Pepper Goes To School



Pepper, Pepper Tu, Pepperoni at 6 months,
in his natural stack.

Pepper attended his first formal class last night - my dog club's Intro To Agility.  He is 7 months and 5 days old.  I had to beg to get him in, as there were already 7 other dogs enrolled, but if not now he'd be almost 11 months before he started, and that would be way late. 

Kay Watson was his teacher, there were 8 dogs in the class and we all had to promise to be organized and stay in line.  It was shades of Maxie's first class 4.5 years ago, all over again.  Same instructor.  Same excitement.  Same results -- Pepper did fabulous.  100% enthusiastic, gung ho, attentive, no fear of the other dogs though he was by far the smallest canine on the line.  His "loose leash" behavior needs some work -- he's more like a "marlin on a line" keeping maximum tension on the leash and running too and fro trying to visit everybody, but that's because I haven't had him on a leash for a few months and he's never been in a class.

With my hip bothering me and unable to, or at least afraid to run, plus the other "components" I'm dealing with (cataract surgery gone awry, death in the family, mother emotionally unstable) I'm sitting out of the advanced classes with Lucky and Maxie for a few weeks more at least, but I felt I could handle an Intro class where we're just introducing one obstacle at a time, I don't have to concentrate much, and there's no running involved.

Several classmates commented that Pepper was a beautiful Papillon, in a "My, what big ears you have" sort of way.  More than that, though, he has completely lost his fat, pudgy, big boned, marshmellow appearance, becoming very long legged, lean and dainty looking, with a fantastic natural stance, his flat headed border collie puppy face which used to make me call him "so ugly he's cute", is transforming into a more high domed head with the deeper stop that Paps are supposed to have, and his coat and feathers are coming in longer and lusher every day.

Pepper (left), Maxie (right)

He's already taller than Maxie, heavier and longer.  I'm crossing my fingers he doesn't exceed 11".  Right now he's about 10.5", and weighs 8 lbs.  My cousin, Lois, tells me Paps quit growing at about 7 months, and that they actually lose 1/4 inch of their height by 1 year of age.  But Maxie grew an extra 2.5 inches tall from 6 months to 1 year of age. But then I was feeding him 1 tablespoon of cows milk twice daily for about 3 months to get him taller than 7.5".  It worked (as well it should since cows milk has growth hormones in it enough to grow a calf to 1200 lbs!)

Hey, I'm blogging!  Ain't that something!  What I've noticed about myself of such easy-flowing words, is that some things are too deep, too confusing, to blog about.  There is, like, a blockage in the brain that won't let you go there. It's a "seeing thru a glass darkly" phenomenon, "running at half mast" in sailing terms, I remember asking a club mate once about a dog of hers that had been run over several years back, and she responded "Oh, I can't talk about that."  When I expressed condolences, she snapped "I WILL NOT talk about this."  Some things are just too painful to process, I suspect this is when we are, or feel we are, utterly helpless to change the outcome of something that is totally unacceptable to us.

Puppy training is one thing it appears I can now wrap my mind around.  I've also been making improvements to my new motor home, and getting my pop up camper ready to sell.  These things are keeping me engaged, and I'll probably blog about them soon!

Upwards and onward!

3rd Intro To Agility Class, Sat Evening Setup

Saturday Morning:
Intro To Agility, only 5 of the 8 dogs showed up.  I brought Max and Lucky to work out afterwards, and left them nearby, on leash to watch.  At first they were barking, whining and complaining that they could not participate, but they settled in.  Guess what?  That's an important part of training!  Mature dogs know how to wait their turn with patience.  They have to learn to trust you, that you haven't forgotten them.  They have to learn assurance that you'll be back.

Barrels:
Loralie introduced the Barrels -- I had never seen these.
You stand between and a little out front of 2 barrels (or trash cans), and ask your dog to go around the barrel to your left.  They have to pass around a space where they can't actually see you.  Big step!  Then to the barrel on the right.  Maxie was called to demo this, off leash.  The new dogs do this on leash.  Even an experienced dog didn't quite understand it at first, but he quickly caught on.  It is the same as a figure 8 around a jump, but without being able to see H at all times.  A new experience, and good practice for H with directional arm and foot signals, much like the exercise sending thru the tunnel which I charted in an earlier post, here.

I took a lot of pictures, not sure what to use them for, but maybe for the club's website. I'll have to review them when I get home and see what message they convey.  Maybe I'll upload them to LCCOC's Picasa Web Albums and invite all the students to see them.

Saturday Evening:
I met with Nedra and Polly to set up the courses for the Monday night Advanced and Beginners classes. Got there at 8, it was hot but not intolerable.  We really need more people to go help with the setup.  It's hard for 3 old gals to move the A-frame, 2 gals to haul those 20' tunnels without dragging them across the yard.  I suspect the students never wonder how the courses they practice on get chosen or set up, just take it for granted.  For a long, long time, I did.  Then again, it was never explained to me

After setup, Lucky and Maxie ran the first half of the course.  Doesn't seem too difficult.  I played with Butchie, Nedra's retired border collie.  We had fun with the Touch Container and some basic commands.

In the middle of the day, Judy and Thom came over for Cucumber Soup and we finished watching Julie and Julia.  Judy brought me an onion so I could make my Beef Stew, which we had for supper at 10 p.m. when I got home from the field.  John had waited to eat with me, sweet thing.

And that was, mostly, my day.