Today we had our first private agility lesson with Daisy Peel. Wow, what a jam packed hour and Gimme had a great time. At times when we got talking about stuff, Gimme would wander off to snoop around the arena, but when called, she dashed back for more fun and excitement. We packed more learning into that one hour, than we got in the five private lessons with our old instructor. I like how everything is approached and the thoughtful and fun way Daisy builds a foundation.
It was challenging and yet the goal was always for Gimme to think she was training me. Just what Gimme needs, a whole bunch of new ways to teach me to play her game and give her rewards. You gotta know she loved that! Now that Gimme is "all growed up" we can focus on agility; its gonna be funnnnnnn. I sat in the car after the lesson and wrote up four pages of notes, leaving with enough plans for the next several months.
I know I always say Gimme has no fear, but seriously - the kid has no fear. She hasn't even been on a teeter yet and yet nothing about it bothered her. Gimme was thrilled to create a new game, crash-the-board-down-and-make-a-big-noise. Woohoo. Of course I had to explain that Gimme thinks that helicopters are her friends because they listen and obey.
One thing I particularly enjoyed was a complete absence of sentences that go, "You've done a great job with her, but..." Naturally those kinds of sentence always ended with a litany of what I'd done wrong. I was always taught, that in a sentence that contains the word "but", everything before it is negated by whatever follows. If you watch how people structure sentences with "but" in them, you'll see what I mean - that rule holds true 90 percent of the time. "He's a really great guy, but we didn't click." Translated means, "I have nothing in common with him, he's a moron and you are welcome to him."
Instead I heard a lot of, "That's good. The next step is... Here's how to do it." I am sooooo pumped. I'm excited to get going on stuff and looking forward to our next lesson, which is months down the road. Gimme is going to be a very fast agility super-star.
Unfortunately the rest of the day didn't go as well. I spent 3.5 hours trying to help my parents get their riding lawnmower into the truck. We were not successful. <sigh> It's a long and frustrating story, which I won't go into. Hopefully the tip I got from the guy at Home Depot on my way home from nosework will prove to be the solution. I'm going to call in the morning and have Mom see if she can find the "thing" on the back that releases the gearbox. Cross your fingers.
I was really looking forward to nosework class; howevah... While Gimme is still doing great, as I've mentioned before Joyce just does not seem to retain what we talk about from one week to the next. Tonight was the fourth time we've covered the same information and, since I was tired and frustrated (having just driven in from the mower fiasco) I'm afraid I was a bit short in my reply.
To make it worse, she doesn't read Gimme well - I know I've said that before. It may not be her intent, but it seems like she doesn't think I know my dog. For instance, I think Joyce sees Gimme's tail wagging, and thinks she's not frustrated. Not! On the ORT video, where she clearly was frustrated, she wagged her tail the whole time. She was even wagging her tail when she turned back to snap at the leash and when she was reared up on her back legs trying to get to something. If Gimme is awake, her tail is going.
I also think she's misreading Gimme's expressions - tonight I saw her shoot two looks of annoyance in Joyce direction when she was trying to attract her attention to a different area. Whoa, that's not something I normally see. Perhaps Gimme was tired too - having come from that agility lesson and then a long day in the car. I know I was tired.
She's only had half a dozen vehicle searches, including the match and the one practice I did at Shopko. So she may not have caught on to the idea that if presented with a vehicle there is nothing else to look at. Gimme is easily frustrated (she is, after all, still a baby) by being "made" to stay by the search stuff (vehicle and container searches is where this comes up). Yet, if I let her squirt off and quickly investigate something that catches her attention and then gently reel her back in, she isn't frustrated and goes right back to work. If she gets to snoop briefly, then she is satisfied and able to turn her full attention to what we are doing. Given how enthusiastic she is about her nosework and how incredibly fast, I don't think there is any reason she can't have a few seconds to check something out. I believe she will grow out of it. Even if she doesn't, with her speed, I can readily afford a few seconds rather than frustrate her. I've already seen what she does when frustrated (our first ORT attempt) and that is not an experience I want either of us to repeat.
I wish could make this clearer to Joyce - perhaps I should remind her of what I'm doing before we start vehicle or container searches.
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