A bit of heeling ....

This is the first time I've had a chance to see us heeling. :)   I really liked her snappy sits and her up attitude that shines through her work!    Fizz and I have been working on chin heeling, in order to get her position correct.  Never do we work with a leash on, nor a correction collar.    After a bit of heeling, we worked on stationary positions a little bit, and you can see she's offering a lot of downs.  I'm still working to fade my hand signal from the down, and as such, we've worked on it recently.    

At the end of a month......

Fizz was 12wks on Sunday, and has been here a month now.   I'm just amazed to see how far she's come.   Its been tiring at times, this new journey we're on.   No verbal or physical corrections.   Logging all of my training, which is typically 6-8 mini sessions per day.   Some days, I go to bed so exhausted I can't even remember what I did (thus a new system of tracking my training has emerged).   I don't ever remember a puppy tiring me so much, but I don't think I ever put this level of detail/effort into a puppy either (meanwhile, keeping up with my 3.5 & 6yr olds!).  :)

I keep a 3-ring binder with all of my training notes.   Each day contains details of each training session, including:  time, location, treats used, games played, and then an assessment of how it went.  At the end of the day, I look to see how much of each thing was accomplished, and based on that, and my weekly plan/goal, decide what to move forward with for the next day.   If I've missed something for a few days, or not gotten enough reps of it in, then it goes on high priority for the upcoming day.

Being a scientist by training, keeping notebooks is not foreign.  However, I was not finding the time to NEATLY enter the level of detail that I wanted.   So....now I have a scribblebook (composition notebook) and my decorated 3 ring binder.   The scribblebook is used through-out the day, to quickly enter notes about what happened when.   Just before bed, I sit down to re-write it, putting into detail what went on.  

At the end of our first month, I have a puppy who is tightly bonded to me, yet confident to go meet any one new who crosses her path, and self-confident enough to hang out with someone if I choose to hand the leash off and walk away.   Today, we walked down the street, around the corner, and met a "tree dude."   Two HUGE diesel trucks were running, one of which was also hauling a monster-sized chipper.   The other 'tree dude' was using the chain saw and cutting the remainder of a fore-shortened tree into manageable sized logs.   None of this bothered her one whit.    She was so excited to meet someone new:  a big thick man, wearing an eye-bleeding yellow jacket (you know, that new safety color that so many have), thick blue rubber gloves, and his bright orange hard hat - hearing protector contraption.    He was QUITE the sight, and certainly not like anyone else we've met.   But he was excited to see her, and she just calmly went right up to him, and nestled in for pets.    The trainer in me was VERY happy with her confidence.   If we ever meet an obed judge in tree gear, at a very loud trial........we're down with that.  :)

Fizz travels beautifully in the car, and has since Day 1.  She just goes to sleep and does not try to crate surf, nor bobble around as I'm driving.   No car sickness, no barking at anything.....just lovely!   In a similar vein, when we're at our competition obedience class, she lies quietly in her crate until it's time to come out and work.   Fizz ADORES other dogs and people, I would rate them as an A++ level distraction at times.   However, when it's our turn to watch, she is wonderfully quiet and sedate.   I sure hope that continues as she matures.

We've established, through games, that treats on the floor are NOT fair game, just for the taking.  Neither are treats in my hand, or on the counter..........and funny enough, neither are toys.   She will hold a sit while I drop a favorite tug to the floor within a foot of her.  I can take that same tug and snake it around, and even whack the ground with it.   She just looks like "what, you think I'm gonna fall for that?!"   She explodes into it on release, and we have wonderful games of tug and puppy bounce. :)    Her ability to maintain a down is similar, even though we've not worked on it much at all (maybe twice in the past month?).    She's generalizing the "Its Yer Choice" (Susan Garrett) game very nicely.  

Retrieve work is started.  She races out to whatever I throw out, quickly picks it up, turns, and comes straight back to me.   Currently, I kneel on the floor when we play this game, and her default behavior is to dive between my legs.   No growling when I pet her, and if I put out a hand as she comes in, she'll bring it to my hand.   I have not worked that behavior yet, and its on our list to solidify over the next month.   When I was visiting the litter, Fizz brought a few toys near me, but often seemed to want to get off away from her littermates and enjoy whatever prize she'd shopped.   I don't care about puppy tests, PAT, or otherwise.   I didn't need to see what she'd do with a crinkled paper ball, or if she'd bring it back.   I wanted to see her natural carrying behavior (calm, not mouthy), and her natural interest level in people in general throughout the day (high).   I knew that with solid calm carrying and an interest in people, simply building a strong, positive relationship would generate a good retrieve in the early stages........and that is playing out!   I have never done a forced retrieve of any kind on any dog, and I don't plan to ever change that.   In 5 trials, Froli never lost points on her retrieves (3x SchH1, 2x ScHH2).  

Needless to say, I absolutely adore this puppy and am having a blast training with her.   :)

Blame it on the rain.............

well, that's what some dog trainers do.   You've heard it at trials.  "My dog didn't sit because there was a puddle in that spot."   "He doesn't work well in the rain."   or even "My dog won't go out to go potty because it's raining."  Those arguments don't hold water in this household.  Rain happens, life continues, and so does dog training. :)

I had an hour to kill between the end of Bible study and bringing James home from preschool this a.m., and it was raining out.   Having heard the predictions, I was excited to have some training time outside.   On my list of things to expose Fizz to is umbrellas.   My older dogs like to attack them, they elicit great joy.   Fizz completely ignored the umbrella that I popped open right above her.  Again.  And again.  And again, and then it bonked into her when it opened........and was flat ignored.   The food in her bag (at lunch time) was far more interesting.  I tried again later when she was not distracted by food........she could have cared less, though the metal frame did receive a good chomp after a bit.

The front yard of the church is along a busy corner at the intersection of a state highway (2 lane road) and local streets.  There are lots of big loud trucks that come through here.   She had her lunch mere feet from the road, as if that is her normal Cafe spot.  Prior to receiving her bowl, she worked chin heeling and some tuck sits to earn lunch.

After lunch we worked "sit pretty" for freeze-dried turkey liver, restrained recalls by wrapping the leash around a light pole, and then releasing as I ran off, and recalls to RZ.   Being that the ground was wet, of course we worked through fold back downs, and started adding duration to them. :)

While most of our trials will most likely be indoors, I do not want weather to be a distraction or demotivating factor for her.  We had lots of fun out in the rain, and she showed me strong work effort.  She's napping now, having had a good romp.   This afternoon she'll be coming to Emilie's Team practice for gymnastics, and meetings LOTS of new people. :)  All part of the "Insane Puppy socialization plan."

Welcome!

While Uffizi is her formal name, we call her Fizz or Fizi.  Fizz is our new Rottweiler puppy.  She comes to Massachusetts from the great state of Washington, and the Dreibergen Rottweiler kennel.   We are very excited she's here, it's been 7 years since a puppy graced our home.  Fizi's pedigree is full of well known, well proven German dogs.   We are excited to see so many of these dogs so close up in her pedigree, too many of them have fallen back to the 6th, 7th or higher generation in today's pedigrees.

Jesca, Fizi's dam, has 3 generations of FH titled, SchH/VPG3 bitches behind her, one of whom was DM-07FH, and is also FH2.  Even more impresive, there are 7 consecutive generations of SchH3 bitches behind Jes!!   I am very excited about trying our hand at advanced tracking work, it's certainly in her genes!   On her sire's side, Fizz's great grandfather is Dick v Rhongeist.   He is a very special dog to me, he was the sire of my beloved Froli girl.   Froli was the dog who taught me all about the world of training, trialing, and being a Top 10 in the country SchH and Agility Rottweiler.   Her desire to work, and continual drive to push for more was pure joy to work.   Her daughter Banja was the very same way.  This love of work comes down from Dick's sire, the phenomenal Pascha vom Hegestrauch, and his sire, Arri vom Hertener Wappen.   Arri and Pascha still dominate working pedigrees today, their abilities seem to pass on for many many generations.   Arri blood mixes well with Aki v d Peeler Hutte when it comes to the work.  Jes is 5x Aki and 2x Basko v Hertener Wappen, full brother to Ari.   THIS is going to be a fun ride! :) :)

This blog will chronicle our journies in training, and in daily life.  I'm a big fan of Susan Garrett's methods of building drive, an impeccable relationship with one's dog, and in training positively.   It is my intention to take Fizz as far as possible through both AKC's obedience and tracking titles, following the philosophies of trainers like Susan Garrett, Sylvia Trkman, Fanny Gott, and Denise Fenzi (who just put a pure positive OTCh on a Terv).   Some of this will be new territory for me, and I look forward to the adventure!