Balance Disc or Harness?

I'm thinking of ordering a couple of things from Clean Run. Coincidentally, they're all things for Wall-e. The little man needs a lot of stuff :)

Indoor Agility Trial Sounds CD
This will be to help Wall-e overcome his fears of indoor trials. I'm definitely buying this.

There are two other things I want too, but I'm making myself only get one of them ($$!).

FitPAWS Balance Disc
This would be to strengthen Wall-e's knees. I already have an exercise ball, but it's too small for Wall-e, so if I had a disc I could put it on the couch, and have Wall-e stand with two feet on the disc and two feet on the ball.

ComfortFlex Sport Harness
And this would be for Mr. Leash-Puller (a.k.a. Wall-e). I've been trying to train him to keep a loose leash this month, but he really just enjoys his walks more when he pulls. (Even though he pulls, he does still have focus on me during walks; he looks back at me all the time.) He's not a crazy puller, but he often keeps a constant tension on the leash during walks, so I'm a bit concerned about his trachea...that's why a sport harness would be good for him.

So which will it be, the balance disc or the harness? I'm having a tough time deciding.

Montana wanted me to say...

Montana was reading my blog and noticed that I haven't posted about her in a while.


She wanted me to tell you all that we have decided to keep her :)

She's been doing really well. She still stays in a separate room for part of the day; our 16 year old cat, Shadow, spends a lot of time in the basement sleeping, so during that time we close the door to the basement and let Montana out of her room to have free rein of the house. After a couple of hours, we put her back in the room and open Shadow's door in the basement. We don't trust the cats to be alone yet.

Montana is good with the dogs though. She actually like Mika and follows her around. (Mika just ignores "that weird orange cat.") She's a bit intimidated by Wall-e, but she's asserted her ruling over him by chasing after him a few times. Poor Wall-e wanted to make friends, but now he keeps his distance!

Luckily, Montana has never made an attempt to bite/nip either dog. She's completely transformed since we've brought her home. She actually acts a bit like a dog; she follows us around and does crazy gallops around the house. We're very glad to have her!

2011: the year of progress?

It says that this was posted January 10, but that was because I saved the draft on that date...I really posted this on January 17.

(Okay, so this is super late because I was having trouble publishing my posts on Blogger. I know I'm always late with posts, but I'm really on time with stuff in real life -- honest! :)

So...first post of the year :) Let's all say a big welcome to 2011!

I don't have any big goals for this year; no Regionals, no Nationals, no ATChC. (We still need too many Q's for Mika's ATChC, so realistically, we won't achieve it this year and probably not next year.) *Maybe* SuperDogs again with Mika. But I still have some big hopes for this year. Last year was kind of "meh"; I slowed down my handling to try to learn how to handle the very fast Wall-e, and as a result Mika's speed suffered because she adjusted to my slower speed. None of that this year! I plan to handle both dogs fearlessly because that's the way I want them to run. We're going to have some awesome, fast runs this year. (I should mention though that Wall-e had a really good year last year; he started trialing and really amped up his speed, and we also re-trained his contacts to a fast, reliable 2on2off.)

I've already stated my 2011 training and competition goals in a previous post, so I won't say them again here. I just wanted to add a few things.

I really hope to improve Mika's reactivity this year. Last year we had one pretty big "incident" at a trial, which has never happened before, and I definitely don't want that to happen again. (I'm sure Mika doesn't either!) We're going to work as much as possible on reactivity; once the snow melts, every day if possible, every second day at the least. We've been doing this since 2007 when Mika was first diagnosed with reactivity, but armed with some new and "refreshed" knowledge, I hope to make some more progress with her this year. I'm re-reading one of my very favourite books, Suzanne Clothier's Bones Would Rain From the Sky, which has some great stuff on aggression. I'm also reading everything I can online about aggression and reactivity. Mika's made some great progress last year, but our battle isn't over.

And of course there's Wall-e. We've made lots of progress on his extreme fears of constant/loud noises, but we're still not at the point where he can trial indoors. I've entered him in an indoor evening trial in April, but he's not ready for that at the moment. Along with continuing our noise sensitivity training daily, I'm planning on ordering the Indoor Agility Sounds CD to help desensitize/counter-condition him to the sounds of a trial environment at home. I'm also looking into trying a herbal or natural stress product (no drugs!!) to help put him in the right frame of mind for training. Right now I'm thinking Rescue Remedy, but we'll see. I've realized that Wall-e might not ever be able to trial at noisy indoor venues. He's made TONS of progress, but indoor trials seem to be a big step for him.

So to sum it up, this year will be The Year of Progress. Progress with agility, of course, and also reactivity and fears. Bring it on!

Mika & Wall-e Training Dec. 28, '10 video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th7CR3AQEfE

And by the way -- Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

(All of these pictures were taken on Christmas Eve.)

Mika loves her new dog bed, but is wondering why my mom is bugging her with the camera.

"Oh -- I get treats?! Take as many pictures as you want!"

Wall-e gets his share as well.

Shadow opens her presents; a couple cans of two new brands of food, with lots of treats on top!

Montana meet Rudolph before checking out her present.

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!" Except for Shadow, who's still awake and plans to wait for Santa. (She's in the window beside the reflection of the tree :)

Merry (belated) Christmas!

Wall-e's last rally class

This is quite late, sorry :) Our last class was over a week ago, on Saturday December 11.

At this class we each went through a full course twice.

I think our runs went well. Our instructor commented on how much Wall-e's sits have improved since we began the class. They're not perfect yet, but her ideas of improving his sits have really been working for us!

What I really liked was that after the first time we finished the course, we had to say one thing that we liked about the run; and after the second time we finished the course, our classmates had to say what they liked about the run. I think this is a great idea.

Another thing was that there was a dog in heat in the class. I was totally fine with it, but I wasn't sure how Wall-e would react. Thankfully, he barely payed any notice to the bitch in heat and was as focused as ever during our runs.

Montana

Yesterday we began a new adventure; fostering a cat.

The story began at the end of October, when an orange tabby cat was dumped, in her cage, in the parking lot of a local vet hospital. She was covered in poop and had to have parts of her tail shaved to remove the mats. I'm doing a co-op at the vet hospital, and I was given the job of caring for the cat daily. She soon earned the name of "Montana."


In the past two months I have gotten more and more attached to Montana. Both the vet hospital and I tried to find a home for her, but it seemed that nobody wanted her. You see, Montana is declawed, and she bites when she feels she needs space; after all, since her claws are gone, she has no other defense other than her teeth. Nobody wants a cat who bites. And if we had brought Montana the the humane society, it was almost guaranteed she'd be euthanized because of her biting.

Last week, I offered the possibility of fostering Montana. And yesterday, after school was out and the Christmas holidays began, we went to the hospital and brought her home.


We're keeping her in a separate room until we're absolutely certain that she'll be fine with Shadow (our cat), Mika, and Wall-e.

She's already met the dogs. First we introduced them, one at a time, while she was in her cage (I realize now maybe not the best idea because she probably felt trapped). Mika wasn't that interested and didn't get too close, but Montana was hissing and growling at her. Then Wall-e got to see. He went right up to the door of the cage and Montana whacked her paw against the bars. It made a big noise, and Wall-e got scared and ran away. I guess that's a good time; I want the dogs to respect Montana and not bother her.

Later in the evening, when Montana was out of her cage (but still confined in the room), my mom brought Mika in and held her, while Montana got to choose how close she wanted to get to her. Mika was nice and calm, and stared at me almost the whole time. (She got some treats for her great behaviour). Montana was very interested and walked closer, and eventually sat down staring up at Mika. She didn't hiss or growl, though.

Montana will probably be re-introduced to Wall-e in the same way today, and sometime next week she'll meet Shadow too.

Now I guess all we can do is try to find a home for her and, in the meantime, see what happens.