Co-ordination and Balance

Yesterday afternoon Skye and I went to Hannah Banks' workshop: Foundations of Co-ordination & Balance for Agility Dogs. We had such a good time! Even though at first I wasn't sure we would. Skye was quite shy when we entered the hall where the workshop was going to take place. There were lots of new dogs to meet and strange noises to get used to. She wasn't too keen about the first exercises we did either. But fortunately, after a while, she started to enjoy herself. Very much actually!

We did all kinds of exercises to make the dogs more aware of their hind legs and to strenghten their muscles in that part of their bodies. It was very nice to see the dogs doing the exercises that Hannah had set up for us. All the dogs did very well. And even though Skye is stil quite small, she didn't have any trouble doing what was asked from her. Here are some pictures of a few of the things we did.

She loved the wobble boards. This is the square one.

There was a round wobble board too, which was very wobbly indeed!

She just couldn't get enough of that one and even did 'sits' and 'downs' on it.

'Stepping' over the little jumps.

After some initial hesitation, Skye loved going up and down the ramp:

such an easy way to earn some chicken!

The wobble cushion.

And last but not least: walking against a ball.

At first I thought Skye might be a bit small for this exercise,

but she was more than happy to do it.

During the workshop Lian and Colin, Skye's breeders, stopped by to see how Skye is doing. It was so nice to see them again. And Skye certainly hadn't forgotten them. She just loved playing with Lian.

Cry baby

I don't know what was wrong with Skye last Saturday. During puppy class she just wouldn't stop crying and whining. She wanted to go either to Joost or to the golden retriever puppy next to us. But I wasn't very interesting, that's for sure! Even my homemade tuna flapjack couldn't convince her otherwise. (Or maybe that was the problem, hahaha). Our trainer said I shouldn't worry about it too much, it just happens sometimes. But it was a bit frustrating, I must admit. After about twenty minutes, she fortunately changed her mind and we could do some exercises. The 'settle down' exercise and the recall went quite well and walking on a loose leash is going better all the time too. So over all I am very happy with her progress.

And who could get angry at those sweet brown eyes?

Mole

When I came home this afternoon, I found a package on the doormat. A few weeks ago, I renewed my Dogs Today subscription and as a gift we received a toy mole! And Skye absolutely loooooooves it. But it had to be killed first, of course!!

Doggy shopping

Over the last few weeks I have gradually been getting Skye used to being alone for a while. I've taken it slow, and today I reached the two hour milestone. So far Skye has been doing very well. Only the first few times, when I left her for only a few minutes, she would cry sometimes. But now she seems to be alright.

As I only have a bicycle at  my disposal (Joost takes the car with him to work), I try to think of little errands I can do every day. But I must say, after a few days I don't need any more veggies, pasta or other groceries. So today I did something different. I went to a real doggy boutique which I spotted a while ago. And of course I couldn't come home empty handed. So I went for a nice flavoured chew bone. Being a boutique, they put it in a posh little bag. Haha!

Skye and the city

This afternoon the weather much improved, so we decided to go to the city with Skye. So far I had only taken her in the overground part of the underground. This time I wanted to go a bit further. We took the tube to St. Paul's, the station near St. Paul's Cathedral. From there we walked over the Millennium Bridge to Tate Modern. We took quite a few pictures, I thought I'd show some of them here.

Skye at Woodford station.

We got out at St. Paul's.

'Sit' in front of Tate Modern.

Pretty girl.

Skye and me on the Millennium Bridge.

The tube is becoming a bit boring by now.

Even the guy next to us is yawning.

More puppy class

This morning we had puppy training again. There were only three puppies this time. I think the others (well, probably their owners) thought it was going to rain again. But fortunately it didn't and we had a really good time. Skye did very well. Although I had to use a lot of rewards to keep her focussed on me. The wet grass did distract her easily again. But her recall went very well. When Skye and another dog were released at the same time, she came to me right away. Even when the Akita wanted to check out my treats first. Skye thought she was a bit big and just waited nearby until she could come to get her reward. Good girl!!
Walking on a loose leash went pretty well too. We worked quite hard on that this week, so it was good to see that she was willing to show it off in class as well. After walking mainly in straight lines, back and forth, we did some (tight) bends too. This proved to be a bit harder. But with a bit of practise we'll hopefully master that soon too.

When we came home, Skye went to sleep straight away.

Sunny October afternoon

We had such a lovely walk in the park this afternoon. And I even managed to remember to bring my photo camera!! So here are a few of the pictures I took. It's kind of a miracle Skye is on any of them at all. She is so quick. Many of the photos I took only have a tail, a blur or no dog at all on them!!

I especially like this last picture. Clever little girl.