Click!

Welcome to the girls of the Variety Pack's blog. I have started this, in hopes that it will motivate me to keep working with them. I'm sure if you're reading this, you have followed Tractor and my adventures via his blog, but I would really love to get Kali and/or Pebbles into some fun stuff as well. Pebbles just graduated from her first agility class and starts the next level in two weeks. She seems to enjoy it and I figure this will give me a place to share videos and blog about her progress. She is a fun loving dog and she is very eager to please. I would love to see if I can get her to go off the dock, now that our club has their very own dock/pool. She likes to swim alright and loves to do anything that involves her and I bonding - but she isn't so keen on going off the edge of even the pool, so we might struggle with that, but I definitely want to try!

Kali, is completely opposite - she isn't so eager to please me, but she has a lot more natural drive in her. She is very treat motivated and works well on several training tools. She is really a smart little dog and I think she is stubborn because of how smart she is. She would be a natural at both dock diving and agility, but right now, she likes to perform on her terms when she is in the mood.

Tonight, I took the girls out, individually and worked them each using a couple different training tools. I focused on the "touch" command - and used a clicker. Pebbles is a little... slower (ha!) than Kali, but started picking it up after just a few minutes and was so bouncy/wiggly the entire time. We also worked a few agility things, including "turn" around a traffic cone and some jumps over plastic bins I have. (hey, gotta work with what we have!)

Kali, on the other hand, picked up immediately what I wanted - on both "touch" and "place" - and when I tell you she is smart.. she is so sneaky! For the "touch" command, she knew I wanted her to touch the contact (a tupperware lid) - well she started getting so excited about her click/treat, that she would whip around to the lid - but not quite get to it and snap her head back to look at me - like she was trying to fake me out. I would just stand and wait, and she would rush back and slap her paw down and then come back to me. She is a funny little girl - and I think if her and I can work together a bit, I can easily get her off the dock! Agility will be more of a challenge for her, but we'll see where this all takes us.

Heidi is doing well still - she has been on Proin now for 2.5 weeks and so far - we are seeing a little improvement. Her stitches came out and her hair is already growing back from her surgery. She also has gained 1.8lbs since her surgery.. yay!

More updates to come - hopefully I'll stay on top of this!