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
We had a gorgeous weekend for trialing with beautiful sunny skies, low humidity and high temps between 65-75. The mornings were nice and cool, which the dogs appreciated and with the swim pond on sight, the afternoons were quite tolerable as well. Blair Kelly was the judge this weekend and boy was he fun! Really interesting courses and just a nice nice guy. He worked his tail off to keep the trial moving as efficiently as possible too, which was a blessing. So onto the report….
Saturday:
FAST was running first Exc to Novice, so I had time to do my training run in the morning before heading to the trial site. It was 30ish degrees when I got up and needed a hat and gloves for my run, but boy did things warm up quickly! Should have brought shorts to the trial because I was a bit too warm in the black pants I was wearing, oh well. Even for NC this weather was unusual. Anyway, FAST looked fun and the send portion was pretty easy to get to in flow. I don’t really go for points in FAST, but more just let the dogs have a nice fun run with the minimum points needed to Q. I also like to use it for training if there’s something that I might want to work on for the Standard run.
For this course, I ran it the same with both dogs except I wanted to work on a tunnel hole discrimination for Miles. With Rue, I just kept it really flowy. She was in a silly mood and came into the ring wanting to say “hi” to everyone. I got her attention on me at the start, but unfortunately the judge was standing perfectly in line with the first two jumps, so Rue went jump-jump-judge and visited with him for a few seconds until I could get her back with me. Silly puppy. Once she refocused, she was blazing fast!! Only the last several obstacles are on tape, so you don’t get to see her little flirtation with the judge…..
Miles’ run was also blazing fast, but I had a little difficulty cueing the turn after the tire to get him into the other tunnel hole, but he figured it out just fine. Should have led out a bit to get ahead to cue the turn earlier. He also did something very funky at the end and should have bounced the last two jumps, but instead added a stride and then was forced to jump in a very odd fashion. Thank goodness he understands the value of keeping the bars up! Otherwise a fine run for his 2nd leg.
Quickly it was time to run Excellent Standard. This was my first time running two dogs in the same class (other than FAST) and I really struggled with my mental game. I found myself focusing the majority of my time and energy on walking it for Rue when really I need to focus on Miles. Obviously I want to do my best for both dogs, but right now he’s more important. She’s so young and has plenty of time to get those Q’s Fortunately there weren’t too many differences in my plans for this course anyway, but it still messed with my head. I was very glad that it was small to tall today so that I could get Rue’s run out of the way and then have time to revisualize for Miles.
I have to say, Rue did an amazing job on this course. She started out a little slow, but after the second jump she was really moving! I’m very impressed by her dogwalk contact (a LOT of dogs with running contacts were missing it for some reason) as well as her weaves and aframe. She seemed a bit concerned with the teeter (probably due to the rubber making it move different) and didn’t want to get off the table because she was eyeing the judge She was very smart to think about it for a second and then choose to come with me. She got a 1st place with this run for AX leg #1. She ran this in 3.5yps, go baby dog!!
Mr. Miles decided that he needed to go extra fast on this run, hehe. He was actually kinda crazy and in no way was going to stop on his dogwalk (but he cantered all but the down ramp, woot!), silly. Somehow he managed to get a rear toe in the aframe contact too, gah! I was certainly very impressed with his start line stay, how fast he went into his down on the table and also how nicely he rode the teeter down considering how crazed he was. He finished in just shy of 4yps for a 3rd place by 10ths of a second, 17 MACH points, and MX leg #4
After a bit of a break it was time to run Excellent JWW. The course was really tight and only took up maybe 60% of the field, so you can imagine there was a lot of twirling going on out there. I again chose to lead out and was so impressed with the lateral distance I got off of the #2 jump to get in position for a front between 3 and 4. He was moving so well that I actually thought to myself “wow he’s a brilliant jumper” and bam, he dropped a bar, doh! I must’ve hestitated in my cross while marveling at his skills Otherwise a beautiful and fast run for the boy. Only the last 1/3 of the run is on tape, unfortunately. This was a 5.4yps run!
Last but not least was Open JWW. The course wasn’t too horrible, but I was having a really difficult time wrapping my brain around how to best handle it for Rue. I’ve been trying to keep her in extension as much as possible, but honestly have just had a very difficult time conceptualizing where to put the crosses in, etc. I admit I was a bit panicked for this course and just couldn’t get my mental game in check. I got Rue out way to early for this run too and could tell by our warm up that she was just not as into it as she could be and it showed when we got in the ring. She took the first 2 jumps slowly and then veered off to visit a ring steward. I got her back relatively quickly but she trotted to the next jump and then skipped a pole in the weaves so I restarted her. I’m not sure if she looked at the judge or if it was a weird point at the junction of the two sets of poles or what, but all of it ate up too much time for her to Q. I do have to say that after the poles she got going nicely and finished very happily, which is the most important thing right now.
Sunday:
I spent a lot of time Saturday evening analyzing what had happened in all of our runs. For sure I need to work more on mentally preparing to run two very different dogs on the same course, but also I am struggling a lot on the handling aspect for Rue. I’m not convinced that she needs all of the turns on the flat at this point, plus they’re awkward for me and I’m sure she senses my insecurity. I agree that I need to aim for as much extension as possible for her until the time comes that I’m getting offcourses due to her becoming more commited to obstacles ahead of her. Right now she’s still focused a lot on me and my motion…not a bad thing, just a measure of her understanding. So I decided that I was going to handle her with crosses at the jumps like I do with Miles, but just remember to support her more and go for as much extension as possible.
Excellent JWW was first today and it was tall to small. The course was very interesting and as I’ve come to understand very typical for this judge. Apparently he likes to make the handler think a lot, hehe. There were 3 straight tunnels in a row in this course and the first time through you don’t take any of them, but then the ending has you taking them all in a row, yikes! Miles definitely had a lot of fun on this course, but I was not a very good handler. I did a start line stay, but either should have led out on the other side to do a push or led out farther on the side I was on because I didn’t get a very good turn to #3 and almost bought the obvious tunnel. I think now that he appears comfortable with the start line stays, I need to push it farther and not feel so rushed about releasing him so early. This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten surprised with how fast he comes off the line when I lead out Also, I didn’t support a lateral send enough and he pulled off a jump which forced a strange rear to get him in the poles. Since we already NQ’d I tried to get lateral off the poles ,which I did, but wound up having to stop motion due to almost running into the next jump and he pulled out at pole 10. Then he got so much speed through the 3 tunnels that I didn’t cue him soon enough in the last tunnel so he came out too far and went around the next jump, agh. That put me in a bad spot for the ending and had to do a really funky manouver to get him over the finish. Still with all that crappy handling he finished in 27 seconds, only 4 tenths of a second off the first place time. This was a 5.5yps run, yahoo!!
Next up was Open JWW and another interesting course. One thing that I really liked about this judge was that his Open/Novice courses were very different from the Excellent courses. Not many judges design them that way and rather just take some of the obstacles out or renumber to make the courses “easier”. This one still had 3 straight tunnels, but was vastly different from Excellent. I got a good plan for Miss Rue that would allow extension, but with cues to turn over the jumps. I also got her out at pretty much the last second…enough time to pee, do some shadow handling and some tricks and then into the ring. We had a slight delay of game when we got to the line because the handler before us was having trouble leashing her dog. I could see Rue’s enthusiasm draining before my eyes, sigh. However, she actually came off the line pretty fast and accelerated through the first turn. I think she quite liked the earlier information about the turn and didn’t even look at the obvious tunnel. She popped the poles in the middle again today, sigh, but quickly reattempted them and we made it under time for a 3rd place Q and our 2nd OAJ leg! If you subtract out the time lost having to go back and repeat the weaves, this was a 4.2yps run…her fastest yet!
Excellent Standard was up next and again I found myself struggling mentally during my walk through. I think I only walked it once for Miles….bad mommy :( The course didn’t look too bad at all, but since M was going first I really should have focused more of my time on him instead of just taking him for granted. Especially with him going faster and faster I need to be on my game to be where I need to be for him. Needless to say, I totally botched his run up. I wasn’t in the spot I needed to be for the teeter and ended up causing him some confusion. He saved my butt and hit the weave entry, but later in the course he came out of a tunnel and through the tire with so much extension that I couldn’t get him to turn back and he went around the aframe. It’s become more and more clear that I have minimal time to think out there with him. I need to be where I need to be and not wait to marvel at him. I must say that he still got the fastest time out of the 24’s and was only a few seconds behind some fast 20″ BC’s. Also, when I was giving him his reward outside of the ring, someone I didn’t know said “he’s so fast”….made my day Subtracting out the time lost with the refusal, this was 4.2yps…holy smokes!
I was excited for Rue’s run because I thought we had a really good chance of doing well with it. Even though there was a turn after the dogwak, I still could cue extension and just send her into the corner and then cue the turn. I had a good plan for the remainder, so I just hoped that I’d have the same dog that I had in JWW for this run. She seemed very excited before going in the ring and actually left the line quite fast, but went to the inside of the dogwalk for a refusal. I reset her and then she did a beautiful dogwalk, got the turn, but then had to call her off a jump to cue the teeter which she also refused. I again reset her and she got on the teeter but stopped before the pivot…something she’s never ever done. So I took her off, skipped the weaves to keep it fun and just ran the rest of the course. She did that all brilliantly and left very pleased with herself. I’m still not totally certain what happened here. Melanie really thinks that she was bothered by the teeter on Saturday and thus refused the dogwalk since she couldn’t tell the difference. Once she realized it was the dogwalk then she knew the other one was the teeter. I’m not totally sure just becuase I didn’t think she disliked the teeter that much on Saturday, but who knows. I thought it was more that she was chasing me initially and went around the dogwalk (she’s done this before if I get her really excited…she goes into chase mode instead of agility obstacle mode) as she got right on it and didn’t hesitate on the upramp to see if it would tip. I think the teeter refusal was because I called her off an obvious jump and she decided that I was garbage. Who knows. I’m definitely going to be getting her on as many different teeters as I can this week before our next show…
There was about a 2.5 hour break after Std. before FAST, so I decided to go ahead and get my long training run in for the week. I figured no time like the present and plus it would give me good processing time for what may have happened in Standard and what I could do to really make FAST fun. Well somehow in the heat of the afternoon, I managed to do 9 out of the 10 miles that I was supposed to run, bleh. Of course I got back and they were just about to run Novice Standard…should have run farther, but it gave me a chance to let the dogs swim in the pond again and for me to lay down for a little bit
I digress….back to FAST. I found a great plan for both dogs that had the same start to the send portion, but with Miles I wanted to run him over a different rubberized teeter and with Rue I wanted to avoid the teeter and hit the aframe instead so the ending was a bit different. Before this run I also bought Rue a really nice braided tug leash that matches her trial collar perfectly I was interested to see what she thought of that and see if I could get her engaged with it prior to going in the ring. She was defintely interested, but too conflicted to tug, which I expected. I did get a little bark out of her though, but she still trotted to the first jump. After that she did great and I think really was the perfect way to end the weekend. Only her run got on tape, but they both ended up with Q’s to earn them both the NF title!
So I learned that I need to manage my head better now that I have two dogs in the same class for Standard (and probably soon for JWW as well). Miles really does deserve the most attention from me right now as far as how I’m walking the course. It’s pretty clear to me at least for the moment that Rue can handle the earlier turning cues, so maybe there’s not as much difference between their handling as I had thought other than their contact criteria. I realize that Miles is continuing to get faster and more confident, so I need to make sure I’m handling him proactively instead of reactively and that I can start to push him with the lead outs more. He’s gotten faster and our Q rate has dropped significantly. That’s to be expected as there’s now more risk of offcourses, etc because things are happening that much faster and his striding has gotten bigger, so less room for indecision on my part. I also discovered that Rue only needs a very quick warm up much the same as Miles. I still need to work on figuring out how to engage her more at the start line so that she’ll stop trotting through the first obstacle. I’m hoping her new leash will help with that since she’s gotten so much more into tugging lately, however I realize that this might take time as it’s taken a while for her to be comfortable enough to tug in class/training. She also just needs a lot more exposure to agility outside of trialing, so I need to continue to make that a priority for her to get to as many new places as possible. Fortunately, we only are entered in one more trial until late January.
Up Next: Two days indoors in Concord for AKC this weekend, then Silvia Trkman’s seminar at PBH followed by a workshop with Carrie Jones in mid-December!
by Rue’s transformation over the last month or so. She’s really understanding the idea of sequencing the obstacles together more and more. Even more importantly though, she has become a tugging fanatic. Rue has always enjoyed tugging with me when it’s just been for play, particularly inside, especially at home. Yet for so long if I tried to incorporated tugging into training, it fell flat. It was too much pressure on her and she would either do the sequence slowly and then not want the tug as a reward or she’d just leave me. However, sometime in the last 4 weeks or so, she’s decided that tugging plus agility equals AWESOME! Furthermore, there is a marked difference in her speed and enthusiasm when she’s working for food now versus working for her tug toy. Honestly night and day. This is footage from run-throughs last week….the first course was run with food rewards and the second with her tug. What do you think?
I think she’s more accurate at this point with the food reward, but much slower. Personally, I’d rather have the speed and inaccuracy right now ;)
She’s entered this weekend, so will update either Sunday night or Monday…..
On Saturday the dogs got to go to Virginia to see Dr. Schwabe for an initial structural evaluation. Neither of them have had any problems (other than knowing that Miles has mild elbow dysplasia) so this was just to get established and make sure everything was looking good with them. The office is located on a beautiful piece of property situated in the country not too far from Lynchburg.
Not knowing what to expect, I brought Rue in first since I knew she’d be fine with pretty much anything that happened. Plus that gave me a chance to see what Dr. Schwabe was going to do so that I wasn’t worried for Mr. Softie (Miles). As expected Rue went with the flow and was a perfect patient. Dr. Schwabe started by watching her move off lead and then proceded to bring her inside and have her do several tricks (sit-up, stand, lie down, back-up, bow) all to see how she moved her body and if she was balanced. Then she proceded to do a full ortho exam followed by a massage/chiro adjustment. Rue weighed 36.8lbs and according to the Dr. is “built like a Border Collie”, hehe! She said that Rue was perfectly proportioned with excellent muscle tone and body awareness. She feels that Rue is structurally perfect for agility (and any other sport that I’d want to do with her) and is built for speed. In other words, Rue’s perfect
Next up was Miles and as is typical of him, he came out of the vehicle like a spaz. Bouncing up and down and sideways, skittering about from person to person and giving flying kisses. I couldn’t get him to just walk/trot around at all…just bounce. Plus since he was nervous, he was holding himself very stiffly so you can imagine her opinion of him initially was a bit swayed. Thankfully, Miles took an almost instantaneous liking to Dr. Schwabe so he eventually was able to settle in and be “normal”. Overall, he weighed 53.7lbs and she says that he’s built a bit like a horse (so I guess I have a horse and a BC) and holds his head very high…probably because he’s always on the lookout for boogeymen not unlike how a horse or other prey animal is. She said that his back and hind end, including his tail, were very very strong. She also found no evidence of any issues in his elbows However, what she did find are weak and overly flexible shoulders, particularly on the left. He had some significant muscle spasm under both shoulder blades, in his neck, and also in his sacrum. She was able to work most of that out and amazingly Miles seemed to totally not mind it at all (and she said it had to hurt).
Dr. Schwabe also watched him do a couple of aframes which she said were great and no issue with the shoulders as well as watched him do the weaves. She thinks he’s very smart to not single-stride in the weaves because that would be putting way too much stress on his shoulders. So my hunch was right about that…..it had to be something structural that kept him doing a bounce stride despite multiple attempts on my part to retrain the poles. During this time, Miles became more and more relaxed and in the end showed the Dr. a much more normal appearing gait for him. She was definitely relieved to see that he actually did move quite well
We spent a lot of time talking about Miles and coming up with a conditioning plan for him to keep him sound and strengthen his front end. I’ve now got a bunch of new tricks to teach him and some other fun things to help with shoulder strength and stretching. We also switched his glucosamine supplement to Dasuquin. I’m also going to start doing some cavaletti work to see if I can get him to lower his head while trotting, similar to what you would do if your horse (poor Miles, hehe) kept a very high head placement. Miles is also going to be getting massaged regularly now, lucky guy!
In summary, my biggest take home message for him is to always err on the side of caution and that with him less is always more. So, if the surface is slick I should probably not run him, etc. I will need to limit the number of trials we do to no more than 3/month and should avoid doing 3-day multiple run trials (like USDAA). I can say that I’m very glad that I have Rue to run now because it will help me to fill the void of maybe not being able to run him as much as I would like. Then again, we’ve never done that many runs in a day for days in a row, so this probably isn’t going to be too much of a shock.
We go back in 6 months for a recheck
Chapter 2: Insecurity
This really hit home for me as I definitely have struggled with self-confidence at different points of my life….especially when branching out into something new.
In terms of agility, I spent so much of my early days sheltered from the “real deal” because Miles wouldn’t do the teeter in public. So for the longest time our career in agility was self-limited….we’d never get to a MACh or other high title because of his teeter phobia and other struggles. When Melanie helped me start him on a retrain/rehab program I was so excited and worked hard everyday to help him to overcome this obstacle. In February of this year, Miles had his public teeter debut during a run-through at PBH and, as excited as I was that he did it, suddenly I found myself depressed and starting down an unchartered path that I had never dreamed of. Suddenly the sky was the limit and I couldn’t (and sometimes still can’t) believe that we were worthy.
A similar thing happened when he moved up to Excellent B. He moved up so quickly that suddenly we were playing with the big boys yet I didn’t think we deserved to be there. My Q rate started to drop….I made foolish mistakes….wasn’t patient….couldn’t focus. I really think that I unconsciously was self-sabotaging. This still happens from time to time when I’m preparing to run, but I’ve been trying hard to be a “jumping flea”. I will need to remind myself to stand tall and puff out my chest feathers and talk as if I’m confident
Along the same lines, I certainly have moments of feeling very insecure when stepping to the line with Rue. Probably mostly because I expect a lot from myself with her…she’s my second agility dog and I’ve raised her to do agility from the get go. My expectations for her are already much higher than for Miles. I get worried that folks will think that she’s too slow or has a crummy running dogwalk (something that has so far taken me 8 months of pretty constant training). Yet what I really need to be telling myself is that I am doing the best I can with her right now. She’s a *baby* and I need to remember that this takes time and when she’s ready, she’ll be a force to be reckoned with….
Chapter 3: Neuro-Associative Conditioning
This was interesting. Not sure how much I buy into it, but it’s certainly worth a shot. I can see using the “pattern interrupt” at times when I might start overthinking a course and worrying about everything from knocked bars to off-courses. Now I just need to come up with something to say or think that will break my train of thought….for some reason all I can think about right now is shouting “Waffles!”. No idea why???
I’m not very clear about how to recondition myself though. I understand how counterconditioning can work while training dogs and this sounds similar, but I’m not sure I’d be able to do it to myself. I am afraid that my own mind would realize that I’m trying to trick myself.
Using visualization and repeating my verbal affirmations during these times would be helpful:
- I am confident in my handling choices for each dog
- Miles has wicked fast weaves and slams into a down on the table
- Miles rides the teeter all the way down
- Rue is motivated to work/play with me
- Rue runs fast and extended
- Rue and I move together as a connected team
Another new trial site for us and what a beautiful place! The trial was held at “Corgi Hill Farm” in Carthage, NC. The drive there was nice among beautiful countryside with some gorgeous Fall colors and the site was actually a working farm full of sheep, ducks, and Corgis I only entered Miles this weekend because I wasn’t sure what Rue would be doing at the time. I was a bit sad that I couldn’t run her this weekend, but at the same time judge Tom Slattery had some wicked Standard courses that would have been very tough for her since she just moved up to Excellent.
Saturday:
Warm, humid and raining on and off all day. Somehow Miles and I managed to avoid the heaviest rain, but some folks weren’t so fortunate. Of course rain makes Mr. Man that much faster/crazier for some reason. This was a very small trial with only about 45 Excellent entries and with the weather forcast, there were quite a few scratches. I was glad that I was slated to be timer for the small dogs since otherwise I would have gotten there a little later and would have missed the combined walkthrough.
Excellent Standard was first to run. The course wasn’t too bad, but had about 4 discrimination points and at each one you wanted your dog to take the inside obstacle/tunnel hole (our least favorite). I walked the course about 4 times and came up with an independent plan. Since doing the goal setting exercise last week, my focus really was speed. I want to see our Standard course times getting better and ultimately would love to be seeing 4yps consistently. Once I took my position as timer and started watching some small dogs I realized I walked the course and completely neglected the table, agh. What the heck?? This isn’t Grand Prix, sigh, why am I so dumb sometimes. Fortunately, it made sense where it was and I mentally made a plan for it.
Miles was uber excited to warm up…actually I don’t think he’s ever been this bouncy outside of the ring before. Seeing that it was a new place and there were two huge tents over the ring entrance that were flapping heavily in the wind gusts, I was most impressed with his exuberance! As expected, the course ran really fast. I unfortunately got stuck managing the dw to tunnel entry and couldn’t get in position for my blind before the a-frame which caused a refusal. Since that NQ’d us, I just pushed him for the rest. He had an awesome stay on the table where I led out about 15ft, wow! I failed to indicate the correct tunnel hole after the teeter (which he rode all the way down, yeah) which made the weave entry quite difficult, but he got it anyway. I should have kept moving while he was in the poles and gotten on the other side of the triple, but I hesitated and he popped out. He had a beautiful line of offset jumps to the finish. If you take out the time lost getting him on the frame, this was a 4.2yps Standard run!!
Melanie, Leila and I then took our 7 dogs for a nice long walk around the property while we waited for all of 8 Open and 4 Novice dogs to run.
The JWW course looked fabulously fast. I was very very excited to run this course as I thought it would be one that we could execute well. I think I’ve been a little hesitant lately about front-crosses as I’ve had 2 very recent occurances where I couldn’t get there and was forced to rear on the fly. So I planned two rears in this course, but unfortunately I was there in more than enough time and my lack of motion made the rears very difficult. Miles saved my butt on the first one and miraculously pushed out to the double even though I was way behind, but he just couldn’t do it at the last one. I was literally stopped and he did what he should have and pulled off the jump for a refusal 4 jumps from the end SUCH and nice run though and at 5.4yps I’ll take it! He also had fabulous weaves in this run
Today they also planned to demo the new Time To Beat (TTB) class at the end of the day. I decided after looking at the course map that I’d stay and run lil’ Rue. I figured it’d be good experience for her at a new site on new equipment and since it didn’t “count” I could mentally treat it like a show and go. The premise of this game is very similar to USDAA’s Steeplechase in that it’s designed for speed and you compete based on jump height, not level. So there’s just one course for all levels. This course had the a-frame as the one contact obstacle (it will be either be that or the teeter, never the dogwalk) and you had to do it twice. Otherwise it was just jumps, a tunnel, and 12 weaves.
Rue did quite well with this course. She was slower at the beginning and added extra strides, but from the weaves on she was cookin’. I should have talked to her in the tunnel because she came out looking to the left which made the next jump very difficult, but she was a very smart puppy and saved it! She finished in 30 seconds which put her 3rd in the 20″ height class out of 10 dogs and just behind and Aussie and a BC. Yay Rue! I’m thinking that she really doesn’t like when I push back on her at the start as she’s been tending to trot before the first jump when I do it. I’m going to experiment with baby lead-outs versus sending her through my legs and taking off running. I will also continue to reward pushing back on her collar and having her touch my hand for cookies to see if I can build drive for that game too.
Sunday:
Much cooler today than yesterday and far less humid which made it much more comfortable for everybody. The Standard course looked even more evil than yesterday with a hard call off both ends of a tunnel to go into a pinwheel, yuck. I figured I’d give it my best, but if he took the tunnel oh well at least he’d have more fun that way. Well, I got what I expected and he called off the first tunnel hole and went into the 2nd one, so I went with it. After watching the video I think I may have had better luck if I kept my stinking arm down, oops. He found the tunnel to the pinwheel fun and I cheered for him for doing what I obviously told him to do which got a chuckle out of the judge We got called on our teeter today, which was a surprise as it really wasn’t that bad….maybe he called it since we had already NQ’d?? I’d like to think that! He had a beautiful table that he had to really hold onto as he was flying at it and then went into his down reasonably fast. His tunnel to dogwalk was beautifully tight and the rest was fabulous. We had a bar after the frame not sure what I did there, but probably was frantically trying to get to a front cross that I hadn’t planned in my walk through, but I wanted to test his weave entry and independence. He rocked that part. Totally hit his entry and let me get about 10 feet lateral and way far ahead of him. I don’t think he’s ever weaved this fast in a trial, ever. He was SUPER happy with himself too! This run was actually 3.8yps even with the extra tunnel and the little hesitation to down on the table. WOW!
We again did our 7 dog, 1 mile walk between classes and Rue got to see horses for I think the first time. She thought they were quite neat
Once again the JWW course looked super fun…lots of places for fronts and nice areas for them to really open up and rip. I was brave today and planned all fronts including one after the weaves (which was actually a “backy uppy” followed by a front) which required me to have lateral distance off the weaves again. Well I must say I think my boy quite liked this course! I was able to do my whole plan and he responded so nicely and didn’t even look at any of the offcourses that were eating up dog after dog. He ran this in 5.2yps and was still 3 seconds behind Melanie’s Awesome Austie! But 2nd place with 16 MACh points ain’t bad So this makes MXJ leg #5….
Overall I thought Miles and I did really great this weekend. The courses were very hard and we still were able to pull them off with only 1 or 2 mistakes in each. I’m so thrilled with how fast he was running especially given that it was a new place. He far superceded my yps goals in each run and had some *amazing* weaves! I was also very proud of myself for not trying to play it safe and go for the Q. I would have felt really terrible if I slowed him down to try to be perfect and even worse if we still NQ’d so this was a big accomplishment for me! I got so many compliments on our runs too, which is funny as only 1 was a Q. Just goes to show you that slow and accurate just isn’t as memorable or as flashy as fast and dirty : D
Up Next: A new patient evaluation for both dogs at a sports vet in Virginia. I’m looking forward to learning more about my dogs’ structures and what I can do to help keep them as sound as possible. Following that both dogs are entered locally for AKC 11/7-8 and then we’ll be taking it indoors for a show in Concord (same site as the AKC Nationals this year) the following weekend!
As part of my personal growth, I am reading Jane Savoie’s book “It’s Not Just About the Ribbons”. My friends and I are reading a chapter per week and discussing what we’ve learned. Chapter 1 discusses goal setting and in order to put more pressure on myself, I am listing them here in my blog…..so here are mine for the next year.
Long Term Goals (Define Your Destination)
-Miles: MACh by Fall 2010 (and in doing so qualify for 2011 AKC Nationals)
-Rue: Qualify for and attend 2011 AKC Nationals
Short Term Goals (Make a Road Map)
- Miles: MX/MXJ by Spring 2010
ADHF (Golden Retriever Agility Dog Hall of Fame) by Summer 2010
This month:
- Learn how to communicate the difference between a tight rear-cross and a forward motion rear-cross
- Practice start line stays in class, run-throughs, and in “high pressure” situations outside of agility
- Do more “walk handling” sessions to help him have more obstacle commitment
- Achieve and maintain at least 5yps course times in JWW and at least 3.8yps course times in Standard
- Rue: AX/AXJ by Late Spring/Early Summer 2010
This month:
- Become more comfortable with turns on the flat to maintain extension and forward drive
- 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:
- My dogs are fast, smart, and talented
- I am fast, coordinated, and strong
- Miles is courageous and resilient
- Rue is motivated to work/play with me
- I am confident in my handling choices for each dog
EDITED TO JUST THESE:
- Rue is motivated to work/play with me
- I am confident in my handling choices for each dog
- Miles has wicked fast weaves and slams into a down on the table
- 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 dog’s 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
We had our final class for the session last night and I asked if I could put Rue in this class with Miles instead of her regular Wed. night Novice/Open class. Mostly I wanted a free night as I seem to be burning the candle at both ends lately, but I also wanted a chance to run her on longer sequences than we do in Novice and have more instruction time.
Melanie’s taking a teaching break next session, so we won’t have our normal classes again until January. Instead, she’s teaching a mini 2 week session in which Miles and Rue are going to be in a Masters Standard class together and just Miles will be in a Masters JWW class. I didn’t think that putting Rue in class Tues and Wed back-to-back would be in her best interest at the time, but now I’m kind of wishing that I signed her up for the JWW class too as that seems to be our weaker area. Hopefully we’ll be able to drop-in if someone is absent. Otherwise, on the alternate weeks, I’m co-teaching a foundation class with one of my friends and then will be looking at going to drop-in classes elsewhere to keep my dogs in a structured learning environment with other dogs.
Having both dogs in the same class last night was really fun for me! I was able to really mentally compare how they respond to my handling and the course and also work on being able to plan my handling strategy differently for both dogs. It was obvious that Rue was faster and happier last weekend with me running her very forward. I was interested to see how it transferred in class. Plus I just got to run more which is just plain fun I asked a friend to video us too, so I could really see how they did.
Overall, both dogs did great. Miles pretty much is always a superstar in class…very fast, accurate, and happy. I wanted to capture on video the difference in his 3 “slow” areas (table, dogwalk, and weaves) between trials and class. For his last sequence, which was the whole course, I used his dinner (raw chicken) as his reward. This historically is extremely motivating for him and it really gives me a glimpse of what he has the potential to do. He was a bit overly aroused for that part of class and kinda left his brain on the sidelines as you can see in this video:
Here he is doing just the first half of the course in the beginning of class. I had a cheese stick on me for reward. The video is kind of a mess though….
Lil’ Rue was equally a champ last night. She ran very fast and was quite pleased with herself I think! I’m still in awe of what she’s doing at such a young age. It blows my mind how she can know how to do some of the things that she’s doing Anyway, here are her first attempts at the first half of the course. The turn after the dogwalk was a real doozy and I haven’t been working turns at all, so I didn’t really care about what she gave me as far as her contact hits were concerned. Melanie and I will be talking about turn training for the dw in our private lesson next week.
Here she is in the second half. Here you can really see the difference of what cueing extension does for her speed and confidence
And finally, the whole course! Little monkey thought she could bounce jump between the wingless and the double, whoops. When we repeated that, she very smartly added a stride
In other news, I’m completely redoing my home agility field. This has been an ongoing project for a few years now and finally I’ve decided that it needed to be a grass surface. The area is separately fenced from the rest of the yard and being that it’s near the bottom of a sloped lot, drainage and wash away has been a major issue. It started out being a fine gravel surface which worked for about 4-6 months until most of the gravel ended up in the woods after several really bad storms. A french drain was placed, but the wash away continued so the area was mulched…well just half of it as the project got halted. Both dogs have always enjoyed eating the mulch, argh, and while the mulch didn’t wash away, it had a propensity to grow very large mushrooms and other fungii–ick. So finally after much deliberation, the area got a bunch of fill-dirt and was regraded yesterday and will be overseeded at the end of the week. Ahhhh, sweet! Only bummer is that I can’t use the agility field until the grass takes which won’t be until March-ish. So all of my equipment is strewn across the backyard for now, but fortunately there is enough room to be able to set up a few stations for training
