So Rush is a little more on the scare-dy side She is sound activated, afraid of cars (riding in and driving by), she is afraid of the tractor, she is leary of new people and a little snippy with many dogs. She fears the “shake” of clothes when you are folding laundry, she hates the vacuum. What else:???

So basically she is afraid of many things, which as one of my next agility dogs is completely unacceptable. What will I do? Well, I will tell you. My thoughts for this particular dog is to make her face her fears. Not a “in your face” face off, but a “you cant run away” you must observe at the least.

One of her major fears is plastic bags. When I take out new black garbage bag she heads for the hills. I finally decided I needed to deal with it because I cant have a freaky little dog. So…. what I did was I grabbed the dog, grabbed the bag and started petting her all over with the bag. While I was doing that I was also rubbing her tail upward to keep it out from between her legs. I gave her tons and tons of praise (happy praise) the entire time. I did this until she finally did not want to run. When I let her go she didnt run. She did move away but she didnt run. The next time I took out a bag she thought about running, moved away to the next room, but then stopped, turned and wagged her tail. I then took the bag and repeated what I did the first time. I rubbed her all over, she relaxed more quickly and I let her go.

Another fear was our tractor. When the tractor came out she ran to the house. My approach was pretty much the same “face it”. While Greg was on the tractor working the training arena I locked her in the arena with me and all the other “tractor savvy” dogs. When she was brave, I praised. I never touched her or held her - I let her feel she could run, but not past the fence. I sat on the end of the teeter and when she came to me I praised and gave lots of pets (but did not hold her). The result now is that she can be in the arena with the tractor (all the gates open) and she doesnt feel she has to run.

If she was more fearful of things I may have to take a different approach, but based on her personality I feel she can handle this type of exposure and approach to extinguishing this fear.

Well, we have started a daily work schedule. This dog is so ADD. She goes and gets the ball (which is her reward for doing the task) then she forgets what she was doing. We are working channel weaves completely opened and with guide wires. I train alone so I need a way to get her through them.

We are also working on “hit” which is just to move across the contact (in this case its a contact trainer) and then get the ball (which I am throwing). We also have “bang” to move the teeter.

Our work is also consisting of some yard work that is really fun! I am teaching Rush to “go around” the islands in the front yard just like Ice and I am teaching them to go around a single tree trunk with a front cross to draw them in really tight, then I throw the ball for acceleration. Its an awesome exercise and is teaching really tight wraps. I still have my left and right wraps on cones and stantions. Great stuff, Im excited.

New Rush video - playing in the yard

Cool video for my Rush puppy.

This gilr is the MOST impossible dog to photograph!  I have never had so much trouble as I do with taking pictures of her.  Even the camera complains.  I dont know if she is too dark or what but I get missed photos, blurred photos on and on.  So, here are some that actually came out.  I think she is so beautiful!!!!

Today is Rush’s big 1 year birthday!  Happy Birthday to her brothers and sisters as well

I shot these tonight - check out the resemblence in these two dogs!!!  One is Rush the other is Ice