Izzy is wedged so far in the back of that doghouse...

Izzy and I went to the fairgrounds again yesterday, started out great as we were the only ones there. Continued to be great for about 25 minutes and Izzy had great recalls and was having an absolute blast, she had a major frapping thing going on.

Then...it all went to crap. Izzy, the dog with the perfect recall who always listens (as long as there aren't other dogs close by) and checks in with me every few seconds...failed.
There was a bird hopping around and she saw it, and then her brain flew out of her fluffy butt and that was the end. She took off, full tilt after the bird, I recalled her. She didn't even think about coming back, didn't even slow down. Just ran and ran. I waited a little bit, tried again, nothing.

So I just stood there and fumed as that little brat chased that stupid bird all over the place! I think the bird was taunting her, it didn't go above 2 feet off the ground and would fly ahead, land, look back and call at her. Regardless, I was not a happy camper.

Eventually she got tired and then she had the audacity to come sprinting back to see if I'd give her cookies. She didn't get any cookies. Though I did give her pets and made myself act happy because I didn't want her to associate coming back to me as being a bad thing. Not sure if it would work after she's been associating it with good things for almost 3 years, but why risk it?

We went straight home and Izzy is in the doghouse for all of the foreseeable future.

Another day at the fairgrounds...

and Izzy did a full 180 degree turn in her behavior. She was awesome today!

When we got to the grounds there was a couple big dogs I saw on the drive in, including a St. Bernard that was dragging a lead so I made a mental note to stay far from them, just because I usually associate a dog dragging a lead to have a bad recall or to in some way need to have an option for the owner to get a hold of it quick.

Anyway, we walked around for a good 40 minutes, just me moseying and her going full tilt and practicing recalls (100% again, I might add) and just generally kept our distance from the other dogs. We did do a bit of exploring behind the row of wooded area the runs the length of most of the fairgrounds. It looks like someone might grow crops back there and there is a bunch of soccer fields as well, though it was more like a swamp than anything! The low temps didn't stop Izzy from splashing through the huge puddles though, she had a grand time.

I was hoping there wouldn't be anybody down there as it rained pretty much all day. Didn't turn out that way though, and all the dogs there today were big! The smallest dogs I saw were a pair of oversized goldens!

We didn't stay long today as I have a bunch of homework and I won't have any time to do anything on Wednesday or Thursday as I work both of those days, so we headed back to the car after a good 45 minutes. While I was packing everything up and getting ready to leave a gorgeous Great Dane and it's owner were walking past where we were parked so I decided to work with Izzy for a bit on a modified version of the Look at That! game from Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed. She did awesome! One time I went too long between rewarding her and she gave the dog a bark, but it wasn't at all an aggressive bark. I even stopped the game and went back to getting ready to leave while the Dane was still in sight (the closest he was to us was probably only about 50-75 feet, but he was running and very flighty, which usually makes Izzy nervous), and she was fine. Watched it still, but wasn't overly tense or reactive.

Getting her to stay on her toweled seat while I walk around and get in the driver's side is another story! I rode home on a wet seat.

In other exciting news, I ordered a pair of Muck Boots for the fairgrounds!
I think my feet are still thawing from today! My shoes and pants were soaked through, it was bad. I know it'll only get worse this winter so I figured I might as well order a pair while they're having a sale.

Izzy and Frodo recieved some stuff in the mail a few days ago and I have pictures, I figure they'll go up tomorrow.

Back to homework, finals next week!

The Fairgrounds.

Since it's getting colder the masses seemed to have slowed down at the fairgrounds, thank goodness! It seems to be back to the crowd where everybody keeps their distance from everybody else and, most importantly, their dogs listen! Boy, what a concept!

So Izzy and I are going to be there a lot more as that is the best place for me to let her run and to work on her reactivity training. I went out and bought a really thin 50ft clothesline and attached it to her harness, so that's what she's on when we're there. It works really well, but if I try and stop her, rope burn! Thankfully she very rarely decides to keep going when I call her, and if she does it's always because I've pushed her past her threshold.

I took her down yesterday morning (Black Friday) and it was completely empty, woot! I still made her wear the line didn't even bother to keep her close. It's a good thing too because since my bike was stolen she has been driving. me. crazy. because I can't give her the exercise she needs through walking alone. We were down there for probably about an hour and a half and I don't think she stopped once, she just ran and ran and ran and ran and ran. We did recall work and she was spot on, every single time. My favorite is to call her when she's in a full out sprint away from me because she turns on a dime and it's adorable! All of her recalls though are sprints back to me, there's none of this trotting or moseying back, she has to race!

I take her dinner along as treats because if the treats are really good she refuses to exercise and sniff, she just follows me around. *sigh*

We went today as well, though I wasn't at all suprised that there was some people there as it is Saturday. There was a young guy there who had a shepherd mix who I was super jealous of because his dog was all about the ball! I don't think Izzy even saw them though. It took her quite a while to realize there was other dogs there, not surprising as the area is huge and there's small hills and the wind was blowing. We practiced recalls a bit before she figured out that there was other dogs around and I held the end of the line just to be safe.

The first dog she saw, a cocker with an elderly couple, she didn't make a huge deal about. The only issue we had was that she went to the end of the leash and when I recalled her she took 2 steps towards me then turned around. I reeled her in and made her sit. She was definitely tense and aware of the dog, but she was able to listen to commands and after about 30 seconds we were able to keep going. She was still tuned into the other dog as we walked, but she recalled fine and was able to control herself.

As we were walking we ended up parallel to an old man and his black and white springer spanial. The dog was gorgeous and bouncing all over the place. Izzy somehow didn't see it for quite some time, despite my even pointing it out! Then when she did eventually see it, she wasn't too happy. She barkgrowled a bit while I walked over to her as she would not come when I called. I put her regular leash on and asked her for a sit and then eye contact, neither of which she was willing to do. So I backed her up a few feet and this time she was able to sit and after a few minutes was able to make eye contact with me. I praised and treated and she was able to also do a down stay while the dog got closer. Her attention stayed on me for most of the time and she was able to do as asked while we watched the old man and dog go past.

I'm not going to lie, I was disappointed that she reacted, but it wasn't really bad so I should be thankful for that.

We walked around some more and eventually we were there alone and I let her run as far as she wanted and after a bit of that we headed home.