Back to the Hold

Since Eden is now retrieving joyfully, I am going back to work on her hold. She wasn't able to deal with any pressure when we first started the retrieve, so I skipped it. But, now I am going to reintroduce the idea of a calm, firm hold...if I can. LOL I encourage her to tug a little to firm up her grip, we'll see how that goes. Her grip was instantly better going from the slippery, plastic AKC dumbbell to a wooden dowel - now we have to tone down the excited head-tossing. Silly girl! I did a few sit, stay and recall to front to see where we were with that since I haven't done them in months - she did wonderful! A few teardrop/flip finishes and we called it a day - what a girl!

Eden's Retrieve Continues to Improve

Title says it all. She is now retrieving the entire length of the basement training room. She's attempting to sit on her own when she comes back (sans cue). I've started to ask for a sit before I send her (which is more or less, me pinning her down until I let her bust out LOL). She even loosed a crazy, excited bark on the return LOL She's chomping the dumbbell like crazy when she sits so I used a wooden SchH I dumbbell with strings to tug to see if the opposition would help her hold. It really did. Now she's growling at me over the dumbbell and tugging and her hold is firm and steady. Now we need to make that a habit!

Merry Christmas!

Eden's first Christmas with me - a new tradition! She got her very own present to unwrap and seemed thrilled :-)

I received a small, pink shirt for Christmas that I was positive would look adorable on Eden - and it did!

Who does not smile back at this cutest of all cute faces???

Sweet Corgi Faces

The first snow of the season meant I had to take some photos of Eden looking adorable :-)

Workin' the recall :-D

White Christmas....Eve

Oddly enough, it's the end of December, in Michigan, and there has been no snow. Well, Christmas Eve there was. A tiny amount and it was sunny and beautiful so it didn't stay long but long enough to get the dogs out to run and have fun in the wonderful weather!

It might look like everyone is racing to retrieve the toy - but Eden is not. She is actually chasing, she has no interest in getting their first but loves to "drive" everyone there. Hehe

 

She also likes to badger Dottie when Dottie wins the toy first, in attempt to be chased herself :-)

 

And it wouldn't be an outdoor excursion if Eden didn't roll in something nasty at some point...

Retrieve Work

Working more on Eden's retrieve tonight proved that she is definitely loading off the dumbbell - she was even more out of control when I brought it out this time. She loves it! Her fast, clean and sliding pickup is the envy of our household Schutzhund dog ;-) I added asking for the sit on return and taking the dumbbell from her then, that went pretty well considering her butt was wiggling all over the place hehe. She also decided to use her imagination and combine the dumbbell retrieve with a flyball box turn...ah, Eden, you silly little thing!

First time attempting to get a picture of Ike, Kastle, Dottie and Eden all together, in the same pose, next to each other = disaster. Ike was out. of. control. He was way too hyper, way too happy and way too disobedient. We started the photo session with this:

Yeah...he fell down...and got stuck on his head. Only Ikie LOL It was hard to top that one but between Ike racing off and sitting on Kastle, Kastle barking and trying to bite me, Dottie wandering off to smell smells and Eden insisting that she must lay in front of everyone with her legs sprawled like some playboy hussy...it was utter chaos. It was a miracle we got any photos of all four together in any way, shape or form.

My Two Perk-Eared Pups

Love my two dogs, they both suit me to the ground :-)

And my absolute favorite :-D

Here I am trying to get them to pose...Eden is being overly cooperative with her posing and Kastle is under-cooperating as usual LOL

Finally!

We have a retrieve!!!

Eden can retrieve! This dog has changed so much she is almost unrecognizable from the sweet, shy little girl I picked up at the airport 7 months ago. That girl has disappeared into a demanding, pushy, energetic and incredibly quick little dog that I am enjoying more than I could ever dream. When I started to teach the retrieve, we had an ok time with the dowel but Eden despised holding the little plastic AKC dumbbell in her mouth. If I pushed it, she would shut down. *sigh* In comes "Evil E" and we have one decent retrieve started! She is barking, nipping, lunging to be sent after the dumbbell and even challenges the out command a little. :-D Wee, I love it! She dropped it a couple of times on the way back but she's starting to realize she needs to bring it to hand and her pick up is marvelous - quick and clean. Love her!

Doubles!

We have made amazing strides with Eden in flyball. The push board has done wonders for her box turn. It was a little iffy at the beginning of training but then we added a couple of props for clarification and she "remembered" right away. Tonight we added another dog in her lane. At first he was just barking alongside, in the position he would be in if they were running on a team. When that didn't phase her, we let that dog run after her, as the second dog in the run. She gave way on the lane beautifully so he could make the first jump. We did that a few times and then swapped and had her run second after him. She was so good, faster and showed a lot of drive. I can't believe how much she's changed since I got her - what an amazing little dog!!! And of course, since it is Eden, there are a couple of bloopers also included in the video hehe.

I am running another dog because her handler is injured. This is what Eden will hopefully look like someday.

Basement Box Work w/ Ball

We tried velcro-ing our Flyball ball onto the push board for Eden tonight. Her drool is extra strength or something because the velcro could not hold up to it and the ball ended up coming off. She did well otherwise though. I even added a jump, then two for her to go over, hit the board, and come back over. She is loving this and the more muscle memory I can build, the more confidence and enthusiasm, the better she will be next time we go to Flyball training. :-)

Rally Class

Tonight was Eden's last Rally class and one of her best classes as well. She is soooo good with focus in heeling position compared to what I started with. She did really well staying with me with all the halts and pivots on this course. Overall, just thrilled with this little dog and absolutely adore her!