Cricket, Fusion, Twix, Synergy
On Saturday Cricket and I went to the San Diego area where her breeder was down from Oregon attending a trial. Getting Cricket has been a really different experience for me because I only met Cricket through photos before I got her and I had never met her breeder. It was a huge leap for me because I feel so strongly about making sure that anywhere I BUY a dog from is a place that I want to support and comes from dogs I like. Luckily I have some friends I really trust that gave good references, and I saw enough videos I felt pretty good getting the Crickster-but it was really nice to actually be able to meet Brittney-her breeder in person. I was impressed, Brittney was very nice, she seemed very knowledgeable, and we even got to see her run a dog at the agility trial we were at. Brittney had Fusion her dog who I have been watching in videos and have always liked-she is a 3/4 sister to Cricket so it was a treat to meet her in person. There were a few other owners from the area-it was fun to meet Crickets birth relatives and their people.
Some of you may have seen Pam's videos with Twix on youtube, She does some tutorials on tricks with her dogs Bandit, Twix and Isabella. I had emailed her when I heard Brittney was coming down and she came to meet us there too. I have talked to her over the net, but had never met her in person. Emily, who is Kikopup on youtube and does some fantastic tutorials was there with her doggies Splash and Tug. CRICKET LOVED TUG. Tug was the only dog that seemed to understand how Cricket likes to play. She likes to tug with other dogs and Tug seems to really enjoy that game too. I think he is the littlest dog she has played with and think it is safe to say he was a great ambassador for the small dogs. Splash is the sweetest dog ever, I really liked her.
And the BEAUTIFUL Crickster:
Cricket was a bit of a Freak at the trial to start with, boy I thought we had the impulse control stuff down and we have worked so hard on our recall, but there is a lot of instinct kicking in that little girls head and it is so hard for Cricket to resist going after running dogs. When we got there Cricket had been in the car for the 3 hour 20 min drive that seemed to last forever, it was still early morning so Cricket had so much pent up energy and seeing the dogs running agility was getting close to sending her over the edge. I can see some areas we need to work on to get her ready for trialing ;-) and I can see we need to get places and give Cricket a few minutes to settle in before I expect a lot from her. I could see Cricket try so hard to sit and be good, she would really try so hard, but she would get so frustrated she finally had to lunge or turn and bite her leash. I think I am going to work on teaching her to carry a toy so she can chomp down on that when she gets a little frustrated, I think that will help her.
Cricket really wanted to play with Twix and at one point they both pulled out of our hands and both went racing toward the agility rings....YIKES!!!! So much for my recall at that point, LOL. I screamed my "come"command and they did turn and start racing sort of our way...sort of...then Twix caught sight of the pool and headed there. Once he was checking out the pool Cricket figured he was not as much fun when he was not running so she turned and ran into me as fast as she could. I am sure she figured she came eventually.....she was busy when I first called, why didn't I understand that?
Once Cricket settled down she was actually very good. I was able to do quite a bit of one jump work at the practice jump when no one was using it and she was reading rear crosses really well, and some nice front crosses, doing her start line stay practice really well, I was actually really happy with how she did there. She was also able to do some really terrific mat work, so our crate games are paying off there. All in all I think the little Crickster is going to make it, she is still young and learning how to deal with all the stimulation around a trial. It was very unfortunate my zipper on my crate had broke and I did not have time to get it fixed, I think the trial would have been a lot easier for her if I had brought her crate and gave her a little break from the stimulation, but it felt like Cricket was pretty wild while I was there...but once I left and thought about it, she really did pretty good, she let me know some things that we need to work on, but like Susan Garrett says Embrace Your Holes in your training, so guess we got a few holes that we can embrace ;-).
ps, the pictures were taken by Brittney, hope she does not mind I used them!