Dental Health Month

Check out The Days of Johann for great dental health info, and take the Toofer Challenge,
and brush your pet's teeth every day in the month of February.

Try to tire out the Terrier

This winter has been really tough to get Stewie enough exercise. We haven't been spending much time outside. So we are doing a lot of activities in the house. We practice go on's to a target at the end of the hall. We also practice our contact behavior using a mouse pad. We are learning a new trick that is supposed to be good for hind end awareness, putting his front feet on a stool and circling around it. I call it the Elephant Trick! We started shaping that the other night. Stewie already knows to put his front feet on top of the stool. I will take some pictures soon and post them. 

Winter is also a great time to practice start line stays and verbal releases, and Crate Games, Stewie loves that! 

Any good ideas to tire him out, please send them our way!

Distance Practice Go On's

Stewie and I practiced at the horse arena yesterday, it was cold but we took our turn often enough to stay warm. We worked on a Elite Chances course with the line down. We were not very successful at first. He was okay going on in a straight line away from me, but not laterally after a 90 degree turn.
I revved him up and ran with me and that helped quite a bit.

We need to practice go on's  more and get him more confident. And one thing I have to work on besides my body language and timing is to be able to sacrifice Q's in order to get better at distance work. That is going to be hard for me. I am more competitive than I had thought I would be when I started agility. 

Weave Pole and Contact Training Success

Remi and Stewie!

Weave pole practice

We did a lot of weaves tonight, I called him through them, as shown above, and also sent him to them and practiced lateral distance and back crossing the poles.
Great job Stewie
We also did some great dog walk and A frames. Stewie hasn't really done any contact training since November, and I was very pleased with his contacts, especially his dogwalk. I sent him to the dog walk, and stayed fall back and he got his contact. I sent him to the dog walk and took off on a diagonal away from him and he waited on his contact. What a good terrier.

Friday Practice!

Stewie was invited to practice tonight and got a pictures with his friends Luda and Bailey. Today is Luda's 2nd birthday too. What a lucky dog to get to play agility on his birthday!

Happy Birthday Luda!

Too much snow!

The snow is getting a bit too deep for Stewie, after only a few minutes, he is ready to go back in!
Think Spring!

NEAT Holiday Party

Here's a picture of Stewie and Lexi. I asked Stewie to "settle" on his mat, and Lexi wanted to also!



Here are some of the presents Stewie can choose from

This is the one he chose! It had great treats and toys in it.

Crate Games!

I brought Stewie's portable crate into the house, and tonight Stewie got in it and wanted to play Crate Games! So I got our Crate Game CD out and did a little refresher. We did quite a few of the games last winter and they were fun. Stewie was much better in his crate at trials this past season. It has a lot of fun games in it and is great for doing some thinking games when it is too cold to exercise outside.
I would recommend this DVD to anyone who uses a crate and wants their dog to love it.
Click here to go to Susan Garrett's website

All Dogs USDAA run

A USDAA Gamblers run for Stewie from March 24, 2007

Distraction training feline style!

Stewie in his contact position on a mouse pad at the end of the hall, he is waiting for me to release him. See the cat hiding by the scratching post.
Stewie jumping over his makeshift jump coming back to me for his cookie

The kitty is no distraction for Stewie! He wants his cookie!

Susan Garrett's 2 x 2 Weaves

Well I ordered Susan Garrett’s 2x2 Weave Pole Training, 12 Poles in 12 Days (DVD) on January 2nd, and can't wait for it to arrive.
Some of our club member's are going to view it and then make a plan for some training sessions in Jan and Feb. Hopefully it will come by this weekend, so I can spend some time reviewing it.

Sunday Practice

Well it was really cold at the horse barn on Sunday, but Stewie was so glad to be able to run around and do agility. We had enough turns often enough to stay pretty warm. What we did was a whole progression of Jane Simmon-Moake's series from Clean Run. I believe it was from Feb of 2006.
The first exercise was easy except my dog was wild and had the zoomies! After that he settled down a bit more and we did well. We did well with our back crosses as usual and did some distance work. I need to be more assertive and confident and expect him to do it. One of the best exercises for us included the serpentine, then a left turn to another jump, and then a right into a tunnel. Serpentines are a strength of ours.
Stewie also did some good weave entries, though he did pop out twice on the 10th pole, rats!