Thursday, January 20, 2011

Weekend of Fun

It has been a weekend of primarily fun dog activities.  Friday night we went to Schutzhund club.  Gata worked for the second time (I think) since Regionals.  She was so happy!  Of course, that means that she is also a little more dangerous than usual ;-)   Which means that she split my left brow open by shaking the dead sleeve when I bent over to take it from her ;-)  There was a brief but impressive amount of blood running down my face and I now have a lovely cut and bruise above my eyebrow and a partial black eye.  I'm not quite sure how I'll explain this at work tomorrow, especially since I got a hair cut this weekend and you can actually see my eyes now ;-)

Gata was really wound up to work though and was actually a little munchy/hectic on the sleeve at first.  That's very unusual for her.  She has always been known for her deep, hard, calm bite more than anything else.  However, I have also noticed that she has gotten more munchy on the ball lately.  I don't know if this is behavioral, having to do with Tor's arrival, or if her teeth are sore, or what, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it.  After a few bites she settled down and her bite got better, too.  We went back to basics and just did some targeting work and a little bit of heeling for a bite.  She was very, very happy.

I thought that she was satisfied doing agility work but she made herself pretty clear Friday night.  She really prefers being a Schutzhund dog ;-)  Or who knows ... maybe she wants to do both!

Tor spent quite a bit of time working on his outs at club on Friday.  Overall, it went very well but he definitely needs more work.  He was very good when just outing various tugs in my hands and less good when outing off the pillow in the helper's hands.  So, we'll just keep working our program.  So glad that Dave is on board for this part of it :-)

Saturday and Sunday were more unusual days.  Both days started out with a work session in our home park.  Saturday we did some socializing with the behaviorist from work who was out walking her old Boxer at the same time.  That was really great, especially for Tor.  He is getting much better about people, but I'm a little careful when things are busier.  And things were definitely busier in the park on Satuday.  He doesn't want to be their new best friend but is happy to say "hello" and then focuses back on me.  Perfect.  Good with both Carrie and her husband, Nick, and their dog.  Really thrilled with that.  Gata was fine, of course, perhaps too friendly ;-)

Sunday morning was just a more or less normal early morning session in the park.  Both dogs did fine but more of a just blowing off steam kind of session.  No particular focus for either one of them, though I guess we are continuously working "Outs" with Tor.

Saturday afternoon we went to visit some friends.  Gata was absolutely flabbergasted that they were more interested in seeing Tor than in visiting with her.  I think her feelings are still hurt ;-)   She is a very sensitive dog :-)  Tor was perfectly well-behaved around them.  We all went for lunch and then headed back home.

I drove past MPSC on the way home so decided to stop and work the dogs.  Tor's out while back-tied to the pole showed definite signs of improvement.  Very pleased with that.  And Gata did some barking on the pole.  She definitely wanted to do some bitework so that was our compromise.  Both then got to play a little bit of ball out on the field.  Then took them on a little stroll loose together.  Tried to get Tor to follow Gata over the A-frame but he was having none of it.  Not too concerned about that.  Plenty of time for that later.

Sunday we skipped tracking but played in the park a little early.  Then took them both for a stroll on the Stanford campus.  Really beautiful over there and always see unusual things.  Not much happening but both enjoyed their walk and took the joggers, bikers, walkers, etc. in stride.  Took them out to MPSC in the evening to chat with some friends at club.  Didn't work either of them but did walk them.  Tor thought that all the dogs barking must be on to something so he decided to bark, too.  Need to stop that right away!

I think a good weekend was had by all.  They both seemed to get enough exercise and also practice some things that needed work.

No comments:

Post a Comment