Flyball Class #11

Last night's flyball class went both well and horribly. It went well as far as performance goes, but as far as behavior goes it was our worst class yet. I do think that going swimming earlier in the day and wearing her out made Izzy more irritable then usual, so we will definitally not be doing that anymore!

While helping to set up the equipment for class Izzy and some other dogs (sheltie, 2 BCs: one Izzy knows and a new student) ran around off leash. Izzy, as usual, didn't try to interact with the others but instead scoured the place for any forgotten treats, which is fine with me. All went well until one BC, Jenny (who I am falling more in love with each week) decided to herd Izzy every time she moved. Now, she had done this last week and Izzy hadn't minded at all, but like I said before, tonight she was more irritable and told Jenny off. Jenny didn't really seem to get the picture, she would back off for a second and come up behind her again. My trainer, who I trust thoroughly and completely with Izzy, said to just let them work it out for a bit, and Izzy told Jenny off about two more times before Izzy went to search for treats in the back room and the trainer called Jenny off because she didn't want Izzy to feel cornered in the back room. They were perfectly fine with each other the rest of the night, they sat by each other when the other dogs worked and everything was good, so I'm not worried.

Before I start talking training, I figured I'd post a few diagrams of a flyball course so that all of you who are reading my blog (okay, I am well aware that nobody reads my blog, but in an attempt to boost my self esteem I'm going to pretend I have a billion and a half readers like Fugly Horse of the Day, an amazing blog, does :D) can visualize what I'm trying to say.

Diagram #1:
Diagram#2:

Izzy did some ball work while the new dog was evaluated, she is now to the point where about 60% of the time she is dropping it in my hand. The rest of the time she just picks it up and drops it, or "throws" it at me, so I'm just working on getting her more reliable with that and and then moving on to further distances away. Then Izzy, the trainer, and I worked on the same thing we had worked on last week. I hold Izzy behind the last jump (jump closest to the chute or box) and the trainer stands behind the chute, not to be confused with the box.

Chute:
Box:

The chute is used before the box, right now she is learning to do a proper swimmers turn on the chute, and once she flyballing (this is my blog, I can make up words if I want to!) on the chute, which includes grabbing a tennis ball that is velcroed to the chute and bringing it back over the jumps, then she will move on to the box. Just wanted to jump in here quick and say that I am a novice/green/beginner/whatever you want to call it - at flyball. Everything training wise or procedure wise that I say, has been relayed to me by my trainers, and if I say it wrong that is totally my own fault as well (Read: Don't try this at home! :p).

Anyway, as I was saying, I stand behind the last jump and my trainer stands behind the chute. She starts revving up Izzy and Izzy starts to lunge into her harness because she's so excited (good girl Izzy!), I let Izzy go and say "over!" as she's jumping. Izzy jumps on the chute and my trainer pretends to throw a treat back towards me, Izzy falls for the oldest trick in the book and jumps off the chute to find it, and when she's back facing me I call her, tell her to "over!" again and click while she's going over the jump. Treats and kisses! She's such a good girl :D

At this point I'm going to stop again and say that I think clicker training is the best thing ever, I LOVE it! Pretty much everything Izzy and I do in flyball is done with the clicker. Clickersolutions.com is my favorite clicker training link (tons of information) if you'd like to learn more.

Back to training now. One of Izzy's main problems with this exercise is that she doesn't understand why she should have to run all the way back to me and do all those extra jumps, when she knows my trainer standing behind the chute has treats. *sigh* Izzy's whole world revolves around her stomach, if she is going to do something it isn't to make me happy, it is to get food. So sometimes instead of coming back to me she will sit on the chute and try to convince the trainer, through sad corgi eyes, that she should just give her treats there, which she never does, but that doesn't stop Izzy from trying!

So last night when she started doing that I moved in front of the last jump, so she wasn't jumping anything, and when she came off the chute I grabbed her harness, ran back to our starting point, and only then did she get her treat. I think she understood after doing this a few times that she was going to have to come back to me to get her treat, so we were able to do one jump again, then two jumps, and then we tried 3 jumps. When we tried to have her go over three jumps, she was fine going out, but then decided on the way back that she didn't really need to take that first jump, went around it, and then flew over the other two. The trainer moved us back up to one jump, she ran it well, and we called it quits (always end on a good note!).

Then we went to sit down and watched Jenny do her thing on the course (she does the four jumps, grabs the ball off the chute, and comes back with the ball. I'm jealous!), and about that time one of the other students came in with her two dogs (one Izzy never met, and one BC mix she was fine with in the past) and Izzy flipped out! I don't know if they caught her off guard, or if it was because she didn't know the one dog (even though she had already met a new dog fine that night), or what it was. This was the first time her trainer's were able to see how she reacts to dogs while we are on walks, as she is a completely different dog at flyball. She pulls like a Mac truck, straining to reach the other dogs and makes the most high-pitched screaming sound I've ever heard come from a dog. I hauled her off to the side and we did attention work off to the side, she settled quickly and was fine.

Later during class my one trainer was working with Izzy on some obedience as we were pretty much done doing flyball stuff, she took Izzy over to Luna (one of the dogs that Izzy had reacted to when they came in the door), and they said hello and everything was good. Luna's owner was giving Izzy some treats, and then I'm not even sure what happened but Izzy and Luna got in a scuffle. It was noisy and there were lots of teeth, but it was dealt with very quickly and effectively, and they were seperated. As my trainer said, they were just warning each other, there would have been blood if they had meant it. And even after that Izzy was still interested in Luna, and not in an aggressive way, but a curious way. They were fine being around each other for the rest of class.

I really think Izzy was just having an off night, because she is usually much more relaxed then that. *sigh*

Homework for Week #11:

• Ball work: Continue working on consistency and begin working on distance.
• Recall: Work on sharpening her recall, maybe this will help with getting her to come back to me off the chute.
• Build a jump: I'm going to try and get her to retrieve the ball over the jump once we get distance on the ball, so I want the jump to be ready.
  

General Note: There are no posts for Classes #1-10, I was lazy and not posting at the time.

Had a great walk today!

I decided to skip school today because everyone who is going to prom tonight (read: not me, all my friends) got to leave at 11:00 and the rest of us (read: me and underclassmen) would have to sit through an assembly that praised the football team for a billion hours, so I stayed home. And now that my finals and homework are over I have nothing to keep me inside, so I grabbed Izzy and we hiked up Spruce Street, the steepest street in our town.

By the time we did that Izzy was panting pretty good and it was only getting hotter, so we swung by the house and grabbed Frodo (I usually don't walk them together, but I figured nobody would be out with their dogs in the morning) and off we went to the little creek I found the other day (see the post I made yesterday). As soon as we reached the development where the path is both dogs started getting excited and knew exactly where we were going, and as soon as we reached the creek Izzy splashed right in (she has no grace in the water, lol, she just pounds right in) and flopped down, a huge grin plastered on her face :) Frodo doesn't get as hot as Izzy does, so he wasn't so gung ho about getting in the water, plus he had to pee on everything before even thinking about the water. *sigh*

Eventually Izzy got up and decided to do some exploring. Izzy is very reliable off leash, so I just dropped her leash and let her do her thing. Frodo, on the other hand is a PITA and isn't reliable anywhere without a ton of attention, obedience, and proofing in the area (which hopefully we will be done with by July), so I had to wade into the creek and follow him around. I hadn't really planned on getting in the water myself, but I forgot to bring along his long line so I just sucked it up, but ohhh boy was that water cold!! Thank goodness I had my Crocs on, they are the best water shoes ever!

Anyway, we went pretty far upstream, with Izzy never leaving the water and Frodo weaving between walking on the overly vegetated bank and pouncing through the shallow water (I think he likes the bank more because it's too hard to pee in the water, lol). When I decided we had gone far enough and told Izzy "Okay, let's go!" (which is more of a suggestion than an actual fast, hard recall) she decided that she would rather keep going, so I ran and hid behind some bushes where she couldn't see me and sure enough about 15 seconds later I hear her plowing through the water and booking it in the direction where we came from *sigh* She pretends to be so brave, lol. I stepped out and called her back, she came whole butt wagging, acting like she hadn't seen me for a million years, and of course she stuck close and listened beautifully for the rest of the trip.

Then when we were almost back Frodo bolted after a frog, caught me off guard, and my shoes slipped on the algae covered rocks on the bottom of the stream. Down I went! I was soaked so we headed home, and I had to walk home (along Main Street no less!!) dripping wet :p

Now both Izzy and Frodo are out cold:

Izzy (Bahaha!):

And Frodo:

One thing I wasn't thinking about when I headed out this morning was that Izzy and I have flyball tonight! I hope she recovers in time :p

The good, the bad and the ugly.

I figured I should probably kick this sucker off with some goals and obstacles, so that I can come back and mark our progression. I guess we'll start out with the obstacles first...

Obstacles

Numero Uno: Izzeh vs Teh Ball!
Izzy has absolutely no interest in playing fetch. None at all. Zilch! She never has, ever since she was a pup, which never really posed a problem...until flyball came along. It's kind of a big deal, lol. Since we've started flyball, she has started to become more interested in the ball, even if it is only because she gets food for picking up the ball (typical corgi!), but it's a start. We are currently at the point where I can set the ball in front of me and about 60% of the time Izzy will pick it up and drop it in my hand, the rest of the time she just picks it up and drops it wherever. That's what 8 weeks of training has accomplished... *sigh*

"Mom, Iz soo tired from playing wif dis ball!"
(Pfft! Yeah right!)

Obstacle 2: Izzy vs other dogs...sorta.
Izzy doesn't deal well with other dogs who aren't confident and can "talk dog" really well. She doesn't get along with pushy dogs, agressive dogs, or dogs who get in her face. She also acts like a complete idiot when she sees other dogs while we are out walking, though this is more my problem and lack of leadership, then it is hers. She can work in a class situation with other dogs just fine, but if a dog comes up to her she will curl her lip and growl. Thankfully with the amazing knowledge and help from my trainers we are working on this as well. Last week she ran freely around the facility with 3 shelties, a border collie cross, and a border collie who spent most of her time circling Izzy. And she didn't growl once!! I was SO proud of my little brat! :D I know it's a far cry from being able to do well around other dogs she doesn't know, but it's still a big step and I'm more than happy with it!

Obstacle 3: Izzy vs the crowd.
As I mentioned before, she is a therapy dog and she does fine with large groups of people, but when the maniacal, barking dogs are added as well as the general chaos of the flyball scene are added, she can get quite stressed. This I think will be one of the hardest issues to overcome because I have very few opportunities to re-create a setting like a flyball tournament to desensitize her to it.

Now, the fun part!

Goals

Goal #1: Actually flyball :P
I'd like to get Izzy to the point where she can actually complete the whole sequence. I could really care less about time right now, I would just like to see her complete it safely, with a little bunny butt hopping down the lane and a nice swimmers turn. Safety first!

• Subgoal 1 - I'd like to see Izzy actively fetching within the next 8 weeks.

• Subgoal 2 - I'd like to see Izzy grabbing the ball off the box in the next 10 weeks.

Goal #2: Getting in shape!
Izzy currently weighs 18 poune starts activds and is at a pretty good weight, but I'd like to get her down to 16 pounds by the time shely hitting the box and running the whole sequence. Right now she is pretty active, but can get tired sometimes during class when we practice the jumps, so generally getting in shape is one of my main goals right now. With the help of an agility trainer I've made Izzy a little workout schedule (which she so loves, lol):

• Hills, hills, hills! I live right next to a college campus that is located on a huuuge, steep hill. Izzy and I have started walking up the steepest hill up to campus and then on to a hill on top of that hill which leads to upper campus. Lots of work and huffing and puffing on my part, but it's good for both of us (though that's not what I'm thinking while hauling butt up them, haha). We've been doing this on all cool days, and when school lets out (only 6 days!) we are going to be getting up early, like 5 a.m. Eek!, and doing it every day.
  
• Swimming! Probably my newest favorite activity. Neither Izzy nor myself deal well with the hot summer weather...at all. Fortunately, the other day I discovered a hidden little river that spreads out into a lagoonish body of water, and the water is cooooold. It's about a 10 minute hilly walk from my house and comes up to about my thigh at it's deepest so Izzy can swim (yay for short legs!) and I can rescue her easily should I need to. I plan on walking up and down the river with her a few times a week. I wasn't sure that she would like the water, but when we found it she surged right in. Thatta girl!
• Puuuuuull! I've been walking her in her flyball harness as she pulls like a little monster in it, so that should help her build muscle and endurance as well.
• Diet time = much woe. Any of you who know corgis, know that their world completely and utterly revolves around their stomachs! So obviously Izzy was quite saddened by the lesser amount of kibbles setting in her bowl every night...let's take a moment to feel bad...thanks, she'll appreciate that. I've reduced her kibble intake from 1 cup to 2/3 cups a day. She's eating Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream, LOVE IT!

Goal #3: Getting her comfortable.
I'd really love to see Izzy get to the point where she feels more confident and comfortable in noisy, chaotic places like flyball tournaments and other areas where there are lots of dogs.

Well, I have to go let people give me money now :D so I'll be back tomorrow!

Guess I should introduce us, huh?

I've only had this blog for a few months, I guess I'm about ready to post an introduction thread and get this blog up and running. Anywho, my name is Lauren and I am ruled by Izzy and Frodo, 2.5 year old corgi siblings.
Izzy (looking very ladylike, I might add)...
and I started flyball classes about 9 weeks ago with a pair of great trainers and a bunch of other awesome dogs. We do have quite a few obstacles that we need to overcome before we will ever be able to compete, but for right now we're just having a blast and taking it one step at a time.

A little more about teh Izzeh (since this blog does revolve around her):

I got Izzy (and her brother Frodo) as 14 week old puppies, and though I had done some reading on the breed, nothing prepared me (a 16 yr. old novice owner) for raising two hellion corgis in an apartment. Yes, I am pretty much insane. I am convinced that the only reason they managed to reach adulthood is because it would be impossible to strangle something that is so darn cute!

Exhibit A-

Exhibit B (Double Trouble)-

The most adorkable beings ever? I think yes.

Moving on, Izzy (aka: Coombsie's Faery Chariot) and I practiced our (okay...her) bunny butt off and at just over a year old passed both her Canine Good Citizen test as well as her Therapy Dog International test, on the same day!! Woot! Although we don't do all that many therapy events, she did accompany me to my National Honor Society project this year where we taught little kids to take pictures, she graciously posed.

Izzy the model-
"Corgitude? I haz it!"

As far as daily life goes, Izzy spends most of her day lounging around while I'm at school, dreaming of 'walkie time' and food while I pack my brain with history and english (dogs, of course, are more funner :p). Living without a yard and two energetic corgis is probably not the most efficient way of doing things, but we make it work with lots of off-leash time, swimming, and walking up nice steep hills. Plus Izzy burns a lot of energy beating up on poor Frodo...

...after all, what good are brothers for other than beating up?

Well, what more could you possibly want to know? Oh, yeah...that whole flyball thingamajiger. Eh, that can wait until tomorrow. I know...the suspense is killing you :p