It's a shame that I am such a procrastinator, because Ani is one talented little girl! She is fast and in amazing control of her body. I love to watch her run with Libby, our GR. I occasionally take out the clicker and work with her, but for the most part her training has been idle since my last post. We bred her in early spring and she had 5 very ugly puppies which ended up blossoming into very cute babies! Kim kept a tri girl and named her Rumor. She looks just like Ani, only in black.
So back to Ani's training... today I had a half hour private lesson with Bonnie Henderson and it was wonderful!! I really enjoyed working with her, and am looking forward to doing more of it. Today we discussed the 3 main things that I will be working on:
1. Contacts (2 on 2 off)
2. Jump Grids
3. Weave poles (2x2's)
Then we went to work. We started with a 2 jump grid, set about 4 feet apart. The first bar was set at 4" and the second at 8". Ani had no clue what she was supposed to do with them, and instead of jumping them she actually wanted to herd them! It was very amusing to watch.
The second thing we worked on was beginner contact work with a board. I clicked when she showed any interest in it, and progressed to clicking when she touched any part of herself on it. By the end she was standing on it and getting lots of big rewards, and this was after only a few minutes!
Bonnie encouraged me to work with Ani on beginner heel work - finding heel position. Also, recalls. Other than her name she really hasn't been taught to come on any particular command. I need to look into Leslie Nelson's Really Reliable Recall method again. And lastly, I need to teach her a release word now, like 'OK'.
We will revisit in another month and see how we have progressed.
I worked with Ani on some heel work just now. It is going to take some time to teach her to sit at my side, facing the same direction! I am encouraged though. She seems to enjoy the attention while we are working.
A New Beginning
Blumoon Anticipates A Landslyde!
CH Sunaire Living The Dream x Blumoon Deja Blue Happily Ever After -"Ani" was born on December 8, 2010. She was the last puppy born in a litter of 7, co-bred by me and Kim Lappen. I knew Ani was mine from the moment she was born. She was just THAT puppy. But as time wore on it became evident that she was growing... a lot. We kept hoping that she would stay in size, and holding our breaths. She even went to live with our friend Kathy Ryan, Marco's owner, for some early breed training. Eventually she stopped growing, but pushed the size chart all the way to 16". She is still a very pretty girl.
I didn't spend much, if any time training Ani because I was preoccupied with other things. Tia's health was failing again, I went to grooming school and then worked at finding a job in a new career, I was training Libby in agility. There just never seemed to be time for Ani. In July 2011 I took Ani for a private lesson with Nicole Levesque, thinking that a lesson might jump start me into actually training her. We worked on ideas for overcoming her terrible issue with car sickness and then started with simple exercises such as sit, down, hand touches, regular recalls and restrained recalls. I train exclusively with positive reinforcement and a clicker. Ani understands that a click means something good. Nicole also suggested that I do lots of tug work with our "fur tail", which Ani really enjoys. Unfortunately I really didn't keep up with the exercises. Bad trainer.
Having just lost Tia, my heart dog on January 10, 2012, I decided that my new focus must be on Ani. She is my next "project". About a month ago I spoke with my friend and animal communicator Anne Hassett, who was helping me through my overwhelming ordeal with Tia. Tia always had such a great sense of humor. She asked Anne where that "other" sheltie in the house had come from! She actually sounded disgusted with her! I asked why and she said because "she has no work ethic"! That made me laugh. I hope Tia imparted some words of wisdom to Ani before she left. Ani has some pretty big paws to fill. This blog will document our journey.
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