Another Airplane Update
(This is actually from Wednesday but I forgot to post it)
There's something about when I'm in an airplane that gets me in the mood to blog. Maybe it's the fact that I have 15-30 minutes of sitting quietly that get me reflective. Maybe there's something about seeing the sun setting from above the Earth that makes me want to reach out to my fellow humans. Or maybe I'm just bored since there's no Internet access and I can't surf the web. I guess we'll never know for sure.
I meant to post two weeks ago after our first ISSDC Southeast event (International Shiloh Shepherd Dog club). It was about two hours south of us near Culpepper, VA, and I took Ebby with me. I couldn't have been more proud of her. Not only did she weather the two-hour drive well, but she had a very polite meet-and-greet with a young female Shiloh immediately after getting out of the car, before she even had a chance for a potty break or anything. While we were there, she strutted her stuff by continuing to show herself off as a well-mannered little lady. She was very polite with all the other dogs, and she was about as obedient as I've ever seen her. This turned out to be a Very Good Thing because I let her loose in the training room when we were all on lunch break, and she was extremely interested in everyone's food. We do NOT beg or mug people for food at home, but clearly we weren't at home, were we? It was a good thing that she knows the command "Leave It" so well because I think she came really close to sampling Heather's sandwich right out of her hand while Heather was distracted chatting with someone else (and not expecting a dog to come share her lunch, I'm sure). After that close call, we practiced stays at my feet while I made my lunch, and then more stays at my feet while I ate it. Heh heh.
At the end of the day she got to have a romp with her old foster-brother, Much, and I think that alone made it worth 4 hours in the car for her. She adores her boy Much. She adores him so much that she tries to leap on the head of every other huge male Shiloh she sees, whether they want it or not. That's one of her remaining social skills she hasn't quite figured out yet. She gravitates right to the biggest male in the pack and tries to initiate Chase & Pounce. That's one we'll keep working on.
The next day, Sunday, Ebby had her first obedience run-throughs (aka practice trial). It was the first for both of us, actually. She did really well there too, and continued to make me proud. We're really not ready to go into actual trials for a while yet I think, but the run-through helped me see where we need to practice. I have it on video tape thanks to my marvelous father and step-mother and this year's Christmas present, so I may put it online at some point in case anyone is interested to see.
I'm really jazzed about the camcorder for taping practices and trials, and I'm now extra jazzed because we got Diane a DVD-R as her Christmas present (belated) and what that means for me is that I can take all the trial and practice tapes and burn them on DVD, which is a FABULOUS way to save them for watching again later. Not only will the quality hold up, but it's all indexable by chapter so I don't have to go searching if there's a particular 4-minute segment I want to see. Considering 1 DVD will be comprised of about 30 4-minute segments, this is way cool.
Ebby started class again last night; still Novice [Competition] Obedience. She again made me very proud. We've started practicing regularly again though, after me slacking through most of the winter. She's good enough that I can slide by a lot of the time, although we do have some weeks like the second-to-last of last session where she was all over the place and kept wanting to leave the building! Just goes to show that we all get our good days and bad days. Dog training keeps you humble.
Neither of Indie's classes start until next week. He's doing Sub-Novice/CGC again (4th time). This time his litter-mate Saphira will be in class with us, which should be fun. He's flunked the CGC the last three times and I expect to flunk it again this time, but we'll see. We fail on dog/dog reaction (have to be able to pass another dog and handler calmly... we can't get near enough before he starts a barking fit) and the 3-minute away (have to be able to hand him off to another person and go out of sight for 3 minutes. It doesn't go well, but we're also bad mamas because we don't drag other people in to practice it out of class.
There's something about when I'm in an airplane that gets me in the mood to blog. Maybe it's the fact that I have 15-30 minutes of sitting quietly that get me reflective. Maybe there's something about seeing the sun setting from above the Earth that makes me want to reach out to my fellow humans. Or maybe I'm just bored since there's no Internet access and I can't surf the web. I guess we'll never know for sure.
I meant to post two weeks ago after our first ISSDC Southeast event (International Shiloh Shepherd Dog club). It was about two hours south of us near Culpepper, VA, and I took Ebby with me. I couldn't have been more proud of her. Not only did she weather the two-hour drive well, but she had a very polite meet-and-greet with a young female Shiloh immediately after getting out of the car, before she even had a chance for a potty break or anything. While we were there, she strutted her stuff by continuing to show herself off as a well-mannered little lady. She was very polite with all the other dogs, and she was about as obedient as I've ever seen her. This turned out to be a Very Good Thing because I let her loose in the training room when we were all on lunch break, and she was extremely interested in everyone's food. We do NOT beg or mug people for food at home, but clearly we weren't at home, were we? It was a good thing that she knows the command "Leave It" so well because I think she came really close to sampling Heather's sandwich right out of her hand while Heather was distracted chatting with someone else (and not expecting a dog to come share her lunch, I'm sure). After that close call, we practiced stays at my feet while I made my lunch, and then more stays at my feet while I ate it. Heh heh.
At the end of the day she got to have a romp with her old foster-brother, Much, and I think that alone made it worth 4 hours in the car for her. She adores her boy Much. She adores him so much that she tries to leap on the head of every other huge male Shiloh she sees, whether they want it or not. That's one of her remaining social skills she hasn't quite figured out yet. She gravitates right to the biggest male in the pack and tries to initiate Chase & Pounce. That's one we'll keep working on.
The next day, Sunday, Ebby had her first obedience run-throughs (aka practice trial). It was the first for both of us, actually. She did really well there too, and continued to make me proud. We're really not ready to go into actual trials for a while yet I think, but the run-through helped me see where we need to practice. I have it on video tape thanks to my marvelous father and step-mother and this year's Christmas present, so I may put it online at some point in case anyone is interested to see.
I'm really jazzed about the camcorder for taping practices and trials, and I'm now extra jazzed because we got Diane a DVD-R as her Christmas present (belated) and what that means for me is that I can take all the trial and practice tapes and burn them on DVD, which is a FABULOUS way to save them for watching again later. Not only will the quality hold up, but it's all indexable by chapter so I don't have to go searching if there's a particular 4-minute segment I want to see. Considering 1 DVD will be comprised of about 30 4-minute segments, this is way cool.
Ebby started class again last night; still Novice [Competition] Obedience. She again made me very proud. We've started practicing regularly again though, after me slacking through most of the winter. She's good enough that I can slide by a lot of the time, although we do have some weeks like the second-to-last of last session where she was all over the place and kept wanting to leave the building! Just goes to show that we all get our good days and bad days. Dog training keeps you humble.
Neither of Indie's classes start until next week. He's doing Sub-Novice/CGC again (4th time). This time his litter-mate Saphira will be in class with us, which should be fun. He's flunked the CGC the last three times and I expect to flunk it again this time, but we'll see. We fail on dog/dog reaction (have to be able to pass another dog and handler calmly... we can't get near enough before he starts a barking fit) and the 3-minute away (have to be able to hand him off to another person and go out of sight for 3 minutes. It doesn't go well, but we're also bad mamas because we don't drag other people in to practice it out of class.
posted by Erica at
6:44 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home