Soggy training day

So training yesterday at Dutch East was fun, if soggy. Although this part of Virginia didn't get a ton of rain on Friday, it got enough to keep the ground soaking wet and muddy.

Geoffrey (spelling?) came with his two bouviers: Gaucho and Tulipan. Gaucho's focus and heeling are really great - he only has eyes for Geoffrey. He must also have great food drive; Geoffrey had gloves, for good reason; Gaucho was nailing the hot dog! The two of them are working on their BH routine right now. I didn't make it in time to see the puppy's (Tulipan's) obedience, but she is definitely getting the hang of the bitework.

Michelle also came with her puppy Xena, who all of a sudden starts to love the bitework. She went crazy for the burlap, jumping and biting and just overall enjoying herself.

I brought Tikki out for the obedience, but skipped bitework. The obedience left much to be desired, but that had a lot to do with me, since I was struggling to walk properly in the mud. overall, she is progressing. We did a little bit of dumbell work on the flat, and then jumped over the hurdle (with the boards set very low). Xen came out for his retrieve. He needed to repeat the flat (too slow) but the hurdle and a-frame were fast and correct. Overall, a good training day.

And we had a ton of fun with Carla after training was winding down. She is thinking of putting Gypsy in the conformation ring at NAWBA. Gypsy's a very good looking dog, but she is fundamentally a working bouvier, so the conformation doesn't come easy - Carla had a heck of a time trying to keep her still. Gypsy would spin every time Carla tried to touch her, and she had no intention of being stacked. And when Carla finally got the ball out for a reward, Gypsy really started to have fun. She has incredible ball drive, and she doesn't much like to out. So when she wasn't shaking Carla all over the field with the ball, she was bouncing off of Carla with her front paws trying to get her to play. The two of them made a very funny picture - Carla will have her hands full!

Starting up again!

It's been years since I updated this training blog, but since the 2010 bouvier Championships are coming up, hosted at Dutch East, I figured I would re-start the training blog too.

This weekend was a great training weekend. We only trained on Saturday, since it was raining on Sunday. (At least that's true for most of us!) It was like a mini-reunion, from the A-Team that used to train years ago, which is to say that the bouviers actually out-numbered the other breeds! Michelle and Brian came down from Pennsylvania, and Rod made the even longer trip from Michigan. Geoff Hire (I will have to check that spelling) came down from DC, and we had the local bouviers as well. I was out there with Tikki and Xen, Mike came out with Max, and Michelle came out with her puppy.

We are all excited for Rod - he just picked up his new puppy this weekend, Ecko. It's a repeat of the little that produced Kodacracker, which is Pennsynlvania-Michelle's young dog, from Bebee and Dre'. Kodacracker is the precocious puppy biting onthe sleeve in the picture.

So it was really fun getting everybody together. Training went well - all the dogs looked good in obedience and protection, with a really great catch by Mike for Rod's Uno on the courage test. I would have to say that was probably the bite of the day; Uno came fast and hard, and just launched into the sleeve. After training, we sat around in the clubhouse and heard a few of the old stories. Rod told about when he bought his Karl in Michigan, and was told explicitly not to let go of the leash for the first few weeks. You can guess what came next.

Canadian Championships and Brian Currey / Ali!

Ok, so as I was finishing my last post, I remembered that I wanted to post something about the upcoming Canadian Championships. One of our own, the working team of Brian Currey and bouvier Ali Shaba will be competing in Toronto in the first weekend of August. They won their regionals (yay!) and I can't wait to see them compete.

I could have ended the last post with this, but I wanted to dedicate a small post instead... So Carla and I will be there, and I hope that we see many other bouvier supporters as well. It should be a great trial!

Last week's training

So,, for the second week in a row, the club had a real treat last weekend - a visitor! And not just any visitor - a bouvier visitor! Thomas Vogt came down from New Jersey with his trainer Steve and the dogs. Tom brought Cosmo, a nice male from Linda Prisco's lines. It's always fun seeing new folks in the bouvier world who are interested in working their dogs!

Overall, training went really well. Carla brought out a bunch of dogs to show Tom, from Gypsy to Yankee and Doodle, to Tchaikovsky. Ray Snipes, Tchai's personal decoy, is leaving soon, and Tchai's getting older, so that bitework session probably marked his official retirement. Which is sad, because Tchai is one of the greats of my own generation. I always tell Carla and Fred that my favorite litter from their lines was the Q (Quicksilver/Que/Macho) litter, and the T litter (Tchai/Tommy) was a pretty close second-favorite. Tchai's real exercise was always the attack on handler, out of the blind, the one that was taken out of the SchH program years ago. Ray, who is a great decoy, is pretty much thrown when Tchai hits. On the courage test, Tchai starts out strong but then builds in speed, as a freight train. He has as much heart as any dog I've ever seen. So for me, he was the highlight of the weekend.

The rest of the dogs were also good. I'm starting to figure out the new camera (actually, Steve is figuring it out for me!) and am enjoying documenting our bouviers' progress.

Uzzi and Xen also did well this weekend. They did good work, which is harder as the weather gets warmer. (For me as well as them!) Fortunately, it's looking like a comfortable weekend coming up.

I'm also very excited about the new training that we'll be working on with my Xen. This weekend, we did some tough tracking with Xen at the local elementary school. And Carla has agreed to travel with me to other fields for training. We are looking at a possible trip to DC for their practice trial in August, which will be amazing!

Pictures pictures pictures

Ok, so I finally broke down and got a new camera. I was getting tired of the mostly-blurry photos of shots that I didn't ask for! Not that I'm really complaining - my little point-and-click camera had great optical zoom and gave me some really nice pictures. And it's lasted me 5 years or so, which is excellent for any digital camera., let alone an inexpensive point-and-click.

Anyway, so I'm going crazy with this camera, getting too many pictures. Which means I pay for it later, because then I have to process all those pictures. Even after deleting the ones that were no good, I had over 200 today alone. Which took me a few hours to work on. So I'm going to have to figure out how to balance this - how do I get the max value out of my picture-taking without taking up my whole weekend on this! :) That, and I have to actually learn how to use the darn camera.

So the bouviers worked well today. Xen's tracking was especially good. I got to the training field late, but Fred had laid my track on time. So that meant that the track was two hours old, much longer than it needed to be. But Xen ran an excellent track - all nice corners and he only had a couple of problems. He really didn't want to down on the first article - not sure why. It was a large dowel-like article. So we worked on that a little bit. Then he had problems on the very last leg, after the corner - a little casting - but he did finish the track and find the article.

The obedience was also good. Today, like yesterday, was hot, so we just did the retrieve with Uzzi, which went well. Xen's obedience was also good. I think his flat retrieve could be a little faster, but the jump and climb were great. One of the things I am going to try to concentrate on from here on out is overcoming my own shortcomings. I need to put the July heat aside and bring his enthusiasm up. One example is that I need to be more energized between the flat retrieve and the jump, to improve Xen's heeling. I also need to be more enthusiastic and work more with play, since I want this dog to be strong and confident for the next few years.

Protection for both dogs was also good. Uzzi was just Uzzi - all heart. Xen's bites were good, his drive strong.

Carla and Fred brought out a few of their bouviers for protection too. It's possible she brought some out for obedience, but since I arrived late, I missed most of the obedience routines. But for protection, we got to see Tommy, Yankee, Doodle, Toro, Gypsy, Dre, and the new puppy Billy Bob. Billy is a really nice puppy - good looking and great drive. The rest of the bouviers also did good work. Probably my favorite routine was Tommy, who is retired (not that you could tell her that!) She is working to help train Steve in the protection work. In fact, after this one dog, I'm pretty sure Steve was completely spent. (Of course, that was after like 7 escapes and a few courage tests.) Tommy's a heavy strong female that likes to fight the decoy, so she's one of the hardest dogs to work at Dutch East.

Other than that, Toro also did very nice work today. He's a very serious dog, a brother of Xen, so he's fun to watch. Toro has a bark that comes from deep in his chest, and he's a lot like his father Macho. He's also very good looking - very solid structure.

This week - getting caught up!

So I'm doing two blogs one after another, so this one will be shorter....

So there weren't too many bouviers at training today. I brought my two out, and Steve brought his little Sasha out too.

Tracking started out well for Xen. He took all of his corners perfectly, and the legs were all good until the last one after the left corner. I'm not sure what happened on that last leg, but considering how miserably hot it was today, I consider it a success that he did so well overall! Uzzi's tracking wasn't nearly as successful. Really, she wasn't tracking period. She's very clever, so she keeps her nose down - very good actress that Uzzi. Tracking has never been her strength and the heat just makes it worse so I think I'm going to put that training on hold for a few weeks. I just ask too much of the dogs sometimes and when they don't live up to it, then it can be very frustrating for me. So leaving Uzzi's tracking alone will let me concentrate more successfully on Xen.

Xen's obedience was great. We are trying to speed up the recall so Carla is now holding him (like we do the puppies) as I run away calling his name. It's like night and day it's working so well. He comes much faster and with more enthusiasm. Even using the ball doesn't work that well.
Other than that, the exercises were fast and the retrieves solid.

With Uzzi, we didn't do the entire obedience routine, just the retrieves. The first time she did the flat, it was slow, but when we repeated that she was fast enough. The jump and climb were OK except that she touched the jump coming back.

Protection for both Xen and Uzzi was super. We have a new decoy on the field, Steve, who is doing a great job. Both dogs were unphased by the new face. Uzzi was even more fired up than usual - she's such a small dog with so much heart that I doubt there is much room left over in the rest of her for anything else! As Fred said, I never ever have to worry about putting her on a new decoy - she'll do the work.

Steve, the decoy, also brought out his puppy Sasha for obedience and protection. He hasn't done much work with her, so up until now she hasn't been biting at all. But today was a breakthrough day - Fred finally got Sasha to take a bite on the burlap, and she carried it off the field. Her obedience was also excellent.

Ok, so let me start with last week – what fun. I should have written before now but the week has been crazy (it always is) and in general, if I don’t find time during a weekend to update the blog, then it’ll be another week before I do.

Anyway, boy last week was fun. Alan Fielding (and Eve) drove down from Canada to train with us. He Kaos with him, who happens to be a super dog. Kaos is out of Uma and Egon, and he has a ton of drive. Ray remarked that Kaos reminded him of Quicksilver, which at our club is basically saying “that’s one awesome dog.” So Alan came down to work on some issues, but as it so often is with such things, the issues never materialized at Dutch East. So instead of struggling with Kaos, Alan just had a great week of training. The dog worked great – he’s basically ready for his BH. Nice heeling, solid exercises, no problem with the group or the temperament test.

The protection work was also excellent. Kaos has a lot of drive, so he made a lot of progress. He started the weekend on a handlebar and was working on a sleeve and in the blind at least by the 4^th, which was the last session I saw.

So it was great to meet Alan in person, and to see his bouvier. It’s nice to watch the puppies grow out, see how they develop. Kaos is out of Uma, and Uzzi is a litter-sister from Uma, so that makes it even more fun.

So far, what I see out of Uma are really nice puppies. (Though, aren’t they all!?) There’s Kaos, and then two from the last litter, Samson (Ron’s dog) and Sasha (Steve’s dog). Those are also nice puppies. Sasha is the spitting image of Uzzi, in the face. I think Sasha will grow out to be bigger, but the similarity in the eyes and muzzle is remarkable. If you look at her pictures, you’ll find a few closeups where you can see the resemblance.

Anyway, so the training really went well for all the bouviers. Uzzi and Xen also did well. Xen did not track well on Saturday, but made it up on Sunday and then the 4^th. The heat is starting to pick up here, so the dogs are feeling it. I think they’ll start to get used to it over the next few weeks, so it won’t be such a drain on them. (Now me, on the other hand – I’m a different story. I never get used to the heat.)