Determination
 

Determination is staying out in the pouring rain to work your dog.:)

Today I enjoyed a nice lesson of mud skiing, thanks to Storm. Luckily I never lost my balance. It poured all day nonstop and everything was really muddy (typical FL). I still worked Storm. Thankfully, she did very well and could careless.

However, we had our first "oops" today. My puppy is growing up, and bite work is starting to change a bit. Today, after the whip was cracked in the middle of our bite work session..... my leash pulled straight out of my hands (I was gripping very very hard, not sure how it slipped so easily)... not only did I get burned, but my dog went flying forward. She went straight for the "weapon" hand of my trainer and bit... the wedge was not "offered" obviously, because he had no idea she was on her way at that moment. Luckily, I snatched the end of her leash as it flew past me and was able to pull her away before she was even able to grip. Yikes... that was close. It's part of the risks of the sport, but not fun when it happens. Next time I am going to make sure to have my gloves on! I usually do, but thought with the wet leash, it would be worse to have them on. I was wrong. She's also getting strong.... I will now need to wear cleats with her. I used to just use them for Duke.

Where did my little puppy go?! :crazy:

Storm says she's innocent.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y15...ps5fd6f3bc.jpg
(Sorry if the picture is too big.. I think this is the one I re-sized a while ago. My computer is broken, and I can't do any sort of editing on this ancient laptop... it can't run photobucket editor.)


After that.... her trainer/breeder loves her even more. At least there's no hard feelings between them! She said sorry after bite work was over. :rolleyes:


Anyone else have any "oops" moments?

It's not the training part I mind, it's drying out all my sleeves, scratch pants, leashes, etc, and dealing with three wet muddy dogs and a muddy dog trailer that kills me. Did a seminar in the rain and ~40 degrees some months back. Training was all you could do to stay warm lol

I *always* wear cleats. How do you hold the leash and what is it made of? Gloves aren't needed, just the right hold.

You can save your hands and back tie and just pretend to hold the leash :-)

lol! Yeah the clean up wasn't fun. It was still raining too... rained up until around 10pm! Took me a few hours to take care of everyone and everything.... really gross clean up! We all had fun though, so it was worth it. Also, it exhausted the dogs MUCH more, everyone slept pretty much the rest of the day. Nice time for me to relax! :p

I wear gloves and cleats because I am 4'11", and Duke nearly weighs as much as I do. lol! I need all the help I can get to lock me down. We do a lot of OB during his bite work sessions... so it was impossible to tie him up to the post. I had to improvise a bit. Also, my hands are sensitive. I don't always wear them, but if it's a day I'm working multiple dogs, or when we work a lot of agitation and hands on work (Not just drop and goes).... Usually for that, I have to have them on. I don't mind them though. It was the same when I was competitive with the horses.

Eventually, when Storm gets to be full grown, I will probably have no choice but to tie her up and pretend to be holding her though. At 10months, 60lbs, she's already nearing Duke's strength on the leash.... if not a bit stronger. She's a little firecracker! :D

Do I have oops moments? You betcha and even some on tape! At the end of this vid you can see two of my more recent near-misses "being a post". I've worked Nikon on a prong collar since he was about 8 months (never showed any sensitivity to it in protection) so when I put him back on a harness I was woefully unprepared!

LOL! Thanks for sharing! Glad I'm not the only one!:p

It's the same with Storm. She works on the prong. Has been for about a month now. It's all good until I release her and tighten on the harness. I went for a skiing lesson from that yesterday! haha! My "tree" was losing some roots!! This is the first time I've slipped up with her.... she's definitely getting MUCH stronger and bigger! I wasn't expecting to be dragged. I swear she grew over night. :eek:

I wish I got it on video... other then the close call, it was pretty funny. :rolleyes: