Woot! It's here!

 It's here!  The dog door is finally here!  It only took.... Four weeks.  And get this, after all that time they actually managed to screw up my order.  Sigh.  After the original window was out and they were prepping the frame for the new one there was a lot of pausing between the two of them and then they disappeared outside and made a phone call.  The new glass was thinner than the old one, which means the framing or something wasn't going to line up.  The difference was 1" vs. 5/8" or something like that.

The installer blamed the glass supplier and said they could replace the old glass and re-order (which would mean another two weeks minimum) or we could put in the new glass and the framing would just be slightly recessed.  Honestly, I don't care about that kind of thing (and now that it's done, it doesn't look off at all) and I didn't want to wait, so I told them to install it.

The dogs were locked out into the big yard and were fruit-loops the entire time.  Bark, bark, bark.  Eventually they settled down, until one of the guys walked through the garage door again.  Sigh.  Really guys, I know we don't have company very often but get over yourselves.

The installer guy said we should avoid using the door for at least two hours to make sure the epoxy had a chance to fully set in the humidity (it was humid today?).  The dogs were pretty worn out from their supervising, so they were happy to just come inside to take a nap for a while.

I had a meeting at the shelter that I had to leave for at 3:00, so we got in a short practice session before I left.  I was relieved that Luke fit through the door, as that was definitely my biggest concern.  The rest we can work through, but the big dog kind of needs to fit!  The door is 12" wide by 24" tall.  It works swell for the big dogs, but it is a bit of a jump and quite a hefty push for Kaiser.  He'll figure it out.

We had another training session when I got home from my meeting and everyone made huge improvements!  Luke seems totally comfortable with the door and Secret did great, too.  Kaiser is using the door with prompting, but it will take a while, I think, before he is totally cool with it.  I noticed in the video from our second session that Kaiser was slipping on the linoleum when going from inside to out, so I slid the doormat over under the dog door and hopefully that will help him out a bit.

Yes, I made video of our training session.  I make video of everything!



Tomorrow Secret and I are off to Viroqua to visit the chiropractor.  Then I suppose we'll lay low until we leave for the trial bright and early on Saturday!  I've been doing table & teeter reinforcement the last few days, but not much else for agility training.

So much as I can tell from the rules we are okay with our crappy table performance (run past then jump on) until we get to Masters/P3.  My goal for this trial is to not be so hesitant about it, worrying that she'll jump off.  I think that's what causes her to by-pass it in the first place.

I got the run order for the weekend -- In a couple of classes there are only TWO dogs in P1.  Yup, glad I didn't enter Kaiser.  Poor Kaiser.  It's still going to be hard to go without him!

By the way, if anyone wants more information about this style of dog door, here is the information page:  http://www.securitybosspetdoors.com/In-the-Glass-MaxSeal-Pet-Door-p/max-glass.htm