This week has been nice between early frost and what's to come next week.
Wednesday I took Amber to practice agility twice in the same day. In the morning with Lisa out in Mechanicsburg and in the evening with Deb in Rochester. A group of us had lunch in Mechanicsburg at Abe's Hideout. By coincidence we all seemed to have a taco salad. I just hat "the works" which included a few jalapenos. In the evening, Deb gave me an overview of the "barn hunt" and she has the whole set up including the hay and the rat tubes. Friday evening I was the only person to show up for "ring ready obedience" practice. I guess all the others had something else to do. In fact I almost didn't want to go but Amber needs every little bit of training I can get out of her since she still wanders off. I did walk her around in the hall for a little bit in hopes that others might show but when it was evident I was the only one, I figure I should leave and let our guide go home too.
Friday I stopped to help Don change his flag in front of his house. The recent wind had pretty much destroyed the one he had and wanted it to be nice for upcoming Veterans Day. Don cannot do it himself with the handicapped hands that will open and contract. I took his old worn flag to the American Legion flag drop off box for proper disposal.
I went to bed early Friday night since I had to get up at 4AM and leave at 5AM for Grays Summit, MO at Purina Farms. After I got off the freeway on the side road to Purina Farms, a buck crossed pretty close in front of me. We were well screened for covid before the gate would open for us. Amber got her "Barn Hunt Instinct" certification. Trouble is, Amber sniffs the tube with the rat but she is not distinctly indicating the correct tube to me, her handler, for the call to the judge. She leaves me guessing a little when I yell "rat" to the judge as she goes checking out the rest of the ring for who knows whatever. She needs immediate praise before she quickly moves on to other interesting scents. It's a fast transition.
I failed our first novice. I only enrolled in the instinct and one novice. I guess I'm not alone on the fail list. Seems the large dogs had more qualifiers. I wish I had signed up for two tries on this one. There are so few barn hunt events available within driving range and even this one was a 2 hour drive.
This is the layout of the Barn hunt. There were 2 rings in the big tent and competitors waited in the "blinds" till it was their turn. Those porta potties were sanitized by volunteers after every use.
Here you can see the flow chart of how far we have to go. All of the others need more than one trial.
I think Amber likes barn hunt. It's in her genes. She's keeping her nose language/secrets to herself and not telling me. Barn hunt makes a lot more sense than nose work. Seems like nose work is replacing the natural hunting instinct. There are many opportunities for nose work. I'm in the second class at Pawsitive Training Zone that started first week of July and classes have had many postponements. It will be 4 months of dropping treats in a box and it's boring. Ule is in our second class and his dog, Jivy, has already been to a nosework trial. I looked at him in class and asked "why are you here?". I was told that nose work would focus Amber's sniffing toward scents rather than sniffing during agility.
Alas, I don't think we will have an opportunity in 2021. There are few barn hunts in distance range according to the website. Based on lack of events, I realize this was probably a one and only experiment.
Since I'm not sure what we are good at, I've been trying many various venues to find our proper talent route.
On the way home it was mid-day and I've always wanted to stop at the "Pink Elephant Antique" mall. This place has all those big road-side figures from the good ol' days. Since it was mid-day I stopped to look around and had a Philly steak n cheese at the diner.
Arriving home I couldn't help but notice that my tree had nearly finished dropping leaves all over the lawn. This is especially important because leaves like to swirl in the corner and get tracked into the house. I walked the dogs first. I didn't have much gas for the mower so the first order of business was to fill my tank after the drive and get some for the mower. My mower fought the start after being idle for awhile and the constant stopping every other row to empty the bagger made me wonder if I'd finish before the job was done. But it did and afterward I used the air compressor to blow away the remnants from getting tracked into the house. I took a shower and saved the water in the tub to give Amber a bath too. I was so tired I went to bed at 7PM.
Sunday morning I got up early and walked the dogs before sunrise. I went to Mass. Sean brought his dog over and today it was very clear that Amber was attacking Moe. She wants to fight a pit bull. Not a very good idea. I got mad at her and put her in the kennel for time out. When Moe walked by the kennel, Amber got snappy. So I went to plan B: tethered together to force them to get along.
You can see Amber looking forlornly at me. Every time Moe got up, Amber was dragged along. They were together for nearly 2 hours. I made her do some "sits" for treats and they both got treats while together. Amber got a bit nippy when I handed her the treat because she didn't want the closeness of Moe to steal it (something she has often done to Sophie but now she's getting a taste of her own medicine). So as I handed it to her, I gradually let go of the treat so she had to take it more gently before I release it. Before Sean left, we both walked around the block: Sean with Moe and I with Amber. It was the most gentle walk I've ever had with Amber. She didn't pull or overly stop and sniff. I can't wait till we do this again.
Monday I had a one hour massage from Rebecca. She's giving veterans discounts in the month of November. I will say this, I never had a bad massage but this was absolutely the best. I had asked for deep tissue massage on shoulders and thighs where the sciatic nerve needs loosened. She did something different with my hips by putting my foot on her shoulder and twisting the other leg over for a little hip loosening. It was interesting. Afterward I got to meet her 2 little dogs that were in the other room. They know she's working because she wears scrubs.
Here's a lesson on the electoral college. This is the map of a blue state's electoral votes.
No comments:
Post a Comment