What we are up to!
I will be going off line for a short bit while we move up to NJ. I am bouncing between MD and NJ for the next couple of weeks and will be checking e-mail, but please don’t panic if you don’t get an immediate response to your e-mail…. If you need to talk to me ASAP send me an e-mail with your phone number and I will give you call.
Today was a great training today!!!! The weather was hot, grass was newly cut, and dry. The wind picked up from time to time, but not too bad. I tracked Coudai, Jingo and Cosmo.
Coudai: Coudai was really intense on the track, but almost bordering on hectic. She would spin and go back to get any missed food. Butch said I need to increase the length by at least four times to give her time to work it out. He said just when she was calming down and making good forward progress the track was over. So it is time to start increasing the length.
For protection she did some tug work. She is different than Cosmo in this area and reminds of Jingo in his early years. Where Cosmo would do back flips for the tug, Coudai will sit and watch until the decoy comes near. When the decoy is near, she will go after tug with quick fast strikes, but not always maintaining her grip. After a couple of rounds she started hanging on nicely so the decoy could pull her around. I have yet to hear her bark though, but this was only her fourth session out. I am not concerned and I think Jingo was near a year before he became truly interested in protection work.
Cosmo: Super track with her today!!!! I needed that 
I was starting to get a little worried since I had a couple of bad tracks with her. The conditions were tough in her area. Her first corner was sparse with little grass, but she nailed it without issue. She also indicated all the articles. The only fault I have been seeing is that she consistently indicates the article a little further back than I like to see.
In obedience, I worked Cosmo under the pavilion with all the club members around. Another dog was being worked as well, so I put her in a long down and walked away. I had a lot of faith in my e-collar 
Cosmo stayed without issue and didn’t move when the other dog started aggressing her. She actually shifted to her hip after a little bit as if she realized this was going to be going on for awhile. After a bit, I got her up and did some obedience with all the people around. For the first time, she hesitated doing the motion exercises, but I think it was because all the people were standing around us. She felt the need to stay with me and it took two commands to get her to stop while I kept going. We worked through it with food rewards. The final thing we focused on was heeling backwards. I have taught her this already, but Butch wanted to see her walking backwards with me. She actually did it, but now she wants to do it all the time and is getting annoying. If I stop she sits and then starts to step backwards anticipating that I am going to backwards and does not leave a pretty picture….
In protection, we started the blind search. She has been doing the bark n’ holds in the blinds and working through distractions. Today we introduced sending her into the blind from the middle of the field. Cosmo did this without issue, but on her third attempt she ran right in and grabbed the sleeve. So the fourth time, Ron yelled “No, sit!” just as she came into the blind preventing her from getting dirty. We did a couple outs from the blind too and it went well.
Jingo: In the most miserable conditions, Jingo actually did a nice track. He did his typical sloppy corners, but for all the legs showed nice intensity. Butch commented that if he can track in these conditions, there is no reason for his bad track on trial day!!!
We worked on the blind search AGAIN!!!! I must admit it went really well today and bordered on humorous. I went to the top of the field and sent him around the blinds. He ran the blinds in the following order 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 6. The reason he went back to three versus five was a handler error. The field was huge and I didn’t get down it fast enough so when I sent him he was in line with three and he went around it again. Butch and Ron both agreed it was a handler error, but couldn’t agree on how to progress. Butch thought we should end it on that session because Jingo always runs the blinds ONCE and after that the fights begin and Ron didn’t want to avoid a problem. So we struck a compromise and decided to have him run 3, 4, 5, and 6. I walked to the middle of the field and sent Jingo to blind 3. He spun around and bolts back up the field!?!?!?! I should have called him back, but I was curious as to what he was planning on doing. Jingo blazes back up the field heading to blind one and runs them ALL!!! He ran 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and then into 6!!! Everyone was laughing and couldn’t get over that Jingo put it together in his head and ran them all. Ron was like “In all my years of training, I have never seen anything like that!” We decided to end the blind search on that note and did a couple of escape bites and he was done. Ah… Jingo this is why I love you so
Baccara: Has been confirmed pregnant!!!!
Apollo: I took him for a short walk around the park for a little bonding time. He is more than likely going to stay with us while Butch is at the DVG Nationals. It will be a great opportunity for us to get to know each other and maybe he will become a permanent resident
Apollo earns his VPG I with a score of 95-75-95a!!! Great job guys
Wow, what a great weekend…. The trial was put on by the WAG club in Walforf, MD and had to be split over two days due to the number of entries. The WAG club did an excellent job putting on the trial, but the best part was the trial was judged by Gottfried Dildei!!! OMG, it didn’t know he was a judge and he has always been some mythical Schutzhund God to me. I remember when I first got into Schutzhund a member from the local club gave us a bunch of his videos to watch. Also, Butch spent a number of his early years training with him. So it was kind of intimidating to think not only do I get to meet this guy, but he is going to be judging me!?!?!? All I can say is, he was a very nice guy and judged fairly and consistently. I also made a point to make the judge’s dinner, because who the hell wouldn’t want to have dinner with Gottfried Dildei!
So the big question is how did we do? 55-72-95a!!!
I can’t complain at all, it was just the luck of the draw in tracking. We were supposed to go on Sunday morning, but I got a call at 9 pm Friday saying things were being switched around and I had to be at the tracking fields 6 am on Saturday. It sucked for us because I had fed Jingo thinking we had a day before we tracked and he tracks for food. We arrived at the tracking fields around 6 am, only for no one to be there. I called Butch and he said the time was changed and they weren’t going to start until 7 am. So tracks were placed at 7:30ish and we didn’t track until 8:30ish. We happened to draw the track on the side of a hill and by 8:30 it was dry. Also, the field was full of these small flowers and when we started our track we literally had a huge cloud of pollen over us. Jingo looked like a grey dog at the end and my black pants were almost white. I was happy Jingo followed the entire track, but for some reason didn’t indicate a single article!!! WTF!?!? I had switched our method to tracking for articles so I am not sure why he didn’t indicate. Normally if we are going to fail tracking it is because he gives up. I could tell he was looking stressed by the third leg because he couldn’t find an article and was sneezing a lot. The grass was thigh high too, so that may have caused some difficulty. Oh, well… the bottom line is he should have done better, but tracking is not Jingo’s strong point and I think given the conditions it didn’t work out for us. Although, here is the kicker 
It stormed that night, so the next day (when we should have tracked) was much better conditions. Sometimes, I feel like it just isn’t meant to be for us.
In obedience, I could tell Jingo was stressed. He got up immediately on the long down. I think he associated the field with lots of stress from the night before when we were making him run the blinds. He seemed rather clingy throughout his obedience and anticipated the recall on the stand out of motion. Everything else was minor things like some bumping and slow sits, but urghh…. that long down is killing us!!!! We had it fixed, but when stressed he falls back to old habits.
As we approached protection, I was starting to feel sick. I told Ron and Butch I didn’t even want to go onto the field. I was very worried about what was going to happen. I knew it was going to be one of two things: 1. Wonderful routine or 2. Dismissed for a little problem that has come along with forcing him to do the blind search….
To give a little background, Saturday night we decided to have him run the blinds to make sure everything was good for Sunday. Jingo came onto the field and decided he had better ideas. We have been using the electric to push him out and around the blinds, but he has found a new way to turn it off and I don’t like it He decided he was going to use his new method to shut the electric off on that particular day, so Butch had to get a long line to pull him off me. That didn’t work, because then Jingo decided Butch could join in the fun too. It ended up with Ron getting another line and together we forced him around the blinds and we ended it on that session. So now you can imagine why I was sick about going on the field. I had no idea what Jingo was going to do. It was going to be great of very ugly!
On Sunday, I walked onto the field feeling ill. I knew he would run blind one without issue, but our fights have been about blind two. I set Jingo up and waved to the judge and he signals to begin. A number of my supporters new about our “problem” and were eagerly waiting to see how it goes. I sent Jingo around blind one and he runs it nicely and comes back to me. I sent him to blind two and he ran full speed and gets about three fourths of the way and heads back to me!!! All I could things was oh, f*ck!!! My mind was running threw a million options of what to do… I knew I could either hall ass down the field and hope that would keep the forward momentum, skip that blind and send him to three, or attempt to resend him to two not knowing if I was going to walk into the freaking train wreck from yesterday. After quickly mulling through my options, I calmly resent him. Just as he got to me, he bounced off of me, and ran back to blind two and went around!!! And then Jingo ran his little heart out…two, three, four, five, and six!!!! OMFG, is that Jingo running the blinds? He ran the blinds tight and fast and came into blind six with a powerful bark n’ hold. We got dinged because he was doing his bumping. He likes to put his toes on the helper’s toes and bumps during the barking. The other area we lost points was for the call out of the blind. Jingo heard Gottfried say that is good and Jingo did an automatic call out. It was the first time he has done that, but I think it was because the judge verbalized to call him out versus using a hand signal. For the escape bite he almost took the helper down, but Juergan did a great job maintaining his balance and safely catching him. And the final area we lost some points was on the back transport, he started forging a little on me, but I can live with that. We got an excellent on the courage test and re-attack which resulted in an overall score of 95a!!! Woohoo Damn it, now I need to keep working him. We would have had high protection, but Scott beat us with his GSD bitch Kayla and a score of 98a. If anyone was going to beat us, I was happy it was Scott and Kayla. She is a really nice bitch and had more precise obedience than us, plus Scott is great guy too!!! I wish them the best of luck at the DVG Nationals.
First of all, I am sorry for speaking negatively of you. I tend to be overly critical of ALL my dogs and sometimes loose site that you ARE one of my favorites. Ok, each one of you offer something special, but Jingo and I tend to know what each other are thinking. Um, sometimes that is helpful and other times not so much….
What prompted me to post this, is Jingo did something unexpected for me today. We were out in the yard and I was hauling a truckload of papers into the house and one blew into the lawn. I half heartedly said, “Jingo get that for me please.”…. and he did. He carried it into the house and held it until I took it from him. He didn’t munch or destroy the paper, but held it nicely. — Thank you Jingo.
It reminded me of the time I had the 104 fever and Jingo WOULD NOT let me sleep on the couch. All the other dogs stayed near, but Jingo forced me to sit up and kept barking at me, until I took my temp and realized how ill I was. — Thank you Jingo.
It reminded me of how he has been around for the raising of both my boys and took his new role in life without issue. He tolerates my boys and has yelped and walked away when they have fallen on him or done whatever. It has never crossed his mind to react any differently —- Thank you Jingo.
It reminded of how he has been and is always there for me. His only mission in life is to be loved and bite people He may not be the *best* tracker, but he does it because I ask him to. He loves protection, but doesn’t believe in the blind search. Oh, well…
So if you make an ass out of me this weekend, it doesn’t matter. We are a team and you have been there for me in more ways than I count. — Thank you Jingo!!
Today was a good training day. It started out with tracking in an empty lot next to the local food lion. I laid the track around 9 am so the ground had some moisture, but not much since it was already starting to get hot. The grass was pedicured, but weedy. I placed five articles on the track and varied food throughout. Some legs had zero food while others had a decent amount of reward. I let it age for about 20 minutes and had Ira come along as distraction. Jingo showed nice intensity in every leg, but on some of his corners he did small circles. I don’t know why, but for about 50% of Jingo’s turns, he will go the opposite direction for about one dog length and then turn around and head down the leg. Ira provided an excellent distraction by talking the entire way, but Jingo didn’t seem the least bit concerned. Overall, it was a decent track, but would have liked to see more consistency in the corners.
*OMG, stopping to itch, I can’t help it…..*
I got over to Jen’s place around noon and did some obedience. It was hot, hot, hot!! So I decided to only do the long down and dumbbells. Jingo did both without issue. During the long down, Matt brought his Mali on the field and did some nice distractions for us. He was doing obedience and playing some vigorous tug with his dog. Jingo watched intently, but did get up.
For protection, we only focused on the….. guess, just guess!!!! If you don’t know, than you haven’t been keeping up with my blog. That’s right, we focused on the blind search!!! Jingo ran all the blinds today without issue multiple times today in this miserable hot weather. Thank you Jingo for appeasing me
Ok everyone, keep your fingers crossed for Butch, Aja, and me this weekend!! Butch says he is worried about Apollo and the retrieve… but it is Butch so I am sure it will be fine. He said that about Apollo’s BH. Butch said he didn’t do any training for it and was worried about passing…. and then he went on the field and put on a stellar performance! I need some of his skill to rub off on me and Jingo. And of course Aja, she deserves to pass with her awesome little pitties
*uh,oh… I think I have just spread the poison oak to my lips! I accidently wiped the oozing from my hand across my face and now it is starting to itch!!!*
I am tore up from tracking over the past several weeks. I am covered in poison oak, have chigger/bug bites, picked a couple ticks off me this morning, and can’t stop itching…..
I wish they made Frontline for people. It is bad out here in the country. I tried putting Off on me today and I felt like it attracted more bugs than EVER!!!! Of course I used the kid friendly kind with no Deet. Maybe I should admit I will die from cancer and start using Deep Woods Off.
