Well, we missed the official first class for Mason because we went to Lab Fest. But, he had already attended that once, with Midas the first time. So, I wasn’t too concerned about not being able to catch up. He was much better this time!!

Here we are:

We went around and sniffed all of the equipment before class began so that he would be relatively relaxed and not pee from excitement. The ladder was funny because he started out with his front feet in the rungs and his back end running alongside - silly dog!

He got the hang of it though:

We also walked on the board again, to learn contact points. He was much more confident this time, walked on and off smoothly and nailed the Wait command:

He had absolutely no problems with the yellow tunnel:

The collapsed tunnel was rolled up so he didn’t even notice as he plowed through for the treat on the other side:

The tire jump we started out with the leash through it, but in no time he was jumping through with no problems:

There was some bar hitting on the regular jumps but I think he’s just not got the hang of it yet:

He cruised up and over the dog walk with absolutely no problems at all, and nailed Wait again at the bottom. Overall, a very pleasing class. I’m looking forward to next week’s class .

Tonight I was in a big rush, so I didn’t get to spend any one-on-one time with Kya before we had to hurry to class, which we were still late for. Therefore she wasn’t really “connected” to me when we got there and was really distracted and timid.

Luckily, we started out with some simple heeling and sit/stays. She stays very well, but she does not enjoy it, her ears are pinned back the entire time. She’s still taking treats from me with no problems, and is starting to anticipate the delivery of a treat.

Next we worked on having one person go around and meet everyone else - while their dogs were in a sit or down/stay. Kya did pretty well. One of the bigger guys made her a little nervous but she ended up taking a treat from one of the women (and the instructor - who she then followed with ears pricked up for the rest of class lol) . When it was my turn to meet everyone, I left Kya with the instructor, who she went to willingly but by the time I came back around for her, her tail was way up under her belly and she was standing at the end of the leash.

We then gathered into a loose circle and practiced, one-by-one, walking our dogs in and out of the other people/dogs. Surprisingly, Kya wasn’t very good at this. She desperately wanted to sniff other dogs and had a hard time keeping her sit/stay when they passed and keeping her nose to herself when we passed. The second time through though she was really good. She even perked up and wagged her tail for me .

So, there are good things and bad things, I think I see us retaking this class again just for some more practice before progressing. Most areas I can predict what will scare her, but there are some that come totally out of the blue and are completely unexpected. Hopefully the more I bring her out into these situations, the more I’ll know to expect.

Tonight was Midas’s Agility class and we had an absolute blast. He was an angel and I just can’t think of a time where I enjoyed working with him more. He was quiet, he never made a move towards another dog and he was 100% focused on me. He did amazing on the course (weaves still iffy), had no problems calling him off/sending him to different things. If he was like this all the time…well anyway.

We started out in different stations. Midas and I started on the A-Frame with a jump and a collapsed tunnel to add in as we practiced calling off of obstacles. I practiced my timing on the Wait command as he topped the A-Frame - he was stopping so hard there were skid marks - awesome!

Our next station was the weaves, a couple of jumps and the collapsed tunnel again (there was a lot of timing going on to make sure we didn’t use the same obstacles at the same time). The weaves took up pretty much all of our time. He’s about 50/50 on going through them correctly - once that percentage is higher we can work on speed…

The dang guides on the weaves really confuse him - he either wants to jump them (frequently) or, this week, he thought he might go under them instead - silly dog!

Next was a series of jumps and a tunnel, later adding the tire - he did terrifically at this:

Next we worked on the A-Frame, then added some jumps. This was neat because I led out almost to the end of the A-Frame, gave my command and he walked it perfectly!!!! Seriously, this was the best class ever!

He missed a couple of jumps because of faulty handling - I gave the signal too late. While it bums me out I did this, I’m also ecstatic that he bypassed the jump because I didn’t tell him to do it - even though we were sprinting right by it!

After going through all the stations, we took a little breather - Midas was hot too - you can tell by his sweaty pads:

Before we did the whole course, I decided to go through the weaves a couple more times:

Next we practiced running and sending our dogs out ahead to the Table to do either a sit or a down. We started at 3′ away and slowly went to 6′ and 9′ - he did really, really well.

Then we did the whole course - it was exhausting - LOTS of jumping for the pooches (and she moved the jumps up from 18″ to 20″ too. Midas did FANTASTIC, seriously, just amazing - I couldn’t be more proud of him this week. Our final obstacle was to get on the table and we made it!

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and those of us that wanted one, had a shower. Everyone loaded up and we headed out to get some gas, stop at Target and then get on the road to the Farm. It was about 2 hours away from where we had stayed but the drive was quite scenic.

The first thing the dogs did upon getting there was leap into the pool lol. Mason was in that thing constantly, usually with Wedge as his sidekick.

Here he is with Tractor:

Here he is with Wedge…and Tractor looking on:

Then, everyone set up camp:

The playing field - also where everyone was going to camp:

Before we knew it, more Lab Board people started showing up with their dogs. There were a lot of yellows, plus with it being a hot day, they all wanted to be in the pool:

You can see my boys together in the middle-ish here (distinctive with their collars):

Mason was confused about his color…

It was crazy! And soooo much fun!!!

Yet another group of yellows, Midas is the one with the flipped up ear:

Sometimes there were collisions:

My two seemed to stay together a lot around the pool:

Here is my two with Kim’s two, Cooper and Bailey:

Sometimes we would take a break and dry the dogs off with a brisk game of fetch - which is where Wedge and Mason began to resemble twins lol:

Midas acted like he was going to play, but really, he never moved from that sit position…unless it was to lower to the down position:

Kya got in on the action, but she also liked to stay close to Mom:

Here she is pretending she’s yellow…and a lab

Did I mention that Eric and I had an absolute blast??

There was a delicious pig roasted:

Some adult beverages:

And dessert!

I am so thankful to Whit (and Grant and her wonderful grandparents) for having us out and showing us such a spectacular time!!!!!

I might’ve had some adult beverages too

Whit and Grant tried to help me teach Mason about EV/UV:

He didn’t get it, he either jumped in, straight down into the pool - or he barked…

Although we were trying to train, this Golden kept trying to steal the bumper:

Mason was in and around the pool so much that he wore 4 of his nails down past the quick and two more were almost there. I had to smear on some EMTgel and then bootie him up so they could heal a little - no more swimming for the little dude:

Luckily the booties don’t bother him at all, and he used his injuries to get extra pets from Lisa lol:

Kya even deigned to be petted by a couple of people - especially if they had treats:

One of the best parts of the whole weekend…Midas started jumping like he used to!!!!

Hopefully that will carry over into our next dock jumping competition!

Kya wanted to go in the water really, really badly, but just didn’t manage it, she just tapped around on the top step, tail wagging:

We ended up staying up past almost everyone else and playing some games and chatting…this is the beautiful night sky we had:

One of the most marvelously fun days I’ve had in a really long time, I’m so glad we went! I also was really excited to meet a lot of people, whom before I only ever talked to online. There were many more photographers who were out and took photos, we’re trying to get their photos on the website as well. HERE are where the photos are.

Sunday we woke up fairly early and took our time packing up and heading home. We were exhausted and hit some pretty bad rainstorms on the way (this time I wasn’t out in them), but we finally made it, unloaded the absolute essentials and crashed for the rest of the afternoon. Good times!!!

Last year I joined the Labrador Retriever Forum. Since that time, I’ve made some friends on the board and this year Eric and I decided that we would take a trip down near Chicago, IL for the Labfest in that area. It was an absolute blast!!! Eric wanted to become a little more involved so he made shirts:

And a Chicago Lab Fest website! Which includes photos from past years as well.

FRIDAY

Eric took the day off in anticipation of packing for our trip to Chicago. I worked until noon, and then he picked me up and we were on our way. We made a couple of quick trips and then we were off. On the way, we stopped at a McDonald’s so Eric could grab a bite to eat while I took all three of the dogs (at the same time) out for a potty break. On the way back to the van, we were about 20 ft away, it downpoured. Now just rained, but a heavy, I -can’t-see-the-van, and it’s-too-windy-to-move type of rain. I commanded the boys to drag me, but in turn had to drag a terrified Kya. We were all completely drenched. I had to change into my pajamas for the rest of the trip.

Arrived fairly quickly it seemed anyway. I met Whitney and Grant for the very first time, after reading and following their stories, photos, videos and blogs of their dogs for quite some time. That was pretty neat.

They’re dogs are beautiful!

I was a little apprehensive about Midas meeting a huge number of dogs so we did a one-by-one meet of our three to their three and it went splendidly. Did not have one problem.

Mason did well too:

And Kya…she was curious and interested but really only comfortable with the dogs and I.

Then Lisa (and Steph) showed up with her 4 - that was a lot of dogs in the backyard. It was highly entertaining to watch Tractor play with the sprinkler.

Midas was wondering what was so fantastic about the sprinkler so he came up to take a look:

He wasn’t impressed lol, so Tractor was back at it on his own:

He sure can get air, even when playing by himself!

He’s a funny, sweet, endearing dog .

Karin showed up with Mason’s “brother”, Wedge - in both of these photos, Mason and Wedge are totally focused on the ball or on someone who may potentially throw the ball:

The household total was 11 dogs for the night - and it was completely fine.

Tonight Kya and I started Intermediate Obedience at the Humane Society, the same place that Mason went through classes. She did better than I thought she would. She was a little scared but there was no slinking like some demented snake. Her tail wasn’t thoroughly tucked, but definitely down. She took treats from my fingers with no problems, so I was very relieved. The best part though, was that her head and ears were up the whole time, taking everything in. There was a lot going on too.

There were dogs being walked that she could see out the windows, there were dogs in the back pens, running and playing, then there were the dogs inside barking and the dogs in class whining and barking, plus all the people. I chose a seat next to a little wall so that she could sit with her sides covered if she got uncomfortable. She did slink in there when the instructor passed out and collected our paperwork but was peering around my leg the whole time.

My goals in class are different than everyone else’s so we work on different things. The main objective in the beginning was to work on the Look command. She has never been asked to do this because in the beginning she wouldn’t even look in our direction, let alone give consistent eye contact. She caught on quickly though and was soon doing it like a champ.

The next thing was to practice heel and sit (she doesn’t do Down yet and the instructor said to wait on that until she’s more comfortable because it’s such an extremely submissive position) in our area. She was soon comfortable right in front of our chair, and even gave me a couple of tail wags. So, I extended our area out. She heels almost perfectly and her sits were solid for the most part.

Then the instructor set up cones for us to walk around and sit next to. I thought she would be scared of the cones but she was only curious. She had the hardest time focusing when other people let their dogs feed out their lead and whine and try to get in her face. She would get overexcited and whine too but otherwise she was really good on focusing on me.

We did work on stay a little bit and coming after the release (she’s only been asked to stay and then been released to go outside or for food so coming to me was new). Towards the end she started to get her happy face when she would come to me . Overall I think the instructor has a fantastic outlook for Kya’s continuing classes and I think Kya is a very smart girl who catches on quickly and just needs the chance to open up. That was pretty much it for our first class.

We were late to class tonight . There was an accident on our road, I needed gas (and didn’t know it) and I was just late. We blew into class and things started out a little rocky but ended up going fantastically!!

There was a new dog in class so Midas of course had to get all loud and obnoxious but that quickly passed - a huge relief . There were different stations set up. We started out with the A-Frame station. A jump, A-Frame, another jump, table. Well our first time through Midas thought it might be fun to jump off the top of the A-Frame - a BIG no-no!! So, we had to practice just that by itself until he remembered what was appropriate. Also, I had to practice the timing of my Wait command. Instead of giving it as he’s approaching the yellow contact (like everyone else), I have to do it as soon as his front foot clears the top, that way he’s already skidding to a stop before he reaches the bottom . No cheating and jumping because I’ve already given him another command. The jumps and the table were fine.

Our next station was the weaves, with NINE weave poles, a tunnel and a jump. He’s finally getting the weaves!!! He seriously was looking at the poles and doing wayyyy better!! I’m so proud and excited!! I still have to do a little hand guiding but it’s not much at all. He doesn’t hit them right every time but more often than not he does! The tunnel and jump were easy.

The next station we did was a series consisting of the dog walk and then the tire jump. The dog walk was really wobbly the first time he went flying up it, and instead of bailing like he used to do, he slowed down and took it carefully - also wonderful! Tire jump was same old, same old .

Our last station was a jump, the teeter and another jump. This one was slow because after the jump I have to leap in front of him to grab his collar and slow him down on the teeter. He started to respond to my Easy command on his own, but not enough to trust him on it without my restraining hand yet.

For the last half hour, we ran the course made up of all the stations. The first time it was a jump, the A-frame, another jump, the table and a sit (for the full 5 seconds), the weaves, the tunnel, a jump, the collapsed tunnel (ooops forgot about that in my stations explanation), two jumps, the teeter, the tire and the dog walk. It was awesome. We were going so fast! The first time through we made it all the way to the jump after the collapsed tunnel and the new dog jumped out at Midas, I was so excited he ignored it and listened to my next jump command that I then directed him the wrong way and we had to start over . Totally my fault!

After everyone had gone through the course in that direction, we reversed everything and did it again. This time it was two jumps, the collapsed tunnel, a jump, tunnel, weaves, table and lay down, the A-frame, two jumps, the teeter, the tire and the dog walk. We nailed it that time, perfectly - he was doing soooo awesome! The best part is that we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and got a great work out.

The lady with the new dog let her dog jump in his face again and he did some odd warbling but settled right down when I told him to hush. He also sat next to one of the Goldens that in the past he’s felt the need to scream at and was perfectly fine - more than once - progress! Tonight was an excellent work out, I’m looking forward to next week.