Outdoor Obedience - class one

Well, today was a big day for Mollie and me - we went to our first ever training class together. Her previous owner took her to puppy obedience once, but Mollie was booted out for being a typical JR and barking at everything.

Today's class was an outdoor class with Theresa Franklin, who is based in Hinckley. It took us around 35 minutes to get to the field, I had to go on the motorway to get there on time as we'd taken Mollie for a short walk to take the edge off. When we got there, we had to all line up and do a short walk to heel, then a sit, then a down so that Theresa could see what levels of ability there were, then she split us into four groups.

We were meant to be doing retrieve to start with, but Mollie was distracted by the other dogs, and I hadn't taken a squeaky ball, so although she fetched it she kind of dropped it and ran towards a black lab as he had a squeaky toy! Then we swapped instructors and did a recall - Mollie was perfect!! She even did a perfect stay with the instructor holding her!!

After the recall check, we moved into the agility area. I should probably mention that by this time, Mollie was very VERY excited and moaning lots, although the barking had mostly subsided. While waiting I had to give her lots of fuss and also we did loads of sits and downs for treats to try and keep her focussed.

Well. The agility. Initially, Mollie just ran off, but I got her back easily enough and into a sit. Then we did a weave through some ickle cones and straight through the tunnel, then there were some low jumps, so obviously she went under every other one! Next was a pole weave, which she did near perfect, then through the hoop at the second attempt, and then a jump with one pole about 5 inches off the ground and one about 2 inches off. We tried EVERYTHING - I jumped, I threw a treat (which is how I'd got her through the hoop), I tried to lead her - nothing worked, she just didn't want to do it. Finally though there was the platform, and she jumped up OK and went into a down stay beautifully. Whenever we've seen agility displays she's got really excited, and I think she enjoyed it as much as she thought she would .

Lastly there was a bit of walking to heel (appalling), about turns, sits etc, then home to a big bowl of chicken and tripe (for Mollie) and lasagne (for me). We both had a great time, and we are both utterly exhausted. Mollie's been asleep pretty much since we got back, and is still crashed out with heavy eyelids, and I'm just shattered, but so proud. Definitely going again next week, and if I can make the flyball classes when they start up I think I'll give that a go too. Fantastic stuff, and hopefully Mollie will soon learn to ignore what everyone else is doing and focus on me...

Congrats to the other JR Mollie, who by strange coincidence had her first try at agility yesterday and also took to it like a duck to water!!

Walk in the park

On Sunday morning, while Tracy was at work, I took Mollie to Elvaston Castle, Derbyshire. It's South East of Derby, just off the A6, and has beautiful gardens which are open to the public.

We went to meet a virtual friend, Bev, from the D For Dog forum, and her beautiful whippet Katie - we'd never met face-to-face but since we only live half an hour apart it seemed daft not to get together. Bev forgot her camera completely, and I forgot that I had mine with me so didn't take any pics until we got half way round!

Here are Katie Whippet and Mollie. They didn't really want to pose. Katie was busy watching everything and trying to remove her Halti, and Mollie was just busy, as terrierists always are.

The Border Collie below is Maggie. Maggie likes to sit and watch the ducks, and herd them back into the water if they come out, apparently. We called her to get her to look at us, but if you look closely you'll see that she stuck her tongue out!!



When we were nearly back at the car park, we met up with another of Katie's friends, Ryka. He's like a whippet sized version of a Pharaoh hound, with the most amazing ears, and he took to Mollie straight away. It was mutual, and they spent quite a while chasing each other round the field and playing with the tennis ball - stealing it off each other. A couple of times, Ryka tried to mount Mollie (although he apparently doesn't quite know why he's doing it yet!!), but she just gently told him off and moved away, then rugby tackled him for the ball!

The fantastic thing about all this is that, apart from a quick woof at Katie when they first met, Mollie was fine with all the dogs. And Katie doesn't normally like strange dogs either (I witnessed her threatening a GSD pup!) but was instantly friends with Mollie - which is great news, because we fully intend to meet up again, this time with more photos!

On the way home from the castle, I dragged an exhausted Mollie into a big pet shop (well known chain store but I'm not going to give them free advertising!) in Loughborough. I'd never taken her there before as I was worried that she'd bark at everything, but she was incredibly well behaved. She didn't steal anything, even though all the interesting toys were on the bottom shelf, and didn't bark once. As a reward, I let her sniff all the different dried meats to see which she wanted. She selected dried chicken fillets, and has now become addicted to them - as have the cats!

Oh, and while I'm praising Mollie, she went straight into a sit when told to, when bikes & horses came past, and even a down once! (ah, the power of the tennis ball!) And with the help of tiny bits of chicken jerky and doggie choccie chip cookies, she's been learning paw. If you hold something out in a closed fist, fingers upwards, she will paw to get it. Next step - associate the command with the action...

Oh, nearly forgot - Mollie gained a new nickname, from Bev - "Mollie chops". She seemed to quite like it!

Belvoir Castle Country and Game Show

That's where we took Mollie dog on Sunday afternoon. The weather was OK - not too hot, not too cold, no wind or rain. And best of all, Mollie was a VERY good girl. There were loads of people,dogs and kids around, and she only barked a couple of times when she got really excited/frustrated (we wouldn't let her play with the clay pigeons or go in the agility ring).

Here you can see Mollie straining to get at the clay pigeons (skeets) - I reckon she thought they were little orange frisbees!



There were lots of stalls with doggie things (obviously working dogs like to have fun, too), so we bought her a new Kong Flyer frisbee; a rubber chicken and a new, soft fleece-lined harness. The new harness is much more comfy than the EzyDog, which just didn't seem to be the right shape.

Mollie saw someone else with a rubber chicken and wanted one, so we went and got one. Then she amused the crowds by running round with it in her mouth!

Here you can see her in her new harness, with her rubber chicken.

All in all, we were very impressed with her. A few months ago she would've barked and barked at all those strange dogs, but yesterday she met large and small with equanimity and a friendly, waggy tail. She thoroughly enjoyed herself, as you can see!

Mollie versus football

When we first got Mollie, she had this mad obsession with footballs. If she saw one, she not only wanted to chase it, she wanted to kill it. Walking past kids playing with one was an utter nightmare - even on a canny collar she turned into a slavering beast with remarkable similarities to the cartoon character Taz. Our solution - we bought a nice sturdy football (she popped our plastic one!) and started playing with her in the back garden. We took care not to kick the ball directly at her, and if she caught it and bit it, we said 'leave' - and she did. Now, if we play footie in the back garden, she only barks if one of us lets a goal through, and she rarely tries to catch the ball - preferring instead to run around after it with a tennis ball in her mouth, squeaking frantically if it gets too exciting or the ball goes offside..

Yesterday, we took her to a local football field so we could use the ball chucker. We walked slowly round the perimeter, chucking the ball for her as we went. As we neared the entrance, some lads started coming on the field, with a football. Initially, she paid absolutely no attention. As the numbers grew and they inevitably started shouting and kicking the ball, she lost it a bit and ran over BUT she still had her ball in her mouth and wasn't barking, so that was a major relief. Unfortunately the stupid boys (teenagers) started pretending to throw the ball at her, and carried on playing even though Trace was on her way over to get Mollie back. All the teasing wound Mollie up a bit and she dropped her ball and tried to bite theirs, we got her back just in time. I wish people would just apply some common sense in situations like that - if they'd have picked the ball up and stood still she would probably have come back to us... Anyway, I'm still impressed that she wasn't barking or angry like she used to get, even when they wound her up she was still better than she used to be!

Country dog in the city

As far as I'm aware, Mollie had never been into a city before yesterday, and so I was a little nervous - my mum, sis and I had decided to go to Aylestone Meadows in Leicester which is an urban wilderness park type thing. We walked from my sister's house, across two busy main roads. At each one, Mollie sat when told to, and waited until released. The only bark, despite all the strange new smells and noises, was at an off lead GSD - Mollie was on lead at the time so decided to tell him that she was dangerous in case he came too close. He waited until he was at a safe distance before shouting back...

At one point, Mollie was mugged by the most gorgeous brindle and white Cardigan Corgi, whose owner also fell in love with Mollie - although when I said she was a Jack Russell, there was the almost inevitable discussion about Parson's versus Jack, KC breed standards versus JRGB etc etc. The corgi's owner also had a bulldog x mongrel bitch with her. She was white with a patch - in fact virtually the same colouring as Mollie - but looked just like a Staffy except for the jowls. She wasn't in the slightest interested in Mollie and just stood behind her owner looking bored and absent mindedly sniffing a bush. Mollie was completely enamoured with the corgi and even gave him her ball! He didn't want it, he just wanted to give her a good wash. It was very sweet!

We had a lovely walk all in all, although we inevitably lost the ball in some nettles, and on the way back to my sister's she was just as calm again, except for barking at an electricity box that jumped out at her.

A few months ago she would have been incredibly agitated the whole way there and back, and I would barely have trusted her off the lead. She's so much calmer, and I think the harness helps as well as she seems to feel safe with it on.

Textbook Performance

When I got home from work, a few minutes ago, Mollie was in our back garden waiting for me. As always, she followed me through to the hallway as I made my way upstairs to get changed. On the way, she stopped to eat the post. We had a parcel, one of those bubble-wrap lined jiffy bags. They're good to chew, apparently.

Would you like to know what was in the jiffy bag? All right then. It was...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Victoria Stilwell's book, "It's me or the dog - how to have the perfect pet".

I don't think Mollie appreciated the irony as much as she appreciated the jiffy bag...

Behave!!

Just wanted to note, with reference to a previous post, that I omitted to mention that we had a behaviourist in to help with Mollie - Bev (KizKiznobite). Bev helped us enormously by giving us an insight into possible reasons for Mollie's behavioural issues, and by getting Mollie interested in treats as a reward (we couldn't get her treat-motivated before). It took a good couple of hours for Bev to fully get Mollie's attention and focus, and at one point Bev looked down to see Charley cat sitting very attentively next to Mollie in case they were cat treats, but although it still takes some effort to get Mollie's attention sometimes she has never slipped all the way back to where she was.

Hopefully, a bit more training will get Mollie even further on the road to being a well-behaved little monster :D