Spur's very first double Q and a nice one at that!

Did another AKC trial, just the one day. GREAT trial, they run it SO well. Do all the Excellent runs first, starting with Jumpers, then Standard. So, we are done before noon!!! FREAKIN' awesome! Spur's Jumpers was fine, not super fast, but clean. His first run of the day is never his fastest. That's why USDAA suits him so well, the more runs the better he gets! But, it was still good enough for a fourth place from a very large 12" class. Largest class of the trial. And he was the ONLY mixed breed dog there! He ROCKED it!!!

His Standard was SMOKIN' for a third place and only by hundreds of a second! :D Good Little Monkey Pants!!! The crowd went nuts!! He has SUCH a big fan club! Just getting to the line is fun. He greats all his fans and they all pump him up. GREAT fun!!!! His dog walk hit was a little high because he did a 2-3-2 stride, but he got it. Barely. :P I really must instruct my people to zoom.



Was home by 2:00 and had a nice long farm walk. Just a perfect way to have a trial!

Saturday we worked on turns after the DW. Silvia wants front feet hits only now, so they land with hind feet to make a tight turn. Spur is hitting with both front and back, but always landing front first. I think his turns look fine, though, and to be pickier seems unnecessary. I sent her this video for review.

Happy Birthday Spur-Minator, Spur Man, Spur de Blur, Mr. Monkey Pants!!!

These went in the wrong order, so try scrolling from the bottom up to get a better time sequence!! These are some of my favorite photos of the little guy!!

Spur de Blur!!!!

Thanks Joy Elliot for this lovely shot!!!!

Helen Peppe took this one. He stole BAM!'s ball!!

Helen Peppe took this one, too!

And this one.....

Nice tail!!! :P

Just home for Christmas!!!

At the Bishop Street shelter. Poor little munchin. :(

Hard to believe he is four years old. Where does the time go? I still call him Baby Spur! I think he will always be our baby until we get one younger. He's still a baby compared to the Pin Heads, for sure. He is the sweetest and most charming dog we have ever had. Just a pleasure! I love him so much!!!

Just some more running dog walk work

At home he is faster and it's causing some different striding. That's running dog walk speak for leaps. "Different striding". He is wanting to do a two strided down and he can't do that! His most comfortable is a three strided down.

See -


I am going to see if I can work through this before running to Silvia for help. Hopefully, we can work it out. He does know his job, I am sure of that, but it is a fine line with running dog walks!

Our Daily Teeter!

Last winter as I put away my teeter I noticed the plank was rotting. I took it off the base and used it as a running plank for our RDW work. Works fine for that.

But, that meant I had no teeter over the winter. I don't usually, but that might have been a good idea. Either in the basement or the barn, so Spur could keep at it with his teeter work. The lack of that meant several refused teeters at trials over the winter.

So, I painted a new plank in March and put it on my base and have had it outside set up as a precursor to our daily walks. It's right on our way out and I send him and do several before we take our walks. Sometimes I ask for a few bang it games. But, mostly I just tell him to GO TARGET (my cue for the teeter) as we head out and he charges to it each time, good little Monkey Pants!!!! He hasn't refused one since! Yay!! It's a constant issue and probably always will be.

USDAA trial report!

We had a GREAT day on Saturday!! First Roscoe, got the gamble which had a teeter 16.5' away!! He nailed it, good little gamble dog!! But, we ran out of time because the buzzer went off and we were in horrible position on the far end of the ring, damn it!! It was a hard gamble and very few were getting it.

Then he had to run pairs after being pulled from the car during major thunder. His tail was down, ears sagged, I wasn't sure he would run. But, several turkey meatballs later and he ran fine!! Helped a friend get her championship with that run and that felt GREAT!!!! Good little Roscoe is SO consistent I told her if anyone could help her it was Roscoe and he did! She has NQ'ed with a bunch of other partners, so this felt great!!!!! YAY!!!

Now for Spur de Blur!! OMG, he was ON FIRE!! He is blossoming right in front of my eyes! First run was a SMOKIN' jumpers with one tiny refusal where I simply did not support the jump enough. He was FLYING!!!! Then got snookered in snooker, oh well, fun course! Forget the gamble with a teeter 16.5' away!!

Now for his wins! He won standard with the second fastest time of ALL the P dogs!!!! :D He looked great!!!! Love his dog walk on this run!! Just perfect.



Then he also won PGP for a voucher!! YAY!! His first PGP win!!! He wasn't impressed with the teeter third obstacle, but he managed. His time would have been sub 40 had he nailed the teeter. That wee hesitation put his time at 41.07.

Videos

I did not think he was super fast, but he had nice contacts here and did the "Jackpot", which was the tunnel to the back side of the jump, then a-frame and jump (for those who don't know, in a jackpot there is a line on the floor that the handler can not cross and the dogs must do the obstacles from that distance). Not many people got it, so I was pretty proud of the young guy. The crowd cheers were sweet! He is definitely a fan favorite!!! And he wracked up more points than anyone. :D



Then in standard he refused the teeter. It was a much softer landing and quieter teeter, but just being that it was different worried him. I made him do it, then he really picked up speed, good man. He missed the entry to the first set of six poles, which is SO not like him, but it was definitely a different set up with two sets of poles to discriminate and visually strange. Fun course for CPE, which can normally be quite simple. I thought he did the serpentine quite well and I managed my front crosses nicely!! (Pat, pat, pat on the back for ME! LOL!!)

GREAT weekend trial report from BARK!!

Our team Q'd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was HUGE!!! I have screwed it up twice for team, so I really wanted to pull my weight this time. Spur was ready and he LOVES the BARK site and busy trial, so it was his turn to shine and SHINE he did!! I only have one video I will post later. I really must get better at grabbing someone to video because he had some awesome runs! Nailed his contacts every time!!

We had one very frustrating NQ in team jumpers when my hand whacked one of the poles and TWEET we got an E. I didn't really understand that because later in the day a friend ran into a one of the tunnels and got a 5 point fault. So, how is that different from my hand touching the poles?

Anyway, regardless of that bobble and my team mate having two E's Spur had some extra good runs to boost our point rating and put us 12. The top 15 teams Q'd, so we pulled it off!! YAY!!! I am SO very happy. I just hated to cause an NQ AGAIN, so it felt really great to get that Team Q yesterday. Especially with Spur running SO well. He beat Blink and won his standard run on Saturday which felt incredibly good. Yes, I know he spent some time making sure Blink stayed on his contacts, but STILL on the score sheet Spur was before Blink!!! Wahooooo!!! Just to be able to say we beat Blink is HUGE!!! :D Feels really good.

Then all weekend I kept hearing people talking about Spur. "Who is that cute little black-tri dog who is doing so well??" and one person asking my friend Cindy about him and then saying......"And he's fast, too!!".......I just beamed!!!! That guy made a point to come up to me and comment about how nice a dog he is. I felt like the proudest mamma!!!! Other people who know him also made comments. And all were well deserved, he did awesome!!!

Roscoe ran first all weekend, so hearing me pull Roscoe out and run him first caused a bit of jealousy and by the time I returned and pulled him out he was so HIGH!!! Screaming to run!! He was very fun! Had a BALL!!!!

Roscoe ran great, too, but his team mate made some major bobbles and we didn't get a team Q. Roscoe never E'd, good little man!!! Got "snookered", but still got 22 points, and he got tons of points in gamble, so he sure pulled off his part of the deal!! That's OK Roscoe already has two team Q's and we really don't need a Q for anything. He's twelve, I don't have plans for him other than slowing down some and taking it easier. He ran two nice runs on Saturday, placing third in Standard and getting a lovely gamble Q. Good little old man!!! I believe he ended up top over-all 12" dog in the performance point standings!! :D It was very good weekend!!!!

Spur's gamble run. I must have lost my balance and veered off, pulling him off the a-frame, damn it! It was a pretty easy gamble we should have gotten. But, I am SO pleased with his dog walks. Especially the second one. He was going pretty fast, good little man!!! Got off the start line a little slow. You can see the plexiglass window was rattling for some reason. I think that happened when people came in the door on that side of the building. Strange and it bothered him a little as we set up, but then he recovered nicely and took off!!!

Weekend trial report!

Saturday was AKC. Spur did GREAT!! His first run was FAST and he was ON FIRE!! I love in the video when Kim says......"OMG, look at him GO!!!". He was FLYING and that caused him to jump over the finish jump and end our run without collecting enough points. Oh well, I am thrilled at how happy and fast he was and how awesome his dog walk was!!!



Then he Q'd and won his Open standard!! Yay!! One more leg and he moves up to Excellent. He did a nice teeter and again and awesome dog walk.



Then he ran clean and fast in his Excellent Jumpers. Good little Monkey Pants!!

Roscoe double q'd for number 17 I believe. He was awesome in standard and a little off in jumpers, but he did fine. Not his most favorite location.

Sunday was CPE here in town. Spur, again, was ON FIRE!!! He did the teeter nicely!!! The dog walk was a nice set up with tunnel dog walk tunnel. Great fun and he did awesome until his last standard style run. Looks like he missed all three contacts!! He was really pumped and even though the judge didn't call any of them the video (which I deleted because I don't want to look at it!!!) he clearly missed. Maybe one toe in one, darn it. It was fullhouse, so I could do it three times and I guess the tunnel dog walk tunnel was just too exciting. Or the fact that since Silvia's approval we haven't trained it at all and it was something we were training weekly. Time to do a little training, I guess. Just a wee reminder of his job. All in all, I am really pleased because the ones he got were super good. And he was SO happy!!!

He had some incredible scores. His jackpot score was 60 points. More than anyone else by nearly 20 points! He had the highest snooker score. This is the WHOLE group, Muffin Heads, all levels, all dogs, all heights. He blew everyone away!!! He was simply having a great time!!! Barking at all his fans, running his heart out, he had a great weekend!!!

I do have some of the CPE videos, but they are REALLY blurry and I haven't loaded them, yet. I was tired last night and in bed by about 8:30. I think he is ready for our team event in a couple weeks at BARK. I DO plan to get a team Q that weekend!!!

Spur's running contacts! YAY!

Silvia said....."your project is finished". So, we haven't done any more training on it. What I have had to do is some teeter work. Not having a teeter to do every single day really hurt. He refused it several times at class and trials. I finally painted a new plank and put it together and he now does it every day on our way out for our farm walks. It is helping, a LOT!!

This video is from a match yesterday. He wasn't super fast like in training, but pretty fast for being nervous at a trial-like setting. And good contacts every time. Very deep in two of them. And look at that fairly confident teeter. And that is a LOUD, scary teeter!!! Good little Monkey Pants!!



We have had several trials since stopping the training work and he has not missed a contact. It sure seems to be a very solid behavior for him. He really is brilliant and tries so hard for me! I love the little guy! He is really starting to enjoy the work without worry.

Worshipping at the Silvia Trkman church and a sad day for animal welfare........

We have been doing our "homework". She asked everyone to try teaching their dogs to hold a bottle or object. She wants to see as many dogs as possible learning this behavior. She calls it a "thinking trick", meaning the dog has to actually think on their own about a chain of behaviors. Ultimately, to pick it up and hold it without our help. Spur, in four short (five minutes each) sessions, figured out I wanted him to hold it. He has chosen the one arm hold, but has offered with both a couple of times. He seems to prefer one arm. Curious if I promoted his left arm or if he is naturally left "handed". Next to see if I can get him to pick it up himself, instead of me having to offer it to him. This stage almost seemed too easy for him. He's so smart!!! -



The Pin Heads are still at the paw grabbing the pole stage, which is the start of this trick. They are so frantic and offer a million behaviors it is hard to click for the paw grabbing hold for any length of time, but they are getting it. I know once they get that it will come quickly. Spur is my thinker and thinks things through very carefully and thoughtfully.

And to those of you who are not from here or are from here and live in a bubble, not reading facebook, the news or watching TV, it was a very sad week for animal welfare. The kennel owners of the puppymill bust where Spur came from got off "Scott free" this week. Barely a slap on the wrist. In 17 months they can be back in puppymill business again. It is a horrible travesty of justice that occured and I have no explanation. Just a very, very sad thing.

The state spent hundreds of thousands of dollars caring for these dogs, the least that could have happened was for these two asshole to foot some of that bill. They caused the problem, they should pay. It is just not right. I am sorry my sweet Spur, no justice for you I am sad to say......

Why couldn't we be last???

Last place team got some nice gift baskets!! Darn it! We were second to last. :P

It was a GREAT trial, ran smoothly and fast, we were done by 1:00 yesterday so I managed to get home and get a nice farm walk and even my jobs done early! Yay!

My team had too many E's. They were all very simple E's, but an E is an E and that hurt us. Spur ran GREAT, though, and I am very happy. His tail was WHIPPING back and forth on the start line each run, he took off really fast, he ran his heart out this weekend. We got many comments, so I couldn't be happier, really. And my teammate was cool about not qualifying and was pleased her dog only knocked bars the first couple runs. I guess he is a bar knocker.

I feel like Spur and I are finally figuring things out. Our start line is SO much better. I just grab his little body and focus him on the first obstacle and off we go. It is working!!! I think of the years of working on a start line behavior with Roscoe and never really figuring it out. With Spur it just happened one day. He was SO wanting to go say HI to the leash runner, so I had to grab him and make him stay focused. He didn't really like it, but it essentially took his options away, keeping him focused on his job. He is such a social butterfly it is hard to tear him away from the leash runner, at times. So, this works. And has worked now for several trials and I see him bolting off the start faster every time. It's cool! We are evolving!!!

Great weekend and I can't WAIT for his next team. I SO hope we Q next time.

Here is his standard run. He managed to hold it together to do his teeter. You can see after it that he worries about the recoil, but this is a very soft landing teeter. Then for some reason he reads the turn at the jump before the dog walk as a back cross and then back jumped it to cause an E. Oh well! There were times he looked REALLY happy and he sure had super fast weaves! Love how he starts lowering his head and diving into them as he is finishing them!! Good little Monkey Pants!!! -

Spur has his groove back!

He was FLYING today!! Our Q rate wasn't great, we E in Steeplechase due to a back jump and got an E in Team Jumpers due to a tunnel suck, but the little guy was FLYING!! He looked happy and fast! My teammate even said that....."Spur is fast!!!" That just makes my heart swell!!!

Here is Steeplechase -



Here is Team Jumpers-

What does he hear?

I sometimes think he hears things. I know when it gets really quiet he worries. He hears tiny little noises that make him worry. Chaos and loud activity and he thrives. It makes sense, he grew up in a big room full of nearly 300 dogs. It was LOUD!

Last night at Rally class he melted. Not terribly, but he wasn't his usual perky good heeler. The signs at one part of the course were tight and he always worries about bumping into them. It was warm enough to work out of the car, so instead I brought him in and had him watch me working Roscoe and Colby. That usually gets him all excited and whining. He was quiet. Listening to ................I don't even know. The only other student there was my friend with her shih tzu's. The others were absent and Steve with the crazy Malinois left early. It was quiet. He listens. And I think he hears things. I has trouble in the quiet..........

We are off tomorrow to a big USDAA team tournament event. It looks busy and hopefully will be loud and crazy! 24 PVP teams and 17 Championship teams, so that's a lot of teams. Should be loud and crazy, just like he likes it!

Spur de Blur!!!!

That's his new name! My friend Kate came up with that and it's awesome! He was a blur this weekend!!! Super pumped and happy in his jumpers runs to finish his Open title and advance to Excellent where on Sunday his time was beat only by three super fast, very experienced dogs!! Wahoooooooooo!!!

He did refuse the teeter in both standard runs, darn it. Gotta paint a new board and put my teeter together and start working on him owning that again. In the summer it is right there on our way to our walks and he charges to it every day before our walks. Now, it's taken apart because of the plank starting to rot and winter here. Time to get to the lumber yard and start the painting process ASAP. It's hurting us again at trials, poor worried buggar.

But, I can not be more pleased about his jumpers!! Jumps have always worried him. He has always jumped HUGE avoiding knocking them because oh....dear.....the sound of PVC on the floor is worth melting into a ball of mush for. That's why quiet trials worry him, he hears every knocked bar from another dog and worries and worries.

Now? He is OWNING his jumpers!!! So fun to watch him shine! He had a 29+ second run even with running over to say high to the leash runner as he came around one section!!! Mr. Social!

Open run. Starts a little slow, but then kicks in the jets! -



His first Excellent Jumpers run, good little Monkey Pants! -



Roscoe? He did fine. Not super great, but fine for two more double Q's. He may not have felt that great. Folks who know him thought he looked off. He did fine, but he may have had gas or stomach issues or sore back or who knows. He's twelve, so he is going to have some off days. He needs 3 more double Q's for his MACH. Might need a bunch of speed points, but I am not sure. He is never a fast dog. He simply isn't athletic or well built for it, but he tries and has always done well. Good little ole man!!!

I have to add that it was one of the best run AKC trials, ever. The judge was awesome! She didn't linger and kept to a tight schedule with walk throughs. You had 8 minutes and NO more, at minute 7 she would yell out....."One more minute, walk fast!!!". Her briefings were....."Know the rules, in at the tire." or whatever obstacle. That's it, that's all. No long stories about what kind of dogs she runs, where she is from, what she had for breakfast, nope just the basics. Quick, simple and efficient and everyone appreciated that. The trial was done by around 5:00 each day. Amazing for an AKC trial. I LOVE that judge!!!!

Spur's latest running session

This was our first time with 100% success rate!! Been waiting for that to happen!! GOOD LITTLE MONKEY PANTS!!!! Silvia was SO right. No surprise there. I can't wait to send her some stuff to critique and see what she says.




I know the idea is to eventually reward only running and not jumping and technically he has many "jumps" here. True running is when back feet are seperated and he does have many hits here with back feet together. Now, that said I have videoed him on the flat and he isn't a dog that runs with feet very much seperated, but they are seperated. You can see in the slow motion how when his feet are together his body has a more humped form. Feet seperated and he is more in a straight body form. It is SO subtle and REALLY hard to tell in real time, thus my use of the hit it boards, but I am getting better at seeing it. My biggest trouble is tossing the ball. I may try using my chuck-it next time. You would not think tossing a ball was so hard, but there are times when it launches high and it really needs to be tossed low along the ground. You can see his head up on the top ramp and I think those are times when the ball has been tossed too high. I would like his head lower along the top ramp, ultimately, but that's all being way too picky at this stage.

I am very pleased with this session. To have no misses is really a nice feeling. All other sessions have been around 80% success.

We have a ROCK STAR!!

Or maybe I should call him a Trial Junkie? He SO loves a busy, loud, nutty trial!! It fuels him! His contacts were all great! I got more comments about them!! Good little guy had his Monkey Pants on, for sure!!! He isn't as fast, yet, as he is when we practice, but almost! Our practice lately has been in a place he is a bit uncomfortable and so these runs are nearly as fast. I need to figure out how to time the runs. I guess maybe just get a stop watch and time the video?



I wish I had his jumpers run, but for some reason it is all blurry. That does happen if the camera doesn't "lock" on to something at the start. It was a REALLY nice jumpers run!!!

Roscoe was out of sorts. Just not himself, for sure. Strange, because he has always like this place. I think the crate room was cold. He hated to have to wear his coat all day in the crate. I had a snuggle safe disk warmed for him, but just wearing his coat is a bummer to him. Not his favorite deal, but it was too cold without it. He did fine, though, he's such a pro.

Spur FREAKIN' ROCKED!!!

I know this sounds a little snooty, but it's true........CPE isn't the most competitive venue, but I still enjoy it and the people there. It was a nice show, but I have to admit there wasn't the most intense competition there. Spur won every class, beating all dogs in all levels in each class except one. He is in level 3, but I compared to all levels just for fun. The one standard class two other dogs beat him by fractions of a second, but he did refuse the teeter. No refusals in CPE, so it was a "clean" run and he was still just fractions of a second slower than the two other dogs with faster times.

He FREAKIN' ROCKED!!! This video is Fullhouse and was his first class. You basically gather as many points as possible before the buzzer then run to the table to stop the clock. Nice first class that you can design your own course. He starts off a little slow, but then quickly picks up speed. Watch his second dog walk!! YAY Spur Man!!! That was a NICE dog walk.



I got his standard run, but that's all for video. Today I'll try to get more, if possible. I didn't stay for his jumpers score, but he was SMOKIN' and if he didn't run faster than all the other dogs I would be surprised. He was ON FIRE!! Definitely has his groove back!!!!

I know he likes it!

But, sometimes I have to remind myself. After one of our "special" meltdowns, I can't help but wonder. What happens to us? We just turn into a mess, ghosts and goblins come out and haunt us and we melt..........down. I know it's a relationship thing. He doesn't trust me. We have had SO many things go wrong, it's just eerie!! I have never, ever dropped a clicker on the Pin Heads. Never have they been stung by hornets that nested in a tunnel. Never (well, of course, they don't have tails) did they get a tail crunched under the teeter. NEVER!!!

Spur, these things happen to. He now doesn't even want to play ball in the livingroom where he catches it as I sit in the recliner. His absolute favorite game! I brought out treats. Catch it, get a treat. He recovered. He likes his treats. I know we can work through these funks, but it's SO hard!!!

I need a reminder. That he DOES like it -



Sorry for the shaking, Lisa probably hadn't eaten. She gets that way, forgets to eat. HUH??? I don't think that has ever happened to ME. I don't forget to eat. LOL!!!

He does like it. I have others, but I wanted to show a video with me in shorts!! OH happy day!!! I am stiff from all the bundles of clothes I have to wear these days. It was COLD yesterday and I was bundled up! Oh I hate the heat, but I do like wearing LESS clothes.

We can do this. We can recover and get our groove back. I hope.

I can't call this an idiot post, but Spur's groove? Ain't so groovy right now.

We seriously celebrated getting his groove back at the last couple trials!! The month and a half off seemed to really help us. Maybe we need more time off. Unfortunately, I we are signed up for quite a few trials coming up. Two are team events which I would not bag out of, and a bunch of other trials. Maybe we can get groovy again?

Yesterday at the run-throughs my heart was stabbed deep. HE LEFT THE FUCKING RING!!!???? That's how bad it was. Seriously sucky, sucking anti-groovy. I don't know what happened. He seemed nervous, but he is always nervous, his nervous energy sometimes fuels him. Was it the clicker I dropped on his head Thursday night, still bothering him? Maybe. Was it too quiet? Maybe, but it wasn't THAT quiet. There were a ton of pee spots in the ring. Several tunnels had been peed on (I saw it during the walk through, so it happened earlier perhaps by the folks setting up if they let their dogs wander while they set up?) and I spotted poo along the side of the ring. People were trying to clean up areas they found. Dogs were sniffing the tunnels. Roscoe wasn't that happy, he was really pokey and slow, but he DIDN'T LEAVE THE FUCKING RING!!!!!

I mean, seriously, Muffin Heads, that's like the worst feeling in the world. He recovered, I grabbed him and made him come back and try a tunnel and a bunch of jumps, another tunnel and RAN the dog walk and out. He seemed to recover and we did end on a good note, so that's all well and good, but seriously I drove home wondering why I do this. Does he hate it THAT much??? I had to come home and watch a bunch of his really good videos to remind me he likes it and has it in him. I just hope we can pull it together for next weekend's trial. It should be really busy and loud and crowded and those are the best trials for him, but if he leaves the ring at the trial that could be REALLY bad. There are sometimes not so nice dogs at these trials. CPE is very lenient about allowing aggressive dogs at trials. OI!

I don't know why this happens to us. We have such highs and such lows. I know, it's Spur, he is that way. He spent his first months with me walking directly behind me on our outings, never leaving me to explore his new found world. I know, he is Spur. He melts and the world dissolves around him at times, but goodness it's time for the Big Boy Pants, dude!!!! Your life doesn't suck! I came home and thanked Colby for all those years of easy, stress free, uncomplicated agility. She was SO easy. We were such a good team.

We will have a 2-3 hour beach walk today and hope it clears our heads some. I need to clear the fog.

Love comes early, since these guys don't know the calender.

I tried to attach a "handle" to the valentines, but they never hung right. They drooped down too much. Maybe if I had attached the "handles" lower. I wanted the dogs to look like the hearts were attached to their noses, but that really didn't work out.....

It just worked better having them hold them from the tops.
Colby wishes I had closed the shades, so her eyes wouldn't water and have to squint so much, but she's a good little girlie and held firm to her heart!!!!

Um, strange photo. Colby looks like a vulcan, poor thing, and about twice the size of Spur. He's actually three pounds bigger than she is. Weird optical illusion going on.........The sun was so nice and warm on a very cold morning, the last thing I wanted was to close the shade, but poor little Colby. She squints so much in bright sun these days, she pretty much has to just close her eyes. Sucks. Sucks to have your sight going. She's not even 12, yet, and in great shape in every other way. Why couldn't her hearing go first? Anything, but the eyes. It's such a bummer.

Yeah, yeah, where's Roscoe? Holding things in his mouth stresses him out. Why? I haven't a clue, but he isn't happy about it. He does "put away yer toys", if he has to, but he doesn't like doing it. He will pick things up VERY gingerly. He does play with toys, but he is particular about it. Tugging only occurs with JUST the right toy and just the right force and at just the right moment. He's a funny guy. I did teach him a formal retrieve with a dumbbell, but it took maybe a year before he was really solid about holding it. And even then he would tend to paw at it. Anxiety, I guess. He's pretty cute about retrieving it, he charges out and returns FAST, but holding for any length of time he stresses. He would not hold a heart. Hmmmm.........