Foxy's Brother Is A TV Star

There are a couple of short clips of Foxy's littermate Freddie in this news segment. He is the black tri puppy in this video. Also a couple of other Contact Point dogs are in here as well. http://www.piousdogproductions.net/wmv/dog_agility_newscast.wmv





Foxy has really come a long ways with manners in the house. I am able to let her be a lot more free at night time without watching her like a hawk. I am happy as she gets to have a bit more fun. Another wonderful step. I cant imagine my life without her now... she has been absolutely wonderful. She and I share a pretty close bond now =)

Foxy Wanted To Post Her Own Blog

Before I let her say what she wanted...I bought her a new collar today, I wanted to see which size fits her well before I get her a custom one..so this one will have to do for now! I love it though, it is pink plaid! =)

Now here is Foxy:

"Hey everyone!"

Foxy's Class Last Night

We do have lots of work to do. But here's some more details of what went on last night!

When I first got there, I could tell she was going to be over the top if she was extremely close to all the dogs and people so I went towards the back of the room so I could have our little area already "reserved." Most the dogs are very young puppies in the class, but of course Foxy is the most..errr.. hyper. She is the only Border Collie though, we are the only ones in the class that are going to be going for agility as well.

Before class started, I started working on sits and downs, and then paying attention to me while walking on the leash. She did pretty good with this. Yes I dont expect perfect focus on me yet, but I had some nice moments were she did focus on me a lot.

When class started, we started with going from fronts to the sides. Which Foxy did beautifully right away. She really followed my hands well. I have a feeling this week, we are going to do a LOT of different variations of it to get as most out of it as we possibly can since this seems to be a STRONG point she has.

Then we did something she is NOT so great at... walking up to her without her jumping up. This is what I found out I need to work on majorly with her. Now normally with me, she is pretty good about not jumping up when I walk up to her and such..but if its someone new, she goes over the top and wants to jump all over them forever. Which people are SO bad about not following the "doggie rules" and petting her when she jumps up. SOOOOOOoooooo major boot camp coming up where Foxy is going to get ignored until all four paws are on the ground. This was our MAJOR WEAKNESS.

We did sits, to stands...which to my amazement...Foxy learned the command in less than a minute. She was amazing.. lol we were all impressed.

Then it was down from a stand..which she did really good. I think the only dog to be able to drop immediately into a down. Good girl!

We then worked on getting touched and stuff, which Foxy has NO problems being cuddled or restrained or touched or messed with.

I also am going to use this week to work on the bite inhibition a little more, she has about a week left of it.. so I am going to work on it a lot this week. She hasnt ever been very bad though.

Things for us to work on:
1. NOT jumping up on strangers
2. Start on loose leash walking
3. Working with distractions around (will probably take her to the college walking track and stuff for this)
4. Sits, downs, stays, comes (just getting more solid behaviors)
5. Work on the "wave" command more so she doesnt confuse it with everytime she sits.
6. Start with off leash stuff at home inside (walking next to me)
7. Trick training- not sure which tricks I am going to work on this week. I am going to make a list of the ones I want to teach her and then go from there.

This weekend and tomorrow I am probably going to do a lot of work with her. Its just been so rainy and wet here consistently for almost 2 weeks, it has been hard to be able to do much. Hopefully the weather starts cooperating where we can start boot camp up.

To Prick or Not To Prick

Well, I posted on the BC Boards if people thought Foxy's ears might go prick (which I would LOVE). There was a red tri that's ears were almost the exact same as Foxy's at her age and now her ears are prick.... do we have a shot for prick ears???? Let's keep hoping!!! =)

We have class tonight... I am pretty excited to see how she does.

Need Ideas For Crate Bedding

Foxy is starting to pick up a habit of wanting to go potty in her crate if I have her crate pads in the crate with her. If I only put one crate pad down, she scratches it off to the side so it doesnt have a function. If I put 2 or 3 in there, normally the pads stay in place. However, shes been going potty at odd times in the crate fairly often with these in there. If I DONT have a crate pad in there or just one of them, any slight movement she makes while sleeping or settling herself echos in this horrendous scratching and clawing noise to the upstairs (house is a loft style so sounds carry big time here) and yes I need to get some sleep at night. So I need something that will muffle out sound as well. I dont like the thought of her lying on plastic all night either. She must be crated at night as this is a leased place. I have two options to go to that could work: Find a crate pad that will stay in place and will muffle sounds and wont be extremely lumpy so she wont feel the need to potty on it... or move her crate back upstairs beside my bed (she tended to be a bit quieter and more settled because she knew I was "watching her").

Anything out there that is "Border Collie proof"???

This is our only really difficult thing with her so far.

I measured her with a tape measure.. I think she is around 16-16.5 inches tall. I hope she grows a lot in the next few months.. I want her to be around 19.5-20 inches full grown!

Videos 01/20/08

So here was warming her up...notice how bouncy she is being...LOL



Here is the box exercise..its pretty long.. so if you get bored you can skip over to 5:30 and it gets more exciting! She has done SO great since we have only done this exercise a couple times since the last video.



And here's just having fun playing..I still cant get her to do too many complicated things with the ball in my hand as she is SO focused on the ball. We are getting better with it though!



Last week she got her last set of shots, she weighed 18 lbs.. what a BIG girl!

I think we are going to start following the Sue's training levels with Foxy. I think it will be good structure for her as well. We also will be working on more tricks soon and more exercises for her to think...such as putting metal food dishes inside each other and stuff like that.

Class Starts Tomorrow!

Foxy is starting an obedience class tomorrow. As Rachel is the teacher, I know she will gear it towards agility for me and Foxy =) I am GLAD that I have her in a class so I can follow a structured "curriculum." I am also glad that I can get her started in some more serious training. I cant wait to see how she does. This will be a pretty small class as I know it wasnt advertised much, but it will be great for Foxy to get into the class scene and to see what our strong points will be, along with the weaknesses. She is already starting towards a brilliant career.. I am excited and thrilled, but this time around, I do not feel a huge rush either. I am completely happy with getting everything down right with her, meaning the groundwork and foundation skills.

Hope to have some good news after the class...and hoping Yoshi continues on with his recovery as it looks like we might be able to show this weekend!

Picture Post

So since I could not go to Yoshi's trial as he is still limping..I went and took pictures of Foxy today to try to quit thinking about this discouraging week I have had. The camera drives me up the wall because the shutter speed is SO SLOW.

Training 01/09/08

Earlier in the day



This was 5 min after I introduced the box.. the goal is for her to eventually put all four feet in the box so she learns where her hind end is... and to teach her how to think!

Starting Some New Stuff

Yesterday I added something new to our exercises.. I started the target training. She picked it up quickly. I only had to do two five minute sessions and she really got it down. You could really see her thinking. The second session she picked it up right away and didnt forget a thing. We went through all the basic stuff too and so we were able to do a bit longer of a training session. Next week I think we are starting some sort of obedience class. I am not sure.. I really want it geared more for agility but I think there are supposed to be a lot of puppies in the class so it might be a really good class for her just for the experience.

I am really starting to see more and more of a well behaved dog out of her. She is doing so much better with containing herself while we are inside. She has really come along in the past week or two.

Foxy Loves Agility Trials!

Because there are lots of people everywhere..so she was completely happy the whole two days because she just got to be in the mix of everything. Each day we came back from the show she was just conked out for 3 hours or so sleeping very hard.

She really seemed to enjoy the scene very much. Nothing scared her..in fact she just was even wilder as she wanted to go to everyone and say hello. LOL

I did get some attention work with her, but I didnt ask a lot of her except to try to be polite and not jump on people (still a work in progress...haha) =)

Picture Post

At the ballpark in the chilly weather!!!! She is turning into the most beautiful girl...I love her so much






And this was about a week ago.. the funny ways BCs sleep... hehehe

YAY

Yesterday Yoshi finally started playing with Foxy. He is still not sure about her as she is almost as tall as him now and she is definitely way stronger so he has been wary of her..but he's finally starting to come around and play tug with her =) She is getting better with not playing so rough too...which Yoshi wont do rough..but she has gotten way better so I think over time they will be good buds.

Foxy did great when I had both dogs sit and down at the same time..I figured it would be enough to send her over the top and blow me off..but she did everything I asked. She is really starting to come around and focus on me when I ask for it!

Running up and down the stairs after toys wears her out!!! I will try to get some pictures and video very soon! She has grown SO much already!!!