to Barleylands. I went and picked up by caravan today (it lives with friends of mine at the moment as we only have a double drive and three cars - hmmm) and parked it on our drive. I have had to book a day's holiday from work tomorrow as I have felt too unwell with my ear infection to do anything!! So tomorrow will be spent shopping, cleaning and maintenance of caravan, housework and packing. All ready for friday morning argh!!
I took the dogs for a quick walk in a different place to where they normally go. This is a shorter walk but I didn't feel up to the normal hour. It is a bit darker as it is in a slight valley, and Barley was really funny. She would stop and sniff so I kept walking, she would look up, realise I was gone and screech at me until she got back to me! Sooo funny - bless her! It was as though she was shouting 'wait for me!!' She is getting really speedy on the flat now, it helps that the others are so fast so she has to work really hard at keeping up. Someone asked me last year where I keep getting all these super fast dogs from but I suspect a lot of it is that Fly is naturally very fast so if the others want a ball they have to try very hard to get it! Hopefully this will rub off on Barley:)
I have a plan for Fox this year to stop him chasing other dogs, I have never known a dog with such a strong chase instinct! I am going to put him in my car, in a cage, near the admin tent so I can keep an eye on him, very close to the ring so he can watch the racing. I am hoping he will tire himself out barking and will eventually get bored and sleep. I am going to put Neo in the other cage as he is very calm and not interested in the flyball until I am putting his harness on (maybe a calming influence?). I am really hoping this will work as I don't think he will ever do Flyball otherwise and this certainly can't make him any worse, Heres hoping!!
Good luck with Fox, I hope the theory works. I kinda did the same with Lexie (dog chaser extroidinaire!), exposed her to the thing that sent her crazy except I controlled her reaction to it by sitting on her! lol Well, I would sit on the floor with her sat firmly between my kness and my arms wrapped tightly round her chest so she couldn't actually move or scream or screech. I only relaxed my grip when she relaxed and when she started getting wound up again I'd clamp her back down. Then when she started to calm down I played with her, while her attention was on me we had fun and she could be as crazy as she liked tugging or trying to get the ball but as soon as her attention went back on the other dogs I'd sit on her again! I just did a little bit with her like this at training each week 'til eventually she would get out of the van and bounce up at me with a 'what we doin' today?'...cured! :)
ReplyDeleteI don't mind my dogs watching and getting excited/barking at other dogs running while I'm not asking anything from them but I expect them to respond to me when I want them to.
Good luck racing at the weekend! :)
Hmmm theory didn't really work!!! Think I'll try your way :) Thanks for the advice!
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