at the same time. Her jump grid work when we have done it has been good. She seems to read her jumps well and adjusts her stride a lot better than Ness does.

She will also now go through a chute tunnel and we have been doing some work on the tyre. She will sequence a tunnel and the table together but I would like a down on the table so will need to work on that. Jumping as part of a sequence is still a work in progress as she tends to want to turn and spin back at me or run past the jump.

Obedience.

Hmmm well she can work very nicely. She is quite happy doing the novice exercises and can do them well apart from her issue with people. She is technically very precise and an absolute joy. She has a lovely recall, good retrieve, nice COP drop. Need to do some more work on duration heelwork and also positions and turns.

Now to the lastest activity - Herding!!!!

We trekked down to Meadows to attend a herding clinic run by Cass Robertson as a part of a Dogs SA herding session.

Kenzie (and Ness) had an absolute ball. Any way Kenzie's first shot she wasn't sure what to do. I had to grab the sheep and run backwards with them and play with the sheep. Man I got a good fitness work out running backwards with a sheep uphill. Towards the end of the turn she started switching on though so I figured I would stay around until they did the second turns after lunch.

The video of her first turn in the pen is posted below:



On her second turn, whenever she looked like switching off all I had to do was take a couple of steps towards the sheep and she would circle behind them. So much less having to play with the sheep.

I have no clue what I am suppose to be doing which probably doesn't help anything however she was doing really well at bringing the sheep to me.

The trainer thought if she did that she would quite happily pass an instinct test and thought she definitely had a lot of potential and it was worth putting the time and money into her if I wanted to go down that path.

So now I am trying to make a decision about entering the instinct test Saturday week. Think I will probably enter and see what happens. We would have passed the first time so I would assume she should be ok now but guess time will tell.

2x2 Weaving 11 May 2009

Well I emailed Susan Garrett in response to her blog post asking for 2x2 questions with my issue that Kenzie seemed to not be able to link a jump to the weavers. I got an almost immediate response back saying did I have any video of the problem. No I didn't so I set out today to get some video - er well the problem seems to have gone away. She did some quite lovely weaving with some entries that even a seasoned competition dog might be jealous of. The only hassle I was having is with her deciding to jump flat and pull the bar - so I still might forward my video for comment.

Any way for all you blog readers my latest 2x2 efforts:

2x2 May Update

Well I have been super busy with training since the totally inspirational Sue H weekend. Both girls have been getting worked through duration heelwork programs at least a couple of nights a week. Kenzie's last session wasn't brilliant cos she was way to high.

We have also started working on some of the Susan Garrett's 1 Jump dvd exercises as well as working on a 2o/2o behavior on a contact board.

Her obedience stand is coming along nicely (thanks to the advice from Sue) and I think I just about have a stand at heel.

Any way also been a busy week with agility training. Kenzie got her first go at our club weave poles on Wednesday night. She hadn't done 6 poles that looked like that let alone 12 before. While she wasn't too reliable she did manage a lovely set of 12 driven poles. When she has it she absolutely nails it.

She has hard right hand and left hand side entries down pat with 6 poles in the yard so it was time to take the show on the road.

Here are the videos from today.

The first video is just the successful attempts - pretty chuffed with the entries on a baby green dog.



The second video has the full session:

Sue H Obedience and Agility Seminar Weekend

Well its Monday afternoon and have had a totally action packed dog training seminar weekend. Seems hard to believe its all over as I had quite been looking forward to this weekend for a very long time. This blog post is a summary of the weekends seminar activities (and our lesson this morning with Sue).

Before I get into what was covered if I could summarize the main take home lesson I got from the entire seminar/weekend it would have to be "BE CONSISTENT". Its something I do struggle with and Sue certainly hammered it home yet again. If have a picture of what you consider the "perfect performance" of an exercise don't let your standards slip and reward anything less once the dog understands a particular exercise. Don't let the dog train you into reducing your criteria. Also the importance of positive proofing of the various exercises - which I don't do enough of.

Now to Friday afternoon - drove to the airport to collect Sue and we had a couple of hours to kill before the first Obedience seminar. We came home and had a bit of a chat and she was trying to get Kenzie to approach her. Miss Kenzie started out the weekend barely happy to spend any time in the same room as her. Not good but I knew we could work at it later. Ness was offering sits/drops/stands while we were seated at the table.

Friday nights seminar was an introduction to some of the basic obedience skills. It was great to hear so much of what I had done right with Kenzie in relation to training a pup. Especially making sure the dog was happy to play at different locations, and happy to focus on the handler off-lead because the handler was more rewarding to the dog then what else might be happening. Her suggestion for a new pup was to load the pup into the car drive to a location play for 30 seconds to a minute. Carry dog back to the car. Drive to a new location and repeat. Discussions on the 2 food game, the collar grab game, having the dog work switch from food to tug and vice versa, how to shape attention, how to teach solid stays using food to tempt the dog "steady feet". There was also a section stressing the importance of just playing with the dog minus any additional props such as toys/food etc.

Then there were a few demo dogs. Capturing attention and C/T for having the dog focus on the handler. River demoed the 2 food game. Of importance to my training was the cone game. I had tried it initially with both Ness and Kenzie after Sandi had mentioned it to Tash. Basically you set up two large traffic cones and walk around them in a figure 8, just treating the dog each step. It teaches the dog to walk with its head up as well as how to use its back end around the cone. Also obviously a good exercise for figure 8 work.

The other important demo which Sue did with Ness was teaching the dog to ignore a distraction i.e. food on the ground and instead offer targeting heel position. She would toss bits of food on the ground and work Ness around them and reward her for finding heel with more food in her hand. I was pretty impressed as I never imagined she would be able to heel around with food on the ground. Maybe there is hope for us yet.

Saturday was agility day - Low drive dogs in the morning, high drive dogs in the afternoon. Lots of common elements across the entire weekend. Particularly the importance of the collar-grab game/restrained recalls, lots of flatwork exercises. Discussion on 2o/2o contacts and the backchaining concept. "Steady-feet" game for Start Line Stays. Discussion on the value of proofing stays. Some of the SG One Jump exercises. Recall to heel (similar to the obedience exercise) aka Mary Ray finish but you have your feet apart one foot back and reward the dog in a stand rather than a sit. Do on both LHS and RHS. Table game - ask for a down position on table. Kenzie demoed some 2x2 weaving and I was pretty chuffed considering she wasn't entirely keen on Sue and also the fact that there was a tunnel sort of in the way. She managed to nail 4 poles in a straight line at a new venue :) without shutting down too much. Talked about contact performance and establishing criteria and then ensuring independant obstacle performance. I think at the minute I'll be doing a 2o/2o on all of the contact equipment with her.

Sat evening we spent chatting/having tea and worked on getting Kenzie to approach Sue. We got to the point where Kenzie would put her paws up on Sue and target her target stick or offer a hand touch :).

Sunday morning - Tash and I were fortunate enough to get some training time with Sue. Tash worked with Riv on DOR and Sue introduced the concept of speed trials to improve the rate Riv dropped. Can also work for sits and stands. Basically you settle on the criteria for performance/signal that you wish to put in place. Initially you give the signal and might allow a 2 second time delay in which the dog has to perform the behavior, if the dog fails then you withdraw your attention and start again, if they are successful they get a C/T. After a few trials you then reduce the latency allowed from 2 seconds to 1 second. They did some work on heeling and having another person walk close to the dog while heeling to proof heeling. C/Ting as the second person approached the dog.

Kenzie's session consisted of working on stands (I just haven't been able to fade my shitty lured hand signal to anything decent). Sue had me work alongside a barrier (in this case Tash's bag), but she said to make sure I changed what I was using for the barrier as much as possible. I would give the new verbal command "stand" then a short delay then my shitty lured hand signal and C/T. Need to keep doing that and then attach a new hand signal. Between each repetition I am to break her off and play before starting again. Sue also did some work on having Kenzie sit at heel and then having me click and rewarding when she approached her. She suggested that Kenzie clearly was more tug driven then food driven so instead of using a food reward to release her to play tug. Even if that involved clicking and then running away to a distance where she was happy to tug. I got a slap over the wrist for not having conditioned the tug with a clicker but when I tried it she happily took the tug so Sue said I was extremely lucky to have a dog who didn't then look for the food.

We did some metal article work. There is a definite mental block when the articles is nearly on the ground. Sue gave me a few suggestions to try including placing it on a cushion, blanket etc and seeing if that works. She also suggested I might get to the point where I just had to find somewhere really boring, place article on the ground and wait her out. I need to introduce the collar grab game here and work at it so that hopefully her response when I release her collar is to snatch at the article. I asked about the supersitious paw up response and her standing when she returns with the article and Sue said to keep cueing the sit and eventually I wouldn't need to cue it. She mentioned pairing sight of the object with a favourite toy and I said that I had already attempted that in the past.

We did some collar grab toy retrieves. Think Sue just wanted me to go for a run on the oval at this point. She would have me sprint off in the opposite direction as soon as she had grabbed teh toy. Also did the 2 toy game with her. I need to make sure she doesn't do it quite so formally - so encourage a stand rather than the sit with the collar grab.

Heelwork next. Starting out on a left circle. Kenzie is clearly pushing me and walking into me so I need to go back and work the cone game for a few nights to improve her rear end awareness before coming back to the circle work. We did a version of the cone game using bags. It was interesting as initially when I attempted the exercise when I was focussing on K I was still letting her dictate the circle. K switched off a bit so Sue had me tie her up and get Ness out and play with Ness. I then got K back and Sue just had me walk the line and if K joined in I was to C/T. She eventually did offer going back to heel position and moving in around the bag so I would C/T her.

In terms of duration heelwork Sue suggested I need to build up to 6 minutes of focused attention. She suggested doing this for a period of a month. If you are intending on working on that its all you work for the month. So you would have 3 nights of duration heelwork, 2 nights of doodling heelwork.

Sue also said I need to introduce distractions early. So have lots of different tuggies/toys on me and then when we had finished with one, drop it on the floor and continue working and then pull out another one from somewhere else. I do a bit of this at home already with her 2x2 weaving.

I asked about my weaving hassle wherebut she will stall out and demand bark at me if I push her to do 6 poles. Sue's comment was to call her back and get her to hand touch (Rewarding the hand touches with food, since she is more toy driven) and then asking again and if she gets it right throwing the toy.

Sue also said if both Riv and Kenzie enjoy playing with each other then we could use that as a reward. Both train and then let them play.

Keep the sessions extremely short and go back to 30 second sessions with her. Only working on one exercise then putting her away. She also recommended crating over tying the dog up. Guess we do get a bit slack with that when we are training ourselves.

Sunday afternoon was back to West Beach for the second obedience seminar. Sue first answered any questions people may have had after Friday night.

Covered in detail teaching a stand for exam. The steps included playing the "steady feet" game. Starting in a sit and rewarding for feet still. Making sure the handler was able to straddle the dog and have it remain still. Then progressing to the stand, straddling the dog in a stand. Having the handler do a light examination. Then having the handler do a more thorough examination. Only introducing the actual examination part when the dog was doing a reliable rock solid stand with focus on the handler. I think I'll be able to get one on Kenzie eventually so long as I don't rush things with her.

She then demonstrated shaping the box. Relatively simple and pretty much the way I trained Kenzie although I lured a few times (naughty of me).

The final section was on ring wise dogs/duration heelwork. Sue had me demo this section with Ness. It was basically the questions I had asked her before she came over. First up we did some duration heelwork. I had mentioned in the car on the way to the seminar that I knew I had to attempt it with Ness but I got frustrated as she didn't get to the level I wanted. Sue's advice was never mind the fact she is a UD dog but start at a really simple point where she won't fail so 5 steps (for example). Her advice was also to write down on paper before I went out for a session how many steps I was intending on doing so I didn't cheat. The idea is to divide her meal up into 3 and repeat three times and thats the entire session. I didn't get a chance to ask about Kenzie and considering she is more toy driven and likely to not take food. My guess is that I substitute the toy for the food so after she has completed it we have a game (until her food drive matches her toy drive). I will work at pairing them more but I have found since she was spayed that she has a much better appetite.

Initially I had food in my hand and was rewarding whenever Sue clicked. Sue mentioned the progression of food in hand, to food in right hand to food in left pocket to food in back pocket. I am guilty of mainly having the food in my left pocket. I also thought Ness was going to switch off on me. She sneezed during the heeling and I gave her a NRM because she dropped her head. Matter of habit. Sue and Sandi apparently allow sneezing. We progressed on to having three people standing around holding jackpot containers. Sue wanted to demonstrate how you could move to having the reward off the person. Meanie made me hand over my entire pocket of food. We then continued to heel and Sue would click and have me run to one of the people and reward. I got ribbed for only running to the closest container.

Then she had me so that we basically were introducing a cue to Ness of me showing her my empty hands wasn't a signal that no rewards were available. So I would give her the cue set her up in heel, heel off one or two paces and Sue would click and I would run to a person and reward from the container.

We finished up with working changes of pace in a circle and clicking every couple of steps for the dog maintaining position. Starting at slow pace and gradually picking up speed until I was going at fast pace.

Any way that is the weekends seminar report. Last night we just had tea at home and a bit of a chat about other things not training related.

Deposited Sue safely at the airport first thing this morning. She did mention in the car on the way that I should make myself a board for contact training and get started on teaching a 2o/2o with Kenzie so thats on the list of things to attempt.

After dropping my parents at the airport at lunchtime (busy day for airport transfers LOL) I came home and played the figure 8 cone feeding game with both kids, twice each. I then did some stands with Kenzie using the esky on the front verandah as a barrier. She went from her shitty stand hand signal yesterday to me dropping the signal almost immediately and being 100% reliable with a verbal only and then from that to introducing a new improved hand signal within half a dozen repetitions. Now I need to introduce it on the move. Might try that tonight if I don't head out to CBS or even if I do.

Have Faith in Ones Self

Sometimes you have to have a bit of faith in your own ability. 2 days out from Sue trip over for the seminars and maybe I need to cut myself a bit of slack and have a bit of belief that I know what I am doing when it comes to training the kids. I am not to let anybody get to me this coming weekend (Sandi's orders LOL)

Any way I am on cloud nine with Kenzie's work ethic at the moment. She put in some lovely obedience last night - recalls, heelwork, COP drop. So much so somebody came over to ask how old she was and couldn't believe she wasn't older.

Tonight we went to agility training. Kenzie did some very lovely work and I am so chuffed with her. Her circle work is falling in to place and she is just a joy to train. She gives 110% to the task at hand. We have been doing some weave pole work and today I was able to get her doing 4 poles with very little rotation and nailing entries that were out of this world and pretty impressive for a green baby dog. She has lovely driven weavers and I am hoping its a sign of things to come.

I introduced her to the lowered scramble tonight. She very quickly was offering a 2o/2o and staying in position until given her release command. She did better then I expected since we have lots of target work still to do before I can make progress with her contacts.

She has no problems driving ahead through flexi tunnels. Her start line stays are looking great. She let me do a 1 bar lead out and quite happily drove hard when given her release command and came straight over the jump. She seems very responsive to body language and I am thrilled to bits with her.

Lots to be grateful for tonight and my little shinning star has so much potential. Sometimes I think we haven't trained an aweful lot or as much as I had planned but what she does she does very well. I hope there is lots of good things to come from my little munchkin and at the moment I am enjoying her antics.

CBS Training - Some Good and Some Bad

Well I took both Ness and Kenzie out tonight instead of just Kenzie. I was interested to see if that helped her behavior. She seemed okish about approaching people before class and taking treats so things are improving there. She is still throwing a lot of stress signals/displacement type behavior in particular collar scratching in a big way. Had a chat to Deb before class started and she asked how she had been and how she had got on at the vets. Said she has been pretty good and was happily approaching Keith again yesterday at the trial.

Get to class time at at least we managed to avoid any major flipping out episodes. She was more distracted then normal though so I don't think she was particularly happy.

While we were waiting for Deb to show I practiced and was getting some lovely confident long distance sends to her mat and fast releases back to me to a tug - yee har. I think she really has a good understanding of her release command which means accelerate forward and drive hard and chase the reinforcement zone.

First exercise we did was close walking through a bunch of objects - buckets, baskets, chairs, some of which had treats on them. Kenzie's work wasn't as good as it has been. She was very distracted by the environment but also did think she was suppose to target the baskets. I cheated a bit and had food in the hand closest to her so a big slap on the wrist. Second time we repeated the exercise we had to get them to target certain objects that Deb told us to. Her heelwork this time was much better but her touching wasn't the behavior I was asking for. She would tentively nose touch the items rather than put her paws on them (even the items she was comfortably offering paw targets on last time). Kenzie was sitting next to a lab and she wasnt overly keen on having the lab watch back past and was a bit spooked by the shadows. I made sure I rewarded her while we were waiting out turn for sitting on her mat so she didn't have time to flip.

We did some target stick work. Having the dog touch the target stick and then putting the target stick in the ground and sending the dog. I only had the grey one that I had made and it wasn't particularly visible but she was still doing some very lovely sendaways to the stick from nice distance - 5-6m range and possibly further.

We did some recall work. Interesting her stays are really not to bad now but I am still going back and rewarding the wait just as heavily as I do the recall. I tried using her formal recall command of "front" and she came and presented but it wasn't overly enthusiastic. Send time I tried one using her release command of "break". Not only was it three times as fast but it was just as accurate.

Following on from the recall we did some work on our distance tricks. Kenzie has a lovely COP drop happening from a reasonable distance. Her sit I still need to be close with though but she is 100% at close range. Her spins and twists are still a work in progress at any sort of real distance as they still need rather large signals.

Retrieve work - I had her do 1 DB retrieve and she did a nice one minus a formal front but she waited while I threw it and then sent her and she went out got it and bought it back to hand. Yee Har - first one she has managed out there. Then we had to move to a toy because we were suppose to be getting the dog to place the object in a basket and Deb didn't want me getting her to place her DB in a basket - fair enough. Well the lab next to us was using a duck toy that made a duck noise and that was enough to flip Kenzie. I could see she wasn't happy so I didn't persist with the retrieve exercise and just took her away and fed her and then returned when we had completed that particular task.

Final exercise we worked on tonight was having them place there paws on a chair and start to move around it. The small chairs are a bit hard for Kenzie to move around as she isn't big enough to get over the back of it so I used one of the baskets. She did some lovely perch work but I need to work to make sure she will move in both directions equally. She definitely favours one over the other at the moment (just not sure which off the top of my head). She was giving me lovely full circles in one direction but no movement in the other direction.

So we had a mixed night of training tonight - not sure I'll get out there next week as we have a busy 3 days of the Sue H seminar but Deb said if I do get out there I better be prepared to demonstrate my unique and novel behavior next week - hmmmm still not to sure what I am doing but I am thinking I'll go with the fetching the mail or newspaper. I did have one idea of her fetching the mail and their being 2 letters and me taking the one letter and giving it back to her and then telling her to take it to Tash but will have to see if I can get Tash on side for that trick to occur. Maybe I could use Ness and she could take it to Ness hehehehe.

Much Perkier Kenzie

Well hard to believe it was just over 24 hours since she had what might be considered fairly major surgery. She has been feral and back to her usual tricks. She did settle in her crate for a reasonably long sleep in the middle of the day but other than that she has required supervision to make sure she doesn't do damage to herself. She did get two shortish leash walks today and that seemed to settle her a bit. We also tried a session on crate games for something different but all she wanted to do was stay in her crate when I released her. Hmmmm not sure that is the point of it.

Any way both girls were posing on the bed tonight so I thought I would post a couple of photos I managed to snap.

She is turning into a lovely gorgeous happy little soul.

First up Ness and Kenzie:



Kenzie:



Now a couple of variations on the one photo - not sure which I prefer yet.

Black and white:



Sepia:



Contrast and Exposure adjusted:

Poor Little Kenzie Bear

Yep my little munchkin was finally spayed today. The day started alright with a game at the park and then a quick drive to another park for a 2x2 session. Off to the vets at 9:30. She weighed in at 13.3kg. She behaved better then I thought given her issues with people last week. I was able to stay with her while they injected the pre-med.

Fast forward. Rang at 2pm. Surgery went well. Could pick her up at 4:30. Home again. Feeling slightly sorry for herself however quite surprisingly ate an entire medium size tin of tuna for tea and a quarter of a cup of biscuits AND then helped me eat my pizza for tea along with Ness. At the time I picked her up they said if I had trouble keeping her quiet I could come and get some sedatives for her. Hmmm wonder what they know that I didn't. She has ended up in her crate as she thought jumping off the bed was an absolutely brilliant idea as was trying to go and follow Ness to bark at somebody walking past. She is now back in her crate and seems content to not leave so is obviously feeling slightly miserable.

Any way enough with the text and on to the photos.

First up some photos I took of her at the park last night after she had had a bath and she was all clean.













Next up poor Kenzie feeling sorry for herself.

2x2 Video

Well here it is her latest 2x2 efforts on video:

2x2 Weaving Update and a Fun Video

Well since I decided to change my tactic today I don't actually have any of my 2x2 sessions from today on video. By the time I can be bothered stuffing around with organising the video I find I am tempted to make my sessions to long to justify having got it out. Instead today I decided I would just do have half a dozen attempts whenever we had the opportunity. If I went outside and Kenzie came and found me with her toy we would do some. Think we might have had as many as 4-5 separate sessions day. This morning we started with a truckload of misses. Especially when I asked for harder entries on the right and left hand side. I started with 2 sets of poles from the begining. She would get stuck with what set she had to enter on if I got up around the middle of the 2 sets and would try and run straight for the second set. She was having a fair number of failures before she would get it right and then not seem to make the connection and go back to getting it wrong. I moved the poles close to competition distance still rotated at 2 and 8 o'clock. It was all a bit hit and miss. Sometimes she would enter at the second set. Other times she would run around the first set. I changed toys frequently and she was happy working for whichever toy I got out of the toy box.

Towards the middle of the afternoon I decided to rotate the poles to 1 and 7. Still getting about the same success rate on the entries. Then we had a break through. She went from needing 4-5 attempts before nailing the entry and then not being sure to missing maybe once or twice and then clueing in to what she was suppose to do and had no trouble from then on. Yee Har. Lots of breakthrough moments happening.

The final session just after tea I had them at 1/7 o'clock practically at competition spacing plus a little bit and she was nailing so very nice high on the arc difficult right hand side entries. Interesting she struggles a bit with the high on the arc left hand side because she accelerates to hard and then can't bring herself back into the second set of poles. Having said that by the end of the session tonight she wasn't having to many issues.

Tomorrow I will try and get some on video and possibly head to a different location and do a bit with her. Either move them to the front yard or jump in the car and head to the park for a session.

Since I have no 2x2 video to post I thought I would post up a fun video I made this afternoon of her playing with her enduroball.

Puppy See-Saw Video

Here is a link to Kenzie playing on the Puppy See-Saw :). Little monkey thinks its something to jump over. Probably should have used food instead of a toy but I had the toy there. When we played on the full size (but lowered) see-saw at club training I used food instead and it worked much better.

Easter Saturday - 2x2 Weaving goes High Def

Spent two wonderful mornings at the beach and Kenzie has had a ball swimming and retrieving. No signs of being anxious or freaking despite lots of kids and people and other dogs being at the beach.

Any way since the video camera decided to die a sorry death on Wednesday and because I am to impatient to wait for it to be sorted (and I have been looking for an excuse anyway), I went out today and bought a brand new spiffy high definition video camera (Canon Legria HF20). They have only been out in the shops a few days so I was particularly happy to get it for a reasonable price.

To christen the purchase I thought I would try another 2x2 weaving session with Miss Kenzie as well as video some work we have been doing on the "Bang" Game using the little puppy see-saw we have borrowed.

So here we have it the first of my HD videos - 2x2 Weaving 11 April 2009 :) Doesn't look much different when uploaded to youtube - think thats due to the compression when I exported it. Will try some different options later.

The Bang Game and other Agility Musings......

Tonight we had agility training. I took Kenzie's weavers out as I only intended on doing a very small session with Ness on contacts and weaving so figured I would do some stuff with Kenzie.

My aim for Kenzie after she has freaked the last two nights was for her to be happy, confident and most of all have fun.

She was having a great time doing her "weaving". We started out with just the 2 poles. I am still getting the occasion backdoor entry or run around the weavers. I find she much prefers to be sent from a distance to me crowding her. She also is still having a few hassles with the extreme entries. Her normal entries are pretty good. I introduced the second set of poles as I have done at home but she then struggles with the more complicated entries. She was better when there was some distance to run to the first set of poles otherwise she thinks she has to enter in the second set. Oh well its a work in progress and she is really enjoying herself. It was interesting to see there was no real difference between what she does at home and what she did at training with the increased space available so its not that which is causing the problem. Will have to have a bit of a think.

We worked on flexi tunnels, both on the big kids course (bugger of a dog was happy to run through it and then proceeded to run back through it from the other end - tunnel suck already oops). I took her over to where they run the beginners class and she did a lowish table (another first) set at 300. We did the tunnel a few times. I also tried running her over a jump and through their straight flexi tunnel. She got frustrated though and jumped up on me after the jump before doing the tunnel.

I took her off and we did some recall/stay work and circle running (inside and outside circles). Her inside circles are still very much at a walk otherwise she tries to cut me off.

After viewing the InFocus dvd about starting the dogs with the see-saw I thought I would jump on the opportunity tonight when I noticed a) that the intermediate class had the small see-saw out and b) that it wasn't being used. Basically we started playing the 'bang' game. I was paying and rewarding any interaction with the see-saw whether it was her placing a foot on it, jumping on it etc. I encouraged her to put her paws up on the lower stationary part before the tip point but I also held it and asked her for paws up on the higher part of the board. She did really very well. Was happy to offer putting paws up on the board. I started with me holding the high end so it wouldn't bang or move. We progressed to her having her paws on it and me lowering it slowly and rewarding for varying lengths of time while she kept her front paws on it. She was starting to get really quite confident and I had razzed her up and she offered jumping on it and it banged fully. Thought given the events of the past 2 nights that might freak her out a bit but I didn't react and while her next approach was slightly more tentitive she quickly was back to being confident in the game. Will keep playing with it on and off but I think some of the paw targeting work at CBS is paying off :).

I also did a bit of work on the cloth tunnel. Only having her work on the shadecloth bit. Didn't want to push my luck as her confidence was running on a high and I wanted it to stay that way. Came home before anything bad could happen.

Very good night of training and much more like the Kenzie I am use to compared to the past 2 nights.

2x2 Weaving Update

Finally had a chance to edit and upload my training sessions for the last couple of days. I love her enthusiasm for the task at hand its just priceless. She is having a few hassles with the harder entries as well as doing both sets of poles when I add the second set. I am not sure if thats a consequence of a lack of yard space and the fact when she does 1 set I have been sending her from a fair distance and when there are 2 sets obviously there is less distance. Occasionally she is really starting to wrap the one set of poles.

Hope to take them out to training tonight where there is more space and set up the camera and just see if having more space available helps with the training. I find trying to avoid throwing the toy into the video camera is a bit of a problem too. I also need to improve my throwing ability to get the toy in a better position.

Any way enough talk here are the videos:

Day 2 - Session 1



Day 2 - Session 2



Day 3 - Sessions

SAODC Training 7 April

Ness did a lovely UD round and since they had set up a CCD/Novice ring and Keith was along I thought I would put Kenzie through a round. She had been working very nicely outside the ring. Lovely precise heelwork, great recall, nice novice COP.

Went to put her into the ring tonight and she flipped again. Two nights in a row. This time it was another person she knows and accepts.

So she went from one moment doing some really nice work to completely flipping out. I am at my wits ends with her at the moment.

In the end Keith said to try her on-lead I did a bit and she worked nicely and then flipped again. Keith suggested he give her some treats and she was super cautious but at least took them. She then wouldn't have a bar of anything else training wise. I took her into the ring with nobody there but she was on another planet.

I let her have a bit of a play with another pup and that was fine but she was still to spooked to do any work. Bugger she has so much potential its so sad to see her act so stressed.

CBS Training 6 April 2009

I left Ness home tonight and took Kenzie training alone for the first time. Well apparently Ness flipped at home and Kenzie spooked at training . I don't think it was due to Ness not being there. All was fine until we started class. She had been happily approaching people/dogs etc. Playing with another BC pup that was there.

Class was fine until Karron, one of the assistant instructors, came over and she just took off in a blind panic. We had been working on retrieving objects and putting them into a basket. I had thrown the ball for Kenzie to retrieve and Karron was parallel to where the ball was. Kenzie has issues with people being near the ball. Karron picked the ball up and threw it towards her and she took off. We think what happened was that she approached from right behind one of the main light posts. I went to take after her and then thought stupid thing to chase her when she is scared so I actually ran in the opposite direction and got her chasing me and then grabbed her.

The rest of the class I spent trying to settle her and we didn't bother with much training. Basically I spent the session playing with her until she was comfortable enough to go back and lay quietly on her mat watching the rest of the class. First she wouldn't play or take treats and ran as far as the fence. I slowly got her back so she was happier.

Looked like she had done her back end in as she was really walking funny too. Any way finally get her laying chewing on her treat while the class is doing class stuff.

We did manage to do some heelwork when they were doing that and she was back moving fine and switched on again. Left it at that tonight though.

She went over and happily approached the person who spooked her after class this time in a better lit area, she also had a look at her and she seems to be moving ok.

Bit of a disaster really.

I did get a chance to run it by her breeder later who thinks part of the issue is that she is gearing up to come back in to season again so the sooner she is desexed the better. Thankfully she is booked in for the following Tuesday.

Friday's Training Session

Finally had a chance to upload both my sendaway session and my 2x2 weaving session from Friday afternoon. Didn't get to yesterday as was off agility trialling all day.

This is maybe her second 2x2 but first one I have put on video so I labelled it session 1. She did a tiny bit on 2 poles when I got my poles back in January. I also gave her another 2x2 session on Wed night. She had half a dozen repetitions out at club since we had set them up for the big kids to practice on and I collected my poles back from Tash.

Just for completeness I went back to Stage 1 and 2 to include in the video.

Any way here is the 2x2 video:



And here is the hoop sendaway video:

DOL Birthday Party

Kenzie met up at Eastwood park, the usual DOL meet location for a BBQ Birthday party with her friends. She was a bit unsure of the people however once Sabre showed up she had an absolute ball. Ran herself silly for the entire 3.5 hours we were there. Think she had a ball. She enjoyed her tuna birthday cake and even managed to eat a chicken neck (not like her bigger sister who had maybe 5 or 6 chicken necks as well as a whole heap of sausages).

Kenzie and Sabre doing the Tango.



Look Mum I can Fly ... weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh



Birthday Girl









Chief Cake Protector

Happy First Birthday Kenzie Munchkin

Who would have thought its been a whole 10 months since I picked you up off the plane at Adelaide airport. This time last year I wasn't sure if I was getting one and it certainly wasn't going to be a Marnie baby. What better way to celebrate her first birthday but at an agility trial. Kenzie had a ball playing with Riv, Buddy and Striker as well as hanging out and eating birthday cake. Yep I think she is a wee bit spoilt as I made a tuna cake with prawn and crab icing to share with the crew.

Tub of frozen yoghurt and a lamb shank for tea. More ball at the local park. I am really pleased with how she is maturing and I hope we are in for a lot of fun in the coming months :).

From this:



To this:

CBS Training Week 6 - Still Undecided

Other news first. Took Kenzie to our normal vet today to book her in to desexed next week and happened to pop her on the scales and on those scales she was 13.5kg so maybe she hasn't actually dropped weight after all. Off to the pool this afternoon and she seems to have really taken to swimming.

Now to training tonight. I am just not sure what I should be doing. Positives for tonight though were that she seemed much more outgoing with people and other dogs. In fact she tried twice to disappear over to see Karron, one minute she was on her mat next thing she has started sneaking off - not only has she corrupted Ness but seems to have corrupted Kenzie as well. Not that that I consider it a bad thing though. She seemed quite willing to approach people tonight and sit for treats.

We did some heelwork to start with and Kenzie was slightly distracted by Riv. Hmmmm no idea what planet she was on tonight but I guess I wasn't entirely with it either.

Then we moved on to buckets and holding the handle. I was getting nice firm grips so I thought I would throw in her metal article and yee har she was giving nice strong firm grips on her article too. Although the moment I drop it down towards the ground she starts to struggle so I think it will be a case of mm by mm. Still we have progress.

We played the basket game again this week. Having them touch the dice and then weaving in and out upturned baskets. The difference though was that the last basket had treats placed on it. Kenzie had no problems with this and did some nice tight heelwork for me.

On the recall exercise we worked on the final behavior. Not sure what I will make it yet but tempted to leave it has having her run through my legs.

We then had to walk them over the body boards like last week and Kenzie was still a bit spooked but did put a paw on them.

So that was another class for another week. I also got Tash to hold Kenzie for a restrained recall while we were waiting for Deb to finish with the introductory talk.

I am really not sure what to do. I don't think we are learning a hell of a lot and I am a bit over it to be quite honest. Its not helping Kenzie with her issues she has and the rest is just tricks of which I train anyway.

The only thing I keep telling myself is at least this way Kenzie gets a training session each week which she would otherwise not get.

Weekend of Dog Shows and catching up with Robyn

Well this weekend was spent treking out to the Dogs SA grounds to spectate at dog shows they had on over the weekend - the main reason being Kenzie's breeder was over for the weekend on the way back over West from the BC Nationals. So I got to meet and have cuddles with Luc, Jules (Kenzie's sister), Trixx, Portia, Billy, Jodi (and non-BC Mia) - as well as catch up with Robyn of course. Will post some of my photos later in this post.

We have certainly had a really busy weekend. I was impressed with the way Kenzie behaved with all the people around and didn't act to stressy or under confident. She had a lovely game with another BC Striker as well as wanting to play with Luc and Trixx. I am sure Kenzie is secretly wishing that I bought one or other of them home as a toy for her :).

She was so funny this morning when we got to the show grounds and wanted to jump out and go say hi before I had put her lead on. She was also approaching people and flirting with the boys hahaha :). Both girls endured a bath on Friday evening so they were nice and clean - short lived but at least Robyn could see I do actually look after them hehehe.

I also met the breeder of Kenzie's father at the show yesterday too - Michelle Gardner from Torobeam. She had remembered my email when I was inquiring about information regarding Spinna. Apparently Kenzie's dad now has his Japanese Show title - or something like that :).

It was lovely to meet Jules and she gave me great cuddles yesterday. Its funny as I think she is slightly quieter then Kenzie but they are pretty much the same size. Robyn and Michelle both aren't sure who Kenzie looks like as Robyn doesn't think she looks like Marnie (whereas Jules does) and Michelle didn't think she looked like anything of the Torobeam stuff.

I weighed her today and she is spot on 13 kg. She has dropped a bit but Robyn said not to stress about it she won't starve herself and unlike her sister who is in need of a constant diet Kenzie might just be one of these that self regulate. Apparently Tag is similar and maintains a constant weight and goes on a self imposed diet if Robyn tries to fatten him up.

Any way now for some photos :)

First up a photo of Kenzie waiting patiently while I took photos of the BCs in the ring.



Next up some of the Winpara clan:

Jules (Winpara Mint Julep)













Jodi:



Trixx:



Luc:



Billy: