Salty Agility!

Salty has been to five agility classes now. We signed up for a beginning agility class that had six classes but we missed the first two. We completed that class and today was the first day of the new series of classes.

Salty loves playing with toys and he is a very dedicated toddler. When there is an exercise that I have to use treats for he is much less enthusiastic. He will eat the treats but he just does everything very slowly then. When I'm able to use the tug as a reward he is Speedy!



This was at our class today. We have done jump tunnel jump sequence and we've done some jumps space only a few feet apart in a straight line with the toy at the end as a lure to get them to take the jumps. This is the first time he's ever done so many jumps in a row. I was happy because he chose to take each one and didn't go around them. Such a good boy.

I signed Salty up for this class because he needed some training and socialization. I did not get him specifically for agility and I wasn't sure if I would do it with him at all. I'm still not 100% committed to ever trialing him but based on how well he's doing so far I think he will be an easy dog to trial and also it will be rewarding for me because he will probably do pretty well. It seems like he will be fast but also not crazy.

Kipling has plenty of speed but not a very clear head so he is harder to control. In Kip's case once we get more training and time together I think we'll be a better team but right now it can be a little frustrating because he's all over the place.

Salty on the other hand is naturally more biddable and calm even though he is also playful which makes it easy to train him.  Some dogs that are available and calm are also kind of slugs but not Salty!  So far he is definitely the easiest dog I've ever trained. I think all the dogs I have had in the past have been smart but they've been willing to please to different degrees. And some have been willing to please but have difficulty focusing based on their personalities. Silty has good focus and is willing to please and is of course very intelligent as well. He is not a naughty dog at all. His breeder jokes that he is boring. She likes crazy out-of-control poodles. I got to say he has enough energy to be fun so I think I am preferring the not crazy out-of-control poodles.  I feel disloyal saying that since Kip is tending towards crazy and out of control. But I guess everybody has a type of dog that they prefer over the other types. Even though I said that I still love Kip! And kept us calm down at home. He runs around and play with with his toys and Salty and Salty runs around and plays with his toys and Kip and then they both fall asleep and as they're falling asleep they like to get pets and Cuddles. Here is Kip sleeping on the couch right now. And silly Salty falling off the bed as usual. That is Dottie's foot in the lower right hand corner of the picture I guess I'll just include a picture of the other guys so you can see what Monday night looks like at our house... I'm watching the 10th season of Doctor Who on Amazon Prime. The dogs are very good at being couch dogs.

And here is a little bit later, Kipling cuddling in my arms. See isn't he cute and sweet when he isn't being crazy?

Mystery Nasty Friut Tree

I have a fruit tree in my backyard that most closely resembles a lemon tree. But at some point one of my friends said it might be a lemon lime tree. Alls we know is the fruit tastes terrible. Because it is so bitter and terrible tasting the actual type of friut can't be identified. The fruit is yellow but smaller and Less Lemon shaped than regular lemons. It's more round like an orange.

I took some into work and head different people sample them. I warned them first that they were terrible. I said would you like your fruit? It tastes terrible. The few brave souls tried it out and all agreed it was quite disgusting. One guy thought I had poisoned him. Another wondered if his lips were now going to fall off?

If there was universally agreed that the fruit was disgusting to beyond words and still unidentified, I turned to Google and typed "lemons taste terrible from tree."

I found a site where you could ask an expert agricultural type questions. Somebody was having the same problem and sent in a picture of her lemon tree and the Gentleman immediately identified the problem. Her fruit tree did not have a single trunk. He said the root ball that was used to graft lemon tree to had taken over the tree. I'm not quite sure if through ball and lemon tree combined or if it was just the RuPaul that was producing the fruit too. Either way the lemon tree was not the only thing producing fruit on the tree and that is why her lemons tasted bad. I think that is what has happened to my tree as well. I can see there is more than one trunk twined together at the bottom.

Did the root ball take over? Also notice all the lemon like objects I need to pick up.

I guess it's a good thing I didn't buy the house because it had some kind of citrus tree in the backyard. In fact I don't even eat citrus fruit. The only cure for this tree is to chop it down and plant a new one. But it provides some good shade so I'm disinclined to do that.

However, on the side of chop it down and plant something else, right now it is producing quite a lot of the vile fruit which I have to pick up and throw out. Also it has big thorns. I chopped off a lot of branches today to make it easier to mow under and now maybe there will be a little less horrendous fruit like objects to pick up.

Newly trimmed tree with all of the branches in the background and all of the yellow fruit-ish objects to pick up.

If anyone anse to play a mean / cruel practical joke on somebody and give them fruit that turns out to be completely unedible, come see me and I will hook you up.

My grass is still growing that I planted in the bare patches. And yet more of that stupid yellow fruit like ball to pick up.

I got excited about chopping up overgrown nthings with thorns, so I cut the rose bush in my front yard way back. I don't take care of it so I should think about removing it but it grows well enough that I have to chop it back every few months.

Growing

 The patches of grass I planted after pulling up the dead spots some the dog urine are already starting to grow! It said on the bag "guaranteed to grow" so I guess maybe that was true.

Bad Haircut

It was time for me to give Kip a bath, blow dry, and haircut.

Here he is after the bath and blow dry and before I started trimming him.

Last time the haircut went pretty well. This time it did not. I shave his body with a 7 Blade and then I use the same blade to shape the hair on his legs. I leave more hair on his legs so they don't look so skinny. This is what he looked like last time and what he was supposed to look like this time.

But I wasn't getting it right so I kept taking more off until there wasn't enough left to make it look good so I took the rest of it off. Then I tried to trim his top-notch but it was all lopsided so I ended up taking that all off as well. I should have left it on even though it was lopsided. He ended up like this!

He is Kip so he is still cute but he doesn't look anything like a poodle anymore!

Salty got a bath as well and a blow-dry. But no haircut. I took him to his breeders house and he's at a show out of town for four days. I hope he gets some points!

Dottie vs Bear

Bear our guest dog, that is. Just a short clip of them playing together. And Salty running around in the background.

https://youtu.be/0mjEATVxV-k

I used to know how to embed a video in the blog. I'll have to figure out how to do that again.

Guest Dogs

My friends Bear and Sophie are visiting.

Sophie

Bear

Last time I saw Bear he was passing his therapy dog test at the same test where Pie  took hers and passed. I've watched both Sophie and Bear in the past. There are nice, easygoing dogs. Even Fancy gets along with them because they ignore her. I think Salty was a little intimidated at first but he's gotten over it. I had to go around and find all of my little poodle balls and put them away. They could possibly be dangerous enough for the Malinois if a Malinois swallowed it and it got stuck in the windpipe but Bear has such a huge mouth he would probably swallow one as soon as he put it into his mouth. I do not want to be responsible for a small ball getting stuck in his throat.

Bear's owner says he prefers to play with smaller dogs but I guess in his book Dottie is smaller because they have had a great time playing together. They roll around doing a little bitey face and they do a lot of spinning and play bowing. Not too much running.

Dottie wore him out! But he quickly got a second wind and they were back at it.

Not terribly playful but after some time she was flirting.

Sophie is not very playful but she has done a little flirting with both of the poodles.

Bear is 103 lb. An accidental breeding between a German shepherd and a doodle. If you Google terms like shepadoodle or shepardoodle some people are breeding these on purpose. He is a cool looking dog. Looks somewhat like a briard or an uncropped and docked during Schnauzer. But more massive than either of those dog. His owner bought him as a puppy off Craigslist. She got a really nice dog.

Sophie is a mix of a poodle and a Scottish Terrier I'm told. They don't know if that was an accidental breeding as well and I don't know if owner knows a hundred percent that's what she is or if it is a guess or something. I'm always happy to have these two dogs visiting because they are nice dogs and so is their owner.

Lots of dogs Milling about. They're wanted to continue playing inside but I was trying to discourage that because he is so huge!

Repairing the Yard and Pie in Home Depot

As I've said my yard is small and I have more than one or two dogs so the urine burns the grass. I decided to pull up the dead spots and plant new grass there.

The bare spots with New soil and grass seed added.

I'm also trying to confine the dogs to a smaller section of the yard when I'm not home during the day. They have access to the whole downstairs (minus the kitchen) and the backyard. Since they have full access to the backyard the urine spots are all over the yard. I put up fencing to keep them in just one section of the yard. I'm not sure if this is a good idea since that grass will die faster but hopefully the rest of the grass will be preserved. The idea is when we are outside enjoying the yard together they will have the whole yard to play with. The downside is the poodles definitely run around chasing each other during the day and with the smaller yard maybe they won't run as much or the exercise won't be as good. I'm not sure if the smaller size of the yard would discourage them from running. Probably not since they seem to run around to the house just fine.

I fenced off about 1/4 of the yard for the dogs to use during the day

I pulled the dead grass up, put down topsoil then seed and then more topsoil on top of that. The grass along the back section in the reach of two of the sprinkler heads has been dead for some time due to lack of water and not urine. I knew as soon as the landscapers put the sprinklers in the flow wasn't sufficient to reach that area.


Since I was making an effort to revitalize the lawn I decided to replace those two sprinkler heads. I stopped in at Home Depot after Kip's agility class. Since I had all the dogs and Home Depot let's you bring in pet dogs I decided to take Pie in.

Not an amazing picture but I was trying to be discreet so I wasn't the weirdo taking pictures of my dogs in Home Depot. While I was trying to figure out what sprinkler head I wanted to buy Pie stayed down and waited so nicely

I had a frustration with a fake service dog on a guide dog harness with a velcro patch saying guide dog. I mention the patch in case you think I mistook a guide dog harness for a Mobility harness but it said right on the harness "guide dog."

I believe the dog to be a fake service dog since his owner was reading the small print on the labels of different products. I know not all people that use guides are 100% blind and some of the people have pinhole Vision which means they probably would be able to read the small print but I would think they would at least pick the object up to make positioning the small print within their pinhole of usable Vision more easy. However if that was my only evidence I would have kept my suspicions to myself. Nope. The evidence it was truly a fake service dog was the guide dog harness was the only equipment on the dog. There was not an additional leash attached to the dog's collar. Furthermore, the owner was not even holding the harness and when I went down the aisle the dog was already a good ten feet from the owner! It left the owner and came to sniff Pie and the owner didn't even realize his dog wandered halfway down the aisle until I said something. Not surprisingly the dog did not come when called and the owner had to come physically take control of the dog. People with real service dogs do not allow their dog to wander all over the store, off-leash.  And most (of course it should be all but there are exceptions to every rule) legitimate service dogs are too well trained to do that even if their owner did lose concentration and at the same time not have the leash in their hand.

I know fake service dogs are becoming a bigger problem and I know many people do it because they want to take their dogs places pets are not allowed and because they have this desire they think that is a good enough reason to break the law. Obviously the people breaking the law are wrong but what I don't know or understand is why you would fake a service dog in a store that already allows your pet to come in.

There many people with hidden disabilities but there are also many people faking service dogs. Due to the provisions of the Americans with Disability Act taking any kind of action against a suspected fake service dog (other than asking a disruptive dog to leave a store) is not allowed. Those Provisions are there for a reason. What if a store worker justb didn't want your service dog in the store and they thought you were faking it because you weren't in a wheelchair? If people could arbitrarily throw you out of a store anytime they thought you had a fake service dog then the people with disabilities would have a hard time gaining access anywhere. But on the other hand nobody can come up with a good way to stop the fakers.

If I was truly going to write everything I feel about fake service dogs this post would be even longer. Most people in the know can spot a fake service dog based on the behavior of the dog and the Handler. If a dog is not paying attention to the Handler it's most likely not a service dog. Some service dogs are actually trying to scan the environment around the Handler. I would not call that not paying attention to the Handler. The dog does not have to be looking at the Handler to be paying attention to them. But if they are at the end of the leash sniffing or peeing on something then they are not working when they should be and it probably not a service dog. If you have your service dog on a flexi leash in a store it's probably not a service dog. If you have your service dog on the end of a six-foot leash and it is dragging you through the airport on the end of that six-foot leash is probably not a service dog. If you have a little dog in a bag it is probably not a service dog. How is it going to be a service to you if it is in the bag? If my 6 month old puppy is better trained than your service dog it's probably not a service dog. The more patches and collars and tags attached to a service dog the more suspicious I become.  Most service dogs don't go through life with a driver's license sized laminated cards hanging off their collar proclaiming them a service dog, complete with the dogs picture on it. That is something you buy right off of "fake service dog tags dot com" as advertised on Facebook as "take your pet dog anywhere, get him a service dog tag!". Ugh! For a post that was supposed to be about fixing my lawn it escalated quickly into a rant about fake service dogs.

My closing thought is if you're going to break the law and have a fake service dog, the very least you can possibly do is at least hold on to the leash.

The setting sun made for a better picture in real life. And after griping about fake service dogs off-leash I will note that pie had her leash on, it was just tucked behind her and I did set it down for the picture but I made sure nobody was around to be upset that I was not holding her leash. And also of course she was a foot from me and I was paying close attention since I was taking her picture. Hopefully it wasn't hypocritical of me to complain about a fake service dog and then take a picture of my dog without the leash in my hand. If I had known I was going to post the gripe in the same blog post as this picture I probably would have just held on to the leash so I didn't have to make this big caption defending myself against possible claims of hypocrisy.

Turns out the type of sprinkler head I have is the type that does not accept the universal fitting. The smaller hardware store down the street does have the brand I need so I will try again over the weekend. Stay tuned for updates on that Quest.

M

Random giant M (for my name which starts with an M?) balloon on the outside of our perimeter fence at the beginning of my jog today. I would have thrown it away if I could have reached it but I couldn't so it got to stay on the fence.

Dog Training

Besides blogging, something else I haven't been doing is training my dogs. Since that's pretty much all I used to do you may wonder what I have been doing. I wonder that as well.

I believe Pie has been retired since I stopped writing the blog. Fancy as well. Dottir is still going strong but I was not trying or training her in agility or obedience or IPO or tracking or herding or anything. Obviously people's Hobbies can change over time but I didn't have a new hobby that was taking the place of dog training.

One reason I thought I might not get Kip was because I wasn't sure if I would be able to get myself motivated to get back into dog training. Of course he also is a great pet and doesn't have to compete in different venues, but if I was getting him just for a pet it probably wasn't a good idea. Not only because I knew he would be a high energy dog, but I also had four dogs that were good pets at the time. When I got him I did not do very much training at first. I said it was because I like to let puppies grow up but there's plenty you can do with puppies that is not really training but still is. So my worry that I wouldn't get back into dog training just because I had him was a valid worry.

This little piranha needs a job

Eventually I started private agility lessons with him with the trainer I've been going to Forever. I would have liked to do more foundation work but instead we kind of jumped right in.

Screenshot from his first time doing the dog walk.

I ended up entering him in his first trial because it was the same location as Salty's first show. Then we continued our momentum but now I'm taking a break from trialing so I can get more training on him and we can be a better team. I did not do much if hardly at all training with him at home.

Then Salty came along. I worked on his gading and stacking but no obedience and no agility because I did not get him to be an agility dog. So he knew how to gait and stand and wait at places such as the door or a gate. He did not know lay down or sit.

Before he was trained

2 weeks ago I started thinking it was probably a responsible not to expose him to more situations and train him. I hardly even socialized him. I guess I did enough socialization because he's pretty solid. One of his sisters needs more socialization. Interesting in the whole nature versus nurture debate since they are from the same litter and have different needs when it comes to socialization. Or maybe just a little bit I did do with him was enough. I didn't totally neglect his socialization. I took him to work and when he was at work I took him around different places and met some different people. I can't really a member what else I did. Maybe that was the extent of it. Looking through my pictures I remember I took him into the Navy base to the different fields I let my dogs run in. Even though he hadn't had all his shots yet I feel those locations are safe because no other dogs go there. Once he got his shots I did take him to the pet store and a few other places that I was reminded of through the pictures. Good, I'm glad I'm not a completely terrible puppy owner.

Checking out my work and learning about being on high places. He was totally unconcerned and walked all over my desk.

Meeting other dogs at an agility trial. I don't believe I was entered I think I showed up to socialize my puppy.

Chasing the big dogs on the Navy base

Learning about posing and also being introduced to heavy equipment. Both are equally as important.

Ok, like I said I see I am not a total puppy socialization slacker.

Back to dog training. Salty has been in his puppy agility class for the past 2 weeks. The trainer knows I have experience dogs so she keeps asking me if I've already trained Salty to do what we're working on. I keep assuring her I have not. Because it's an actual class with other students we are given homework and I get motivated enough to do it so I don't disrespect the teacher by not practicing and being unable to move on and holding the class back.

 Since I'm training salty I also got motivated to train Kip. He needs a lot of work on his weave poles. The yard is just big enough for one set of 12 but can't practice different entries and because you can't move the poles around once he's good at them in that location doing them over and over isn't actually training. It's just practice and not helpful. I drug the poles out the front yesterday. I live in a cul-de-sac so I was doing them in the street.

Street weaving.

After I was done working with him and I had already previously worked with Salty I got Dottie out and worked on tricks and some utility work. Maybe someday we will get our UD. Maybe not though.

Today is the Monday I have off. I work 9 hour days so I get a Monday off every other week. I have a tunnel on my back patio and in class so far with salty we have done the tunnel but the instructor holds him and you walk to the other side. Since he does have a nice wait/ stay I started working a tunnel with him on our own. At the end of the session he was going through the tunnel with me walking next to it. Obviously that is what most agility dogs learn as tiny puppies but it's exciting for me because I hadn't trained it at all before. We have also been working the tire and class again with the instructor holding the dog and as calling them through. Working on it he also goes through with me next to it. Such a good boy!

Kip also occasionally has trouble with the tire. He'll go around or because he's so small he can go between the tire and the frame. I was practicing setting him way off to the side with the tire way out of the way and having him still go through it too. He was doing well. Then we worked go on for just a little bit. Since we didn't do a lot of foundation is this got overlooked. And because he's so fast he definitely needs one for the straightaways. The hard part is he has a diagnosed I condition that makes it hard for him to see far away. Happily it does not affect his jumping but it makes it so if I put a toy at the end of the jumps he cannot see it. I have to throw the toy and let him go and then even then he can't find it. But I've known that since we started training him and is just something I have to figure out how to work around.

After Kip it was Pie's turn. I had the tire and jump set at 12 inches and because her back is so bad, we played around at 12 in. Just for fun for her. She always loved agility and it's sad when dogs are injured and can no longer do it. I had her do 6 poles and she did it right every time which surprised me. GWe just did little sequences with the tunnel that jump and the tire. Then we worked on some tricks. She does not know play dead where you say bang and they are supposed to lay down and either go onto their side or their back. She was offering me both so I'm trying to decide which one I want to ask her to do.

This picture shows the size of my backyard. There is the wall and there is the patio. Not great for agility but great for watering and mowing. In fact I need to mow today. Also not great for keeping the grass alive because of the high number of dogs and small amount of square feet.

So happy to be doing work and of course to be chomping on the ball as well.

12in jumps are just as fun and are much better for the completely fused spine.

This is her silly play dead pose.

Pie was happy to be working again and it gives me guilt that I have not worked my dogs consistently for about 3 years. Lots of dogs never get worked or trained but they are used to not being worked, and some pet dogs and even some working dogs don't even enjoy working. But all of my dogs used to love to train. Fancy maybe didn't enjoy showing in obedience and she enjoyed showing in agility a little bit but the Malinois were always Overjoyed to train and show.  They do say dogs live in the moment so they probably were not pining away remembering their Glory Days but they also didn't have a lot of fun in their lives.  I'm going to try my best to stay motivated and enjoying dog training not only for myself because I do like it but also for my dogs. It's sad when you can't get pleasure out of the things you used to be so obsessed about. Obsessed about in a good way. Not having Hobbies is not fun.

Good thing I take so many pictures, going through them it also reminded me that even though the dogs are mostly bored they weren't bored 100% of the time.

I took them all in one or two hikes. This was Kip's very first hike as a puppy.

We would go to my parents house and play in their backyard with their dogs.

We took a nice walk in the Channel Islands Harbor

And ate at Toppers afterwards

The dog park was an occasional destination. Now that the dog flu seems to be dying down we should head back there.

And we took some walks. Definitely not as many as we should have. I do enjoy walking but sometimes did not have the motivation for that either. This is all four of them walking on the Navy base probably at lunch.

Fancy and Kip we're lucky enough to get to go on a Jeep trip. Tug and Lucy were with their owners.

So now it does look like my dogs were not completely bored but these actually make me look good. On a day-to-day basis they were neglected in their training and enrichment. Happily though my dogs also seemed to really enjoy laying around with me.  As everybody knows one reason dogs are so great is because they do not judge you. They may give you sad eyes and reproachful glances but they still love you and you're happy to live with you.

I got some good dog training done today. Looking forward to training some more tomorrow.