To give everyone some perspective, Zohé is my 14 year old girl.  She’s slower, and though she’s still very active, playful, full of mischief and as spoiled and rotten as before, I no longer get to run her in agility…I must admit I miss it so much sometimes even though I remember clearly the many times I cried (yes, I used to get HORRIBLY nervous for trials!) after one of our more horrible runs or embarrassing moments. Still, I think I would let her knock me over again in a heart beat if we could be on the startline together again…We agility people are surely suckers for punishment!

The lesson of course: Enjoy every moment, the good and the bad – all of them pass and you’ll miss them like crazy! Besides, as my friend Gail Storm says:  ”The Real Joy is in the privilege and ability to step to the start line with your dog by your side not  in crossing the finish line victorious over others.”

I miss running with you my Wild Child, and I’m glad to have you with me still!  To many more good times together!

As an additional, fund raising effort, I am planning on having a table set up at the upcoming Free Spirit Trial, to collect donations and to do a small “Garage Sale” and Fundraiser!  We would like to collect gently used objects, doggy related or not, to sell at our Garage Sale. Please donate your gently-used or new Leashes, Bowls, Agility Equimpent, Toys, CDs, DVD’s, Books, in short, anything and everything, to Minnie’s cause!  You can drop-off your donations at Paws In Motion or contact me to drop them off at our home or meet up somewhere.  We’re also considering a Raffle during the trial.  Of course, you are also welcome to bring them straight to the trial!  Also, please help us spread the word, and come to the trial ready for some shopping  Minnie will be at the trial for only a few runs, and this will be her final trial until her surgery.  After that, we’ll have to see when she comes back.

Pictures by Pix ‘N Pages

First off, I hate asking for charity, so if you have need of training services, computer support or web services or know anyone who might, please send them our way. We’d love to get more work! Anyway, many have asked about a donations site for Minnie’s surgery.

Well, here it is: “HELP US KEEP MINNIE RUNNING!”

For those of you who would like to help us raise money for Minnie the Pug’s cataract surgery, here’s a link to a page with the background story and the PayPal Donate buttons. Please help us spread the word, any little bit counts! I’ve already received two quotes of $3000+ for the surgery, since she needs both eyes done!

You can also visit my YouTube channel (gutierse) for more stories and videos of Minnie in the ring. Thanks to everyone in advance for your support!!!!

Fanta’s Dock Diving training begins I guess if we don’t do well in Agility, we at least have some back-up sports

Since it was her birthday weekend, I felt totally guilty about leaving her behind, while Dennis, me and Minnie went to Orlando, FL for the AKC Agility Invitational.  We decided to bring her along for the road trip last minute, even if it was just for the ride.  On Sunday, we ended up having to bring her to the venue which I thought would be a huge mistake considering this puppy normally can’t even be 100 feet from agility without opening her big mouth!  She was a DREAM in the crating area – even though we had first row seating view of the practice jump!  Phew!  Of course, I had her completely covered with a blanket and our Puerto Rico Flag  Still, she didn’t eat the blanket, her bed or the flag OR bark her head off!  GOOD PUPPY!!!!

Since we had quite a bit of time between runs, and they had open dock on Sunday, I decided to try the Dock Diving with her.  She loves the pool, and had no hesitation at the dock.  The guy manning the dock was pretty impressed that she jumped off on her first time!  We had played on a dock before at the Dog Beach and at Dogs The Show, but nothing quite as high or fancy as this one!  She LOVED it!  Keeping her calm on the line proved to be impossible though, so I finally ended up stepping to the side and letting Dennis make the line for us…Not a good sign for our line ups in agility! She had a BLAST!  We had a second attempt (which a longer jump) that’s not on the video, then our friends Rafo and Indy got a chance to try it.  Well, Ms. Fanta got a little excited waiting for them and decided to take a leap into the pool from the side!  Yup, she cleared all 4 feet from the ground and landed inside!  Luckily no pools or doggies where harmed in the making of this video!

We got kicked out the first time, since we had our first “attempt” on the ramp, so she surprised me by backing down the stairs …I was pretty impressed She’s more coordinated than I expect most of the time…which shouldn’t surprise me as she was a very coordinated puppy. If she had more self control she wouldn’t be such a klutz!

Still, it was a LOT of fun to see her do something that she so obviously LOVED! I was very glad she behaved at the venue that day though. She stayed the rest of the weekend, but we couldn’t leave her on Sunday so it was good that she got a chance to play and burn some energy before the long drive home.

Before I even thought about keeping her, I started some clicker training with her, teaching her a few basic behaviors and playing shaping games. Minnie is a shaping fool! Sometimes intensity and love for the shaping game makes it harder to teach her something as she can get quite frantic trying to get you to click and reward. She has an INSANE food drive and that, combined with her love for the game, make for some pretty hilarious training sessions.

Our first adventure in agility came about quite by accident. Shortly after we’d decided to keep her, I was playing a shaping game with her in our terrace and she was, as usual, a little whirlwind of different offered behaviors. We’d recently started adding objects to our shaping game so after running through her many tricks, she quickly started scanning the area for the “object” I wanted her to interact with. I hadn’t set out to shape with any object, and to be honest I can’t remember anymore what I was planning on shaping but all of a sudden I saw her head go up and she took off like a rocket towards the yard. A jump from my earlier agility training session with my girl Chill was sitting about 10 feet from us. I have no idea how she knew what it was (probably some kid in one of her earlier homes had tried to teach her to jump) but she proceded to jump the 16″ bar back and forth like a little pogo stick! I decided to click, treat, LOWER the bar to 12″ and the rest as they say is history! Our agility journey together had begun!

Since I had no expectations, she was after all just a Pug, and had plans of getting a Border Collie puppy within the year, I decided to use Minnie as my personal training experiment. Here I had a dog I could try out my training on, with no fear of “messing her up”.

The year before, I’d gone to Clean Run Camp and attended Wendy Pape’s seminars on Building Toy Drive and Motivation and had come home with many ideas to work on. I set out to teach Minnie to play, to build her toy drive and tugging to a level that I could use it as a reward during our training. The results, far surpassed my expectations. Minnie will tug resiliently and enthusiastically, we call her our “Pit Pug”, and tugging on her leash is a big reward for a good run. She switches to the “live” toy when asked, drives to a “dead” toy and is simply a lot of fun to play with.

So after toy drive we worked on obstacles. I played with the 2×2 method for weave poles, teaching 2on/2off behavior for contacts and learning the foundation for Linda’s handling system.  We had our struggles and successes but all in all, Minnie shaped me into a better trainer and I in return was there to watch her awesome potential come out. I like to think her running out of the ring on me or tunnel sucking were my lessons in humility.  And must admit I learned to just enjoy the ride, no matter what it brings you, which is a pretty powerful lesson!

Minnie has been with me through many seminars, competed in national events, has performed agility in front of huge crowds in 5 different countries, and has definitely shown me and the world that Pugs should be taken serously in the agility ring. With her, I’ve met some pretty wonderful Pug People and friendships that I’m extremely grateful for.  All in all, a pretty amazing ride so far.

So what, you’re probably wondering, is the big secret? After all, I’ve always been pretty vocal (proud me? Never!) about Minnie’s history and background, and though I’m still surprise to hear some people don’t remember her in her “naughty days” running out on me or giving me the paw, I’m sure she’ll remind them in her own special way

So back to the secret…remember I said I adopted Minnie on May of 2007? Well something pretty special happened to me on December of 2007 that definitelyh influenced our agility journey. Shortly after Minnie and I started training in agility, me and my Border Collie Chill were invited to represent Puerto Rico at the 2007 AKC Agility Invitational in Long Beach, CA. It was a huge honor, and the experience was truly inspirational. To see all those “off-breeds” showing off their ability and expertise in this sport was a testament to what the sport should really be about: building better bonds between humans and their canine companions.

While there, and because I was a newly emerging “Crazy Pug Lady” I made a point to watch the runs of the pugs that were there and was impressed by their drive, their enthusiasm for the game and their handling skills. So when I say I was inspired, I mean it in a very literal sense. Right then and there, I thought “Minnie and I can do this, this could be our goal!”.  I was decided to take our training seriously, to truly believe we had a shot at this very ambitious goal. A seed was planted…

Minnie started showing in AKC in August of 2008 and earned her last Exellent A title at the same trial in August of 2010. The day we earned our last title, I had to re-evaluate our current goals to work on, so when I wrote on our training journal that night I was pretty nervous and excited. I scratched off “Earn our AX and AXJ” and wrote: “Qualify for the 2011 AKC Agility Invitational”. I promptly decided not to tell anyone, in fears that I might jinx myself – superstitious me? No! – and though I’m sure many were aware of this fervent wish I only formally told my husband Dennis and my friend and trainer Annette Alfonso.

We didn’t show as much as we hoped, and had to concentrate on other things financially, so by the time the qualifying period came to a close, Minnie the Wonder Pug was ranked in the #8 position. It was amazing to be within the Top 10, specially considering we only had 4 trial weekends. So, even though we didn’t make the coveted Top 5 list, I was still very proud of my Puglet and looking forward to our next chance.

Then the coolest thing happened: we got an invitation! No, it was not a “Second Round” invite, it was actually an INTERNATIONAL invitation. Minnie, like her sister Chill, was ranked among the top agility dogs in Puerto Rico and would be representing the island in the 2011 Invitational, like her sister did in 2007. It will be the last year we’re eligible for this honor, since we moved to Florida a few months ago, so we definitely plan on making the most of it!

As we pack the car and head out this morning on our way to Orlando – on a day that marks my new baby Fanta’s first Birthday! – I can’t help but meditate on the power of secret dreams, on the empowering qualities of dreams and hopes that help bring our journeys full circle.

I have no idea how Minnie will do this weekend.  In 2007 Chill earned the amazing honor of being the 2nd ranked International dog after the 4th round at the Invitational for the 20″ division. Rafo and Indy (who are part of the Team this year again) were 1st. I don’t really want to put any expectations on Minnie at this point. I’m just ecstatic to be crossing off “Qualify for the 2011 AKC Invitational” off our list of current goals, and replacing it by “have a clean round at the 2011 Invitational”.

I’m super proud of my Flying Monkey, happy to be going along on this journey with her and praying for many more years together. I HAVE the spunky lapdog I wanted, and so much MORE!!!  THANK YOU Minnie, let’s go show off

By the way, thanks to all our friends who have encouraged us, celebrated with us, or simply laughed along with us. You are too numerous to count but we truly value your friendship and support. We hope to make you proud!

I leave you with a quote from the book “Identity: Unknown” by Suzanne Brockman. She’s my favorite author and the book is one of her older romances, but I thought it was right on the money…
“If it’s so outside of the realm of possibility…Why torture myself? – It’s only torture if you think in terms of what you don’t have.  If you look at it as something to strive for, it’s a dream.  And it’s amazing what people can achieve with just a little bit of hope and a dream.”

Stay tuned for updates of our trip of chasing dreams!

WEAVE POLES

On our weave poles, we are working with three poles with gates. I started with the toy out front, and keeping her on leash, but the main problem I’m having is that she starts to “stalk” the toy, or if she feels any pressure on the leash she’ll hesitate, so I wasn’t sure if I should let her do that.  I decided to keep the toy in my hand (so I could take the leash off) and reward her if she did the poles correctly.  I think I had a few late throws of the toy, and some head checks, but I’m hoping this way I didn’t get as much hesitation, and she did seem to be driving through better.  I’ll have to show these to Annette and see what she thinks about it and how we should proceed.  I’m much more comfortable with her on my left, which means I need to practice her more on my right.  It was obviously harder for her on that side, but I’m sure if I make a point of balancing out my training a bit, she should do better.  All in all, I was happy with her work.

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TEETER

We worked on the teeter, starting with a table at the up side.  She drove to the end, but had a hard time holding the position after banging, so I decided (right then, wish I’d thought about it ahead of time) to try something different.  I’ve been playing a game with her on the Bozu ball at home from the exercises we learned from Liz McGuire.  Basically we work on tugging on the ball, but she has to keep her rear legs on the ball to keep me tugging.  If she comes off the ball, the game stops until she gets herself back on.  It occurred to me, that we could do the same thing on the board, so we did a bit of that.  Later when we tried the full height (no banging, I lowered it) she actually stayed on the board for some tugging.  I’m going to work this more on the Bozu and other balance toys at home as well as the target board, since I would like to be able to get her tugging on her contact position, and I want her to work at holding the position. I’m happy that other than the lack of rear control, she’s really not showing much concern on the teeter.  The banging doesn’t seem to bother her much and she doesn’t seem too worried about the drop.  I wonder if I need to be working on her shifting her weight more on it.  I would love to get a fast sliding teeter with her  I guess that’s another question for Annette.

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We did our training with toys mostly today, since she’s not very interested in food in the morning, and really wasn’t driving for it.  She was taking it, because I asked her to but didn’t seem to really care for it.  For the toys, she obviously is interested.  You can’t see it in the video, but she was actually drooling when waiting for a release…Oh my

Between exercises with Fanta, I ran a course with Minnie, did some training with Elphie, and played Frisbee with Chill.  Of course, Dennis was there, helping with and taping the action! A wonderful morning having fun with my family!!!!

We had some free time to kill in the afternoon while waiting for the traffic going South to die down a bit, and since Fanta had come along for the ride today, we decided to do some sightseeing with her for socializing.  First stop: Lincoln Road Mall!  We went window shopping and even stopped in some of the stores since I was looking for a few Birthday presents.  Fanta was WONDERFUL!!!!  She smooched with everyone who asked to pet her, and settled at my feet when asked while I shopped in the stores.  There was a LOT of stuff going on at the Mall, lots of bikers, skaters, dogs, peoples, traffic, sights and sounds.  She did wonderful at the parking lot and with the traffic, and didn’t seem to mind the rides on the elevators at the parking garage.  She took it all in and was very well behaved.  I did take her off the Halti for part of our walk, but she was pretty horrible at walking and I ended up putting her back on to save my arm!  We even stopped for dinner at The Café at Books & Books and she just layed by our chair while we ate our meal – AWESOME! The meal was delicious – they have a bunch of Vegan specialties so we’ll definitely be going back!  They brought her, her own water bowl with ice, so she was in puppy heaven  We headed home after that, but hit crazy traffic again, so stopped at the Homegoods and Marshall store at Midtown Shops to look for something that Sharon asked me to check.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that dogs are allowed at Homegoods there, so Dennis and her didn’t have to wait out for me Of course, our baby was so well behaved she earned a ride on the toy helicopter at the end.  A fun filled day for my Fantastic pup!

Today I had the morning off due to some class cancellations.  I have been meaning for the past few days to go to the pet store in search of some 2 ft traffic leashes to use for the dogs in our Camp Session.  Since it was a beautiful day and I was going pet store shopping anyway, I figured it was the perfect chance to bring Fanta along for some socialization!  Amazingly this puppy has been to a pet store only twice since she’s been with me.  So most things there are still fairly new to her and I figured it would be good exposure!

She had a good time and actually handled things much better than I expected.  She was a bit cautious around the cart at first, but I quickly had her putting her paws on it and posing (to the amazement of our fellow shoppers!). I even put her IN the cart and push her around a bit just to see how she would handle that!  She quickly got used to the cart and just explored everything.

She certainly has come a LONG way on the leash.  As you can see on the video below, she’s not heeling or walking nicely by any means (she doesn’t understand the fact that mom would prefer it if she walked on her left side only), but at least she wasn’t dragging me around the store, and was able to keep a loose leash.  The fact that I didn’t need to put her on the Halti at all while there was pretty impressive!  Definite improvement from my little tug boat! Everyone at the store had a compliment for her, they thought she was cute, well behaved, etc.  She was happy to give kisses, jump on everybody and pretty much just soak up the attention. She wanted to investigate every shelf and look over every counter.  Of course she got to pick a toy at one of the stores, since I couldn’t NOT take it after she slobbered it

We ended up going to three different pet stores and not finding traffic leads in any, but there were retractable leashes in at least 5 different brands and styles!  Wow I can never figure out why people love those so much, specially after getting burned/cut with the string in two different occasions.  I really have no love for those things!  Anyway, we got delayed so I ended up bringing Fanta to my lunch meeting at Chipotle with Paulina where she hung out with us while we ate and made googly eyes at anyone who glanced her way.  The outdoor seating was in a fenced in area, right off of busy South Dixie Highway, so lots of traffic and people going by.  She was a little worried, mostly when buses or trucks drove near us, but nothing major and actually laid by my chair and was happy to play with her toy and just enjoy the attention.  Since the Chipotle didn’t have free WiFi and we needed to work on the computer, we moved our meeting to Starbucks, were we sat LITERALLY underneath the train overpass for a while.  The train made quite a bit of noise and rumble, even the ground trembled, and though she was again a little worried, it was more a “what is that?” than an “OMG Its going to kill me!”.  It looks to me like she’s getting much more comfortable with the traffic noises – she even played happily in the parking lot!!!

I was very happy and impressed with her behavior today.  It was definitely a perfect day with my puppy and I look forward to our next chance to go shopping!