It's Working!!

You know that crazy idea I had recently that involved making Secret tug for her dinner? Well guess what, I do believe it's working.

She's been getting to the point where she is actually offering resistance and increasing the amount of time she will tug before eating. I've been asking for small increases in duration each time and it appears to be getting through to Secret. The first tugs were more or less borne of frustration, but now she's catching on and seems to understand that tug = eat.

Today we had a NADAC trial here in La Crosse. My expectations were no different than with dinner -- If you want these treats in my hand, you must tug. Truthfully, this was probably a step beyond what I'm asking for at dinner, as I haven't asked for her to tug when I actually have food IN my hand. But it clicked for her and she was totally game!

We actually got some GOOD tugging. Not crazy tugging like you see from so many dogs at trials, but good honest-to-goodness interacting and even a little play growling and a slight shake once, even! Hey, I'll take it! We're making HUGE progress!

And I do think it made a difference in her runs today. Secret was a happy girl -- all except for Chances. That was the run where I had to pull her out of her crate and go straight into the ring. We barely had any time to get pumped up and it showed in her run. We had plenty of time before each of her other three runs, though, and they were great! Secret even beat Luke's times in every run! In her first round of Regular, Secret had the 2nd fastest time in the class, with the average being about 5 seconds slower (right around where Luke was).

Secret was 3/4 today -- We didn't get Chances (barely anybody did...), so she will not be getting her NATCH this weekend. Oh well! Hopefully we can get a Chances Q tomorrow to increase our odds for January!

I'll be curious to see how tomorrow goes with regard to the tugging. She's always so pooped by the end of the day on Sunday, so I'm curious to see if this jazzes her up at all.



Luke was his usual crazy, happy self. He was a bit of a wild child and was slipping around the arena today. He knocked a bar in the first round of Regular for one of those stupid 5-point Q's, but somehow managed to keep the rest up (despite a lot of ticking). Luke wasn't even close in Chances, which means that he won't be getting a NATCH this weekend, either -- But he did knock out a nice Jumpers run, so he got one of those out of the way, at least!



Kaiser actually has two videos to share. He got to run last night because I won a free day in the worker raffle at the last trial. Kaiser was the obvious choice because Luke isn't running games anymore and I really don't feel Secret is up to three days at this point in her career. I could have, you know, saved money and applied it to Saturday or Sunday, but we're only running five runs each day this weekend and Friday had six. Yay for more runs!

Kaiser gave me the most bang for my (free) buck and knocked out 6/6 runs last night. He likes games, so it's not much of a stress. I think we got a gimmee in the first round of Touch-n-Go because I'm pretty sure that he went through an off course hoop, but you win some & you lose some...

He finished his V-NATCH points in Weavers and got his Outstanding Elite Tunnelers title, which means that he just needs three more Tunnelers and four more Touch-n-Go Q's for his Versatility NATCH. Oh, and I won the worker raffle again last night for another free day! Sweet!!



Today was rough (on both me & Kaiser) since we didn't get home until after 11:00 p.m. last night. He was a trooper, though, and put in some nice runs. Only two were Q's and they aren't pretty Q's, but I'll take them. I'm thrilled any time we bring home Regular Q's!  :o)

Petco sent me a 20% off coupon last night that had to be used today, so we swung by there on the way home from the trial. They correctly peg me as a sucker, because when I have coupons I buy stuff we don't need. On my way to the food, I walked past a Kong display that said, "Buy one, get one 25% off." So of course, I did. I got a couple of the Squeezz toys. We have these at the shelter and I've always been impressed by how long they keep squeaking. Well that was a stupid choice, I've been listening to obnoxious squeaking since we got home... But the dogs think they rock, so yay.

Right now Kaiser & Secret are going bonkers in the back yard. Time to conserve energy for another big day tomorrow!