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By W S Myles
Whoops.
At BDOC this morning, Gemma lost only 7 points, if you don’t count the two missed positions in the Signals exercise.
Which the judge didn’t, because the lowest score you can get in an exercise is zero (technically -20, being -10 for fouling the ring, and -10 for running out…).
Sigh. She was working beautifully, judge says “forward…” I say “Heee, <oh shit.>”
Signals is supposed to be a silent exercise, hence the name: signals-only.
Apparently, she only lost 7 points. I lost the other 40 with my loose trap door… but she probably would have been marginal on passing if I had kept it shut – two missed positions and some other looseness would have brought her close to 50% (20/40) anyway.
Sigh.
In the afternoon, she was clearly feeling the heat and didn’t want to be there in the crucible; she walked around a prickly patch of dirt/grass on the way out to the send-away square (as she does when she knows it hurts) but we got away with that ok.
She did OK in the scent discrimination, bringing back all three articles well – but by that stage, we’d already lost enough points to blow an OC pass – so the wind kinda went out of our sails.
Her heel work was all over the place in Signals, and she missed a position again – but completed the exercise with only minimal deductions.
… but was terribly confused by the ring conditions in the retrieve, and on realising that the “send-away” marker wasn’t glove #1 as she thought it was, turned right around and arced towards #3!
I can’t recall for sure, but I think this may be her first daytime trial (certainly her first hot one) since October last year. She isn’t fond of working in the hot sun. She’ll even make evasive time-wasting moves when we play in these kinds of temperatures.
It’s too soon to enter Finn or Shadow in Novice obedience, but I’ll give them a concerted push to readiness by the closing date for the 24th-April trial; neither dog has actually run through all the exercises in one stream, and neither has done a proper stay yet.
They do know the form of each exercise, though – the question is whether we can string them together enough to make it worthwhile entering.
Not CCD? No. Both kids have always worked better off-lead than on-. Put a leash on them, and it gives them license to pull it tight. Take it off, and they will stay close. It has exactly the wrong impact!
Gemma’s next outing is on the Easter weekend, Agility & Jumping, and another go at “Snooker.” Then another double-header at TDTC on the 10th.
Finn and Heather aren’t entered in anything, nor will they be for a while at least. Finn was entered today at Yass, but I couldn’t be in two places at once – Gemma had a good chance (as she proved) of another OC pass today, whereas Finn and I never get anything in Conformation.
So why keep throwing away $100 per day and 10 hours plus? Why not do something productive with that time – get him (and Shadow) ready for Novice!
The ‘messages’ from the Conformation Judges is received loud and cliear – I’m not going to pay for the privilege of giving points to other dogs for a while.
Shadow is just maturing enough to do proper heelwork, but Heather will be another few months before she begins to lose her current flightiness.
Notable in their absence were Ang, Rosie and Pepper. I wonder where they got to, since this is their home club?
By W S Myles
Life has, to say the least, been interesting here this last week or so.
Never a dull moment, and Finn has been putting on a display such as would win the heart of any judge – apart from the fact that his tail is as erect as… ahem.*
Finn is leaving her alone now, but I’ll still be keeping an eye on them and keeping them apart whenever possible. Which is harder to do now, because first Heather, then Gemma, and now Finn have barreled their way through the small hole in the flyscreen door, making it nigh-on useless!
Now it’s time to either replace the entire door screen, or (quickly!) find a dog-flap that will sit in that corner. I know they exist, and have metal frames (the “L”) to support the part away from the doorframe.
We missed a dual agility/jumping trial, but we’ll be fine for the dual Obedience trial this weekend, and even for agility class this week. As early as yesterday, there was no reaction from other dogs to Gemma in the dog park.
Now I have another “clue” to Gem’s approaching seasons: her joints (particularly her rear legs) get very “loose” and she may get cramps about 1.5-2 months before. I’ll be on the lookout from mid-December 2010.
* his ears, of course. What else might I possibly be talking about!
By W S Myles
Shadow has only had about six goes at weaving, adding a pair of gates each time – and even though most of the gates have an offset of 5-10cm, she’s already got the idea!
She’s curling around the poles like a pro, which she most certainly is not!
We might even get to a straight line of weave-poles by our next class. Won’t that be something to crow about? 
(Oh, and we’re alternating left- and right-side weaving, and even wrong-hand entries from varying directions.)
If only she would understand “Contacts” as easily!
(Gemma never really got that idea herself; I’ve been talking to people about whether Agility skills can be passed on in utero or genetically!)
Power to you, kid!
By W S Myles
Funny how everyone seems to just know what I’m referring to when I say doing the Hannibal. When a bitch reaches that certain point in her cycle, anyone suitably equipped will – upon having a goooood sniff – make that trembling-jaw move, almost like a professional wine-taster aerating the sample.
Yesterday, Finn did it for the first time this cycle; he’s quite certain that she’s coming in now, but she’s “not interesting enough” to progress any further, especially with a disapproving Dominant Male around to tell him off (ie, me).
So it’s going to be an interesting week or so around Chaos Manor.
Finn is quite happy as long as he can see Gemma. He frets when separated.
For the duration, we’re back to square one: Gemma sleeps anywhere she wants, but the others are sleeping in locked crates. Finn, for obvious reasons. Shadow, to stop her joining the ‘dawn chorus.’ Heather, to break her pattern of (ahem) ‘Nocturnal activities.’
I’m amazed to say that the prediction was spot-on; her cycle did indeed happen in the first 14 days of March. That means that the next one should be in late January 2011. Look out, boys!
I’m pleased to report that everyone is fighting fit. Finn, Shadow and Gemma are all going on 30-45 minute runs with the bicycle (Finn at a trot, as show training.) Finn’s feet are toughening up well; in the early days, a ride like yesterdays would have torn his pads to shreds.
It gives him an outlet for his… frustrations as well.
By W S Myles
I asked that we be catalogued last for the trial tonight, on the off-chance that Gemma is closer than I thought to her cycle. Gemma doesn’t like boredom or waiting around, but in fairness to other competitors in a discipline that involves scenting, I could hardly not ask.
Gem sends out confusing signals to males, running around with her tail high in the air (advertising, ‘come and sniff me, I’m ripe!’) all the year ’round. It’s her way of communicating that she is feeling empowered and in-charge. She does it whenever she has the ball/frisbee, and often in heel patterns.
After the trial, a good few dogs were out for a romp on the grounds, so I let Gem have some fun after being tied up for the last hour. Most of them knew Gemma, but not on an intimate basis.
Now, Finn is quite clearly sure that he’d be wasting his time and energy pursuing Gemma right now, but from the reaction of the other dogs there tonight, I don’t think it’ll be long before she starts ‘showing colour’ as we say. Certainly not this afternoon.
Which is typical. There’s a dual Agility trial on in about 10 days, which we’ll almost certainly be unable to attend as a result.
Finn is keeping a weather eye… um… ‘nose’ on Gem, but has been for two months now.
The next few days will tell – only this time, Finn isn’t going to get his way! Gemma is on a fallow season, not allowed to have another litter in adjacent seasons. I’m going to have to keep an eye on at least ONE of them at all times for a few weeks, until I’m sure.
Gemma’s been pretty reliable in her schedule, about 10.5 months apart. That puts us in the first two weeks of this month, with fertility in the second or third week. This will place her next season in mid-Jan 2011, with a litter (if successful) likely around the beginning of April 2011.
Gem has never failed to conceive. In fact, she is about as fertile as they get – both times, the ‘word’ was that it was too far out of the right ‘zone’ for conception, but they don’t know how determined a girl she is!
Never mind Big Brother. Daddy is watching!
By W S Myles
Tonight Gem and I had our first Obedience trial since early January.
It was a small affair at our home club, but crammed into a “free run” ring instead of the proper Obedience rings. One with half the usual lighting, and the distraction of an Agility class two rings away.
In theory.
Only, the class never happened – and our first trial for about 18 months on our home ground wasn’t!
It would have been nice if the Agility class had decided to let us use the proper ring for our trial, but… oh well.
Gem didn’t start well; she didn’t sit at first, at the end of the heeling in the Seek-back… after stopping to rubberneck along the way. She then made a meal of finding the seek-back article even though she saw where it was dropped. It’s the longest, by some margin, she’s ever taken to find one. To her credit, she kept working and working…
Her other issue was in signals – despite a bit of vocalisation during the heel-work, the real problem came at the end sequence; I thought it would end up with a zero score, so I made sure we ended the exercise correctly – only I was wrong about the score, and she didn’t zero! The actual position part went beautifully. Ruminating on it later, I realise that the issue was that I was too abrupt in shifting down from fast- to normal-pace.
The other exercises went very well, nothing to report.
Everyone else had problems too, only theirs were terminal… so we came away with the only pass.
We’ve had much better days on countless occasions in 2008 and 2009 where a single tiny mistake gave us a zero as well – but today, we got lucky.
The biggest problem is the paucity of opportunities to trial in UD. Given recent events (Vancouver) it’s kinda like throwing her into an Olympic final with no competitions for the rest of the four years leading up!
Poor girl. She’s never been really crazy about dodgy lighting situations, and this one was no different. It can be really hard to make out a signal when it comes from shadows.
Of course, the score (177) was under the required 185 so it is of no help towards her Obedience Champion title. However, it is good to know that even on a really bad day, now, we can still pass UD!
Now that, people, is a sign of a champion-in-waiting
By W S Myles
Gem is a very independent thinker, and knows her own mind.
She also knows the rules around here: generally speaking, as long as she keeps herself clean, I will rarely give her a bath unless there is a special occasion.
She decided today that it was time for a bath.
We went for a jaunt around a local pond, and she found a rotting carp on the bank.
Being a dog, she loves to smell strong. Being anosmic, I cannot smell anything. So that doesn’t bother me. Sleeping with it does, since she’s allowed anywhere she wants.
I can, however, see a brown smear on her waistcoat.
Thus, in keeping with the second law of the household (the first law relating to safety vs freedom), she was invited to the bathroom immediately upon arriving home; she seemed to accept it rather more than the last (“unprovoked”) bath she had. I guess she understands the rule!
As an aside, the first law is derived from thinking about an old Science Fiction story, which defined Freedom as a synonym for Responsibility. If you think about it, it’s a particularly good working definition. Responsibility for your own actions (as opposed to being coerced to act on another’s behalf) is a very practical way to describe freedom of action.
You can’t ever have the one without the other, when you think about it in this way. That is, that your own actions have consequences that you must bear.
I reward responsibility and good manners.
Ignore the first or second law around here, and you are frogmarched back into line!
We don’t expect robotic obedience around here (I like personality!), but those two laws are roughly isomorphic to Isaac Asimov’s original first two laws of Robotics:
1. A robot may not harm a human being, nor by inaction allow a human to be harmed; and
2. A robot must obey the orders of a human being, unless those orders conflict with the first law
3. A robot must protect its own existence, unless doing so would conflict with the first two laws.
Now, a spur-of-the moment cast of the local laws might be:
1. A canine must behave itself in society (be a “good citizen”) and not harm or upset a human or another creature;
2. A canine must obey the orders of a human being, unless those orders conflict with the first law.
Now an Asimovian robot has no freedom of action, being bound by the three laws to be subservient and obedient.
A canine, on the other hand, has conditioned responses and an ability to reason (Gemma can solve mazes and other puzzles, among other things.) A canine also has fits of excitement and disinhibition… which can have negative consequences, to say the least!
So: chase a car, a bike, or an animal and you get to walk on a short leash for some time. Rub yourself in a muddy pool or a rotting fish, and you get a stern talking to and an immediate bath.
“They” say that a dog has no “understanding” of punishment as a response; that they only respond to positive feedback. This is certainly true of many dogs, but not all. Heather has no such concept. She lives in the “now,” and is only aware that I might be cross with her “now.” Shadow will behave in a very subservient way (avoiding eye contact, ducking her head) if she knows she’s done something she wasn’t supposed to [and, lately, if she hasn't but thinks she might be blamed anyway!] - but Gemma goes one step further; she can think ahead somewhat and you can see the wheels spinning in her head about whether she can get away with doing something. She will plan an action ahead of time, and that takes intelligence!
(Finn is also capable of a special-case of this phenomenon, known in the dog training world as the perception of “control radius,” as are many other dogs. Essentially, “is the human able to enforce the order at this distance?”)
The rules exist primarily for their safety; they are not allowed to cross a road without direction. They must stop and wait. They are not allowed to chase bicycles other than my own. Openly defy a call-off or a strict order, and you’ll spend some hours in the ‘cooler’ followed by a week of strict short-leash manners.
…Try to “improve” your aroma, and you’ll get more than you bargained for!
By W S Myles
An hour closer, and an hour later in the morning to start – much more civilised!
Finn and Heather both did a better than average job, but less than their best.
Finn came away with Reserve Challenge, and Heather had to make do with first in class. The eternal brides’ maids – always one stop short of scoring!
Now we have a bit of a break before the next show.
Which is good for Gemma, who is feeling decidedly left-out at the moment! Poor girl is used to going everywhere with me, but she’s been left at home several times lately with the ‘ADHD kid.’
Now that she’s moving well again, we’ll get back into training and try to knock over another UD 185+ score for her Champion title.
By W S Myles
Last week at Crookwell was a bit of a wet sock, in more ways than one. Finn came home with Reserve Challenge, which wasn’t a major achievement in the field…
This week, we got our own back. Finn got Reserve Challenge again (but beat the dog that beat him last week) to Sonny, Jacqui’s (ahem) black-eyed boy and Finn’s litter brother.
He came home with Aust.Bred of Breed and Reserve Challenge, but no points – again.
Having said that, he gave me the best performance yet, and was looking good – it was only those damned folded ears and slightly fearful expression that (probably) knocked him down a notch. He certainly looked the part with his shiny coat and moved well too.
Sigh.
There’s always tomorrow in Gunning. Another early morning and long drive.
Sonny went on to the Best in Group (didn’t get it) and Open in Group (he did), but Finn never got a run in “Aust.Bred in Group” because the Best-in-group winner was from Aust.bred, and thus won it automatically.
Heather will be running tomorrow as well; the hard bit is keeping her clean after her bath. Logically, it should be tomorrow morning just before we leave, but she’ll take forever to dry and we’d all rather sleep that extra hour. So the task at hand is to a) keep her clean overnight and b) stop her from barfing all over herself and Finn for an hour and change in the car!
It could happen.
By Angiedorn
We had a heart stopping moment yesterday after a swim in the Tomakin River went awry… While I was still putting down the beach towels and doing some filming, Pepper, as usual, had headed straight into the water.
What I hadn’t realised is that there was a very strong outgoing tide and before I knew it, Pepper was some 100 metres away desperately trying to get back to shore.
I went in to help him, thinking that it would be easy enough to get him back in but boy did I learn something about currents! I got to him easily in just a couple of strokes, given that he was downstream. But getting him, and me, back in was another matter entirely.
I pushed his rump back into shore a few times but even with continuous swimming we were getting nowhere and I was getting exhausted fast. Not to mention that Pepper had been in a good few minutes before me and just his head was still above water.
I then realised he was trying to go up stream against the current to grandma and my niece Erin rather than to the side and the bank. I gave him a few more shoves and yelled at Gran and Erin to come to the bank alongside. I left Pepper and just a couple of metres in was able to stand - but Pepper was about two metres out of my reach. While gran went to get the leashes (I thought I could then pull him in) he was getting gradually closer so I went back in and gave him another solid shove and was able to stand again and grab him.
Needless to say he went straight out of the water; and into the waiting leash! I was probably only a minute or so away from having to survival float with him towards the ocean in the hope that we would find somewhere with less current to get out. It was definitely not a pleasant experience.
Needless to say we packed up and walked down to the gentle waves at the beach and spent two lovely hours frolicking in the surf. Pepper has no fear of the waves (although they weren’t huge a couple did break over his head) and was happy to swim out to us. While the outgoing tide was just noticeable, I did make sure that I was always between him and the ocean!
Other than that we have been running for 40 minutes each morning along the three beaches and swimming and walking. Pepper loves chasing all the birds and has had some flat out runs on the beach trying to get the gulls.
He even stands and gets dried with the dog dryer now – day one took one holder, one treat giver and one to dry – along with the nozzle removed so it was a gentle soft air flow. Now he just stands there and lets me blast the water out, particularly liking it around his ears just like Rosie. Perhaps exhaustion has something to do with it as well?
The special $20 car travel sickness tablets were fantastic too. Even though it was a very slow, wet trip, Erin sat in the back between Pepper and Rosie who just lay down relaxed the entire way, with just one quick (very wet) stop just before Braidwood.
Looking forward to some sunny fine weather for the next week and an uneventful and fun time in the surf!
Ciao
Ang, Pepper, Rosie (Granma and Erin)
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