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Friday, April 8, 2016

Disaster Avoided.

Friday Funday!!

We've had nice weather for about a week now! And we are LOVING it! Although part of me keeps expecting those spring rain clouds to roll back in and douse us thoroughly. Hahaha the life of being an Oregonian.  (Oregonians Are Crazy HERE)

All this nice weather has us taking full advantage of our dried out field, so we're getting tons of play time in. And thankfully our little field hasn't had many other visitors, either that or we're just on different play schedules. It's not our field but we certainly love it! It's owned by a local church that is happy to share with dog owners, they just ask that people pick up after their pets.


Remember me harping about how training never ends with your dogs?
And you have to keep practicing?  Well yesterday we narrowly avoided disaster! A while back I wrote a letter - Dear Nasty Dog Owner. Well he was in our field yesterday when I took Dante and Ziva out, and do you know what? I didn't see him! Oops...normally I scan the field and look for other people, but the direction I approached I didn't see him in the far corner. It doesn't help that his dog is so darn small.

I put Dante and Ziva in their sit stays (I start our playtime with some structured training practice), tossed the toys, sent them off one by one, they came back - all was well.

Ziva was already warmed up from doing some doggy jiujitsu with Dante at our house so I grabbed the tennis ball put it in my chuckit, and launched it completely across the field.

Must get the ball!!
Can you guess what happened next?

Maybe I can paint you a picture. Ziva is super fast, she was on the complete far side of the field well out of my range, when Nasty Owner's dog (a tiny one) came racing across the field to intercept Ziva barking it's stupid little maniacal head off. Imagine a noisy miniaturized siren. All I could do was rely on Ziva to make the right decision.

I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Ziva Come!" She was already on her way to me when the little dog started it's chase, she glanced it's way, looked back at me, and SHE CAME RIGHT TO ME!!  Good girl!!  WHEW...disaster barely averted.


Dante was completely involved in tugging with me so he stayed put, the tiny dog stopped about halfway across the field - almost exactly in the middle between us and his owner, turned around, and went back. Shortly after that they loaded up in their van and went home.

I'm so proud of Ziva! I've successfully been able to call her off of cats at a dead sprint, call her off of her ball when it went into the street one time, and now I can add calling "to prevent her from engaging with a dog" to our list! I should mention, we've had some fails too. No one is perfect, but I'm normally very careful to manage our situations to avoid moments like this.  And Dante? He needs more work... As long as he's engaged with me he's awesome, but the moment I lose his brain he's off on some adventure. On a good note he comes right back, but it's something to keep practicing.


Now back to playtime!! Oh, and we have a fun treat review we'll be posting soon!!

Now that's the sign of a tired dog!







8 comments:

  1. Good girl, Ziva! That's awesome!

    I had the same damn thing happen to me a few days ago!! Luckily Phoenix came back as well! A stupid person released their fluffy chihuahua onto the field I was working my dogs on and I didn't see them do it. It was running around like a fluffy bunny.. Mildly terrifying for me because Phoenix is triggered by motion. Luckily she just stopped and gave the dog a good look and then returned to me.

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  2. Now that is a solid recall that should be highly rewarded!

    Your Pals,

    Murphy & Stanley

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    1. OH yes, lots of praise and we stayed to play ball after I made sure we were a safe distance from bozo brain. :-)

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  3. Congrats on your recall success!! I'm looking forward to your treat review ;-)

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Barks & Howls are always welcome!!

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