Best In Show Liver Cookies

BIS/BOSS Ch. Jamaica Paint Me Conspicuous TD CGC TDI

My friend Teresa Nash shared this recipe with me. Based upon the number of Best In Shows she has piloted dogs to and that Trip & I were using this EXACT recipe to earn his Best in Show and multiple group placements, the name has been modified to represent its real power!! ;-)

1 lb beef liver
1 lb bacon (cut into smaller pieces and microwave to speed up the cooking time. Drain on paper towels).
1/2 lb shredded cheddar cheese (I usually add more on top before baking)
1 C cornmeal
1 C flour
1 T garlic powder (you can use more/less as you want)
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350F and spray sheet pan with cooking spray. Puree liver in food processor or blender, add 2 eggs and 1 lb COOKED bacon, garlic and continue to puree. Pour into bowl, mixing in dry ingredients until you have a stiff mixture. Add some water to thin so it's easier to spread into the pan (I probably add about a 1/4 C). Should be consistency of drop cookies. Spread out on a greased cookie sheet for brownies. Bake 20 minutes or until dry looking on top. Pat with paper towels to remove grease that may have come to the top from the bacon and cheeses. Cut into pieces and refrigerate or freeze.

Enjoy!!

Andrea & Trip

Tique's Obedience High In Trial Liver Brownies

There are many variations on this recipe and, while the others may be good, this one is really the absolute best! I think it is because of the texture...it's a great training treat and was one of Tique's absolute favorites. I have to give credit to my trainer AnneMarie Silverton for this one.

2 lbs beef liver
3 C flour
1 C wheat germ
1 t garlic power
2/3 C dark molassas

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Puree liver, mix the reaming ingredients. Pour and spread in greased 8 1/2 x 13 pan. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes. It's done when edges are pulling away from the side of the pan. Cool, cut and freeze in smaller portions.

Frosty Paws

In keeping with my promise to my students to share Tique-tested and Trip-approved recipes, here is a summer favorite!!

Frosty Paws

32 oz vanilla yogurt
1 mashed banana or one large jar of baby fruit
2 T peanut butter
2 T honey
Blend together and freeze in either 3 oz paper cups or ice cube trays. Serve ala carte!!


Andrea Meinhart

You wanna mess with me?

I've often said that Viva is the top dog in my house but to look at them day to day, you'd never know it. Last night she proved it once again.

My neighbors have a rather elderly bulldog mix. Generally she's okay, but she has a very bad habit of doing a roaring bum's rush on me when I try to get to my car. Yesterday morning she scared the bejeezus out of me when I was getting ready to go to work and almost got to my feet before she backed off.

Last night I took Viva and Cala with me to pick Zipper up from his Min Pin Play Date. When I load the dogs in the car, Viva goes out off leash and Cala on leash. Viva is 100% reliable. Cala, not so much. I wasn't paying that much attention and I rounded the back of the van to pop the latch when here came Pippi, charging and roaring. Cala of course immediately fired off a series of barks, which Pippi summarily ignored.

Viva hackled up and took two steps forward, positioning herself a bit forward of Cala, with herself between Pippi and me.

Pippi stopped dead.

Viva lowered her head.

Pippi fell suddenly silent, turned around, and walked back onto her property.

Viva huffed a "well that's done" and waited for me to finish opening the hatch. She then hopped in and settled down. Job done. Just another day at the office.

Yep, she's boss bitch. And every dog she encounters knows it.

The new weaves have arrived.

Viva weaving in her younger days.

Our new weaves finally came in yesterday. It's been a bit of a crazy time trying to get them. Show Me ordered a set and CCSC ordered a set, and they should have been here 2 or 3 weeks ago, giving us plenty of time to practice on them before the trial. Instead they arrived yesterday. So now we have two days to practice on them instead of two weeks.

Why do we need to practice on these weaves, you ask? Because the spacing on these weaves is quite a bit wider than it is on the other sets we own. See, here's the story (and you know I always have a story!) When agility started, people really just sort of threw things together as obstacles. Weave poles were replicating pole bending in horse sports and the originators thought, "well, they need to be spaced tight enough that dogs have to work a bit to get through them." Weave pole spacing (the area between each pole) is now pretty widely variable, anywhere from 18" to 24". Our previous poles were 21".

But the agility world also started noticing something. We had a huge increase in shoulder tendon and ligament injuries in larger dogs. Bicepital tendonitis is almost an epidemic in bigger dogs who have been competing for any length of time. We're also seeing a fair amount of spinal spondylosis. And some of us think these long-term chronic injuries are happening when bigger dogs weave. Especially fast bigger dogs.

When a fast big dog weaves, he single-steps. What that means is, he places one single foot out to the side and shoves against that foot to push through one weave pole. He then does the same thing with the other foot to do the next weave. It's sort of a swimming motion. And it forces the dog's front to do something it's not supposed to do--push the foreleg straight out horizontally from the body. Big dogs also have to really torque their spines going through weaves.

So when we knew we had to have new weaves for this trial, I consulted with several agility lists and an AKC rep, and we decided to go for 24" spacing, in part because it looks like AKC may mandate that spacing in their next set of rule changes (it's been a rule in Europe for years), and in part because I think it's the right thing to do. Short term, we may have a few dogs this weekend who have to adapt their rhythm. Long term, it's better and safer for all the dogs. And when it comes down to it, dogs who know how to weave are going to weave, regardless of spacing.

So a-weaving we will go!

Jump Class update

If you read my last blog, you'll know that Zipper had decided that jump class was quite boring, thank-you-very-much. And he'd rather be doing something else.

This week I decided to be prepared. I knew that I might need to do some extra lead-in jumps to each problem if he was being draggy, and I brought very yummy treats too.

Well for whatever reason, Zip decided that he liked the class this week. Which is a good thing because his handler had to keep trying one of the sequences because she couldn't get it right, which meant that he repeated just that one sequence four or five times. But he was cheerful about it, which is good.

I've probably written this before, but in agility, the skills the dog learns to physically negotiate the obstacles are important. I've put in the basics on Zipper and he's confident on all the obstacles. He has lovely jumping form and is rapidly conquering the intricacies of weaves. Most importantly, he thinks agility is fun and it has become self-rewarding for him.

Though it's the foundation of what comes later, the dog skill part of the agility equation is just a tiny drop in the bucket of what we will need to learn to become a team. Zipper still needs to learn to read my hand and shoulder cues. I need to learn which cues work best for him and when to use them. Coming from handling a big dog, I've got to totally reset how I think about which crosses to put in where, what his line will be and how to shape it. Where do I need to be on the course in relation to Zipper's position in order to help him figure out what I want? Which hand should I use when? I must guard against stooping and bending over, a very bad habit that's easy to fall into when you have a little dog. Do I need a verbal directional? Or not? I've been training one but haven't yet tied it to jumps, only spins.

I'm learning that Zipper is right footed. That means he prefers to turn right rather than left and that I need to help him be more flexible on his left. Knowing that will also help me know how to run him; he'll probably turn tighter to the right than to the left, so I'll need extra turn space when I need him to go left than when the next obstacle is to the right.

And that's just the start. I usually estimate that it takes two years of actually trialling with a dog before you really start to become a team. Before you're a team, you can have a lot of success but it sometimes feels crunchy or awkward. After you become a team, for the most part you and the dog just KNOW what you're going to do, what works and what doesn't, and when you run, you are extensions of each other, thinking and moving as one.

It's no wonder that newbies to agility have a very tough time with their first dog. This sport is incredibly fun and rewarding, but easy it is not! It looks easy and effortless, especially when done right. But there's an awful lot of training that goes into that looking easy part. New handlers are having to both learn how to train their dog for the skills the dog needs *and* how to learn the separate skills they need. Here I am, on my third agility dog, and I've got to work through all these things too. I have a bit more on the ball than the true newbies on how to train those basic skills, but this biggest part of the puzzle, the handling game, is something I have to struggle with along with everybody else. Because each dog is different and there's always something that may work better with this dog too.

So I'm grateful to my little 10# dog for putting up with me stumbling around last night trying one cross, then another, then yet another. Each time he showed me what worked for him and what did not. Because at the same time I'm training him, he's training me.

He doesn't like it! Now what?

This class session, I started a new class with Zipper. It's the Jump 3 class. Taught by the eminently capable Deb Heifner, this class is for dogs who basically know how to jump but need to learn some of the more common patterns seen in the agility ring like serpentines, pinwheels, 270s, 180s, etc.

In Jump 3, dogs are starting to cue in on handler motion and how to use that motion to know where to go and which way to turn. It's actually a very cool class and I'm having a blast.

Zipper, however, is not.

The first week, Zipper was very blah at first. He acted hot. And tired. And I could not get him going. Finally he decided to attack a huge toy, and I was able to use that to get him excited and going. He completed the class with verve and style.

But again last week, Zipper was flat. He was distracted, slow, and sniffy. At best he cantered. This time a toy didn't really do that much for him. He got through the class but was clearly demotivated. Once again I wondered if it was conditions. It was warm and he was panting rather heavily. However, when I took him over to the big ring, he suddenly came alive. He flew over contacts and jumps, running flat out, and giving the huffy little steam-engine pants he does when he's happy and having fun.

Hmmmm. So it's not the conditions. It's the class.

What to do...what to do. I love the class. Further, this is stuff Zipper needs to learn and it will benefit us in the long run. On the other hand, he's a young green dog and if he's demotivated too often it may carry over. Zipper has "happy drive," which means he appears to have lots of drive, and he does, when he's happy. But he's soft. He doesn't have the "do it or die" work ethic of my dobes. He does this for fun and because I like it. He likes it too, but not so much that he couldn't turn off to it if he felt too challenged. That's why I've treated him with kid gloves all the way along.

So now I have a decision. Keep going with the class and try to motivate him? Quit the class and just work in the big ring? Quit the class and come back to it later?

For this week, the answer will be to come to class and work with Deb to see if we can light him up. This class IS hard for green dogs. The jumps are tight and they have to repeat things sometimes. He doesn't like repeating. So maybe we don't repeat. And maybe we do a few extra jumps on our way to the problem. I'm sure Deb and I will come up with something, and I'll keep you guys posted.

Comrades in a Storm

Somehow playing agility on a Friday afternoon is supposed to be relaxing & fun - time away from work, taking a 3-day weekend with the dog - something that makes them "smile" and time with friends rehashing the last run, a run last week, or "Remember when we were at that trial in ..."

Well, this week it was the start of a 3-day trial in Glen Carbon, IL, at "The Game". Perfect conditions - relatively small trial, air-conditioned, on soccer turf. The part that is not mentioned in the premium for the trial is the weather. As all of us know, this spring/summer has been an active weather season. I left Columbia in the morning in a deluge - and I was a bit tired from waking and then staying awake with the line of storms that went through circa 3 a.m. Arriving in Glen Carbon and unloading the 3 crates for others arriving later, the sheets, the water containers, the chairs, the training bag, the leads, setting up and letting Baker have his beloved crate, it started to rain. No big deal, we were inside and the trial had started.

The afternoon was peppered with periodic rain and it got warmer & more humid. Baker had a nice Jumpers run - until he met his nemesis, the weaves. It was an off-side entrance (his preferred) and he went along nicely for 5 of the 12 poles and then decided to skip one, make 2, skip another and ended up in the wrong place as he finished. The consequence (apart from seeing the judges hands go up for a Wrong course and then a Failure to complete an obstacle) was that he was in the wrong place for the next jump - which he missed. Oh, well.

The focus for us shifted to the Standard ring (the course with the A-frame, dog-walk, teeter, etc.). This time instead of being entertained by the dogs competing at the other jump heights, "stuff" began to happen. The lights went out, the thunder rumbled and clapped overhead. some dogs began to yodel and some to whine and some to howl, some dogs were nervy with the storming when it began to hail (on a metal roof, it was loud) and then the sirens sounded.

The Game is your basic open structure so the big question was Where to go? The building sits on the edge of a flat set of filed (now with corn only 2-3" high and standing pools of water). You can see all the way to downtown St. Louis and the Arch. The consensus was to move the "interior": a set of men's and a women's locker rooms.

I chose the Women's as the door was directly behind my crating area. Apparently the Men's locker room became co-ed. Baker & I picked a corner on the floor with a bench to our left. The room rapidly filled up - in an orderly fashion.

By the time all was said and done, our area held 25 women and 35 dogs. From what I recall among the breeds packed into this space were Golden Retriever (Golden), Bearded Collie (Beardie), Brittany, Shetland Sheep dog (Sheltie), Border Collie (BC), Beagle, Labrador Retriever (Lab), Australian Shepherd (Aussie), French Bull Dog (Frenchie), Belgian Malinois (Mal), soft-coated Wheaon Terrier (Wheatie), Boxer, Papillon (Pap), Cocker Spaniel (Cocker), Beagle, and my English Springer Spaniel. Large and small, male and female, intact and neutered, all quiet and contained. Waiting and wondering (all of a sudden the great big building didn't feel particular substantial.

I have no idea how long we were there - at least 3 but less than 15 minutes. The air-conditioning was off and it was hot and stuffy, but the dogs and their owners were remarkable for their ability to share a limited space. It reminded me, among other things, that we can expect more from ourselves and our dogs than we presently do. The dogs are not "born bad" and they can,even in trying times, coexist with each other If the expectation is that they WILL be civilized and they WILL behave.

After the line of storms passed the competition resumed. Mr. B was still of a mind to enter the weaves and then slip one. Oh Well! Tomorrow is a clean slate (and hopefully without a weather feature).

Ginger