Haku always gets to tag along when I teach, and often he gets to come in and run around and visit with everyone. We do a lot of restrained recalls and playing along with a few behaviors here and there. Today however, I took Haku into the barn after class with the intent to TRAIN something. This was a first, and it felt kind of weird. Kind of a rite of passage sort of thing. I had a PLAN and I felt pretty confident that puppy would be more than happy to do a little brain work with his play.

We've slowly been working towards keeping his brain while working with toys, I think the lightbulb moment for him was when he suddenly turned on to the ball. Now the ball has so much value that he really, really wants it and has been trying to figure out how to get it. Which is really the core of all training, you have to have that something that they REALLY want. Haku likes food, and he likes playing, but not as much as he likes THE BALL, which really changed his whole outlook as he'll work harder for anything because it might proceed THE BALL. The ball isn't that great for ME as it really does let me be very lazy, so I'm trying to make sure I use other rewards just as much.

Anyway, I had the teeter down low from class so we went in to see what he'd think of this new teeter and if he remembered our teeter game from class earlier in the week. He definitely knew what it was and was excited to play with it with total confidence. It was neat to see him on an ACTUAL piece of agility equipment, even if it's just playing around with the end of the teeter. It's fun to think that someday he'll be doing full teeters!

Then we went and played on the table, which I wanted to added the ball into that game - he loved it! It was fun to try and tempt him off the table with the ball, he quickly became rock solid, couldn't fool him! Also seemed to get rid of a superstitious behavior where he thought he had to lie down in the far left corner of the table. I swear, dogs that think too much ...

And by the end of our two short sessions his face was totally brown - ah, the perils of using a ball in the agility arena. At least he's not princess about it. It really is such an adventure just doing a basic session of training with him, I just never know what he'll think or do at this point - and I love that feeling!

Watching the live feed at the nationals - it always amazes me how many, MANY teams are eliminated not by the courses, but just the simple things like contacts and weaves. Lots of missed contacts and lots of missed weave entrances and pop-outs. I think if you just had a big circle as a course I bet more than half the competitors would still be eliminated. The one thing you have to say about USDAA and small dogs is that while they don't have a lot of them, the ones they do have are AMAZING. Those are some smokin' fast little things! Lots of fast border collies too, of course.


Ah, the dreaded 'posed group shot', at least they stop looking tortured when you release them


Haku is still learning the fine art of catching things


While I knew there was a chance Haku would have prick ears ... this is not a stage I was anticipating


It's almost creepy how Poco never ages - but I'm not complaining


Pretty much life with Fenwick in a nutshell


The birds are making a mass exodus these days, which means plenty of gunshots - so far, they don't seem to bother Haku