Terrible Twos

We are having fun at the level we’re at these days, which is a nice adjustment of expectations. Bryn is working on flanking and commitment, Asher is looking at collection and calming his shit down – and we’ll get better, step by step. In herding Asher is working on his lifts, small flanks and holding lines (and confidence, always confidence!). Bryn is working on adding verbals and flanks, inside flanks and adding distance and confidence with her drives. I’d like to look at some penning with her too. Navarre is still absolutely loving running with Martine in agility, and we’re looking at sending him off with her to some trials. Haku is being adorable and perfect, of course.

Did enter some foundation agility stuff with Bryn at a seminar to work on flanking, and Asher in some mid-level stuff to just focus on jumping and collection. Someday we’ll be able to look at fancier stuff, but not yet. I am trying hard to find more time to work with the dogs, but it’s still not as much as I’d like. So we have fun at the level we’re at, with the time we have available – and that feels good.

Bryn earned some toy play with her agility this week. We have been sticking totally to using food and lots of very small exercises, putting things together only if the pieces looked really solid. I had been pleased with what she was doing so she graduated to a toy going through a sequence she had already trained and she kept it together. I’m having to be VERY proactive and crystal clear with my cues and handling, but if that happens, she’s doing some really nice work. I do think this was exactly what she needed and we are both really enjoying it as there is no arguing. Well, not much. If she gets stuck we take a break and it seems she’s able to come back to it and leave the issues she was having (usually lack of commitment). She has a much clearer head and just seems to be working together instead off in her own little world. Her stay is so much more solid, her teeter is cleaning up too. All her international skills are also really improving. I’m retraining myself to stop chanting at her, which seems to confuse her – so instead of ‘tunneltunneltunnel’ (which Silvia Trkman drilled into me back in the day!), it’s just “tunnel”. And trying hard not to use her name unless it’s really necessary. Feeling good about our current approach.

Asher is Asher, I can’t say I see a real clear cut case for improvement. We work on things, he seems to get it, then it’s like we never worked on it. He is doing better coming in for a hand touch for collection, but god forbid I don’t ask for that, he’s jumping into the stratosphere. He is doing better with his backsides, knock on wood. Running him is getting easier. He is my dog of choice to use as a demo dog in classes, as he is so good at being patient compared to the other dogs. He is happy to just chill while I explain, jump in for a demo and then back to chilling. Doesn’t care if other dogs come up to him, holds his stay and doesn’t get bored or wander off or attempt to constantly throw behaviors for attention (a-hem, Navarre). He’s such a good egg, and I adore him. And he’s officially FOUR – let the growing up begin!

Took the dogs to the beach to visit the folks, it had been a while, it was so nice to see them enjoy it so much – and Haku especially. In general around the property or while hiking Haku doesn’t actually run around much these days, but, boy did he enjoy running on the beach! He basically carried the ball everywhere, letting the other dogs chase him. It was so cute to see! He definitely needed his galiprant at night, but he popped up ready to go in the morning. There is a lot of picking Haku up these days, such as up onto the bed at night, but he doesn’t mind. God I love that dog, and I’m so glad we had such nice weather and could enjoy the beach again. The other dogs did too, of course – beaches are made for dogs! Asher especially, good lord, that dog can run. Good times.

Bryn got demoted in herding, much like in agility. It’s official, she’s in her terrible twos. Admittedly we don’t have much time to practice, but we went up and took a lesson with Ron and it was like she couldn’t do ANYTHING – and this was in the small ‘baby pasture’, there was no reason for it other than she very much doing her own thing, no downs, rushing, slicing, not listening at all. We devolved into one giant argument and I fired her. Brought her back out again with a flag and a hardcore attitude right from the start when she bolted through the gate – and we got some of our groove back by just focusing on the basics. So, yes, Bryn is back to basics in both herding and agility, and that’s fine. She really isn’t a bad dog, she just needs things to be clear and consistent. We are also supposed to work on her making better decisions about when there is a strong draw, and doing some silent walkabouts with an open gate and for to figure out the best place to be. Which she SHOULD be good at, but kept doing stupid things.

Asher, on the other hand, had a good lesson. We did our normal work on lifts and he made remarkably good decisions throughout. He will even sometimes hold his own drive lines (not all the time!). Once again, he’s feeling easier – our work is paying off. What I was most happy with was our work with shedding. I had attempted to work on shedding on my own at Maddy’s, which should have been easy as I was working with the big group and the two different types of sheep are so easy to split. But we couldn’t do it at all, and I was flummoxed as I felt we had been reasonably proficient at this at one point. But apparently it wasn’t just me, these sheep are wily, and just immediately closing up behind the person. So we were working on the fence, and Asher was doing amazing standing up to the sheep and looking so confident, even when they were stomping at him. He is very good at coming in through the sheep with very small gaps, but he is still confused which sheep I want, he always wants to follow the front and not the rear. And he’s still highly skeptical of holding the shedded sheep off the others. He will do it, but you can tell he’s just humoring me and thinks I’m stupid and is patiently waiting to put them back together like they should be. He did a little bit of really holding them off the other group really nicely (so proud of him!), but mostly would let them go back and try to bring me all of them. He’s a good boy, and just perfect for me.

No plans in herding at the moment, I’ll work on getting Bryn more solid before thinking about entering anything. Maybe this Fall? Who knows, we’re on the slow and steady route, we’ll get there in our own time.

Bryn’s potential borderborderpap litter took a very scary turn this week, which kind of took the wind out of my sails for breeding in general. We had been waiting to get back the results from the EOAD testing, as the dog I was interested in was already tested CEA clear through Embark before his first litter, so this was the final hurdle. Well, until the results came back through Optimal Selection as CEA CARRIER! So, yeah, Embark apparently didn’t correctly identify him as a CEA carrier back when he originally was tested – and he had been bred to a CEA carrier as he was supposed to be clear! I had never heard of this before, and it’s just terrifying – this should be the EASY part of breeding, how on earth does this happen? Now if I do breed I want to get multiple DNA tests, just to be on the safe side (Bryn has already been tested through both Embark and Wisdom Panel).

So, yeah, back to the drawing board for potential sires for Bryn next year. I have some other leads, but not nearly as ‘known’ as this breeding would have been. I’m less confident that it will happen now, we shall see. Meanwhile, Bryn is still not in season, she is due this month (as she’s been doing every 7 months), but nothing so far. It is one of the reasons I’m not sure why everyone is so into doing all these new ISC trials, like we need another venue that you can’t run your intact girls in. I also think AKC is just fine the way it is, and 95% of the dogs in AKC are not looking for ISC – why does AKC need to be involved at all? Seems like starting a new venue with much less trial restrictions would be so much easier.

As expected, we didn’t get a spring this year, we have continued cold, rainy and windy – and next week it’s supposed to be 80. I can’t even comprehend the concept of ‘hot’ right now, as it has been essentially 6 months of winter, which is so not Oregon. I imagine I’m going to be just as unhappy with 80 degrees as I have been with the never ending winter. What happened to my moderate weather? I just want 55-65, is that so much to ask? Apparently so. Still, things are suddenly blooming and spring did appear to sneak in, even with the cold weather. Bring on the summer, I suppose.