Theodorable

The Ups and Downs of Agility

2009-11-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

It seems like about once a year I get philosophical about Teddy's agility career. I evaluate where we are and hope that we have finally turned a corner in our ring performance. There have been a lot of highs and lows over Teddy's 6 years when it comes to agility. I know he enjoys it and I really love it, but we have struggled in our teamwork. So, I will share with you an ultimate low and high that happened only a month apart.

Teddy and I were entered in a USDAA trial at the Memphis Showcase of Dogs. However, it was raining so badly on Friday, that I decided not to run in the rain, and we drove over on Saturday morning. In Teddy's defense, and goodness knows he needed one, it was just about the first cool, crisp weekend that we had. The field conditions were less than ideal after the weeks of endless rain. As you can see in the video, the host club put out shavings to try to firm up the field, but the mud was pretty deep. So, here are the only two runs from the weekend:

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Because I did not want a repeat performance (I'm not that big of a glutton for punishment), I scratched from the rest of the weekend. And like any good female, I put my dog in his crate and went inside the main building and shopped. I was extremely frustrated. We have been doing so much better in class, and believe it or not, I worked really hard to keep Teddy's attention before we went in the ring.

On the drive home, I decided that I would retire Teddy from agility trials. I would still take him to class and train him, but we would not enter any more trials. I just didn't think that he could handle the trial stress. The only snag was that we had already entered our own club's trial, a three day event. Sure, I could have scratched him from the whole weekend, but I had already paid my money, so why not just see what happens.

I did not film Friday's runs because I assumed they would just end up on the blooper reel anyway. No one was more shocked than me at Teddy's performance all weekend. He paid attention and was trying to work with me. It was very exciting to finally feel like a team. He ran the fastest and most focused on Friday and got a little slower and a little more distracted each day. I know running three days in a row was tough on him. Here are Saturday's runs:

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That was our first AKC agility Q- and a first place. It was thrilling! Our club gave out three MACH bars that weekend, and I think that run felt just as good to me. Here are Sunday's runs:

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After watching these videos over and over again, it's clear to me where the holes are in our training. Obviously, weave poles are the biggest issue. Teddy is stressed out by them and lacks the confidence to take them. We also need a lot of practice on the chute, tunnels, and the tire. These are obstacles that I take for granted that Teddy knows. There are a lot of basics that I need to go back and work. I'm still not sure if Teddy is really retired, but I'm not going to be searching out trials any time soon. We will continue to find the joy in running together.

As for JoJo, I fully intended to keep my blog updated on his progress as he grows up. However, as most people know, having a new puppy in the house takes up a lot of time. We have been so busy playing, training, and going to class that I have been remiss in sharing all of the wonderful things that he has learned. He continues to amaze and surprise me at how much and how quickly he picks up on new behaviors. I can't believe that he is already 6 months old. Here is a video that I shot in the backyard this week working on our tunnel training:

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So, in this time of reflection on all that we are thankful for, I am grateful for all of the progress that Teddy has made this year and all that he has accomplished and for my new baby JoJo who delights in everything that he does.

Happy Halloween

2009-10-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

Have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Teddy & JoJo and I on the front porch. Yes, it's a poodle on my shirt and the pumpkin!

Teddy with his skeleton costume. It's so hard to get a good picture of him, especially in a black outfit.

Below is JoJo in his panda suit. We thought he makes a pretty good panda. Although, I should have put his topknot in before dressing him.

WCFO International Conference

2009-08-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

Teddy and I have been training hard all summer to prepare for the World Canine Freestyle Organization's International Conference that took place this year in Oklahoma City. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot. The hotel that hosted the conference was perfect for a dog show. It had a large grassy courtyard that was completely enclosed so that we could turn the dogs loose to play.

Me & JoJo & Teddy with Michele Pouliot and Yvonne Koehler & Aspen

On Wednesday, we attended a seminar all morning and watched the Pro Stars compete in the afternoon. On Thursday and Friday, it was Teddy and I's turn to compete. We performed routines in the Beginner's B Heelwork to Music and Intermediate Musical Freestyle categories. I was very proud of Teddy, he was up and did not seem stressed on the first day. He probably did just about the best he has ever done in competition. On Thursday, we placed first in Beginner's Heelwork, earned a leg, and won a trophy for high scoring beginner dog. In Intermediate Freestyle we placed second and earned a leg.

Me & Teddy (looking adoringly at) Diane Kowalski and Yvonne Koehler & Aspen

On Friday, Teddy was much more tired and therefore stressed. When Teddy is like this he is noticeably more distracted and disconnected. We did not do as well as the day before. We missed qualifying in Intermediate Freestyle by 1/10th of a point, but still placed first. However, in Beginner's Heelwork to Music, we placed second and earned a leg, finishing our title. We also won best best collar.

Saturday and Sunday were spent in workshops and learning about training techniques from some top trainers and freestylers. I learned a lot and can't wait to start implementing some ideas. I even got to work JoJo, my then 15 week old puppy, which was fun. This was JoJo's first roadtrip, and I'm so glad that he got to tag along. The experience was priceless for him to get to be around a lot of other people and dogs. He had a blast and was so good in the hotel and crating room.

Here is our Beginner's Heelwork to Music routine.

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And here is our Intermediate Musical Freestyle routine. I realized about 3 months ago that the original choreography that I had for this routine was just not working for us. I had an extra prop that was a hula hoop and moves that Teddy did not enjoy. So, I changed about 75% of the choreography. I realized that because of the camera angle, you can't really see my prop. It's a large clock face.

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Here is the Arkansas group that attended the conference with our dogs and the awards that we all won:

We had a great week. It was an honor to be there and a pleasure to see so many creative and impressive teams.

The Birthday Boy

2009-07-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

Teddy is 6 today! Oh, I can't believe how fast the time goes. Is there any way to freeze him at this age? He wore his birthday scarf to work today, and I'll give him some extra time at lunch today playing with his squeaky ball. And I guess we'll have to celebrate with our freestyle class this weekend with some special treats. Here is a picture I took of him (wearing his birthday collar) 2 days ago as part of my homework for my photography class:

In case you are wondering how you send your dog and be behind the camera waiting to snap the picture all at the same time: I used a Manners' Minder machine on the other side of the tire, I set Teddy up on a wait in front of the tire, ran behind the camera on a tripod, told him to jump, took the picture, and hit the remote on the treat machine. Teddy was good to oblige me as I need several attempts to get a halfway decent shot.

So far, it's been a good year for Teddy. We have managed to finally finish our Rally Advanced Excellent title, our Graduate Novice title, and our Freestyle Dog Excellent title in musical freestyle. We are on track to finish 2 more titles before the end of the year, but we'll just keep our fingers crossed for those because anything can happen. I'm so proud of him because he is trying so hard. We are working together as a team better than ever. He even earned a pairs leg in USDAA agility a couple of weeks ago. Our gambler's runs were beautiful, but my bad timing cost us the Q's. We will continue to keep working and playing freestyle and see where the future takes us. I just hope that we have a lot of years left to keep playing together. Happy Birthday my sweet boy!

Announcing JoJo

2009-07-06T17:44:00.000-07:00

Please welcome my new addition:

Casablanca's Get Back JoJo

Born: May 4, 2009

Arrived: June 29, 2009

Weight at Arrival: 3 lbs. 4 oz.

Breed: Coton de Tulear

JoJo is named after his parents, Jolie and Joey, as well as the Beatles' song, "Get Back". He is a fun, playful, and rambunctious little boy. He may only be a ball of white fluff, but there is a fireball underneath. We have had a ball playing with toys, and he loves to run in the yard and tug. He's a good tugger, with the cutest baby growl. Potty and crate training are coming along steadily, but it's hard not to get impatient when it comes to those issues. However, he can already sit, down, and nose touch on command.
Teddy is coping with his new little brother moving in. He is mainly just avoiding him in general. I think he'll start to come around as JoJo gets bigger. This picture will give you some idea of what's going on in my house:So for now, we will just play and have fun and wait for him to get his last round of shots so he can get out and socialize. Then comes puppy class...

Teddy Lure Courses

2009-04-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

Teddy had a fun Saturday. We went out to our agility instructor's house and watched some flyball. Then the dogs got to try out her new lure course. After that, all the dogs were turned loose to play and explore together.

Teddy had a ball playing with all the other dogs. He got really hyped up watching the other dogs run on the lure course. He did great the first lap around. After that, I think he was looking for a short cut. Actually, I think if they had teased him just a little bit more and kept the bag closer to him, he would have completed the second lap. Still, he had a great time. Maybe we'll try it again sometime. What a great way to spend a Saturday!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-09T07:52:00.001-07:00

Teddy and I hope that everyone enjoys a wonderful Easter holiday!

"He is not here, but He has risen... the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. " Luke 24

No More Haltis & Rally Obedience

2009-04-03T07:15:00.000-07:00

I recently realized how long it has been since I have posted an update. I don’t like to post anything if I don’t have anything to say, but we have been busy, I guess too busy to write a post. This may seem a little disjointed, but here it is anyway.

While we are still following the Susan Garrett Ruff Love book (see posts below), we have turned in our head halti. It is a product that I have never liked, and I have always read bad things about. There have been many reports of injuries with dogs. However, I thought that since my dog was no longer a rambunctious puppy, and I did not jerk on the head halti, then he would be fine. That was not the case, though. One day, I got Teddy out of his crate and he cried. At first I couldn’t figure out what was hurting on him because he wasn’t limping. After a trip to the vet, Teddy was diagnosed with a bad neck strain. Luckily, it wasn’t anything worse than that. He was put on crate rest for a week or so until he was better. Lesson learned- no more head haltis! I’ve been careful with him since then, but he hasn’t shown any more distress.

Since January, we’ve made a lot of progress on our teamwork. Teddy’s attention has gotten better, and we are starting to play well together. We still lack some control, but I think that will come with time. I don’t worry about what will happen when the leash comes off like I used to, and we can have a lot more fun on the agility field now. We had a small set back this week in class because Teddy was very interested in the sheep poop, but that was mainly when class was over. It was baby sheep poop, too, which evidently tastes better than adult sheep poop. I learn something new all the time.

Recently, we also filmed our freestyle routine to mail in to be judged. I wish that we had another week or so to try to video one more time, but the due date always comes too quickly. Here is our entry in the singles novice musical freestyle category. I’m crossing my fingers because we just need the one leg to finish our novice title.

And if that is not enough, we had our training club’s obedience trial a couple of weeks ago. We entered rally advanced, rally excellent, and graduate novice on both days. On Saturday, we did the best heeling that we have ever done in a trial. I was so pleased with Teddy’s attention. We got RAE leg #8, but we did not qualify in graduate novice. Teddy decided not to down on the drop on recall, which was such a shame because he did everything else so nicely. On Sunday, there was a noticeable difference in our heeling and attention. That is something I need to continue to work on. However, we did manage to get RAE leg #9, and our first graduate novice leg. I learned a valuable lesson at the trial. You had better know the rules and the exercises in the classes you enter. When I went in the graduate novice ring on Sunday, the judge had never judged that class before because it is so new. I thought he was joking with me at first. He asked me the order of the exercises, how they were supposed to go, if we were supposed to have our leash on or not, and how long the down stay was for. He was really funny and nice about the whole thing, but it was good that I had read the rulebook before the trial. Here are some of the pictures from the weekend.

Graduate Novice on Saturday:

And here are some pictures from rally on Sunday (our worse heeling day):

I swear he's laughing at me here!

My Agility Paradox

2009-02-25T07:08:00.001-08:00

As I've been writing about for the past month and a half, Teddy and I are working through the Ruff Love program. We are still in phase 1, and I expect to be until at least April. I'm in no hurry to rush him through the program and half do it like I did with our foundation training. I'm not going to make that mistake ever again. I learned my lesson the hard way.

Teddy and I have had a break from agility training for about the past month. This was due to bad weather and me being out of town, etc. So, when we pulled into the a parking spot for agility class last night, Teddy started excitedly barking when he realized where we were. I didn't know if this was a good or a bad sign. He was a bit over the top when he saw his old friends both human and canine. So, I warmed him up with some attention games to try to get some focus. We also tugged and I pulled out the "good treats". I bought a couple of those Skinneez toys that don't have any stuffing, which Teddy is crazy about. Here he's holding the mini raccoon. I didn't realize there were bigger ones until I went back to the store, and I bought a bigger leopard. They are great because you can wad them up and stick them in your pocket. Please don't look too closely at the unkempt poodle. He's overdue for a haircut. You can also see in the picture that we are continuing to wear the head halti. As his face grows out, he is developing a noticeable groove where the halti sits across his nose, poor boy. But I digress......

Much to my surprise, we had the best class that I can remember for a long time. We worked on threadles and various short sequences. It's not the exercises that we did that made it a great class and it's not that we did everything exactly as planned, but that we were really working together. Teddy was a happy, bouncy dog, not interested in zooming off, but really trying to play with me.

One of my biggest issues is my nerves. When the leash comes off, I worry that Teddy will start zooming. When I worry, Teddy picks up on this and thinks that something is wrong. When he senses something strange with me, he doesn't want to play agility (or anything else), which makes him zoom. Zooming is more fun than hanging out with mom who is acting weird. Thus, my agility paradox: the worrying about my dog zooming will only increase the probability of my dog zooming. I can only relax when I see my dog playing the game with me (ie not zooming), which will decrease the likelihood that he will zoom. It's a catch 22. Someday I want to make a video and edit together a bunch of his zooms. It's really funny when it's not you.

I was ecstatic that we had such a great night on the agility field. It feels so great when you and your dog are working together in sync. I don't know if it was because Teddy was glad to be back, the treats, or all of the Ruff Love work that we have been doing lately. I just hope that we can stay in this groove and make some progress.

Gigi Does New York

2009-02-17T10:13:00.000-08:00

I was really thrilled this year to be able to go to New York to watch the Westminster Kennel Club dog show for the first time. I've grown up watching it on tv forever, and I've always wanted to go. So, my mom and I took a trip I'll never forget. On a mad dash out the door on the day we flew out, I saw Gigi, a small silver poodle that my mom brought me back from one of her trips, sitting by my phone. I grabbed her, thinking I could let her be a part of the fun. So, here is Gigi's perspective of our trip to New York. I had to take the pictures with my phone, so the quality is not great. Forgive me if this sounds a little like a children's book, I'll post my real pictures soon in a different blog entry.

Gigi helped get the car loaded so we could get the airport faster, we don't want to miss the plane.

Gigi waits anxiously to board the plane.

Gigi enjoys a cold beverage on the plane. Are we there yet?

We're finally in New York and checked into our hotel room. Gigi can't wait to jump on the bed and order room service.

On the first night, we went to see Wicked. Gigi gave it two paws up.

Here's the inside of the theatre.

The next day, we went to the top of the Empire State Building. That was one place that I had never been to, and because one of my favorite movies is "An Affair to Remember", it was a must see. We were lucky that it wasn't too cloudy that day. Gigi is right above Time Square here. We could still see the New Year's ball.

Next, we took a carriage ride through Central Park South. Gigi wanted to run through the snow and play with the dogs that she saw. I told her that the snow would just get stuck in her bracelets.

On Sunday, we went to the Yorkshire Terrier Club of America specialty show. There were so many beautifully groomed Yorkies all in one room. Gigi thought that since she is a poodle that it would be rude if she made an appearance.

After a fabulous day at Madison Square Garden and getting to watch the poodles being judged at ringside, we returned to watch the groups judged. The ring looks smaller than it does on tv.

Can't believe we are finally here.

Here's our group! We cheered loudly for the poodles.

We returned for Day 2 of the breed judging. Gigi felt like a real New Yorker when she started yelling at the people passing in front of us to keep moving along so everyone could see the rings.

Gigi can't wait for Best in Show to begin! We get to cheer for poodles some more.

After a wonderful week in New York, it was good to get home to my little show poodle (ha!). However, I don't think this is how Gigi wanted to be greeted.

In Celebration of Yorkies

2009-02-03T12:31:00.001-08:00

I've spent most of my time on this blog lately focusing on Teddy and our current issues. So, I have neglected the yorkie twins, Heidi and Gracie. To remedy this, I've put together a few videos that we've taken over the past couple of months. The first is the girls playing with a new toy, a baby bird that chirps. They have a lot of fun playing together.

Heidi and Gracie turned 1 year old on December 6, 2008. We can't believe that they are already 1! The time really does go fast, even though we never thought they would get out of the teething/chewing stage. One of my favorite pictures in this video is with Teddy, and the girls are looking down on him, trying to figure out how they can get to him. When they look down, their birthday hats start falling in their face.

This last video was taken most recently. My parents added a sunroom onto their house, and the girls LOVE to go out there and play with their little soccer ball. Their toy drive has really kicked in. They really are too cute when they are playing together, we just have to make sure it doesn't get too rough. Enjoy the slow motion part in the middle because it took me forever to figure out how to make that work. The girls really are a joy!

Life is Like an A-Frame

2009-01-26T18:57:00.000-08:00

OK, maybe not my life, but my weekend sure was. We had apexes and bottoms (and not the pretty 2 on/2 off bottoms). Friday was good. We drove to McKinney, TX, and after seeing the hotel we had reservations in, I promptly pulled out the GPS and found an alternative. I wouldn't let my dog stay in the first hotel. We drove all over Allen and Plano looking for dog food, as our local source is no longer carrying it. Teddy makes friends wherever he goes, and he put on a 10 minute performance for 2 nice kids in the toy aisle of the pet supply store. I didn't have any treats on me, so I was pleased that he went through his repertoire without any yummy encouragement. By the time we were done, the little boy wanted to trade in his new schnauzer puppy for a poodle, or at least one that liked to jump over his leg and say his prayers. On the way to the pet supply store, we stumbled upon a dog park, so we checked it out on the way back to the hotel. It was very nice and well maintained, and the dogs all seemed to be unusually calm. I was very hesitant to take Teddy's leash off, but I knew after being in the car all day, he needed to burn off some energy. Teddy ran around for just a couple of minutes, and he actually sat and stayed for me to grab his collar. Yea! That night, I got to hang out with my friends Julie and Eric and their two kids. Julie even cooked chicken enchiladas. Friday was a good day.

Saturday started off very early, but very good. I got to hang out with poodle friends and watch them run. We had to wait around until mid afternoon for our time to run. I felt good because the jumper's course was simple and flowy. It was a course that we should not have had a problem running. The highlight was that I was able to get Teddy focused before we went into the ring. We did some circle work (we had room because everyone was gone by the time it was time for novice), which Teddy loved, and it got him pumped up and focused on me. I was even able to take his leash off at the practice jump and have him come back to me. But then, we got in the ring, he took the first jump, and he was off in zoomieland. I finally got him to sit and stay and I got his collar. When I left the ring, I handed him to my friend's sister, and I left the area. I think it did have an impact on Teddy because they said that he was upset and looking for me. The standard course was difficult, my friends said that it was not that different from the excellent course. I was able to warm Teddy up the same way before going in the ring, so I felt alright. Our highlight for the weekend came early, but was very brief. We started with the tunnel, turned to a jump, and I made the front cross to a panel jump. We were headed to the teeter, when everything fell apart. Teddy caught a whiff of the blue barrel trash can and ran over to the side of the ring to start sniffing. He totally disconnected from me, and we were done. In hindsight, I should have goosed him and ran to the exit, since we were getting whistled off anyway. Oh well, I have to look for the bright spots.

That night, I had a really great time hanging out with my old college friends. Some of them I had not seen in at least a year and a half, and I got to meet some of their new babies. Teddy really enjoyed playing with the kids and doing tricks for them. We even got to chat with friends via the web cam, which was all wonderful. The bad part was when I went to get in my car late that night. I forgot to bring in my GPS because I had Teddy and several other things to carry inside. Well, my car had a smashed driver's side window and my GPS was gone. What a mess!! There was glass everywhere- all over the driver's side and in every nook and cranny in the front of the car. The police came and we made a report. Then my wonderful friends Eric and Julie and my best friend, Kelly, helped me clean up the mess. We vacuumed and vacuumed and then vacuumed some more. After all that, I'm still finding pieces of glass here and there. Eric worked so hard trying to cover my window with cardboard. He even cut a window and duct taped layers of plastic wrap so that I could see my rear view mirror. He did such a good job that it held up on the 4 1/2-5 hour drive home on Sunday. Julie let me crash at their place that night because I was afraid that with a cardboard window my car would get stolen at the hotel. My friends are my heroes!

After all of that I didn't sleep much Saturday night, so I decided not to run Teddy at the trial on Sunday. I was exhausted and not in the right mindset, and I felt like it would be unfair to Teddy to ask him to work under those conditions. I packed up my stuff at the hotel and got to the trial site in time to see some friends run. Before leaving, I let Teddy play on the practice jump for a minute and made it fun just to try to give him a good experience on Sunday. Since I no longer had my GPS, my friend Pam was nice enough to let me follow her to the main highway, so I could find my way home. The cardboard on the window kept out the cold wind, but I did have a noisy drive home. I had quite a headache by the time I made it back. So that was my crazy up and down weekend. Now my car's in the shop, the roads are icy, I have a head cold, and Teddy and I are both exhausted. Time to crash!

My Late New Year's Resolution

2009-01-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

I hate making New Year's resolutions. It's so pointless to make a life changing promise that you know you won't keep through the end of the month. So, for probably the first time in my life, I'm actually going to make and keep a New Year's resolution. Yes, it's almost February, so does it have to be a Groundhog Day resolution? Somehow that doesn't have the same ring to it. Well, my resolution is to complete the Ruff Love program and follow it exactly. I think there will be aspects of it that I will continue to come back to throughout my dog's life.

We are off to a good start to Stage 1. Teddy has been wearing his head halti for over a week now, and is past the three days of wearing it straight. He still paws at it from time to time, but he's pretty used to it by now. Wearing the leash when he is out of the crate is helping me to work on things that I never thought were a big deal before. For instance, at work, we are working on Teddy respecting the doorway to my office. I don't want him to bolt whenever someone walks by that he wants to greet.

The hand feeding has been a blessing in disguise as well. Of course, mornings are so busy that I just don't have time to hand feed his entire breakfast, but the great thing about weekends is that I can hand feed 100% of his food. I'm using his meals to review tricks that he already knows and teach him new things. We've been working on our utility signals and go outs. We've also been working on some new moves for freestyle. In one of our routines, we use a large wooden clock face. I'm shaping Teddy to use his paw to move the hands on the clock to change the time. He's actually done it several times, but it's not reliable yet.

I think I am beginning to see small improvements in Teddy's behavior. He's a little more responsive to me and a little more focused. Maybe it's just because I want to see improvements, only time will tell. We attended a group agility class at my training club on Sunday. Lately, we have been breaking up into small groups by three different jump heights and work different sequences and rotate around the field. The last two weeks, everyone has watched (and been inconvenienced by) Teddy zooming around the field. This week, I was amazed that Teddy did not zoom at all. He had nice focus and was working very well for me. It was so nice to see him trying. One person, who does not know me or Teddy's history, asked what happened over the past week to cause this much of a difference. I was thrilled with this glimpse of teamwork.

On Tuesday, we took a private lesson with a different instructor. This instructor has helped us a great deal over the past couple of years, and she is great at reading dogs. When we got there, I warmed Teddy up and we did some figure 8's over the practice jump. For some reason, lately Teddy is refusing the chute. He did this at our agility trial last November, and has not refused it again until last week. I have no idea why, but since this is a current issue, my instructor wanted to tackle this problem first. After Teddy was warmed up, we went straight to the chute. He refused it and did his little dance in front of the barrel, and then he took off. Teddy decided that he would rather avoid the chute at that time and zoom. Since he didn't want to come back, my instructor had me leave the field and go hide behind my car where it was dark and he couldn't see me. When Teddy slowed down, she was able to get a slip lead on him, and then called me back on to the field.

After holding the chute open a couple of times, we were able to get Teddy going through it happily again, and I threw toys past the closed end, and he was an eager boy again. We kept coming back to the chute periodically throughout the class, and he never refused it again. The rest of the class, we did a speed circle, worked on weaves, and getting a tighter wrap. I have to say that Teddy did great for the rest of the class. We let him do his own thing in between exercises while we discussed what we were going to do, and then he came racing back when I called him. I have to say that I was very pleased with this, except for all of the sheep poop that he ate. Boy I hope there was some nutritional value in sheep poop because he sure loves it.

I had already signed Teddy up for the Lonestar Poodle Club's agility trial that is this weekend way before we started this program. I would probably scratch him until I see more progress, but I'm going as much for social reasons as I am to run in the trial. I'm excited to hang out with old poodle friends as well as my Baylor buddies. Woohoo! So, we will go and see what happens. I have zero expectations, especially about qualifying. If Teddy stays in the ring with me and tries to work with me, I'll be thrilled. That's all I can ask for right now. I'm not going to sign up for any more agility trials until at least April. Stay tuned for my trial report!

Doggie Boot Camp

2009-01-16T07:32:00.000-08:00

I'll never forget the day that Teddy arrived. We drove to the cargo pick up building at the airport and went inside. As soon as I walked into the office, I could hear loud barking coming from somewhere in the back of the echoing warehouse. I thought surely that couldn't be my little angel puppy? Oh, but it was. Teddy was mad at the world and very angry at being confined in that little crate for the long journey.

And that was just the beginning. At only 12 weeks old, Teddy came ready to take control of my world. He wanted to rule, and since I was the only one around, I became his loyal subject. The dog that preceeded Teddy was a 4 1/2 pound very soft, often ill Yorkshire Terrier. So coming from this background, it's needless to say that this rolicking Standard Poodle was a bit of a change. I knew how to love a dog, but I didn't know how to be a leader in this type of relationship.

Over the years, Teddy and I have gotten along just fine. He is great around the house and very easy to care for. We've had modest success in the obedience, rally, and freestyle rings, and we both enjoy therapy visits. Our performances aren't stellar, but we do good enough to get by with brief and sporadic moments of glory. But there is definitely something missing from our working relationship, and it really shows up in our agility performance. In the hyped up, adrenaline-filled agility field it exaggerates the lack of teamwork between dog and handler. So, after 5 years of frustration and vying to be top dog, I decided that I needed to take action. Many people told me that they would have given up on Teddy a long time ago, but I only found those comments to be hurtful and offensive. Giving up on Teddy would do him a great disservice. He's not a dog that wants to sit at home on the couch all day. He's capable of so much more, and besides, it's not his fault that I never learned how to take the reigns. And I sure don't want my next dog to have similar issues.

I'm a big fan of Susan Garrett. I've read several of her books and bought her training dvd's. Everything that she says makes sense and I like her methods. So, I've decided to follow her Ruff Love program. I'll be blogging about Teddy's progress as we go through the stages. The program is not as mean as it sounds, in fact, it is very humane and all about positive reinforcement. It mainly teaches me how to control Teddy's rewards and use them effectively to motivate him.

We started the program around January 5, although, I have to admit that I only partially followed it for the first week. Instead of having Teddy on leash when he was outside of his crate, I just had him follow me from room to room in the house, so I was constantly using verbal commands with him. I also only hand fed about half of his meals. Because of that, I really did not see any improvements in Teddys behavior. As of this week, I am following the program to the letter. I bought a head halti, and Teddy wears it whenever he is out of his crate. I only take it off for obedience classes, therapy visits, and to brush his teeth. I have been hand feeding about 85% of his food. I also control his access to his toys, and we have many play sessions throughout the day. What I really like about this is that toys that he was previously bored with, are now exciting when I bring them out. The only time that Teddy will really be able to run off leash is when we are in agility class.

It could be my imagination, but I think I can already see a tiny bit of improvement in Teddy. The other night during our utility obedience class, we had some down time while other people worked. I took Teddy in an adjacent ring and practiced some freestyle moves while a Golden Retriever puppy was working at the other end of the ring. I took off his leash so that we could do some moves around my legs, and he was giving me some really nice attention. I was surprised that he was that focused on me with the puppy nearby. Maybe he was really hungry, who knows, but I'll take that as a good sign. The real test will be when we go to agility class. We'll see how his focus has improved. Check back here as I will try to provide updates on our progress. I'm really looking forward to removing those muddy paw prints from off of my forehead!

Icee

2009-01-07T09:31:00.000-08:00

As usual, our weather has been crazy around here- one day in the 70's, the next highs in the 30's. I think that is what I have to blame for my nasty sinus infection. On Monday, we had freezing rain, which was just enough to mess up the roads slightly and make the trees sparkle with ice. It was really quite lovely. When I left work, I had icicles all over my car. When I got home, I found them all over my house, fence, and the agility equipment in my backyard. Here are some pictures that I took.

Of course if the camera is out, I am obliged to take a picture of the dog, too. It reminds me of an old Czech proverb, "every dog is black after midnight," or was that every cow. No matter, it's always hard to take a picture of Teddy.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays!
"For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." -Luke 2:11

Teddy

Heidi

Gracie

Keep Your Distance

2008-12-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

I really haven't been able to participate in any class with Teddy since I sprained my ankle. However, after sitting out for a week and a half over Thanksgiving, I couldn't sit still any longer, and poor Teddy was itching to get out and really run.

Teddy needs to be worked on a regular basis. I don't just mean chasing a ball in the backyard either. That just doesn't cut it. He needs mental stimulation, the challenge of running around while thinking about how high to jump and where he needs to go from here and hitting his weave pole entry. Challenging Teddy mentally is just as important as the physical exercise. This is what keeps Teddy happy and better behaved at home. Thinking dogs can get you into trouble when you don't give them something to think about.

So, we braved the cold and went to agility class this week. I decided that whether we did sequences or a course, I would just walk it and work on my distance handling. As I've stated before, Teddy is easily distracted. I've worked for years on increasing his motivation to work with me and to stay focused. This will always be an issue with us, but he has come a long way and made great improvements. It is because of this problem, that I don't like to get too much distance between us on the agility field. I've always worried that if he got too far away from me that he would forget about me and do his own thing, ie zoomies. So I baby him; I try to stay right with him to make sure he sees my signals, hits his contacts, and makes his entries. That's not an easy feat with a somewhat fast dog.

Obviously, I could not do that this week. I could only walk to wherever I needed to be, so there was no hope of staying with Teddy. Luckily, our instructor designed the short course so that it was ideal to work on distance handling. I did a big lead out and allowed Teddy to work ahead of me. I was shocked, Teddy actually did pretty well. He turned when I did, took a jump at a difficult angle, and did a 90 degree turn to hit his weave pole entry. The only thing he missed was after the tunnel, he was supposed to go 20 feet out to the table. I'm sure I dropped my arm or something because he took a jump instead. This exercise taught me a lot. My dog is more reliable than I think he is. I need to trust him that he knows his job that I have trained, and that he can do it without me being right on top of him. I know I crowd him too much most of the time. Teddy appreciates some distance between us, otherwise I tend to push him around obstacles. So unless Teddy starts to lose his focus and forgets that I am on the course, I've got to back off and let him fly.
*The pictures here were taken at the LRDTC agility trial in November 2008.

So Bummed!

2008-11-21T20:26:00.000-08:00

I'm not supposed to be at home this weekend. I'm supposed to be three hours away at an agility trial, but fate had other plans for us. After running around on the lumpy agility field for an hour and a half, I go inside our training building and while simply walking across the nice smooth mats, I rolled my ankle. Argh! I don't know why, but I instantaneously got nauseous and started to black out. I've never done that before. I felt like I was either going to throw up or pass out. It hurt, but not bad enough for me to react that way, it was so strange. I couldn't have had that happen in a better place, though. Dog people are the best, they knew exactly what to do and they are very resourceful. They elevated my foot and wrapped an ice pack on my ankle with a leash. Then they kept me company until someone could get there to drive me home. I really do have good friends.

It's better today. I can put weight on it, but unfortunately, there is no way that I can load and unload my car much less run in the trial. I'm so annoyed that we have to miss all 7 runs this weekend. It was going to be a nice small, friendly trial. And we really need the ring experience. Teddy is really confused today. He saw me pack up all of our stuff for the weekend, and now, he's wondering when we are leaving. I worked from home today, and Teddy's been keeping a close eye on me like he does when he thinks we are about to go somewhere.

On a lighter note, I have recently made Teddy some homemade pumpkin cookies. It's tough to find treats that agree with his sensitive stomach, but these do, and he goes crazy for them. My friend sent me the link to the recipe, which can be found here. I did make a small alteration to the recipe. I used a full cup of pumpkin and only 1 tablespoon of peanut butter. I rolled out the dough an used a bone shaped cookie cutter to cut them out. I didn't make them as thick as the recipe called for, so they only took 25 minutes to cook. Teddy was very grateful.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

Since Halloween is this week, I thought I would post a picture of my poodle pumpkin that I carved a couple of years ago. It's one of those fake pumpkins, which I love because I only have to carve it once. I freehanded the design, but I based it off of a poodle on a t-shirt that I have. And here is Teddy's costume this year:

Who needs Dalmatians? :) We entered a costume contest at the conformation/obedience show that we went to this weekend. It was a tough show- an open air horse arena on dirt and the weather was very cool. The distractions were too many to count. We were going for Rally Advanced Excellent legs number 7 and 8. I knew it would not be easy, but I thought it was doable, and I wanted to practice some control in situations like this.

On Saturday the courses were difficult with the signs I hate the most: the offset figure 8, the back up 3 steps, and the call front 3 steps back. And to top it all off the start sign was all the way on the opposite side of the ring, so we were disconnected from the beginning. I don't think I have tell you that we did not qualify in the Excellent class. We had a judge who was heavy with her pen, who took 10 points off where I would normally only use 3 points. I'm not going to say that we should have qualified, but I did feel that we were not exactly judged fairly. But I'm not one to argue with a judge. We went on to qualify with a 92 in Advanced, but the goal of getting my RAE in 10 straight trials went out the window. Easy come, easy go. They can't all be good days.

Back to the costume contest- you know you are having a bad day when you can't even win a costume contest and you get beat out by a man in a Scooby Do costume. Yes, you read that right.

Sunday went a little better. We did pretty well in Excellent, but Teddy was very tired from the long day before so he was distracted in the Advanced class. Thankfully, though, we qualified in both classes for our 7th RAE leg, so the weekend wasn't a total wash. We also stuck around late Saturday for the match, which was really good for us. That about sums up the weekend- just so-so. We're hoping for a better next couple of weeks.

Freestyle Brag

2008-09-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

I was excited yesterday to get an e-mail from the Musical Dog Sport Association (MDSA) telling me that Teddy and I qualified for our first leg towards our Novice title. Woohoo! We entered MDSA's very first video competition back in June, and I have been waiting anxiously ever since to find out the results. I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas to come. But we finally received our score sheets via e-mail. I doubt our new routine will be ready by the November deadline for their next video competition, so we will hopefully earn our next leg next June.

Now for a Training Update:
Teddy and I are having a busy fall. There is so much to train right now, and lots of trials and opportunities to work. Here's a summary of what we are up to.
Obedience- I think we finally had a breakthrough with our leather utility articles. We have been able to do 5 metal articles for a while now, but we have been having issues with the leather. The other day, Teddy picked up the wrong article and then spit it out on his own and went back for the correct one. I think (and hope) that it finally clicked for him. We are having good luck so far, but I am going to stick with only two articles for a little while longer. Teddy is also retrieving gloves really well, and we are working on our go outs. One of the main things that I want to work on is our heeling. We'll never make it in the utility ring unless we can tighten up our heeling. We'll be doing rally again at the end of October.
Agility- After doing zoomies in the trial ring, we are back in class working hard on motivation and short sequences. Teddy's been doing great in class, and I've been so proud that he is coming back to me for more without giving up on me when I make a handling error. He's really trying. We are entered in a USDAA trial in a couple of weeks, so we'll see how we are really progressing. I'm hoping that it will help us to get in the ring more than twice per day. We are entered in an AKC trial in November, and I'm considering another in December, but I'm going to wait to decide about that.
Freestyle- Today is a deadline to enter a video competition. Since we just did not have time to film our routine, I'll have to wait until December to enter the next one. I want to get our filming out of the way early this time. We are also beginning a new routine, but we have a lot of choreographing left to go. I can't wait to finish this routine though and already have the costume and music. I'm excited that we will be doing freestyle demos in a couple of weeks at a big regional dog show. Last night I ran down to our training club to practice one of our old routines because I had forgotten some of the choreography.

I think that about covers it. So much to do and so little time when you have a versatile fun-loving poodle boy!

Rally-O Weekend

2008-09-29T07:17:00.001-07:00

This past weekend, Teddy and I entered Rally at an obedience trial about an hour away from home. The great part about rally is that it gives us ring exposure and gives us something to do at trials since we are in between finishing our open obedience title and beginning to show in utility. I'm also hoping that it will help us improve our heeling, but that hasn't really happened yet.

We entered both Rally Advanced and Excellent on both days and got legs #5 and 6 towards our RAE title, so it was a great weekend. On Saturday, we got an 86 in Excellent. It was my fault that our score was so low: I should have retried a sign, but I chose to go on. It's one of those bad judgements you make on the fly. We did better in Advanced with a score of 98. Sunday, we got a 97 in Excellent and a 98 in Advanced with a 4th place.

While I'm thrilled with the outcome, I'm still not really happy with our performance. The judge was kind and light with her pen, but I feel like our scores really should have been lower. Our heeling has just not gotten much better, with Teddy not feeling compelled to be glued in heel position. He wanders too far to my left. We need to improve on this before we can even consider entering the utility ring. There is always something to train, but in the meanwhile, I'll bask in our 2 leg weekend. :)

Yorkie Time

2008-08-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

For all of you who have not reached your cute quota for the week, or if you feel the need to gratuitously go "awww", here are a few new pictures of the yorkie girls, AKA the Twin Terrors.

After a recent bath:
Heidi

Gracie

And together:

In their new hoodies (why a dog with perky ears needs a hood is beyond me):

From the front And from the back
And to top off the adorableness, here's some video. This is what you get when you sit on the floor with the camera. Heidi is the smaller one that is very toy crazy. Gracie is our plus sized model.

These girls crack me up. I love it when they carry the same toy at the same time.

A Horse of a Different Leg

2008-08-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

Normally, in my family's line of business we are fortunate enough to be able to help people and improve the quality of their lives. Once in a great while, we get the opportunity to do the same thing for an animal. This story began over a year ago.

Lovey is a paint mare horse, who was dangerously malnourished with a life-threatening injury. While living with her previous owners, her right front leg got tangled in a wire fence, cutting off the blood supply to her hoof, ending with an amputation. Her wound became badly infected, and she would have died within days had her owners not surrendered her to the Humane Society of Pulaski County. The story made the nightly news, where my mom heard the horrible story. She then convinced my dad to call and offer our services to see if we could help Lovey.

Over the next year, under the care of the Humane Society Lovey gained around 300 pounds and had revision surgery to repair the amputation site, and got her strength back. It was because of her sweet nature and good attitude that she earned the name, "Lovey".

Fortunately, we have a prosthetist on our staff that owns horses, so he and my dad worked together on the fitting. We had to wait about a year, though, for Lovey to heal enough to be fitted for her new leg. Here's a picture of the casting:

About 2 weeks ago, we went out to deliver the finished product. We were met with a crowd of around 5 different media outlets. Lovey had quite a fan club to witness her first steps on 4 legs. She took to her new limb amazingly well; she will need a lot of therapy, and like humans, she will have to build up her endurance of wearing the leg. Her shoulder and leg will have to gain strength again and she will have to learn to hold her leg straight instead of crossing it over the other front leg. Here is a video of Lovey in her stall before she put on her new leg:

This is when we put the leg on for the media to see. The lady in the orange t-shirt talking is Kay Simpson from the Humane Society of Pulaski County.

And finally, here is Lovey walking on her new prosthetic leg:

We have heard that Lovey is doing great with her new leg, and has adjusted well. I hope to get some follow up video in the future and check in with her progress. Lovey's caregivers told me that they are getting a special trailer for her so that Lovey can travel around and make therapy visits. She will make a great therapy animal. I have to include a picture of the bottom of her new hoof. Now wherever Lovey goes, she will leave a smiling face on more than just the people she meets.

The day after Lovey's fitting, my family and I left town for a week of vacation, but we found out that the Fox News channel as well as CNN picked up the story and replayed it over and over. We've been amazed at how far this story has reached so far. We even got a thank you card from someone in New York. As a family and as a company, we were honored to be able to help this sweet horse. We are thrilled to be able to make a difference in the life of an animal. If you would like to learn more about Lovey and see a more complete version of the story, you can check out some of the media coverage here:

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/wfaa/index.html?nvid=267166

and here:

http://www.fox16.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=4B166215-3C3A-41D5-939D-98EBCAB3E9D8&gsa=true

Teddy the TV Star

2008-07-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

At the end of last week, Teddy and I had the chance to go on a local morning news show and help promote our training club. Even though it was a very early morning, we still had fun. It's interesting to take Teddy to new places and to see how he reacts. He was actually a lot calmer than I thought he would be and pretty much took everything in stride. I guess that's the difference in a 5 year old versus a 2 year old- he's settled down a lot. The only thing that bothered him was when one of the cameras moved on its own in front of us, but he got over it. We sat on the interview couch and answered questions. My favorite part was at the end when the anchor told Teddy to sit and give him five. I was asked later if that was planned and practiced beforehand, but it wasn't. We only had time to exchange names and a handshake before going on air. Below is the link to the video of the interview:

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/thismorning/story.aspx?storyid=69297&catid=143

And, as mentioned from before, I took some birthday video after Teddy got his birthday haircut. It's all pretty silly, but if the shoe fits...

Teddy is 5!

2008-07-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well, last week Teddy had his 5th birthday! I can't believe how quickly these last 5 years have flown by. Not only has this curly headed boy taught me a lot about training, he has taught me patience, diligence, and how not to give up. I still have a lot left to learn, and I hope that he will be around for many more years of lessons.

So, for once his birthday fell on the night of our favorite class-agility. Teddy was recovering from a bad case of pancreatitis from the week before. If it had not been his birthday, we would have stayed home to continue resting. I decided that we would just go and play because I knew that he had missed going to class and he would enjoy just being there. I had no expectations, Teddy could do whatever he wanted, and I couldn't complain. That's pretty much what happened, too. If you didn't know any better, you would think that the dog in the videos below was just slacking off or did not know how to do the obstacles. But, I know my dog, and these are definitely videos of a dog not feeling well. We have been making small progress here and there, and Teddy was not himself that night. That being said, we are having some contact issues, as you can see when I reached under the A frame and pulled out a target, Teddy remembered his job. But that's a story for another day.

Teddy is getting a little better as time is going by, but I have to be very careful what he eats, and I'm letting him take a break for a while and rest so that he really heals. Anyway, watch the videos if you dare, but please don't judge. They are not meant to be shining examples of how an agility dog is supposed to look, it's just a recovering dog on his birthday having fun and doing what he wants. But the second video does have music! I have one more video taken in my backyard, but that will have to wait until I have time to do the editing.

Happy 4th of July!

2008-07-02T09:28:00.000-07:00

Teddy and I hope that you have a wonderful and safe 4th of July celebration!! God bless America!

Freestyle & Thyroids

2008-06-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

While I was away on vacation, I received a nice surprise in the mail, my freestyle pictures from the Tulsa competition. I finally have some real freestyle pictures, not just some blurry frames captured from our videos. I'll share a few of them below, but to see all of them (and you can use the links on the page to find other people's pictures or even other dog events) go here and here. I joke that you could probably flip through the pictures and it would be like watching a video of our routine. :) Special thanks and credit goes to Sirius Photography for the pictures.

OK, I look really stupid in this picture, but I think it's funny because it looks like Teddy is trying to tell time.

I like to start with a jump early on because Teddy loves it so much.

Here's the famous bunnyhop! This is my favorite one: And here's the final pose:

Now for the second part of my bipolar post. Teddy has had a hypothyroid since he was around 3 years old, or at least that was when he began showing symptoms of it. I knew something was wrong when he would play with a toy for about 30 seconds and then just lay down next to it pitifully. It would take him days to re-energize from an obedience or agility class. After a lot of testing, we landed on a hypothyroid diagnosis, which was a relief when I thought about what all could have been wrong with him. Anyway, he's done great on the medicine. It really brought him back to his former self.

I get him tested about once or twice a year to make sure that the medicine is still working. I've been thinking lately that Teddy has been acting a little poopy, but every time before, his test results always come back on the low end of normal. Well, about a month ago, my vet determined that Teddy did need a higher dose of his medicine. I can't believe what a difference it has made in his attitude. He is extra bouncy again and happy, and his energy level is through the roof. I've been concerned lately because of the increasing temperature and humidity, but it hasn't seemed to bother him much.

We didn't have a day off from doing something, whether it was a therapy visit or an agility or obedience class for several days. I thought Teddy would enjoy spending an evening at home, just chilling out. Nope! He was driving me crazy, while I was trying to work on a project, bringing me toy after toy. It's so great to see him so happy to get out and play and work. Now I can feel better about how he will feel the next time we have a trial weekend. But- be careful what you ask for- with energy comes the need to find a way to use it up!

I'm Back!!

2008-06-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

OK, I know it's been forever since I've updated my blog, but I have a good reason. I've been out of town for a couple of weeks. Then after getting back home, I've had to get caught up on everything that I've missed with work and my extracurricular activities, and I did not have internet access at home. Ack, it's enough to make you need another vacation!

Besides dogs, traveling is my other passion. For two weeks, I went all around the Alps. I spent most of my time in Switzerland and Austria, but overall I hit 5 countries. The mountains were amazing. Overall, I was impressed with how clean these countries were. There was a noticeable lack of trash on the streets, the air was fresh, and the water was so clear. Let's just say that my system was in a shock when I stepped back into the Atlanta airport. The food was amazing, too! I basically ate my way through the Alps. I'm sure I ate my weight in chocolate and cheese. Mmmmm! When in Rome.... The other thing that I loved about being there was all of the dogs. It was great to see dogs out with their owners everywhere. I wish that more places here in the States were as welcoming to dogs. I did see a lot of poodles, too, which was very fun. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

This was in Zurich. I didn't know my dog had his own store. Those crafty poodles!

This was taken at a park in Zurich, overlooking the Neiderdorf neighborhood. I was afraid to sit all the way on the wall because there was a 40-50 foot drop on the other side. As I have determined before, I'm not afraid of heights, I'm afraid of falling!

These are the bears at Bern, Switzerland. Some stupid tourist had just dropped their umbrella moments before.

The Swiss countryside:

The Jungfrau at Interlaken, Switzerland:

This was taken from the train going up the Jungfrau:Here is why we did not get to go out onto the observation deck at the top of the Jungfrau. Check out the completely horizontal icicles! Yes, it was tough to breathe up there. I felt a little light headed, like I had taken too much cold medicine.

More Swiss countryside. Moooo!

This is the view from the top of the bell tower in Innsbrucke, Austria. On the top left, you can see a ski jump.And here is my favorite souvenir from the trip, 2 white porcelain dancing poodles. I saw it in a shop window in Innsbrucke and had to have it. I guess they are waltzing.

This picture was taken from the inside of a gondola that we took up a mountain. You can barely make out the rainbow that followed a short rain.

Pictured behind this church steeple is the highest peak in Austria. It's the one that is often covered in clouds:This is me throwing snowballs off of the high Alpine road. Being from the south, we don't see a lot of snow, so you have to humor me here. Standing behind me (and laughing at me) is a nice Australian man. I've learned that when you go on trips like these, hang out with the Australians and you are guaranteed a good time.Here are the steps of the Mirabell Gardens in Salzburg, Austria (think "The Sound of Music"):

Same place. Check out the dark clouds:

This is a higher view of Salzburg:This was my hot chocolate from the famous Cafe Landtman in Vienna, Austria. I also shared the plate of cakes with my table. It was just so pretty! I told you I ate my way through the Alps. And here is the Opera Toilet that was in the subway in Vienna. I had to take a picture of it. The bathroom was playing waltzes- it was so funny! You see the craziest stuff when you travel. BTW, it was the Australians who found it first! OK, I won't bore you with anymore pictures. Well, maybe one more. After being gone for over 2 weeks, I was ready to get back home. Teddy was living the high life at his grandparents house and learning all about Yorkshire Terriers. How could I stay gone from this face?

Best Week Ever

2008-05-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

So, who's having the best week ever? Teddy and I are. OK, so maybe not the entire week, but definitely the weekend. We attended our first ever live musical freestyle competition. We drove through very bad storms on Friday, including torrential rain and what looked like a funnel cloud to get to Tulsa, OK for the Bow Wow Pow Wow.

So, here's the rundown. We were entered in the novice freestyle class on both days with a brand new routine only weeks old. My main goal was to keep Teddy in the ring and somewhat focused on me and the choreography. That would be a major victory with our history of distractions and zoomies. Everything went better than I expected. He got a little happy in the middle of the routine, so I had to really work to keep him from zooming, which meant a little spontaneous re-choreographing. I am also use to practicing in a building with really high ceilings, so you can imagine my surprise when the hula hoop hit the low florescent lights- oops! The final tally for Saturday was second place in the class and our first novice leg, including a score of 9.0 in artistic impression. We also won best costume, high scoring large dog, and high scoring out of state dog. I was shocked to say the least. We could have gone home Saturday, and I would have been thrilled. Below is the video for Saturday:

Sunday did not go quite as well, Teddy was a little off. I think he was tired. He did not rest as well as he would have at home because the hotel made him a little nervous with all of the slamming doors. We had a slow start, and he missed the first jump over me. I did my best to salvage the routine and to keep us going, but Teddy even fussed at me towards the end. That was Teddy's way of saying, "Where's the treat!". Anyway, we got our second novice leg with a third place. We also won high scoring large dog and outstanding musical interpretation. Here is Sunday's event:

Overall, we had a great time! The host club was genial and did a great job putting the event together. We met some wonderful teams and saw some very nice routines, including an incredible silver miniature poodle named Emily. Now we just need more practice and to work on including some better moves.

Nerves of Plastic

2008-04-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

And I don't mean the kind of government plastic that is used in helmets and bullet proof vests- I mean the flimsy kind that toy model kits or happy meal toys are made of. That is me right now. The closer we get to our first live freestyle competition, the more nervous I am getting.

My nerves are magnified by the fact that Teddy has been sick recently wtih a very bad sore throat. Thankfully, he is much better and took his last dose of medicine last night, but the medicine has made him feel lethargic and just plain lousy. Therefore, our practice on Saturday went pretty badly and did nothing for my confidence level.

After resting for more than a week, Teddy returned to work with me yesterday, and he went with me last night to help teach a class. I think he really enjoyed getting out and being around people again, he was pretty happy to be there. I gave him some puppy crack (aka Nutrical) with his dinner last night to help him feel better. It seems like every time Teddy gets sick, it takes him longer than most dogs to bounce back to his old self. I don't know if his thyroid problem has anything to do with that or not. Anyway, we are going to sit out of agility class this week just in case.

So, we'll just take our chances this weekend at the trial. That's all we can do anyway. I love my boy, and he is smart and talented, but he is a bit unpredictable. I never quite know what I'm going to get with him when we walk into a ring. Whatever happens, happens!

Ears and Freestyle

2008-04-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

OK, so it it sounds like these two things are totally unrelated? Unfortunately, that's not true at my house lately. Ack, have we been through it lately! Teddy started off with inner ear inflammation, then he got an infection on his outer ear. I thought that the antibiotics that he was on was hurting his stomach, so we stopped those as soon as his ears were better. When he continued to be a picky eater (a sure sign that something is not right with him), we went back to the vet to find out that Teddy's throat was very inflamed. I swear, if it's not one thing, it's another! With all of this going on, we've been trying to finalize our new freestyle routine for our first live competition. Whew!

Last week, Teddy and I attended an adoption event for a local animal shelter. We had promised to do some freestyle and obedience along with some of our other freestyle training buddies. We had a blast, but it was the most difficult evironment in which to perform, even on our best day. We were in a parking lot, with our ring defined by a few orange cones, there were cars driving by, dogs and cats waiting to be adopted, and a modest crowd of people on their lunch breaks standing around sending telepathic messages to my dog for him to come over and say hello. Those telepathic messages are stronger than a little black poodle can take. It's a good thing that everyone was easily impressed with a few tricks because doing our full dance routine was not happening. Teddy's good at schmoozing the crowd.

As I said above, Teddy and I have been hard at work on our new freestyle routine. We've been trying to put all of the pieces together and make sure that it fits with the music and it looks somewhat polished. We're still working on the last part. :) So, below is some video from our practice last Saturday. It's very raw. In fact, we totally scrapped the whole first part of our routine, so this was the first time we were trying out our new choreography. I'm also only half in costume- don't worry, the green shirt is not part of the costume. I'm taking a risk in showing this video because we look so rough. It's hard to see in the video, but the reason we had trouble with the hula hoop is because Teddy has on a light line, so I have to make sure that the line clears the hoop before I can move it, otherwise it would look a lot smoother. Anyway, enough disclaimers, we still have a lot of practicing to do in a short amount of time!

Agility Class Videos

2008-04-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

I have compiled a few videos from the last couple of weeks of agility class. I was anxious to try out my new video camera on the agility field. I used a tripod because I really didn't want to take people away from their own dogs. I am happy to say that Teddy is doing so much better about zooming (knock wood). I am thrilled that he is really wanting to play with me and is trying really hard. Now the problem is ALL me. And I am getting really frustrated with myself. It seems that I can't do a rear cross. Ack! God bless all of the first dogs out there who have to put up with their handler's ineptness while we learn what the heck we are doing!

The first video is a rear cross exercise. As you can see it takes us a couple of tries to get it right. I was pointing my body in the wrong direction, and I wasn't letting Teddy get ahead of me enough to actually do a rear cross. You mean you have to let the dog go ahead of you to do a rear cross? I am so challenged!

Here we did some Greg Darrett box work. Good stuff. We were supposed to use 2 front crosses. I am having trouble getting my timing right on turns so that I don't send Teddy around or in front of a jump.

In this video, we got to make up our own course. Our instructor just wanted us to use each piece of contact equipment twice. That's why the sequence doesn't look smooth or flowy. At the beginning, Teddy got distracted by a border terrier puppy in an ex-pen on the field. He has to go check everything out. Sorry that you can't quite see the whole field.

This is just a short sequence that we did: tunnel-A frame-jump-weaves. I lost my connection with Teddy at the bottom of the A frame because I did not reward his 2 on/2 off contact, so he was looking for his treat. I was also glad that his weaves picked up speed by about half way through.

This sequence was kind of difficult for me because I am so handling challenged. We were supposed to try to run it first by staying somewhat in the middle. Again, you can see that I have trouble with my timing and body language. The second time, we were supposed to use a rear cross. I really struggled to not turn too quickly and pull him in front of the jump. I did some heavy editing so you couldn't see how challenged I really am. Boy do I have a lot of work to do. I think I need to take some private lessons without my dog. Poor Teddy!

An Obedient Easter

2008-03-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend! It just so happened that our club's obedience trial fell on this weekend, which was really strange. This is probably the first Easter that I can remember that I was not at church. It was a good weekend, anyway.

We started the weekend off with Teddy getting groomed on Friday morning. We went to our usual place, but a new groomer worked on him. She actually did a really nice job shaping his bracelets and his head, but she shaved way too much off of his tail base that I had been trying to grow out over the past couple of months. Argh! Here we go again with the tail, oh well. The funniest part about the grooming was that they put 2 big blue bows on Teddy's ears. It was hilarious! I just shook my head when I picked him up, and told him that his doggie friends were going to tease him at the C match that we were headed to that afternoon. Let's just say that we were the talk of the match!

Teddy and I showed in Rally Advanced and Excellent, and Wildcard Open, just for the heck of it, which gave us 7 ribbons and 2 RAE legs (numbers 3 and 4 towards his RAE title).

Heeling has always been an issue with us. I'm sure that I did not teach it properly from the beginning, but we have been working very hard on this lately. I will say that our heeling had gotten better in our last 2 trials, but we had a backslide this weekend. So, we will take a few steps back in our training. In our utility class on Monday night, I worked on having him off leash for most of the class, and reminding him that his place was right at my side, not checking out spots on the mats or visiting with another person or dog.

On Saturday, the Rally courses were deceptively easy. The signs were easier signs, but the course layout was what increased the difficulty level. The courses were not flowy, but had strange angles with a lot of diagonal lines. We kind of struggled through the Excellent course because of our bad heeling with a score of 87, but did much better in Advanced with a score of 94. On Sunday, however, the signs were more difficult, but the layout was more flowy. This was the first time that I have had the off-set figure 8 on the course, which was the first sign. I have to admit that I have been dreading the day when we would get this sign, but Teddy did surprisingly well with the 2 toys that were used as the distractions. I think he thought I was setting him up. :) We received a 96 in Excellent, and a 98 and 4th place in the Excellent class. Below is a picture of Teddy with his rally and wildcard ribbons.

Since it was Easter, my mom had to bring Teddy an Easter bunny. It was a big hit. There was much shaking and killing of the bunny. In case you are wondering what is on his ears, it's bows that came on some packages of Easter candy. We thought it would be cute for a picture.

Happy Easter!

2008-03-21T07:07:00.000-07:00

We pray that you have a blessed and happy Easter weekend with your friends, family, and canine family!

Freestyle Filming

2008-03-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

Teddy and I had a very busy weekend. We watched some of the Teacup Dog Agility Association trial that was local, we went on a therapy visit, and we did a lot of filming for our next freestyle video competition. I thought I would take advantage of having a blog and do something a little different. Below are the two best tapings from the weekend. They both have a couple of minor mistakes, but some of them you probably would not notice if you were not very familiar with our routine. If you have seen us dance before, this is the same routine, but with a little extra time and choreography needed to move up to the next level of competition. I think I'm leaning to one version over the other, but I thought I would get outside opinions on which version is better. So, let me know what you think:

Version #1

Version #2

Thanks!!

Puppy Training

2008-03-16T20:37:00.001-07:00

I went over to my parents' house on Friday to do a little puppy training. It's so refreshing to work with a blank slate. It's so different though because I know so much more than I did when I started training Teddy. However, I still worry about doing something wrong and screwing them up. Gracie was a lot easier to teach sit than Heidi. Gracie is calmer and can focus easier than her sister. Heidi is a lot like Teddy in that she is easily distracted and has a higher energy level. When I first worked with Heidi, she just wanted the food so badly that all she could do was jump up for it. After I gave her a few pieces for answering her name, then she could focus a little better.

Here is some video, first of Gracie, then Heidi, of them working on name recognition, sit, and down:

Ok, and this last video is of them sitting together. Too cute to leave off of the blog. Maybe a brace freestyle routine is in their future? LOL!!! Ya, right!

Now to change the subject a little. I was going to post pictures of their first baths because it was too funny, but never got around to it. Since Patti had some cute pictures on her blog of dogs in her shop (see link to Poodlebugs on the right), I thought I should finally add the pics.

The first is Heidi, who was none too thrilled about getting a bath:

Here's Heidi in a poor attempt of a stack: Here's Gracie, you can see her claws came out:

Gracie was so tired from her bath, she fell asleep on the table:

And here they are one week later with their first top knots. Their hair was a little too short for them to stay in, but it's a good first try. Anyone know the name of the waxy stuff you put on the hair to make the top knot stay in?

Outrunning the Storm

2008-03-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

OK, I am not posting this silly little video to show how good Teddy and I are at agility- obviously!! Actually, I'm really posting this for Patti to see how much we look like she and Boo in one of her very early runs with him. I can only hope that we can improve as much as the two of you in the future, otherwise, we can kiss all hopes of further competitions goodbye.

Anyway, I bought a new camera yesterday, and I was itching to try it out, so I took it to agility class tonight. We knew the storms were predicted to hit tonight, but we were hoping that we could make it through the entire class. That was not to be. We watched as the lightning got closer and the thunder louder. We were rushed to only get one run in each. So, I felt the time crunch as I stepped up to the first obstacle. My handling leaves much to be desired. I have got to learn to pick up my pace and give quicker signals. That is what messed up our rear cross and sent him around the jump. I also sent him in the wrong end of the tunnel. Too bad though, that my videographer missed our nice front cross. At least there is no way to go, but up! We were lucky to pack up and get out just as the storm reached us. The rain started as I got in my car.

Running Silent... or... Shut Up!

2008-03-12T20:31:00.000-07:00

Wow, there has been a lot going on lately, and I have been extremely busy. Last week we had 68 degree weather, 2 inches of snow the next day, more 60+ degree weather, then 3-4 inches of snow the following day. Crazy weather! We don't know if it's winter or spring. It was because of the snow that I broke my camera. :( Teddy was having so much fun playing in the snow and chasing snow balls, that I was going to get a video of him. About 10 seconds into the video, the camera slipped through my hand and landed face first onto my sidewalk. I was really mad at myself for doing something so stupid, especially because I needed to try filming our freestyle routine for the video competition the next day. Luckily, it was just a point and shoot camera that also took video and not a fancy video camera, but I found out that it would cost just under the price of a new camera to fix it. Such is life!

Last Sunday afternoon I took Teddy to a fun match in a nearby suburb. The weird thing was that it was held in a parking lot of a grocery store off a busy state highway. It was a great place to work on distractions with all of the people (and kids) coming to see what was going on, the cars in the parking lot, and a lot of motorcycles flying by. I was a bit concerned because they didn't even have enough ring gating to complete the ring, so there was a corner formed with red tape. I decided it would be best to perform the heeling on lead. I was surprised to find that Teddy did pretty well on all of the other exercises, even with a very narrow high jump for the retrieve over the jump.

Teddy finally met my parents' new puppies. He didn't really care for them, I think he didn't really know what they were. It was pretty funny to see him try to avoid and ignore them. He would look the other way and back away from them. He's used to being around goldens and labs and corgis in his classes. I'm not sure he realized they were dogs. When the girls finally got brave enough to sniff his feet, Teddy would pick his feet up high, like he didn't want them touching him. Silly boy! We'll try again, they need to make friends.

OK, now back to the title of this entry. We had a great agility class this week. Our instructor had us walk the course, and then she told us that we could give only a beginning command. We had to run the rest of the course completely silent. I was a little surprised by this. I've always heard that dogs cue more off of our body language than our verbal commands. I have believed this to be true, but I didn't think it would really work for my dog. Teddy is the kind that is easily distracted and is difficult to retain his focus. I thought he needed verbal cues to keep him on track and to bring his attention back to me. I, and everyone else in our class, was shocked at how well Teddy stayed on track and even ran faster. It was a real wake-up call for me. I need to shut up and make it easy on Teddy, so that he doesn't have to filter out all of the excess information. I had a revelation, and I'll see how his progress continues with limited verbal commands. The only thing that we had a problem with was the weaves, and that could have been because he just didn't want to do them. I think we need just need to work on this. I would love to see video proof of this, but it's too bad I broke my camera. I challenge all the agility people out there to try running a course without saying a word. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Puppy Fun

2008-03-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

I finally had some time to do some video editing of the new puppies. I've been busy spending what little free time I had at my parents' house helping out with the little monsters. They are cute as can be, but boy are they a handful right now. Potty training is job #1 right now. They are getting better, but we have to stay on top of it. Gracie is doing well, and is searching out the pee pads when she needs to go, but Heidi (who I originally thought was smarter) is the one who is having more accidents. She's sneaky!

Another issue my mom is having is their days and nights are a bit mixed up. They stay in the laundry room with open crates and access to pee pads. They, but mainly Heidi, tend to whine and cry at night. Gracie settles in to sleep in her crate like a good girl, while her sister goes crazy. I told my mom that we've seen enough tv to know that in every set of twins, there is always one evil twin. :) When I came over one afternoon to help, I put them in the laundry room behind the baby gate. Heidi immediately started to cry, but I took a metal bowl and tapped it against the gate and praised her calmly for being good. It only took about 5 minutes to get them quiet. I think consistency is the key and being more stubborn than a terrier. Teddy has helped me learn this difficult lesson.

They are so funny to watch play. We are trying to figure out which one is the dominant one, but they are both pretty dominant. Heidi is the toy stealer, but Gracie will sometimes stalk Heidi and pounce. We try to let them work it out amongst themselves, but we break it up when the biting starts.

Here are some videos that we took the day we went to pick them up at the breeder's house. They were playing with their mom. She was really sweet, so we are hoping that these little hooligans will turn out eventually like her.

Twins!

2008-02-29T20:34:00.000-08:00

I'm proud to announce the arrival into my parents' household- twins!

Tapyoca's Swiss Miss "Heidi" &

Tapyoca's Princess of Monaco "Gracie"

Born: 12-6-07

Age: 12 weeks

Current Weight: Heidi- 2 lbs. 12 oz., Gracie- 3 lbs. 6 oz

I drove with my parents yesterday to Memphis to pick up their new babies. We even got to meet their mama, who I don't think was sad to see them go to their new homes. It was amazing to see how much they have grown and changed since we saw them last. We played with them and their mom and got our questions answered from the breeder before we headed home. We did not get out of Memphis, though, before Gracie got car sick. Good thing we brought pee-pads with us! We are hoping that it was just the excitment of the day combined with a lot of stop and go traffic that made her sick.

They are absolutely hysterical. I can't believe that we got by being just a one dog household all of this time. I now "get" what everyone has been talking about in their multiple dog homes. It is constant entertainment watching them interact with each other. While Heidi is the smaller of the two, she will always end up with the toy. They really love being together and look for the other one when apart. Currently, they are in the fearless stage, and think nothing of crashing into the other one or doing summersaults in the name of play. It's like watching roller derby, or so I imagine.

I've been very surprised at how seamlessly they have settled into their new home. Maybe it's a puppy thing, but they have not been nervous or scared and have been having a ball exploring. That could be the terrier in them. They are very full of themselves. I haven't had a chance to edit some video, so that will have to come later. Check back soon. :)

A Brag of a Different Sort

2008-02-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

I have a whole other kind of brag to share today. Last night at the Arkansas Business of the Year awards banquet, my family's business won the Outstanding Philanthropic Corporation Award in the category of under 100 employees from the Arkansas Community Foundation. This is a special award to me as I am very proud of our company's commitment to giving back to not only the non-profit organizations that we partner with, but our communities as well.

I am part of the fourth generation in the prosthetics and orthotics business (artificial limbs, braces, therapeutic shoes, and mastectomy products). I love what we do. We get to help people, that's simply what we do. We help restore mobility and help people return to their jobs, families, and daily activities. Our patients are incredible; they can do anything without limits. They run, coach baseball, actively play with their kids and grandkids. They are welders, legislators, farmers, and police officers. And the technology is improving everyday from computer chips and CAD/CAM to lighter weight and stronger materials.

It is because of our patients that we continue to give of our time and resources to help a variety of organizations. I think it is because of the nature of our business that our employees are so willing to participate in community service activities. You have to want to serve people in this business, so it just goes hand in hand. They do everything from serving dinner at muscular dystrophy camp to answering phones at a telethon to walkathons to frying fish to visiting shut-ins to attending support groups to dog therapy visits (guess who), and so much more. Giving back and serving our community is truly a part of our corporate culture, and I would hate to be a part of a company where this wasn't second nature.

Anyway, it's just a glimpse into my work life. If you want to read more about the award, you can go here: http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/people_bizofyear.asp?id=351
And, if you want to see my father's acceptance speech (complete with penguin suit), you can go here: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1431564254/bclid1433966022/bctid1433964693
Thank you for letting me veer away from dog training for a while.

Brags

2008-02-22T12:59:00.000-08:00

I'm not usually one to toot my own horn, in fact I try to stay pretty quiet (OK, don't laugh!). However, I have to admit that it has been pretty fun going to classes and meetings this week and sharing the news about Teddy's new obedience title. I've probably received about 50 congratulatory e-mails, and one really nice blog entry (thanks Patti!), and it just doesn't get old. We even got to brag in agility class. Our instructor is really great about starting off our class with brags of all sorts.

So, to continue the celebration, I ran by the bakery on the way to work on Wednesday and placed an order for some special cookies to take to our Open obedience class and our club's board meeting that night. They were a big hit.

Mmmmmmm! The taste of sweet success! :)

Teddy, CDX!!!

2008-02-16T21:24:00.000-08:00

Although today began dismally with me thinking that I should have stayed in my nice, cozy bed, it had a happy ending (as you can tell by the title). It began raining as I was backing out of the driveway, and continued heavily during the entire 2+ hour drive to the obedience trial. It rained so much, so fast, that my car was difficult to control and fish-tailed on several occasions. Thanks to all-wheel drive (and my guardian angel), I stayed on the road. Normally, I am a good driver and love to drive, but I was a nervous wreck by the time we got there. Oh, and isn't it so much fun to unload crates, gear, and a freshly fluffed poodle in the pouring down rain?

This was a new show for us. We are still green when it comes to showing, but this show definitely had the most distractions that I have ever seen at an obedience trial. At most of the shows that I have been to, the obedience rings are totally separate from the conformation rings and at least one side of the ring is up against a wall. I know, I'm spoiled. Neither was true for this show. The obedience ring was adjoined to the rally ring, and anyone and everyone could walk all the way around the ring. I've never seen so many families with a boat load of unruly kids hanging on ring gating before. They also had a booming PA system with someone who was in love with the sound of her own voice in control of the microphone. But I won't go into the ridiculous announcements that she made. When I walked in and saw the setup, I thought there was no way on earth that we would do well today. I made that horrendous drive for this?

But we made it through, somehow. I was disappointed in our heeling, I had to give an extra command. We've been working so hard on heeling, but he lost his brain temporarily. It wasn't our best performance, but it wasn't our worst by far. I was proud that Teddy held it together under those conditions. You can't see it in the video, but the reason we had trouble with the setup for the broad jump was a row of 4 or 5 kids sitting on the other side of the ring gating and a woman standing right up againsts the gating. Teddy is too friendly for his own good. I was really nervous about his stays. OK, honesty time. You'll figure it out eventually anyway if you watch the second video. There were only three of us entered in the Open A class, and one did not show up. The second dog didn't drop on the recall and he broke his stays. I was so relieved to find out that even though the golden broke, Teddy was a good boy and held his stays. Whew! So- we finally finished our Open title (CDX) with a first place! Yea! Here it is:

A friend of mine thought to film us getting our ribbons, so if you want to see that:

As you can tell, Teddy is such ham, he gets so excited when there is applause. There was a vendor at the show from Texas that made glass dog figurines in clear or colored. He even had poodles in the sporting clip. I treated myself and had him make a black poodle in the sporting cut holding a dumbbell. I thought it turned out really cute, although it's hard to see here.

I was very proud of my sweet boy! Even though I eventually want to try for our UCDX, we can now concentrate on other areas, like rally, agility, and freestyle. So much to do, so little time! That's the benefit and the drawback of owning a poodle- they can do it all!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-15T10:21:00.000-08:00

A belated Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

I had dinner with my family and took Teddy out for some training. I probably would not have gone if we did not have a trial this weekend. In agility class we did some Greg Derrett box work. From what I have seen of the Greg Derrett system, I really like and think it could help us in our training. The box work consists of 4 jumps set up in a square with possibly other jumps used as an adjoining square or just sides of the square. I was really proud of Teddy last night. He was really working with me and trying to follow my lead- that is except for a slight distraction gathering some treats that fell out of my pocket. He is doing his part to reduce the bug problem before summer gets here.

Afterwards we went inside to work on the broad jump, the real reason I needed to train last night. I was very pleased that he jumped it eagerly with me looking straight ahead and not at him. I guess I really was cueing him with my body language. It's amazing how they pick up on the slightest movement. I had built in distractions of the sub-novice obedience class on the other side of the ring gating, and I added in people standing at the end of the jump, with success. We'll have to wait and see if this pays off at the trial this weekend. My stomach is churning already!

Frozen Agility

2008-02-13T08:07:00.000-08:00

Agility people are crazy! We go outside and run agility whether it is 25 degrees or 110 degrees. Yes, we love it that much! Last night was one of those crazy, what-was-I-thinking nights, I have not been that cold in a long time. When I got in my car, it said 28 degrees. That's cold for us southerners! And it was almost 70 just two days earlier. Normally, we have portable heaters that we hover around in weather like this, but none of them were working last night. As I stood watching everyone run the course, I literally watched the water buckets freeze over. One little dog was developing ice crystals on his belly fur, which practically touched the ground. Even though Teddy's coat is cut down to almost his summer do, he was supercharged last night. He was loving the cold and bouncing around like Tigger! I think I'm going to send him to Alaska to join an Iditarod team (see: http://home.gci.net/~poodlesleddog/).

As over the top as Teddy was, the greatest part of last night's class was- NO ZOOMIES! Yea! Any night without zoomies is a great night, no matter what else happened. We got to work through our new teeter issues. These were my fault for telling him to wait before he reached the tipping point, making him unsure of where to stop. Then we ran another crazy course, consisting of 180+ degree turns, weird angles, and distance work. We accused our instructor of throwing the numbered cones up in the air and letting them fall at whichever obstacle. Anyway, we had fun working through the challenges. I was able to get a little distance, but I'm still having trouble turning him. Teddy is so fast that he wants to charge ahead, so he turns too wide. So that is one thing I would like to work on. His weaves were good last night though, I noticed him single-footing them with speed. While we were running the course, Teddy's pop-up crate was blowing across the yard. Unfortunately, his dinner was on top and spilled everywhere. I tried to pick it all up in the dark, and when we got home after I dumped it in his dish, I had to pick out pine needles and grass. A little fiber never hurt anyone!

Bi-Polar Agility & Broad Jump Proofs

2008-02-11T07:40:00.000-08:00

Zoomies on the agility field have plagued us for years. And like the fruit of the month club, it's the gift that keeps on giving. Just when I think that we are actually becoming a team, Teddy likes to keep me grounded by showing me he still knows how to zoom.

We had our first agility class this weekend in quite a while, due to the weather and illness, etc. I knew Teddy would be excited to get back on the field, and he did not disappoint. He surprised me by perfectly doing the jump chutes. I don't know that we have ever done the jumps at that height, that close together. I relaxed a little too early, as we all lined up to individually run over the teeter. He did it once, just fine. But when I took him back to do it one more time, I guess he stressed over having to redo it, and started zooming. It was a particular bad one, where I had to hide, while others eventually corraled my dog and put him in his pop-up crate.

After his break in his crate, the class lined up to run over the dog walk before we were to run the entire course. I was going to sit this one out, but I really wanted to make sure that Teddy was somewhat under control before attempting the entire course. He did fine with the one obstacle, so we decided to give the course a try, a very strange 21 obstacle course with a multitude of challenges. Our instructor prides herself on making very difficult courses to prepare us for the ring. She says that she wants us to feel confident that if we can run her courses, we can run anything. I love her classes! I would much rather work on a skill level above ours because it pushes us to be better, and I try things that I would never try on my own. That being said, I was very proud of Teddy. He ran great and was connected to me, and we ran the whole course without interruption. We go from one extreme to the other.

Yesterday was a similar story. Several of my fellow club members got together to run the nested course from the most recent Clean Run magazine. We ran the novice course just fine. Of course, all of the mistakes were mine where I pushed him around an obstacle or was late in giving him a command, but we were working together. Then it was time for the open level. We only got through about half of the course, and it was game over. Not to give Teddy too many excuses, but it was unusually hot (upper 60's) and he was tired from a long, full weekend. I think he was just done, maybe I pushed him too hard. Don't really know, but it amazes me how we can work in sync one run, and then in the next, it's all about whatever Teddy wants to do or the other way around. It's hard to know which poodle I'm taking up to the start line.

Now for a little obedience. We've been working on proofing the broad jump recently, after it's been giving us some trouble. My instructor had me leave Teddy in front of the jump, and instead of looking at him when I give him the "over" command, look straight ahead. I don't know why, but it has seemed to help. I guess when I look at him, it's confusing him as to when he needs to take off. I'm assuming that he is trying to read my body language as opposed to going from my verbal command. I'll see how this holds up over time.

So, that is the bulk of our crazy weekend, minus the freestyle work we did as well. Freestyle will be discussed in a post to come.

closes a door & OPENs A window

2008-02-03T18:10:00.000-08:00

They say when God closes a door, He opens a window. Well, that is the story of my weekend showing in open A obedience. Saturday, like most of our first trial days, was a disaster. The judge was nice and easy going. He joked with me that he takes 10 points off for those who wear the same colored pants as their dog. Everything that could go wrong, did. I won't embarass myself by posting the video, but the bright spots were that our heeling is improving and Teddy did his sit and down stays. Besides that, I learned some valuable lessons.

Proof for noises on the drop on recall. His drop was slow and almost complete when a dog barked and people applauded loudly. This made an already nervous dog panic, and he walked in to me before I was allowed to call him. At least this gives me something I can practice.

Don't groom your dog the day before a trial. I should know this by now, but I was not thinking properly when I made the appointment. They shaved Teddy's tail a little too close, giving him a bit of razor burn. This suddenly bothered him on the retrieve on the flat. He ran out after the dumbbell quickly, but on the way back, he acted like something bit him on the tail. He dropped the dumbbell to check out what got him, but he did pick it back up and came in nicely.

Work attention and distractions on the retrieve over the high jump. Although it should not matter, we were doing our retrieves toward the adjacent ring. This is how we practice at our training center, but it does provide an extra set of distractions. Teddy ran out quickly and took the jump, however, his pick up was slow, and his ring nerves got him again. He dropped the dumbbell to sniff a spot on the mat, then picked it back up and forgot what he was doing. I had to call him back over the jump. Ack! I know he knows this exercise, but we have work to do.

Oh the dreaded broad jump! For some reason, Teddy lost all confidence in his ability to do the broad jump in the last week or so. I don't know why this happened all of the sudden, but it did. We've been working diligently on it. I've had him jump it over and over, chasing toys, and for jackpots. I think part of the problem is where the judge stands. So, I need to get many different people standing in different places around the broad jump. Anyway, on Saturday, when I left him in front of the jump, he was unsure and stood up, and I had to give him an extra command to jump, then he auto finished.

So, there are the ugly details. On top of that, I came down with a terrible cough on Saturday, the kind that burns in your lungs. We were fortunate to show early, so that we could come home and get a lot of rest that night. I doped up on cough medicine and watched the Eukanuba dog show. I wasn't sure that I would be able to get up the next morning and drive to the show, and I would not have, had we had an early ring time.

I'm so glad that we did make it, although I was coughing so much that I was not sure that I could give a verbal command. I kept popping cough drops to get me through. Our heeling was not quite as good as the day before, but again, I'm just glad to see Teddy trying. It's nice when we go from losing 15-16 points on heeling last year to losing 4-8 points. We are finally making progress. He usually does better the second day of a trial, and he did not break tradition this weekend. We made it through all of the exercises nicely, without second commands or too much distraction. I'm so glad I video these runs because it really helps me see why some things happen and what we need to work on. We lost the most points on, surprise, the broad jump. He took the jump, which made me very happy, but he sniffed the mat and did an auto finish. So that brought us our second open leg with a so-so score of 182.5 and a fourth place. I was worried when I saw that there were more than 4 qualifiers, but we still pulled off a placement. Yea! Here's the whole thing, minus the stays:

Two down, one more to go. It is difficult to get comfortable in the ring when we have so few shows and/or matches in our area. The last trial that we entered was the first weekend in October, so I guess it is just natural for us to be so rusty getting back into the ring. However, you should have seen us at this same trial one year ago when Teddy did zoomies in the ring and tried to run out. I kind of felt like we redeemed ourselves. I'm so grateful for the people who stayed to watch and cheer for us, and maybe even entertain Teddy on his sit-stay. :) Anyway, got to get to bed to get up early to go to the doctor.

Teddy the Poo's Blustery Week

2008-01-31T13:23:00.000-08:00

As you can see from the title, it's been an odd and extremely windy week. On Tuesday, we had extreme winds, which is really unusual for us. It was so strong, that I was looking around for the funnel cloud. I had an afternoon meeting, and when I got out of the car, I could barely walk into the building. I could have sworn I was in Chicago. When I walked Teddy later, I was afraid he was going to blow away. Good thing he's not a toy poodle, or I could have flown him like a kite! There was damage all over town: trees in the roads, limbs everywhere, billboards and signs down, shingles blown off of roofs, and power poles down. Thousands of people were without electricity all over the state, including our dog training club.

This could not have come at a worse time. We have our first obedience trial in months this weekend, and we really needed some ring time to do some last minute proofing. Classes were canceled last night, so we could not practice or do put thrus. I was beginning to panic, thinking that we would not get a chance to enter a ring until it was for real at the trial. I planned on meeting a couple of people at the club this morning, even though the weather was predicted to be bad. Dedicated? Stupid? Perhaps both. We were going to open the doors for light, however, the sun did not come out at all, so we had to cancel.

Luckily, I got a phone call that the power had been turned back on. Actually, the call said that they drove by the building and they thought the power was back on- why if they drove by didn't they go inside to check is beyond me. So with that concrete information, I decided to run down there at lunch to see how much I had to worry about for this weekend's trial.

I warmed Teddy up with some power walking, then my instructor showed up and called a put thru for us. Teddy did a lot better than our last put thru. His heeling wasn't bad, his recall was fast, he had good retrieves, and he did his broadjump happily. Overall, I was very pleased. He did about as good as he can do. We only had one issue: he broke his stays. This is something he hasn't done in a long time. I think the difference is that he was only lined up with only one other dog and the club building was basically empty and very quiet. He does better when there is a lot going on for him to watch. I'm hoping this won't be an issue this weekend. I have a feeling that if we mess up, it will be on something stupid that we've never done before. I just hope I can keep my big mouth shut, so that I don't praise him before the exercise is over or give an unnecessary second command.

Tomorrow is bath and haircut day, that is if the roads aren't iced over. I always make sure that my dog is well groomed for an obedience trial. I know it doesn't make a difference, but I think dogs should get pretty points!

Poodle Kitsch

2008-01-30T13:57:00.000-08:00

Like all dedicated poodle owners, I have my fair share of poodle stuff, and I usually get something poodle related for my birthday. This year I got some fun poodle socks (always needed) and a cute new pin. After going to dinner with my family last night, my brother gave me something unexpected. He gave me two cute black ceramic poodles circa 1950's, a great flea market find.

Birthday Blog

2008-01-28T21:02:00.001-08:00

This is my birthday blog! I'm trying to hurry up and write this and get to bed before it is no longer my birthday. I'm now to the age to where it's just another year. I love birthdays, but I don't see why we have to get another year older every time one rolls around. But, whatever, I don't feel like I am my age. I'm having too much fun. :)

So today, I goofed off at work for a while and left early. I had an early dinner with my parents, and then went to my dog training center to help teach an intro agility class and then had utility obedience class with Teddy. It was my choice to delay dinner with my extended family until tomorrow. I know it must sound really boring, but I enjoyed it. So, one more year flies by.....

Puppy Picking

2008-01-27T18:02:00.000-08:00

After losing our almost 14 year old Yorkshire Terrier just after Christmas, my parents' house has been very empty. We've always had dogs, so even though we still miss her terribly, we cannot live without a four-legged friend running around the house.

My parents went on the search for a good breeder. Today I went with them for an in-depth interview with the breeder and to meet the 7 week old puppies. We decided that it would take two puppies to help heal our hearts.

After our long drive, we entered the small house to find three very active female pups playing together in an ex-pen. They were too cute jumping all over each other and nipping at each other's ears. We took turns holding each squirmy pup and checking them out. It's hard not to instantly fall in love as they wrap their sharp puppy teeth around your fingers. The largest will make the best show prospect, and will look most like the mom. Since we aren't going to show them, we decided that we wanted the smaller two pups, who will be around 5 pounds when they are fully grown. Here are a few pictures that we took today:
Puppy #1

Puppy #2, the largest

Puppy #3, the smallest and most active

How can we break up a matched set? :) Well, my parents are crazy enough for getting two puppies, and three would be insane. I'm just glad I don't have to potty train them. I can play with them and then go home. So now we wait another month and count down the days until we can bring them home.

Below is some video that I shot today. The two that are climbing my mom will be ours, and some of the other video is my hand playing with the pups while I am filming with the other hand. Enjoy the puppy madness:

Things That Make You Go ARGH!!!

2008-01-26T21:32:00.000-08:00

I was going to include this video in the recent post about haircuts to show how much my dog enjoys the cold weather, but just trying to work on this video to get it ready to post deserves a topic all on its own.

Why is everything so difficult? You can't just push the button on the camera, record the video, and upload the video to whatever website you want. No, it is not that easy. For some reason, I can only upload my video from my camera in one file format, the very one that my editing software cannot read. So I had to use some freeware to convert the file to a different format before the editing can begin.

I had the exact same problem with the music I used. I had downloaded the music months earlier, and of course, the file type was not compatable either. I had to change the file format of the song and use different freeware to edit the music to the portion I wanted to use, and then upload it to the video editing software. Only then could I piece video and music together and export it as a format that is allowed on the blog site.

I'm ashamed to say that this 20 second piece of video took me a couple of hours and consultations with a computer expert to produce. So, I hope you enjoy it!

The spinning move that Teddy does here is what I call his bucking bronco. A lot of mornings after our first potty outing, he runs back to the backdoor and does this on the back porch. I love it, it's trademark Teddy. And my camera kind of freaked out with the white balance trying to film a black dog on the very white snow. The look takes me back to my childhood and our super 8 home movies. And for those of you who know about competitive obedience- these are the kinds of figure 8's that Teddy loves!

Put [me] Thru [the ringer]

2008-01-24T20:34:00.000-08:00

I decided to video more of my training. For one thing, I have an outlet for the videos now, but mainly I'm doing this for my own information to see where we need work (it would be easier to see where we don't) and maybe why something went wrong.

We do put thrus every Wednesday night at my training club. For those who may not know, a put thru is chance to get in the ring and do all of the exercises that you would as if you were at a competitive trial. They really help you see where you stand before you enter the ring for real.

I wish I had filmed our put thru from the Wednesday night before because you would have seen a totally different dog. Teddy was on and up and as near perfect as he can get. This week, however, was a different story. In his defense, there were 3 times the distractions in the building this week. There was an agility class going on in the ring next door because of the cold/wet weather, and I think that is where he left his brain when we did a couple of sequences before being called over for the put thru. There were also a lot more people standing around waiting their turn for put thrus because of the upcoming trial in a week, and the energy in the air was noticeably more tense.

We have one leg towards our open title. We got that about 8 months ago. Due to the lack of trials in our area, we don't trial much. Teddy was very sick in the fall, which really messed up our fall trials.

So, here's what went wrong. In the heeling, we had a lot of lagging, especially in the figure 8. And for the first time ever, he just sat there when I called him on the recall, I guess he was just day dreaming of agility. I was happy with his retrieves, though. Yea! I'm glad some of the hard work has paid off. And then there is the broadjump. Ugh! It's like I asked him to jump a pit of alligators. He was totally lost on what to do. We've only been doing these for a year and a half! So, now that I've pumped this video up, here it is. Warning!-It is a tad on the long side.

I spent the next thirty minutes in the back ring making friends with the broad jump. I used his floppy frisbee to motivate him to jump and then as a reward for jumping. It really helped, but we have a lot of work to do in one week. Of course, next week could be a whole new problem!

He's Not Fat, He's Fluffy- REALLY!

2008-01-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

So it's that time of year again. The time when I get the inevitable question- "Has Teddy put on weight?" Of course these questions almost always come from the owners of the lesser quaffed breeds that probably don't remember where they last left their brush. They think that Teddy has over indulged during the holidays, taking long naps in front of the fire after polishing off the leftovers of the family meal.

Well, they couldn't be more wrong. Most of the year, I keep Teddy's hair cut in a modified sporting clip, more professionally known as a Miami cut. Basically, it's a sporting cut all over with bracelets. I let Teddy's coat grow when it starts getting colder outside, which in the south is not until December or January. His dense, curly coat really fluffs out as it gets longer, making him look more rotund.

Well, it happened last night. We walk into our training building, and like clockwork, hear, "Teddy's gained weight!" It must be January. So, I try to explain that no, I promise, it's just hair. They never believe me. So in a spiritual fashion, I make them lay hands on my dog to prove to them that he is still the same sleek poodle under all of that hair. In fact, I even went to the trouble of weighing him just to make sure that he has not gained. The scales don't lie, as I have sadly learned for myself, he still comes in at a light 37 pounds. I only wish that my extra weight could be taken off with clippers as easily.

Here is some photographic evidence on how drastic Teddy's appearance can change, just with the length of his hair:

Teddy Shaved Down (and yes, it was a very bad haircut)
And much cuter:

And this is what he looks like filled out with hair:

And one more for good measure:

It is hard to believe he is the same dog. But it just goes to show that seeing is not believing, believing is feeling.

Brand/Breed Specific

2008-01-15T07:05:00.000-08:00

Most all of us have a favorite and a hated brand of soda (and being from the south, I literally cringe to use the word "soda"). We will defend it to the end, and no clever or flashy marketing campaign can change our mind and make us cross over to the other side. We roll our eyes and sigh in a disgruntled fashion when a waitress in a restaurant tells us they only have the "other" brand.

The same thing can be said of dog lovers. There is only a small percentage of dog people who really appreciate all 150+ breeds, and even these people have their favorites. The vast majority of us are devoted to one or two specific breeds. Loyalty in dog breeds runs deep; we will defend our breeds to the end. And don't let some random person sitting in the vet's waiting room say something slightly derrogatory about your breed of choice. Them's fightin' words!

I'm sure you've heard all of the breed bragging that people do, especially if you have spent any amount of time around dog training facilities. Well, my breed is fast and tops in agility, my breed is good at hunting, my breed is the smartest, my breed is the most obedient. Yes, I've heard it all, but I really can top them. My breed can do all of that and more. I have a poodle! They hunt, herd, swim, dance, do agility, obedience, therapy work, and I swear if I had enough food and patientce he could do my taxes as well. That is my breed of choice, and one of the poodle's assests is its amazing versatility. It can do anything that the owner wants to do and with gusto and exhuberance.

Now, I can appreciate many other breeds, and of course, I have met dogs that were exceptions to their breed stereotype as well. I love Yorkshire Terriers for their bigger than life personality, their compactness, and obviously their cute factor. I owned one, or should I say it owned me for almost 14 years. She was a very special girl, who will always be in my heart. And I am currently looking into a very different breed as well. But I will always have a poodle in my life, whether it is of the standard variety, the miniature, or even the toy. And give me my Dr. Pepper!

Muffy 1994-2007

Teddy, retrieving at an obedience trial

Christmas '07

2008-01-13T20:34:00.001-08:00

Since I did not begin this blog until January, I still wanted to share some Christmas pictures. Here is how you keep a poodle busy so you can finish wrapping the Christmas presents. It's funny because he did not try to eat the paper, like I thought. Instead, he wanted to make his own confetti by tearing off a small piece and throwing it up in the air. I guess he got his holidays mixed up.

This picture was taken outside of where Teddy gets groomed. I had to set him up for a photo-op:
And this one was taken at my parents' house. We've done a Disney themed tree for several years. Since Teddy was Mickey Mouse for Halloween a couple of years ago, I thought he should try on his costume one more time in front of the tree:

And here are a couple of pictures of my poodle tree. What self-respecting poodle owner doesn't have a poodle ornament or two?

Welcome!

2008-01-11T21:28:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of the rest of my life- I have now entered the blogging world. There's something I thought I would never do. This blog will mainly be about my life with my Standard Poodle, Teddy, although I will take poetic license and include anything else I feel like including, like my travels, friends, and family. For now, this is a better option for me as opposed to a complete web page.