A few OB photos

A friend who has great photography skills and a awesome camera came out to visit us and watch a bit of training today. Here are a "few" of the resulting images:

Basic Position -

Heeling -
More Heeling -
Heeling -
Sit in Motion -

(love this one, because both of us have our tongues out!)

Easy Recall!!

Front Position

Long Down (lots of distraction)

Reporting Out -

Training went well tonight and I am very appreciative to Laetitia for taking all the photos!!

Training a New Day!

The club has started training Tuesdays for the summer months. This means the training days are now Tuesday, Thursday and Sundays. So this past Tuesday was our first day out in approximately 2 weeks. Dieter was SPUN!! I ran through the segments of the Bh routine with him except the long down. I also am just working on his motion exercises. He did quite well. We likely are ready for it now - however will shoot for the fall to trial for the title.

He also has just started wearing an e-collar. He is basically wearing it whenever he is out of his crate. I have no plans to use it at this point in time, however with the type of dog he is and the fact that the prong collar does little more then build drive in him, I would like to have more tools in my training toolbox. He will continue to wear it for at least a month or two without any use in order to desensitize him to it being on.

Here are a couple shots of him working in phase B -

(asking for a group)

(heeling through the group)

Phase C - We worked on obedience for bites for the first time - basically just asking for a heel, which as soon as he was in perfect position, I would reward him to be sent for a bite. It was getting quite dark and although the lights make it fine to see, the camera can't handle the adjustment. The only photos that turned out were the close ones unfortunately.

Waiting to go on for protection -

(insert doberman nose whine here)

(heeling for a bite)

The work we did in protection revealed some underlying missing obedience foundation work that I am now working on. It is frustrating and fun at the same time. As soon as you think you got one thing under control - you realize in fact you have nothing under control ;-) and that is the beauty of the sport - the constant learning and balance you must achieve to do well. The dogs are not automated machines, but creatures that breathe and think for themselves. You MUST work as a team at all times in order to achieve the best results possible.

Not Again...

Another Round of Vomiting all Night!!

So off go to the clinic and a beautiful Sunday morning spent with Geoff, sitting at my clinic, inducing vomiting and doing a barium series. The highlites - Nothing was found! And he is back to his normal obnoxious self.

Within the first 5 minutes of administering the Barium...(Right lateral view)

(Ventral-Dorsal View)

After approximately 90 minutes (Right Lateral View)

Ventral Dorsal View

I am currently taking ANY suggestions for how to better manage this problem. Have tried crating, muzzles, baby gates, bitter apple spray....Anyways - that was this weekends past excitement. Tonight is training - we will see how he does.

Skipping Training...

What is one of the only things that will cause me to miss training these days? Well for starters temperatures above 30 degrees and humidity that makes you feel like you cannot breath. Today it is 33 degrees celsius and apparently only feels like 42 with the humidity. (Although my car thermometer was reading 36 as I drove home from work!)

Dieter and I have decided to take the night off from club training. I have seen several dogs in heat stroke come into the clinic and although I feel as though I would be diligent enough to not let that happen; it then becomes a question of - well do I feel like driving an hour to go chat and have a couple social hours until the sunsets and then working him and driving home quite late. Probably not tonight.

We are currently needing to purchase a car within the next two days and have been keeping busy looking at real estate as well. Although it is almost painful for me to not go - I will have to go supervise and go give input on our next vehicle. ;-)

We will go tracking tomorrow at 5:30 am to make up for our night off....

Dieter and Nora hanging out with their "fur cousins" - "Oscar" and "Ferguson" the Dachshunds @ my inlaws backyard.