Friday 17 October 2008

Tennis Ball Week


It's been a real week. Our first weekend of indoor shows.

It all started Friday when Rupert accidentally(?!!!) chomped a tennis ball in half and chewed one half. It was eventually(!!!) removed from him but a great deal of it was missing. Some was found in the garden, some wasn't.

The next morning was a cold winter morning with fog everywhere. We drove south to Weald show. Rupert was clearly not his usual focused self. He barked and barked. He flew see-saws; came off the dog walk twice; jumped from the top of the A-frame. I decided he couldn't cope with the background noise at indoor shows and decided to give him skull cap and and valerian the next day at Warnham and keep him outside as long as possible. I also realised that with the noise of the indoor school he can't hear Jordan's little voice and Jordan is unaware that he needs to be much, much louder indoors.

The next day wasn't much better. Rup barked and barked, came off the dog walk (again!!!!) and knocked me over. Nearly got a clear in the jumping with J but lost focus in the weaves and shot out and into the tunnel. Got so loony he ran the 1-7 helter skelter on his own - well J followed as fast as he could - luckily Rup went the right way and they won.

The next morning Rup was gagging and sicked up tennis ball all over my pillow - don't ask why there!! He panted and panted so off we went to the vet. £200 later the vet could find no more tennis ball. But she told us to monitor him. The next day more ball came out.

We went to Pachesham on Thursday. Well, Rup seemed OK. He was a bliss to handle. Did beautiful wait starts for the first time in his life. Not himself at all. Back to the vet....!!!! Who could not understand why I thought it was odd that he did sit stays at the start and didn't charge off with his usual bat outa hell starts. However she did say the loopy behaviour was more akin to stuck tennis ball.

Meanwhile the Pachesham pups are seriously go!!!! Magic is doing well. He can loose focus when he has women on the brain, or scent but when focused is showing nice drive. I must take some photos of him. He is confident on the wobble board; getting the hang of the dog walk and contacts. Like Rupert he doesn't like to work away from me as he needs hand signals and lip patterns but the aim is to teach him from the start to go on unless told otherwise. He still has a tendancy to take short cuts to his reward.

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