Eri - Dutch Shepherd

Some cute photos :)

2009-10-10T20:29:00.003+02:00

Some splendid photos taken by Marysia Pajzderska in Warsaw :). Hyena running wild :)

2009-10-08T10:14:00.001+02:00

Eri's runs from her first real competition - a bit messy, but the last one is really nice and we won that:

Finał PP Agility 2009 - Warszawa from wafelka on Vimeo.

How not to teach weaving? ;o)

2009-09-07T15:05:00.002+02:00

I've got some more photos from the seminar and the competition. She looks funny :).

Anyway, I really finished weaving with Eri - in a sense that she is doing full set of real weve poles, not the ones we used for training (we use channel method, but the poles can be also V-shaped).
I even started doing some entries from the jumps as well as "lazy ass weaving" (I sit on the grass, Eri does the weaving). I used to complain a lot that she is quite slow etc, but now I'm really happy with the final product. Eri really is the kind of dog that gets faster as she manages to understand the task.
Anyway. It is usually recommended not to progress too fast with channel method, that is to wait until the dog is really fluent at one stage before going to next one. Also, if the dog slows down considerably or begins making mistakes, it means we've progresed too much too soon.
Well, I wasn't completely following these directions this time. First of all, our training weaves are really stable, but it means that have lots of supporting elements which kinda get in the dog's way when the channel is open. I could see Eri didn't like it, so I wasn't bothering with narrowing the channel really gradually (it's true, I started with weaves like in January, but in the beginning a was doing 2 sessions per month, so if you think about numbers of sessions, there really weren't many). Secondly, when I got to the straight line and slightly slanted, V-shaped poles, I got stuck. Whenever I tried to put the poles straight even a bit, Eri started to slow down or dropped out of the weave poles, so I made them slanted again and it lasted for several sessions. Then I watched Susan Garrett's video on weave poles (she uses completely different method, but there are lots of useful tips anyway) and she said to move forward fast and if the dog is making mistakes, just let him figure that out - provided the dog has some experience in shaping which would allow him to keep on trying. So I thought, what the heck, let her do it. The first session on straight poles was disastrous, she made lots of mistakes, more than a good trainer would allow, but I could see she was still enthusiastic so I stuck to my plan. Second session was much better, like 50/50 rate of success, still not the best one, but I could see we were going in the right direction. Then we went for an agility trial in Wrocław (our zero class doesn't have weave poles yet), and I could practice on some other set of weaves, which were old and much narrower that present regulations allow. Eri loved them and started single-stepping them. Then I started with our normal, not training, weave poles set and she was brillinat. Not only she has excellent ratio of success (about 90-95%, which is really good, considering that I'm starting to challenge her with entries a bit), but she also started single-stepping them!

Good girl :).

Now, you've got to really know your dog in order to know when and how much to challenge it. With some other dogs, I wouldn't recommend doing what I did with Eri, that is allowing such a big percentage of failures even for one session. But I'm happy it worked with her. And I really like her weaves.

Eri the agility dog

2009-09-01T21:57:00.002+02:00

Last weekend I could run her at a competition as a white dog. I tried agility runs as well, not only the jumping, she missed the dogwalk the first time, but in next run it was okay. She's getting faster definately .

On Monday we were at the agility seminar with Magda Ziółkowska. She really made us work hard and I'm pretty proud of my little Eri, who did quite advanced combinations well and also was such a good girl, just staying in a shadow in a down-stay even though the other dogs ran around :). Instead of putting her in a sit-stay on a start line I started some tuggy games with her at the start line and then we ran - it really helped her develop speed and motivation.

I can tell she'll be a star one day!

Eri's weave poles

2009-08-25T21:37:00.002+02:00

We've finally reached a closed tunnel:

Still lots to do, she does LOTS of mistakes - you can't see that on the movie, she tried really hard for the camera. The odd thing is that she makes all kinds of mistakes, sometimes popping after the 10th pole, sometimes missing like the 6th pole in a row and then continuining with weaving etc. Her entries are quite decent though.

Anyway - my policy not to leave her at the start line seems to be working and I think she is a bit faster, she also doesn't knock many bars down, so the work made on jumping seems to be paying off.

I also tried to tape her A-frame but it was disastrous, I really must put some serious work into it, she just meets the contact but really high, I'm afraid she would start jumping when she gets more excited (which I hope she will eventually). I must go back to a lower A-frame it seems.

Jumping "0" - Eri in agility trial in Legnica

2009-08-10T22:46:00.002+02:00

For those of you who don't know that - "0" is our class for beginners dogs, it doesn't contain weave poles, see-saw and tyre and the courses are usually pretty easy. As I wrote before, Eri ran as a white dog - and here's a video of her run:

Despite the fact that she missed the last obstacle, I'm quite happy with that run - she is not the fastest dog in the world, but definately getting better :).

Photos from the competition

2009-08-06T22:21:00.006+02:00

Isn't she a beauty?

Though she is undergoing second phase of adolescence or whatever. She got terribly scared of an inflatable penguin the other day. Today she was retrieving a ball from a river and she saw something else floating on the water, so she swam to examine it. That's fine, but she GOT SCARED of that (from my perspective it looked just like a stick...) IN THE WATER! You should have seen it, she started splashing the water histerically, trying to get away from that scary stick, she forgot the ball whatsoever. Fortunately, when she swam back to the bank, I told her to go into the water again and bring the ball, and she did, even though she stick was still nearby :).

I've never thought I would have Eri and Brava going through that stupid phase together - Brava for the first time, Eri for second...

Eri - agility

2009-08-02T22:35:00.002+02:00

I've made a little video of Eri doing agility: first part of the clip is made during agility camp with Nigel Staines - you can see Eri doing a short sequence of jumps and then dogwalk, that was new to her. Last part is weave poles - notice the entries :).

This weekend we were on the competition and I ran Eri as a white dog in jumping "zero" - the courses were pretty pleasant and fluent. Actually, I was really happy with her. On the first day and first jumping she was pretty slow, but still faster than some other dogs and had a clean run. Second run - she went off course into the tunnel and I was really happy for it, because she was faster and she showed some initiative, instead of being worried about going wrong :o). On the second day of competition with the first jumping she escaped from the start, because see saw me leaving the ball outside the ring - I called her back and ran without putting her in a formal sit - boy, she was pretty fast! She missed the last obstacle, but I didn't want to call her back and praised her anyway, as I was really satisfied with that run. I asked somebody to video it, so I hope I would be able to show it to you. Next run I put her in a formal sit-stay and she was not that fast - so I think we would start without putting her in a sit for some time, until I figure out some way of teaching her to explode from a sit - stay with all the speed she can master. But most of all, I'm really happy, cause she worked around all those distractions, didn't knock a single bar down and I'm sure she will be ready for real competition in October :D.

Back from vacation

2009-07-28T22:49:00.002+02:00

We're back from 2 week vacation and as usually, it is difficult to adjust to a normal life again. Especially than we're renovating our home a bit and the mess is just horrible.

Anyway. Eri was with us, of course. She ran in the forest, swam in the river, chased the water from a hose (we've got another maniac apart from Sunday... the pyrsheps hide, whenever they see the hose), climbed Łysa Góra with us. My grandma said it was the only good dog of our four :), not like to furry ones.

And then we went to an agility camp with Nigel Staines, who is great. Eri had the chance to test her contacts on strange dogwalk (which she did really well). I'm really happy that such an excellent and wise trainer could have a look on her (even though I mainly trained with Vigo), he told me some things how to work with her, like not to do all the work, but allow her to seek obstacles, think, send to obstacles and work independently.

A couple of photos:

Agility competition in Kozłów

2009-07-06T23:50:00.005+02:00

Yep, we're still alive, it's just difficult to have two separate blogs. Well, four, actually, considering that both of them are in Polish AND English.

Anyway, Eri is still alive too. She is 1 y. o. already! Time flies. I took her with me to an agility competition to remind her of the atmosphere and also because I knew I would be able to train with her a bit. She did another dogwalk for the first time in her life and did quite well:

For Eri it was quite a difficult experience, it seems. Too many dogs, too many people, too hot etc. Also, I'm afraid she is going into phantom pregnancy and her reaction to it is similar's to Sunday's in her youth ("Don't bother me with any WORK, I'm having imaginary pups, let me just sniff the flowers" etc). All in all, I'm quite satisfied with her contacts, but not so much with everything else - like speed, motivation etc. Still, she's an adorable dog, very easy to live with, people and dog-friendly, a bit too soft for my taste, but really cute, all in all.

National Dog Show of Herding Dogs

2009-06-06T20:38:00.002+02:00

Eri had her not very succesful show debut today. Not successful because of the tooth she knocked out - the judge said I should have brought rtg picture and certificate from the veteri narian that the tooth was really there. Unfortunately after he noticed the missing tooth, I had the impession that he was not very interested in her any more. He also admitted that he judged 1st FCI grup for the second time in his life (lucky him, second time and have Dutch shepherds and pyrenean shepherds in his ring!). The description is as follows:

"Bitch of good proportions, nice typical head, good bite, lacking p4 in lower jaw, long, well set neck, perfect upper and lower line, perfect angulation".

I'm not sure if I'm going to x-ray her just to prove she did have the tooth, perhaps I'll do that when I x-ray her hips and elbows.
We've met another Dutchie! It was BERYLL Tasmansky Tygr, very nice bitch, even more crazy and friendly than Eri, so I don't have much hope that Eri would settle down.

And here are the photos of Eri from Berushka's owner, Magdalena Bracka:

Eri showing her missing tooth:

Agility training

2009-06-04T23:25:00.002+02:00

Videos from today's training. She actually didn't have a very good day, she can get much higher percentage of correct dogwalks - maybe that was because I added a hurdle straight before the dogwalk. I sometimes got scared when I think of all the work ahead: adding sequences, different approach angles, working on the up contact - she does them, but very high etc.

And here's some simple and fun exercise just for fun and working ahead of me. Eri is very good girl, who watches me closely and turns very well. She can do even difficult sequences because of that, but in the same time she is not as fast as she could be, so I decided to do some simple things for a while to let her gain some confidence and speed:

Debut

2009-06-02T22:29:00.002+02:00

Yesterday Eri for the first time took part in training and agility demo for our club Extreme Dog. I'm really proud of her, it was really first time that I tested her among such distractions and she did really well. At the beginning Eri together with Brava and older, very experienced colleagues Canelle and Lusia were petted by the children, while we explained how to greet with a strange dog. I was really proud, because Eri is usually quite enthusiastic in her greeting and yet she sat calmly and behaved herself. Then we ran a little agility course, very simple one so it was perfect for beginners, like Eri. We finished with some frisbee - Eri showed how to begin with rollers and such, and then Bobinka (mallinois from our club) rocked, showing some crazy jumps and lots of drive. All in all, we were very successful.
Today I wanted to tape some of our training, but the batteries went dead :(. Still, I want to work on speed a little bit, so I just put a very simple course with three hurdles and a tunnel, Eri loved that. I think we were working a bit too much on difficult stuff, so now time to mix some more fun in our training.

11 months old

2009-05-30T12:29:00.002+02:00

Eri is preparing for her first dog show - I don't expect much though, I must work on her upper line and movement and will start training her to trot nicely along the bicycle. Moreover, as she hasn't had an occasion to meet with many other dogs recently, she gets crazy when she sees them :o). So I don't know how it'll go, but I'll let you know.

I'm quite happy with her dogwalk though, she almost always gets it right from the first time on training on and starts to do it more and more consistently - so I'm full of hopes, really. She is really enthusiastic towards dogwalk too, I must work on her enthusiasm for the jumps for she doesn't seem to like them that much - I think it's time to work more on them with lots of reinforcement as to "build value" of those obstacles.

Real dogwalk

2009-05-13T16:28:00.002+02:00

So, I finally decided to try it on a real dogwalk. To be precise, Eri was already familiar with a dogwalk as an obstacle, I ran her a couple of times on it, using tunnel at the end to prevent jumping, but didn't do much of that as I was too much afraid of creating a contact problem. So today I started with a little backchaining, but couldn't backchain a whole dogwalk, as it cannot be lowered, Eri is afraid to turn on it and holding her by the collar causes her to pull in the other direction, so I considered it not safe and finally lumped a little and just let her run at her own speed.

It still requires lot of work - she sometimes just runs and doesn't think about the target, sometimes hits the target with one paw, sometimes purposefully hits it with two paws (that's the ideal) - I think it would get more consistent in time, if only I can be consistent in my criteria and rewarding. I also think that she will gather more speed when she becomes more confident. Still, I'm quite happy with the result so far.

Getting closer...

2009-05-12T20:26:00.002+02:00

I've decided to try one more thing before transferring the behaviour to a real dogwalk - I wanted to see how she handles more angle and more natural approach. But as you can see, you might say the behaviour is generalized pretty well, so time for final lap. I'm a bit stressed with that, because I have so many problems with Vigo's contacts that I know how important it is to teach something right from the beginning. But let's hope for the best, it certainly looks promising.

Apart from training contacts, we walk a lot, as weather is beautiful. I usually take Eri and Brava together - I don't know why, but Eri and Brava are okay, Sunday and Vigo together are okay, Sunday and Eri together means going hunting (Sunday for pheasants and Eri for Sunday I guess...) and Eri and Vigo together are a nightmare, they both behave terribly, Vigo gets aggressive towards other dogs when he's with her, she learns his most stupid behaviours. Taking them all four together is also a nightmare and total chaos, no possibility of training or ball throwing - the quarrel or then want one ball (someone's ball is always better than one's own) or steal balls from each other and lose them...

News

2009-05-09T21:58:00.002+02:00

As you can see, we're still having fun working on contacts, I would like to try it on real dogwalk soon. I guess it's no point working on the ramp for too long, it's a bit short for her and jumping on the ramp breaks her stride a bit, so I don't want to put in any higher.

Apart from than, I finally went to our kennel club and registered Eri and also entered her for the show - just for fun, I don't intend to breed her, but she seems quite pretty to me (well, all my dogs seem pretty to me, so it's time to check it with some professional...). The show is on 6th of June, so a have a month to teach her to stand, walk on this fancy little leash and show her teeth...
Yet, as I'm happy to announce, she seems to get over her adolescence period, so training might become easy again :o).

Weave poles

2009-05-05T20:39:00.000+02:00

And today some video with Eri's weave poles:

Eri and target (yep, we've got the camera!)

2009-05-04T20:01:00.005+02:00

I couldn't live without the camera, so got myself a new one. It's cheap and it's bit of crap, but actually records movies (though it took me 2 days to make it work... despite reading the manual).

So here's our target-contact training:

:D

2009-04-26T19:15:00.002+02:00

I start to like that "not mine & not for agility" dog more and more. She really works nicely - I would recommend everybody working on cik&cap (wrapping around the wing of the obstacle for tighter turns) right from the beginning. I don't have the impression that she is incredibly fast - but it's also hard for me to tell. There was a huge difference between Sunday and Vigo as far as speed is concerned and I can't see much difference with Eri, perhaps just because I'm faster (Vigo has trained me well) and also because she has just totally different style. She is less crazy (though I miss it sometimes), but she is very focused and turns nicely. She is able to do quite difficult sequences already, though I also work on straight lines with her for speed and fun. Also, as she is not the most confident dog in the world, I think she would get faster in time. I reward and praise her a lot, after just short sequences and sometimes even after we didn't manage to complete it, for I assume it's my fault (either handling or I just picked something too difficult).
As for contacts - unfortunately I've lost my camera which could take videos. I really like recording what I do for my information... Anyway, I can't document what we do. We did all the flat work like target- tunnel, tunnel-target, obstacle-target, obstacle-target- tunnel etc. I then put the target on a flat plant and suddenly it was a disaster. I think even though the plank was flat and narrow it somehow reminded Eri of A-frame, for she just sped ahead without even looking at the target, nevermind touching it... and being a very long-legged dog she can run over a 2,6 m plank touching it only once. So I got back to working on flat for several sessions and then put Eri perpendicular and close to the plank, so that she just jumped on the target without running the plank and got her rewards. I added distance and diminished the angle gradually, until I got her actually running the plank and jumping on the target. So what I have now is some kind of a mixture of Ali's method with Silvia's method - it's still an experiment, but hey, it was experiment from the beginning and it looks quite promissing. I much prefer to have her hit the contact with front paws, both for tighter turns and because I think it's easier for the judge to see it (I've seen dogs with perfect running contacts being misjudged because they were really fast and the judge didn't expect them to get the contact...). We'll live and see.

Training on 21.04.09

2009-04-22T19:51:00.002+02:00

I finally was able to take Eri for some training (she cut her paws recently, so she had a break). But it seems breaks are not bad for her, as I really like the way she works.
We begun with weave poles - someone put them much narrower than we used to work, but I though, what the heck and gave it a try. I had to put the last two poles slightly into V position, but apart from that, she really did well. I'm also very happy that I worked on the entrances from the beginning, it seems to be working really nice. I put one obstacle before weave poles and that was fine too.
Then we did parts of this course:

We did the sequence 11-14a, and then 11-14c - I finally tried our "right" command (we did lots of that on the flat) and Eri reacted really nicely, so the turn was pretty tight.
We also did 8-9-18-19 with front cross and 16-19. I'm really happy, she might not be the fastest dog ever, but she is very focused and I'm sure she will get faster as she gets more confidence. She finally starts to search for obstacles, going ahead and doesn't knock bars which I was afraid might be a problem. We did some work with Susan Salo's grids and it seems to work well.
The only thing we still have to work on are contacts - there's long way ahead of us still.

Apart from that Eri has fun with Brava - it's not bad to have two dogs of similar age after all, for they love to play together and even tug together. They're real fun to watch.

Eri swims... sort of

2009-04-11T19:30:00.002+02:00

Despite what you might think, dogs aren't born with an ability to swim:

At least swim pretty. Vigo used to do that too, but now he swims like a normal dogs, so I guess it's just a matter of practice.

Spring has come...

2009-04-06T22:37:00.002+02:00

In case you wondered if we're still alive - yes, we are, though we aren't doing much at the moment. Eri is still going through the adolescent phase, so it's not a good moment to demand too much of her. Therefore we just practice the old stuff, mainly recall and some basic obedience. Nevertheless I'm sure she will grow into a very fine dog in a couple of months.

As for Ali Roukas running contacts - I've encountered a problem. I've noticed that she does all the ground exercises using the bigger target designed for A-frame and I don't intend to use this method on A-frame. So I have only smaller target for dogwalk - and Eri generally hits it with one paw only. So I'm not sure what to do - either change criteria for one paw hit or get a bigger target...?

Almost spring

2009-03-12T19:10:00.005+01:00

Eri loves playing in the water though she is afraid of swimming yet. But I think when it gets really warm she would love swimming as much as she likes retrieving :)

Training 11.03.09

2009-03-11T18:19:00.003+01:00

Training raport:
- course - medium height, sequence 7-10 (with and without front cross before 10), 10-11-16-17
- weave poles (channel method, no weaving yet, poles ca. 28 apart) rear cross, front cross after the weave poles, practicing angled entries
- A-frame: 20 repetitions, 5 mistakes - the A-frame is not full height obviously, we regulate it with a chain and it's on its 8 link

Weekend in Czech Republic

2009-03-09T22:03:00.002+01:00

This weekend we spent in Czech Republic on agility competitions. Sunday was winning, Vigo was collecting disqualifications and Eri was getting socialization. We met horses, chicken - she reacted well, obeyed when told to heel and just sat and watched them passing by. I also had a chance to run her through some agility tunnels, she played with some dogs, although she freaked out in a hall, where there were many of them and terrible noise. Luckily when I got her ball out she forgot all about it and played with me. Then she even played with a mallinois and...

Before the competition started, I saw a lady with a Dutchie and my first thought was "Eri? What is she doing here? I left her in the crate upstairs!". But when I came closer it turned out it was a male Dutchie and I was glad that I would be able to see one running in agility. Later on I found the owner and talked to her and it turned out that the dog was Eri's brother ENRIQUE DE FUENTES Wapini von Folge! The dog was terrific, really friendly, obedient and well-balanced, Eri seemed like a bundle of energy compared to him and she is the calmest of our dogs... oh, well. It was fun. The dog was much bigger and masculine, had a huge head, but all in all I liked him a lot, he just loved everybody :).

Eri lost her tooth...

2009-03-02T20:51:00.002+01:00

I have no idea how she did it. I opened her mouth today and saw a place where the 4PM has been, almost healed. As she sometimes licks her crate (which is left open all the time - she just sleeps in there) and bites it, I think it must have happened when she was doing this. Last week she had a little blood in her mouth, but I thought she just bit her tongue...
It seems that I'm just not meant to have a show dog, LOL.

The snow has melted

2009-02-28T21:34:00.004+01:00

Finally. As you might guess, we had lots of snow, so now we have lots of water. For Eri - no difference, the fun continues. Gee, I love having a dog that would pose for such photos as long as needed :o)

Beware of good puppies

2009-02-17T22:54:00.002+01:00

I kept praising Eri that she is such a good pup, not destroying anything, being calm and well-mannered etc. Well, it seems it was just until... She chewed my son's book. She ate her blankie. She tore a feather-stuffed duvet, sending feathers all over the room. She escaped under the fence once. She growls at Sunday and Vigo at her bowl, which is okay, I started feeding her in different corner, but she also started defending her bed from them and I don't like it, because I have little room and all the dogs beds are quite close to each other (and it would be difficult, if not downright impossible to arrange it differently...).

Hyena on the run...

2009-02-10T19:52:00.002+01:00

I went for an agility trial, unfortunately I had to leave hyena at home taken care by my mother in law. Somehow horrid hyena understood that she can do more than usually, so she slipped under the fence and ran and didn't want to come back . When she was finally caught she tore some pillow, sending millions of feathers floating in the air all over the room... well, just proves that she is a real dog, not an angel after all . Well, I'm back and all is back to normal.

Weave poles and A-frame

2009-02-08T21:51:00.003+01:00

I focused more on speed this time then on entries, but you can see some angled ones as well (well, if you can see anything on that video apart from black dot moving thru something blurry).

Last session was actually much better. My dogs are camera wise somehow and it's a good test for a behaviour to try to video it. Or ask my friend Leszek to watch, he has evil eye and behaviour that is not learnt thouroghly falls apart when he looks.

It must be love...

2009-01-30T23:27:00.002+01:00

Our neighbours across the street have a GSD named Lupus. Eri loves him. If he is outside, she runs to the fence and starts flattening herself below the gate, wagging her tail like crazy and whimpering. Recently we've met Lupus on a walk and she actually played with him, which only sealed her love. Today she somehow managed to get into his garden below the gate and immediately started pretending that she can't squeze back there and played with him. So I had to take Sunday and Vigo home and then go to my neighbours to tell them that they own two dogs now :) I didn't want to open that gate myself, because I was afraid Lupus would escape and I wasn't sure I could catch him. Anyway, I got her back :)

I'm really happy with our A-frame work. I put it a little heigher almost on every session as it goes so well (we don't practice that very often). She is very consistent and has nice style of doing it, the photos (from our training in Poznan a month ago illustrate it well):

Other things don't go that well - I guess having a dog as smart as Vigo spoiled me a bit :) Must work on my timing, criteria etc. I have problems with heeling - she can get in the position all right, but has trouble keeping perfect position and attitude when I start moving. As I actually have never taught any dog perfect heeling (butt low, head high, front feet high, keeping eye contact) - yeah, you've guessed Vigo kinda offered it - I'm fishing for ideas how to do it :).

Awful weather

2009-01-23T22:51:00.002+01:00

We have a melt down. All is wet and muddy. Of course dogs don't mind, it's just me who hates it... well, and perhaps our cocker. Anyway.
Because of the weather we can't do much outside, so we do a lot inside.
Eri confuses "heel" and "front", which is understandable, but she does something funny. Our older dogs just confused the commands, doing "heel", when called to front and vice versa. Eri figured out some position in between the two, sitting in front of me, but perpendicular to me. Funny. So I started teaching her the "front" position similarly to "heel" position so that she can find it on her own. First I lured her with a treat, but then started to move aside (and she has to redo the position) or backwards with a slight turn etc. I work on "front" now, her "heel" is quite good, and then I'll start differentiation between the two.
Apart from that, we do some tricks.
All in all, she is undergoing a difficult phase again, so I don't want to push her much. But what a relief it is to know that this is just a phase, it won't last, she's just a teenager trying to figure out what's going on around, hormones flooding and all. So whenever I meet with that blank stare of her "Sit? sit? I think... I might have heard it before... wait wait wait...", I just do something simple, reward her and let go for the moment. With cocker - it was not so much pronounced. With Vigo, who is a pyrenean shepherd, it was even worse and I got terribly frustrated by that, I thought I must work LONGER and HARDER and it just made matters worse... and then he matured and all went well all of a sudden.

A bored Dutchie...

2009-01-20T22:09:00.003+01:00

...is still a good Dutchie. She plays all by herself (notice the cocker on the couch, LOL), with a toy she is allowed to play with... she did that for over an hour and I recorded only last part of it. Good doggy :)

The weather is absolutely disgusting, so we didn't have a long walk today. It's so slippery that we can't play fetch outside. Actually I'm panicking a bit even about letting dogs run freely, because it's not only slippery, the snow is melting and ugly things that were hidden under it, like broken glass, come to surface - and because of all that mud, snow, ice and water, dogs can't really see it properly. Vigo really had a nasty accident 3 years ago on something like that.

Fresh snow

2009-01-15T19:34:00.003+01:00

Eri's pedigree

2009-01-13T22:02:00.001+01:00

ELYTTIS DI RESSNAIS Wapini von Folge

Nitro v.d. Vastenov	Oscar v.d. Vastenov	Toby v.d. Vastenov	Menno v.d. Vastenov
			Gabri v. Breezand’s Bravoure
		Hertha v.d. Vastenov	Toby v.d. Vastenov
			Pauline v.d. Vastenov
	Fenny	Aron-Thijs v.d. Strooming	Sam v. Fortrapa
			Anja
		Linda	Presto
			Evander-Astra v.d. Vilheide
DISCOVERY Qalt Mercator	Ringo v.d. Vastenov	Peerke v.d. Vastenov	Basco v. Sarin’s Hof
			Hertha v.d. Vastenov
		Olga v.d. Vastenov	Toby v.d. Vastenov
			Hertha v.d. Vastenov
	Gabie v.d. Passchin	Dingo v.d. Passchin	Zilver
			Karanka v. Breezand’s Bravoure
		Ansje	Darko v.d. Zomerbioem
			Carla v.d. Passchin

New video

2009-01-13T16:13:00.001+01:00

Winter

2009-01-06T19:51:00.002+01:00

We've got real winter at last and dogs are really enjoying themselves :) Eri perhaps most of them, because she doesn't get snowballs, being short-haired. People keep asking me "What is this BIG black dog?", she really is attracting much attention and she loves it :). I must admit she is quite impressive with that shiny coat, big ears and alert look. I would really like to show her somewhere, but I'm not sure if I manage to enter her in puppy class in some show nearby - if not, there's I FCI group show in Wrocław in June, I would certainly show her there, but that would be Junior Class already. I've already taught her to let me look into her teeth, but no ring manners whatsoever...

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T20:15:00.001+01:00

We've survived New Year's Eve - Eri didn't mind the noise until I thought the fireworks were over and took the dogs outside to pee. Of course, exactly then it started all over again she freaked out a little bit, because it was right above us. Vigo REALLY freaked out and Sunday thought it was so much fun she wanted to get closer (to chase that things? I don't know). Anyway, I was a bit worried that Eri might get some sort of trauma after that, but today she heard some fireworks further away and didn't mind them.

Today we went for a training - I did some weave poles with her - still wide apart. I don't practice that much with her, but today I've decided to make it more challenging and wanted her to find the entries herself. She had problems at first and made lots of mistakes, I finally had to help her with my body - and them something clicked and she really started looking for the right entry between the poles even from a slight angle and collecting her stride. She is bright little girl.
Then we did some A-frames - 21 reps., 7 mistakes, apex at 86 cm.

Eri - 6 months old

2008-12-30T21:40:00.002+01:00

Time surely flies! Eri is 6 months old already! She is almost a perfect dog, if you skip the fact that she's eaten the foam around the dog, bit some books of our son and loves to eat poo during walks - but that's more or less typical of all puppies. She is friendly, energetic, very easy to motivate (ball, tugging, treats - doesn't matter). She learns very fast, already knows the puppy school program by heart and even more. She has excellent attention span. Eri is a bit soft, but she has excellent bounce back - even if she gets scared of something, she quickly forgets it. She doesn't bark at home (I was scared of that, as our pyrshep is a TERRIBLE barker), she barks a little bit during training if she gets excited, but that's fine. She mainly sleeps at home and runs and runs and runs during walks (and she looks more and more beautiful when running every day...) All in all, a dream dog.
Hope it stays that way :)

Socialize everywhere you go...

2008-12-30T21:34:00.002+01:00

As Eri has chronic colpitis, we had to go to vet recently. We had to wait a bit. There were several people in the waiting room and lots of people coming ang going to and from the examination room. Rush hour. I put Eri in down - stay near the door and started pacing the waiting room, rewarding her frequently. She was really good, not paying attention to all those people moving to and fro. She didn't move when I hid myself behind a corner for a moment :)
I'm really happy with her :)

Socializing a pup

2008-12-18T22:12:00.005+01:00

As you all know, socializing a puppy is really tedious and time-consuming activity to which you should devote lots of time during your dog's first year of life or so.
So, in order to socialize Eri a bit and to help her generalize commands, I took her to parking lot near a busy street to practice some obedience and some tricks. She was on long line obviously, as I didn't want to risk her life or anything.
We were going there along the street and she was a little uneasy because of the traffic - fortunately her reaction to being uneasy is walking closer to me and looking at my face - nice thing to reward anyway :)
Then, after we arrived at the parking lot and I gave her something to do, she forgot about her uneasiness alltogether :) We've practiced some sit-stays, some heeling and some tricks like backing up and weaving between my legs. And, obviously, some shadow handling as well. What I'm really happy about is that she is willing to engage into tug of war even among distractions.
She actually is quite easy to motivate, as she likes treats, tugging and chasing a ball - we obviously couldn't play with ball on the parking lot, but I've no doubts that she would like it as well.

Difficult age

2008-12-11T14:23:00.003+01:00

Eri's getting into difficult age, she's now a teenager in canine terms. She doesn't look so well: legs too long, ears too big, tail too long, butt higher than head etc. She also doesn't behave as well: sometimes she barks at something only she can see, sometime is suddenly becomes deaf, sometimes she forgets that she perfectly knows the "sit" command, sometimes she all of a sudden tears some newspaper... well, we just brace ourselves and pray for patience... it will pass, I know.

A-frame

2008-12-04T23:46:00.001+01:00

This is Eri's 4th training on A-frame. I did reward 2 repetitions which I shouldn't have, but sometimes that's really difficult to see :o)

Usually there's somebody helping me, that is just watching the zone, while I run.

How little Eri saved the day...

2008-12-03T21:04:00.002+01:00

We had an adventure today. One of those that can be easily avoided, if someone else was THINKING.
I was coming back from a walk with my dogs (all three of them leashed) and baby in a stoller. Suddenly I saw a dog approaching. I know the dog, his name is Bambo, he is very friendly, but a tad exuberant and unruly. He was alone! No owner in sight.
So I'm walking, and thinking: if I do nothing, he'll certainly come to my dogs and Vigo would get angry, Sunday will get hysterical and it might become really unpleasant. So I got an idea that I would let one of my dogs loose, so Bambo would start playing with that dog and the rest would be safe. Letting Vigo was out of question, Sunday doesn't like playing with other dogs, so that left me with little Eri.
Eri likes brindle dogs (perhaps early puppyhood memories :)) and Bambo is brindle amstaf cross. One of his ears is upright. He is more or less same size that Eri now.
So I let Eri run, saying in an excited voice "Go play with that little doggy!".
And it was a success - they started playing nicely, Bambo didn't even thought of approaching the stoller and we arrived home safely together - then Bambo went on his way without problems.
But what is it wasn't Bambo, whom I know? What if I didn't have Eri with me?

Training update

2008-12-01T22:02:00.002+01:00

Eri's learning
- sit-stay - she is pretty good at that, you just have to remember to reward her often not to spoil it. For now, you can go quite far away (I tried 5 meters) or you can walk around her. I can already use it in agility.
- lie down - she has problems with reacting to voice command only, which is made worse by the fact, that Wojtek picked different command than the one I use with the older dogs, so I make mistakes often.
- going round the object with hind legs (see video in the recent entry) - that goes really well
- crossing front paws - she seems to get hang of it, though there's still much paddling and scratching with paws.
- backing up - really good, I started introducing the command.
- handing up her bowl - all our dogs clean the dishes when they finish eating, and Eri too :)
- doggie zen - she actually back up doing this, so I have 2in1 practice :)
- running contacts on very low A-frame
- I started weave-poles with channel method today. I don't plan to work to often on that for now, but she doesn't have to bend yet, so it's safe.
We definetely have to work more on recall - her recall is so good that we've got a bit lazy with practicing and she is going to become a naughty teenager soon...

Eri's first agility trial :)

2008-11-25T21:26:00.002+01:00

Obviously, she wasn't competing, she just accompanied Sunday and Vigo. This was an indoor agility trial she was really great. I played some frisbee with her on the carpet, and let her run through tunnels and she just loved it. She is excellent towards people, and as for her behaviour towards other dogs... well, we were working on that and she played really nicely with a terv and two Australian Shepherds puppies. But mostly, everybody loved her :)

Update

2008-11-25T21:19:00.002+01:00

There's a lot going on, so just to begin, two videos with Eri. The first one is first session on moving hind legs around (back end awareness exercise... just as people very often are not aware of what they're doing with their hands, dogs sometimes don't know what their hind feet are doing... and that knowledge might come useful).

Second video is simple backing up, which is also good for back end awareness and it's kind of cute trick in itself:

And... she doesn't look bored, does she? :)

2008-11-19T22:27:00.000+01:00

My husband promised to post Eri's story, why we decided on a Dutch shepherd etc, but somehow he did't get round to it, so here's my version :o)

I'm an agility freak. At some point, I actually found out that IPO is cool as well, so I started investigating breeds which could be good at both. Obviously, mallinois was my first pick - I really have soft spot for them. For me, mallinois is superdog :), especially that I've met really great bitch at some agility trial in Czech Republic. She was fast, but she was really nice, friendly and controlled outside the course. But my husband objected, saying that they are too big, to energetic, too crazy etc. As my trainer got himself a mallinois bitch puppy, I wanted to convince my husband (who started dreaming about doing IPO) that this is the best choice for us, so I invited them to our place. Unfortunately, Bobinka, the puppy, is really crazy. I mean REALLY. Wouldn't sit still for a second.
Then one day we went for a walk and met this dog.
I said he looked just like Dutch shepherd (later on we found out that he is a mixed-breed, adopted from a shelter) and Wojtek said he was really lovely. He was also lovely in terms of character. And that's how we started looking into Dutch shepherds. I've exchanged some e-mails with Beata, owner of Itske, about their character and requirements. As we've just had a baby, we decided to wait with another dog, and didn't think about it for some time. Then all of a sudden my husband decided he wanted a dog for himself and that he wanted a Dutch shepherd. And he started looking for a breeder. We met another Dutch shepherd living in Wrocław, Dio, liked him a lot and finally decided to get a puppy from the same breeder that he is. Luckily, there was a litter, and moreover, there were 4 biches to choose from. Wojtek went with our friend and dog trainer to test the puppies when they were 7 weeks old, they picked Eri and 10 days later she was ours :) So far, we really are happy with our choice, she is a great dog, learns fast, is very obedient, and all in all, just lots of fun. She adapted really well to our household, is very gentle with our son and has no problems with our other dogs.

New video with Eri

2008-11-12T22:59:00.001+01:00

Showing what we are currently working at. As you can see, she is an eager worker :o)

Eri - 4 months old

2008-11-01T20:38:00.005+01:00

She is quite a big girl already, bigger than Vigo. And she's getting faster.

Eri goes to school...

2008-10-22T20:27:00.002+02:00

So... we've made a little mistake. We live in a very beautiful place, lots of space for looong walks, during which we rarely meet anybody. As Eri goes to work with Wojtek everyday, she meets many people and visits the city centre regurarly. But as for other dogs... she knows Sunday and Vigo. So all of a sudden we realized that she really panics when seeing another dog.
So we enrolled her into puppy class. She is excellent student, focusing very well and her behaviour towards other dogs is improving already :)
In the meantime, our dogs stopped playing with her and are really mean to her. I've read somewhere that up to 4 months puppies have "puppy licence" and after that, older dogs start to teach her manners. Well, Eri is almost 4 m.o. already.

Autumn walks

2008-10-10T22:43:00.002+02:00

Eri gets bigger... especially her ears. When she appears from behind a hill, you first see the ears, than long pause and then the rest the rest of little hyena. Something strange is also going on with her legs:

She learnt to retrieve... only if the bigger ones don't get to the ball first and steal it.

She really has nice recall:

And all in all is a very good dog. As the other two. Especially when they want something.

Socialization plus

2008-10-09T22:16:00.003+02:00

One evening before work I took Eri for a walk on one of the most busy streets in Wrocław. She behaved quite well - kept close to me and mantained a loose leash, didn't drag behind, didn't pay too much attention to other people, who of course tried to pet her and tchicked to attact her (gee, I don't like that!). She whined a little bit, but that's understandable in a new environment. The only thing she had problems with was the fountain, she didn't want to get close to it, and went as far away as the leash would allow. I squated by the fountain and gave a little tug on leash, when she did one little step towards me, I gave her a treat and praised her. And so, step by step, she came closer. When we came back there later in the same evening, she was just giving it wary looks. We'll go there again...

Tugging

2008-10-09T22:13:00.003+02:00

We play tug every day, and although Eri really likes it, she gets distracted quite easily, especially loud sounds. In that case, we have to wind her up again. She never had problems with touching though - once she gets hold of the rope, you may pat her, scratch her, wave your hand in front of her eyes, try to open her mouth - whatever, she doesn't let go. But we've made some progress recently, I managed to make some noise and she didn't stop playing :)

Video

2008-09-11T23:01:00.000+02:00

with Eri as a star :)

Misunderstanding

2008-09-08T23:24:00.003+02:00

Eri thinks that she's Sunday's best buddy and that they are having fun together. Sunday is determined to retrieve a ball regardless of that little naughty pup.

2008-09-07T21:31:00.002+02:00

Eri 's getting bigger. For now, most important thing for her are socialization, playing and a bit of training. I'm really amazed by how well-balanced she is. Today we had some BBQ in the garden. I played with Eri first (short training & playing session), then she dug in the sand a little bit, had a battle with huge towel, chased the big dogs for a while (they either pretend not to see her or chase her away...) and then... she got tired, went inside to her bed and fell asleep :)
Gee, I don't know, perhaps that's what NORMAL dogs do, the other two never did :) so that's why I'm so happy with it. First of all, it's easier to live with such a dog. Secondly, I think is good for the dog too, to be able to relax.
I introduced her to little tunnel (what do you call that? a fifth agility column?) and a baby see-saw (plank put on a rolled towel) - she doesn't mind either and is happy to go on or in, whatever :)
And she learnt to shake hands, which is absolutely essential doggy skill.

Weekly update

2008-09-04T14:00:00.009+02:00

After those fist few day one can say a little bit about our new pup, what needs to be worked on, what to encourage and what to eliminate. So far, I'm really happy with her. She is really nice towards people, being very friendly, but not overenthusiastic and a little bit reserved. So far, her recall is really nice in all situations that we tried it :o). When we're not working, she goes to her bed and sleeps (ideal pup, huh?). We need to work on retrieve, as she is not a natural born retriever (perhaps that's because she is a shepherd, LOL). She also jumps a bit during greetings and play, and as she won't be that small forever, we're working to get rid of that.
All in all, so far, so good ... :)

On the road to perfection...

2008-08-31T20:52:00.002+02:00

Eri is supposed to be primarily companion dog, but she will also be trained for schutzhund (IPO), and she will be taught lots of others (more or less useful) things. Training is mostly clicker-based. We started some targeting today. Eri is supposed to stand on a cardboard without luring with hand or treat. When she does, she hears the click, gets the treat and everybody is joyful and happy :) We do it just a couple of times so as not to bore her. The main goal of this exercise is to explain to her that the click means "Super! That's what I wanted! Now you get a yummy treat!".
When the dog learns the meaning of the clicker, he/she usually starts offering behaviours, which helps us get the ones we desire. We started with "sit" already, as she very often sits after coming to us, which we always reward with petting and treat. So, after two days, she has almost mastered the "sit" command :o)

First photos

2008-08-28T12:20:00.001+02:00

And there she is :D

and....
JUMP!!!!

New arrival

2008-08-27T23:05:00.000+02:00

She arrived to her new home yesterday evening... First impressions? Well, she is curious and definetely not afraid of anything. She took to Olga immediately and tried to encourage Sunday and Vigo to play with her, but they were unwilling and rather hostile. After lots of thinking we decided to call her Eri. She is a 2-months old dutch shepherd from Czech kennnel Wapini von Folge. And she is our third dog.