Last weekend we headed out to Asheville for one of my favorite agility trials in one of my favorite cities. It’s held indoors on dirt with 2 rings and I was certainly curious to see what Mr. Miles thought of it after the 3-ring circus of the preceding weekend. All week he had been acting totally normally and was his typical crazy self in his Tuesday night class. He had a great experience at this trial site last May, so I was hopeful for a good weekend. I headed out Thursday afternoon in time to set up and hit the B-match. Both dogs did one 90sec run and they had a blast. Miles did 2 successful teeters, but thought about the 3rd one. Otherwise he was brilliant. Lil’ Rue had a blast chasing me with her bunny fur tug while we avoided the teeter and hit every other obstacle 
Melanie and I then celebrated by going out to Doc Chey’s noodle house downtown.
Friday:
After a less-than-restful sleep (Rue was too excited by the fact that there were 4 other dogs in the room, hehe) we arose at 6am to get ready for the day. Tall-small today with Exc. JWW first. The course looked fun and Miles was the first 24″ dog. We did our typical warm up and headed to the line. Unfortunately, I didn’t support the 2nd jump and earned us a refusal. Miles turned out a pretty decent run otherwise despite some sightseeing.
Rue faired better with the 2nd jump, but took the wrong end of the tunnel. I honestly thought she’d probably do that, but was mainly focused on just keeping her running so didn’t do much other than run at the tunnel. If I had rotated for a FC, she would have nailed it, but again I didn’t want to slow her down. Just wanted a fast and fun first run for the weekend
The Exc. Standard course was very fun. The opening was very similar to JWW, so I knew I needed to make it a point of supporting the 2nd obstacle better for Miles. He had a great run, but got called for the up on the teeter. He kind of turned wide and I *think* thought about refusing it, but then got on from the side above the yellow. The rest of the run was fabulous. A little slow on his table, but not horrible.
I pulled Rue from all Standard runs this weekend to give ourselves more time for her teeter retrain.
Last run of the day for us was Open FAST. I planned two different courses for the dogs. I wanted to test M on the teeter a bit and also wanted to try a 90 degree soft side weave entry with a rear-cross. Pretty ambitious, but he handles those fine in training. Well he had a great teeter and hit his entry, but then spaced out for a second and didn’t wrap back into the poles. I restarted him, but then he popped out at pole 10, so we just went on. He handled the gamble like a champ and we got just enough points for a Q and his first OF leg.
I actually planned a totally different course for Rue than the one I ran. There was an AKC rep at the trial and he decided that the gamble line needed to be moved out which changed my whole plan for her. I didn’t have much time to walk a new one, so I just kind of winged it. Again just going for speed with her…I wanted to give her several opportunities to chase me (she loves that) and I wanted to give her the chance to get on her favorite obstacle, the aframe. I think she had a blast in this run! Look at how much speed she picks up both when I push on her line out of the first tunnel and again after I leave her after the frame. She got her first OF leg and her picture in the Asheville Citizen Times for this run
I left the trial site around 4pm as they were getting ready to run Excellent FAST to go back the hotel, work out on the elliptical trainer and shower before meeting several folks for dinner at a local Thai restaurant. The food was great and the converstation was even better
Saturday:
A bit more of a restful sleep and Small-Tall today, but still up at 6am with Melanie as she has 2 dogs in the 16″ class. I headed to the trial site around 7:40 for the obsessive walk-through and then took myself for a 9 mile run in the foggy mountain air. I got back in time to watch the 16″ dogs tackle JWW which helped to solidify my plan for my pups. I walked the course again a few more times and then had to wait for the large 20″ class to be nearly over before Rue’s turn. She handled this course amazingly well and again really accelerated when I pushed in on her line off the start. I need to remember to go in a support her more in pinwheels and such. She has no problem sending out to obstacles, but she’ll slow down if I’m not driving into them with her. She was decently fast off the line with this run too This made her 2nd AXJ leg with a 4th place finish and her best time of 5.2yps!
Miles had a great run going. He allowed me to take a decent lead out, but I didn’t support two of the jumps after the tunnel well and he went around them. Again, in training this wouldn’t have been an issue, but obviously in a more stressful indoor venue he needs more support for me. I keep forgetting that he’s only 4yrs old and just a baby dog too! However, I must remark that he had gorgeously fast poles in this run and it was actually a 5.9yps run…woot!!
I left after these runs to take a shower and collect myself for Standard. It was going to be a long day with Excellent FAST predicted to run until 8ish. So I brought a change of clothes back to the site so that we could all just head to dinner straight from there.
I was excited for Std with Miles because it really looked like a course that we could execute well despite having to go through a box twice, yikes. I made sure to support and work every obstacle with him and he did fabulously. Unfortunately he turned wide and ran around the second-to-last jump. I don’t think that was my fault, but just that he didn’t see it when he landed from the previous jump and I was hauling butt to the finish so he just came with me 
He had a fabulous teeter, but was a bit tentative going into the tunnel in the corner due to the photographer. He recovered from that despite giving them a sideways glance twice on the dogwalk and had a pretty decent down on the table. Overall I was very pleased with this run.
I had a conlict between his Standard run and Open FAST, so again didn’t really get a chance to walk the course much. I came up with the same plan for both dogs for the sake of sanity. I actually missed both of my runs while doing Standard, so they had to quickly squeeze me in at the end. This meant that Miles didn’t get much of a break at all and then there was just one dog between him and Rue. Miles did a fantastic job with the course that I planned and handled the gamble really well. He got himself 73 points, a 1st place and his second OF leg! I was super thrilled since he had zero downtime between the runs. I had to beg for help from a friend to take him out to play fetch while I ran Rue..
Rue’s run was pretty spectacular as well. I mishandled her weave entry so we had to reattempt them, but otherwise she was fired up. I got a beautiful blind cross in after her frame, but then called her too hard for the tunnel discrimination in the gamble and she came to me instead of into the close end of the tunnel. Amazingly she kept working for me, found the right tunnel hole and had a smokin’ finish. Unfortunately, the refusal cost us the bonus and the Q. I love how we just ran in the ring and started running the course. I’m sure that will be difficult to replicate in the future, but she liked it
I stayed to watch my friends run in Excellent FAST and then we all headed out for some Mexican food before I retired to the room to watch the Duke game.
Sunday:
Finally a decent night’s sleep! Again, up at 6am and frantically packing up my stuff, showering, and grabbing the essential cup o’ joe before getting to the site. Today was Tall-Small and it started with Standard. Miles was again the first 24″ dog and I just knew that today was our day. He had been doing so well, but just little oopses here and there had been keeping us from the Q. I was pretty pleased with this run. He was a bit slow on the dw, but then picked up speed. He had a gorgeously fast sit on the table and somehow avoided being called for the up on the teeter today. He again went wide on his turn and hopped on from the side. Something to be aware of for training, that’s for sure. He got a Q for this run, 17 MACH points, his 7th MX leg, but no placement. He came in 5th.
Again, Rue was not entered, so we had a bit of a wait for JWW. This was a fun course that allowed me to start with both dogs. Miles did a fantastic job through the box again and turned out a respectable run for MXJ leg #7, 11 MACH points, and QQ #4!!
Lil’ Rue was not as thrilled with this run. I was admittedly worried that she’d visit the scribe right off the bat with the way the start line was facing. So I decided to put her on my right which forced a rear at the tunnel, but also opened up a choice b/w the jump and the tunnel off the line. She definitely is slower and concerned when she’s faced with that and I should have known better. She released her stress by visiting a ring steward briefly, but I was able to refocus her and burn up the rest of the course. Thank goodness she was fast for the finish because we squeeked by with a Q and her AXJ title even though she was 4 seconds over time, phew!! She took 4th again for this run.
Overall, the dogs had a great weekend and I had a ton of fun hanging out in the mountains with friends, both new and old. We now have a bit of break in trialing. Miles is entered locally for USDAA just in Perf. Speed Jumping and Perf. Grand Prix on 2/13…hoping for a bye or at least some Q’s to get him fully set for Nationals. Then we head to Florida for a 4-day Awesome Paws Camp at Wendy Pape’s place with her, Linda M., and Carrie Jones. On the way back, I’m hitting a 3-day AKC trial in Savannah, GA.
Until then…..
I know I still need to do a trial update from last weekend, but I’ve been trying to catch up in other areas. So I interrupt my regular blog to bring you a picture and video of the snow/ice storm that hit NC Friday evening through Saturday. We got about 4″ of the white stuff followed by freezing rain. The roads are a complete mess, but having an SUV and being from NY, I did manage to drive a couple miles to some hiking trails and the gym :) Unfortunately, my marathon training has been put on hold this weekend….was supposed to run 18 miles, but had to settle for 1.5 hour walk in the woods, 60 minutes (~7mi) running on the treadmill and 30 minutes on the stationary bike yesterday. Maybe that equals 10 miles of running on the road??
Here’s a shot of the pups from our hike.
And a video of the houligans in the fresh snow in the backyard….
I’ll attempt a trial update later today……:)
CPA USDAA trial 1/16-17/10: Miles gets Perf Speed Jumping, Perf Grand Prix, and PVP Team Qs!
Whew, what a way to try to get back into the swing of things! After exactly 2 months from our last trial, I entered both dogs in a local USDAA trial not knowing that this thing would eventually become a 3 ring major indoor event! Craziness. Both dogs were on teams….Miles with Melanie Miller’s Viszla, Austin as the “Spider Monkeys” and Rue with Bill Gates’ young Golden, Shadow and Samantha Seal’s young BC, Early to become “Rue’s Shadow–Early Spring”. I had high aspirations for Miles’ team and wanted to focus on fun and training for Rue’s team. I also did enter Miles in PII Standard both days along with Perf Speed Jumping and Grand Prix, while Rue’s only titling class was Starters Jumpers on Sunday.
Saturday:
I arrived very early on Saturday morning after meeting my friends the night before to set up our little city of crates to get Rue measured. My first run wasn’t scheduled to be until about 1pm, so I crawled out of bed at 5:45, threw on my running clothes, grabbed Rue and headed out to Raleigh. I was first in line for measuring and the little monkey was the perfect angel to stand very still for the measuring judge…..20.75″, sweet!! I then grabbed some course maps, threw her back in the car, drove home, ran 11 miles, showered, ate, and headed back to the arena with two excited pups.
First run was Team Standard. The way they were running things was you were assigned a group, either A or B. You walked a course in one ring with your group, then switched to the other ring, then ran both. This was a lot for my feeble out-of-trial-practice brain! In any case both courses looked very fun and unbeknownst to me there are no tables in any of the team/tournament classes, woot! Miles was up first and I was psyched to be able to use our mad skillz with lateral distance off of the poles. I was late getting to the gate, so the poor boy didn’t get any cookies. Of course on the way to the ring, he dropped his ball and it rolled into the middle ring just as a man was about to lead out….gah! Knucklehead. So anyway, they were shouting for us, so in the ring we went. We were clean and this was undoubtedly his best run of the weekend and, of course, it’s not on tape 
Lil’ Rue got to play next in Team Standard. Unfortunately, since we’re not teetering right now I had to “E” us right off the bat. I planned a nice fast loop around the outside that allowed her to do her dogwalk (she got a good hit and a nice push out to the tunnel) and her favorite, the a-frame. She had a blast and looked great!
Next, Miles got to run Team Jumpers. I thought he did a great job, but it was evident that he was looking at the crowd. I think in his first run it was so rushed that he hadn’t gotten the chance to even think about sight seeing before we ran. He put a lot of extra strides in on the run and hesitated in the poles a bit, but overall he did great and got another clean run for the team
Rue followed pretty quickly and I think this was her best run of the weekend. A little slow to start, but overall a brilliant job by the littlest one!
Somewhere in the midst of all of this I had to walk Miles’ PII Standard course. Nothing like trying to be in THREE rings at once! Nice course, lots of fun and a solid Q for the boy despite losing a ton of time on the table. This was his first PII Std leg.
It didn’t seem long before we were walking both the Steeplechase and Team Gamblers courses. Steeplechase looked like a blast and I felt like I had a solid plan for Mr. Man. I ended up running Miles in Team Gamlers, then Miles in Steeplechase, then Rue in Team Gamblers I think. In any case, it was a blur. Monkey had a great Team Gamblers run, but something spooked him going into the last tunnel…..he fortunately got enough points to nab a Q.
Steeplechase went as planned, but I forgot momentarily where I was going after the first a-frame. Thankfully he was a good boy and hit his contact while I gathered my thoughts It was a little slow for him, but I figured it was his 5th run of the day and his first day back into trialing in a stressful environment, so I was pretty pleased. He got a Q for this run too!
Last run of the day was Rue’s Team Gamblers run. I picked a fun teeterless course for her and thought it went pretty well. She was a bit slow on her dogwalk…not quite sure why that happens sometimes, but it seems when the course starts jump or tire and then dw, she’s kinda slow. Although that wasn’t the case in Team Standard, so something to work on. She did a good job for me…flaked out for a second to look at the judge, but chose to stay with me for a Q
Sunday:
I wake up to a sad and mopey Miles He barely wants to go for a walk and I drag him down the street. He had a little bit of soft stool, but generally just looking tired or something. We get back to the house and his typical insane “I’m gonna eat” routine was not present at all. He just kind of moped into the kitched and layed down to wait for his food. When I released them to get their yogurt and egg concoction, he was slow to go over to it and slow to eat. Hmmmmm, wth? Then as I’m getting ready for the trial…showering, etc. he’s falling asleep with his head up in the air in the bathroom. Definitely not a good sign. Is he sore? Sick? Stressed? Just tired?? Gah. Knowing that I have 5 more runs planned for him was not encouraging. I decided to head out and see if maybe once he got there he’d perk up. No, not really. He wasn’t acting sore at all, just tired, or stressed, or sick. or all three. I asked my friends to help me to keep an eye on him during our runs to see if they could notice anything wrong. If he looked lame at all, I’d pull him….especially from Steeplechase finals.
Grand Prix and Team Snooker were set up first. I was so worried about Miles that I basically just stood in the middle of the Snooker ring and stared. I couldn’t find a plan for either dog for the life of me, so I just figured I’d look at the map later, watch some other dogs, and wing it. We got to run Grand Prix first anyway, so I knew there would be a lot of other dogs to watch. Miles did a decent job in GP, but was definitely slow. He looked around a bit and crawled across the dogwalk. He looked at the teeter like he might refuse it, but decided to get on it anyway. Somehow we squeeked out a Q. After his run, he squeeked out some more soft stool….
Somehow by the grace of God, I figured out two different Snooker plans for my guys. I ran Rue first and we had a great run going until I forgot which side of the frame I was supposed to be on and made a severe push into her line and she launched herself off the frame. Too bad because if we had finished that obstacle, we would have Q’d
Miles’ run went a bit smoother, but I forgot that I had to go to the closing, so wasted precious seconds which caused us to be one weave pole away from finishing the closing. He still Q’d which gave him his 4th Q for his team
Again, somewhere in the midst of this I had to walk and run Miles in PII Standard. By the time we got to the line for this run, he was definitely not acting himself. He barely pushed back at me when I held him at the start line and it showed. He was slow and stressed….slow to down on the table and worried about the photographer which ultimately led to a teeter refusal….his first since July He was brave and got on it and then flew for the rest of the course
Our last set of walk throughs were for DAM Team/PVP relay and Steeplechase finals. I debated about pulling him from Steeplechase finals, but wanted to see how he did in his relay since I actually thought the Steeplechase course looked like one that he would enjoy. The “Spider Monkeys” were the 2nd team on the line for relay and I picked the 2nd half for Miles….no teeter Melanie and Austie had a great run and we weren’t too shabby. Other than a refusal at a jump…was he looking at something??…we were able to Q, take 3rd place in relay, and our team came in 6th!!
Rue’s little baby dog team did remarkably well in relay too! Sam and Early went first, then Bill and Shadow, then Rue and I. All 3 dogs ran fantastically well and our relay Q kept us out of last place No video for this one which is most unfortunate.
I debated again about running Miles in Stp finals, but then just decided to go for it. Well, I should have pulled him b/c he was definitely not all there. Very slow, lots of extra strides, looking around everywhere, wide turns, etc. He was clean, but no where near fast enough to get any $$. Lesson learned for next time. I must say he had me quite concerned by now.
Our last run of the whole weekend was Starters Jumpers. I don’t think they could have come up with a simpler course for this run to be honest. I guess I was overconfident or Rue was overtired because we made a mess of this run. She didn’t want to come off the line, then went to visit a ring steward, then some tunnel bags, then another ring steward, etc. At that point she had gone around 1 or 2 jumps, so I just made it a point to reconnect with her and try to finish the course. I asked her to “sit” which she did very quickly and then we went on to finish the course. She even got a burst of super speed!
I left the trial with mixed emotions. On one hand I was super proud of Miles for getting all but 1 Q for the weekend. This was our first time back together in a while since we hadn’t had class or done much practicing. On the other hand, I was worried that I had a very sick or very stressed dog on my hands. I told myself that if he didn’t seem “back to normal” by Tuesday that I’d take him to the vet for some lab work. Little Rue really impressed me with her focus (except for that last run, hehe) and her ability to handle the tough Team courses. She ran 3 tough courses both days and did Gamblers and Snooker for the first time. She actually carried her team with only having that one “E” in Team Standard
I thought it was due time to update on Rue’s teeter progress. We had been making some good headway until just before we left for Christmas when I rented some time at an indoor facility with a friend. Rue has been here many times and was successful on the teeter in class a week or so earlier. She again showed no signs of an issue on her first rep, so we decided to add more pressure. Melanie stood close to the teeter and Rue bailed at the pivot I’ve never seen her do that. We worked different tactics and eventually got her back on, but she was slow and waiting at the pivot. Hmmm. Finally after working some other stuff with her, we used Melanie’s dog Austin as a “see one, do one” demo dog. Austin did the teeter while Rue watched, then Rue did the teeter. This went on for about 5 reps or so and by the end she was back to driving pretty hard across the board. Of course now I had to leave for NY the next day with only a few potential opportunities to practice.
Fortunately I have made some contacts in NY and was able to get both ring rental time and run-through exposure. I rented some time at Sugarbush Farm shortly after Christmas. Rue did just fine on the teeter when it was just me and worked well for food and her tug toy. The owner came in to chat during my practice time, so I asked if he’d play judge for me and stand near the teeter. At first Rue had a difficult time and bailed at the pivot. I put her right back on and she was fine. She did several reps among other short sequences and this was all working for her tug toy, yay!
Feeling good about things I elected still to head to High Goal Farm for their New Years Eve run-throughs. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while might remember that I brought Miles here for run-throughs last year and he was like a deer in headlights. It is a relatively small and loud indoor space with matting for the surface. The ring is surrounded on three sides by crating space. Both times the run-throughs were the night before a very popular trial, so the facility is very lively with a lot of folks setting up for the weekend. I have to interrupt this post about Rue to say that this year Miles was AMAZING! He couldn’t give a care about the environment or the teeter or anything…heck what’s better than agility?? Plus we got to bring his orange ball into the ring, sweet!
Rue certainly seemed unaffected by the environment and happily played with me outside of the ring and performed well at the practice jump for cookies. When we entered the ring, she was initially a bit slow on her dogwalk (maybe thinking it was the teeter??), but then was blazing on her second attempt. She did a couple great aframes and got a wicked 300 degree soft side weave entry After all of those successful things, I set her up for the teeter…she refused. I put her back over a jump and then she got on the teeter but would not move past the pivot. Unfortunately, they called time on our run as she was stuck on the pivot point. I did the only thing I could think of and that was to pull her off the teeter in a playful way and then ran her through a tunnel and over a jump to the exit. She tugged aggressively at the end of the run outside of the ring. Huh.
I’m still not convinced that this is a fear, but something has shaken her confidence with this obstacle. Or maybe she just doesn’t love it enough. Is it a choice she’s making? I do know that Rue deals with pressure by avoiding. I also know that she doesn’t like to be “wrong”. And she sure doesn’t appreciate surprises! In any event, I have a problem on my hands. Now as much as I love to have a project and as much as I love finding the solutions to problems, I sure would appreciate it if I could have a different obstacle to work on this time
So bummed, frustrated and concerned on New Year’s Eve quickly I found myself inspired, energized and excited to accept my new challenge on New Year’s Day. I went swiftly to the local hardware store and returned with an 2×10x8 board and a 6″ width section of PVC piping. A few screws and wood scraps to anchor the PVC to the board later I had myself a mini teeter and the ability to play the bang game in my mom’s basement…woot!
The plan was/is to get lil’ Rue to love the teeter more. I taught her correctly how to perform the obstacle, but I don’t think she ever really liked it. She’d do it because she was “supposed to”….not exactly the kind of attitude I desire from her. I am currently working her bang game on my home teeter every day. The end is nearing parallel to the ground, but I am very conscious not to increase the height unless she’s really leaping up on it and slamming it down. A cool aside to this project is I’m realizing that she’s actually beginning to respond to me pushing back on her chest as a way to fire her up! I’m not sure if that’s a product of my tug and retrieve games that I’ve been playing with her or whether she’s just really wanting to get on the teeter or what. Either way, I’m stoked!
I’ve pulled her from all of her upcoming Standard runs too. I will not ask for any full teeters anywhere until I am certain she’s ready. For now we’ll work on getting more trial experience along with those JWW Q’s. I feel it will not be long before she’s begging to do the teeter again
The new year invites a sense of renewal and increased motivation for me in many areas of my life. I find it necessary to think about where I want to be at the end of 2010.
For one, I’ve found a rekindled passion for running after nearly burning myself out completely over the summer. I’ve entered a local marathon in March and am already 6 weeks into the training and feel fantastic! This will be my 4th marathon in 7 years with my personal best time being 4:13 in my first race in Napa, CA. This time I *will* finish sub 4hrs. I definitely feel way more focused and commited to my training this time.
Secondly, I’m nearly finished with the Ribbons book (Jane Savoie). I feel this has been instrumental in my growth, both competetively and personally. Mainly, I’ve been working very hard on changing my attitude. I think that’s probably the one area of my personal psyche that needs the most attention. I’ve tended to be the type of person who “hopes for the best, but plans for the worst”. A lot of that probably stems from the sudden loss of my father when I was 20yrs old….15 years ago almost to the day. From that I think I learned to prepare myself for the worst outcome so that I wouldn’t be disappointed or hurt. But that’s not a very fun way to live. I *want* to be positive, I *want* to expect the best and be prepared for that outcome. Holiday time is especially difficult for me and my family. We’ve got a few “stinkin’ thinkers” here, so I’ve been really working on “diluting the negative”. I would like to work towards being more even keel in my moods and finding fun in more situations. I thank my friends for helping me to start on this new journey and this book is a great guide.
As far as agility and the dogs are concerned, I took a look at the goals I set for both dogs a few months ago…some are the same, but I’ve changed/added some for 2010.
Long Term Goals (Define Your Destination)
-Miles: MACH by fall 2010
Qualify for and attend 2010 USDAA Nationals
Qualify for and attend 2011 AKC Nationals
Qualify for and attend 2011 AKC Invitational
-Rue: Qualify for and attend 2010 Southeast USDAA Regionals
Qualify for and attend 2011 AKC Nationals
Qualify for and attend 2011 USDAA Nationals
Short Term Goals (Make a Road Map)
- Miles: MX/MXJ by spring 2010
Earn Q’s in Performance Speed Jumping, PVP and Performance Grand Prix by spring 2010
ADHF (Golden Retriever Agility Dog Hall of Fame) by summer 2010
This month:
- Learn how to communicate the difference between a lateral motion rear-cross and a forward motion/deceleration rear-cross
- Trust him in longer lead outs if needed in competition
- Practice pushes into a tunnel under the frame/dogwalk
- Practice lateral pulls off the aframe
- Practice discriminations without having to go so deep to get the tunnel
- Maintain at least 5yps course times in JWW and at least 4yps course times in Standard
- Achieve and maintain consistency at speed earning at least 130 points per month
- Rue: AX/AXJ by early summer 2010
Earn a Q in (at least) Steeplechase by late spring 2010
This month:
- Make the teeter a favorite obstacle
- Tug in as many different locations/situations as possible
- Achieve a reliable and drivey start line routine
- Visit and train in as many different locations as possible
- Alternate running courses without cookies with higher pressure short sequences with rewards on me
- Ask neighbors to come over and watch us train and act as ring crew/judge
- Start working more seriously/systematically on dogwalk turns
- Achieve and maintain at least 4yps in JWW and at least 3yps in Standard
Word your goals thoughtfully:
- Rue is motivated to work/play with me
- I am confident in my handling choices for each dog
- Miles slams into a down on the table
- Rue had a fast and drivey teeter
- Rue runs fast and extended
- Rue and I move together as a connected team
- Miles rides the teeter all the way down
Know the reasons why:
- Winning is fun
- Proving that Goldens can be very competitive in agility
- Becoming a more credible dog trainer
- Pushing myself beyond my limits
Motivation:
Carrot:
- More letters after/before my dogs’ names
- Recognition from peers, instructors, and elite competitors
- Credibility
- Sense of accomplishment
- Fun
- Sense of self-worth
Stick:
- Fear of failure
- Fear of injury
- Embarassment
It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog, but that’s not for lack of training more a lack of time. Here’s what we’ve been doing….
Miles:
Just continues to get better and better with his adaptability to new environments and faster and faster each time we run it seems. It’s to the point that I do not feel like we need to work together every day to maintain our skills. In fact, he seems to be enjoying his break from trialing and frequent training because when we do work, it’s much more special. He has become my solid dog which just blows my mind to think about really. I never have any doubts any more when I take him out to play agility no matter where we are doing it….he’s just plain and simply a rock star. I think he has really just been reaping the rewards of me taking Rue to as many places as possible. Where it used to take him a run or two of looking around while working, he now is able to enter a new place confidently and work with me without concern. This to me is simply amazing!!
While up visiting my mom over Thanksgiving I brought the dogs to a drop in class at an indoor facility that I had brought Miles to last Christmas for some rental time and run-throughs. Last time we were there I spent a good portion of our time just playing with him in the ring and letting him explore. I didn’t do more than jumps and tunnels and maybe some weaves or an aframe here and there. His attitude going into the class this time was a stark comparison. He was confident and excitedly happy. He worked very well for me, ran fast, and didn’t give a darn about the people, the other dogs, or the teeter. I just love when I can really *see* the improvements he’s made.
As far as my goals to improve my handling skills and speeding up the dogwalk and table, well I guess we haven’t been working specifically on the latter two items. Silvia had suggested that I try retraining him to a running dogwalk….or if nothing else just work on running across the board to build confidence in that piece. This is something I want to start doing, but I think I’ll wait until after the Spring trial season is over. The weather and lack of daylight have not allowed me to do any of the daily training that is required for this type of retrain and I don’t really want to do it in the middle of heavy trial season, so I think it will be a great Summer project for us
This past weekend we attended a seminar with Carrie Jones for handling work. I worked Rue in the morning and Miles in the afternoon (more on Rue’s stuff in a bit). For the first time in a while I felt like I really learned some valuable tools from a seminar. This makes me very excited to work with her again at the Awesome Paws camp in February! My big take home from this seminar was the importance of deceleration which is something that I really have a hard time doing. Get me running and I really don’t want to slow down However, the difference in Miles’ path on course was amazing. The whole thing was much more smooth and it didn’t slow him down at all, sweet!
In keeping up with my reading of Jane Savoie’s Ribbon’s book, I’ve been continuing to work on my verbal affirmations and visualization. To add more color into my visualizations, I’ve decided that Miles is a Cougar….slender and agile, yet extremely powerful with the ability to jump high and far. He runs extremely fast, yet quietly, and is lethal to the competition. Sounds good, eh?
Rue:
Oy, this little girl sure does keep me busy! I’ll start by saying that I *think* she’s worked through her teeter issue. I’ve been on a quest to get her on as many different teeters as possible as well as continuing to not have her stop at the end of the board. I really think that was the major part of the puzzle. As I’ve said before, Rue doesn’t like to be surprised by things….if she thinks something should be one way and it turns out to be different, she is quite offended. Granted this is something she needs to work out for herself because there are going to continue to be instances when she guesses incorrectly. I think that will just come with more experience and more exposures. By continuing to bring her to as many places as possible and to experience as many different pieces of equipment as she can will only boost her confidence and her ability to recover.
What amazes me is how she always keeps such a straight face…a poker face really. This makes it very difficult to read her and continues to cause me surprise when she ends up showing her avoidance/stress behavior. With this being so seemingly unpredictable it’s taking me longer to figure out earlier on so I can help her before she reacts. What’s interesting too is how she can portray stress in totally opposite ways…sometimes it’s that she trots around the course or stops to sniff one spot on the ground whereas other times she will go visit people or start frantically running and sniffing around the ring. Perhaps it’s just a reflection of her overall motivation/confidence level at those times whether she stresses up or stresses down. It probably doesn’t matter which response she has as long as I can recognize it.
At the seminar on Saturday, Rue did amazingly well and worked happily for her tug all morning. Her first run was a little stressy and she left me to visit the spectators and her favorite canine boyfriend. Carrie initially had me try just running away and calling her which didn’t work (doesn’t usually, but I gave it a whirl), so I ended up having her sit so she could refocus and then Carrie held her as I ran down to the start of the sequence. I recalled her and then started the sequence. Little muffin found the weaves along the way so quickly completed the set of 12 before joining me for the sequence. This time she was completely successful. So something to keep in mind to try next time she starts visiting folks during class
Yesterday I got together with a friend to train some short jumping sequences. This is someone she doesn’t see often and it was interesting to see that he added a lot of pressure for her. Not only he, but the teeter was in the arena too. She’s trained in the arena only a handful of times and it’s always been more difficult for her…the added lure of the wood chips for one is very distracting for her. We’ve only ever done jumps and tunnels in there…maybe some buja board stuff when she was little, but the amount of time she’s been in there is not a lot. And she’s never seen the teeter in there, ever. I started working her with her favorite tug toy (the same one we used in the seminar and the same one I have used in class with success), but she was very distracted. I’d get her engaged and then start a sequence, but after the first or second obstacle she’d start to sniff. She actually hid in the tunnel and chewed on wood chips at one point, sigh. After not being able to reingage her, I elected to carry her out to her crate. I then brought Miles out and worked him excitedly before returning to give Rue another shot. This time was better, but I still lost her to sniffing during a more difficult sequence. Again I carried her out. I felt bad because I didn’t really know what I could do to help her, but at the same time I was getting frustrated and that’s only going to cause her more stress. So carrying her out seemed to be the best option. I was going to just end it there, but after talking it over decided to remove the teeter from the picture. I took her back in and got her engaged with play. We played for a little longer than normal and then started the sequence. She was definitely better, but still got distracted. I was able to end her tug game while she was still engaged and then wanted to see what would happen if I used food. HUGE improvement. I worked some more difficult sequences than before and she was still able to run pretty fast and I did not lose her. I even had my friend stand in the middle of the sequence and she did just fine. I was pleased with this data for sure. She was able to motivate for food just fine and she was also able to work past the pressure of the arena, the woodchips and a “judge”. I probably should have brought the teeter back in, but admittedly I was pretty much whiped out
As far as my visualization and affirmations for the lil’ one, well she’s a red fox. Resourceful, clever, sly, quick, and adaptable, yet independent and somewhat cunning. I’m certain my little red fox will grow to enjoy working more as a pack in time……
For the past four days, Sivia has been hosting seminars at PBH. This is her second trip to our club, her first was March of ‘08. I attended her Novice Handling seminar at that time with Miles and the poor guy was so overwhelmed by the auditing crowd and her difficult sequences that he could barely even jump. What a difference 1 1/2 years can make! It’s always nice to be able to look back at something like this and remind yourself just how far you’ve come. Not only have I improved as a handler, but Miles’ improvment in attitude and skill level is just incredible. This time I signed up for 3 days worth of fun: Advanced Handling for Miles (wanted to do Masters, but T-day traveling conflicted with that), Contacts and Weaves with both dogs, and Young Dog Experienced Handler for Rue.
All day Sunday was the Adv. Handling seminar. Silvia actually gave us some pretty difficult European style sequences…I definitely didn’t feel like we weren’t challenged. Miles really aced all of the sequences and Silvia even said that he was fast, wow! I think he was the only dog that hit every single weave entry too…and they certainly were some zingers. Not much else to say about the day really. It seems the last couple of seminars I’ve been to with Miles (Daisy Peel’s and this one), neither one had much to say about him other than how good he is at following my motion and how I make good handling choices for our team. He’s such a good boy I know I definitely have more work to do with him, but it’s comforting to hear these folks saying such positive things about us.
We got a 2 hour break after the daytime seminar before returning for the Contacts and Weaves workshop. I took the dogs for a short woods walk and grabbed a quick bite to eat on my way back to PBH. Silvia spent some time talking about her methods for teaching running contacts, 2o/2o contacts, and weave poles. She then wanted to see each dog perform the dogwalk with and without turns in order to figure out what we might need to work on. Rue was the only dog out of seven with running contacts, so she wanted to see her first. I was excited to show her off, but also a little concerned as there were folks lined up on both sides of the dogwalk which would definitely add pressure to Rue’s performance. Amazingly, lil’ Rue came out of her crate ready to play and tugged vigorously with me despite the close proximity of the crowd. Her dogwalk performance at first was less than full speed, but she she was doing the correct striding although hitting high. After several more reps, she extended enough to start hitting nice and low and then we showed off some turns. All in all I thought she did a fantastic job considering the environment. She worked probably for 10 minutes all for a tug toy, woot! Miles got to go last and I really wanted to get Sivia’s opinion on his dogwalk and how I could speed it up. She actually said to me as I brought him out for his turn, “do you have any problems??”, ha! I explained that I wanted to find ways to increase his speed and ideally get him cantering the length of the obstacle. She relayed that he actually already was quite fast even though he was trotting. She said that I could start playing with him on the contact board, like how I started with Rue’s running dogwalk, and see what I get. If nothing else, it should help his confidence with running on a narrow board. For the rest of the workshop we were able to pick to work on the aframe, teeter, or weave poles. I chose to work the teeter with Rue because I wanted Silvia’s opinion on her conflict between that and the dogwalk and whether I should be keeping a stop on the teeter. Of course, I hoped that Rue would do the teeter at all! She again was a tugging fool when she came out of her crate and had no issues doing the teeter both alone and with the tunnel to start. Silvia thought her performance was good…she was driving to a good position on the board and then running off the end. No need to keep a stop unless I need a place to “catch my breath”, but I think I’m fast enough to be able to handle all running contacts with her Rue also showed off her aframe performance and weave poles (both just one rep) and she thought they were great. With Miles, I again wanted Silvia’s opinion on his teeter. She suggested that I continue to reward low in practice and also possibly say “contact” while he’s performing it to break his stride just like I do on the dogwalk. I tried it and it worked She also gave me some ideas to try to proof his “running” aframe (running a bit ahead or a bit lateral) so that I might be able to have a little more freedom there. I left feeling very proud of both dogs, but particularly excited for Rue. Not only was she able to work through all that pressure, but she did it enthusiastically and for a toy!!
Monday morning I woke up to pouring rain and the prediction that it was going to continue until the afternoon. This was Rue’s day for handling and I was sad that we’d have the weather obstacle on top of everything else. Normally she doesn’t mind the rain and has trained with me in it before, but I was curious what she’d think about an agility seminar in the rain…would it be too much pressure? The fields were already still soupy from the deluge we got two weeks ago, so this was just making things worse. They moved the equipment to the top of the big ring in order to try to preserve the grass in the “real” agility area. As is Silvia’s style, the sequences were all quite challenging for baby dogs if not used to the European style….lots of tight turns, threadles, pushing out to the back side of jumps, etc. I’ve certainly worked on all of these handling moves with Rue, but I can’t say that she finds that kind of thing particularly motivating. Her first sequence was quite good and she handled it with good speed and had decent dogwalk performances. She also worked enthusiastically for her tug toy. I was feeling good about things after that until we tried our second sequence. This one started with a jump heading towards the dw, but you were to push them to the backside of a jump that the dogs couldn’t see off the startline. Lil’ Rue seemed a bit put off coming out of her crate…like she didn’t want to step in a puddle (odd), but tugged well for me and ran off the line headed for the dw. She realized quickly that we weren’t going that way and managed to do the sequence well, but you could tell someone had let the air out of her balloon. She managed a couple of jumps and then went off to visit the crowd. On our second attempt she was even slower and again visited the audience after the same jump. I really think she thought we were going to the dw, then realized she was wrong and then slowed herself down so she would have time to be right. The added pressure of the surrounding audience, the rain, the mud, and the tug toy didn’t help either. It was obvious that her interest in the tug was waning, so I switched to food. She was able to think through the sequence better, but was still slow. Silvia suggested that I give her lots of rewards for situations like that where there are choices and she needs to follow me. She needs to learn that following me is rewarding and that she doesn’t need to search for obstacles as much. Also Rue probably needs more rewards for turns she thinks. Silvia also suggested that if she’s going slowly to just not run her for that sequence and work Miles instead (like in class) so that Rue only does one speed in agility–fast. One other idea that Silvia had was that if she wasn’t that into running to maybe start with something that she loves (ie. dogwalk or aframe) several times to get her going and then start adding more sequencing in to “trick” her into running the whole thing faster. The third sequence was even more abysmal. It was raining much harder and Rue really didn’t want to come out of her crate at all due to the mud puddles surrounding it. Once out I did get her interested in a different tug, but as soon as I attempted to start the sequence, she was very slow, took a wrong course, but then sped up for a nice finish over the dogwalk. Unfortunately when I tried again, she didn’t even run I tried to get her to play but then she left the ring to pee. I thought maybe that was her issue, but I never did get her back into wanting to do the sequence. I got a few jumps out of her and rewarded, but still kept losing her focus. Silvia suggested that I just have her run back and forth over the aframe, but she was still not very interested, so we ended there. I’m hoping that a lot of the issues were mostly exacerbated by the heavy rain and muddy conditions. After lunch, we moved inside the arena to do some jump/tunnel sequences. I elected to just stick with food for her and much to my surprise she was much happier to run even with the crowd inside and the formerly very distracting wood chips The last two sequences we did were not so good though, but I really think she was just fried. It was a very long day for her with a lot of distractions.
Overall I think this was an awesome experience for me and the dogs. Silvia offered some different perspectives and I’m going to just take all of this in for Rue and work on the things that I can work on (ie. turns = fun, only running her when she’s running fast, and/or starting to integrate sequences in after running some dw’s, etc.). I’m going to continue to use her tug toy as I really think this is the best way to motivate her for speed. Thankfully we have a bit of a break with Thanksgiving this week, but I am taking her to a drop in indoors somewhere new on Saturday. I look forward to seeing what we can do there to help her. I will certainly work Miles if I need to
Miles is signed up to work in a Masters seminar with Carrie Jones in a couple of weeks, but I think I’ll split the time between both dogs. Seeing that I don’t seem to get much individual attention when I work Miles, it might make it more worth while to give Rue the opportunity to work in yet another new place with yet another big crowd. We’ll get there……
For those of you who know me or have been following my blog for a while know that I’ve had quite the journey training Miles to do the teeter. It wasn’t until February of this year that he dared to do a teeter outside of the one I have at home. Because of Miles’ issues with this obstacle, I felt like I did a very good job giving Rue a better foundation for it. So you can imagine that I’m a bit perplexed to find myself back in the same type of situation again with her.
With Rue I’m fairly certain it’s not a fear that’s getting us with the teeter, but more of a lack of confidence in her job on the contacts. I’ve trained her to have a running dogwalk and aframe, yet she’s supposed to stop on the teeter. I think she is just very young and hasn’t quite yet learned how to for sure tell the difference b/w the dogwalk and the teeter and so if she’s just a little stressed, she can’t think, loses her confidence and avoids one or both obstacles.
Rue’s typical response to pressure is to leave me and go sniff and eat grass or visit whoever else is in the ring. That’s been her way since she’s been with us. I used to lose her to this kind of thing all the time (even during games of tug if she felt too much pressure) until I figured her out. So I just think she hasn’t had quite enough training time yet and with the pressure of a trial and with her rapid success up to the Excellent level, it’s come to a head.
Thankfully now that we are on a break, I get lots of time for more training! Rue truly is one of the most self-confident dogs I know, but she also doesn’t like to be surpised by things. So I’m sure if she thinks it’s the dogwalk and then it moves, it shakes her confidence (and vice versa). And now for my plan to test my theory….
Day One:
I had the day off on Monday (woot!) so I decided that I’d bring Rue out to PBH to work on some dogwalk and teeter stuff. I wanted to first see what she did off the bat. I’ve noticed that the times when she’s been less confident/drivey with the teeter (and dw) are when the dogwalk is the 2nd obstacle. If we go back and look at her trial history, she did refuse the teeter at the PBH trial on day 2 and you could argue that the spacing out during her run on day 1 had to do with the teeter/dw as well.
So I brought her to the big ring where we’ve barely ever practiced, never have had class, and pretty much have only done a couple of run-throughs and the trial. I figured this might be enough “unfamiliar” for us to start. I brought her out with her tug toy and pretty immediately lost her to a massive sniff fest after about 10 seconds of tugging. She spent about a minute or two sniffing all around the ring before I could finally get her to re-engage. Well, at least I know she’s feeling some pressure So once I got her tugging again, I brought her down to do the dogwalk (I wanted to do dw first then teeter since this has been the trend for her issue). I did dw-jump-tug twice, then a short sequence of jumps, aframe, and dogwalk, then tried to get her to do the teeter. She was successful, albeit slow, and didn’t tug right away. I got her engaged, then tried jump, 180, teeter….and she left. Took herself to the kiddie pool…yes it was hot out, but still…..how curious. She then had a few successful reps, but then I ended up losing her again to sniffing. The video is long, but I think gives a good overview. Nearly all of our training sessions when she was a pup used to look like this….thank goodness we’ve moved forward from that! It’s hard to say whether this was all teeter stuff at the end or just waning motivation from me using a lower value tug or it being hot out.
After letting her cool off in the pool I thought I’d try to see what I could get using food. Historically she pays better attention and learns better with food, but is way more motivated/faster when I use the tug. Perhaps I should have started with food today, but who knows what would have happened. I actually found it relieving to be able to reproduce some of her stress in training. Here she is with food….
Then I played a little with the bang game…
We ended the session with some fun tug/chase games designed to help her want to go past me better and to build drive. She thought it was tons of fun and boy was she racing me to the toy! In the end, I think this was a very important lesson to have had for both of us. It’s more clear to me now that it’s not a fear, but I still need to figure out how to help her feel more confident. I’m now toying with the idea again of not keeping the stop on the teeter. At least or until that becomes a problem for us due to her flying off….
Day Two:
I debated about bringing the dogs to Bon-Clyde for our usual Tuesday night drop-in class, but on our lunch time hike Rue was favoring her right rear leg a bit. After examining her, all I could find was a little abrasion on one of her pads (probably from the astroturf over the weekend) and thought the sand surface probably wouldn’t do that any good. So I decided to bring them to the Masters level run-throughs at PBH. I figured that I could have some folks act as a judge in the ring to add the pressure I needed around the teeter. Much to my delight, my friends had set up the European Standard course from 2009 USDAA Nationals. I thought that course looked fun on paper and I was right! Very fast.
First time through with lil’ Rue I made sure to reward her with tugging after the obstacle before the teeter. I wanted to reward her for all of the hard work she did leading up to it and also break her speed so that she would have time to process. I had a classmate acting as judge who she doesn’t know well too. Not suprisingly, when I set her up to do the teeter she left and started sniffing. She did end up having to go potty, but I really think that was a secondary reason to sniff…the primary being the teeter, but I’ll never know for sure.
Once she relieved herself, she was more than happy to tug again and then had no problem doing the teeter and the rest of the course.
And one more teeter for good measure…
For her second turn, I decided I would run the course through the teeter and reward after it, instead of before and after. She showed no issues and ran like a missile!
Day Three:
Last night, before teaching my class, I asked one of my students if she’d stand near the teeter for me while I put Rue over it. She kindly obliged and as seems to be the pattern, Rue went to visit her and avoided the teeter the first time. I got her back with me and she got right on, no issue. Then I did a little sequence and ended with the teeter…again, no problem.
So now what am I to do with all of this information? For one, I’m for sure not concerned about it being a fear and that I don’t need to go back and retrain the teeter from the ground up. I think I simply need to continue to bring her out to as many new places as I can and have folks in the ring with us. When that ceases to be a problem, then I’ll need to up the distraction/pressure ante for her some other way. In the meantime, I’m not going to ask for a stop at the end. I also need to figure out if I need to somehow signal to her ahead of time if it’s the dogwalk or the teeter or whether that will just resolve itself in time and with more experience. I’m also debating about entering her one day in a local NADAC trial. Even though there are no teeters, it could possibly help by just getting her more trial experience, but with easier courses. Of course it certainly doesn’t hurt that Silvia Trkman’s coming to PBH this weekend and Rue is working in a contacts seminar and in an all day handling seminar. We’ll see what the queen of the running dogwalk has to say about the little Miss
That’s all for now…..
We headed out to Concord, NC Friday straight from work and arrived at the arena around 7:30pm with enough time to get in and set up crates. I also wanted to bring the dogs in so they could both reacclimate to the sights. Miles was a bit concerned when we first walked in, but as soon as he saw the agility equipment he forgot all about it and became a bouncing fool. Rue, as expected, was completely unphased. After setting up, the pups and I headed to our hotel and were surprised to enter into a smokey, loud, dog and people filled lobby I couldn’t get to my room quick enough only to find that it was a wheelchair accessible room complete with the tallest toilet I’ve ever seen and a large seat in the tub/shower. The bathroom door also didn’t stay open by itself so I needed to prop it open with a chair just to make the room seem a wee bit bigger, sigh.
Saturday:
I was rudely awoken at 5am by what had to have been a 5000lb person moving around incessantly in the room above me. This got Rue very excited and she took herself off the bed grabbed a toy and preceded to whine and wag at the door. Begrudgingly, I got up and decided to start the day. Of course, even with all of that extra time, I got to the arena later than I had wanted to. They had two rings going at once and, you guessed it, I was supposed to be in both right away. I managed to walk the Excellent Standard course for Miles and the Open JWW course for Rue in about 10 minutes and then got Miles out to run.
The Exc. Standard course by Christie Bowers was very fun with room to open up and only a few tricks. Miles absolutely nailed the course to come in 3rd out of 45 entries at over 4yps! This made MX leg # 5 and gave us 18 more points.
I then had to litterally throw him in his crate and bust it over to Ring 2 with Rue for Open JWW. I thought Dan Butcher had some really interesting courses this weekend and this was one of them. I wasn’t sure what she was going to think of running indoors or even if she would run based on her varying responses last weekend. Much to my surprise, she came off the line fast and didn’t slow down once. She had beautiful weaves too (last weekend she popped out in the middle 2/3)! This earned her OAJ with a 2nd place finish at a blistering 4.7yps! Her fastest trial run to date Even better, Rue tugged with her new toy before and after her run! She wouldn’t tug as we got closer to our turn, so I did switch to food once I could tell her enthusiasm might have been waning. Furthermore, NO MORE CONFLICTS!!
Pretty quickly I had to walk for the 20″ Exc. Standard class. I didn’t plan on doing anything different with Rue than I did with Miles so I just hoped that she’d have fun with this course. The start was tire-dogwalk, which was similar how it was last weekend when she refused the dogwalk. This time there was no refusal, but she didn’t explode off the start like I had hoped and her dogwalk was half trotting. She picked up speed and seemed very happy….until she saw the teeter. Immediately she went to visit the judge, then found a child standing outside the ring to go see. She came back and I tried to get her on again, but she took off to visit a ring steward. I got her back again, she took herself in the tunnel and as she was heading towards the teeter but before she could refuse it again, I told her to sit and then went on with the course. I wanted her to do something correct and I also wanted to reward her going towards the teeter by relieving the pressure. She finished the course very fast and again had a brilliant set of weaves.
Lastly I had to rush over to walk for Exc. JWW. I got half way through my first walk through and they whistled us off the course, gah! Fortunately, the judge was nice and he allowed me to walk with the 20″ dogs and put Miles at the start of that class. I admit I was a bit consumed with what I was going to do with Rue that I didn’t give this course the attention it needed. With a QQ on the line, I really should have concentrated more on what I was doing. He got the opening brilliantly and then all of a sudden I became afraid that he’d take the start jump again that I pulled him off the preceding jump, argh! The rest was perfect except he pulled off the finish jump…dunno why?! He had fun though
With all of that rushing around, I was done for the day at 11:30! Since I had planned on it being a fairly early day I had gone ahead and found a park online called Reedy Creek Park in Charlotte that promised to have nice trail running/hiking for me and the dogs. On our way there, I got a bit lost and ended up having to backtrack a little. In doing so, I unfortunately witnessed a very fresh accident that no authorities had responded to yet. It appeared that an SUV when through a brick wall and hit another car and someone had either been thrown from one of the vehicles or bystanders had removed the person from a vehicle. It was clear that there were plenty of folks responding, so I elected not to interfere. Ugh, I hope everyone was okay Anyway, I finally did find the park and was excited to explore the trails on such a beautiful afternoon. We got about 15 minutes into it when I decided to check to make sure my car key was still in my pocket…..nope. OMG, you have to be kidding me!! Lord I had no idea where I was, where I could have lost it, or even really knew exactly which trails I had turned on. I immediately started backtracking and found a young family to whom I explained my misfortune. They felt sorry for me and relayed that I probably would never find my key out there in the woods (um, thanks for the vote of confidence folks!). However they graciously offered for me to use their cell phone (mine was in my car of course) and to help me in my plight. Their young kids were actually excited for the scavenger hunt We ended up scouring the trails for over an hour when I expressed that I wish I had taught my dogs to track. Suddenly I started paying attention to the times that either dog decided to stop and sniff. Mostly Rue was searching the sides of the trails for who knows what, but finally Miles put his nose down. I stopped and what do you know….about 3 feet in front of me, in the middle of the trail, laying face up, was MY KEY!! I quickly ran back and hugged/thanked the family for taking so much time to help me and offered to do something for them, but they insisted that they were just happy to help. Phew, what a day!
Sunday:
Since Rue moved up in JWW from yesterday, and they were running small-tall, I didn’t need to get to the arena right away today. I ended up arriving around 9am and glad that I did because the Standard course was moving very fast. I got to watch the 16″ dogs to get a bit of a feel for it. My plan for today was to get Rue on the teeter and then leave the ring. What do you know, Dan Butcher put the teeter as the next-to-last obstacle, wow! My luck really had turned Unfortunately, Rue was not too thrilled with the course and moved very slowly throughout most of the run. She trotted even more slowly on the dogwalk, but did have some areas of speed. I got her down the line to the teeter fairly well (although I wish I had just serped it b/c I think the 2 fronts slowed her down), but as soon as she saw the teeter her nose went straight into the astroturf….for 17 seconds (1 second of processing for each of the preceding obstacles I guess, hehe)….and then she looked up at me as if to say “hi mom, I’ll do the teeter now, lets go” and over it she went and then flew to the finish jump for a mega reward. I was so proud of her for doing it, but also definitely concerned about what’s going on.
Miles’ run was just gorgeous though! He turned in his fastest Standard run to date on this course at 4.25yps for MX leg #6, 20 points, and 3rd place! I can see areas where we could have gone even faster too, but I don’t like to push for tight turns on the slippery turf.
Things were moving quickly today, so it wasn’t long before we were walking for Excellent JWW 20″. I was excited for this course by Christie Bowers for both dogs. There were lots of fast parts and only a few areas of twirling for me This was Rue’s first time in Excellent, but I was confident that this was a course that we could execute well. I was right She still was slower than normal, but I expected that based on the last two runs being Standard runs with a lot of stress. She ran with me though and only trotted once (I think she saw something/someone outside of the ring as she was going into the tunnel and felt some conflict because she came out trotting). I could have done a better job with showing more motion in the pinwheels, but we ended up finishing under course time for her 1st AXJ leg in 2nd place at 4.1yps.
Seeing how well Rue handled this course, I was even more excited to run Miles on it. Well, he crushed it Again, not pushing for tight turns so we lost some speed there, but still ran it in 5.25yps. This made QQ #3 and MXJ leg # 6! Unfortunately a lot of fast dogs Q’d in this run, so we didn’t get a placement. However, we still got 12 points I’m so proud of Miles for doing so well on this surface in this high pressure environment! He was the fastest non-BC in this large 24″ class all weekend! He really is becoming unflappable.
We now have two months until our next AKC trial, which I’m happy about. I may enter Rue in a NADAC or CPE trial in the interim if I think it will help us on our journey, but for now I’m concentrating on training with her. We’ve got some exciting seminars coming up including Silvia Trkman this weekend and Carrie Jones in a few weeks. Then we’re heading to Tampa, FL for an Awesome Paws camp with Linda Mecklenburg and Wendy Pape in February, woot!
For those who read my last trial report, you know that Rue refused both the dogwalk and the teeter in her last Standard run of the weekend. At the time I was wondering if it was a specific teeter issue or if it was just a baby dog issue. I’ve been doing my teeter at home for her breakfast this week and she’s been super drivey and really slamming the end down, so I wasn’t convinced that there was going to be a real problem.
Well, last night I brought her and Miles to a drop in class that we’ve been to before and lo and behold, she refused the teeter. This was after running the first half of the course twice at a blazingly fast speed (I think her fastest yet), so she was certainly motivated. However, when we ran the second half of the course she took one look at the teeter and quickly diverted to go “say hi” to the instructor and the rest of the students. I got her back with me, she got on the teeter and then bailed off before the pivot. So I got her back again, she refused, but then decided to get on and did the teeter slowly. I immediately rewarded her with tugging and then sent her back to the tunnel to approach the teeter again. This time she diverted to the instructor, but then fairly quickly came back to execute it with no problem and we went on to finish the course. Unfortunately she must have still been stressed because she went around the middle jump of a serp. We finished and I rewarded her and then took her back to try again. Same thing the second time, but this time she just left and went into a major sniff fest in the sand. It took what felt like eternity to get her re-engaged with me and then I just tugged and played with her before putting her back.
For our last turn in class we got to run the whole course. I was a bit leery if she’d do the dogwalk at all, but she did and had a beautiful performance! I rewarded her after the weaves and then it was just a few obstacles to the teeter. Again she refused, but this time it was less dramatic. She only went close to the instructor and wagged for a second before coming back to me and doing the teeter. Again I rewarded the teeter alone and then sent her back into the tunnel, over the teeter and this time we completed the course including the serp!
After class I put her back on it a few times using a food reward and jackpotted the drivier attempts. I think she left feeling good about the obstacle, but I’m certainly concerned about this weekend. I’m going to try to squeeze in as many other teeter opportunities that I can before we head out of town, but with all of the rain we’re getting that might not happen
So I am going to be visualizing a lot of fast drivey teeters this weekend at the trial! Hopefully that and what she worked through last night will be the end of it, but if not I have a plan. Obviously, I don’t care about the Q at this point with her so if she’s at all skeptical about the teeter, but decides to perform it, we’re leaving for a major party!! I will not have another teeter phobic dog
