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Macy and I just finished our last competition for October, we’re competing again in November.

Great little mini-season!

Went back to Open Preferred and got:

• 1st Place – Novice JWW
• 1st Place – Novice JWW
• 1st Place – Novice Standard
• 2nd Place – Novice JWW
• 2nd Place Novice Standard
• 1st Place Novice Standard
• 1st Place Open Standard
• 1st Place Open Standard

Qing 8 out of 12 times. 

Since it took us 2 years and 3 months to get out of regular Novice Standard, I was scared to go back, but now I am glad I did.  I’m gaining lots of confidence in her.

Today’s problem was that it was just too hot for her.  The rest of the time she’s run really well, and only mistakes were pushing too far out.  Yesterday was a good example of that – I pushed her to a tunnel but instead of going in it, she ran the outside.  I didn’t notice until it was really too late to fix it.

All of the us have been affected differently by the car wreck.  My husband and I have trouble sleeping, Maggie had blood in her stool, and Macy went lame.

Dulce lost her brain.  There is a certain point in training my beagles, where they lose focus.  Dulce lost her brain and hasn’t had it since the accident.   I believe part of the reason is that she hasn’t been able to run around the yard like a crazy dog, and that’s a stress reliever for her.  She’s done a lot of running around like a crazy dog in class.

Last night, she had one really bad run, then got it together and was better each sequence.  I’m still pulling her November entries, and have decided yet about December.

We still have runs today. 

Yesterday we Qed in both Novice Preferred Standard and Novice Preferred JWW.  The JWW Q was her third, so we moved up to Open Preferred for today.  We need one more Novice Preferred Q.

I was worried about going back to Novice since it took us so long.  The good news is that we are gaining confidence in each other by going back and being successful.  I think we’ll stay in Preferred until January and look at it again.  I also think that after this fall’s shows are over we’ll start jumping 12” in class and see what that looks like for her.

I’m also going to assess Dulce tonight.  While we were out of the house, she was running around like a wild child in class.  Since we’ve been in the house for a week, the need for that SHOULD be gone.  If she is a wild child tonight, I’m pulling my November entries, and not entering her again until January.

We returned to the house Saturday evening.  It’s not done, but I’m glad to be here so I can find the little problems so the contractors can be in and out end of day on Monday.

It will be months before things are back together.  Imagine moving and doing new carpet in all your rooms at once!

I slept better than I did in the apartment.  Not saying a whole lot.  And it really felt good to have the whole family together.

We had a very nice run in Novice Standard, however, she bailed the teeter, and bobbled weaves. 

JWW was great!  Clean except we both bobbled the weaves, causing 13 time faults.  We never have been able to figure out 6 poles.

Husband and I had a long discussion (well, several), about the dogs yesterday evening.  I acknowledge that they are rude heathen bitches.

Neither Macy or Dulce have a very good recall, and Dulce has a habit of taking off, making me stressed which makes the situation worse.  Macy just ignores us.  Maggie is very good about coming when called, most of the time, unless she is terrified.

Our priority right now is to come up with a dog containment system since we are going to have a stream of visitors, just like we did yesterday.  Our biggest problem, is that the only entrance and exit to the house is through a gate, and it is very difficult to know if the dogs are loose in it, and harder still to keep them going through the gate.

They are going to have to accept being crated.  Dulce is good at that, Maggie is the worst, and Macy is just a pain.   Macy can’t stand to be kept away from me, especially in the next room.  Putting her in Dulce’s extremely large condo worked well yesterday.

I currently have an exercise pen where the dogs can be put in the yard.  It’s 4’ x 4’ and really doesn’t give 3 adult beagles much room, even if they are all less than 13” tall and 15 pounds.

We do have a utility room that has a dog door and goes out to an L shaped, very large dog run.  We have been complaisant using it, and three panels of the dog run need to be replaced.  Our pooper scoopers have been charged with that.  When it is secure, we will be able to put the dogs in the utility room and they can have access to the outside.  That was the original plan and worked well until we got Maggie.

Maggie is just insane.  She screams and bellows at the top of her lungs when she isn’t happy.  If the weather is bad, she leaves, and since we live on the corner of said busy street, we don’t want her to end up a flat dead dog.  Our neighbors have retrieved her for us several times.  She will have to be crated during most of the day during most of the process. 

I think life will be better for everyone in the house when the house repair process is over.  Just don’t know when or how that will happen.

Well, she is a real dog, but she’s been a kennel dog since right before she went into heat.  She over 2 now, and really haven’t been able to trust her.  I have to shut the door to several rooms.

She’s been living in a Great Dane crate which has worked well but she hasn’t learned to be a good dog in the house.  She’s been out of the crate and not in it since I got home from work on Friday.  This morning I got woke up by 2 sets of damp paws (Macy and Dulce), which means they got up and went outside. 

I’ll have her in the crate when I go to work, but my plan is to transition her to the dog run and have her and at least Macy in the dog run during the day so we don’t have to have a pet sitter.  May have my landscaping people replace some of the panels of the dog run since I don’t have the time or energy, and would really to have them put sod in it.  In fact, stopped a minute and asked my Pooper scooper person who works for the landscaper.

Glad we went and had good experiences at Watts, the indoor arena we show at.

They raised a ton of money for canine cancer. Courses were very NADAC style even AKC standard. Could have organized better but since i dont have a good answer, i will leave them too. Got there at 7:20, left at 4:30 and only got on two runs in for each dog. We were entered in four each.

Since i am all About the beagles having a good experience i am not disappointed.

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I asked her if she wanted to get in the car while opening the self closing door to the garage and not only did she go into the garage, but she got in the cage in the truck by herself. Stress reduced!

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Took her to a different agility class might. She is very comfortable with her class mates and mixing it up is good.

I upped my criteria ttoo fast but desperately trying to get her off food on the course.

She took off but the matt thing worked. Instead of chasing her I went back to our base, yelled MAT a few times and she cane to it. Well, Elizabeth telling and fussing at her didnt help.

But was the whole plan and point of mat training. Give her a place she knows she is getting cookies so when she gets distracted I can get her there and dont have to chase her.

What, beagles get distracted?
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