Totally gone. At 10:00 there was a guide dog meeting -- evaluations for the older puppies. I went mostly to return the club crate and puppy raising manual, since I am D-O-N-E done with raising guide dog puppies. This is because I'm tired of Labs, and Labs are all that Guide Dogs has available. I am so happy to have a house full of nothing but shepherds (both Aussie and German varieties). I saw Citrus, who I am co-raising in name only as she has not actually been at my house since October -- luckily her co-raisers don't mind having her -- and she could care less about seeing me. She was mildly interested, but not wildly excited like she used to be. I could also care less about seeing her, and didn't even pet her or say hi or anything. The other dogs being evaluated were Kodiak, who just looks like such an all-around nice dog he could almost make me like Labs, and Margo, who was having some issues with noise reactions and doorways. Rick, the evaluator from Guide Dogs, said Margo was questionable. From the little I saw of her, I agree with him. At best she is quirky -- I mean, if she's never been hit with a door, there's no reason for her to be so bothered by them unless she has some odd personal space issue, which will probably show up in other places too. Then there was also Dino, who is not one of the older puppies -- he's only 8 months -- but is a big, dumb, strong, hormonal, unneutered male with a whopping dog distraction who is way too strong for his petite female raisers. Oh, how I would love to get that dog in my house just for a week and show him the way things work, but of course I am too busy with the puppy to do that. I like the other people in the guide dog puppy raising group and will miss them when I'm out of the group, but I did get permission from Debbie to bring Zsiga to some meetings for socialization purposes once he's had all his shots.
After the guide dog meeting, I had to go to Rally class early and help set up the course because Kit, the instructor, was out of town and he asked me to help one of the other instructors with set-up. I said yes even though I worried that by doing so I was setting a precedent for being available to help with classes on Sundays when I definitely am not. Sunday is usually my long ride day, and will be again once I am fully recovered. (If that ever happens.) I thought running a rally course was confusing -- set-up was even harder. Luckily the instructor actually planned the layout, and all I had to do was be able to read the course map enough to know which signs to clip to which posts. We had to lay out a novice course (17 stations) and an advanced course (11 stations). After all that work, only 4 people showed up to class, including me.
Hilda did a nice job in class. Her right finish is looking pretty good. With her sitting in front position, if I gesture with my right hand around behind my back and say "Finish", she pretty much will. This is a lot of improvement considering I quit working with her on about Tuesday of last week. Her left finish, on the other hand, needs lots of work. If I do any work with her this week, it will be on the left finish. The other thing I focused on with her was keeping her in tight heel position when making turns. I did this by baiting my hand and luring her to whip her nose around very quickly when I made a turn, especially a right turn. If she was fast enough, she got the treat. She improved quite a bit on this, too. I'm not planning to show her in Rally -- too expensive, for one thing -- but I do like that she's getting better on the exercises.
Then came Sunny's class. Wow, this real obedience stuff is nowhere near as much fun as Rally, and Pat, the instructor, is nowhere near as nice as Kit. She has her way of doing things and that's how we're going to do them. On the one hand, I really appreciate her demand that we be precise, for example, with Heel position. There is only ONE correct Heel position, and it is with the dog's shoulder behind the seam of the handler's left pants leg. Nothing else is acceptable. But what I don't like is her lack of openness to other methods of training. For example, I'm doing Shirley Chong's retrieve at home with Sunny. (And we happen to be stuck on one step, but that's beside the point.) Pat wanted us to bring our dumbbells to class, so I did. But I didn't like that she wanted me to move much faster with Sunny than my training program allowed. I made the mistake of following her instructions anyway. Sunny was confused and I think a little set back. I informed Pat that from now on I would not be bringing the dumbbell to class and would be training it at home. She told me, "It's not going to do you much good in competition if he can only retrieve the dumbbell at home." Well, yes, I know that; my plan is to TEACH the retrieve at home and then PROOF it in other places. Really, that's not that unclear of a concept. Oh well; she's an old-school trainer with lots of titles earned the old-school way so I do understand where she comes from. I just hope I'm never as closed-minded as she is.
There are only three other people in my class. There is a quiet older guy with a nice Irish setter. (I actually think he was in my puppy class with Sunny three years ago.) He got scolded today for using the clicker too much. (Of course he did.) There's an older woman named Hilde with a really, really nice Akita who is her service dog. I don't know what her disability is, but she walks with a cane and with an obvious limp. Her dog is young and huge and strong and I am impressed that she handles him as well as she does. I'm pretty sure she has been a dog trainer for a long time based on her quiet control of her dog. Then there is the guy with the other Aussie. This guy is also older and is also training his Aussie as a service dog. The first time I met him, I said, "Nice dog" even though I didn't really think it was. His Aussie is a blue merle and is fat and has a very, very dull expression on his too-wide face. "Fat" and "dull" are two adjectives that should never, ever be applied to Aussies. I lost some respect for this guy when he said his Aussie was of his own breeding. Yikes, I don't think I would admit that. I lost more respect for him when I watched his Aussie "work". It does "Heel" and "Stay" nicely because those commands don't take any energy. Everything else is just painful to watch. The dog doesn't appear to know "Down" at all, and when the instructor makes comments about that, the guy makes excuses. According to him, his dog has confidence issues. According to me, his dog is just untrained.
Then, today, there was the loose pit bull. Someone's young pit bull got loose and went tearing around the obedience field. The dog wasn't aggressive, just playful. Hilde's Akita is a little dog reactive so started some jumping around and growling and barking. Lots of people tried to chase the pit bull, which of course just made it more excited. I didn't say anything to it, just started tossing bits of hot dog at it. It stopped to eat the hot dogs calmly and I caught it, making myself a hero (except that no one thanked me for it, but oh well). The guy with the Aussie began lecturing the pit bull's owners and telling them that his dog was a great working dog and they had no right to let their dog run around like that and cause his dog to get worried. He even said that he would be really upset if his working dog was ruined. The owner of the pit bull got mad and stormed off after saying, "I'm sorry I ruined your life; I hope I never see you again!" The rest of us in class were tactfully silent because, in my opinion, the guy with the Aussie was the asshole here. Yes, the pit bull's owner was an idiot for letting her dog get free. But, in her defense, she was a novice at this and this is her first attempt at dog training. This guy did not really do anything for the reputation of the sport of obedience training. (Then, when his dog failed several exercises in a row, he blamed it on stress caused by the running pit bull, even though his dog had failed the exact same exercises before the pit bull's owner ever showed up.)
Sunny rocked his class today. Pat told me he was only following my hand because he thought I had bait in it. She made me hold my left hand with fingers open pressed against my rib cage. She confidently predicted that Sunny would not heel when he knew I didn't have food in my hand. She was wrong; he heeled beautifully. He performed a Stand for exam beautifully too, which was amazing because he has never, ever done one in practice. He dropped on recall exactly where she told me to drop him. He did not do a stellar Stay -- Pat made us stand behind our dogs, and he kept his head swiveled backwards to keep an eye on me the whole time, which threw off his body position -- but at least he did not get up. I am so proud of him for his work ethic -- it's amazing!
I didn't do anything with Zsiga today except clean his ears. They are always dirty and I think he might have a little infection. I am trying very hard to get him to enjoy having his ears handled. He's all right with me doing it, but completely freaked out when getting his temperature taken in his ear at the Humane Society yesterday. I need to handle his feet more too, and since he doesn't like it I should be doing it with a spoonful of peanut butter in one hand... but I can't do everything, right?
Given the tragic events that happened in Tucson this weekend, it is a great escape to just be able to focus on dogs, who don't know or care anything about politics or violence.
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