Speaking of Dirt...

There's a reason why the local Flyball team is name "Muddy Paws A-Flyin'". We live in the Pacific Northwest, where the rain and the earth collide with startling, frequent...and seemingly endless...regularity. Add a few high-drive dogs that require daily, hardcore exercise, and you too can have a backyard that looks like this!

Everyday, we play fetch in the backyard. And so everyday, dog paws get muddy. Raff and Sheila attract a normal amount of muck, as you can see here (Boca doesn't play fetch, and so her paws, naturally, remain pristine.)

But I never knew muddy paws--and underbelly and everything in between--until I met Mr. Wyatt.

And this isn't even a bad day. This is a bright, sunny, pleasant January day.

Everyday, rain or shine, I hose down 12 dog paws, wipe them with old towels (which get laundered twice a week), and even with that effort, I have to sweep the kitchen/dining room floor every day, just to keep us from living in complete squalor. I'm sure most dog owners in this neck of the woods have their own ways of dealing with this...it's just a way of life.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends....

(Whispering)...I took Raff to Flyball practice last night.

I made special treats for him (recipe below), and fed him almost no supper before practice (he got maybe 10 kibbles, just so there was something in his bowl while the others ate.)

And at practice, he actually did pretty well. My ability to keep his focus on me is no longer an issue. I can even have him loose, off leash (as long as I'm paying attention to him every second.) So that's huge progress in and of itself!

We had the fencing between the lanes, and during the first round, there was just another green dog in the other lane, and we alternated running them. So he was pretty much running by himself, and he was fine. His turn totally went to hell when he got tired, but he did many (apparently too many) successful full down & backs.

In the second round, a teammate volunteered to have her seasoned dog run in the other lane, opposite Raff. Now THAT was another story. I foolishly started him too far from the box, so the first thing he did was run up to the fencing and start barking at her dog in the other lane. I said his name in the death tone, scooped him up, and took him down to the middle of the lane to try again. More confusion and anarchy, but he did a little better.

Third time, I wised up and took him to right in front of the box (which is what I had TOLD myself I was going to do in the first place, even before we left the house, but I didn't do it when we got there because...I'm a complete idiot?? Yeah, theat must be it.) He was still very distracted by the other little dog, and his turn was utter crap, but he did make it to the box, he did get the ball, and he did bring it back to me. We ran several more times, each time successful (but crappy turn, even w/a box jump), each time backing up a bit further from the box. We got all the way back to the third jump from the box, and my teammate was starting her dog from there, too. So by the time we were done, he was starting with another dog right by his side in the other lane, and he did his job. Woo-hoo!

I've accepted that his turn may just be spotty at best. It could be when he gets used to the distraction of the other dogs (IF he gets used to the distraction of the other dogs), his turn will recover. And I can certainly work on his conditioning more, so getting tired shouldn't be such a factor. And during the week, I'm going to try to have him do a few turns here and there, with the clicker, so I keep reinforcing what is a correct turn. We'll see.

For the moment, I'm going to keep him in Flyball. May doG have mercy on our souls!

RECIPE:

Raffy's Chicken Parmesan Re-Treats

*1 chicken breast, boiled, then pureed in a food processor w/enough broth to make it the
consistency of canned dog food
*2 eggs
*1 t garlic powder
*2 T parmesan cheese
*1 1/2 c whole wheat flour (more, if needed, to make the dough stiff)

Mix together well. Press into greased 9" x 13" pan. Bake at 250 degrees for 30 - 35 minutes. Cut into desired size pieces and refrigerate or freeze.

Wy-Fi and the Cheerleaders

Wyatt and I finally got to be a part of the Portland Trail Blazer half-time show demo. Our Flyball team is asked to participate a couple of times a year, but I've never been able to make it before this...and I've always desperately wanted to go.

Wy-man thought the cheerleaders were the BOMB.


It was the Weds. before Thanksgiving, and the show was sold out--which meant there were 20,000 cheering fan for us! Also, it was just before Oregon's big "Civil War" football game (OSU vs. UofO), so the organizers asked if the Flyball teams would dress up in Civil War gear. (Yes, not being from Oregon, when I first saw that request, I thought, "We're supposed to wear blue and grey?" No.....) OSU colors are orange and brown, UofO are green and yellow. We complied. The crowd went wild.

He was such a pro. Some of the dogs were a bit put off by the crowd noise (it really did sound like thunder...good thing Sheila wasn't there.) But Wy-Fi didn't even notice. He saw the ball at the end of the lane, I said the magic words ("reeeeady, ready, GO PUSH!"), and he was off.

I honestly don't know if I'll ever have another dog as ab-fab as Wyatt. He is sweet. He is quiet. He's a machine. He's a horse, while being graceful and cat-like. He's totally predictable (albeit, given that I'm human, sometimes only in retrospect.)

Flyball Kees

Call me psycho, but I'm taking another run at getting Raff to be a Flyball dog. This has been an on-again/off-again, work in progress since fall of 2005. We've worked through a lot of issues, and when I last had Raffy at practice, he was able to do a full down and back cleanly, as long as no other dogs were around. Not exactly tournament-ready. In the presence of other dogs, he gets distracted and crosses over to the other lane, or chases the dog he's supposed to be passing. I had started working on overcoming those distractions--and was making some good progress--only to see that his box turn was going to hell. At that point, I backed off and pulled him from training...for like, the 5th time in his life...to concentrate on Agility instead.

But I have a dream. There are only 37 Keeshonden to have ever been registered with NAFA. There are currently only 2 Kees active in Flyball. I want Raff to be the third. I think it would say a lot about how wonderful and driven he is, and it would say not-so-bad things about me as a trainer, too. I also would love to be able to bring Raff along with me and Wyatt to tournaments and practices--for a real purpose--because he really can play. (Not that Wyatt would like it so much, but he'd get over it.)


So I'm thinking of taking another run at it. Each time I've tried, and then backed off, I have made better progess than the time before. Maybe I need to give up the "all or nothing" (i.e., complete commitment OR completely quitting), and just look at this as a series of advances...knowing that with each try, I may have to back off and take a breather before making the next run at it. Eventually, with that philosophy, Raffy and I might push over the top!

This run will consist of working in the backyard, starting from one jump only, sending Raff while at the same time adding the distraction of throwing Wyatt and Sheila's balls/Wyatt and Sheila fetching their balls. We've been doing this all week, and this morning Raff actually maintained his focus and successfully completed these short runs 11 out of 12 times. I'm not upping the ante at all this week, except for to move the position of the box to different places in the yard. But no further distance challenge until he's equally successful in all places, and with Wyatt and Sheila running on either side of him...also with no degradation of his box turn.

After that, in each successive week, we'll try adding more distance. Perhaps only one foot at a time, depending on how it goes. When he's doing the full 51 foot distance with success in all criteria, THEN I'll start taking him back to practice...where we'll close the distance to one jump only again, and work our way back to the full course slowly, and only when he's able to be successful with dogs running on either side of him.

After that, we'll work on passing.

Or, somewhere in the process, I'll fizzle out again, and have to wait for the next burst of Flyball Kees Enthusiasm to revive my drive.

Meanwhile, for inspirational purposes, here's a video of one of the Kees currently running in Flyball. He is Casanova, who runs with 2 Lane Highway in MD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KIMnhNormw (his team's run starts at 1:14).

Flyball!

I haven't posted much about Flyball, which is odd because it's the dog sport that I actually DO the most. Wyatt and I run Flyball with the Muddy Paws A-Flyin' team here in Salem. We joined them about a year ago, after "defecting" from the Portland Tail Blazers.

Wyatt has turned out to be a wonderfully fast (4.21 seconds) and reliable Flyball dog. He loves to race the dog in the other lane, and he especially loves running in the start position (b/c then he's going head to head with the other dog, right off the bat.) He stares the other guy down while we're waiting for the lights to go, and then he flies down the lane like a bullet from a gun.

His turn is a thing of beauty, too...if I do say so myself. He doesn't stutter-step up to the box, but rather he hurls himself full-power onto it with all four paws, then pushes off with his back legs, just like the swimmers that give the "swimmer's box turn" its name. And his turn doesn't fade. He does it the same way, every time. (beaming)

This is the shot I never get to see myself, because by the time he's running back to me, I've turned and am running away from him, screaming his name at the top of my lungs. That really speeds him up because he's trying to catch me. His return tends to be even faster than his run to the box.

After the run, happy dog, happy human.