Tuesday, October 16, 2007

"Scary things" at Ellie's

Ike and I spent an hour with Ellie and Leah today. Ike was being a bit odd. It took 50 minutes for him to play with Ellie! We spent most of the time talking and trying to get Ike to do various "scary" things.

Scary thing # 1: Leah and Ellie have an Agilelite tunnel. It is not currently staked down and rolls slightly when the dogs go in it. Ellie went running through and I sent Ike in after her. He almost jumped out of his skin when it rocked. I proceeded to toss lots of the Plato Salmon strips in the tunnel. Ike would put both front feet in and STRETCH to get the bits of treats. Multiple times he scared the crap out of himself when he moved too quickly and the tunnel rocked.

Scary thing # 2: The table. Ellie adores the table and hops up on it with abandon. It is probably set at 24 -36" high. Last week I was able to lure Ike up on the table. This week....good gods we must have spent nearly 10-15 minutes trying to get him to hop up on it. Finally, he does it from a stand still right beside it. He just does NOT like to jump or exert himself if he doesn't have to.

Scary thing # 3: Ellie readily takes treats from Leah's mouth. I know for a fact Ike will not do this. I have tried to get him to years ago. Since he was being such an odd duck tonight I figured, eh, why not try it. It was hysterical. You could SEE Ike thinking about it. He wanted SO badly to take the treat. He would look away and bump his head under my chin, then look at me, get very close, and look a way. I was giggling so badly. Leah suggested I start by holding the treat close to my mouth so I can talk to him while he is working up his courage!

Scary thing # 4: ELLIE! This week Ike thought Ellie was just too odd. We practiced having him touch her because he was acting so odd. I think most of you have seen when a dog gets to close or too in his space and he vacates it in the blink of an eye? Well, that is what he was doing with Ellie tonight.

As the hour wound down Ike FINALLY decided he wanted to play with Ellie. She is so graceful, she makes him look like a bull in a china shop. Trying to get him to play she does these "drive-bys" where she goes FLYING past him and he is left looking for her. I was laughing so hard my eyes started tearing up! At one point she goosed him. I have never seen Ike look so offended. Hysterical.

We stopped by Katrin's to get a couple of runs in with Nancy & Remy and Sandy & Sadie. Every one's performances are really coming along, which is exciting to see. They were practicing with 12 weave poles and Ike was popping out at 8. Hmmm...who said that would happen? ; )

Anyway, I took out one of the sets of weave poles because I didn't want to drive Ike insane after his hour with Ellie. I will have to get a set of competition poles and work the 12-weaves as a new obstacle.

At one point we did the pole, tunnel, and my intention was to have him do the dogwalk. I was at the dog walk peeking over my shoulder and no Ike. He is on top of the A-Frame. I told him to go ahead, A-Frame, and he was BESIDE himself with happiness when he came flying off it. He was doing his wiggle-puppy routine - grinning and little stub going a mile a minute. Like I said last post, he is REALLY beginning to enjoy himself. It was fun for me to have Sandy and Nancy see how happy he can be.

After we cleaned up Katrin came out for a moment with Monty. Monty, Sadie, and Remy started having a grand old time and Katrin said I should go ahead and let Ike go. Well, he did immediately run over there but I don't *think* he was inappropriate. He just kind of raced around at the edge of their play, barking (of course, no fun without the fun police!). Wow!! And he seems to like Monty which is cool.

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