Training for the August dog show July 23, 2007
Had just enough time to take Dilbert for a quick walk this afternoon and do 20 minutes training for the dog show. We had in our training programm the following things:
1. trotting straight forward (goes ok, when he has sth to look at at the other end- if not, he tends to look at me)
2. trotting straight forward, turning around and trotting back (I leave a treat on the ground when we leave. When trotting straight forward, Dilbert sometimes looks a bit at me almost like asking “could we not turn back and get my candy…?”, he turns nicely and stays trotting. I try to teach him a word for turning so he knows that we are going to change the direction. He trots back to the candy so nicely looking all the time straight forward.)
2. trotting a triangle (I am learning to remember to tell Dilbert when we take a turn, Dilbert is learning to trot not looking at me. Especially in the corners he tends to make an eye contact. I think that is allowed, but he should remember to turn his eyes away from me afterwards.)
3. standing still in the show position (We´ve made some progress with this one. He can actually stand still nowadays, but needs a treat on the ground to motivate him. Another thing is that I don´t really know in what position he should stand. When I stretch him and put him to stand “nicely” he allows me to do it and stays in the position, but he looks very helpless.)
Summer greetings July 23, 2007
It´s been a long time since I wrote anything here. The sunny summer days have made me want to stay away from anything that reminds me of work. And it´s been good. Long walks with Dilbert and the kids. Away from Turku , too, visiting granny up in Alavus, Särkänniemi fun fair in Tampere, Simo´s godparents in Viitasaari, Kolmården zoo in Sweden, etc. The kids have been to swimming school and Simo has been to a super big scout camp. I realize that I sound now like the summer is over. The kids and Kalle still have 3 holiday weeks left, but the fact is that for me it feels like the summer is over. I had today my first day back at work. The big bosses are still away this week though…
Darling Dilbert´s summer has been lazier than I thought it would be. I had been planning to be active and train him a lot, but I don´t know how I was so lazy with that myself… and even a bigger problem was Dilbert´s ability to tolerate the heat! Whenever we went out and I tried to get him excited just about anything, he refused to do anything but sleep in a shadow. Poor Dilbert. This problem belongs to the disadvantages of a black dog: in summer they only work after 11 pm.
Yet we have kept up attending dog school several times a week. I´ve been to 3 different courses: one course in advantaged obedience, one in basic obedience and one in agility. Kalle has been to search and rescue trainings twice a week, too. Dilbert´s second obstinate age is also over, thank God! So now it´s easier and he is willing to co-operate again and responds better to commands. This means that we´ve got a better control of him now than last spring.
We´ve not made as great progress with Dilbert´s obedience training for obedience test this summer though. It´s because Dilbert has been so unwilling to work when it´s been so hot outside. And I have to admit, that after the evening promenade at 11 pm I am not so terribly active anymore, so many days have gone without any real training except attending the courses. Agility has been this summer´s best thing though. What a great hobby! Dilbert clearly enjoys every moment of it. We´ve already progressed to the level, where we can actually combine some obstacles and do some “real” agility instead of single obstacles. Due to Dilbert´s heavy structure, he is not as quick as smaller lighter dogs, but I enjoy seeing him having so much dun. Yesterday he was just about to freak out when another dog was working and flying over the obstacles and Dilbert had to wait for his turn! 
Another thing that is new for this summer is a dog show in August. We´ll see how it goes. We´ve had no training for that ver and now we´re quickly trying to learn some basic things about how to stand and how to run so that Dilbert looks as good as he can on the 4rd of August.
We´ve just had Dilbert´s best friend Ilona for a visit over night and we´ve just kept noticing over and over again how much Dilbert would benefit from a friend. When he has another dog in the house to play with, he does not jump on kids at all. He needs another dog to play with and get rid of his extra energy. It´s so easy with another dog in the house, because the kids and the dogs can all play together outside even without constant monitoring. Maybe we should get the other dog sooner than next summer… I wonder if Kalle would accept it.
I´ve made some nice photos of Dilbert during the summer. I blog some of them here now and will put some good photos in Flickr later.
