Black and tans

Agility Land!!! It. Is. FINISHED!!

2011-09-07T21:47:00.000-04:00

This week was awesome because Lars and I finally were able to run on agility land. The grass is long and looks better than any other grass on the property. But, the soil is very loose and it the root systems of the turf isn't holding it well. So, it looks like I'm running a thoroughbred hunter over a Grand Prix course with the big divots in the grass where Lars lands and/or turns. Oh well, we'll be throwing down grass seed back there for a while.

I'll be able to post some video of us training because we've got space and the camera can pick up most of what we're doing. I have a great example here on video of Lars at home and a photo capture of video of Lars at a trial and you can see the difference of "Home Lars" versus "Beer Can Crushing Lars"

Here's home -

and

Here's a couple of photos of Lars taking or rather smashing a double jump at one of those July trials....look at the difference of Lars' jumping style.

The take off...not bad looking on film...but he was truckin'.

The Smash - where the hell did his front legs go??? 0.o

The landing...I have no words. How far away is he from the jump?? 10'?? He should have landed 2' on the other side...not 10.

So, there it is...the proven fact I have two different dogs all rolled into one. You can see the guy I'm usually practicing with and the guy who shows up at the shows. I'll be very curious to see if I can get a good mix of my home guy versus "that guy" as he gets older. Hopefully, the more I train on agility land and the more we train with spacing similar to the shows, we'll get more used to each other.

Wordless Wednesday - Reading dog Lars hard at work

2011-08-24T11:22:00.001-04:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Grids are my best friends

2011-08-18T14:45:00.000-04:00

We did this grid yesterday and it's a tight one with the jumps 6' apart and the heights gradually increasing to regulation height. Again, for Lars to get in and out of these jumps, he must rock back on his rear and push himself over the next jump. Some people call these "bounce jumps" because Lars has to land and take off from pretty much the same spot with no extra strides.

Lars is using his body very nicely through this grid. He is arcing over the jumps and keeping his head down over the jump. Most importantly, he is not gaining speed, momentum, and power as he moves through the jumps. Before, his jumping style would change by jump 3 and you could see him struggling to maintain control and keep the bars up. I am not seeing that now and he's very steady, even, and controlled. He did drop that first bar with his back feet on the next to last pass through. I think I went to far from where he was and I could have cued extension and I think I may have placed him too close to the first jump. I made him go over it again and rewarded the bar staying up after no reward for the crap pass through. That last go, I set him back, I didn't go as far as I had. I rewarded heavily and then I ended the session.

Just like the other skills I've shown here, bounce jumps were mentioned to me by one of our first instructors when Lars was smashing through jumps. That's all they were...was mentioned with no other input and I didn't really know what do with bounce jumps or how to set them up. I took a lesson once with Lo Baker from BARK agility last year and my current instructor have given me some good grids to work Lars with. I do have the Susan Salo DVDs and while I find them useful...I didn't find them particularly helpful for Lars because it's all equal distance. I don't think her grids challenged Lars enough or made him think enough about what he is doing over the jump. I do use Salo grids but not as often. I'll probably tape myself using some of her grids as well on here.

All of this jumping work is paying off and I have witnesses to it. Today's Open Obedience class, we were doing work with the dumbbell retrieve over the jump. Kathy (Mad for Labs) was there in the ring working her girlie Stella on another jump. She saw Lars take off purposely on both sides of the jump and land coming towards me with a lot of thought and carefulness. Teri noticed it too. So, I'm not imagining it. Lars was able to give me a fantastic front after sticking that appropriate landing about 2 or so feet on my side of the jump. I hear people in both agility and obedience say..."That's the way my dog jumps, there's nothing I can do about it." I say you can...it takes work and training. I'm seeing the proof and the rewards from that.

Foundation recalling into heel with Lars

2011-08-17T13:47:00.000-04:00

This was the piece of training I blew off the most because I didn't get what it taught. If I hadn't blown this off...I have a feeling I would have had more control over Lars early on into our agility career. Basically what this teaches to Lars is not to go past the plane of my arm. It is also supposed to help him react to my cues on the course. I thought this little exercise was dumb when it would pop up in the beginner classes I took when Lars was a pup. Big mistake....big, big mistake. So, the take home message I am trying to say here is don't blow off stuff you don't understand or may seem silly to you. You know what?? It's probably laying the ground work for something bigger.

Recall into heel is also supposed to teach Lars to slow down as he approaches me, as you can see him doing in the video. He is also supposed to be decelerating with his rear which he is also doing because he's coming in and stopping (for the most part) without his butt swinging around. Boy, this would have been a really helpful skill for us! LOL I can't tell you how many times young Lars would blast past me or even hit me to get to a piece of equipment behind me. Hind sight is 20/20, right. I've just started to re-train this skill and I'll start introducing more recalling into heel over jumps, recall into heel over two jumps, and recall into heel with different pieces of equipment.

Foundation Jumping with Lars

2011-08-16T13:46:00.000-04:00

As promised here is some video of our lunch time practicing one jump work. Lars and I have been at this for about month and this is close to the end product of this stage of foundation jump training. We have gradually changed the jump height and my position from sitting to kneeling to standing and then me in different positions. Now my different positions in relation to the jump mean different handling things to Lars and I'm starting to reinforce this.

Doing this jumping close up removes the speed Lars is so reliant on to get himself over the jump. Lars now has to rock back on his rear and use that to propel himself over the jump in an arc. When he's jumping in full extension, Lars takes on more of an inverted jumping style which will make him land very far away on the other side of the jump and that makes handling challenging in tight courses and we become a less efficient team. If you stop the video while he's in the air, you can see Lars using his body more appropriately and he's rounded over the jump. Fantastic!

These exercises will probably be something I do with him on a regular basis as a reminder to him as to get himself over jumps without flinging himself.

2.5 months, a bunch of agility titles, Q's and some interesting developments later

2011-08-16T00:04:00.000-04:00

I have to apologize for being a little on the quiet side since May. Lars and I did end up taking the month of June off from showing and just trained for agility and started officially training in open obedience. As I mentioned in my work blog earlier this week, I really think I started to suffer from burn out not only in work but in all aspects of my life too. Some of that drifted into my life with Lars and I made some life changes which I think I'm much happier for. I won't get into much detail about some of the training stuff that at first, I thought was something that was helping us. I had started taking lessons with someone because our usual class was full after taking the winter off. As the months progressed, agility with Lars had seemed to start to move forward. But then as early summer hit, we hit a wall and started to back slide...a bunch. My guess is the trainer we were using didn't really get Lars and as I've written all a long he's not the easiest dog to learn this sport on. But as I thought more and more about what had developed, the trainer didn't get Rottweilers and how they differ from Border Collies that they were more familiar with. Rottweilers aren't Border Collies...they don't jump like Border Collies, they don't run like Border Collies, and they aren't built like Border Collies. I had started to handle courses in order to keep bars up and the responsibility for keeping bars up was starting to fall squarely on my shoulders. There was one night in a class where I had crossed the line I was so adamant I wouldn't cross with Lars and agility - it had become not fun any more. In fact, I had started to get very anxious about class and running Lars in general. I was second guessing everything I knew and I was made to believe that my handling skills were severely lacking. So, I made the decision to leave the lessons I had been taking and start taking lessons privately with a new trainer with whom I share a lot of ideas with. So, that's what happened (in a major nut shell) since my last post. It was a really weird summer and I'm ready to move on from it.

In showing this summer, we moved Lars up to 24" where he should be jumping regularly according to the AKC. It wasn't the easiest of transitions because Lars was so used to not being responsible for keeping the bars up and he was used to his usual trajectory which got him over 20" in preferred.

Lars and I in our lovely "almost" JWW Novice Regular in late July thanks to Lesley Mattuchio

But we showed two AKC agility trials up in North Smithfield in July and earned ourselves 2 Novice Fast Legs and 2 Novice Standard Legs. Novice Jumpers with Weaves has been eluding us but the last two attempts were close ones but with no cigars. The first trial we entered in July, Lars was wild for most of it. It was almost like since the responsibility of thinking for him had been removed because I needed to baby sit everything, Lars felt he could be on a free-for-all, jump smashing-yahoo run. The second trial (which was the year anniversary to Lars' debut at an AKC match) I had started to go back to making Lars responsible for keeping the bars up. He was much more "thoughtful" about what he was doing...especially by the second day. That last run of the second day was where these pics came from. That was an insanely cool JWW run which I had my mojo back and I just ran with my dog and it felt so right. Apparently, it looked just as right from the outside of the ring too from what I heard. Unfortunately, Lars dropped one bar in that class. But it was fine, the rest of it was beautiful and I can definitely live with that.


Our lovely Jumpers with Weaves in AKC - Lesley Mattuchio

NADAC agility has proven to be good to us this year because we've closed out all of our open titles and earned some new ones this spring and summer. This spring, Lars and I finished up our Novice Regular (their standard) title with placements and earned some Novice Weaver legs too. In their July trial, Lars and I wrapped up the NADAC Novice Jumpers title, Novice Weavers, and Novice Tunnelers titles. We are now in an open agility class in weavers and tunnelers! We are going to bail out on classes with jumps in NADAC for the mean time. With the history we've had with Lars keeping bars up, I don't want to do one weekend at 20" for NADAC and then 24" for AKC. I'll leave that well enough alone and revisit NADAC jump classes for when Lars is done jumping the big jumps. There are plenty enough ground games there that we can play in and have a great time. Our next attempt at NADAC and at agility all together is in September (17th and 18th) up in Smithfield. I just sent in three entries - 2 for AKC and one for NADAC in September and the first weekend in October. I think this fall will be a busy one for us because there's lots of stuff coming up!


Lars exploding out of the AKC chute - Lesley Mattuchio

So, where are we with our training after the twilight zone summer? After being told I had "huge holes in my handling skills", I freaked out and bought a bunch of books to help me learn how to handle. One of which was Linda Mecklenburg's new book - Developing Handling Skills for Awesome Agility Teams and her other great book Developing Jumping Skills for Awesome Agility Teams. I'm about 50 pages into the Handling book and I have to say, I now understand the theory and reasoning behind a lot of the foundation stuff I didn't really do with Lars. Recalls into Heel and the meaning and communication behind how you chose handling cues are where we are now. Truthfully, I didn't know or was told why recalls into heel on the flat and with different pieces of equipment - to start to teach the dog collection. Yeah...Lars doesn't really collect anywhere on the agility course. Now I know why...I never really taught him that...ever. Sure, I went through the motions for a week or so when it came up in the very beginning of our agiilty classes. But seeing it in print and in a way I can wrap my head around, I get it.

Lars (and me) with the Teeter in AKC Novice Standard

So, now that I get it and I understand, Lars doesn't. We are going back and working foundation agility stuff we should have three years ago. That goes for jumping skills too as I slowly make my way through the jumping skills books. I just said to my friend Beth this week that I so wished I had the handling book when I started this...I could have really taught him what he needs to know. He's a smart guy and I know he will catch on to these rules of the road as we both learn them. I'll be curious to see as I go through and reintroduce the foundation work as explained by Mecklenburg if Lars changes from the drivey wild man that trainers can't figure out to the talented and brilliant agility dog who gets his job and does it.

I'm not going to get ahead of myself and say that I think I'm seeing changes for the better in Lars and how he approaches his jumping. Basically, what I'm trying to teach him with the developing jumping skills book is to rock back and power off of his butt over the jump. Lars' default jumping style is to fling himself over the bar using his front end and the crazy speed he reaches out on the course. I'm starting to see the bars aren't dropping as much while we're practicing in the backyard. But just this week with the dumbbell retrieve, I saw him arc over the jump without the powerful momentum he usually does. Normally, he launches himself from yards back and lands at my feet yards away from the jump. Not this time...he approached the jump and lifted off at a reasonable distance back and landed with the same appropriate space. In my eyes, that was huge. I think maybe, just maybe, Lars is starting to learn he doesn't need to muscle himself over the jumps.

As I reteach our agility path, I will try to video the different things we're doing. Hopefully, I might be able to help someone understand some basic foundation stuff.

I'll touch on our obedience stuff briefly since it's getting late. Open has been going really well and I'm really surprised at how easy Lars makes teaching this stuff. We had a little speed bump with teaching him to take the dumbbell with a little bit more control. Lars loves to roar at the dumbbell as he comes in to snatch it. Teri Desrosiers who we are taking classes with at the K9 Connection has been nothing less than brilliant for helping us figure out how to get him to stop that. His prey drive would kick in when I throw the dumbbell and he would to the border collie vulture stance/stare at it until I released him. I needed to break that intense focus on the dumbbell and get it back on me before I sent him. Works like a charm! I had told Teri that my goal for showing in Open was this coming spring. She seems to think that we are progressing quite nicely and maybe this fall may be a better goal for us. We shall see about that!

New Novice Preferred Title!!!

2011-05-22T20:36:00.000-04:00

We attempted another attempt at our Novice Preferred Standard title this weekend. Yesterday, The Lars Express had a great run up until the chute. He was flying down the line and got tangled up in it and caused a derailment. :( It looked way worse than I think it was...but it freaked me out pretty good. I was really worried that he was okay. I ran seriously conservatively the rest of the course and I didn't run as fast towards the last jump as I should have and the bar came down. It was a really nice course and it was really fun to play on. If it hadn't been for the chute incident, we would have qualified yesterday.

Today we had another great course and today was also the day we move out of Preferred agility until Lars is older and 24" is too much for him.

We had an off course right before the A-frame and a small little goof with Lars slipping off the table but it was enough to qualify and to get second place!!! And...he ran it 40 seconds under course time!!! Lesley who owns Lars' cousin commented on Facebook that Lars was very reserved and controlled under the course which has always been an issue and you would know that if you have been following the blog. Maybe, just maybe....Lars is growing up and become the dog he should be. :) Our next attempt at agility will be in two weeks in NADAC up in North Smithfield. Now, that we've wrapped up that last leg, I can start looking at the calendar for AKC trials and go for regular.

Lars Larson - Centerfold!

2011-05-17T10:09:00.000-04:00

As seen in the May/June, 2011 issue of Dog Sport -

and

and yes, I bought a bunch of them!!!! :)

Shiny New Obedience Title

2011-05-09T08:32:00.002-04:00

Yup, Lars and I went out and finished up our CD we started last month this weekend. I never thought I would be part of a team that go out and bang out a CD in three consecutive shows. But, we did!!! We got our second leg on Saturday with a 194 and no placement...which is perfectly fine!! I was really happy with our score. And yesterday's judge was way tougher and we got a 3rd place after winning a run off with a 191.5. Once again, the judge loved Lars' off leash heeling and we only lost one point there. It was funny, I thought I was going to be nervous with the second judge because she was tougher and I heard people discussing her on Saturday. But, I really was able to have the mind set of "Oh, it's just a run thru." She was really funny and talkative...and that actually made me relax even more...because when I get nervous, I tend to talk...a lot. I really, really hope I can keep that feeling of "oh well, it's just a run thru" through out Lars' career. I think I hit a new level of training zen of "Trial like you train and train like you trial."

Lars LOVES to heel and when he's on leash, he tends to forge. That's where we lost points with forges and being wide on turns. We've been working on that tons but when he gets to a show...then he turns up the energy to 12. I don't get to see "that guy" until we get to a show. Oh well, there's always something to work on because he and I are both green.

We're going to go full steam ahead with agility for the rest of the season and we may go out and do some bumper CD legs this summer. But, we'll start working on our CDX too which I'm sure Lars will think is seriously cool.

Handler Line/Front Cross Line - What I don't know can indeed hurt us as a team.

2011-05-03T22:51:00.001-04:00

Wow...I had major revelations in class tonight. I never, ever knew there was a real way to figure out where you need to plan a front cross.

Handler Line/Front Cross Line

I feel like I have had a massive Epiphany about where I need to be. I'm printing out this entire article from agility nerd and I'm going to study the hell out of it. When I kept my cross line where it should have been, Lars and I moved beautifully together.

Wow. Just Wow.

New NADAC Tunneler's leg!

2011-05-02T22:44:00.001-04:00

It's been a long work day and I'll give the short and sweet version of this weekend's results. We brought home a first place and another qualifying score in Novice Tunnelers. Lars clocked in at 5.72 yards per second and it was a really nice run. I have been on some seriously wicked tunnelers courses and this judge had a great and fun course.

We also ran a regular and jumpers run which neither we Q'ed on. We barely had any time to get our dogs between the walking of the course and the running of the course which is really different from AKC agility. In AKC you have 5 mins after walking is completed to get your dog and warm them up. So, I didn't feel the jumpers class was fair to Lars. I was bringing him from his crate and was told I was in the ring next. He dropped two bars...one I surprised him with a "Lars, here" command over a jump and he turned to look at me. The second one...I was way too far ahead of him (OMG, right?) and he was racing to catch me. Lars definitely didn't have problems with speed as he clocked 6.46 yards per second. It was a really nice and straight forward course and we should have Q'ed on that.

The regular (standard) course, Lars also dropped a bar on that one too. I'm not sure what was the reason behind that one was...it was before an a-frame. Who knows. It was another nice, straight forward course and we should have Q'ed on that one too. Don't get me wrong, we had some good stuff and we didn't have any off courses which was an issue with us last year. I need to practice more at home and I'll be the first one to admit we haven't done much of that this spring. The turf behind Deckzilla has been in rehab and the future agility land has been a mess of heaps of fallen leaves and piles of fallen lumber. I will be bringing back grids and sequences this week and practicing like we should.

I don't have any maps to post this week as NADAC doesn't give them out to the agility teams.

Next week is obedience and then we take a week off from trialing. We're back on the AKC agility field the following weekend.

Courses from last weekend

2011-04-28T13:45:00.000-04:00

Here are the courses from the Scottie Trial up in N. Smith as promised.

This was the JWW from Saturday...it was a great run and you can see where Lars and I had a minor collision on jump 9. A lot experienced agility people said that line was tough for a novice course. It's even tougher when you have a fast, powerful dog. I'll be practicing stuff like that here at home.

Here's the JWW course we Q'ed on! We had a refusal at jump 4...but that was because I slammed on my brakes because I didn't give myself enough room to rear that.

Here's the course that created the infamous "rocketweiler" pic I posted over the weekend. Again, some tricky lines for a novice course. I didn't have enough momentum coming out of my front cross after jump 3 and Lars found mega over drive when he landed after the broad jump. I'm so stupid...I should have never corrected that off course. If I hadn't, we would have Q'ed (groan.)

Here's the other Standard course from Sunday...Curse be that fake out jump in front of the see saw. Double curse me for opening my mouth and causing that bar to come down. (Double groan.)

First Agility Title EVER!!!!

2011-04-26T12:55:00.001-04:00

The Q gods did smile upon us yesterday and gave us our Novice JWW Preferred title!!! We had a little bobble which equaled a refusal...so we had 5 points off. The standard course time was 44 seconds and Lars ran it in 23 seconds...including the second or two we took to regroup from the refusal. If we hadn't had the goof, Lars would have easily taken first because the next fastest dog was 6 seconds after us. Go Lars GO!!!!! My friend Lesley taped the run and I can see where the bobble happened. I stopped moving towards the jump I was planning to rear cross Lars...and he pulled off with me. He did what I, in essence, told him to do. Bad handler, bad!

Standard was another fabulous run overall. We didn't Q because Lars REALLY wanted the fake out jump in front of the teeter...and took it...and then dropped the bar when I groaned. LOL If I had kept my mouth shut...we would have Q'ed. Oh well. The rest of it was totally awesome. This one wasn't taped and everyone told me I had bent over trying to get Lars' attention with my "blinker arm." That bending created forward motion that Lars was more than willing to accept. I did learn though that an off course in Novice Std is only five points and not the NQ I thought it was. We could have qualified on Saturday if I had only kept running with Lars after the ill fated tunnel entry instead of making him do it right. Sheesh.

But anyway, we're no longer agility title virgins!!! We're going to concentrate on wrapping up that NAP title and then we move up to the big boy jumps of 24". We're showing in NADAC this Sunday and let's hope there are some new letters from that trial too.

FYI, I will be posting maps of the courses this week when I dig them out of my bag. I marked them up too where we had our issues. I also am going to train some of those "D'oh" moments here at the house.

No Q's today...but we got a rockin' photo which I plan to buy!

2011-04-23T22:25:00.001-04:00

The JWW run we had was super! I'll probably scan and post the maps. But Lars almost landed on me over a jump and he dropped the bar. I was told it was a tough line for novice dogs...and it claimed a bunch of big dogs. I don't even care that we didn't Q. I was super happy with the rest of the run though and it was really awesome.

Then in std, Lars showed me he still has gears I don't even know about. I lingered too long on a front cross and then there was the sonic boom...and he was gone. This pic:

http://www.pbase.com/barryrosen/image/134154476

is the jump before he flew into the wrong side of a tunnel. I was way behind him and there was no turning him off of his trajectory with that kind of momentum. The rest of the run was fine when I finally caught up with him on the a-frame.

We go back tomorrow and see if the Q gods will smile upon us.

So much for Project 365...

2011-04-20T00:30:00.004-04:00

I always am not sure what to do with this blog...pictures of Lars all winter became him laying around because the ground became treacherous for him to be himself. So. after a couple of weeks of taking photos of Lars on the couch, Lars in the chair, Lars sleeping on his back (repeat as necessary), Project 365 became awfully lame. I aborted that mission around the first week of February. It was decided that training Lars was probably a better way to spend my time than taking dorky photos of him.

Over these past couple of months, I have found a bunch of cool dog blogs that I follow on a somewhat regular basis. I'll get those links up as soon as I take time to dig up the ones I read often. These blogs are a mix of professional trainers, very talented trainers in both the agility and obedience world, and some that are just fun. As I've read them, I took stock in what made them cool...sometimes people wrote about issues they were having in training, sometimes it was results from shows they entered in during the week, sometimes is was just observations from their lives with their dogs. I think I will aspire to move Lars' blog more towards that direction. Lord knows he is a complex dude and training with him teaches me something every day. My good friend Beth says "he's not the ideal dog to learn agility with..." and she is 100% correct with that statement. But, he will make me a great handler for whatever other dogs come to share my life with me.

This early spring has been a relatively busy one for training both in agility and obedience. Lo Baker and her seminars at the K9 Connection (K9C as I like to call it) were on our radar with one set just attended by me and the other set attended by both Lars and me. I sat in on a little bit of the Michael Ellis seminar at the K9C when he was here in March. What I find very cool about dog training is that you can take little pieces of information from trainers and figure out what will work with the dog you have.

While the weather was sort of gross, I took the time to be more studious about training. I really have become fascinated by the relationship people/handlers/trainers have with their dogs. The more and more I watch people work their dogs, relationship (to me) seems to be one of those "make it or break it" things when it comes to success. I think the more I write, I'll talk more and more about that and my evolving relationship with Lars. As of right now, I do think Lars and I have a pretty solid relationship when it comes to work. He enjoys working to the point where he loves it a little bit too much which sometimes is a great thing and sometimes, it's something we need to work on. For one example, there are times in agility where I really don't factor into the game...as Lars flies by me taking whatever is in front of him and he's enjoying his "party of one." That was how most of our experiences in agility went for last spring and summer. Some point over last fall, Lars discovered that I was actually trying to tell him where to go and he got better about respecting my handling cues. That doesn't go without saying, we still have nights where Lars is flying around the ring like a banshee possessed with me pointlessly screaming "LARS!!! HERE!!!!!!" Thankfully, they happen pretty infrequently now.

Obedience was the name of the game the best part of the winter and I did get some good legwork done in preparing for Novice Obedience. Teri Derosiers who now owns the K9C has been a massive help with preparing us for the obedience ring. What makes her so great is that she thinks outside the box and will give you pointers that will help your dog instead of doing cookie cutter training. Lars most definitely doesn't fit inside the neat, little obedience box and I don't know what I would have done without Teri.

Lars took the winter off from agility and I brought him back around the beginning of March. We had some set backs from taking that time off...mostly me losing my timing for cuing him and Lars preferring to run balls to the wall (collection is for whimps, according to the boy.) I'm still taking lessons from my buddy Beth at the K9C but have also sought out the weekly lesson help from a new agility trainer. Hopefully, the two of them will get us back up and running even better than where we were last year.

March, Lars and I wrapped up our UKC Rally Level 2 title (a first and a third place) and at the same trial earned 2 legs towards his UKC Novice Obedience title (again with a first and a third place and pictured below. The first place leg was a reserve high in trial!)

This past weekend, we debuted in AKC Novice and earned Lars' first CD leg with a blue ribbon as well. That's one thing that the boy is very consistent with...when he qualifies, he places. This next weekend is our return to AKC agility up in North Smithfield...and let's see if the Pocket Rocket can bring home a couple of new letters for after his name. :)

Blowing off steam before the library - Day 18

2011-01-26T18:15:00.003-05:00

Eric was great and helped me get Lars to blow off some cabin fever before we headed over to the library yesterday.

More Lars Propaganda!! - Day 16

2011-01-24T17:24:00.003-05:00

The Library is really working on the Lars PR as their new reading dog! This is from the main page of the kid's section on the library webpage. I hope with this and the Beacon article, we get some more kids tomorrow.

ZOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!! - Day 15

2011-01-23T22:42:00.002-05:00

Um yeah...it's that cold out that I will use bribes of cookies to get Lars back inside after doing his business. It's 11 degrees out right now with the wind chill a balmy -3 degrees. Brrrrrrr.....

Official Project 365 photo for Day 14!

2011-01-22T20:14:00.004-05:00

Twin Rear Jet Engines - ACTIVATE!!!!

(I finally learned how to use the blast feature...it's about time)

Lars' Warwick Beacon Shout Out! - Day 14

2011-01-22T11:54:00.002-05:00

It's not really an official pic...I will get one later today, but it works. I was on the Warwick Beacon's website looking up local news and stumbled across an article from the library about some different events they are hosting. I clicked on it to see what else they are up to and lo and behold, the mentioned Lars!!! How about that!

Bone Coma - Day 13

2011-01-21T12:06:00.004-05:00

It's still snowing here this morning and now we have about 3" of snow on top of ice crusted snow. We're looking for things to keep Lars occupied since running around outside (without the risk of him blowing something out) is not happening.

Kongs, full tug a tugs, and frozen beef bones have been in high demand this winter. Wednesday we had a private lesson with Teri and we started to look at some Open exercises like retrieve on flat, retrieve over jumps, the broad jump, and intros to drop on recall games. He's in really great shape with both forms of retrieving. The broad jump, he's seen that in agility and we'll tweak that to work in obedience. Novice stuff is coming along nicely and the one thing that probably needs the most work is getting that front just a hair straighter (he leans to my right.) We would have worked more heeling, but I pulled something in my calf while fast heeling and we had to finish the rest of the lesson with me moving as little as possible. I guess that's what happens when you wear heeled dansko clogs for a month straight and then switch to sneakers with no heel. It's getting better, but no heeling for me until I can walk with my normal pace.

Chillin' like a villian - Day 8

2011-01-16T17:36:00.003-05:00

As you can see....life is rough for Lars in his off season. Hanging out in Dad's chair watching the Pats/Jets game.

Lars is housebound...thanks for nothing blizzard - Day 7

2011-01-15T22:07:00.002-05:00

Lars is not having fun with that foot of snow we got earlier this week....especially now that it's got a hard crust on it. It's hard for man and beast to walk through it and we're relying on leash walking or playing inside for now. Lars did try to charge across it Thursday while he was in hot pursuit of a squirrel and he ended up a little sore that night in his chest...poor guy. It's hard to convince the flying monkey he's not indestructible.

I was out of the office most of yesterday and today...so I missed some photo ops of Lars. So, I'll indulge everyone with video of Lars and I playing a couple of days before the snow storm where the ground was much more user friendly.

Lars loves his Jolly Ball...and annoying our next door neighbor's dog.

So stinkin' cute!!! Day 5

2011-01-13T09:58:00.002-05:00

I can barely stand it!!! I have to laugh at Lars and how different he is with treats and chews than Sam was. See that little rawhide chew on the floor there?? That's been hanging around for almost 5 or 6 days now. Sam? That would have lasted 5 or 6 minutes. I am not a fan of rawhides because they can clog up a dog's digestive track if they eat to many too often. Since it will probably take 3 months for that one on the bed to disappear, I'm not too worried about it anymore.

Snow day - day 4

2011-01-12T16:05:00.003-05:00

I need a faster camera or either learn how to use the "Blast" feature on it. I have a lot of photos that end up looking like this. LOL

Lars's new job - Day 3

2011-01-12T09:41:00.003-05:00

I meant to post last night...but the gravitational pull of the couch was too great and I fell asleep. So, I'll post what I was planning on last night now and I'll post again later today.

Yesterday Lars started his new job as a TDI Tail Wagging Tudor at the local library! Eric took him for a long (for Eric) walk and then we attempted to burn off some more Lars zest outside with the jolly ball.

For a dog who loves people so much, I was pretty pleased with him. Getting him in and out of the library was a little tricky with all of the people who wanted to say Hi with him. He got a little over-stimulated and I think he'll get more used to that as he continues to mature and the more often we go. I think I will also get there much earlier and let him get settle with the atmosphere the next time.

But, he was great with the little girl who read 4 books to him. Then Lars was able to show off all of his tricks to his little reader and her brothers and sisters. Our next appointment is the 25th and his little girl and her mother said they would come back and read to Lars!

Lars Channelling his Grandfather - day 2

2011-01-11T09:14:00.003-05:00

Lars is his grandfather's grandson without a doubt. I see lots of similarities between the two even though I know Yngo only through the internet. Yngo is known for his zest for life and it most definitely filtered down through to Lars.

I can only hope Lars is as vibrant and active is Yngo is on the link of his 10th birthday last April - http://www.esmondrott.com/yngo_age10.htm

Take a peek and you'll see what I mean with the title. :)

Lars 365 - day one

2011-01-10T10:49:00.002-05:00

I mentioned this on the gardening blog that I have recently discovered some people doing the Project 365 with their blogs. I think I am going to try that and take photos of stuff in my life which would apply to both sides of my world. I am going to try my best with uploading stuff each and every day...but also won't beat myself up too much because there will be times like when I'm away with shows that I may not get to it.

I'll guess I'll start with an "old" photo I took of Lars back in 2009 when we were at the Cape for his RA title. I just found the coolest app where you can apply filters to photos and have fun with them.

Lars looks like he was around the time of the Titanic! LOL

The blue ribbon run from Springfield!

2010-12-07T11:53:00.002-05:00

Gimme Fuel, Gimme Fire...

2010-12-01T10:24:00.000-05:00

Gimme that which I desire!! In Lars' world, that would be agility hands down. We're wrapping up our agility season for the winter and we had a pretty successful first season which started the last weekend of September!!

Here's the recap of the year in song and photos....fits Mr. Lars and who he is just perfectly.

So the tally goes:

2 NAP Legs; 2nd place and 1st Place (this past weekend...I'm seriously hoping to get my hands on that video to post here.)

2 NJP Legs; 2nd place and 4th place

2 NAC Legs; 2nd and 1st place

2 NJC Legs: 2nd and 1st place

1 TN-N Leg; 2nd place

I'm so proud of Lars, how we were able to come together and pull all of this off in just 2 months of showing. We're going to switch gears and do more obedience/rally this winter. We'll still be playing in agility....just doing ground work and handling skills. He needs to take a breather from all of the jumping and body slamming stuff for a little while. I need him to have a long and healthy agility career!

Lars not only does agility...but he ROCKS it!

2010-06-17T22:53:00.002-04:00

We're getting there...and I'm finally getting a clue how to handle a fast and furious dog. Watch out Border Collies, there's a rottweiler in town and he's badass! LOL

Lars does sheep!

2010-05-17T23:00:00.002-04:00

Lars has stepped away from his working world as I am getting swamped by mine. We've been doing our weekly agility class and playing around with agility in the back. I thought I could swing doing both obedience and agility during the spring...but I was wrong. I just don't have the time to do everything and everything well. So, I'll focus on agility for now.

Last weekend, I felt the urge to get a couple of more letters for Lars that didn't require much in the way for practicing. Off we went to CT to see if Lars had the instinct to herd sheep according to the AKC. This was the very first time Lars has ever seen "livestock" as the sheep are referred to. You be the judge -

The Rally Juggernaut

2010-03-29T09:31:00.003-04:00

Wow, Lars wrapped up his month of campaigning in rally with a great weekend!!!! He earned his APDT Rally Level 2 title with all first places and scores of 207, 203, and a 207. That also earns him another Award of Excellence for Level 2!! He also earned his first of ten Level1X legs with a 203 and no placement.
Not that all of that was enough for Lars, he was the fourth highest scoring dog at the two day trial and earned himself a huge white ribbon. His combined scores were 820 and the highest scoring dog was at 836. So, I am just so incredibly proud of him. :)

Here's the boy with all of his loot.

We're going to take some time off from showing because I will soon get busy with work. I'll post stuff of us training or at matches/show n' gos/ or training parties. We need to do a lot of proofing before we hit the ring again for obedience and agility.

What a great boy!

3rd Blue ribbon for the RE title

2010-03-23T15:11:00.002-04:00

WHOO HOO...Lars blasts through this AKC RE title with 98's across the board and blue ribbons across the board!! Since we last posted Lars also has earned his UKC Rally level 1 title and a UKC Rally level 2 leg. Next weekend we head to NH and see if he can get a APDT Rally level 2 title. Maybe, just maybe he can get an Award of Excellence Level 2 as well.

But anyway...here's some video of Lars' Blue performance last weekend at Masterpeace Dog Training in MA.

Pics from the most recent blue Sunday!!

2010-01-26T23:09:00.001-05:00

Another Blue Sunday!!!

2010-01-25T15:08:00.002-05:00

Lars goes out and conquers rally again!! This time in AKC rally Excellent A, he brings home another qualifying score of 98 and a first place. Bravo Zulu Lars!!!!! We're taking a couple of weeks off from trialing but will be training for APDT rally in a seminar and a rally training party. Then starting in the end of February we start to trial in AKC, APDT, and UKC rally until April. Good stuff to come!

What a way to start off a new year!!

2010-01-17T16:59:00.003-05:00

I haven't had much interesting stuff to post because we haven't shown at all since Wine Country last September. We've been in training mode in rally, obedience, and agility and we've been busy with all of that...nothing exciting, just training.

But this weekend, Lars and I tried our hand at APDT rally and as you can see, Lars didn't mess around! He earned his RL1 title each leg with a placement (2 1st places and 1 3rd place) and one with a perfect score!! What a fantastic boy I have!!! Next week, we go for our first AKC RE leg...I'll keep you posted on that! :)

Agility training party

2009-11-15T13:10:00.003-05:00

Lars and I did a Halloween agility training party and my friend Beth was kind enough to take some video of our first run through. We are just learning the dog walk and the teeter so we by passed those on this course. And people wonder why I can perform feats of super human strength in their gardens. This video will shed some light as to why. LOLOL

One of our classmates had offered to take some video of us during class where Lars usually does some stupefying and death defying things with agility equipment. I am definitely going to take her up one that.

Showing off our agility skills...

2009-10-13T21:36:00.004-04:00

I took some video of us practicing some new handling skills at our class with Beth. It's more or less just us goofin' around.

We haven't done too much this past week because "someone" is getting over kennel cough. I think he caught it at either a) the Wine Country Show or b) at a show and go we did last weekend. Oh well, it's like he has a cold, that's all. It's nothing major and it just has to run it's course. I have to laugh because I was telling Auntie Kathy (Mad for Labs) today that Lars' energy level which usually runs at about a 8/9 was about a 5 while he was feeling yucky. She says "so he was like a normal dog this week." Yeah, pretty much he was. ROFL

Before Lars got sick we had an opportunity to check out Colt State Park in Bristol, RI for the first time. We're definitely heading back there for more exploring. We had walked around during a lunch break of mine on a day out of the office so we didn't spend the time there I would have liked to.

I really do love living here in RI...it is so beautiful.

Strike a pose!

This photo was a hard one to get right....I tried to get him looking at me, but he kept looking at some thing the moment I snapped the pics. So, I gave up and figured this was a good as we were going to get.

New Rally Advanced Title

2009-10-06T23:32:00.003-04:00

Lars - courtesy of Lesley Mattuchio (who owns Lars' cousin Kelvin)

I have been bad with the updating...but Lars and I made the trek to upstate NY the last weekend of September. I couldn't have been more happy with the boy!! He earned a 96, a second place and his RA on Saturday. But Sunday, was the day he shined in the gray, wind swept rain. He got a bumper leg with another 100 and a first place! He was such a great boy!!! I love, love, love this dog. He truly is a superstar in the making. :)

Lars in the rain waiting to go into the ring (these photos are from Lars' breeder Pauline Karalia)

The pep talk after our warm up

TOUCH!

Warming up before class

Halt-stand-walk around dog...

Look at that attention...so I hear, his eyes never leave me when we're working. LOVE IT!!!

PERFECT SCORE AND FIRST PLACE....WHOO HOO!!!!

Bravo Zulu Superstar Rally Man!!!

2009-09-16T14:01:00.002-04:00

We have great news to share from the Cape shows!! Lars rocked his little butt off and came home with two new Rally Advanced Q's! Saturday he earned a perfect score of 100 and a third place (two dogs did the course faster than us) and an 85 on Sunday. I am so proud of my youngster! So he's one more qualifying score away from a new Rally title! We're hoping to accomplish this the last weekend of September when we head to NY and have a Deerwood's reunion.

Here are some great pics from our weekend in Cape Cod!

Wish us luck!!

2009-09-11T12:19:00.004-04:00

We're off tonight to head to the Cape shows this weekend. We're going to attempt to get some legs in Rally Advanced. It should be interesting since this is off leash and there are some harder signs we have to do. I'm sure he'll do fine and I'll let you know how we do!!

In other Lars stuff...we've been going here and there. I've been taking photos of where we've been. A couple of weeks ago we took off and took a jaunt on the Cliff Walks of Newport.

And here's one of Lars just being the cutie pie he is!

Lars proves you don't have to be a lab to do water...

2009-08-25T12:12:00.004-04:00

I actually took these the day before Sam passed away and never did stick them on there. But, if you know Lars, you know the boy LOVES the water. I think swimming could be up there in the same category as agility in Lars' favorite things to do. We're lucky that we have a beach a mile and a half from where we live and doubly lucky they allow dogs (on leash) all year around. We go down there on occasion but I definitely think I'll be down there more often with the kiddo.

I took a quick video of our last water assault with my cell phone so I have to apologize for the quality.

There was a big thunderstorm brewing off to the north and when I could hear thunder, I knew it was time to scram. By the time we got home it poured like holy hell!

On the Sam front, we did find a place (or rather Eric suggested it) for Sam's ashes. He thought the green cut leaf Japanese Maple by Lake Larson would be a good spot. Eric loves Japanese Maples and I agreed. As much of a big girl I have been about the whole thing of Sam dying, I couldn't bring myself to bury the ashes...for me, that it the finality of it. So, Lars and I took off up to Masterpeace to do some rally and I came home to a much lighter cherry box and a stone marker by the Maple. We're going to keep the box beause it is so nice and it's a good memorial to him. It's back down here in my office on our entertainment center.

A new chapter...

2009-08-18T14:37:00.003-04:00

It's been week one without the old man around and his ashes are home with us now. We're all hanging in there. All though last night was hard as the reality of what is in the cherry box on my desk hit me. Thank god we do have Lars because without him, I know both Eric and I would be crushed.

Lars seems to have not missed a beat and is carrying on as usual without the big brother around. I honestly think he knows what went down even before Sam passed. I had seen a shift in roles the weeks leading up to this and Lars took over the barking at things outside where Sam was always the one to do it. He had watched Sam have a very difficult time Tuesday night from the couch and totally left him alone. I haven't seen any depression or signs that Lars has been looking for Sam at all. So, I really think the little guy is okay with what went down.

So, begins a new chapter in my ownership and lives with Rottweilers. It's weird to do things with Lars without the guilt of "what about Sam." But at the same time, Lars had also been living the life of an almost 11 year old dog too because of that guilt. I hadn't trained like I wanted to, I hadn't taken him places like I wanted to, and I couldn't spoil him like I wanted to. But that's all changing and Lars is figuring out that life as the head hauncho is a pretty good deal.

Because I was sort of training half assed and catch as catch can...I need to work on some stuff that I let slide. I figured out that the root of my heeling issues like crooked sits and bumpy left turns are because Lars thinks forging ahead is correct heel position. I let it slide because I was so excited to have a dog look at me on his own with heeling. So, back to the drawing board I go to teach Lars that "Strut" is actually a position and not the movement. I'm planning to use clickers with this and I started last night. It may take some time but I think this will work since the clicker is something that he likes. After I had been laid up for a while, I'm heading back to agility classes but with my friend Beth who has done some amazing things with her Dobermans in agility....like National top 10 ranked Dobermans both with their MACH's. I'm so excited and this is just the right time for me to get into this.

Such a sad day....

2009-08-12T22:51:00.002-04:00

Fair winds and following seas, Sam. You were such the bestest boy.

Sam Its 5 Oclock Somewhere CD RN CGC TDIA

11/98 - 8/12/09

The old man

2009-07-18T12:23:00.003-04:00

I took this a couple of weeks ago when Lars was out with the gumball. Sam will still run around a little bit after Lars while he's out there but most of the time, he hangs out on the deck watching us or stuff in the yard. Last weekend, he surprised us and ran after a squirrel at the feeder! He has good spans of days and not so good spans of days. Still, the good days out weigh the bad ones. Other than he's skinny and his back legs start to sag when he's standing, he's fairing pretty well. I think his hind end weakness may do him in before the Cushings Disease does at this point. Lars still holds Sam in the utmost respect. Lars smashed his gumball into Sam the other day which earned Lars a tongue lashing from Sam. Lars still hits the dirt when Sam will yell at him - those damn kids today. LOL I'm happy we've been able to maintain Sam's place in the pack ladder as Lars has turned into an adolescent intact male. I have't seen any indication that Lars will challenge Sam for a higher spot which surprises me and a lot of my dog cohorts. I guess Sam did a great job of laying down "The Law" when Lars was a baby.

Bestest. Toy. Ever!!!!!!

2009-07-13T00:01:00.003-04:00

Lars and I went to a rally trial up in Wrentham at the end of June and he got a bumper leg with a score of 96 but no placement. I was stoked with that score considering that was our first time trialing outside for both of us. We were wandering around the vendor area and came across this big red ball. Lars flipped out over it much like he is in those video above...so I couldn't leave it there. I filled it with some water for some weight (it's very fast when it's empty) and it provides a great workout for him. LOL I think between that and doing a lot of bounce jumps, he's going to put on some muscle.

Lars and I headed up to Franklin for some rally run throughs tonight and I was very happy with how he did. This was the first time he was in the ring off leash with an honor dog. He didn't care much about it when we heeled by them, so that was a relief. I was very pleased at how he's working in advanced, so much I think he's pretty ready to trial. Much to my dismay, there isn't much out there this time of year for rally. I don't want to trial him outside when it's crazy hot at this point (and I don't want to be out there either to be completely truthful.) So, I'm still holding on my plan of trying for advance in September at the Cape. I did send in his UKC and his APDT paperwork so we can work in a couple of other venues of dog sports.

Agility is coming along well and our pause table arrived yesterday! I just need a tire jump and maybe a teeter which I'll get later. I wouldn't mind getting a longer tunnel because the 9' one we have seems to be not too much of a challenge for Lars. I'm going to start videoing a lot of my training sessions here at home in both obedience and agility so I can see what the heck I'm doing with him. I'm notorious for doing squirrely things when I'm one the opposite end of the leash. If anything great shows up on the screen, I'll share them here.

Sam's still hanging in there...he's had a good couple of weeks with only a couple of yucky days with week. He doesn't approve much of all of the carrying on Lars does with that ball and as you can see, he's completely unimpressed with all of hullabaloo of back scratches. LOL

I can haz cheezburger?

2009-06-25T12:57:00.003-04:00

Only if you bring home green ribbons from your trials! (Which is the unspoken rule in the Larson household)

Lars has had quite a few cheeseburgers already this spring. I think he's going to have a ton more over the course of his lifetime. ;)

(I love the size of his eyes in those pics)

Customer Service Garden Consultant Style -

2009-06-21T19:03:00.002-04:00

From eariler this spring and it begs to ask the question, working hard or hardly working?? Hmmmmm...

Spring 2009 has been a great spring for the boys

2009-06-19T22:43:00.003-04:00

I haven't been posting much at all because work has kept me very busy (which is a great thing I must add.) But I have been very busy with the black and tans too. Sam has been holding fairly well with his health issues. I can see him getting weaker though and I kind of expected it with everything he has going on. I officially retired him from everything this week....meaning his therapy work. He just gets so tired from his visits and the standing just is too much. So, he can really enjoy his couch now and relax.

Lars has been busy, busy, busy. He has finished his RN this past weekend up at Topsfield with a score of 95 and a fourth place. He got his second leg back in May with the score of 98 and a first place. I couldn't be happier with him. Here's some video one of our friends took at the April show on youtube and you can see the boy in action!!

So, now we are working on Rally Advance and we have some work to do with the harder signs and off leash heeling. I think we're going to try to start showing in that this fall and winter. In other working Lars news, he has been doing very well in agility training and especially now that I'm figuring out how to handle him. I can definitely see his mom in him. I took this video a couple of weeks ago...I know he dropped a bar but this was our last sequence after practicing for about 20 minutes.

It's going to be a while before we trial in agility but we're having a lot of fun learning. :)

I'll be better about updating now that life is settling down a little bit. I have been taking a ton of photos lately and I'll post them gradually and get caught up.

All of that hard work is paying off!

2009-04-15T14:33:00.002-04:00

Lars went out last weekend for his debut in the obedience trial world! He tried his paw at Rally Obedience in Novice B and I couldn't have asked him to perform any better than he did!!! Lars earned a 2nd place with a score of 99 out of 100! The only reason he lost a point is because I did something stupid with the leash and it went taught. Oh well!!

Bravo Zulu Lars!!!! :)

Lars strutting his stuff!

2009-04-10T15:16:00.007-04:00

Getting his Deerwoods groove on...showing everyone how heeling is really done!

Heeling like that at only 16 months...obedience rockstar in the making I tell you. :)

What a difference a year makes.....

2009-04-08T15:32:00.003-04:00

It seems like eons ago I could pick him up...and he goes for his first trial this weekend. Wow.

Spring has sprung!

2009-04-01T13:50:00.006-04:00

Now that the weather is getting nicer (instead of bone chilling cold and/or sheets of ice) I think the boys will be more high profile on here. I've moved Lars' agility equipment outside and now we can really practice stuff. I've taught him weave poles over the winter and he does them pretty well. But after talking with my agility instructor, we're going to try to reteach with Susan Garrett's method of 2 x 2 weaves. It's supposed to be a great method for a high drive dog which Lars is all of that. As you can see below, I think Lars is generalizing the idea of "Table" well. LOL

Catching some rays....

I think Sam is coming outside and that's what he's looking at. "Engaging Punk Mode...."

I've got Lars entered in a couple of rally trials this spring...one for April, one in May and I'll do another one in June. Hopefully, that will be his RN. We're starting to do some more off leash rally work and what I have seen so far, I'm pleased with. Perhaps, there won't be too much of a lag between his RN and his RA. Agility classes will be switching from Sundays to a weeknight soon. Then I can start going and doing rally run-thrus at Masterpeace Dog Training on Sundays.

Sam wondering if what Lars is doing would warrant him getting in trouble....
(Please ignore my milk jug and cat litter jug tunnel anchors in the background. LOL)

As you can see Sam is still around and kicking. He turned 10 this spring and he's holding his own. He is still incredibly finicky about eating and sometimes getting him to eat is a real challenge. We're trying to get the weight back on him but at this point, I don't know if we will ever be successful at this. He's ify about ice cream which used to rock his world, I've tried a bunch of different foods, and he runs hot and cold about eating. Thankfully, we have gotten the Cushings symptoms under control and that's the important thing. We're not trying to really treat it anymore, we're just trying to keep him comfortable. :) As long as he's happy and playing with Lars, that's what matters.

Lars and his play date with the Quinn Brown Boys

2009-03-15T10:39:00.008-04:00

Striking a pose...

Jen took this photo....I love it!

A good time had by all!

- The epitome of a Deerwoods Rottweiler -

Finally some good health news -

2009-02-05T16:12:00.000-05:00

Lars went for his OFA Cardiac and Echocardiogram today. The cardiologist was wonderful and really, really, really liked Lars! The feeling was mutual, believe me. He complimented Lars on how proportional he was and how handsome of a young man he is becoming. So, he listened to Lars and said that his heart sounded perfect and that he could tell Lars was in some serious shape! LOL He also commented he wished his own heart sounded half that good.

At that point he asked if I really wanted to go forth and do the Echo because from what he heard, it wasn’t really necessary. I told him I did and they didn’t see anything remotely abnormal. He said that hearts can’t be any more perfect than what he saw with Lars. So, that is very great news!!!

Lars was a perfect gentleman through the whole thing and in the chaotic waiting room. People asked me how old he was and commented on how well behaved he was for such a young dog. Man, I love this little guy! And, I have to report, I think he's still the littlest L Nino...because my fit little guy tops the scales at 80 pounds! It's actually nice to have this sized dog...nothing against Sam but, I'm totally digging the pocket rocket size!

No news is good news

2009-02-03T10:58:00.002-05:00

I haven't made a post in a while because there hasn't been much to talk about honestly. Lars has been busy with some classes in obedience and agility. We did an agility training party where he did pretty well for such a young dog. There's another one this weekend and I'm going to see if I can get some videos of us taken.

Sam has been doing the health roller coaster again and after trying three different meds, I think the third one could be a charm. We once again have to get some more weight on him because when he doesn't feel good, Sam doesn't eat.

The weather here has been nothing less of craptacular so we haven't even been doing much outside. It's been icy these past couple of weeks. So I don't kill myself and the boys don't blow out joints, we've been trying to stay busy indoors. That's not panning out well I have to say, especially with a young dog. Spring is coming...I know it is!

Hey, hey, I wanna be a rockstar...

2009-01-01T19:40:00.001-05:00

I think I will have to change his nickname from Monkey to Rockstar if he keeps this up. I went to a rally training party today and there was a lady there who is an AKC rally judge. So, it was also like a Rally match which was awesome because I wanted to get an unbiased opinion of where Lars was in Rally. Not to mention, since I practice rally mostly at home or after my rally classes...I don't have a "judge" in the ring with me.

Lars was a phenom today. He's funny, the first 20 minutes of us being someplace he's a wild man so we do a lot of play and obedience games to take advantage of that. It's sheer exuberance that he just can't contain (think super nova energy LOL.) So, we do a bunch of rally run thrus in the other ring and we have people following us closely as "judges"...and he's awesome. He's glued to my side, doesn't take his eyes off of me, just awesome. So people are watching and they started to ask about my flashy young rottie man. How old is he, where did he come from, what are you planning to do with him? One lady when we were doing a run thru asked from outside the ring what kind of dog was Lars. We tell her he's a rottweiler and she said that she wasn't too familiar with rottweilers. Then she asked if they all work like Lars was.

So, now it's time for our turn with the AKC judge. We did our run thru and at the end she tells us she couldn't find anything that she could take points off on. She said Lars had a beautiful heel and his attention at this age was remarkable. There were no tight leashes and we did every station perfectly. That would have been a 100 for a score. Sweet! So we go and play, play, play and he gets a break in his crate for a bit.

We get ready for our next run a little while later and once again, Lars shines with beautiful heeling and awesome attention. We got a 97 score that time because I blew it. I put us too close to a sign and he knocked it over when he finished right. So, I asked to do it again. Oh well...handler error. LOL But when we were done, the judge gushed about what a great working dog Lars is going to become and what a great attitude I had with training and it shows in how Lars works for me. She said that Lars is most definitely ready to trial in Rally Novice and that we should definitely go for it as we will do outstanding if we keep performing like that.

I'm still planning to start him this spring (March/April) in rally. I want to keep polishing and get him used to people in the ring with us. He really, really, really wants to go say "Hi" to everyone...judges included and we need to work on that.

Man, I love this dog. Bravo Zulu, Lars.

We don't need no stinkin' winter storm warning!

2008-12-31T18:00:00.002-05:00

I don't know what's wrong with us, it is a complete winter storm warning white out with winds of 20 -30 mphs and a 6 degree windchill outside. It is completely wicked out! But neither Lars or I could resist going out there. Sam didn't appreciate it at all and after about 10 minutes, I found him up on the deck shivering (poor guy.) So, back inside he went while Lars and I played/froze. I finally figured out how to use my camera and now I can capture Deerwoodesque action shots.

I have a lot of photos...so hold on -

Mysterious Christmas Cards

2008-12-31T17:54:00.003-05:00

I had a bunch of photos on my camera that I desperately needed to get off of there. I forgot about these particular ones!

Sam and Lars had gotten these cool Christmas cards made out of rawhide. I have a suspicion of who sent them :) But Sam wolfed his down and Lars took his sweet time with his. I had given them the cards before I took off for a morning meeting. I wasn't sure if Lars was actually going to finish his before I left. Thankfully, he did!

A little health speed bump for Sam

2008-12-26T21:36:00.003-05:00

I thought we may have had the Cushings Disease beaten but I was wrong. I noticed some symptoms starting to show back up like the increased drinking of water about 2 weeks ago. I wasn't sure if it was me really looking for him to be drinking more. Like, if you look hard enough, you'll see what you're looking for. But, as he drank more, he had to go do his business more (and started to have accidents inside) which I couldn't deny what was going on.

So we went back to the vet Monday did the Cushings test which came back a little elevated and we've started him back on the Lysodren (the drug that made him so sick this summer.) But, we're doing a very conservative dose and we'll see where that gets us and him some relief.

Lars has his first set of letters after his name!

2008-12-17T20:21:00.003-05:00

You go little man!

He earned his AKC Canine Good Citizen certificate this evening at the last night of his CGC class. The evaluator LOVED him and the feeling was mutual. Not too shabby for a dog who just turned a year old two weeks ago.

I know this is the first of many letters after his name. :)

Congrats Lars!

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-13T10:06:00.001-05:00

Rompin' in a Winter Wonderland!!!

2008-12-07T22:23:00.009-05:00

There are a bunch of you who will be happy to see Sam charging (the best he can) around...I would have put money on him not being here this winter.

Lars and I started a new agility class tonight with Kathy and Stella! I think this is just what we have been looking for and the help I need with Lars. He LOVES agility so much he has some "issues" with self control and I need to learn how to harness that drive. He's so different than Sam and I have never had a dog like this before. One that completely turns himself inside out so he can do the job he's supposed to do. Maybe at some point, I can talk Eric into going with us so he can video Lars in action. I'm psyched to have class with Kathy...she is way fun! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LARS!!!

2008-12-07T22:09:00.006-05:00

New Duds - Saw the deer and just had to have it!!!

New Toy...

Taking the spoiling to a whole new level...Banana Carob Cake (complete with vanilla ice cream)

The monster thinks he died and went to heaven.

The Birthday Boy!

Closing in on a year....

2008-11-30T22:38:00.002-05:00

I won't get into it but I just had "one of those days" and those of you guys who read this and are in the know - I am laughing about it now that I'm dry.

I have some good news about Sam and have to share this...his parathyroid test came back pretty much normal. U Michigan said that his test was so slightly elevated, they couldn't tell if it was elevated. We're going to retest in a month to make sure there wasn't a glitch or a fluke. But that is very good news. The dog who was going to the vet on a regular basis shouldn't have to head back for another three - four months after this next test. Then we'll re-ultra sound his spleen tumor and see if that still stays where it is.

Tuesday, Lars will be a year old. Oh my god, where did this year go. I still see him as the little puppy and I think that's mostly because Sam is so much bigger than he is. Then there are times when I get him away from his big brother and I see the adult Rottweiler versus the puppy. Pauline (aka Auntie Paw Paw) made this wonderful slideshow of the "L Ninos" to celebrate their 1st birthday. She is sheer genius with her slideshows and she gave me permission to post it here too. Thank you Auntie Paw Paw....for everything! :)

Mr. Lars rockin' out some rally

2008-11-21T09:49:00.002-05:00

God, I love this little guy. He's ready to trial in my opinion but I'm going to wait until the spring shows to do so. I kind of want to go right from rally novice to rally advance without too much of a gap in time. We did do a rally advanced course OFF LEASH at school one day when there was no one else there. He rocked it out in pure Lars style and I was so proud (and surprised) with him.

SUPER STAR!!!! :)

"Right Now"

2008-11-19T08:45:00.002-05:00

I took this photo two weekends ago...I think Eric and Leo were outside doing something. I love this one...I'm going to print this one out and frame it for my office. It's already my desktop background.

To me...this is the "past" and the "future" meeting on the couch for "right now."

It's like one of those toys....

2008-11-13T23:20:00.005-05:00

you give your nieces and nephews to torment your brother or sister. I don't hear it, even though I don't have kids...I must have that "mom" gene of being able to drown stuff out. Eric doesn't have it and this squeaking drives him INSANE!!!!! ROFL

Best. Toy. Ever!!!

And now for something completely different

2008-11-09T22:02:00.004-05:00

After that bummer of a post this morning...I think I need to balance that out with a fun one.
I've had to find toys that were less likely to be destroyed in minutes flat. I thought the rubber chicken could withstand the wrath of Lars. I was wrong...he and I tore the head off while playing tug with it, there's a busted seam, and there are toes missing. We play with that only when I can watch him closely. We found a blue squeaky football which has become the bestest toy in Lars' world. So, I need to stick with things like that from now on. :)

Heading to training!

2008-11-09T10:24:00.002-05:00

Like two peas in a pod!!! Lars turned 11 months on the 2nd and I think he's done growing height-wise at 24.5" tall. He's still the "little guy" in comparision to Sam who towers over him at almost 29" tall. For those who aren't familiar with the Rottweiler breed standard, Lars is acutally correct in size. The height standard for males is 24" to 27" tall...so Sam is the Jolly Black n' Tan Giant. I think I'm off the hook for either a) not being able to take them places together or b) having to get a new vehicle that will take both of them. I don't know how we're going to pull off Christmas travel this year...we'll have to strap the gifts to the roof or I'll get buried under them in the front seat.

We have an update on Sam the Man with his last vet visit and ultrasound. Well, we got some good news and some bad news. The good news was the spleen mass wasn't substantially bigger and there's no need for surgery at this point.

The not so good news was there was significant calcifications in Sam's organs like his liver, kidneys, etc. The vet reminded me that was part of the reason his skin flipped out as badly as it did versus other Cushings dogs...that was calcinosis cutis where calcium was being deposited in his skin. Elevated calcium levels can be indicative of cancer. They ultrasounded his whole abdomen and didn't see anything...and his lymph nodes look normal. So, we're sending some blood to Michigan to see if it is his parathyroid and if there's a tumor there. Apparently removal of that tumor can solve this problem. So...we're waiting to see what's up with that and proceed from there. The vet and I had a good chuckle that Sam at some point became a member of the "malady of the month" club.

Thankfully, Sam doesn't know there's something wrong with him and if we didn't know better, we wouldn't know there was something wrong either. He's acting fine, eating well, and still giving Lars beat downs. He went for a long walk with us over the weekend and held up great during and after the walk. We'll deal with this if the prognosis is good and he's doing well in general. The vet and I did have that talk about if we didn't want to treat it that was okay too. We both (and the vet) felt that at this point, he's in good shape all things considered and he would probably be okay with the surgery. So, we'll take it one day at a time.

It's not like we're in denial that at almost 10 years old that Sam's in the twilight of his life. I think the Cushings really prepared us for the inevitable and we're good with whatever presents itself...good or bad.

Lars verus the watermelon (slice)

2008-10-19T11:41:00.006-04:00

We had grown a couple of little watermelons this summer. I think we left them on the vine a little too long (ie: they aren't that great...sweet - not too much.) So Eric gave Lars a piece of it out on the deck.

Making sure there's no one around who may take the watermelon...

Cool...the coast is clear....

Mmmmmmm.....

By the time he was done...there was only a little bit of rind left! Lars' grandfather, Yngo, is famous for his "skills" with watermelon! He's carried his talents over to things like pumpkins too. If you want a laugh...check out Yngo's page devoted to his talents with watermelons...check out the videos they have posted to completely appreciate him! Maybe someday when Lars is a little bit older will be branch out in the arts of watermelon destruction like his grandfather!

Yngo versus the watermelon

Equal opportunity Sam posting...

2008-10-16T22:49:00.006-04:00

Since Lars seemed to dominate the last posting with his photos...in the spirit of the election season, Sam must get equal time on this blog lest I am accused of favoritism. There will be no arguments of "Mom likes you best" on this blog!

I definitely want to come back as one of my dogs...talk about the life of leisure. He was like that all Monday. But you can't appreciate the pose until you see the next photo -

I feel like he needs a smoking jacket, a full brandy sniffer and a cigar! LOL

Beach Bums

2008-10-16T00:17:00.008-04:00

This was probably one of the last weeks of nice weather for Rhode Island before fall really hits. Lars had been joining me on almost daily jaunts to City Park for primarily walks on the bike paths through the woods and some practicing training in the big fields. I swore with Lars I would make sure I practiced obedience and stuff outside so he could work outside (unlike another Black and Tan in this house.) This week, I took Lars to the beach a bunch of times at City park because he is such a water bug. I took photos the first day we went because the other days, it would have been just way too much with trying to handle him, a flexi lead and the bumpers.

I'm not quite sure what he's looking for or at...

BIRDS!!!!! Or more like an osprey soaring over head. The boy is obsessed with birds...

Checking out a sailboat coming into the cove....

The next time I was at the park with Lars, I picked water retrieving over going for a walk which I know was a good idea in Lars' world. I swear this pup has a labrabor gene in there somewhere because once you get him in the water, there's no getting him out! I threw that bumper for almost 45 minutes with him leaping through the water after it and not slowing down. The only reason we left was it was getting dark and not because he was bored! I definitely need to do some water work with him. (I already have the place picked out!) As we were leaving, we ran into my good friend Jen with her Chocolate labs Bodhi and Bailey coming into the park. So we made plans to meet up on Sunday for everyone to get together and play in the water.

Sunday, Eric, Jen, me, her boys and our boys all met up at the beach. Lars and the labs see each other on a regular basis at the K9 Connection so they are good buds. Sam hasn't seen them much at all since he had been sick. It was really interesting, Sam has really taken on the role of "Fun Police" and had to yell at the youngsters for all of the carrying on they were doing. If you have met Sam, you know he's not a barker. But good grief, he wouldn't stop barking all three of them! Those of you who know Sam also know he doesn't "do" water other than just stand in it up to his ankles. But at the age of almost 10 years old, Sam went into the water past his ankles and almost to the point of swimming. Everyone else was swimming but being so tall, he was still walking...but we'll take that! He just needed the youngsters to show him what the ocean was really meant for - splashing, leaping, swimming and chasing these white toys we throw for them. It was a good time had by all...they were soaked, we were soaked and they passed out when we got home. Eric and I commented on we hadn't heard the house this quiet since before Lars came to live with us. It was really odd and I sure missed the chaos! I have a bunch of photos from this week...I'll post them for you all over the next couple days!

Brotherly love....I think

2008-10-07T10:12:00.000-04:00

Bravo Zulu Lars!

2008-10-07T00:34:00.000-04:00

I guess it's fitting this is the first of many postings for the boys. Lars had his first dog show at the New England Rottweiler Fanciers annual show and came home with a huge trophy, a fourth place, and a Promising rating! We entered him in a sieger style show which is worlds different than the dog shows you see on TV. It's the german style confirmation show where you have a helper (Eric since he's the "play guy") bait the dog from outside the ring. The judge will announce to the audience what they think of the dog over a loud speaker which is incredibly educating. The only thing Lars had that was less than desirable was he needs to bulk up a little bit more and that will come with age. But I was awfully proud of how he did for his very first show ever...here's to more wins and shows in his future! Bravo Zulu indeed!!!