Thursday, August 19, 2004
Wow, no Mojo for two days this week. How strange. It'll take him around 10 days or so to recover from spaying, from what everyone says. After that, I think we'll do the agility at Barkzone. They use the fairgrounds, which is nicer than pup-a-razzi. There's more space for one, and it's a dirt outdoor area, which means more distractions.
Best of all, there are only two dogs in their beginner class right now, which means that Mojo can get maximum equipment time.
Hopefully he'll recover in time (2 weeks from yesterday). Ela'll run him this time, so we can switch off. The only obstacle they use that he's not familiar with is the chute, which is pretty much a tunnel with a closed end.
When we were watching the class last night Mojo was whining and antsy. He wanted to play with the dogs, meet the other agility handlers, and (I think) run the course.
One different thing they do at the BZ agility is use a clicker. Clicker training is, well, basically you tell a dog to do something, then when they do it you click & reward with a treat. With the click, they know exactly what/when they did something right, which makes conditioning easier. Or so they say.
It'll be fun, though. I think with Mojo the hard thing'll be keeping his brain from getting flabby, since he really can't do much by himself except nap and play with his toys. I saw something in the oregon humane society mag (it was at the vet) about sniff training, where you can train your dog to hunt things by smell. Hmmm. Mojo can do that, but he's too lazy to use his nose most of the time...except when he's looking for a treat. I wonder how they train dogs to hunt the odor?
Best of all, there are only two dogs in their beginner class right now, which means that Mojo can get maximum equipment time.
Hopefully he'll recover in time (2 weeks from yesterday). Ela'll run him this time, so we can switch off. The only obstacle they use that he's not familiar with is the chute, which is pretty much a tunnel with a closed end.
When we were watching the class last night Mojo was whining and antsy. He wanted to play with the dogs, meet the other agility handlers, and (I think) run the course.
One different thing they do at the BZ agility is use a clicker. Clicker training is, well, basically you tell a dog to do something, then when they do it you click & reward with a treat. With the click, they know exactly what/when they did something right, which makes conditioning easier. Or so they say.
It'll be fun, though. I think with Mojo the hard thing'll be keeping his brain from getting flabby, since he really can't do much by himself except nap and play with his toys. I saw something in the oregon humane society mag (it was at the vet) about sniff training, where you can train your dog to hunt things by smell. Hmmm. Mojo can do that, but he's too lazy to use his nose most of the time...except when he's looking for a treat. I wonder how they train dogs to hunt the odor?
