Owie

We were planning to take a walk today, but Zane is favoring his right rear leg. No walkies today. And I can't figure out where the leg hurts - I've checked the foot out really well, I can manipulate all the joints, and I can stretch all parts and massage it. But he is still favoring it. Hopefully he'll be better tomorrow.

Instead, Zane got a light trimming. There's really not a lot to trim on him, but I want him used to the scissors snipping around him. I trimmed his feet and just a touch around his ears. I'd love to clean more around his ears, but the hair is so short, he'd just look goofy. And Beth, his breeder, said to wait until his head stops changing so I know what I have.

One thing I've been noticing is that he is getting white eyebrows. One of my other Aussies, Emily, has white eyebrows, almost a mask around the top and bottom of her eyes. Zane has a little more above the eye, but I see it developing below the eye too. I wonder if it will continue to grow along the length of his eye?


These are Emily's eyebrows:


Of all my dogs, Zane is the absolute slowest eater. He takes forever! Bella and Travis inhale their food. Emily chews every bite. I always thought she was slow. Then Zane came along. Here's proof of his slowness. I didn't even video to the end of his eating - it would have taken too long!

Scent Progress

Tonight Zane progressed in his scent work. He is definitely scenting!

He's been finding a small metal mint container (Eclipse mints). Tonight I added a little leather change purse. I want him working both metal and leather early.

I made the leather hunts easy. The first couple were just a couple of feet away, and he watched me place them. The last one was hidden around a corner, still in plain sight once he turned the corner, but he didn't see exactly where I put it.

With the metal, he sits while I place it out of sight. He can see the area of the room I'm in, but he can't see where I place it (I was doing it in the bedroom and hid it on the opposite side of the bed or in the closet).

He was going to the area and sniffing and sniffing and sniffing until he found it. Good boy! And he's holding his sits while I hide it. That's even bigger, as he really wants to go get it immediately.

Look what I brought you Mama!

Zane went out to potty this morning, and ran back inside with this:


Thanks buddy.

Cones and Bricks and Halters. . . Oh my

Zane is getting close to an age where his strength may be stronger than his self-control. So it's time to introduce a head halter. As my dogs go through adolescence, I do like to use a head halter at certain times. They don't get to practice bad habits (like pulling uncontrollably to get to something they want).

This morning I started desensitization work with the head halter. Then we went to the park, and while I trained the girls, Jill walked him around. He wore his halter, but no leash was attached to it. I just want him used to the feel on his face now. Oh, and the desensitization work? I started with clicking for nose touches to it. Then I held the nose loop up, and clicked nose touches to it, then to the middle of it to get a treat, then pushing his nose through the loop to get a treat. Then I buckled it on, gave a treat, took it off. Puppies accept things so easily!

Last night I videoed his newest brickwork and cone work. Here they are:

Three and Four?

I was reading somebody's post today that they taught their dog to move their back feet on the cues "Three" and "Four" (because they would be the third and fourth feet placed when hand-stacking). Hmmm. I may think about that. Right now I'm just saying toe when I want him to move a back foot back, but wasn't sure how to let him know which one to move - I can't change sides to point to the foot I want moved when the judge is there looking at him. It can't hurt to play with this.

This afternoon we started working on getting a down with a utility signal. Of course, it's new cue (signal) then old cue (verbal). He has no clue yet what that arm up in the air means.

I also tested his understand of the cues "sit" and "down". Once he does a down, he wants to do it again. He finally started figuring out that sit does mean sit. One time he started to go down, then half sat, so I clicked, and he pushed into a full sit and held it.

We're playing with scent work again. I'm using an Eclipse metal mint tin for now. I'm starting to be able to hide it in a little more hidden place. I don't see a lot of scenting yet, but it will come. On a side note, Bella is up to going into a room and sniffing it out when she has no clue where it is. Very cool!

Oh, the riddle

This weekend at the agility trial, Zane did fine around all the dogs. They barked, they ran, they walked by. . . no issues. Yesterday at 4-H, he had issues with one (stress signs, lip curl). This morning we went to the park to walk. There is a dog park on the edge of this park. We walked by it, but didn't go into it. A dog was in there and ran along the fenceline barking at us. Zane went on alert, barked and growled. Why did that dog bother him, but all the dogs at the agility trial didn't? Was this little dog yelling, "Hey, your mother's a cat! Your dad came from the pound!"

Zane also found the jogging man very scary. Even when we later went past each other with him walking, Zane did not like him.

This afternoon we got out the Happy Legs. We haven't done them in awhile. After that we worked on hand-stacking, then on free-stacking. Along with "step" to get him to step with his front feet, I'm trying to teach him "toe" to get him to move his back foot back if needed. I do find it hard to be motivated about working on conformation stuff since it will be awhile before he goes into the ring, and then it will be the altered ring. Being a cryptorchid, he'll never go into the regular conformation ring, and I really don't want to neuter him until he's around 18 months old. We have a long wait to see how he'll do in that ring. I have to admit I'm finding myself a bit depressed about that whole issue. Bella turned out not being quite up to conformation standards (coat color issues, front is off, front movement is paddling). I thought Zane was my chance. . . and it's not happening there either. Maybe this is my sign that I'm supposed to stick with performance events only.

Zane has started eating some of his dinners out of Nina Ottoson puzzle toys. I love making the dogs work for their food - it fulfills a need that eating out of a bowl doesn't. They were designed to hunt and work to eat - not having it handed to them in a silver dish. The first time he gave up after figuring out about half of it. Tonight he worked to the very end.

Longer sessions

When working for his meals, I could get maybe 3 reps out of Zane before he just didn't want to do anymore. Gradually, I've been able to work that up. The past two mornings I've done a set of 10 stands, then a second set of 10, then 10 reps of out/wrap the cone. Then he gets the rest of his breakfast. That's a much better level of duration. Hopefully I can push it even more.

Last night before novice class, Jill and I did round robin recalls with him. But. . . if we didn't call him and he came running, he got ignored. This is teaching him stimulus control. There is no reward if you do it and you haven't been cued to do it. There is a reward if you are cued and do it. He loved running back and forth.

Then I worked on cones with him. Well, just one cone. Sometimes I sent him ahead to wrap around the cone. Sometimes I walked by and sent him out to the other side of the cone. He wraps much easier to the right and sometimes doesn't quite make it to the left.

We ended with calling him through a straight tunnel. Back and forth and back and forth. Then we wanted to catch him as other dogs were arriving, and he just kept running back and forth through the tunnel. Uh oh! Tunnel monster! I need to get out some jump standards and build that drive for running between the poles! (No bars on the jumps, just the uprights.)