Sunday, December 10, 2006

Dora adds R.E. to the end of her name!

This weekend we went up to E. Lansing to play in the ring. Dora's grandparents live there and she was able to play with her Uncle Fred (shih tzu) and Cousin T.J. (whippet). The first day, we left the ring both feeling good and we ended up with an 83... kind of an ouch! However, it was a hard course with a very difficult scoring judge. I kind of agreed with her though. Well there were a lot of NQ's and 70s and Dora ended up taking Second place. With our big shiny red ribbon, the next day, we were both off. I think as a Novice Handler I made the mistake of letting Dora play all day with her sister, cousin, and uncle. We went into the ring in the afternoon and Dora was barely moving. She was concentrating on everyone but me. Thank goodness she did most of the exercises and the honor dog. We finished our Excellent Title all under 23 months of age! Way to go Dora.

We will likely be taking a break, eventually doing the RAE with trials near us but focusing on the obedience and agility ring for a bit!

Dora finishes her R.A.


Dora took hte R.A. by storm placing twice of the three legs. So far no NQ's and a pretty picture to end it off! Her heeling has really started to come together. We do need to work on attention and we both need to become more confident. Not bad considering she is still under age 2 and we are both novice.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Dora's first R.A. leg!!!


Dora competed for her first Rally Advanced leg this weekend. I was pretty nervous as this new activity is completely offleash. Lots of room to run off and go play with the other puppies. She did excellent! Mommy actually messed up her foot work! We ended up taking third place coming away with a pretty ribbon and a nice toy! Dora ended up sharing steak with me afterwards to celebrate! Way to go Dora!!! Mommy was very very proud of you!

Havanese Rescue


We had our first rescue dog who Belle and Dora helped come along. He was quite darling and a lover right from coming into our home. He just needed to learn some manners-both doggy and human. All dogs deserve to have a home and Belle and Dora wanted him to have one too!!! He ended up finding a great home near us and we hope to keep in contact. If you ever find yourself looking for a dog visit www.petfinder.com as there are all kinds of dogs. Looking for a havanese visit www.havaneserescue.com as we personally know some great dogs who need homes there!

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Belle doing agility !?$%

We got the post card in the mail. Isabelle can sign up for Agility I. In order to take the class, she actually has to listen to Mommy and pass a small obedience test!!! I had no question about Dora's abiity to do this 2 months ago. Now Isabelle is either totally on, or totally Isabelle. My good friend Mona always says "oh, come on, Isabelle is a good dog!" then she witnesses Isabelle act like a total nut. Isabelle seems to have major issues with dogs playing fighting, or simply being dogs. She also has issues with human's ignoring her. For instance, stand for exam is quickly followed with "hey buddy keep petting" which comes out "ROW WOW WOW!" really loud!

But we are going to get practicing for the test at the end of this month. Keep her on her toes and maybe a bit of rescue remedy and lack of food come test day!

Last month, I decided Isabelle is ready for Rally Novice. I took her to our usual friday night practice course. I took her off lead and kept small treats in my hand. I thought the fact of knowing Mommy had treats in her hand would be enough. We quickly got through the first 7 signs, Isabelle was totally on. In fact, she got so bored that after the halt, down, walk around, she added a roll over (that is totally belle!) Well then she got bored and realized the treats weren't coming and she darted out the baby gates (she jumps through the holes) and attacked a sheltie that must have been giving her funny looks! Not cute.... Mom immediately placed her butt in the crate after a firm correction! The thing is she loves going to the training center and socializing, playing, and training but the ADD quickly comes out!

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Dora Quits Obedience & wants to Fly in Agility


So last night we did an Obedience Run through. Basically Dora quit on me. She decided to have no part of it. This was after recently being told to suck it up and enter Dora into competition. We get into the ring and she quits before getting in. So I have came to the conclusion, we will take a break from any idea of competition in formal obedience. Mommy's little girl gets to decide whether she wants swim lessons or piano lessons!

On the other hand, she had her first agility test. This was to test into the next level of agility class. She excelled. Never doing the chute on her own, she plowed through it. I was in shock and so proud. I wanted to quit right there and break out treats! But knowing that was 1 obstacle, we went on through the course... she refused the dog walk. She has never refused that before! Go figure, she thinks it is too easy. Well we are loving agility and she acts more confident with tail up and running like a mad dog! We are all over agility!

Two Toy dogs and Jump Heights!

Since we are doing a few activities at once and I have 2 toy dogs, it can get confusing when a trainer asks me "what is your jump height!" Just a reminder post....

Agility:
10" & under=8"
over 10" & under 14"=12"

Rally:
under 15"=8"


Obedience:
less 12 1/2"= 8"
12 1/2" to 15"=10"

One more little sticky note to carry around!

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Dora is as graceful as her mommy!



This week, it was too hot to go outside so we didn't do agility (over 100F) but worked indoors on the jumps. I realized that Dora needs to do a jump to compete in Rally Advanced next month! So I was jumping her and an agility friend came in and told me I need to teach Dora how to jump correctly. He said that she doesnt know how to jump right? Basically she jumps all the jumps like she is doing a long jump.

I would imagine a lot of people have issues with this and here were some great recommendations from my havsreadsigns yahoo group:

1. Julie Daniel's agility book teaches jumps
2. www.flyingdogpress.com
There are tons of articles and an entire series on jumping. It starts off with the article titled "Why Flufy can't go Hup"
3. online subscription to clean run magazine
www.agilityaction.com

After looking at a few online articles and recommendations, I really liekd the idea of training the dog to jump. That sounds daunting at first (good luck trying to grab Dora and teaching her to go over a jump). However let her teach herself. Placing a few jumps only about 18 inches apart from each other so she has to go up and over, up and over, up and over. She will get a muscle memory from doing this and teach herself.

We still have to work on this as this week was a family vacation up to Michigan with the dogs!

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Occasionally the girls and I take a Fun Day!




This saturday, we had 2 doggie events to attend! We started the day off with the Independent Havanese's club Fun Day. Jan & Nancy, welcomed many Havanese into their home and had a glorious picnic, even taking some time to raise money for havanese rescue! There were even goody bags for the pups to take home. The event also included a show & go, costume contest, & information on havanese rescue!

See our Photos of the event at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hri_photos/album?.dir=e1cdre2&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

As you can see there are many pictures of Dora even in her adorable lady bug costume. She was so tired she even left the little hat on!


What was really nice was how well a group of 10+ havanese who have never met, not only get along but quickly bonded. Dora had so much fun she couldnt even hold her head up on the way home.

The second event of the day was the yearly CATC (www.columbusallbreed.com) Picnic. We started off with the whole family going but Dora & Dad went home to take a nap. They both were exhausted. They had an auction and I bought some Doggy goodies. Isabelle ofcourse stayed with me for the picnic... she wouldnt miss one of those. Besides trying to eat a great dane, she did pretty good. Her friend Margaret treated her to lots of goodies which helped her pay attention to the food rather than beat all the dogs up around her!

We had a very good Saturday!

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Playing with Agility at Home

I have really been slacking in practicing Agility and I think it was because the equipment was kind of daunting and I didnt want to go out and spend hundreds of dollars. Well I have discovered Dora really enjoys agility so I have been pushed to practice. After spending $9 at the CATC auction on a jump, I decided to get creative and build my own back yard agility course this weekend. So Dora, Belle and I got collected random pieces out of the house and came up with quite the little set up. So much of a set up Isabelle quit on me and went into the house (she doesnt work in the backyard what so ever, we have agreed that this is Isabelle's sanctuary and she doesnt have to work if she doesnt want to in the backyard) Dora and I conquered the equipment though! This has motivated me to search the internet and come up with more ideas! I really liked this website and think as we further along in our studies we will get out power tools! http://www.dogplay.com/Activities/Agility/agilitye.html

In the meantime we used: 1. wooden dowels for make shift weave poles. A lot of this is really just teaching Dora what weave means-we still have large spaces between them. She has to still be pushed to weave back and forth at this point

2. our mini tunnel-we purchased this for cheap and Dora loves to play with it. I think we have to be careful because she thinks tunnel is just a toy lately! She wants to sit in the tunnel and relax in between our play times.

3. lawn chairs are great pause boxes. So much so Dora prefers this one and every chance she gets she runs like hell and jumps on the lawn chair whether we are doing agility or not.

4. We tied a hula hoop (99 cents from walmart) in between 2 poles for a Hoop. Dora really needed to practice this because last week in class she learned it was a lot easier to run under the hoop and squeeze thru the poles- so much so the instructor put a board up to stop her!!! This really helped Dora to understand the command "hoop"

5. We got out a few bricks and curtain rods for jumps (since we used our regular jump poles for the hoop) and really worked the command "jump!"

Dora enjoyed the course as much as I did. She is getting so smart that she anticipates the commands and tries to run ahead of me. I had to switch things up a bit and go backwards to get her thinking.

I just wish Dora's father would not care about the grass in the backyard and let us leave the course out ;)

P.S. if you have any recommendations for agiltiy equipment let me know ama0722@yahoo.com We also really need to make a Chute as Dora absolutely hates that piece of equipment!

Friday, July 21, 2006

Perfecting the Front

Last night's training class was really about perfecting the front. Really teaching the dog what it means when you call FRONT! I felt the first time in my training, this was an exercise that I got right! I was taught at some point (by someone-sorry I don't remember!!!) to have the dog in heel position and back up and call front teaching the dog to do a 360 and walk into me. I taught the dog well by actually teaching it too close at first. Our instructor was commenting about how many people teach the dog to not come close enough and you need to be able to touch your dog (this isnt that easy with a 4lb maltese!)

Now to perfect my front, My trainer Kim had us do a new exercise that I liked a lot. I started by placing Dora in a wait, I take about 4 steps forward. I call front. Dora comes into the front. If the dog doesn't come in straight, correct this before they sit down! Also make sure to not move the left leg-you can move the right leg back a step to assist the dog but not the left. This exercise has worked really well and one I like!

Ideally we will continue working on this until we can do side steps and have dora scoot front too. Gotta get to the practing (2 weeks off, I forgot everything-luckily my partner remembered!)

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Miss March & Miss May-

Carolyn Angus uploaded a small size of what the images will be in the Havanese Photo Art Calendar. If you would like to be able to stare at Dora's cute face 60 days out of the year, you can follow the link on the bottom of her website ;) just visit http://www.carolynangusphotography.com/ select commercial, and go to page 4!

Dora is Miss March & Miss May. With Miss March, she looks totally gorgeous placed infront of the white flowers as those of you who photograph dogs, you probably realize what painstaking work Carolyn had to go through to adjust that image. White dogs + White backgrounds don't mix! Heck I just thought pretty flowers + Dora=Pretty Picture!!! Unfortunetly things dont always work that easy!

For those of you not familar with havanese, you can see what amazing colors they all come in and the attitude of what it means to be Havanese! All of the calendars proceeds benefit Havanese health research too!

Enjoy!
Amanda

P.S. If you scroll down to my July 19th entry, You can see Dora next to her beautiful image. Carolyn created this and printed up this piece. She will take any otherwise boring pet photograph you have and send you out a piece of art suitable for your fireplace mantle. Carolyn has an amazing ability to combine multiple photos, dogs, etc. Great for web pages, holiday cards, etc. The package will change depending on exactly what you want, feel free to contact her at carolynangusphotography@shaw.ca

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

I have been sick and on Vacation... hence the 2 week gap!!!



Last week, I was able to tag along with my husband on his business trip to Vancouver. There I was able to finally meet Carolyn Angus who I have talked to via email over the last year. This was not only special because of us both being Havanese Moms but because Carolyn’s amazing details in photography and me just getting started. I knew Carolyn had this ability before arriving because she has worked with me and my “click and shoot” photographs of Dora for the 2007 Havanese Photo Art Calendar. I already knew Carolyn took an otherwise “oh that is my cute little girl being a Neezer” photo and turned it into a “WOW that is Dora” piece of art but I didn’t realize she was really able to do that for many other Havanese too!

In person, I was able to see both of the amazing calendars that Carolyn had been working on with Doc. Oh, just wait till you get to see it in person too http://www.lulu.com/Havanese Each photograph is absolutely amazing and truly captures the essence of what it means to be Havanese. How many times I would see something in one of the photographs and think “Oh my little havanese does that too!!!”

As an amateur photographer who gets to play with my husband’s fancy digital camera, I really had no clue how much work it took to change all of the photos. Carolyn showed me what needed to be done to my photos and what the process along the way really entails! If most of you are like me, eek but the end result is priceless!!! So much so, that while I was there, I was able to purchase a lovely framed copy of one of the months that Dora is featured in by Carolyn’s local photography shop. It is also featured on Carolyn’s website www.carolynangusphotography.com just click on enhancements but the in person view is amazing!



Another amazing part of my trip was to get loving havanese kisses from Pumpkin and chase Jeepers with his squeaky toys and try to keep up with him on walks! With the time Carolyn has absorbed into making the calendar, she still has her own loving havanese family!

As recently noted with the where to vacation with your havanese, Vancouver is a great area!!! If my husband’s hotel wasn’t at UBC (and paid for by UBC also J ) I was thinking gezz I should have brought my girls! We were able to ride the water bus, walk everywhere with the dogs, let alone dine at nice restaurants with the dogs tied next to us while wait staff even brought the dogs water bowls. The best part was the public parks that Vancouver has which allow for you and your dog to hike, play, rest, and even swim in the ocean!

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Dora's current schedule


Dora was a busy girl recently getting her RN so we took a bit of time off. Dora loves to Garden so her and Dad concentrated on that for awhile! Currently Dora is enrolled in an Attention class which she needed because from now on she will be in the ring without a leash! Dora tends to stay by Mom but is easily distracted. This first part of the attention class is a brutal 6 weeks of not moving at all. Let me tell you to get Dora to pay attention takes some really good treats! We have changed it up between liver, chicken, turkey, steak. Whatever Princess wants, Princess gets!

More fun for Dora last week, she passed her agility test. She starts agility tonight. This week our work included:

1. Touch- Dora has this concept down straight. We make her touch when she wants on the big king poster bed! She thinks this is a game and it is fun to spring into the air!

2. Hit it- Dora doesn't quite get why Mom wants her to walk over strange objects... Mom yells at her for jumping on tables normally!

3. Around it- Dora doesn't seem to have fears of new objects. Just strange people!

4. Heeling on the offside- Dora doesn't get this one at all. She always goes to finish around to my correct side. She really knows the difference between when going for a walk and when training and she is quick to let Mom know the difference between right and left!

In the meanwhile, Dora is taking a break from obedience/rally as she is re-learning how to heel with her head looking at me. This is the real challenge but surely coming along thanks to the attention class!

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Have you ever wanted to be a calendar girl?

Guess who not only has the brains but also the beauty? That is right Isadora Brown! Dora will be featured in the Havanese Heart Calendar 2007. After a few novice pictures. Carolyn- a wonderful and creative photographer took Dora's already cute photo and turned them into wonderful pieces of art. The calendar isn't quite published yet but if you want a sneak peak, visit Carolyn's website at http://carolynangusphotography.com/ Click on enhancements and then page 4.

That is right... look how beautiful Dora is! The best part is Carolyn does all this work for Calendars to raise money for HEART. A great charity that makes sure those little havanese eyes can see everything coming at them! http://www.havanese.net/heart/

If you have a so-so picture of your special little girl, don't hesitate to contact Carolyn and she will make your little one a stunning work of art. http://carolynangusphotography.com/

Isabelle's Current Training Schedule


Belle, Dora, & Mom have weekly homework! This week has been hard to stay on track because of the nice weather. Belle & Dora both feel why work when you can play hard! Everyone says practice with your dog in your backyard... hasn't met Isabelle. Her backyard is her playground!

Isabelle is currently taking Advanced Novice Obedience. It might be too high of a class for her but we repeated Advanced beginners 4 times... so we thought we should move on and let some other dogs start off. Some days you teach her something and she gets it after 3 tries... then she decides she doesn't want to do it.

This week we are concentrating on:

1.Touch-Isabelle will only do this with food in your hand so not sure she is getting it! Dora picked it up instantly so I am having some trouble
2. Right and Left finishes. Isabelle is very hyper when she wants something. She kind of has the left finish down. Basically she throws her entire body over to heel position. Sometimes she ends up backwards but the little tornado looks adorable!
3. Pivots- She is getting this down pretty good. I use the command "here" and she is like oh you mean heel position.
4. Turns... Isabelle is a total forger. How something that weighs less than my foot can move so damn fast is beyond me! The only time she slows down is when I make a "EEEEH" sound. We are working on tighter leash and slow.... this has been an ongoing battle.

Isabelle's current goal is to get her butt into the Rally ring this fall for Rally Novice. When her little sister begin's Rally Advanced. As I forsee Isabelle she could easily take a first place or she could NQ... jsut depends on the day! I never know when she is on or when she isnt!

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Candid Photos

The best way to get a visual of the girls is with pictures! Here are some random candid shots.





The best way to get a visual of the girls is with pictures! Here are some random candid shots.

Starting our blog

First of all the creator is me...Amanda! I am starting this blog with the intention of keeping up with Belle & Dora's training! I hope this can help me in the future and others too!

Basically in the fall of 2005, Jim & I relocated to Columbus. Dora our 6 month old havanese puppy was having some socialization issues not with other dogs (she loved them!) but with people. She only liked her Mom! Everyone else was strange and she would distance herself as much as possible. We were walking around MSU campus when someone came walking next to us. Dora stopped and wouldn't move. I thought hmmm we better work on this... it kept getting a bit more embarassing, so we enrolled in a puppy class.

Isabelle (3 at the time of starting) on the other hand LOVES people sometimes a little too much. Her issues included other dogs... All 5lbs of her turns into a total terror around the wrong dog! She is a total alpha and it doesnt matter who is around including that bull mastiff that kept trying to sniff her butt! She also had issues with walking on a leash, chasing critters (thanks to her daddy who thought an adorable fluffy hunting dog was cute), and the most annoying bossing everyone around.

Needless to say, speed up to June 2006, Dora has her CGC-Canine Good Citizen title and RN-rally novice title. We fell in love with performance sports! Isabelle is a work in progress but we have conquered many challenges. Hope you enjoy reading our story and please feel free to email or post comments!