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!

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!

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!