- Oh no, I just stepped in poop.
That's one thing that drives me crazy
is when people don't clean up after their dogs.
I mean, if you're taking your dog for a walk,
bring a poop bag!
I don't know what the point is of
letting your dog poop all over the place,
especially if you're gonna go walk there again.
Drives me crazy.
(squeaky dog barking)
Kind of a dull and dreary day today
it looks like it's gonna rain and I know that
thunderstorms are in the forecast so
I thought I'd come out with
Hippy Shake and Deegan
and go for a little walk before the rain comes
so hopefully we make it through our walk
without getting drenched
cause I didn't bring any wet weather gear.
(peaceful electronic music)
Some people talk about their heart dog and
our logo is, in fact, a heart dog.
Deegan is the dog that basically changed my life.
I had her from when she was born,
I got her as a puppy.
And when she was about two,
she started to be quite difficult
and she actually ate a sock
and I had to take her for an emergency surgery.
I had grown up around dogs.
My parents raised and trained working dogs basically,
but they weren't pet dogs.
So I was a little hesitant to take her to
like a family obedience class,
but all of my neighbors and actually my vet
recommended taking her to McCann professional dog trainers.
And I'm so glad that I did.
After a couple of weeks, I started to see her change.
It was such a dramatic thing for me.
Basically, at that time, it was so gratifying
to see this wild and crazy black lab
become a biddable dog that was so much more fun
to work with, to play retrieve with
and do all the things you want your dog to do,
that I fell in love with dog training.
I spent, you know, the next year or so training Deegan
and I was there so often that Marty and Deb asked
if I wanted to become an instructor,
so basically it's like a year long apprenticeship.
I did my apprenticeship,
again, loving every moment of it.
There's something really special about
seeing a dog build a relationship with their owner.
Especially when that dog comes in
and they're wild and crazy and you can see them
start to work a little bit for their owner.
Not because they have to, but because they want to.
And that was amazing for me so
I finished my year long apprenticeship
and I became a trainer.
That was maybe ten years ago now.
And it's,
this dog has basically changed my life.
This dog has changed the people that I've
been introduced to and the relationships that I have.
And has introduced me to a bunch of people
that I wouldn't have met otherwise.
So at the time, I really wasn't that excited
about training her but looking back,
it's incredible the difference that
she's made in my life.
(upbeat electronic music)
After that swim, it's pretty apparent that
Deegan is in desperate need of a brushing.
Her coat is really coming out.
She often does sort of blow her coat a couple times a year.
And it's pretty bad right now
so we're gonna have to address that when we get home.
- Hey, good morning.
I've been missing in action.
I should say good afternoon actually.
I've been missing in action a little bit today
because I've been buried in front of my computer.
I have a really big agility camp
that I'm hosting this weekend at the agility arena
and I have been trying to come up with
some really creative games and courses
and all kinds of stuff.
We're covering some pretty cool topics so
it's forcing me to get my creative juices going.
Which is actually a lot of fun.
And I have to come up with some prizes
and some things like that before the end of the week.
So hopefully I can come up with something good.
Anyways, I just thought I would take a break
and train little Pop-Pop here on a few things.
We don't have a huge yard here.
Obviously I can go to a big giant arena
whenever I want to but it's great to have a few things
here so I can pop out whenever I want to throughout the day
And just do like a little bit quick with her.
And tonight, unfortunately,
we have to miss our agility class.
We take two agility classes a week.
Foundation Agility classes at our hall.
At our agility arena.
And we also take two obedience classes a week
so she's really busy.
Oh, did you find something?
I think somebody's ready to go.
So, tonight though, I have to cover for somebody
instead of being able to take class
which is still fun too, of course.
So I thought I would get some extra training in
now before I have to go to work tonight.
So yeah, hopefully we try something fun today.
(upbeat electronic music)
I have 30 minutes before dinner is ready.
I have a countdown on my phone
so I'm quickly taking these guys to the park
because I have an extremely bad habit
of after teaching all night
and not seeing my best friends in the whole world
who I happen to teach with,
we get chatty and there's not a lot
of dog training that goes on.
Unless we like, make an effort.
But I teach with my good friend, Angela on Monday nights
and it has been like three weeks since we've seen each other
so anyways, I'm really looking forward
to like, sit down and have a conversation with her.
We're so busy, it's hard to stay in touch.
Anyways, so exercising the dogs now.
So if I don't train, I don't feel as guilty.
These guys are having fun though.
Especially this little one.
Miss Hippy Shake!
Up, up!
Yes!
Hippy needs a haircut really bad.
She's gonna get one this week.
Good girl.
Ready? Go!
(dog squealing)
(laughing)
She loves to do that, it makes me laugh so hard.
- I don't know if you guys have ever used a Furr-manator but
these things are really really great.
If anybody's a lab owner, they know this.
They know what this is all about.
When you're lab starts to shed.
She must be the hairiest dog
or the sheddiest dog we've got.
- [Girl] The sheddiest dog?
- Yeah. Yeah.
I know that's not a word but--
- [Girl] Did she come with that leaf on her too?
- I think the leaf wasn't on her at first.
But it may have ended up on her.
But if you're a bird in this area,
you're pretty excited that we have a lab.
- [Girl] Yeah, we have the best going rate
for bird house material.
- This is a Serta mattress for a bird somewhere.
(laughing)
- So the beginning of the week is pretty busy for me
I teach 13 classes, agility classes a week.
Five different levels from foundation
ranging all the way up to international handling.
And we just had a brand new session start on
Tuesday night so I went ahead and asked them
what their goals were for the next 8 weeks
and they sent back a bunch of ideas.
So I love that because I can both
help them accomplish whatever goals they have
and it also give me an opportunity
to be more creative with classes.
So this week we have lots of fun stuff
that we're gonna be doing.
There's some pretty challenging obstacle
contact tunnel discriminations,
we're gonna be doing working on getting the dogs
to slice across the bars when they are at open angles
which tends to be for a lot of the
bigger and faster border collies
a really easy place for them to knock bars.
Weave distractions with tunnels and jumps
and all kinds of stuff really really close
around them so the dogs have to learn to sort through that
and then a bigger scale course where
they're gonna be focusing on
using the difference between front crosses
and blind crosses and where
each of those things in best suited.
And then also working on
German turns which is more international style
maneuver which a lot of people struggle with.
So I'll be doing that in my more advanced classes.
So it should be a good week.
I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things
last week was pretty easy because
there weren't as many classes because of the holiday.
And this week we're right back at it again.
(electronic music)
It's the last class of the night.
It's our international handling class.
And there's a few people away today so
it's a small class which has been awesome
cause these guys get to do the course like
a bunch of times.
So we're just about to try the one where there's
like a million German turns in
18 obstacles or something so
we'll try and get a couple shots for you.
(electronic music)
Hey guys, we just finished class.
We just came in here to debrief a little bit.
Now Ang and I teach a couple of the classes tonight
and then the last one she actually takes with her dog.
With Cecil, and how did you think class went tonight?
- It was good. It was hard.
Lots of running, lots of running.
- I made her run a lot tonight.
Now Ang is getting ready with Cecil for
what competition do you have next?
- AAC Nationals in BC.
- Yeah, so all the way out in British Columbia
where she's gonna be trying out for
the AAC World Championship team
with her Aussie, Cecil so that's gonna be awesome.
So yeah, we're both tuckered out.
We've done our chatting.
We did little bit of training with the puppies,
and now we're going to bed.
- Time for bed. - Hopefully
we get home before midnight.
Okay good night everyone!
See you tomorrow.
- Good night.
(video game music)