Biking Revisited

I've posted in the past about riding my bike with the dogs:
Biking with Seppel

I've since tried biking with Seppel again, except I am actually biking with Seppel and Seth at the same time!

A few weeks ago I wanted to tire both of the boys out. We have a 4 mile loop we've been walking and I wanted to see how Seth could handle the distance with my bike. However, I also knew that the distance would be great for Seppel as well, but I was too lazy to take them both one at a time.

So, I took a risk and took both of the boys biking!

I put them in harnesses and used slip leads from work that are only about 4ft long. This length is reasonable and easy to shorten quickly if necessary, when we get to mile 3 the dogs are usually much calmer and I can let the leash loose and they do very well.

We've gone four times now and so far it has been without incident. Seppel seems much more motivated with Seth around and he keeps the pace much better than he ever has in the past.

I'm very proud of how mindful the boys are, we have passed people with dogs and dogs in yards and although they may get excited for a moment they will listen to me and will 'leave it'.

I had my dad take these pictures from this morning. We were just starting out so Seth is looking at me - he gets all weird and excited and vocalizes.

Right now we go the same way and do the same 4 mile loop. I may branch out and increase the distance or change our route, but for now we will stick to the same loop, just because I know what to expect as far as which dogs live where, and I also kind of know the amount of traffic in each area we move through.

I suppose it's no wonder why my left tricep is bigger than my right one ;)

Come on Sun!

We've had several days of great weather here in Oregon, I've been trying to take advantage of it and work the dogs.

On the 19th I am taking Seppel out to Rose City Working Dog Assoc. to train with their IPO club. I was going to  go tomorrow but their training director won't be there. I'm not going to say anything about his hip surgery, just to see if anyone says anything.

I'm anxious to get the dogs back into their summer shape and am absolutely loving these beautiful dry days. Here are some pictures I took of Seth and Seppel today!

I know he's not placing full weight but you can see there is only a small different in muscle mass.

IPO Training and 10mos Post FHO Surgery

Well I got pictures from last weeks IPO training, my friend Stephanie came out, too bad my dog was being a tool.

Actually, Sepp did pretty well, but he started doing this weird thing where he would shift to Ryan's left side, he also jumped on him a few times which is out of character, and when I would walk up he would jump away from me because he thought he was in trouble. I think it was a combination of things. I think he was too amped [for whatever reason], causing him to be a bit 'dirty' and I also think he was getting weird about the stick. I think he would move when I got up there because he KNEW he was in trouble. I am not one to give dogs human emotions but he does know what he supposed to be doing now. The few times he shied away from me was after he had tried to jump on Ryan or tried to re-bite the sleeve after I outed him.

We ended up doing a lot of bites to try to correct this behavior, I would praise him for sitting calmly in front of Ryan. Towards the end of the session he was doing better, but was still be a stinker.

Ryan hasn't put a ton of pressure on Seppel. He has been using the stick more in training, last week Seppel did just fine with it - but I think the pictures speak for themselves in that he really seems to be avoiding the stick:

 The way he was acting was very out of character for him, but he's shown me in the past that he likes to switch it up and be 'naughty' every now and then. We aren't going to training next week but will go the week after. Hopefully with a break he will calm down a little and be back on his game next week.

Here are a few more pictures from training:

I have sent an email to Rose City Working Dog Association to see about joining their club because I think we are getting closer to being able to trial. At the very least I want this dog to get his BH. I also looked at some IPO I protection videos on youtube and there are dogs out there getting scores of 96-98 and they won't sit in front of the decoy or they forge fairly bad when they heel, so I don't think we have to be perfect. We have the side transport down and I saw several videos where the dogs did not have the intensity that Seppel has in the side transport. We did get a little bit of video, I don't have movie maker on my new laptop yet but I'll try to get a video up soon. 

Anyway, there's a little pictoral update of our IPO training.

Off topic Seppel is  10mos post FHO surgery! I need to get updated measurements but his legs are only different by a few centimeters. You can tell it is different if I point it out, once in a while he sits funny or doesn't place full weight on it, but he uses it all the time and I feel it is hard to notice he's had surgery. I'm still very happy with the results, at 12mos POST SX, I will re-xray and see what it looks like in there.