Thursday, April 28, 2011

That's just how we roll....

AMP is I like to call figuring out her swagger :)

She is starting to get that thing we call jumping and heck she is just SO good that she can do it out of a tunnel....POW!

Plus she can do weave poles, yes you herd it peeps she can rock those weaves ;) Alright when they are spread apart, but it is the thought that counts :) Besides her general awesome-ness makes it all good :) No big deal or anything!

" That's how I roll" :)

Monday, April 18, 2011

Do I even have to say anything?

I really don't think any words are needed for this- the expression says it all. However if you are somehow missing it-- she is clearly a true princess with her new crate pad that my mother bought her. As if she wasn't already spoiled......

Sunday, April 17, 2011

A first!!

AMP has changed lately. She came out of her first heat a little less then a month ago and as most people have said and warned me about she would go through a personality change and probably act different along with other stuff. They were very much correct! Imagine that ;)

She didn't do anything like CRAZY odd, but since I spend a lot of time with my dogs, training, walking, relaxing with them, I pick up on any changes quickly! When she WAS in heat she wasn't bad, but a little less intense and "ohhh other dogs"

Now that she out of heat she is a bit more soft. Not super soft that she can't handle correction or something, maybe a better word would be squishy? ( I love that word..lol) Lately her new thing was that when we tugged she would all of a sudden get this " I am sad"/"I am sorry"/ "poor me" attitude and quit tugging and didn't really have interesting it after that, she just became submissive. weird.

When something goes wrong I go through stages of....AHHHH...then I MUST fix....No I will ignore it and see if it cures it's self....to experimenting....all within a short period of time! Sometimes ignoring cures it, but usually experimenting helps if all else fails- as you would expect.

When this problem occurred...I tried just pretending it didn't happen and get her to join back in-fail, then totally ending the session and walk away and try again later-fail, and then I totally quit and brainstormed-SUCCESS ;)

Today was my first attempt at something new :) I decided to try and be really quiet and to not look at her while I was tugging. I just whispered and looked at the ground while I tapped her around like I always did and she had no issues ;D She actually did GREAT!!! Even got her to do 4 straight jumps in a row :)

For now I am going to run with this idea! I am actually perfectly fine with the idea since it saves my voice and breath :) We will see how it changes once she gets spayed in a couple of weeks!

"Best buds"

Here is AMP with her boyfriend Viper ;) They are best pals and can't wait to go on their tour starting Tuesday!!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Rockstar

So as I have said before AMP has a doggie boyfriend :)

He is black and white and handsome AND he is a Rockstar :) yea your jealous now aren't you?! Don't believe me? Here is stud muffin himself :)

They are going to be going on tour together...for 6 days, 4 states, and 6 sold-out events!!!

It is going to be ROCKIN' :)

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

B-R-E-A-K T-H-R-O-U-G-H

Today was the day, the day to try the Susan Salo set-point grid again :)

When we had our first encounter with it, the results were not good and the reaction was fearful...or was it "going around is OBVIOUSLY faster than going over"......

Today I decided I would try again, since we have been doing jumping and she has been having no issues with going wraps, serps, threadles ect ect...

Wouldn't you know it, she did the grid just fine :) not once, not twice, but like 10 times alternating heights :)

Yesterday I re-updated her on driving to the end of the teeter and she did great on that too :) We will soon be going to letting it drop a tiny bit! Also just rewarded her for walking on the dogwalk back and forth, so when we start running a lowered dogwalk, hopefully it won't be scary or anything of the sort.

The sight of dog panting is always a sign of warmer weather :D

Monday, April 11, 2011

Stuck

I have realized that I get stuck or sorta tunnel vision when it comes to training my dogs, but mostly AMP.

It first started with the running contacts. I was only training them-nothing else and would train them at least once every day :/ Then I quit doing them and started to do some jump work- some turned into ALL and before I know it I am only doing jump work.

This isn't the worst thing on planet, but really I don't need to be doing it and truthfully it probably doesn't help me in the end.

I start the obsession like I have said previously when things aren't going right. So, her plank work was causing issues and rather then just doing a bit here and there I started focusing on it and only wanting to do it hoping that it would get fixed and start running smoothly. Jump stuff was the same way- we were hitting a few walls and rather then just letting it go and coming back to it here and there I started to only do it, again with the same thought process as before.

I don't want to do this and really it isn't fun for AMP either. AMP is a thinker, she likes to be given hard challenges and figure them out. She doesn't want to do something over and over again once she has got it because it no longer take work for her to do. I made her this way- I made her to ENJOY and THRIVE off of the challenges rather then shut down because of them :D I am ok with this, but I have to remember that this is how she operates and work with it.

I might start writing down a plan or schedule of what I want to work on each training session or set goals in various areas to not allow myself to get in a rut. Besides if I get in a rut then she will never get trained and we DEFINITELY don't want that :) The Doodle wants to get out there and play too, like her brother and friends doooo!

After taking a seminar with Jinx this past weekend I have come up with LOTS of ideas and things to train AMP which I love ;) I like being able to know these things now rather than like in Jinx's case learning them later on ;)

And since I haven't posted pics of her in awhile here are some new ones....




Thursday, April 7, 2011

small snipet

Here is a small clip of a few things AMP and I have been working on ;)

The jumps are set at 20" and she is starting to understand it :) Well so she has me thinking, AMP always keeps me guess so we will see!

She isn't confident on them yet, but she will get there with more practice!

Going to start training other obstacles now too, since we are outside! horray ;)