Zora and I are sending out puggle prayers this week. Our friend Cooper the Wonder Puggle is coming home from the hospital after spinal surgery and we wish him a very speedy recovery.

Our Friend Bear crossed the bridge yesterday. We send lots of puggle love to Bear’s family.

Zora really likes the balance disc that we got last month. She asks to play with it by hitting it with her paw. I keep it leaning against the wall when we’re not using it. I don’t want her on it without supervison so she doesn’t hurt herself.

We use it to strengthen her gluts and shoulder muscles. I have her turn in circles to work all her muscles. This has been great as she loses weight!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted to Zora’s blog. We’ve been very busy with Dog Scouts. We’ve been out on the trails almost every weekend. We’ve found several geocaches, many with the help of members of Dog Scout Troop 219.

Last Sunday, Zora and I planted her latest letterbox, ‘Puggle’s Pal Pooh’ at Bluff Point State park. We found the perfect place to hide it at the top of a large rock wall (cliff). Our friend Becky got some great photos of us on top of the wall.

Despite missing a week of agility because I was sick, we did very well in class this week. It was a jumper’s course, with tunnels and jumps. We’ve been practicing the tunnel at home and Zora was great!

Zora has been ‘sorta’ refusing the tunnel at agility practice. She barks at me and after she’s done telling me what she thinks of the tunnel, THEN she goes in. Out instructor suggested we get a tunnel at home. She clearly has no problem with it.

Zora is doing amazingly well with the 2×2 weave poles. At agility class last night, she did four weave poles without any luring and the poles were almost straight!

The first time thru, our agility instructor pointed out that I was using my hand to direct her, almost as if I was luring her thru the poles. The next time thru, I remembered to keep my hands really still and she wove thru the poles without any luring. Zora got tons of cookies for that.

Now we’re just waiting for Spring, so we can practice outside and add the third set of 2x2s. We’ve maxed out the room inside the Living Room.

I finally got around to inflating Zora’s new FitPaws Balance Disc. She’s really enthusiastic about it. She immediately put two paws on it and was quickly putting a back paw on as well.

She got really excited and put all four paws on. Then got a little scared and ran right across. But she put both front paws on right away again. And the hesitant back paw. All in the first session!

Zora’s retrieve is progressing remarkably. She was having trouble with the duration hold, so we’ve started using Michele’s alternative method. She has to pick it up off the floor and put it in my hand to get a click (and treat). This naturally results in a duration hold, due to the act of carrying it from the floor to my hand.

The next step will be to move back so she has to hold it longer to get to my hand.

We’ve also been working on the 2×2 weave poles. I’ve applied what we learned at Clicker Expo and she’s doing great! We’ve got the first set of poles straight and the second set almost straight and lined up with the first set. She only misses about 2 out of every 10 runs. That’s awesome!

The last lab that Zora and I attended was ‘Hold It, Get It, Bring It’ with Michele Pouliot. The goal of this lab was to learn the duration hold portion of the retrieve. This is the part that I have been having difficulty teaching Zora. We re-taught the entire thing from the beginning, the RIGHT way! I loved all the amazing feedback from the audience and from Michelle. Step 1 was to ‘love the article’, so we went back to nose touches with really yummy treats.

Step 2 is waiting for the dog to open their mouth. Step 3 is closing their mouth on the article. We progressed to stop 3 really fast. Now we’re working on the duration hold. I have to delay the click slightly, so she knows she has to hold on to get the click. She knows that closing her mouth on the article will get her a click (and a treat), The next step may take a while, but know that I know how to get there, I know we can do it!

The second lab that Zora and I took as a working team was Doggie Zen with Cecilie Køste. We all thought we would be learning meditation and massage techniques. In this class, Zora had to learn to walk away from her ‘Zen’ bowl of treats before receiving the cue ‘ZEN’ to go get the treats from the bowl. The first step was to ‘love the bowl’. So, I would put a teat in the bowl, and I would click as Zora would take the treat. After a couple of repetitions, I introduced my cue ‘ZEN’ to cue taking the treat out of the bowl.

The next step was to get Zora to wait before taking the treat. I would place the treat in the bowl, slide it on the floor away from her and hold onto the leash so that she couldn’t lunge for it. When she backed off slightly, giving slack in the leash, then I would cue ‘ZEN’ and she can get the treat out of the bowl. This would progress until she is turning her eyes away from the bowl, looking away from the bowl and finally turning her whole body away before getting the cue ‘ZEN’.

The last step is to get a behavior before going to the bowl. I chose a paw touch, because that is Zora’s strongest or most probable behavior. This part didn’t work out so well. I think, and my audience agreed, that we progressed too fast to go to this step. I loved getting feedback and help from so many wonderful trainers. And Cecilie Køste!

When Zora and I first arrived at the hotel for Clicker Expo on Thursday, Zora refused to go in the elevator. This was a problem as our room was on the 7th floor and the expo was on the 2nd floor. So for the first day I carried her on and off the elevator. It’s a good thing she’s small.

Saturday morning Zora OFFERED the ‘go in the elevator’ behavior. She clearly was scared and anxious, but she CHOSE to go in on her own. He tail was down and she was refusing treats, he body language said “stressed!”, but she repeated this throughout the day. By mid afternoon she was running in the elevator, tail up and wagging! She was still refusing treats while the elevator was moving, but she was much happier about the whole experience. She is such a brilliant puggle!