Tic Tok

I love Silvia Trkman.  Her training methods are inspiring and I just love the bond she builds with her dogs.  I've always felt that 90% of agility is having a great bond with your dog and the rest just falls into place (I realize that it is possible to have a great relationship with your dog and not do well in agility too, but those are outliers).

I've been working on her Cik/Cap the last week or two and boy I sure progress a lot slower than Silvia!  Not that it really matters aside from trying to see how I can improve.  And  I definitely see some reasons for it.  Mainly 1) I don't reward frequently enough (especially when I'm so tired that I'm training to tire her out more than trying to teach her anything and 2) my placement of reward to encourage offering behavior can quickly turn into luring when I'm not paying attention (or tired).

Unfortunately I'm unable to say Cik/Cap so I've translated to Tic Tok.  Kirk's Tic direction is significantly better than her Tok so I see more Tok's in our future.

We're going to continue to work on Tic Tok but I think my next focus will be heeling and our lineup behavior.  I'm a bit tired or luring to face the correct direction I want her to go.  We've played with pivoting with her front feet on an object but I haven't really progressed from there.


TicTok from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

What a good brother Icon is...

He plays the hose game with Kirk.

 
Hose Play from Agility Dogs on Vimeo.

Kirk's newest BFF is Bansky.  Banksy is 3 weeks older than Kirk, but she is not all that much bigger.  Their butts are around the same height, but Banksy's shoulders are higher.  This is a good thing because it gives me hope that Kirk will be a normal size border collie and not a midget.  Of course Banksy is supposed to be REALLY small so maybe Kirk will still be a midget and Banksy will be an extra midget.

Kirk looks up to Banksy, and I'm worried she might be a bad influence on Kirk.  Doesn't she look a bit devious?  Kirk is so innocent. 

 

 Vicious Banksy!

Ok, Kirk has a vicious side too...

Growing up

My little girl is growing up and starting to look like a dog :(.

An ass-high dog!  Two days later she looked way more balanced.  Gotta love puppy growing.



She is still really cute though!



Although perhaps a bit stalky



She likes to chase the other dogs and they put up with her.  Kinda.



But Rampage would like her to go away.  Now.

BayTeam USDAA

Kirk made LOTS of new friends at the BayTeam UDSAA trial in Palo Alto.

 She's sooooo cute!

True, Bisou and Kirk!


With all my complaining about her food possessiveness you'd think she would be snarky with food around other dogs, but she isn't at all. At least with the lower value treats. I'm not sure what she would do with a lamb shank...


There's no doubt she loves her food though.   "What about mine??"


She loves to lure Bisou under chairs and have her way with him.  Our poor neighbor had to put up with puppies wresting under his chair at random points during the weekend.











She grew A LOT over the last few days. The orange harness no longer fits her.




On Sunday she met Banksy for the first time. She was noticeably smaller when they played first thing in the morning. When they played again at the end of the day, they looked about the same height! Whaaaaaaat? (no photos of the dramatic differece. Just take my word for it).


Oh yeah we did agility too. The boys did great! They both won pMCS and pMCJ and both rounds of PSJ. Rampage won PGP (phew, I needed that bye) but Icon was asking for a new handler after that run. They were not really impressed with how much attention Kirk got over the weekend, though. Agility trials are supposed to be about THEM!