Catch-up with my training plans

March:
* Physical activity every day (at least a 30 minute walk) to get him in better shape and lose the last bit of overwheight.
* Heel position, both sides
* Sitting rear crosses
* Loose leash walking (I'm sooo tired of not having that settled, so now it's time to grab the monster by it's tail!)
* Jumping technique: distance, bend work and jump height.
* One jump: proofing and distance

Ok. So today I and Orkan had a check-up with how we're doing with the loose leash walking. Pretty well, actually! Walked with a short leash to the mailbox and back (which is approx a 1 km walk) and I had to stop only a few times. Yes! This feels great! I've never succeeded with that training with any dog before, so it's been one of those I wasn't sure I was ever going to find the courage to really pull through in case it didn't work anyway. Ok, so we need to work on it with dogs ahead and other motivations to pull, but at least he knows what to do, and that's the best foundation I could ever ask for :-)

As you know, the jumping technique isn't really our best card right now. We've started the distance work, but no bend work or height, so I guess I'm going to have to work on that even though succeeding feels like a million years away...

Heel position: at least the left side is getting somewhere. I've worked mostly on the left side to make it easier (less frustration). As soon as that is done, we'll transfer it to the right side, and I think that transition isn't going to be too much of a deal, since he has all the foundation on both sides, and the command is slapping my hand at my thigh, which transfers nicely to the other side (as in the foundation with the box). We're working on a sit now, but I still reward a lot of just getting into position, to remind him that I want him to be straight in line with me. Low carb tuna treats are cooking in my oven as I type, I think treats will make this training a bit easier (faster reinforcement = more repetitions a day).

Physical activity and food change: I've _almost_ stuck to the at least 30 minutes rule, and together with the raw, low carb food, Orkan has lost wheight! Finally, he's 6,5 kg's, and with some muscle building I'll be really happy with his shape! It feels extremely good to finally have found a solution to his overwheight problems....

Sitting rear crosses: needs more work. Will also be easier with treats (maybe that's just a lousy excuse?)... We're still needing some proofing of not moving his paws while I move around him in a sit, which is a crucial foundation to do the sitting cross work. Good thing march isn't over yet, we have some work to do!

One jump: lateral distance needs some work. As Karine reminded me some days ago, working on the distance isn't neccecarily more important than just reinforcing the exercises over and over again. Susan Garrett wrote something interesting on that a while ago, she had divided students into two groups, both working on the dog staying on the table. One group was to reinforce a lot from less distance, the other group was to work on distance and speed towards the table. It turned out the first group got the best results even distance- and speed-wise, probably because they had done more repetitions, more rewards etc due to less distance and less difficulty. Correct me if I referred to this wrong (it's a while since I read it). Anyway - I need to work on the one jump exercises, and some finding the lines between several jumps (speed circle, or arch, as I prefer) too.

Turns out I have a lot to work on those last days of march! Haha... Guess I'm not going to finish it all :-)

Really impressive videos!

Fanny posted some videos I would recommend a look at:
http://www.klickerklok.se/blog/imponerande-videos/
Dogs and dog trainers really never stop impressing me! Wow!

Fun!

After deciding that I have to put some energy into making training fun, I went out with Orkan and two toys, with (for once) no plan whatsoever, except throwing toys and simply havi'n a ball. We got to put some value into coming back with a won or thrown toy, since he loves both the kong with fleece and the sheepy squeaky. Orkan was really having fun, and then of course was I :-)

After a while of just playing I started doing some circlework. That was such a lot of fun! We have a huge field outside our house, and now it's covered in a thick layer of rock hard snow. One of my problems with circlework is managing to run fast enough without tripping over something or losing track of my dog, but this surface was perfect! It is huge, smooth and flat. Orkan impressed me by working with great focus and having fun, for quite long stretches. That's one of the things I've been missing a bit when thinking of mastering a whole agility course - he needs to be able to work circles without any fuss and having fun for about one minute before I feel comfortable adding obstacles to the equation. Of course that's a gradual transition, but being able to work the way he did outside yesterday gives me a tiny itti bit of confidence!

I sort of wish I had filmed this, but I guess circlework is really boring to watch anyway :-)

Lack of motivation...

I'm a bit unmotivated right now... It feels like Orkan and I will never get anywhere no matter what I do, and the training just doesn't seem to get done. Everyone around me is accomplishing such great things with their dogs, while I don't. I want to have a loving and fun relationship with my dogs. After all that's why I spend all this time on dog training, isn't it? Not to prove anything to anyone, simply to have fun...

The only way to influence our future is getting my butt off this chair, turning off the computer and go out and get some training done! So I guess I'm gonna have to go out and make some fun for myself :-)

Jumping frustrations...

Karine and I did some agility training after our lecture today. We focused on jumping technique, and in addition to that I did some circle work and a speed circle, which both went pretty well. I timed one of the speed thingies, and he does almost 6 meters per second, which is pretty ok. 6m/s is a great spead in a course (storm regularly did about 3 or even less sometimes) but of course this is easier. At least it tells me that when he feels confident on what to do (where to go, how to jump etc), he has some speed stored in there somewhere that I hope to see on course eventually... It doesn't hurt to hope, does it?

The jumping technique is another story, though. Orkan coped pretty well with every exercise I threw him until last time, and now his jumping is a complete disaster! (Or something like it. Wonder if he's figured out what his name means?) He has even started jumping the last two in a basic grid. What's up with that?

Here is the slow motion video (notice that with everey clip the camera is tilted a bit more. The camera was sitting in the snow, which kept melting, so the last clips from the first try are pretty crooked! Haha):

If you see the video in old 4:5 format, click on it to get the 16:9 from youtube. I don't know why I can't make it appear in 16:9 in the blog...

Sunshine training!

When I was done working this morning the sun was shining, helping me melt the snow. Yesss!
I'm lucky to have horse-people as neighboors, meaning I can use their riding arena when they don't... Which is 90% of the time, still I tend to collide with when they use it! Wierd...
Today I had the place to myself, so I took Orkan and some obstacles down there to do some training. We stuck to speed circles and easy rear cross stuff, but he still feels slow. Not sure what to do... (tips, anyone?)
At least my reinforcer (squeaky toy on a rope) works well, and he behaves himself (most of the time) around horse poop and pig feed, which is definately improvement :-D

And: we have reached our goal of 6,5 kg's! Low carb certainly was the way to do it :-)

Love our doggies :-)

Fourteen ways to catch a snowball

Another picture challenge

My colleagues at the furniture store in Namsos, ready to party. That was an interesting night, indeed. The guy in the left corner of the picture even managed to fall 3 meters down into the sea without anyone noticing... Hm... Anyway, the pic is taken sometime in 2006 I think.Let's just say I pass it on to anyone who wants to do it. Kind of fun actually!
The rules are: pick the sixth picture in your sixth picture file (no picking, just the sixth one!) and write a bit about it. No cheating!

As some of you might have noticed I've gotten this one before, and the picture was different that time. I'm not cheating, it's just that I have several different picture storing systems, depending on what camera was used etc, so this one is from the cell phone pictures file pile :-)

Physical dog training

Yes, I'm trying to keep up with my goal of at least 30 minutes of physical activity for my boys every day. Today we did an hour of skiing, and my plan was to let Orkan pull his little piece of steel chain most of the time. It turned out we went into some quite heavy snow (yes! summer's getting closer!), so I let him and Storm pull it 3-5 minutes each and then swap. It's not very heavy (50 cm of steel chain, wheighs 500 grams or something), but I'd rather have them work too light than too heavy. Better with less training effect than injuries and unmotivated dogs! I really like that chain by the way, it gives them just the amount of resistance I want. They keep running along having fun even though they're working, which tells me they don't mind it.

Orkan is really losing wheight now. For three weeks now he has lost a hundered grams every week, which means he is now at 6,7 kg's. If we manage to keep that trend, he'll finally be where I want in two weeks, which would feel SO good! Shaving him (not really shaving, he still has a cm of really thick fur) has shown that he was a bit slimmer than I thought too, the extremely thick wool made him feel softer than he really was.

And finally - I'm starting to like his haircut! We still have some work to do on getting rid of the matting tendency in what hair is left, but it is a whole world easier now that there's not so much of it. He looks more athletic now (LONG legs!) and I think he feels more athletic too, at least he's been all running an bumping the last couple of days. I think I'll have to go out and take some pic's so you can see what he looks like :-)

Bad day at work?

Haircut

Orkan has gotten a haircut today... Since the covering hair around his neck and hind legs was really long, the wool didn't come off like it should have when shedding, and he got pretty matted. I guess most owners just keep up with the combing, but both Orkan and I really hated it (kind of painful, right), so I decided to see what he'd look like without his long coat. You wouldn't believe how much hair he really had! Amazing! It fills a whole plastic bag...
And no - there won't be any pictures!


EDIT:
ok, ok, ok.... Lots of you have asked for pictures. WARNING: if you are a schipperke lover, don't scroll down, you risk having a heart attac!

He really looks odd now, but I'm sort of happy I did this, because when I got under the top coat, he turned out to have some matting, especially on his hind legs, which I would never even have known about under all that long fur. Makes me wonder if that's normal on schipperkes? Can't be pleasant...
Ok, here's the pics...

Before:
After:

And now for the sequencing

Did some pretty forward stuff since he seems a bit slow... Am I imagining this, or is his speed kind of low?

Jumping technique video

Yesterday's jumping technique session was really a nut to crack. Things that has seemed easy for Orkan before was suddenly not so obvious... Any tips on what to do?
I'm not sure if I've been training too rarely or what's wrong (this wasn't very difficult exercises, but his attitude was all gone, not paying attention to anything what so ever), but with all this snow, I can't really do anything about that right now... I WANT SUMMER!
I also did some easy sequencing, that video will come as soon as I can make my computer behave. In the meantime, here is my slow motion of the wierd jumping technique...

Running contacts - volume one

Boring blog post (special interest) warning!

According to my training plan I'm supposed to do other stuff right now (like boring sitting rear crosses and loose leash walking), but as you might have understood already, I can't really seem to find the motivation to get that stuff done. So... Since I have the planks all ready to go, the sun was shining, and Lene gave me some inspiration (training out in the sun when I had a lecture to attend), I decided to try some running contact training with Orkan.

We started indoors, with one end of the plank on a little box (I know the plank is supposed to be on the floor, but this made it easier to establish the criteria "on or off the plak"), so he could stand with his front feet on the box, rear paws on the floor, facing me. He soon got the point of running on the plank, but not with the most impressive speed I've seen... After a couple of go's with food rewards, I started using a toy instead. That got the speed up, and I even got some jumps above my 30 cm line. Even though he loves food a LOT more than toys, he still runs faster for a toy...

I really look forward to moving this outside! But we'll have to wait some weeks, it's all snowy and muddy, and the weather forecast doesn't give me much hope... More snow coming tomorrow... Sigh... What about creating a facebook groop named "we want summer back in the shops"? It worked with Tropo and Grandiosa, right? Hmmm...

Home alone

- not me, the dog!
Bris has finally settled down with being home without us humans. She spends her alone-time in the kitchen with the boys, and we have kept track of her reactions with the video camera. I guess I could post the latest video but I think 90 minutes of calm might be too boring... Hm.
Anyway - I saw on the video from this morning that she and Orkan rather shares a bed than lying in the one that's not so comfy. Yeeey! They love each other :-D Jeeeee! (in norwegian, that last one)

Everlasting furry dog toy making machine!

Keeping myself busy :-)
This time it's a fleece leash with bunny fur padded hadle. Orkan says his favourite part is the handle!

Agility live!

My dream has come true, today I'm watching international agility live on the internet! It should have been tv in my opinion, but I guess norwegian tv companies don't think it's important enough. Anyway: agility addicts, go to http://www.cruftslive.tv/
Right now I'm waiting for the norwegian competitor in the international jumpers large class :-)
What a saturday!

Funny!

This is Schipperke Gory Bergerac with her hungarian handler Tòth Àgnes at the world championships in Helsinki, 2008. See what she finds time to do after the blue and white tunnel! At least I know I would be too stressed in the middle of a world championship run to think of fixing my pants :-p

Vom&Hundemat

It looks like the new raw food works well with Orkan. He isn't as tired any more (although I'd like him to wake up a BIT more before I'm all cheery), and he actually doesn't seem to be much hungrier, even though it's high energy and he therefore gets small amounts...
In addition, as a fiber source, he (and the other dogs too) get carrots every day. I'm planning to buy some frozen cauliflower when we go to Sweden today (expensive here), because that's even less digestible than carrots. Anyway, the carrots hold great vitamins, anti oxidants etc.
I'm really happy that it looks like we have found something that works! Let's just hope we manage to get to some of that over wheight too... Hmmm...

Photoshoot

We did some indoors photography with the dogs today. Lots and lots and LOTS of wierd pics, but maybe some nice ones too. Here is the result: (click to enlarge)
Storm

Bris
What? Did we really buy a cat?Orkan