Weaves and Crates

I got home just in time to get Iris to class on Thurs. When I pulled into the driveway, I was greeted by Henry Beagle's howling and Iris' high-pitched yelping. This is not a good sign. I could see both faces in the window. Really not a good sign.

Henry gets the run of the house when no one is home. He moves from couch to couch and doesn't cause much trouble. His goal is to sleep on every piece of furniture at some point during the day. Iris needs to be crated, so she should not be looking out the window at me. When left out, Iris' goal is to ward off every truck, car, person, dog, leaf, sound, spirit, and who knows what else that passes the house. My brother must have forgotten to put her in the crate.

Iris stopped baking when I got closer to the house. Beagles don't actually know how to stop barking once they start. Iris is literally foaming at the mouth. She's panting really quickly. The windows are covered in dripping saliva. The area around the windows is wet with more spit. Things around the windows have been knocked over. There's still water in the dog bowls, but I'm still worried about her being dehydrated. And she's still breathing quickly. Thankfully, neither dog had an accident in the house. I tried to pick up quickly and then threw Iris, still drooling and foaming, in the car to get to class.

Iris was still doing the really fast panting when we got to class. I kept her outside and just walked her around for bit. It seemed to me like it was taking too long for her breathing to slow down, so I didn't want to jump right into agility. After sitting with her a bit, she did relax. Good for her because she didn't have much longer before I decided to bring her to the vet instead of agility. I think she was just so stressed and geared up from being left out all day, she took and little bit to calm down (getting in the car and arriving at agility probably didn't help calm her down).

I figured I was going to have a complete b*tch for class since she was already so far over her threshold, but she was actually better than I expected. She was a bit of a b*tch, but she wasn't the only one. Was there a full moon? When I did get Iris settled down enough to play agility, she was awesome! She was definitely tired, but she actually ran the full course! I think this was the first time she was focused enough to finish the course. Maybe I need to bring an exhausted dog to class more often. She's still not doing weaves without cages, but she's definitely making progress. We'll just keep practicing. We have next week off from class, so we can still focus on weaves.

That was our last weaves class. In June, we'll be taking the Five Directions (agility) and Competition Heeling. I'm also going to try and get Iris up to Little Dove Farm for the Beginner Herding Day on June 28th. I'd like to get her into the Jan Wesen Clinic in September too.

Maybe there is an upside to having weekends off from work.