As I've been learning more about agility and have, hopefully, improved, I'm learning more about the dogs that do well in the sport. I've been trying to get my Vizsla to engage in the sport but he does not show consistent behavior. He is still young but I am a little discouraged. A trainer who has Weimeraners in the sport and whom I respect, explained it well to me when she reminded me that these hunting dogs are bred to work somewhat independently of their handlers which we don't always want in agility. I have noticed a prevalence of herding dogs in the sport so I suppose that is why - those dogs are engaged with you and watch to see what you are going to do.
I started to look at a mini Aussie this month, but the timing just is not right for me as I am getting ready to go back to school. However, I must say that the breeder of Makana Mini Aussies was phenomenal in providing every piece of information I could possibly ask for. She really gave me a lesson in what to expect from a quality breeder. You should be able to ask exactly what kind of handling the pups have had, what kinds of tests have the parents had in screening for genetic disorders, what is the temperament of the parents and puppies, has puzzling been done and by whom, etc...... Getting a puppy is a 12 - 16 year commitment so it is not something to enter into lightly. I am happy to learn how to be an informed buyer at the time when I am ready to look for my next pup!
Vicky
Friday, August 13, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
LIsten to Your Dog!
I did an AKC trial with Belle (her debut as a mixed breed in AKC) and Kubi this weekend. Belle was a star - she double-Qed on Saturday and then got another Q Sunday but missed a contact (we are working on running contacts with her and have not quite ironed out all the kinks - mine more than hers!).
Kubi, my 2 year old Vizsla - not as successful - although he managed a Q on Sunday and was obedient. Here is the "conundrum" with Kubi. Kubi is still in recovery from Valley Fever. The infection did not come to light until it got severe with a growing mass in his humerus that went entirely throughout the diameter of the humerus and was about 2 inches along the length AND a mass of about the size of a small egg under his ribcage. He may have been harboring the infection for a year or more for it to get to that stage. The masses are reduced but his blood titer is still as high as it was when he was first diagnosed and he is on an extraordinarily high does of fluconazole for a period of several more months if not for life. For a simple yeast infection, a human adult would take one 150 mg tablet and that would be it. To give an idea of the dosage, the treatment for cryptococcal meningitis (one of the more serious infections of the covering of the brain and spinal cord) is as follows:
The recommended dosage for treatment of acute cryptococcal meningitis is 400 mg on the first day, followed by 200 mg once daily. A dosage of 400 mg once daily may be used, based on medical judgment of the patient's response to therapy. The recommended duration of treatment for initial therapy of cryptococcal meningitis is 10-12 weeks after the cerebrospinal fluid becomes culture negative. The recommended dosage of DIFLUCAN for suppression of relapse of cryptococcal meningitis in patients with AIDS is 200 mg once daily.
Kubi (about 60 lbs of weight) is on 600 mg a day, has been at this dose since late January and is continuing on this high dosage for an indefinite period.
So back to my observations - he is no longer lame so I've been back in agility with him. But I both observe that he just does not have the stamina and energy that a normal Vizsla should have. At the show this weekend, he was generally obedient but definitely not engaged or really excited about it. If I do a lesson during the day - even when it is in the 70s or low 80s, he fades rapidly. I used a cooling coat on him on Sunday even though it was not that hot and it helped a little. But the most revealing moment was at the end of the standard run when I whooped and hollared to celebrate his completion, he did not interact with me but instead went to the out-gate to push on it to exit. It is like he is just going through the motions.
At this point I don't know if it is personality, illness, side-effect of treatment, or all of the above but my point in posting this is that I think I have to listen to what my dog is telling me and back off on my return to at least competition and heavy training. My work with horses prior to really getting into the dog work has always told me to look for underlying causes beyond simple naughtiness if there is a pattern or a history of a similar behavior.
I guess I wanted to share this just as a reminder that as much as I want something to happen, I also have to respect what the dog might be telling me. If it means doing something differently, albeit contrary to my "desires," then I need to accept the situation. This is not to say that sometimes our dogs are not just naughty or confused, but if there is doubt then it is good to look at the entire picture to try to develop at least an approach if not an answer! My answer for now is to continue to have fun with Belle and keep Kubi going in a weekly class with moderate work at home until he "tells" me he is ready!
Kubi, my 2 year old Vizsla - not as successful - although he managed a Q on Sunday and was obedient. Here is the "conundrum" with Kubi. Kubi is still in recovery from Valley Fever. The infection did not come to light until it got severe with a growing mass in his humerus that went entirely throughout the diameter of the humerus and was about 2 inches along the length AND a mass of about the size of a small egg under his ribcage. He may have been harboring the infection for a year or more for it to get to that stage. The masses are reduced but his blood titer is still as high as it was when he was first diagnosed and he is on an extraordinarily high does of fluconazole for a period of several more months if not for life. For a simple yeast infection, a human adult would take one 150 mg tablet and that would be it. To give an idea of the dosage, the treatment for cryptococcal meningitis (one of the more serious infections of the covering of the brain and spinal cord) is as follows:
The recommended dosage for treatment of acute cryptococcal meningitis is 400 mg on the first day, followed by 200 mg once daily. A dosage of 400 mg once daily may be used, based on medical judgment of the patient's response to therapy. The recommended duration of treatment for initial therapy of cryptococcal meningitis is 10-12 weeks after the cerebrospinal fluid becomes culture negative. The recommended dosage of DIFLUCAN for suppression of relapse of cryptococcal meningitis in patients with AIDS is 200 mg once daily.
Kubi (about 60 lbs of weight) is on 600 mg a day, has been at this dose since late January and is continuing on this high dosage for an indefinite period.
So back to my observations - he is no longer lame so I've been back in agility with him. But I both observe that he just does not have the stamina and energy that a normal Vizsla should have. At the show this weekend, he was generally obedient but definitely not engaged or really excited about it. If I do a lesson during the day - even when it is in the 70s or low 80s, he fades rapidly. I used a cooling coat on him on Sunday even though it was not that hot and it helped a little. But the most revealing moment was at the end of the standard run when I whooped and hollared to celebrate his completion, he did not interact with me but instead went to the out-gate to push on it to exit. It is like he is just going through the motions.
At this point I don't know if it is personality, illness, side-effect of treatment, or all of the above but my point in posting this is that I think I have to listen to what my dog is telling me and back off on my return to at least competition and heavy training. My work with horses prior to really getting into the dog work has always told me to look for underlying causes beyond simple naughtiness if there is a pattern or a history of a similar behavior.
I guess I wanted to share this just as a reminder that as much as I want something to happen, I also have to respect what the dog might be telling me. If it means doing something differently, albeit contrary to my "desires," then I need to accept the situation. This is not to say that sometimes our dogs are not just naughty or confused, but if there is doubt then it is good to look at the entire picture to try to develop at least an approach if not an answer! My answer for now is to continue to have fun with Belle and keep Kubi going in a weekly class with moderate work at home until he "tells" me he is ready!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
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'See our January PODetc Newsletter for the latest in professional development'
PODetc is off to a great start in the New Year. For our Winter term we are offering our full range of courses beginning next week with Introduction to Instructional Technology in the Classroom. In this highly interactive course, participants will begin to explore tools and technologies that can enhance their own classrooms. In February, we will offer Creativity and Innovation in the Classroom and Technology Literacy 101: Foundations in Collaborative Tools. April and June offer even more options.
Visit our site to see how we can help you learn!!!!
PODetc is off to a great start in the New Year. For our Winter term we are offering our full range of courses beginning next week with Introduction to Instructional Technology in the Classroom. In this highly interactive course, participants will begin to explore tools and technologies that can enhance their own classrooms. In February, we will offer Creativity and Innovation in the Classroom and Technology Literacy 101: Foundations in Collaborative Tools. April and June offer even more options.
Visit our site to see how we can help you learn!!!!
Friday, November 27, 2009
Learning continues
This month I conducted a new class in PODetc entitled "Focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math): Instructional Technology Strategies for Science and Math." I also decided to participate as a student in three other PODetc courses occurring concurrently but taught by other teachers. I also am a full time teacher and department chair in science so how I survived is a minor miracle!!! But that is not what I want to address here. The courses I participated in were:
While I have of course reviewed all of our PODetc courses and have regularly lurked in the background to keep current with our offerings, participating as a student was a great learning experience. Among the four courses we built blogs, wikis, nings, delicious networks, diigo lists, interactive lesson plans, collaborative rubrics, Intel lessons emphasizing critical thinking, collaborative concept maps and more. Not only did we build them but we put them to work and found applications to each of jobs outside of the course. Instructors helped me stretch my use of these valuable tools and guided me in linking them together for ease of access and application. In our discussion groups we addressed the challenges of teaching students in this age of technology when our backgrounds, budgets, audiences, and resources span the gamut of possible combinations and complexities. We evaluated samples of each others work and each found growth and improvement through the feedback we received.
I cannot emphasize how valuable this month has been to me in terms of really fine-tuning and motivating my own skills as an educator!
Thank you, thank you, thank you to our fabulous instructor and students!!!
- Survey of Emerging Technologies taught by Theresa Stanley
- Creativity and Innovation in the Classroom taught by Connie Jaeger
- Technology Literacy 102: Building Knowledge Management Systems taught by PODetc founder and CEO, Tammy Stephens
While I have of course reviewed all of our PODetc courses and have regularly lurked in the background to keep current with our offerings, participating as a student was a great learning experience. Among the four courses we built blogs, wikis, nings, delicious networks, diigo lists, interactive lesson plans, collaborative rubrics, Intel lessons emphasizing critical thinking, collaborative concept maps and more. Not only did we build them but we put them to work and found applications to each of jobs outside of the course. Instructors helped me stretch my use of these valuable tools and guided me in linking them together for ease of access and application. In our discussion groups we addressed the challenges of teaching students in this age of technology when our backgrounds, budgets, audiences, and resources span the gamut of possible combinations and complexities. We evaluated samples of each others work and each found growth and improvement through the feedback we received.
I cannot emphasize how valuable this month has been to me in terms of really fine-tuning and motivating my own skills as an educator!
Thank you, thank you, thank you to our fabulous instructor and students!!!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wikis
I like wikis and have used them in my high school classes for a variety of group projects. One thing I've done with a general bio class is to assign each student a topic of review for an exam. I make a page for each of them to edit in advance and they have a rubric of what is expected for the page. On the due date, the entire class reviews each page and then we can add to it as needed and get an active review while peer editing for each other. I've had some interesting results with this and am going to use it again this year to review for our final exam.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
More thoughts on RSS feeds
In terms of using RSS feeds with my students, I think we could do current news/events by connecting to a science feed. Every day as a start up to class my students could select one of the new headlines to explore. I have a SMARTboard so I could just have the Google reader opened up that feed and then let them decide which one to read about as a warmup. It would keep the topics current and give them some choice in exploring things that might be of particular interest to them. It also will serve to broaden some cultural horizons as those feeds come from all over the world and often are about things you might not have expected if you confine yourself to your normal neighborhood (in other words the culture in which you grew up)! I will continue to think of more ways to incorporate this into the class!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
RSS feeds
I've seen the RSS link on blogs and other sites and I've had RSS feeds through various news agencies, but I did not fully realize that you could also do an RSS feed on anyones blog!!! I think it is very cool. I still feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that comes through at a constant pace, but it is nice to be able to filter through headlines and look for those things that might be particularly applicable.
This starts to make me think about how important that head line is in terms of being descriptive and concise!!!
I've signed up for two new blogs - one is Curious Cat: Science and Engineering Blog and Science Blog Channel. The first gives links and information on STEM related education which is an area I'm strongly interested in. The second is science as it happens and it allows me to really find active, current news to use at the time in classroom - kids like to feel they are first to hear it!!!
This starts to make me think about how important that head line is in terms of being descriptive and concise!!!
I've signed up for two new blogs - one is Curious Cat: Science and Engineering Blog and Science Blog Channel. The first gives links and information on STEM related education which is an area I'm strongly interested in. The second is science as it happens and it allows me to really find active, current news to use at the time in classroom - kids like to feel they are first to hear it!!!
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