Twitch – Page 6 – Ins and Outs

Squee!!

I am really excited because on Thursday I head off to Bend with Twitch for three days of agility!! If camping goes well I may try it more often for trials. 🙂

We are going to Desert Sage Agility hosted and owned by Stephanie Morris. Fun little tidbit she and I met in 2007 in Connecticut! Clean Run hosted an Instructors Conference and Stephanie and I met up and shared a room together for two nights. Funny how the world turns.

We are going to be working with Stacy Winkler, Sandy Rogers and Moe Strenfel. I got to listen to workshops with Sandy and Moe at the conference and I’m excited to work with them. I just hope that Twitch’s toe is healed better by then!

His toe was swollen two weeks ago and the vet lanced the toe and expelled some ugly pus. His toe was looking good last Thursday and Friday morning but Friday night he had a puffy blood blister. The vet looked at it again today and now we are to soak it twice a day till Wed and see if that helps. It already looks better tonight, I just hope he feels ok by Friday.

The weekend after camp we are going to Mt St Helens for the day. Then the following weekend is a trip to Boise, ID with Kris, Kat and my parents for July 4th. After that is agility trial, then Warrior Dash weekend… Not sure when the next time I sleep past 6:30 will be. 0.o

Kayak Twitch!

He is drinking the lake water. Whining for a half hour will make any dog’s throat dry. Notice how he is dry.

Some dog felt that leaning over the side was a good idea. Twice. Luckily he listens well and didn’t panic. He swam back to the boat where I lifted him out.

Wet, cold pooch.

Aww.

Double Aww.

We will make an adventure dog of him yet!!

Hiking Spencer Butte

Today we went down to Eugene so I could take a private lesson with Naomi Snapp. She runs Aussies in agility and I wanted to get some personalized looks at Twitch and I, to see where we could improve. He has concerns and motivation issues in trials so I am trying to address those.

The first thing she noticed was that he disconnects from me as we enter the ring. So we are going to work on stronger nose touches for pre-run routine as well as his spins as we walk out.

The second thing she noticed was that he slows down when I slow down, which in most situations is great, he reads deceleration, but there are times when I need him to keep moving like pinwheels and wraps around jumps. So maintaining motivation through tricks will help, not fixing things in trials and working on using a lunchbox to get speed.

The lunchbox is a hard sided plastic cooler that is heavy enough he can’t run off with it, sticky enough that he can’t open the lid and big enough for any kind of food. We worked on that today and it helped a lot. We used the LB for proofing weaves and contact behaviors and it helped with his motivation around the push to the back of a jump with a 180 to the tunnel. So some good stuff and really glad I did it.

Then we went to Spencer Butte. It was a 2 mile hike with 900 feet of elevation gain. And it was busy! There were so many people and other dogs and Twitch did really well with all of it.