The Blog of the Frog

Following on from my last post – Solei continued to improve…the week prior to the obedience show I had him out in the garden every day at least once, often twice, practicing heelwork in the correct chair on bumpy grass. Rewarding very frequently! The slight problem being when I discovered on Wednesday that we no longer had a retrieve!! He’s back to being not very happy about picking up the dumbbell, but I can no longer use the toys I was using before – now he’s used to the dumbbell he mouths them too badly and messes around. His heelwork did steadily improve as the week went on, though I wasn’t sure if his confidence was building in general or just in the garden…figured I’d find out at the weekend LOL

So, Saturday dawned and off we went to Solei’s second ever open obedience show. Arrived nice and early so I could calm myself and him down, as we had a running order (RO) – in UK obedience you turn up to work your dog whenever you like, but they always randomly draw the first 10 dogs, to avoid the situation where nobody wants to be first!

He was entered in two classes – the first class (drawn 5th) was Pre-Beginners Dog or Bitch (HOL, HF, Recall, Sit Stay, Down Stay), and the second class (drawn 10th) was YKC Graduate (same as above + retrieve).

The first class Solei worked probably better than ever. Certainly as good as his best ever….I came out with a stupid big grin on my face! Didn’t matter how he’d scored, I was over the moon with his performance…especially off the back of the issues we’ve been having the last few weeks.

Then when I went to get him out for the stays he was let out before I was ready and he hurt himself jumping up on me. Not sure if that was what started it or whether he’d had enough anyway, but he went really stupid again – “world is out to get me”. He did stays (clear) and then I put him away for as long as possible, hoping he’d recover. Problem with that was I then had to take him in for classs #2 without warming up (didn’t like to warm him up either cos he was being stupid) and he wasn’t as bad as I’d thought, but he was still pretty horrendous…his attention wasn’t with me, but it’s so hard to find the balance with Solei – if he’s too focused on me he’s too aware of the chair and every bump, if he’s not focused enough on me he’s better about the chair and bumps but his attention drifts and he doesn’t concentrate properly, especially on turns.

Oh and retrieve, in case you’re wondering – he didn’t run off lol but he dropped it halfway back, half lay down and mouthed it badly before bringing it the rest of the way back. I’ve now ordered him a custom made smaller, lighter one so hopefully that’ll help – I know he does find the existing one a bit heavy.

He almost got us into big trouble as well….in the first class his marks reflected the performance I felt he’d given and he went into the lead, he led the class almost all day…and it was the class I reeaaaally didn’t want him to win  Thankfully the fourth dog from the end beat him, so he ended up 2nd which was a superb result. Round one over!
 
On to Sunday, and round two. I really didn’t know what to expect…I had a feeling Solei would be much more aware of bumps and much jumpier, which he was. Much less confident…and he had a lousy handler!

Once again he was in two classes, Pre-Beginners again the same as Saturday, and also the Pre-Beginner Stakes. Once again he had a RO – 6th in the Stakes, thankfully not drawn in the other.

Which is where the lousy handling came in! Solei usually has clear recalls. On Saturday he lost 1 on his recall, which is unusual for him (but for which I was very grateful as it put him 2nd rather than joint 1st!). I put it down to one of those things…..until he did exactly the same on his recall in the Stakes, which put him out of the running – he wouldn’t have won, but with a clear recall he’d have placed. It took it happening both days for me to realise it was me, so then I paid particular attention to where I had my hands and feet when he did his recall in the second class!! Which was subsequently clear, which proves it was me…just a shame I didn’t realise before I ruined his chances

In the second class he was ok, lost almost all of the marks he lost on lagging and working wide (chair complex strikes again!)…I say almost because midway through heel free he suddenly had a massive itch which he had to stop dead, spin round and attend to!! LOL He finished 8th and they were placing to 6th, but he got the judge’s special award which the judge is given to award to whomever they wish.

So overall we had some lovely results and I’m still flying from seeing him do what I know he’s capable of.

Next chapter of the Solei saga

On Sunday evening he was eager for food as usual….so I got their food ready and I did a couple of steps of heelwork, good…a recall, fine, couple more steps of heelwork…no problem! Called it a day on a good note, and started hand feeding him. He took 5 or 6 mouthfuls perfectly happily, no problems at all and I thought he’d turned the corner….then totally out of the blue the next mouthful he started flinching again, even though it was exactly like the previous mouthfuls…and then we were no better off than we were the day before.

I hoped it was just a little blip, but yesterday he was back to how he was; flinching and reluctant…absolutely no progress made at all I carried on doing what I’d been doing; what feels right for Solei. There’s a very fine line to tread with him, and what would be right for another dog isn’t right for him…I know he’s being silly, but for him it really is best to pander to him for now and try and avoid things which cause him stress, rather than “make” him confront it.

Today I’ve been really careful with him, but I’m ecstatic to say that he’s seemed normal He’s been taking food from my hand without flinching, and I’ve been able to interact with him in a more normal (if very limited) way….so fingers crossed he’s over “it” now and it’s onwards and upwards Still early days….not going to count my chickens before they’re hatched….

I’ll be keeping all toys away from him for at least the next few days! As well as continuing what I’m doing slowly slowly, and be very careful about how I interact with him. We still have 10 days to go, so hopefully he’ll be raring to go and put in a good performance then

Why does a high always have to be followed with a low?!

I’m about ready to rehome Solei….except before you all panic I could never do that but he seems to be almost permanently stressing me so much. I honestly do sometimes wonder whether he’d be happier as an only dog – or with just one other older/calmer/quieter dog – with an older or disabled person who just wants a lap dog…

As I mentioned in my last post I did some practice with him at the show last weekend and he worked absolutely superbly. Sunday (I think) he was acting a little “the world is out to get me”, can’t even remember now (it’s so not unusual for Solei I don’t even take it in as being odd :P), later in the day I called him over and went to stroke him a little more enthusiastically than usual (Solei HATES any kind of rough praise or OTTnes) and he screamed at me….now I haven’t been convinced that he’s 100% ok for some time so I went to do it again to see if I could figure out where/what was wrong, and he screamed again….but nothing seemed particularly odd so moved on (the screaming isn’t unusual for Solei, if you do anything remotely rough with him or even try and pick him up in the wrong way he screams at you – he’s a very unconfident, sensitive and dramatic dog!)

I took him to obedience Monday night and he was being really stupid, his heelwork was awful (laggyand very much keeping his distance from the chair) and when I waved the toy gently near him (a long thin tuggy toy) he was backing away actually SCARED of it.

Tuesday night he came to ringcraft to watch and he was perfectly normal, but he’s in one of this “omg the world is out to get me” modes and I can’t remember him ever being this bad before….he actually won’t come to me if I call him, if I insist he kinda inches nearer slowly and then stops a couple feet away.

I have no idea what’s up with him….if he goes out he seems normal, when it comes to food time he seems normal (unless I get the toy out or put my hands near him :P), though I’ve pretty much been giving him a break from any training so that is to say he barks when he knows I’m getting up to feed, then bounces round me whilst I go over to the kitchen and then eats enthusiastically

I have no idea whether it’s physical, mental or a combination….he even spooks/flinches at the lead when I hold it in a certain way, which is definitely mental because it’s not putting any pressure on him in any way….he’s seeing it out of the corner of his eye and flinching at it. Eye sight is fine – he was eye tested by an ophthalmologist last November, and he’s been doing that since before then.

It’s always upsetting/frustrating but this time the fact he won’t even happily come up to me is horrid And I haven’t got a clue what to do with him.

I wrote that three days ago….I think things may be improving slightly. I usually do a training session with half his meal before feeding him, I haven’t done that for a few weeks (thought he’d been doing quite a lot and there wasn’t anything specific we needed to work on, so was giving him a break), and after he started this behaviour I was intending to just leave him alone totally for a few weeks and hope he’d “get over it”.

But then he seemed so normal when it came to food time, I tried doing a couple of things with him – a bit of heelwork, a couple of spins…and he actually worked almost as normal. He’ll even recall pretty well. So I decided it might actually be more theraputic for him to do some obedience, thus we’ve been doing a *very* small amount before meals – possibly just a few steps of heelwork up the room. I’ve also been handfeeding him some of his food, to try and break the association that my hands = BAD!

I have him entered in an obedience show on the 24th and 25th of this month, and three of the four classes aren’t too bad (one is a special class that shouldn’t be too difficult, two are heel on lead, heel free, recall with finish, sit stay and down stay, the third is the same as the two but slightly longer stays and with a retrieve), so although initially I thought I wouldn’t take him, I’ll see what he’s like nearer the time, and as he seems to be ok doing the obedience at home I think I’ll take him and see what he’s like once he’s there – luckily it’s only approx half an hour, so I can afford to do that!

Obviously I only want what’s best for him, it’s just often so difficult to know what that is I really hope he gets over this soon

All is good at the moment

We went to a companion show today, no obedience but whenever we go anywhere like that I always take my stuff – good opportunity to give Solei a quick practice in a strange environment.

The weather was gorgeous and there were quite a few of my friends there, so we had a super afternoon sitting chatting! I handled a friends Clumber, who did NOT want to do anything! He was in a very much “I can’t be bothered” mood and was very hard work…in his first class it felt like I was moving a sack of potatoes   but he still got a 4th. Plus a 2nd in Best Mover (he’d woken up a bit by then!) and another 4th in Most Handsome Dog. I knew the judge was aware of Phalenes, so I’d opted not to show Darwin but put Elton in instead. On his new lead! I was going to have an expensive leather show lead for Elton, but whilst waiting for him to finish growing I’d discovered he really isn’t keen on chains (they’re half-check/martingale style), so instead I’d been showing him on a show lead I had with no chain, and so for my birthday I had a lovely white silk show lead for him This was the first time he’d worn it!

It is thereby dubbed “the lucky lead”, for my gorgeous little boy absolutely showed his socks off, won his class and then went on to BEST IN SHOW!! So, so proud of him…and he’s still only thirteen months old He won a bottle of wine, which mum appreciated

Vale had a 2nd in Best Veteran (unfortunately she was rather hampered by the fact her classes (Waggiest Tail & Best Veteran) were the last two classes I was showing in, so I’d already won too much

Once I’d finished I got my bag out to do some work with Solei. I  I kept him on a long line cos I didn’t want to risk anything (there were ponies about), but he did some nice heelwork (on lead, not on the line), and two perfect retrieves Didn’t mess about once! Then I tried a couple of sendaways. First one he went just past the target but I happened to have the line at that length so he got to the end and then realised what he was meant to be doing, then he did a couple of beautiful ones after that. I stopped there….I thought 3/4 sendaways and 2/2 retrieves + 100% nice heelwork was an excellent place to stop

So yes, super day!

It was my birthday last Tuesday….they’re always a bit mixed, this year was rather depressing on the back of grandad. Though Facebook was rather fun…I had birthday greetings from all over the world, from Australia to Sweden and America to Germany.

It picked up in the evening – Tuesday is ringcraft night and when we arrived a few people gave me cards, and I had a helium balloon and badge from two Clumber Spaniels that I sometimes handle! Made my day. As usual, almost all my presents benefited the dogs rather than me

On Saturday we went to a companion show that usually has obedience…travelled all the way to find they didn’t this year. In fact we’ll gloss over the whole thing, it was too hot and just not a good day

On Sunday I had found out about a companion show which definitely did have obedience! If it had been anywhere in land I wouldn’t have gone – too hot for the dogs – but it was right on the coast, so off we went. Arrived (with full compliment of dogs – Vale, Solei, Darwin and Elton) and it was gorgeous – perfect temperature with fantastic views over the sea. I’d decided to just put Darwin in the pedigree classes, Vale in the Veteran novelty class and then do the obedience with Solei and Elton. There were only two obedience classes, the first one I couldn’t do (won too much) and there was no way Elton was ready for the second one, so I entered Solei in that class and then put Elton in the first class Not For Competition, to do a training round.

Darwin was 2nd in his AV Toy class – because “we must encourage the children”!! I kid you not – the judge actually SAID that to me, as she placed a young girl of around eight 1st and Darwin 2nd. Vale won AV Veteran, and then at the last minute I decided to put Solei & Elton in the Brace – which they also won!

In the obedience, as it was a relatively basic class (heel on lead, heel free, recall with finish and sit and down stays – ie nothing that requires him to work away from me and then get the opportunity to run off) and it was fairly hot, I decided I would take Solei in without warming him up at all. We paid the price for that on his first stretch of heelwork, he was working a little further forward than he should which then led to a crooked sit when we did the first halt (very unusual for Solei), but after that he settled and his heelwork was brilliant….recall was perfect, as were stays He ended up 2nd, behind a Border Collie!

When I (eventually) managed to take Elton in for his turn I was very excited about having him at a show to see what he’d do. He did a few puppy classes (mainly socialisation) when he was little, other than that he’s never been to an obedience class and I’ve done very little work with him outside. We’ve done a lot of practice, but 99% of it has been at home inside! I think I worked with him in the garden once…and this show was on grass.

He was a star! I was absolutely amazed. We went in the ring and the first exercise was heelwork (only on lead). We’ve been practicing, but I couldn’t believe how incredible he was! It was quite basic heelwork with just a couple of turns, but his position was almost perfect and the judge said (and it was the end of the day, he was the last dog to work) that his heelwork was the best she’d seen all day  After that he was very distracted by everything that was going on around him, which caused a lot of problems with his stay for the recall – funnily enough it wasn’t the stay that was the problem, it was getting him to sit! Eventually I left him in a stand stay, which worked much better. The sit stay wasn’t nearly so much of a problem, he was concentrating a little better by then.

There is so much potential there, I’m very excited for the future <3

Ok, as I was saying!

I entered Solei for his very first big obedience show, over two days. On Saturday he was in Pre-Beginners (bottom class) and on Sunday I put him in both Pre-Beginners and Beginners (next class up). Pre-Beg is the only class that doesn’t involve a retrieve, and his retrieve is *very* dodgy – put it this way, in an unfamiliar environment he had yet to bring it back first time

On Saturday it poured with rain the whole time I was there…I got soaked to the skin, very cold and came home early Soleidid a lovely round, and only lost 4 marks…he was lying joint 8th when I left and ended up just out of the top 10 – not bad in a class of 47 dogs! Though because he lost less than 10 marks he still got his first Certificate of Merit

On Sunday I wanted to work him in Pre-Beg early but the stays were at 11am and of course sod’s law, they stopped as he was the next dog to work! He was really fired up and focused, by the time we’d done the stays I’d lost him so put him away for a bit…then they stopped for lunch andit was a two hour break because of a meeting. Long story short I ended up having to work his rounds straight after each other, which does not sit well with Solei at all. He isn’t very confident anyway, and finds the chair bumping over grass quite scary so tends to jump out to the side and/or lag behind…he’s getting better, but he gets worse as the round goes on, so if I go straight from one to another the previous will be fresh in his mind andhe’ll tend to lag from the start.

Anyway, we worked Beginners first and he did the retrieve!! He wasn’t in the least bit interested in retrieving (or even holding it) outside the ring, so I really didn’t think he was going to fetch it. It wasn’t desperately clean, but he did it! That was the highlight of my weekend He’s come such a long way – this was a dog with zero toy drive that wouldn’t hold anything in his mouth and had zero interest in play.

Pre-Beginners his heelwork was as expected – laggy! Heel Free in particular was very expensive – he lost 11 in total andI think 7½ was on that – he ended up ages behind me at one point! Though the judge marked very strictly, andso even with that he was still 13th out of 47.

In Beginners, he was 7th out of 49!! Losing 6¼, so got a Certificate of Merit there too Very proud of him for his first weekend of big shows!

The following Friday mum and I went up to Newbury, for Southern Counties Champ Show. Way back in November I’d booked a Travelodge room (yayfor £9 rooms!), to be only our second time away overnight in the last 10 years (and hoping Crufts would be a success, as we hadn’t been at that point!). I had a lovely day on Friday, watching the gundog and utility groups and spending money! Then we had an evening meal in Sainsburys cafe, and went off to the Travelodge. I can highly recommend it – despite being at the services it was a lovely place, much nicer than the Coventry one I’d booked for Crufts. The dogs had gone to T, and S was going to bring Elton up for me on Saturday. As it happened Solei was meant to have taken his Bronze Good Citizen Award at some point in the previous months, but the opportunity which was meant to come up hadn’t…and he needed to have passed it by the next week. So S brought Solei up as well, so he could take it at the show!

It’s always very strange to be at a show with a completely different group of people, so after Friday it was quite nice to be back amongst the “Papillon people” on Saturday! Elton had a 4th in Junior Dog, the dog that won the class going on to get the CC! Later he was unplaced in the Junior Stakes, but the placements all went to big names andhe got a good hard look and the judge even came back to give him a secondlook, so I was still very pleased with that!

Oh, and Solei passed his Bronze with flying colours

Just 6 days later it was off to Malvern for Three Counties! Elton was once again in the cards, getting a 5th in Junior Dog and then to my delight coming 3rd in a very large and diverse Junior Dog Stakes! The Stakes also had prize money and he won £10!!

Next up was a companion show, where the judge was a bit of a surprise – having judged the same show the year before! I’m not showing Solei this summer (bar obedience & maybe the odd brace!) and I didn’t want to put Elton in, so that left Darwin and Vale. I knew she wasn’t overly keen on Darwin – having had him under her last summer – but he has matured and as we were there I thought he could go in anyway. He suffered his first ever defeat in AV Non-Sporting coming 2nd.

Vale did AV Sporting pedigree class for fun (not being the right “type” I don’t usually do the pedigree classes with her) and was thrown out, so we returned to our usual favourite of novelty AV Veteran! Which she promptly won She’s such a lot of fun to show and I’ll be very sad when she can’t do it anymore (this could well be the last summer I’ll be able to cart her round, she’ll be 11 in September)

Yesterday we went to an open show, for a change! My first general open show since Elton won the Puppy Group at the beginning of May. A friendhad been under this judge with her Phalene, in an Any Variety Not Separately Classified class, and she’d called her a Japanese Chin. So I’d thought very hard and debated much about whether to enter or not! Eventually decided I would, because I wanted to go to a show and we had Papillon classes this time, so at least she couldn’t mistake Elton for a Chin!

Sorry to say I was proven correct! She didn’t look at Elton, he was on the end of the line and slightly round the corner, and when she came down the line she didn’t even bother to walk all the way to Elton(!) He was placed last. I’d also entered Darwin, who fared slightly better – he was 2nd in Open, but behaved ABOMINABLY! I think he may well have been in with a chance at winning it, but he wouldn’t move properly and was obsessing with getting his head down on the mat. Dogs

Today we’ve just got back from another companion show, because it had obedience. It was very hot, too hot for Solei to want to work! Elton and Darwin both did the pedigree classes and Elton was thrown out, Darwin won AV Open! And then lost BIS purely because the judge thought he was too thin…she said as much to me. C’est la vie! He is a touch on the slim side at the moment, we’re working on it!

Solei and obedience….what can I say! I put him in two classes – for a change I thought he could do the middle and top classes, the top class having a sendaway in which he’s never done outside the house/garden. In the first class he blew the retrieve – there was a clump of grass (more like hay) in front of where the dumbbell had landed, which was so innocous you didn’t even notice it….unless you were Solei. He went out to fetch it, stopped at the grass, sniffed it, decided that wasn’t what I wanted him to bring back and ran off!! Ran out of the ring and ended up over by the pedigree ring, saying hello I didn’t think he was going to come back, so I started off out of the ring to fetch him….I’d only just got out of the ring when he turned tail, came charging back into the ring and jumped up at judge’s (who had her back to him) legs Made her jump! It was actually very funny, you could almost see him “oops, sorry about that – got a bit distracted. But I’m back now, where were we?!” Grass suitably moved, I did the retrieve again and he was fine the second time. So there went any chance of placing in that class!

On to the higher class, and this time the failure was the send away. I was actually very impressed with him – got into the ring and discovered it was a really long send away. He went away beautifully, but then got distracted sniffing the marker, forgot what he was meant to be doing and recalled. So there went that! The judge wanted him to succeed, so we did it again – same thing happened. Did it a third time, and before I sent him the judge went and stood by the marker. When he got there, she tried to PUSH him into a down!! I was too much of a chicken to say anything, but I was so annoyed…you don’t just manhandle someone else’s dog without asking. Needless to say Solei was not amused, and he’s quite a sensitive dog so I just have to hope it hasn’t done any damage now! Especially as it was his first attempt at a send away in competition.

Oops, that was rather longer than intended…