Flyball Practice and New Dog

Well, we had practice this week. It seemed to go reasonably well. Some of the puppies and newer dogs made some progress. There is a little red and white aussie that is so desperate to please her owner she pretty much can't do anything but appeasement behaviours. I think her confidence will really improve once she understands what he wants of her, and learns the concept of learning. It would be fun to try shaping with her, just to help draw her out and have her offer behaviours. It's painful and frustrating to hear him call her and see her run back to her crate and hide. She's a rescue, and I would kind of like to do painful things to whoever had her before.

Never never never call a dog to you to scold it. I don't know for certain, of course, that is what the previous owner did, but I am really suspicious that it is. It sets up an unfortunate dynamic, because, of course, when the current owner calls her, and she hesitates or starts to slink, he can't help being frustrated and even if you try to hide that frustration, a lot of dogs will pick up on your frustration and become even more distressed. She's doing better, though. He was taking her over jumps on leash, and she went from being unable to take her eyes off him enough to make it over the jump and submissively flattening herself to the ground to looking forward and going over the jumps and then sitting in anticipation of praise.

There was another new dog, named "Nacho" that I think will have a lot of fun. He did very well playing with the other dogs. He's a cute little yellow mixed breed dog that seems like he has a terrier body and and a malanois head. I'm prejudiced towards him because Z-dog and he were playing together and it was cute. It's nice to have dogs that play something other than "chase me" games.

I was kind of bad though and didn't really work my dogs. Z-dog did run in a line up being passed both ways and was fine. He still is very leery of Captain, but, he ran after him in line up fine. I should have whined and insisted on using props when my dogs ran, but I didn't. So, even though their boxturns were good during boxwork with the props, they degenerated during actual runs. It's probably the worst thing I could do in their training at this point, and I am frustrated with myself about it.

Weasel consistently dunked her frisbee in the water bowl after every run. Z-dog still overleaps the timer beam so we can't get a time on him, the blasted boinging bunny rabbit. We still need a practice space and I still want an RV.

Life goes on.

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