AGILITY 102

Before you open the packet on new 'quipment you should always read the instructions.   We didn't of course so here is todays advice.

Mums settin up the equipment, let the fun begin!!

My words of wisdom are, when you is doing agility in a backyard

Full of   h - o - l - e - s

This would be a good place for nuther one

It's a very good idea to wear shoes.   Go way Mum, you're boring me.
(But I fink the middle one is broken Bodes and the next one is a bit bruised as well)

Four legs worth of trouble.

Don't be looking at me, I dint do it.   Thank you for listnin.

HOMEWORK

This week we marched into class and bold as brass Mum says,  "We haven't done our homework".   DOOF.  Couldn't we be like everyone else and bluff - they might not've known.  Mum said it was twas we had been very very busy.   I actually wasn't that  bad so reckon we could've bluffed it.

Homework???

What was our homework? Heaven only knows. First I thought we were in for a game of "PICK UP STICKS"

Then maybe we was meant to be playing norts n crosses?

Knitting anyone, Knit one, purl one, drop one, woof.



Ah, of course, weave poles, why didn't she ask me I would have told her at the beginning what they was. Sometimes I think she's just a really really slow learner, but I'm bearing with her, she is trainable.

Trying to tell her she is not meant to be a clicking and a YESSING in the middle bit here cos that just slows me down. I reckon she'll click onto it in another couple of weeks.

Now you're getting it Mum, see its really not that hard. But maybe you just need to do a bit of homework each night. Not be lying round on the couch reading. Oops, wasn't meant to tell you that.

And of course this was what the rope was for, not for knitting, but to tie up the ever helpful Goose, cos Mum only needs one teacher at a time.

And theres no show without Punch. Dougal next door always has to watch in on the proceedings just to offer helpful advice like..... Thanks Dougs.

AGILITY 101

After much waiting around I finally started agiliteez on Thursday night.  You could say I'm a late life starter.   It was very cool cos the other dogs in my class are another Border Terrier,  a Foxy and an Ozzie.  So a class full of terriers.  Lucky lucky Roy & Simone our instructors!!

Mum was oh sooooooooo excited about us going to agiliteez.  Dog bless her.

I have a bit more dignity.  Someone has to be growed up in our house!!

So now we have a garden that looks something like this.

And I have homework that looks something like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbZp9oti9Mw

TRICKS COMPETITION WINNER

To start our tricks page we have an important announcement of our Christmas tricks competition winner. First place goes to Pepper who can stack her own dishes in the dishwasher. We think this is very clever cos some people can't even stack their dishes in the dishwasher. Here is Pepper, and here is a linky to have a watch. Pepper, I will deliver your prize to you up at club, and will try not to taste test it first. NOM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Jp1KDW8ZY

Even though we didn't get lots of entries, we did hear back that some of our doggy mates who had never done some tricks were inspired to start so thats worth some WOOFS!!!

Watch this page and we will show you how to teach some other helpful and fun stuff to keep you and your humans entertained.

DONE N DUSTED

My friend Pepper posted her trick for our competition yesterday and it's pretty doggone fab so we thought we better stop our messin around and post our reply. So if we were enterin this would be our entry. The people watching You Tube will think we're really fab and clever and awesome. But my bloggy mates who have seen the run up videos know the sweat, tears, treaties and whining that went on behind the scenes......

TATTY TISSUES

This movie star business isn't as easy as it looks. You get to see us actors and actresses looking fab and never missing our lines. But behind the scenes it's a different story. We're still working on our tissue trick. I don't think I've learnt much this time round, in fact I got more than a little confused - but my trainer has learnt heaps - and that's what it is about too. Honestly it's exhausting and if I had the strength to lift my head I would demand a better script and director.


This speaks for itself. With what we have learnt now we are gonna nail it next time.





Shhhhh, I'm sleeping.

STANDING IN A TISSUE BOX

On Friday I started learning my new trick for the Christmas competition. Afterwards we sat down to review our game plan and started looking at um yup - this...... that all good competitions say "the family of the organisers can not be in the competition". WHAT WOOF SNORT. Well Mum says that's okay cos I still am gonna learn a trick or two but we will post our trainings so you can see each step of what we do - fleas and all. And then we don't have to look as genius as Lassie. And then at the end when I've finished all my filming - Mum will edit the heck out of it and have me looking like the Return of Superdog Part I.

The trick I am learning is how to get Mum a tissue when she says ATISHOO. Mum has lots of allergies from foodables, we have offered to be her food tasters but she said she thinks getting her tissues might be a better idea. As we are master papershredders we are a bit dubious but hey, who are we to argue....

On my first training night I just did some practise retrieving just to get into the swing of it. Nope not this thing here as this is my fave toy and it is mine all mine and I don't surrender this to anyone. Unless of course I can trade up to another of these toys, or some noms.

I practised first on this which is what I first learnt to retrieve. A dumb dumb dumbell. And then Mums hat which I have retrieved for one of my dancy dances. And then a scent cloth which is getting closer to a tissue.

And of course the Moose had to do some helping so we had to tie her up as you can only train one Border Terrier at a time.

Well if you've got some time to watch here is my first two nights training. Uncut, no photoshopping to make me look like a model terrier or cutting out any bad bits. Sometimes you might wonder what Mum is clicking - well sometimes she got a bit clicker happy and shouldn't have clicked at all. And the other doggy noises in here is not all us. We live next door to two Westies and they get all excited when I am doing training. You will see here that at the end of my second session I can successfully stand in a tissue box, pretty useful hah??

CHRISTMAS COMPETITION

For all my doggle mateys that are wondering what you are going to do over the Christmas break we would like to put out a challenge. LEARN A NEW TRICK. Ohhhhhhhhhhh clickers - treaties - Mum, when can I start? To lure you into the fun we post a random picture of the fabulous me, with...........a laundry basket and all Mums socks. What on earth?



Well you know how I do lots of trainings, and tricks and dancing in between my general dog stuff of sniffin dog butts and bins.


Like hind leg spins and twists.


And my matey Max with his fancy jump through the legs trick. It all takes lots of clicker training to learn.

and Brody with his really clever human roll over move, this is about 5 tricks merged into one.

and me and Honey doing a synchronised hind leg stand - which is not only a trick, but a trick in time with another dog, and in time with music and two stressy humans. So 12 legs in perfect time when the music goes ........ yahhh!!!

and my mate Moss with a high leg jump, he has to wait patiently for the wobbly human to get into place in time with the music so it's patience for Moss as well as jumping.....

Well its all very clever and 'THE CROWD GOES WILD' but its hardly helpful round the house is it? So we are setting you a challenge. To my doggy mates in the Southern Hemisphere who are on Chrissy holidays with time up your paw. And my Northern Hemisphere mates who are stuck inside cos it's snowing outside. Cos we all know that 5 minutes of tricks training wears us out quicker than a half hour walk.

WHAT ON EARTH - you want me to learn how to make you a coffee?? That's pushing the boundaries.

OK here's the roools

1) It has to be a trick you haven't learnt before

2) The theme has to be "helping round the house"

3) You need to film how you taught it

4) The film can't be more than 2 minutes and you need to post it to You toob and send me the linky

5) Tell us what category you are entering, Instructional category or Humorous category - there is a prize for each category.

(Entries to wispyk9s@hotmail.com by January 25th 2011)

We will post the entries on our Choredography webpage on the Christmas competition page , see the linky at the top of my blog. And then we will take voting in late January to find the winners.

If you need any inspiration then have a look at Jesse, - is he helpful or what? I think I am going to learn how to do something with socks, either take them off Mums feet or put them in the laundry. Have a good Christmas and get those clickers clicking......
http://www.flixxy.com/useful-dog-tricks.htm

Or maybe the Goose is going to learn to put all our toys away. We live in hope.

TRAINING UNCUT #1

Cold, wet, windy, winter is here, which means the dreaded return of my dopey coat. Do I look a right twat or what? The good thing about winter is we get to do our trainings at an indoor venue.

We are having bloggy problems at the moment and having trouble working out the "new" , "updated", "helpful" thingys. Mum is a kiwi and kiwis don't read manuals real well - they like to build things with a bit of #8 wire and do crash and burn stuff instead, kinda like us Border Terriers I guess. So instead of embedding our video if you wanna watch our trainings here's the You Tube link, phew we still know how to do that. This might be the first time you have seen Mrs Magoo doing tricks and stuff, she's obviously been copying my homework. And now I can do the "spins" without Mum waving her arms around like a helicopter. Good work Mum, you were listening at your trainings in Australia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzvOQUagMU4

"For One Night Only"

I've got some really sad news. My friend Honey is moving to Australia and leaving us. So last night we had a farewell party and played some games and all had to say Goodbye.

Everyone was really sad to have to say Goodbye to Honey & Hsin-Yi

As a farewell we gave Honey a present. Heres Honey doing some damage to the wrapping paper. I guess she won't be "folding that away and recycling". We gave her this HUGE bouncy ball with holes in it that you can put treats in. Did someone mention TREATS? Mum, can I have one that big too? Christmas is coming up.

At our farewell party we played a fun game called 1 minute busking. Everyone drew a human out of the hat so we didn't get our own humans to dance with. The humans then got 20 seconds of a song to listen to, and then they had to dance with us for a minute. This is me with Amy and Honey. Honey got Amy first but as the humans thought that might be a bit tricky I got to dance with Amy instead. Which was good cos Amy always plays with me at dance school and takes me on races right round the whole stadium. And she can do weaves with me.

This is Baxter the Pomeranian showing off his dance moves. Baxter is reeeeeeeeeeealllly good at spins. And he doesn't seem to get dizzy.

This is my buddy Brody - we are known as the two Odies. We had to show you this photo as no one has seen Brody like this except his Mum. We think the excitement wore him out. But he had been at school all day with his Mum and then his name seemed to keep coming out of the draw for Busking. Hope he got to wag school on Friday and lie in bed all day.

Earlier this week Honey & me were asked to do our pairs routine for Manukau Club's Christmas Party. I've finally found my mojo and now my Dancing Queen is moving across the ditch to Australia. HUH, gutted!!! Here it is our "One Night Only Performance" - hope you enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGaoyWMlrZ4