New Motivation

Yesterday was a big day both at work and during training.  After yesterday, I am really in a good place right now.  I am so encouraged at both work and with training the Goldens.  Yesterday was the interns' and residents' last day at the hospital.  I am going to especially miss the oncologist resident.  I have never gotten to observe or help out with oncology at all at my clinic back at home.  He took the time to explain any questions I might have.  I really like helping out with oncology because we see the same patients again and again.  Oncologists must really develop a relationship with their clients.  The disadvantage to oncology is that there are often not a lot of happy endings.  In vet medicine, we use chemotherapy to try to put cancer into remission or to give the dog a better quality of life while we can.  We do not administer the drugs in as high of doses that are used for humans.  We do not want to dogs to get sick, have their hair fall out, and lose their appetite.  We just want to make them comfortable.  The oncologist sat down and talked to me for quite some time about vet school.  I am the youngest working at the teaching hospital- I will be starting my junior year in undergrad in the fall.  He gave me his opinions and told me that I was on the right track.  Who knows... maybe I will be a doctor when the oncologist resident comes back from Brazil!  I cannot wait to push myself in vet school.  I want to be boarded as a specialist.  As it stands right now, I really am interested in theriogenology and oncology.

I took the Goldens to the club last night for the first time in two weeks.  We all needed that.  I worked Layla's running dog walks.  I have been really discouraged lately because it seems that in every session she is no longer leaping the contact, but her strides are always off so that she ends her last stride on the dog walk too early.  Teresa suggested that it may be the timing of me throwing the ball.  I really tried to pay attention to the time I was releasing the ball last night.  It worked!  In our 2nd and 3rd sessions (we did 3 sessions total last night), Layla hit 100%!!!  I am so proud of her.  I told Layla on the drive home that I needed that more than anything.  Sometimes we just need a confidence booster to remind us what we are working for.

Jade is really coming along.  I am not pushing him nearly as hard as I did Layla.  I made some mistakes with Layla that I do not want to make with Jade.  Layla is so soft (Jade is not at all) and drilling her way too young had some negative results.  Jade has a completely different personality and working ability than Layla, but I still do not want to burn him out.  Jade thinks all training is so much fun, and that's exactly what I want!  Last night we reviewed signals for sit, down, and stand.  I worked a few stays.  Jade is really understanding his left and right directionals.  He can also heel the length of one of the obedience rings.  In another session, we did some chase games, tables, and wobbly board.  I have already started Silvia Trkman's Cik/Cap work at home and I will start Susan Salo's puppy jumping too soon.  There is just nothing this puppy cannot do!

Very soon, we will be going to the vet to get a vaccination for Jade.  I cannot wait to see by the scales how much he has grown since the beginning of June when I last weighed him.

I included a picture of my handsome man.  He really shot up in the last week or so!

Setting the Bar High

This past trial weekend in Texas has given me a lot of time to think about the difference between dreams and goals.  In both cases, there is an aspiration to attain or achieve something.  However, I do believe that there are differences that may be overlooked.  In short, a dream is when one sets his or her mind on something they would like.  However, the individual does not necessarily have a plan in mind or means to attain that dream.  A dream can be described as a fantasy.  It is perhaps a lofty goal that may or may not be attained.   On the other hand, for something to be a goal, the individual must have a plan for reaching the end.  In other words, the person carefully thinks through what means are necessary to reach the goal.  Goals may or may not also be attained, but one does not rely on good fortune alone to determine if the goal will be reached.

I have both: dreams and goals.  My dreams are both specific and not so specific.  For Layla, I dream of making it to an agility national someday.  I'm not sure the means I will go about to get to this point, but I do dream that we will run together at an agility national.  At this point, I consider my desire to get a UD on Layla more of a dream than a goal.  This is simply because I have dedicated so much time to agility lately and very little time to practicing obedience.  I am not pushing to get back to the obedience ring anytime soon, so we will just see what happens.  My goals with Layla are to get running contacts, to earn our MACh, and to earn a versatility title (VC or VCD).  I do have plans to reach these goals.  I do not expect results overnight and I will work my butt off to get there, but I know all of my hard work should pay off if I stick with it.

For Jade, I consider everything I want to do with him at this point as lofty goals.  I am not pushing very hard for anything at the moment.  He is just a baby and I want to make everything as fun as possible.  We are definitely working foundations for agility and obedience.  In agility, I want a quick agile dog who performs obstacles as efficiently as possible on a course.  I am confident that if I train for it, we will go far as a team.  I want to also go as far as we can in obedience.  I would like to jump into tracking, CCA, WC/WCX, and possibly K9 Nosework as well.

In Texas, I saw that neither Layla nor I ran well together at 24.  Layla has no problems making the jumps, but air time is really taking too much time in our runs.  She jumps so much more efficiently at 20.  I realize that if I had the time, I could probably condition her to jump 24 better, but I need to dedicate this time to her contacts and making our runs tighter.  I know I can push for speed much more at 20.  I changed Layla's entries to 20 for the Golden National and I entered her at 20 in another trial in Colorado during August.

I remember opening a fortune cookie one day that had a note that said, "In dreams and in life, nothing is impossible."  I believe we can certainly dream anything.  I also believe that our accomplishments are only limited to the time and dedication we put forth in our training.  We can set goals as high as we can imagine.  It is the effort that we put in that determines if we can attain these goals.

Back to Bar-hopping!

I type this post while listening to the dogs tumble in the hotel room.  They have had a big day today at the agility trial in Wichita Falls and they are not ready to call it a day yet!

Even after leaving home for college, I still manage to go to at least one agility trial in Wichita Falls a year.  Except for the long drive, the club here puts on a nice trial.  This is my first time in the particular colosseum that the trial is in this weekend and it is very nice.  I'm showing this weekend in just JWW and Open FAST with Layla.  Our contacts are most definitely a work in progress.  It will be awhile before we can enter standard again, but I am fine getting dirt time.  Today I really messed Layla up in FAST.  The send bonus was tunnel, wrap a jump, and then aframe.  I had a really dumb moment and completely walked over the orange tape after Lay wrapped the jump.  I was flailing my arms around trying to catch my balance, but it was too late.  I'm so glad I don't have a video of that run.  Layla had every right to stop and look at me in confusion because I looked pretty ridiculous!  We got a Q in JWW, but Layla was definitely not running up to her normal speed.  This is the first weekend I am trying her at 24.  Layla has beautiful jumping- something I am blessed with because I never taught her how to jump.  Clearing 24, even 26, for a girl that measures into 20 is not problem for her, but it does eat up some extra time.  I could be wrong- I'll see how she does tomorrow and Sunday.

This is also Jade's first weekend at an agility trial.  He was so good today.  I am very proud of him.  He did not make a peep from his crate and got to meet so many people and other dogs, even other puppies!  Having a cute puppy has its advantages and disadvantages.  It is so hard to go anywhere without stopping for every person that sees him.  Jade is such a love.  He has never met a stranger.  In fact, he thinks that he is the cutest thing on the face of this earth and that everyone should think the same;).  Throughout the day, I tugged with Jade on the dirt, we did some basic obedience commands around lots of distractions, and I ran him through the up-rights on the practice jump.  He is such an amazing puppy.

In the few weeks since I have been home, I notice that Layla and Jade are so very different.  Layla is an extremely soft dog.  She is forgiving, but really too forgiving.  She takes the blame for every error on herself.  This makes it extremely difficult to keep her up, especially after I have made a mistake that she picks up on.  I am trying so hard to keep her from thinking that she has made a mistake, especially at trials.  Layla needs to always be right at trials.  I finished watching Silvia Trkman's DVD on speed training and I got a lot of helpful hints to pump up Layla.  I'm going to give them all a try.  Layla is really a very nice dog, but she is definitely a challenge to train.  Some of it has been my own error and some of it is due to her personality.

Jade is the complete opposite.  Unlike Layla, he does not see repetition demotivating. In fact I have to be the one to call it quits.  He could go go go all day long!  Jade has not a fearful bone in his body.  This morning I caught him mid air as he tried to leap off of the hotel bed to chase Layla down.  The silly boy even smacked against the glass window this morning as I was holding the door open for him to go outside.   You would think that would startle him, but he had this silly look in his eyes as if he was saying, "Let me try it again!  I know I can get the doorway this time!"  Lastly, Jade is SOOO FAST!!!  It's really difficult for me to play chase games with a pup who is faster than me.  I am already teaching him directionals and I plan to also use Cik/Cap.  I believe I will be steering from the rear with this boy!  He's going to be a blast to run!

If the dogs will every settle down, maybe we can all get a good night's sleep for our morning tomorrow.  I am slightly sleep deprived at the moment because I got in at 11:00 pm last night.  By the time I got everything and the Goldens in the room it was after midnight.  Jade refused to potty (very unusual for him), so this explains why he woke me up at 5:45 this morning!

 Jade being cute this morning

My pretty girl

 Who's ready for some agility??

My handsome man at his first agility trial

More craziness!

I haven't slowed down since I have come home.  Maybe that is the reason why I have neglected to update my blog until now.  Last weekend, I took Layla and Jade to the dog club for Jade's first time.  Jade was amazing.  He whimpered for less than 10 minutes before deciding that he would just wait patiently in his crate until it was his turn.  I am working running contacts with Lay.  I'm having a blast and really want to stick to them- they are SO much work!!  The thing about RC's is that there is no set way to teach them because every dog is different.  You have to figure out your dog's striding and work really hard to match that to deep hits.  This means a lot of reps and a lot of videoing.  Layla is so funny. I think she will have it all figured out and then she will miss 3 in a row..  Nevertheless, I am having a blast and learning so much!

Jade was just brilliant all weekend (when is this boy NOT brilliant?).  I taught him down, a few steps for heeling, name recognition and attention, and here.  On Sunday, I was working downs on a table a couple of inches off of the ground.  We also played on a wiggle board.  This boy is absolutely CRAZY about any agility equipment.  He gets rather upset when he has to watch Layla run.  That is going to be my biggest challenge with him- getting him to settle and not get too riled up watching other dogs run.

On Monday, I began my new job at OSU's Veterinary Teaching Hospital.  I am having so much fun and I am learning so much.  On the day I began my job, a new rotation of 4th year vet students came to small animal medicine.  At least I wasn't the only one without a clue of how the hospital worked!  I have gotten up-close and hands-on experience with some really neat procedures.  So far this week, I have observed and/or helped with an endoscopy on a pot belly pig, administration of doxorubicin for a lymphoma patient, numerous blood draws and cystos, a fibrotic myopathy diagnosis, a bronchoscope, a bone marrow aspirate on a Chihuahua, treatment of a snake bite dog, helping out with two newborns after an emergency c-section, and semen collection on two German Shepherd boys.  I am very interested in Canine Therio, but all of the doctors there are so nice and I am getting to experience things I would never experience anywhere else.

Monday night, I took Jade to his first puppy class.  This little man just amazes me.  He held great attention throughout the entire class.  We were the first team to try the wiggle board.  Jade not only pounced on the board with no hesitation, but did it most enthusiastically.  When we were walking back to our chair, Jade went out of his way to pull me towards the board so he could do it again.  He was certainly not a fan of having to sit and watch all of the other puppies have their turn.

Last night I had to say goodbye to Blake after we watched the Thunders game at his grandpa's house.  That was really difficult for me.  Blake is the best boyfriend I could ask for and my best friend.  We are so incredibly close.  I'm going to miss him so much until the beginning of August, but I keep telling myself it is only 6 weeks.  I just don't know how we made it at different schools during freshman year.  It's hard to believe that we are approaching 2 1/2 years of dating- it feels like it has been so much longer.

Hopefully this weekend, I get some more time at the club to work Layla's RC's and train Jade.  I just got my judging program for the agility trial in Wichita Falls, which is next weekend.  I am so excited.  I am only running Layla in JWW and FAST (she needs one OF leg).  We are taking a break from standard until her RC's look great.  This will be Jade's first dog show.  I know he will be a good little spectator too!

Wow!! What a day!

So much excitement in the last 24 hours!! Where do I begin?  I pretty much had to drag poor Blake out the door Thursday morning because I was so anxious to leave.  As soon as we had loaded my bags, his couple of bags, his bike, and all of the raw food into the car, we were off.  This was the first time that we had traveled this far together.  It was so nice to spend a very long day on the road together.  We chose to drive south to Raton, NM.  This was my first time in New Mexico and I got to see some inactive volcanos.  Cool stuff!!

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting (and counting down miles on Garmin), we pulled into Tulsa.  I told Blake that I couldn't breathe as we drove into my neighborhood.  I nearly jumped out of the car before he could put it into park because my dad was standing in the driveway with Mr. Jade.  I just melted.  I couldn't believe how loving and sweet this baby boy was at our introduction to one another.  We all laughed so much watching Layla and Jade wrestle together in the front yard.  Layla ran towards Blake the moment she saw him.  Layla LOVES Blake (sometimes I think more than me;)).

I have been up since 6 am and have not slowed down until just recently.  This morning, I took the Goldens to the vet.  The techs and staff just ate Jade up.  I cannot believe that he now weighs 18.7 pounds at 11 weeks old!  I will have a big boy on my hands and I am so excited about it!  Next on our list of things to do was find a new collar for Jade because he has grown out of the one Marcy and Gayle gave him before he left Gayle's house.  I took the Goldens to Blake's house to introduce my baby boy to his mother and Blake's Chihuahua, Tiffy.  Blake's mother adores him and Tiffy.... not so much.  She was quick to let Jade know that unlike most of the world, she does not think he is the cutest thing on the planet.  We took Jade and Layla to Blue Moon for lunch (veggie burgers for the win!).  I joked to Blake that taking Jade out is almost like taking a new baby out.  We had pretty much cleaned the floor of the patio.  You start to notice all of the fallen straw wrappers, Splenda packets, and napkins when you have a puppy with you!  Jade attracted quite a bit of attention.  We could not leave without stopping at every table on the patio since we chose to sit at the far corner.  Blake and I bathed both dogs after lunch.

It makes me smile so much to have two Goldens again.  Losing Aubrie at the end of last August just broke my heart (and my family's heart and Layla's as well).  Layla has that sparkle in her eyes that I haven't seen since we lost Aubrie.  She just adores this boy so much.  She is patient with him beyond belief and knows just when he needs a correction.  Jade could not ask for a better sister and best friend. I cannot wait to watch him grow up with her.  I want to capture and remember all of the precious moments.  I glanced back in my car on the way to Blake's house and Jade and Layla were both asleep snuggled up next to each other.  Time is the only thing I have against me.  These precious moments come and go so quickly and I want to hold onto them all!

I worked with Layla a little bit this afternoon.  We did some wrap work and worked different crosses throwing in threadles.  This girl is amazing.  I cannot believe I can leave for 3 months and come back to a dog so willing to work for me and so very precise.  She has always been a beautiful jumper and doesn't seem to suffer very much in that regard from my extended absences.  Lucky for her, we are never leaving each other again!  This evening, Lay and I did some heel work.  We also worked some start line stays and recalls.

I worked with Jade as well.  He knows sit already and rings the bell very well before going outside.  I taught him to target my hand in about 5 minutes.  I am working on name recognition since he does not seem to know his name at all.  I am anxious to work recalls and attention work tomorrow.

I will take both dogs to the dog club tomorrow for a fun day of training.  I'm so excited to start Layla's running contacts tomorrow.  We played around with them a little bit over spring break and we had a blast!!  Well, I'm exhausted and I have to get up early again.  Going to go charge cameras for tomorrow and get to bed!