Jackal Has Something To Share

Hey guys, it's Jackal talking today. I have a couple of things I want to share. First of all I got mail from Honey the Great Dane. For those of you who follow the blog you know I won the best costume award in Honey's Dancing with the Doggie Stars competition. I finally got my certificate and medal! I'm so excited. Check out the pictures.

See! My name was on the letter!

Since the mail people had crumpled it up a little already mom let me have it.
Of course I had to slap it with my paw, but I didn't know how to open it so she helped.

My certificate! I'll have to see if mom will let me frame it. Look Honey even signed it herself.

Don't I look good in my medal? Mom put it on backward so you see the Dancing logo.

Here's what it says on the front.

Mom was sad this one was blurry. I think I look handsome. :)

I also wanted to tell you that mom has been too busy to help me practice my July trick, but since it's August now I went ahead and put up the new poll (please vote!), but I'll keep working on it and all of my other tricks so that at the end of the year I can make a video showing all of the new tricks I learned for 2011.

Honey's Dancing With The Doggie Stars Competition

Wow could I have cut it any closer for Honey's Dancing with the Doggie Stars competition?? I had actually planned on taping the video yesterday but everything hit the fan and I wasn't able too. Then it looked like I was going to have to close the store today but luckily didn't have to. Thank goodness!! So tonight I finally recorded the video.

I'm sad to say that we didn't practice much at all. I taught him a new trick when the competition was first announced and then didn't work on it again until about a week ago . . . I am a world class procrastinator, but this time I can actually blame life. Sigh. However given the time we had to practice, my inability to dance, my difficulties with choreography and that this is the first time I've ever put together any sort of routine before I think it turned out pretty good. I'm not making excuses, just warning you in advance that it is a very rough freestyle routine lol. I did have so much fun with it though so I'm planning on polishing it up and recording it again later this year. :D I also need to find a different place to do it because my living room is way too small hehe.

Also forgot to mention the jumps we built were higher, but he was having trouble jumping them in his coat so I pulled a board off and let him jump it lower. :) Jackal is such a trooper putting up with my craziness. I'm looking forward to continuing to work on this routine.



Also if you can't see the embedded version here is the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdJsaUQLIY0

Anyway I hope you all like it. I had fun! I'm looking forward to seeing the other entries.

Jackal Training Update

I took video today of both closing a door and fetching his leash and I'll have it up sometime tomorrow. I had a really long day at work and I just want to sit on the couch and do nothing lol.

I'm a little frustrated with myself because I knew I wasn't in a good mood for training and I did it anyway when I could have just done it tomorrow . . . it didn't go well. I'm sure most of it was me, but Jackal also did very poorly with his new trick. Could he really have made a lucky guess the other day and not actually know the vocal cue?? Since he appears confused I'm going to wait until I'm not so tired and back up a few steps to see if I can tell where we went wrong. I'm also going to leave his other tricks alone and just focus on the freestyle routine because he's having trouble working on several different things at once. I guess he doesn't multitask any better than I do lol! I'll post the video tomorrow. I'm off the next two days and the weather is going to be horrible so I'll focus on Jackal indoors. :)

Jackal is AMAZING!!

Picture taken 4-25-2011.

I love my dog! He never fails to amaze me with his intelligence and desire to learn. I was reading Mango's blog about their most recent dance practice and decided I really need to buckle down and work on my freestyle routine for Honey's Dancing With The Doggie Stars contest if I want it to be any good. I started working on one of our tricks (old trick, new cue), but he was way too excited so I spent some time doing some active tricks like jumping all four off the floor, spinning, leg weaving, figure eights and jumping over my leg to burn off some energy and excitement. I don't think I've ever seen him spin so fast lol!

Once he was a little calmer I started working on his trick again and he picked it up quickly. Then we worked on last month's trick fetching his leash to make sure he still remembers it (especially considering I still have to get a video!!) and he did fantastic. He's bringing it to my hand really well now even though he sometimes still drops it. He was so excited that when I put up his leash he tried to fetch my Ethernet cord LOL!

Next we worked on our brand new trick. We've made it through the beginning stages and he loves it. I think every new trick he learns becomes his favorite lol. He does it all the time now without a cue, but I have to ignore it because he needs to do it only when I ask. It's really hard though because he's so cute.

The trick involves both paws and I initially taught it with him facing me. The end product will have him in heel position however so I decided to work on that today. He was very slowly catching on in heel position, but I quickly realized his confusion stemmed from the fact that I couldn't cue him without a voice cue. The trick involves him using his paws separately so I have to teach a voice cue for each paw. I sat down in front of him and asked him to do the trick with only his right paw while I used the voice cue. We did it about ten times and then worked on his left paw. When he seemed to understand I stopped using any physical cue at all and asked him with a voice cue to alternate between his left and right paws. He did fantastic. And just to test to see if he was just doing it himself I asked for his right paw twice in a row and he did it!! I'm so excited and proud of him because normally he ignores vocal cues but he totally had it on this. Sorry I can't tell you what the behavior is, but suffice it to say he's AMAZING!

Edited to add: I forgot to mention I found Jackal an outfit for his freestyle routine last weekend. It's a bit small on him, but it works. :) Now I just need the rain to stop so we can practice outdoors and I can build props.

Honey's Dancing With The Doggie Stars Competition

I'm a little late in posting this, but Honey is having a dancing with the doggie stars competition where we all make up a one minute freestyle routine and I think I'm going to give it a try. The deadline is June 15th so you still have time to join if you want! It's going to be a lot of fun. It's all amateur because only dogs who have never made a freestyle routine can compete. :) Click the banner above to see more details.

I've decided on my music and theme (I can't dance so we're going for a themed freestyle). I have to build some props and work on choreography. Those are going to be the hardest and most time consuming for me. I'm also teaching him a couple of new tricks that will go great with our theme. :) I have to keep reminding myself to keep my goals small and easy to accomplish. It's very easy to get caught up in it all and try to move too fast. Our first session was today and he did fantastic!

I can't tell you what we worked on because it's going to be a surprise, but I did also work on his April trick, closing a door (our first session, I'm such a procrastinator!) and he did great. I had previously worked on having him target his nose to a piece of paper so I started out reviewing that. Then I taped the piece of paper to the door. At first I opened the door, but then realized I was moving too fast so I closed it. He didn't want to target the paper on the door because he was watching my hand (which made me realize he was targeting my hand and not the paper at all), so I taped the paper to my knee. I put my knee directly in front of him and he immediately started targeting it. So after a few times of doing that I moved the piece of paper to the door. He was trying to do his shy trick (his new favorite apparently) so I finally turned my back and ignored him (my way of forcing him to use his brain instead of randomly cycling tricks). Eventually he touched it and I clicked. After that it was easy! Good boy!

Next I'll work on him pushing the door harder and eventually I'll open the door. :) So anyway wish us luck. Next month I'm going to work on his tricks for the freestyle routine so unfortunately we won't have a poll! Sorry! It will be worth it though. :) Let me know if you decide to join. It's going to be a lot of fun!