Raising a Riot

A Busy Week

I still have a few things to catch up on, but we’ll skip over that now to get to this week.

Riot had obedience on Tuesday night and he’s constantly improving. His attention is getting much better and he’s getting better at every exercise. I’m picking up a ton of tips for working on things, so we’re learning a lot. 

This week, Karen decided to work backwards and had us do stays first. Typically when we work stays it’s the end of class and a lot of the dogs are more tired. We also did stays down where there was more agility action so that made them even harder. Riot did well through he stays even if he was craning his neck as much as possible to see the dogs running agility in the next ring. He sat through the dog next to him getting up and having to be put back, and downed through it too. There was a little sniffing, during the down, but he’s getting much better about that too. 

I had him on a down while waiting our turn for another exercise later in the class and another dog came over and sniffed him and he didn’t get up or act like he was going to play with her. Which is a huge step for him too.

He’s getting much better about his stand for exam. I just need to learn not to lean into him upon returning. Karen said he’s even got drive for the stand. Which he does pop up almost instantly — much like his down. 

Most of the heeling work was done towards the end of class this week and I typically start to lose his attention towards the end of class. He works really well for about 40-45 minutes and then I think he’s ready to be done. But even though his heeling wasn’t as good as I’ve seen, he did watch me throughout the exercises. 

I had asked him at the end of class if he was getting tired and one of the other handlers asked me if he ever got tired. I said yeah, that he was actually a really easy dog to live with and had a great off switch. I think that really surprised her because he is a lot of dog and a bundle of energy in class :)

Wednesday night we crashed an agility class and Riot ran really well. He knocked a couple of bars on the first run and seemed to jump kind of funny on the last jump — which was not that far from a barrier so that might have had something to do with it. We re-ran the sequence and ran it perfectly. The second sequence had a two really difficult weave entrances and he hit both of them. He actually he all of his weave entrances all night. Not bad for a dog that’s been off from agility for nearly a month :)

This weekend we’re finally making it out to a field training session. I’m looking forward to seeing how our work in the backyard over the last couple of months translates into the field. 

And Sunday, I think we’re going to hit a rally show-n-go to work on heeling with distractions in a new environment more than anything else. 

Mary Ellen Barry Seminar

I’m a big behind, but Riot and I attended a foundation sends and recalls seminar with Mary Ellen Barry at the beginning of May. 

I had a moment of panic first thing in the morning since Riot was one of the greener dogs at the seminar and most of the other working spots were filled with very motivated border collies. But Riot did really well holding his own. We learned so much and Riot as always provided the comic relief.

We were working on a lateral motion rear cross and the jump was positioned so that he was jumping toward the seminar participants. E-Z was hanging out with the crowd, so initially when Riot jumped funny over the jump paying no attention to where I was going, we assumed he was looking at E-Z. So Mary Ellen sat down in front of E-Z and we tried it again. His jumping was even more odd the second time — he was springing over the jump rather than jumping and he was wiggling his body really funny in mid-air. Apparently the look on his face while he was doing this was quite comedic too. The look of puzzlement on Mary Ellen’s face was pretty priceless too. Apparently Riot was hamming it up for the audience, because we turned the jump 90° and he proceeded to perform the exercise perfectly. 

One of our exercises later in the day was practicing recalls over the jump. I could see Riot’s brain thinking hard through every repetition, so we stopped a few times while we were practicing and did some spins and some hand touches and just some goofing off. He did really well on all his repetitions and I didn’t want him to burn out, so we were having a good time. 

Overall, he did really well. I was very proud of how well he paid attention to my body cues. Now to get him to pay that much attention through an entire course. We got a lot of good exercises to work on this summer. I was just bummed we couldn’t have attended the other two days too. Hopefully we’ll be able to take them in the future.

Sheltie Trial

This weekend we were at the Shetland Sheepdog of Greater Baltimore Agility Trial. We had never been to the facility before and the surface was a bit older and bit slicker than the indoor turn we’ve seen in the past. The course on both Saturday and Sunday were quite technical and challenging especially for a young green dog — not that excellent courses shouldn’t be technical and challenging. All four courses were nice to run, if not a bit tricky.

I was not thrilled with his contact performance this weekend, so I’ll have to add board work to the list of things we’ll work on this summer. His weave pole entrances were all really nice this weekend. And he paid very good attention to me while waiting his turn up until the dog before him was running. I didn’t get any barking out of him this weekend, which I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Saturday started with Exc A Std. I had a hard time running on this course. I felt like there was lead in my shoes. I knew it was risky to do the rear cross between 4 and 5 will a young dog and ideally I would have liked to have fronted, but really I was just trying to make it though the course. So I’m not too upset about the off course. His a-frame performance shows I need to work on independent behavior with him a lot more. I was initially planning on front crossing after the double, which I started and then didn’t complete, but he read the rear cross beautifully. I pulled him too far off the jump two jumps later and caused the refusal and that was just me over-handling the baby dog. I’m very proud of him for coming with me, but smacking myself for that.

The Exc A JWW course that afternoon was a really nice course. Riot came out of the tunnel (the second obstacle) on fire and there was a long line, but after my lack of running this morning, I took off booking it down the line to not fall too far behind. I’m not sure if my booking it, Riot’s speed, or if he slipped on the surface, but he knocked the bar on 5 or 6. This was the first time he knocked a bar in a trial. I don’t have it on video and no one I know saw the run, so I still don’t know why it happened. The rest of the course ran really nicely. If only he had kept the bar up.

Sunday, Riot ran really well. It was even more hot and humid than the day before — well into the 90s when we ran JWW in the afternoon. I crated them out of the car today which I think helped as there was an occasionally breeze and it was a lot less chaotic than the space inside had been the day before. 

Our Exc A Std run was pretty nice. He didn’t hold his dog walk contact, but we got through all the tricky parts. I was a bit worried about the entrance to the weave poles since more experienced dogs were having issues with it, so I booked it from the chute so I could get up there in time. I was so thrilled with him for nailing that entrance that I told him what a good boy he was and that caused him to come out of the poles. <smacking forehead> The rest of the run was clean but he did seem to lose speed on the second half of the course. I’m not sure if that was heat related or what.

Out last run was Exc A JWW in the afternoon and it was hot and humid and sticky. People were pulling dogs left and right and those that were running seemed to be melting. Riot did seem a bit less motivated than he usually is, but turned it a very nice run. I probably should have/could have put in a front cross after the weave poles, but I was a little hesitant to do that on course. Riot saved my butt after the tunnel. I forgot for a moment that there were two jumps in that line before turning and started to pull after the first. fortunately, he listened to my “go” (almost a little too well) and took the next jump. He was about 8 seconds under course time and was the only Exc A 20” dog to qualify and the Q-rates on the course overall were not that high.

Riot OA and OAJ!!!

This weekend at the PVGRC agility trial, Riot completed both his OA and OAJ titles!

Saturday

First thing Saturday morning was Open JWW (not on video). The course was nice and flowy. We had a refusal early on on a jump and I’m not sure what happened. I don’t know if I pulled him off of it or he wasn’t paying attention to it, but I managed to pull him back around and we finished the course without any other incidents. He even nailed his weave entry. Riot Q‘d with a 95 and 3rd place. This was his third leg and completed his OAJ title.

That afternoon was Open STD and Riot Q‘d with another 3rd place. Riot’s a-frame contact was not very good and his teeter wasn’t great, but he had a nice dog walk contact. I’m still holding contacts longer than I would normally with him as we have plenty of time to spare and I want to reenforce good habits. I made a bad assumption and didn’t support the dog walk after the tunnel the way I should have. Riot got a refusal there, but otherwise had a very nice run.

Sunday - Riot’s Excellent Debut

First up was Riot’s first time in Exc A STD. Riot’s contacts looked great this run. I did release him quickly off the teeter to the table, but he held both his dog walk and a-frame today beautifully. We had a bit of a bobble in the middle of the course with Riot taking an off course jump before the tire — something none of us saw as possibility (and I don’t think any other dog took it either), but Riot was absolutely determined to take it. I called him back around and then I have no idea what happened on the weave polls. He completely blew by them for some odd reason, initially I wasn’t going to fix them, then I decided I was going to go back and fix them, but even on the fix he didn’t stay in which was very odd. On video he looks like he’s say “come on there are better things to do.” I have no idea what that was about, and I don’t know why I was so lax about his not weaving. I don’t think my wishy-washy-ness (nice word, huh) helped the situation any and I’m not sure if that’s why he didn’t complete the weaves the second time. The rest of the course was really nice and I’m especially happy with how he read the closing sequence of jumps. Riot’s first attempt at Exc A STD ended in an NQ, but it certainly did have “moments of brilliance.”

Our final run of the weekend was our first Exc A JWW run. Riot was a little distracted and pokey for this run, but still managed to run clean, Q, and come in 3rd place! I’m not really sure what the pokiness/sniffing was about, he was nice and drive-y for the first 3 obstacles, but then had his nose down after jump 4 and after jump 6. The rear on the flat into the weaves worked out nicely and he nailed his weave entrance (no sign of any of the weave issues we faced in the morning). I did pull him out really early for this run. I think they weren’t even half way down the first page of 20” dogs when I brought him up to the ring and he was the 7th dog or so on the 3rd page of 20s. In addition, they weren’t even moving that fast even though the course was a fairly fast course. I was also really nervous for some reason running this course, so he could have picked up on that too.

Riot also decided against treats again this weekend. He did it a bit on Saturday, but then took treats later on. Sunday, I upped the ante and brought better treats and cheese (because of his stomach issues earlier, I try not to change up the variety of treats that he’s getting too often). Well, he refused cheese! I brought cheese with us to warm up for his standard run and he either spit it out, or refused to take it. I did get some really good tugging out of him shortly before entering the ring which was really nice. He still refused cheese before his JWW run, but he decided he would work for his kibble there. I’ve never had a dog that’s so picky when it comes to food. Last night he got a green bean that dropped while we were preparing dinner. I made the other dogs leave him alone because I wanted to see what he’d do with it. He carried it around and played with it for a good 10 minutes before he got bored with it and someone else ate it.

First Mini with Paulena

Riot got to attend a mini session with Paulena Hope tonight. He was on fire tonight — probably the most drive-y I’ve seen him. We did four courses over the two hours and he really did well on all of them.

This is the first time Riot had seen the viaduct and he didn’t miss a beat.

Our first course started out with a big loop that started with the tunnel to a couple of jumps, then the viaduct, and then the weave poles. He did miss that weave pole entrance but that was the only one he missed all night. He had so much speed built up from the loop, I was pretty sure we’d miss that entrance. 

The courses weren’t easy and for being the youngest dog in the session, I think he did really well. Paulena really liked him. She was very impressed with his speed and drive. 

I did get two barks from him on the second course. One as he was entering the weaves and another as we were leaving the dog walk. He was quiet on the remainder of the courses, but I find the barking fascinating. I’ve never had a dog that has barked on course. 

By the fourth course things were starting to become unhinged for the both of us. I think both our brains were a little fried at that point, but we still had some nice moments.

Last Handling 3 Class

For our final class we had two short courses. One was 11 obstacles and the other was 10.

The first course was a little tricky, it was tight and Riot was a little high and was jumping long. I ran him at 24 inches since there were no other 20 inch dogs in class — Since we introduced him to 26” jumps, I’ve been jumping him in class based on what he’ll see at a trial the following weekend. Since we’re doing obedience this weekend, I hesitated on what to do with him in class. He is a bit slower at 24/26 than he is at 20 and this is something I need to be aware of. I was further ahead of him that I expected a couple of times, one of which nearly resulted in a collision :-S

So the first course, the first time I pushed up too far on the rear cross and he swung wide missing the next jump. Hanging back more resulted in a much tighter turn. I really did have enough time to front, but we do need additional work on rear crosses. It was a really touch weave entrance that included a surface change and we never did get a solid entrance at the speeds he was going. He was very focused on course.

The second course had a tire at 90° to the next jump. I led out laterally until I was close to even with jump number two, took one step forward and said tire and took off running. This course was essentially a big loop and I used “Ri” once to make sure he was turning over one jump and a go to get him to drive ahead to take the triple. Other than that I did not speak to him on course. He nailed the sequence and he understood what was expected of him on the lead out perfectly — we did a lot of practice with lateral lead-outs as a pup, but before class tonight, I probably would have been hesitant. 

I’ve had a hard time getting Riot to tug on his “tug leash.” Before the trial last weekend, I took his favorite tug that he was given as a puppy and braided it around the meat of his leash. The tug did need some TLC and at least a re-braiding. This seems to have helped some as after every run at the trial he did run up to the leash his chair was on and put his mouth around it. I didn’t get a whole lot of tugging there. But by the end of the day I was starting to get some. Last night in class, I only used his tug wrapped leash as his tug reward after his runs and he did seem to be tugging with it more. I’ll probably leave it like this for a few more weeks and work on tugging with him, but I’ll either need to re-braid it or consider replacing the lead part with a new braided tug — maybe I’ll braid his tug in with a new piece of fleece or two. I am definitely getting more interest than I got before I added his tug. 

CDTC Agility Trial - Saturday April 10 

We only did one day of agility this weekend and Riot had a really good day qualifying in all three of his runs!

He got to run FAST for the first time (they don’t offer FAST a lot around here). His first time out in Novice FAST he Q‘d getting the 5th highest point total — I’ve never gone for max points in FAST, just plan for enough to Q and get out. It was a really nice smooth flowing course and the send was a simple jump tunnel combination. The only contact was an a-frame and hitting the contact was fine, however, he did not have a good stop on the bottom.

After that was Open JWW where he Q‘d and got 4th place. We’re still having issues finding/acknowledging the weaves poles on course — especially when the entrances to them are straight on or nearly straight on, so we had a refusal at the weaves again. His time was 32.38 and course time was 38. I’m very please with the way the first half of this course looks. He was nice and drive-y and waited very patiently for his leadout. I’ve watched the video a ton of times and I’m not sure what I could have done differently to get the weave entrance?

Finally Open std, he Q‘d, he was clean, and he had the fastest time in his class (10 seconds less than the closest qualifier) and he got 1st place! The course did have a couple of challenging parts to it, but he did well. At the end of the a-frame there was an off-course tunnel. I did hold his a frame contact probably for a good second and took a couple of lateral steps before I released him to pull him away from the tunnel which worked beautifully. The teeter was the obstacle before the table and I held his teeter contact for what seemed like an eternity — I always feel so silly doing that, but I know it’s good practice and he’s so fast, I don’t have to worry about making course time. The dog walk was the obstacle before the last jump and I didn’t hold it as long as the other two obstacles (actually I’m not 100% if he waited for my release or self-released). He did nail his weave pole entrance on this course which was a jump with a nearly 90° turn to the weaves. Course time was 70 seconds and Riot had the fastest time in the 20 inch class at 52.66. Without holding his contacts, that could have easily been under 50.

Mid-Atlantic Agility Showcase

Riot was a rock-star at his first USDAA agility trial. He had 13 runs over the weekend and really did well. I was a bit worried about him having so many runs, but it didn’t phase him. Me? I was pretty exhausted. I can’t remember all the details of the weekend (and that would make for a very long blog post), but here are some of the highlights from the weekend.

FRIDAY

Jumpers - His jumpers run was one of the nicer ones of the morning. Most of the dogs were a little wild Friday morning and lots of bars were coming down. Riot kept all of his 26” jumps up and other than a wrong course (he was driving forward hard and I couldn’t pull him off before he took the off course jump), he had a very nice run.

Gamblers. We had a really nice opening sequence. I had held his a-frame contact for a good second or two before I released him (right now nailing the contacts are more important than course speed for him). So we were further away from the gamble than I would have liked to have been when the buzzer went off. The gamble was a jump to a curved tunnel to two more jumps. Anyways, I sent him over the jump and through the tunnel and he took off. I was too far behind him when he came shooting out of the tunnel, he missed jump 3 and had taken jump 4 before I had a chance to open my mouth. I can’t complain, he was fast and drive-y, and I was just not where I needed to be when he came out of that tunnel.

Snooker - I didn’t look at the course map (couldn’t find copies of the starters or advanced maps all weekend) and didn’t have a very good plan going in. I set him up with a really bad angle to a jump and he took at at a near impossible slice resulting in his only dropped bar all weekend. 

Standard - We had a few issues getting our weave entrance and had to go back twice to get it. Even with having to pull him back for the weaves twice and holding his contacts (well the two he stopped on) for an extra second, he was 10 seconds under course time. We did something wrong and didn’t Q, but I don’t remember what it was at this point.

SATURDAY

Team Gamblers - Riot’s first DAM team run was his first run outside on grass. The ring was defined by a single piece of rope on stakes, so no very defined for young dogs like Riot. As luck would have it, right as he was taking a line of jumps next to the ring gate, someone was walking by with their dog not 3 feet from the rope gating. Riot hopped the rope to go over to visit. I did manage to get him back into the ring and even managed to get part of the gamble and cross the final jump before the buzzer sounded. We didn’t get as many point as we could have, but we didn’t E either. I had so many people come up to me and say how impressed they were that he came back to me and continued working.

Team Standard - The team standard course was nice and challenging. Riot did managed to take an off course jump between obstacles 1 and 2 so unfortunately we got a dreaded E. And then on top of that, right as he was headed over jump 3, the leash runner threw his leash down right in front of where he was landing so he had to go investigate. I did manage to call him back and get him over jump 4, but he almost grabbed his leash as he was coming back to me. After that, we had a very nice remainder of the run. He even nailed his weave pole entrance (which was not all that easy) and gave me a bark as he was doing so. That’s the first time he’s given me a bark on course. So many people came up and commented to me about the “leash incident” and how good Riot was and how rotten my luck had been on the team events so far between the leash and the dog right outside the ring. Frankly they are both training issues and baby dog stuff that we need to work through and probably won’t happen in the future as he gets more experience (and hopefully more focus).

Standard - We ran a beautiful standard course on Saturday. He nailed his weave entrance the first time and other than me saying go and assuming he’d take the last jump, he missed it and I had to pull him back around to take it. We Q’d and got third place.

Team Jumpers - Another challenging course. We did had two refusals (but no E!) and he again nailed his weave pole entry. 

Pairs - We paired with Jimmy. Riot ran the first half of the course and Jimmy ran the second. I was a little worried how the pairs run was going to go since Riot is always wanting to visit other dogs and there was going to be another dog on course. Riot ran a very nice first half of the course and I immediately put him in a down and ran the baton over to Judy so she could run with Jimmy. Riot immediately went down and stayed down while Jimmy ran his half of the course. We Q’d and landed in 3rd place (Jimmy missed his dog walk contact).

SUNDAY

Team Snooker - I came up with a simple, yet flow-y plan for Riot. Since it was a team event, my main goal was to get out of there with a decent number of points and make it through. There were 6 weave poles that were worth 4 points. So my plan was red, jump worth 3 points, red, weaves, red, weaves, and then tackle the closing sequence. (We had to attempt 3 or 4 reds.) Riot ran perfectly. He nailed his weave poles all 3 times we did them on course (one time with a bark) and we made it all the way through the closing sequence before the buzzer sounded.

Standard - Riot ran the course beautifully. I held his a-frame and dog walk contacts extra long, but released him almost immediately from his teeter. His time was just about 20 seconds under course time. He Q’d and got first place.

Pairs - Initially I wasn’t planning on entering him in pairs today, but someone I knew needed a partner, so I decided to. Our team didn’t qualify. Riot ran very nicely, but I did have to bring him back to fix his weaves (first time from Sat/Sun that he didn’t nail them). His partner was a little wild on the course. Since they were one dog short of having enough for even pairs, they needed an accommodating dog, so I volunteered Riot. He got to run the other half of the course with another partner and did very well (only missing his weave entrance the first time again). We did help Rosie pick up a Q, so that was good. Again, he had no issues being on course with another dog running and listened very well to me.

Our last run of the weekend should have been Team Relay (which Riot’s team did qualify to run in — only a certain percentage of the teams get to run). We were well below the cut-off for Qs (I think we were ranked 33 out of 51 teams prior to the relay). Since Riot’s team-mates didn’t care if we ran or not, I decided I was done running for the weekend so we didn’t run (instead I scribed the class).

Over all, not a bad debut for the little guy. If I had known that there was a chance we wouldn’t have run in Team Relay, I may have entered Riot in another starters class on Sunday. As it was it was a lot of runs for Riot, but Riot didn’t seem to mind. He was still amped up when we got home.

After the trial, I let Riot out to play frisbee with 4 border collies. He was keeping up with them just fine. And was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Handling 3 Week 4

Riot was on his best behavior in class tonight. He had gorgeous down stays while I walked the sequences and he was just happy to be working. 

Once I put him in a down, I rolled his back end over onto one hip and that seemed to keep his down a lot more relaxed. He wasn’t nearly on edge and I didn’t have to worry as much about those elbows popping up. I’ll have to try this during stay practice in obedience class tomorrow and if it works, give the rolling onto a hip a command and teach that to him. 

We did all of tonight’s sequences at 26” in preparation for his big USDAA debut at the Mid-Atlantic Agility Showcase this weekend. 

Our first sequence was a two jump lead out to a serpentine with a significant distance between jump one and two. Our first time through started out really nicely, but the dog working on the other side decided to come visit. I put Riot into a down as soon as he cleared the last jump in the serpentine and he stayed there until the other dog was corralled. Our second attempt started even nicer than the first as Riot read the need for collection nicely and added an extra stride before jump two. The serpentine was very nice and tight too (remember this is at 26”) and the send into the tunnel was nice. I didn’t cue any deceleration coming out of the tunnel so he jumped the second to last jump a lot bigger than ideal and we didn’t get a tight line to the last jump. 

The second sequence allowed the opportunity to introduce Riot to the concept of layering. It took us a few times to get the timing right, but we successfully layered a jump (which is the grand scheme of things was actually a pretty hard jump to layer). Again I had problems cuing deceleration coming out of the tunnel that started the sequence that added to the confusion. Riot is really good at picking up even small cues, so I’m having to learn how to become a better handler. 

Our third sequence provided us with some challenges. We haven’t worked a lot of push-throughs and this seemed to be a source of confusion with us. We really need to go back and work some one jump work.

By our last sequence things were starting to fall apart. I’m not real sure where Riot’s head went, but it seemed to have left for a while. We started with a tunnel and I released him and he went to the area where the last dog left the course? Next attempt he took the tunnel and then next jump and just kept going not paying any attention to me? Next attempt we got through the sequence, but it wasn’t pretty. Next attempt again was through the tunnel and straight over the jump without paying any attention to me? Then we went through the tunnel and went back and peaked over the tunnel? Finally we had a pretty decent go at the sequence with one check over the barrier to see who was leaving between the last two jumps. No one could figure out why he was acting the way he was. Not sure if he was stressed from repeating so many times or it was just the end of a long class. The two times through we had the most success with, I really riled him up before hand. 

I’m looking forward to this weekend. He has 13 runs over 3 days and I’m a bit worried that’s a bit too much for him. It’s going to be a LONG weekend so we’ll have to see how he holds up. 

Handling 3 - Week 3

I didn’t get this updated right after class and now I don’t remember a lot of the specifics. 

The first two sequences of the night we ran at 24 inches. The first sequence Riot nailed. If I remember it was some sort of box configuration with a figure 8 pattern with one front cross required. Riot read everything beautifully and it was near textbook perfect. Elsie asked if I wanted to run it again and I decided not to since Riot does seem to start to question himself when we re-run things. 

The next sequence was a bit harder, but we still did a good job on it. Elsie had us re-run it because I wasn’t doing a good job queuing collection and Riot wasn’t doing a good job reading it. We ended up repeating quite a few times the one part, but in the end ended up with a much tighter turn and a much nicer line.

Then we moved on to work with Diann and the ugly serpentine with a tunnel infront of it. I knew Riot was going to beeline for that tunnel since he could see if from the start line and despite my lateral motion with no forward movement, he was taking that damn tunnel. I also decided to up the jumps on him the this sequence and introduce him to 26 inch jumps for the first time. Riot handled the 26” jumps like a pro (Diann said she thought he looked better at 26 than at 24) and we did eventually work through our serpentine with the tunnel suck issues (please, please, please don’t let there be anything like that on any upcoming corses).

Our last sequence was similar to the one before but heading the other direction. Our first attempt, I pulled him off the jump before the tunnel as I was a hair too early. But he came to me so he got a big reward for not taking that tunnel and listening. Then we were back to the tunnel suck. Diann distracted me and changed the subject and then had me run it again. And we did fine. She laughed and said sometimes you just need to get me thinking about something else and a little less focused and I do so much better — must be why Cisco and I Q when I don’t walk the courses and don’t have time to obsess :-P

Overall, it was a really good class. Elsie told me I’ve done a really good job with him. To which I replied “he’s almost been too easy.”

She replied “There is no such thing as too easy.”

After I thought about it, she’s right. He’s done really well at picking up most of the concepts in agility, but teaching him a serpentine was a painful, multi-week process. And lets not forget about the 8 months it took to teach him to retrieve ;-)