Trying . .

. . My luck on the other side of the field. Sitting down he does after only a minute or two. I want the lying down faster. And stable.

Too comfortable?

No lying down today before i got cold. I think he sits so comfortable that he has no need to lie down really.

Grey sky

Next week and some will be serious dog training time since i have holiday from school studies.

Same place, different day.

It has been a week full of studying. So not much dog training. But now i'm back and waiting. I got tired of waiting for e-mail so i figured i might just as well go sit down and wait for the dog to lie down, at least then i will get fresh air.

Hehe

Unrelated picture but i think he read my mind. He lay down seconds after i sent the blog post. My cherries did not even run out.

Look-out

He's on a constant look-out. For what i do not know. I think this is good. He will get praised silly when he decides to lie down.

Again

As you can not see, i'm sitting with the Fajst again . This time i have prepared with a jacket and cherries for the wait for a spontaneous lie down. It could take hours but i won't stay more than 30 mins. .

Vanilla sky 2

You see how fast the clouds move. I told him to lie down because i am frozen stiff. Jacket next time for sure.

Vanilla Sky

Sitting with the Fajsty spaniel on the field watching the clouds blow by. I'm gonna sit here until i'm cold stiff or Fajsty lies down without me asking him to. Interesting to see what comes first. I'll leave if it starts to rain too. Gonna sit here every day from now on. Wait for him to lie down and relax. i'll gradually move closer and closer to the city. It's a good thing for me too i think. I'll bring a jacket next time trough.

Update

Its sunny and warm and no one is in blogging mood...

The blood tests came back negative, and I booked a time to check his belly out (the veterinary here in Halmstad refused to take a good look) and when we went it turned out it was a kind of infection in his skin, so now he has to shower with special shampoo 2 times a week and eat more medicine, his food is almost white now from all the medicines...

His mood when walking passed dogs has improved significantly. Still there are tensions when standing still around other dogs.

Yawnies

Shade.

He found a small place with shade in the garden after having been in the pool. So cute.

Sunglasses

I invested in a pair to save my eyes a bit. They cost 70 kr a well worth investment.

When it comes to the dog a lot has happened and is still happening so i don't really have time to write. I will try to tell you tonight.

Dinner

Fajsty is practicing his social skills. Having dinner with 3 of marcus friends. Apertifs and barbecue.

Update..

A lot has happened since the last update.

The show went well in terms of what they wrote about Fajsty, but he didn't really behave very well. Also we had a very unstrategic placing of the rest of the family, so he rushed that way and didnt want to walk the other way...

Also we have been to the veterinary station in Helsingborg. I went there because of his moodswings.. And because Siw said that if anything is wrong with him, this particular veterinarian will find it.

She did find pain in his left hip-joint.
His right one is A, and the left one is C or even worse...
Though this shouldnt be very bad, it COULD be what's causing the pain.

To be sure, we also did a blood test to check for tic-borne diseases.

If that comes back negative (will hear on monday probably) we will try pain killers for 10 days and see if his behaviour changes to the better. But the thing is since he has moodswings generally it will probably be hard to see a difference, for example:

Yesterday we were in the city, walking through the city with all the people and strange dogs etc and he didnt bark at a single one, nor on the evening walk in Furet.

Today on the other hand he has barked at a man and two different dogs...

But we will see!

King of the car

I don't care how it goes on the show. He's my king anyway.

Hihi

Look at the tiny paws and the smooth head. On saturday we will see how beautiful he is out of four other dogs. But more than that we will see how he behaves in the ring.

More rally photos

Kisses for mummy!!!



We're the cutest



Can I have a candy? pleaaaase?



Look at the ears... so big and fluffy.

Proud

I should be doing English, but its so boring so I take some time to tell you how proud I am of my dog right now.

We were at the Rallylydnad yesterday in varberg and asides from initial nuttiness he behaved exemplary! He did everything I asked and unusually well too. Sure he got stuck sniffing places but then I used that as external praise, when he performed I allowed him to sniff for a while.

He only barked at turbo once, after having been barked at for about a minute.

Pictures will come when I have them on this computer.

Doggiewalk and then english studies....

Today

Fajsty is 2 years old.

you're welcome to celebrate it in any way you prefer.

New hairdo

For me that is .

Feelings

Pictures of wolf in different emotions of anger and/or fear.

Boxer

Now i have met my first boxer.

The best stick ever

He has carried it and chewed on it for a long way without guarding it or becoming stressed about it. I can take it and give it back without any problem too.

Sunny

The weather just can't decide. It's been loomy and grey all day but now the sun is out and it is very warm. Almost bbq weather. Fajsty is going to spend the afternoon with gary to let me study some economy.

Sun and thunder

On the dog walk we see many types of weather. Today is sun, rain and thunder.

updated

I have updated the Fajsty website, since it has been neglected lately

http://www.annasuss.com/fajsty/

Lazy day

Sometimes you just have to chill and today is such a time. Picnic and some forest tracking. Just chilling out in the sun, practising doing nothing at all. A lot of forest ants around though. They are vicious.

Collar, lead and food.

New collar with matching lead and new food to try for 2 weeks and see if his skin gets better. Will do my best to keep everything else like it is now besides the change of food. If that doesn't help i will ask about it later.

Rally Fajst

Today we will call to see if they have recieved slalom-sticks in the store yet.

asides from that we will go buy a collar and matching lead as I found out that harnesses aren't allowed in competitions. I want to enter competitions with Mr Fajst because I think he/we can win.
He has way more contact with me than many of the dogs participating in Halmstad had with their owners. They have contact with the owners hand (more than likely containing candy). Well I want contact with my eyes, not my hand. And that is what I get.

Only thing that might be our doom is that the grass smells soooo gooood..

Friday's Training class:

click the images to make them larger in a new window or tab

It didnt start out too well:

But I wasn't the only one with trouble....

But after a while it started to go better

and better

Waiting for a release command after being asked to lie down....

Gathering:

This is what a planned course could look like:

Rally

The most confusing sign made clearer.

Hmm

We tried having Muffin over here and it worked fine for quite some time, sure he told her "its MY paper" but I removed all toys and other things on the floor and then he let her sit on a pillow.
Then everything was quiet for some time and we worked at out computers until there was a fit of barking which Fajsty started.

We think she sniffed his other bed. . .

Then I picked him up and muffin tried to bite his tail and we eventually got them calm.

I released my monster and he went to M and Muffin, wagging his tail low, sorta saying sorry, looking very calm..

Then Muffin moved and he started lounging at her again.
Completely out of the blue it seemed.

The only thing that creates "out of the blue" behaviour is pain.

Maybe I will not use the money I get from grandmother for my trips but to see if anything actually is wrong with Mr Fajst.

His behaviour does look like the behaviour of Siws dog, 'Gissa', and she has (documented) pains that makes her need to lash out sometimes.  They come from a long lasting borrelia infection. Perhaps F has something similar, that is only present sometimes?
I have squeezed him everywhere and nowhere seems to hurt, but I dont know how to check every joint or muscle like a vet does. . .

I cant have a dog who intermittently goes nuts for no apparant reason. I want to be able to have other dogs over.

I will ask Siw which vet she thinks I should go to.
The thing is I doubt the insurance will cover it since its such an abstract problem.

We'll see though..
 

IMMI

Look what I got ...

Additional

We also need to learn how to reverse.

I have been thinking ahead and have said "reverse" when he walks reverse "by accident" but I dont think he has connected it just yet.

I dont think reverse is in "rally step 1"  but it is something I would like to teach him, so the studying starts now.

I have additional criteria, he has to walk backwards in a straight line.
(this can be helped by walls, fences or even just sticks on the ground)

I have printed one way of teaching reverse that I havent tried yet that I will try tomorrow.

this includes teaching a "stand" word too, which is never bad to have.

This is what we did today ...

Click the image to make it larger!

I'm gonna invest in:

http://www.rusta.se/search.asp?s=slalom&action.x=0&action.y=0

Fajsty

We concluded today that something happened on the dog-hotel when I was in Italy.

Perhaps he got attacked by another dog, it's probable he did.

This seems to have made him doubt other dogs intentions, no matter how friendly they are.

(Much like how a person once bitten (for no apparant reason) is more reserved around dogs in the future)

So what we're gonna do is click for dogs. Dog will equal click which equals candy. In the end he will see a dog and think candy.
Next time I will ask her how we will eventually move forward to sicial interaction (after acceptance of) with dogs.

correction

She was not 30 minutes late last time. We did start at 18:30.
I had misread.

I apologize.

Car dog

Mummy's jacket is the shit

Fajst

This is what the Fajst looks like when i'm not home. Just sitting there waiting most of the time.

SBK training

Today we drove to Halmstad SBK to train in their grass (which smells different than the grass here) and that was a challenge. Whatever was in the grass was way more interesting than mummy and meatballs. I managed to find a spot that didnt have much of that smell so we could do some perfect turns.. It doesn't help that I say the wrong way, I say left when we turn right and vice versa... I need to get better at that.
There were no other dogs but I think the grass was a big enough distraction to start with.

Soon off to school and then away to Värnamo to listen to Eva Bodfält . I think this will be a very interesting lecture. If she doesnt keep it at "Svensson" level too much. But I think even if she does it will be educational.

Blogging from MS word

Heya,

My dog is amazing.

He can do all the tasks we were introduced to Friday and then some.

Now its time to go to SBK Halmstad (public dogclub) to practice, I should use my membership fee for something.

Now I'm gonna try adding a picture through word, if that works Word will be my new way of blogging (horrible isn't it?).

(picture added after)

Rolling Rolling Rolling….

Rally dog

A picture to show the best dog today. Today once he got his nose off the ground he was excellent. Did everything i asked and very well too. I think it is time to do left turns now. They are a tad trickier but i think we can nail them this week :)

First Caller

Today I had my first caller for www.caninetricks.net services.
Though what she needed was over my head so I forwarded her to Matilda Sjöö. I'm sure she can help.

Training diary

Sit and Ligg.. 

Fajsty doesn't know sitt from ligg.
He did when he was small because I remember testing him.. But now he just chances and normally it doesnt matter, but now if there's a sign saying "sitt" he should sit, not lie down.
So I have decided to train sit as sit and lie down as down. Then the audible difference will be larger.
And hopefully he will stop chancing the behaviour. I have consistently not inforced the incorrect action but still he chances. I think he's just too eager so he takes a chance, whats the worst that could happen?

I practiced this today along with walking in a pretty large circle around him. "sit plus circle" & "down plus circle".

I also practiced Right turns around a pole.
I put up a pole with a sign on it saying Right Turn (so I wouldnt forget) and then we walked around and when I had his attention I praised and headed for the pole and as we were turning I said "Höger" (Right) .. idea stolen from Hanna & Signe.

Then after a million repetitions I tried saying höger when walking straight and he did start to turn so I completed the turn and gave him lots of treats and played with him.

Then we did some sit/down discriminating again.


The one downer, He barked at an old lady walking by.
Not good. I could stop it and divert but it took some time.

Rally

Rally-obedience is a relatively new dog-sport in Sweden. I have read a lot about it and Marie has had classes in it.
Look here for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally_obedience
and http://www.charsobediencetraining.com/rally_classes.html

Me and Mr F started a rally-obedience class in Varberg (because there is a new(?) IMMI certified doggietrainer there) ..
http://www.charsobediencetraining.com/rally_classes.html

The Rally was fun.
It was an old lady who had it, and I noticed I was a bit prejudicing thinking "uh-oh" but then again she can't be too bad since she is IMMI certified. And indeed it was a good lady, she knew a lot about the dogs language and sensitive dogs. I didnt agree with all her clicker-methods but I'll give 'em a try and see what happens.

only think I reacted a bit on was that the dogs were ABSOLUTELY not allowed to sniff eachother because "then everything else in there *points to gate* gets ruined" I didnt quite understand that reasoning... maybe she'll explain it.

One thing I didnt like was that she just took other peoples dogs to show things on, without really asking for permission. Also we started 30 minutes late. Not impressed. We were there 15 minutes early to make sure we found the right place ... so we stood around for 40 minutes. Crazy!

The area was good, a pretty large field with good grass, though in need of mowing (fajst found smells everywhere) .


But he is a Cocker Spaniel so I guess anything else would have been surprising.

Forest Fajsty

Chasing some interesting smell.

Doggie classes

And now upon being a doggietrainer I will start having doggieclasses.

http://www.caninetricks.net

I will also with Fajsty go to an activityweekend in Varberg and on Friday the 8th Rallylydnad starts in Varberg. This is both for to do something with the dog and for me to see how other IMMI instructors work. I have only seen thow thus far, so it will be interesting to see two more.

On 30th to 2nd he will stay at a "dog hotel" because there is a wedding on the 1st and we dont know how busy we will be around that date.

Pictures

I have now recieved note that I am finished so now I am diplomed doggye trainer (will post the diploma when I have it) ..

Havent been enough pictures lately so here are two..




I found that scarf when I was cleaning out my storage and I thought he looked cool in it. It reminds me of his first collar...


(he had a red one like that too)

Look how grown up he is now...

I'm still reasonaby good at training what Matilda Sjöö told us, and we have started "search and tracking" in the forest. I have bought a special harness for that so that he knows when its time.

Click the images for bigger versions..

Dinner company

Having dinner with unusually good company.

Tired Fajst

Have run for about 45 minutes and he has been great. Now with 200 meters left he barked at a kid. He was completely gone. No contact possible. I told him off pretty loudly so i hope he got it.

Shadow

The shadow of me and Fajsty out running. I have him tied to my waist to help my arms move freely

Desk puppy

Well not so much of a puppy anymore but indeed under the desk. .

Chewy

Fajsty figured he can eat through the chewy stick without chewing much at all.

Funny

Muffin sits nicely and hopes Fajsty will give her bone back. .

Skidboot

http://hillybillyfarmgirl.blogspot.com/2009/04/skidboot.html

Too lazy to do youtube insert so watch it from above...

Spring

Again it seems spring has arrived. . But just wait, in a few days it's probably snow again.