Road Trips & Run Throughs

As I mentioned last week, Southpaws K9 was hosting a run-through on Friday in advance of their CPE agility trial being held in Lakeville, MN this past weekend. We don't do CPE, but CPE uses the teeter and we DO need to see more of those!! So it made perfect sense to pack up the troop and drive 2 1/2 hours for a few minutes in the ring, right? Right!

To be honest, I almost bagged out on the idea. I took the day off work on Friday because my car was long overdue for an oil change -- like 1000 miles overdue, so I really wanted to have that done before embarking on any road trips. My appointment was at 11:00 and all morning I sat there thinking how stupid it was to go so far for a fun run. This was due largely to the fact that I was just plain exhausted.

Actually getting up and leaving the house for our appointment helped to wake me up some. I got home shortly before noon and ate some lunch. My Garmin said that the trip was about 2:24 and the run-through was scheduled to begin at 3:00. I figured I really didn't need to be the first person there, so I bumped my departure time back to about 1:00. As I left, I still thought it was a stupid idea to drive over 300 miles just to be able to practice on a teeter. But it is what it is, so I went.

And I'm so glad I did! We had a fabulous time and it was really so good for both Kaiser & Secret to have this opportunity.

We pulled in to the arena around 3:40 or so. They were speculating walk-throughs on the hour or so, which I figured put me on a good schedule for the second round. Turns out they were running late, however, and were just finishing building the course as I arrived. I squeaked in to get Secret & Kaiser in the running order right before they closed it off to any more dogs. Great timing! I familiarized myself with the course quickly for the purposes of Kaiser's run, but I more or less planned to spend Secret's entire two minutes on the teeter. Then I hauled butt to get everything set up and the dogs pottied and brought inside. I'd been hoping to just crate out of the car, but it was a much further jaunt than I'd expected, so I set all three dogs up in the x-pen.

The first round ran tall to small, so Secret's turn was up first. I signed her up to run in the 20" group. The run-through was allowing toys in the ring, but no food. Considering the struggles I've always had with getting Secret to play in a trial environment, I knew it was up in the air as to whether or not she'd show any interest in toys in the ring. I didn't bring her out of the pen until the dog before us was in the ring in an effort to avoid her getting stressed prior to our turn. I brought out the "big guns" straight away with the Udder Tug.

As usual, she saw all of the people & dogs milling about and she did start to stress. I got down on the floor with her and started darting the tuggy around on the floor in front of her. This got her attention and she started to pounce on it and even gave me some tugging before we went into the ring for our turn.

When we were up I walked her into the ring on leash and she seemed to shut down a bit on me again -- she didn't seem interested in the tug when I offered it to her. I sent her over a couple of jumps on the way to the teeter and she lit up again and the game was on! Toys in the ring, yay!

I showed her the teeter and asked her for a touch, which she gave me -- tug! Touch harder -- tug again! Slam! Slam? No slam. Hmm, okay. So I just asked her to do the whole teeter at that point and she was totally okay with it. There wasn't a whole lot of confidence with holding our end position (this was a pretty bouncy teeter), but she was doing the full teeter with no hesitation, so I just quick released while she was still four-on the board. Happy tugging!! Lots & lots of play! As planned, I used my entire two minutes just on the teeter. When I heard them call out 15 or 30 seconds we did one more teeter and then ran the line of jumps out of the ring. More tugging!! I think she actually tugged a little even after I put her leash back on, but then it was the usual freight train back to the crating area for treats.

Kaiser's first run went well, too. He had a BIG AIR moment over the a-frame the first time, but he was a very good boy on his contacts and even stopped on the dog walk when I asked him to. No fly-offs on the teeter, either -- such a good boy! He was slip-sliding a bit on the turf, but it didn't seem to throw him too much. I ran him at 8" due to the discovery of continued degeneration of his right knee that was discovered at our vet appointment on Thursday. He's been started on Adequan now and we'll see what happens (ie: if he can do USDAA anymore since he has to jump 12"), but at the moment he seems perfectly happy at 8" despite the findings in his knee.

Small dogs were up first for the next round, so Kaiser was up again. I schooled his dog walk when he didn't stop and after that he put in two really nice runs. He was in such a good mood and seemed to really have a lot of fun with the course. I was debating only taking Secret to the USDAA trial at the end of the month, but considering that Kaiser will almost be done with his loading dose of Adequan by then, I'm tempted to take him along and see how he does at 12". I have to decide soon, as the entries close on the 16th.

For Secret's second turn I decided to go ahead and try the whole course with her. I am *so proud* of her! The course started with a tire that she's never seen -- one of the thin foam breakaway models -- but she popped right through it with no problem. The teeter was obstacle 14 or something on course and she just attacked it. When I released her, though, instead of going to the next jump she whipped back at me and asked, "Where's my dang toy?" I laughed and let her have her tuggy, then dragged her (tugging) back to the start line to just start again. We'd used up about half our time by this point. She was zippier on the second go -- she'd come into the ring pretty stressed, but play time after the teeter really brought her back to me. She was a sassy girl on course, barking at me as I called her name for a turn while she was in the tunnel. This time we did our teeter and continued on to finish the course (with a little twist I added to up the difficulty a bit) and finished ahead of our time limit. Tug! Tug! Tug! She was a happy girl. :o)

So yes, as completely RIDICULOUS as it was to drive a total of 5 hours for less than 8 minutes in the ring, it was so worth it. The dogs really enjoyed themselves (well, minus poor Luke who didn't get to do anything) and it was a very positive training opportunity. I certainly wish we had the chance to do stuff like this closer to home, but it is what it is. I'm glad we were able to go -- and now I feel much more confident about the USDAA trial at the end of the month. I was horrified at the thought of entering pairs due to the possibility of Secret not doing the teeter. I understand that this possibility certainly does still exist, but I feel a lot better about it now!

Jackpot!

No, I didn't win that 640 million dollar Mega Millions jackpot drawing this past Friday (I didn't even win $1 in that!). But Secret thinks that this might be EVEN BETTER.

We now have in our possession what more or less amounts to a lifetime supply of used inflation units -- Otherwise known to the rest of the dog population as Udder Tug toys -- For FREE!

When the Udder Tug toy (long with handle model -- retails for $15) proved to be such a hit with Secret, I started to go through my list of "folks I know" who might be able to help us out with finding more of these remarkable objects. I knew that one of my co-workers at the shelter also works on a dairy farm, so a week or so I sidled up to Lanette and asked her a very strange question (to her at least).

Of course I couldn't remember what they were REALLY called, and asking her if she had any Udder Tugs wasn't going to help, either. So I more or less sounded like a complete fool as I asked her if they might ever have any of those rubber tubular things that go in the milker things for the cows. Actually, that's probably a bit more eloquent than I actually was as I stumbled over my words.

Somehow she managed to figure out that I was inquiring about these things called "inflations" and she more or less thought I was completely crazy to have paid $15 for one. She wasn't surprised about the use of them, because apparently all the dogs on the farm go nuts for them. She asked how many I wanted. I don't know, a bag? How big of a bag, she asked? I don't know, surprise me!

And there you go -- One GIANT bag of inflation units all for us! Ripe off the farm, which impressed Secret to no end (I think it's like catnip for dogs). It was a pretty fragrant ride home from the shelter last night, even encased in their plastic bag. Our giant bag of inflations will live in the garage...

So now I need to decide what I'm going to do with them. Knotting a string of nylon rope through them seems easy enough and having a knot at the end seems like it would afford a better grip. Looking at my Udder Tug with the handle, I see the handle is nothing more than the top part of the inflation --- So really, I imagine making my own handled version likely wouldn't even be that hard. I do also want to see about sticking one over our leash to see if Secret will tug with it, too. With this many inflation do-hickey things in our possession, the possibilities are really endless. :o)

I reapplied Frontline Plus to all of the dogs on Monday prior to our midday walk. The good news is that I have not pulled any attached ticks off anyone since then, so maybe the last dose that I applied on March 1 was just wearing off (we did go swimming several times, after all). It could be that we might just have to apply it every three weeks or so this year vs. monthly as suggested.

I hate applying it to Secret, though. Neither of the boys really have any reaction to topicals whatsoever, but Secret has always reacted negatively. I don't know if it's the chemicals that are affecting her or if it's just the feeling of it spreading over her skin that wigs her out. Secret has very thin/fine hair and the top spot treatments definitely dissipate differently on her than the boys.

More or less, she just kind of wigs out for 24 hours or so. I always apply Frontline immediately before going on a walk so that she is distracted and doesn't have a spastic fit. This works, because as long as she's doing something she does seem okay. But when we get back to the office she's just odd. She becomes very twitchy and jumpy and is more or less incredibly unsettled for the rest of the day. She also drools. A lot. Even when we went to bed that evening she was not herself. By the next morning she seems fine.

It is for that reason that I am terribly uncomfortable with the idea of trying anything stronger (like Certifect, which has now been suggested to me by several people after I moaned about ticks on Facebook the other day). Truthfully, if Frontline continues to have such a poor efficacy this year I may just stop putting it on her at all and pursue other options. We'll see, I just figure anything that changes her behavior for 24 hours can't really be a good thing...

Good Clean (Run) Fun

Yesterday the link to the Clean Run training exercise of the month was posted on the Clean Run Yahoo group. [click here if you want to see the whole thing] Seeing as it was Monday (thus I'm actually home in the evening for a change) and it was a beautiful 60 degree day, I printed it out with the thought that it might make a fun evening activity for us. There's an international jumpers course from the February issue that I also want to set up soon, but this was much faster to set and thus won out!

Note that I was too lazy to go down to the basement to bring up the rest of my jumps, so I substituted three hoops for the jumps at the bottom of the course. Once I ran it, I did find myself wishing I would have used jumps because I do feel they add a different element of challenge vs. a hoop. That said, these exercises were certainly filled with plenty of challenge as it was!

Unlike the Backyard Dogs exercises where I find myself able to retain three drills at once, with these exercises (I opted to do Exercise 5 then Exercise 4) I worked on committing one to memory, ran the dogs, then learned the second one and ran them again. My brain is still struggling to work through these styles of courses and it generally takes quite a bit of effort for me to get it right (more on that later, lol). I think that's just what happens when you focus on nothing but NADAC for so long!

Generally these exercises tend to be listed in progressive order of difficulty, but I chose to run Exercise 5 first because it had fewer obstacles and I perceived it to be "easier" than the one preceding it.

Kathy Keats (The Agility Coach), author of these drills, stated that the handling challenge of these drills requires the dog to be very responsive to your cues. I tell you, if that's not Secret's strong point, nothing is! She really nailed this drill. I believe her only error was taking the number 9 jump between obstacles 7 & 8 a couple of times, which was easily corrected by fixing my positioning and timing cues.

These types of drills are really up Secret's alley. She excels at tight, twisty & turny and these things really fire her up. In addition, she seems to really be turning on to the cues to take the back side of the jump. Secret seems to really enjoy having me push her around and then take off running to the next obstacle.

Even Kaiser rocked out this exercise. The most challenging aspect for him was making it from three to four without taking the tunnel between them. He is such a tunnel sucker! I ended up having to almost run backwards through that sequence to keep his focus on me and not the tunnel. From there the rest went very well. I'm very happy with how much improvement I've seen in his wraps lately -- He didn't back jump anything all night! With his super sensitive space bubble, it doesn't surprise me that he's taken well to finding the back side of jumps, either. :o)

I did bring Luke out... It was pretty miserable for us both and I ended up letting him run around taking whatever he wanted and throwing his ball for him. Much happier that way!! This course was super, super tight and I see no reason to push him to do these exercises at this point in his career.

Needless to say, I felt like a pretty brilliant trainer after having such success with Secret & Kaiser on the first exercise. Believe me, the second one put me in my place a bit! lol

First things first -- When I was looking over the exercise later in the evening going over what we'd done, I realized that I ran two obstacles in the wrong direction! See, I told you my brain just doesn't grasp this stuff yet... I ran jump 5 on the opposite side, making it a back side push instead of a serpentine. Then I ran (hoop) 13 from the opposite side -- running it as labeled probably would have been easier! I carried the course map with me while walking this drill; my brain just gets so confused when presented with numbers on both sides of jumps. lol

While walking this drill, I spent a LOT of time trying to work out how best to handle jump 2. I know my dogs don't drive well around me in a post turn, so taking the back side from the right didn't seem like a good plan. In my head, I decided the optimal plan was to push to the back from the left and then blind cross the landing to pick them up on the right again.

Yeah.... That was a total fail! Honestly, I didn't even attempt it with Kaiser after failing epically with Secret. The handling move that worked for us was a rear cross. With Secret I rear crossed the landing side and was still easily able to get into position for the wrap/front cross into the tunnel for 3 & 4. For Kaiser I opted to rear cross on the take-off side of jump 2 because he is so sensitive about me crossing directly behind him.

Because I was doing it wrong, I then pushed to the back side of five as they came out of the tunnel. Apparently I was just on a "find the back side" kick last night or something and my brain failed to catch it. Doing the exercise as written would have offered a much different challenge. Most likely I could see Secret knocking that bar as my 3' wide jumps don't offer much leeway in those tight scenarios. Kaiser would have been likely to take an off course jump or tunnel if I wasn't careful with my cues. Oh well -- We did the back side and it worked nicely. :o)

I had thought going from 7 to 8 would have been a bit more of a trap than it turned out to be. Neither dog even looked at the jump in front of them (which would have been the third jump in a pinwheel configuration). We didn't have any trouble going from 8 to the tunnel at 9. I'm not sure why the number 2 jump didn't present itself as an off course obstacle as much as the number 12 jump on the opposite side.

Best as I could figure, there were two optimal ways to handle the 9-10-11 sequence. One could threadle it (not our strong point) or one could push and scoop. Secret definitely fared much better with the push & scoop method, again proving how much more comfortable she is being pushed away from me vs. pulled in to me. Kaiser surprised me in that he seemed to do much better with the threadle, namely because that took out the option of the off course jump at 12 due to me blocking it. With the push/scoop he was very prone to taking the off course jump before wrapping back into the tunnel. He's terribly sensitive to pressure that way.

I handled the final sequence from my right, choosing to do a post turn at the back side of 13 (since, you know, I ran it wrong!). Because my dogs find post turns so incredibly demotivating, I did try a front cross wrap followed by a rear cross at 14 with Kaiser and that worked as well. Secret actually started to power through that post turn, likely because I cheated and threw her toy for her. ;o)

This was a super fun set of drills. If you are looking for something fun and challenging, I definitely recommend you check them out! My only disappointment is that I didn't have the video camera at home. This would have been a nice one to video to be able to watch my cues and how the dogs respond to them. Truthfully, I should record all of our training sessions since I'm always training by myself!

The things I do...

First things first -- did you notice that I finally made a banner for the blog? Yay! It only took like 2 1/2 years. ;o) Obviously I know that if you are reading this you can see the banner photo at the top of the page, but I went and included it on this post so that the photo would get printed in the blog book when the next year rolls around. I wish I was more talented at using Photoshop, but this will have to do. Considering how it's slopped together, it almost turned out artistic looking. Ha!! Like I did it on purpose, even!

Regarding the title of the post today -- I just found out about a fun run being held in Lakeville, MN this Friday prior to a CPE trial this weekend. I sent off an e-mail to confirm that they'll have a full Standard course set, but it sounds to me like this might be the perfect chance to test Secret's teeter performance away from home. Yes, it's super sad that I have to drive 2 1/2 hours just to have the chance to put my dog on equipment, but that's what happens when the local training center is difficult to work with and never uses a variety of equipment in their run-throughs.

The fun run is offering two minute sessions for $5 each. I figure I can get a lot done with Secret & Kaiser with two sessions each. Secret will probably spend the entire first session just playing the "Slam It" game --- assuming I can get her turned on to toys in the new environment, at least. I'll bring the full arsenal of "special" toys with me and hopefully we'll be successful!

I'm about ready to stop going on our daily walks. On Friday I pulled two ticks off the top of Secret's head and one off her belly. Then Saturday morning I pulled one off her neck and one off her ear. I am so stinking sick of ticks already, and it's only April 2. Saturday night and Sunday were blissfully free of ticks since we didn't go walking at all.

It will be a miracle if the dogs don't become symptomatic of Lyme or some other tick-borne disease this year. Secret is getting her Lyme booster (and Lepto) on Thursday. I know it doesn't actually prevent Lyme Disease, but at least it might help keep her from getting hit hard with it.

Stupid ticks........

Mowing, ticks & teeters

Check it out! I mowed last night for the first time this year -- On March 28!! I haven't found anyone who can recollect ever mowing this early in the year. My neighbor mowed this weekend already, I just didn't have the time. My yard could have been done several days ago judging by how much wet spring grass clumped up in my mower....

I played with my gps on my phone (something I've been using to track our walks lately) and it says I covered 1.32 miles while I mowed! If anything, there's a chance it was more than that because it pauses when it thinks I'm not moving, so who actually knows, but the geek side of me still found that very interesting.

The bad thing about all of this glorious, freakishly untypical-for-Wisconsin-in-March weather is that we are going to have an absolutely horrible year for ticks and other bugs. I actually applied Frontline Plus to the dogs back on March 1 because I knew they'd start popping up at any time. I can't say I'm impressed with Frontline this year, as I've already pulled several ticks off the dogs. I know Frontline doesn't repel ticks whatsoever, but all of these ticks were engorged, so that says it's not doing its job. :o(

Last night was just.... Ewww. We had just gotten into bed and I reached over to pet Secret on the head and felt two lumps on her head. Blech. I got up to turn on the light and sure enough, two ticks -- one was so engorged that it was probably ready to come off on its own shortly (into my bed, yay!). I plucked them and deposited them into our handy "tick jar" (rubbing alcohol) and then dug around to see if I could find any more. I didn't find any ticks, but I did find a lovely mat behind Secret's ear that needed to be cut out. Oops. Hence why I need to stick with total smoothies in the future. lol

This morning I noticed that Secret was acting funny and drooling. Oh, yup -- She pulled another tick off herself. Where did that one come from?? This is going to be the worst year ever for the stupid things. I am so not looking forward to it....

Time for a teeter update!!!



I believe the last time I posted about this was back in January when I started to shape Secret to control the motion of the teeter by touching and bringing down the end of it. This was to increase her confidence with the motion as well as teaching her to be okay with the rebound action of the teeter (something I failed to do when I originally taught her because my teeter wasn't weighted at the time). That post and video can be found here.

I decided to do another video last night after mowing to show how far Secret has come in the last two months. She has progressed to doing her slam for toys and is really enjoying the whole game! We don't usually focus much on entire sessions of slamming -- since the teeter was moved outside I've more or less just had her slam a few times for her ball or frisbee at the end of a play session.

My hope is, of course, that this level of enthusiasm will carry forward to make "other" teeters fun for her as well. I am not concerned whatsoever about speed or technique (such as having a "sliding" teeter), I simply want her to be having fun and in control of the motion. I don't care a bit about her end position -- she could do a four-on if she wanted to, but Secret's default behavior always seems to tend towards the two on, two off, so we go with it.

One thing you may notice in the video is that Secret has a pretty poor (to non-existent) release with her toys. But you know what, that is A-OKAY with me. :o) For as much work as I put into getting her to show *any* interest in toys, I wasn't about to try to squash any of her enthusiasm with releases. It's something I put up with in the interest of keeping her happy. For whatever reason, prying her mouth open at times seems to just jazz her up more. Ha! I'm such a good trainer, I know. *wink*

Weather Weenie

As I've tried to nail down my proposed trial schedule for the coming months, it is becoming very obvious that I have become a weather weenie. Our very out of character and downright strange weather patterns this year don't really help (note Secret trying not to blow away on our walk in today's pictures). It's so very hard to predict what this year will be like and as a result, I find myself taking this into consideration more than usual.

It used to be that outdoor trials were commonplace. If you wanted to do agility, you did it outdoors and you took your chances. Very rarely do trials get canceled on account of weather and you never get your money back if it rains -- so you either run in poor weather (be it hot, cold, snow or rain) or you stay home and forfeit your entries. I've always been in awe of people who can just scratch a whole day or weekend at a trial. I had to pull Luke from the second day of a trial in 2009 due to a recurrent lameness that popped back up and I about cried. Maybe I did.... I think I would throw up if I threw away entries for three dogs.

Because people in the upper midwest appreciate the ability to trial our dogs more than four months of the year, more and more indoor facilities have started to pop up. Before you knew it, trialing indoors became more commonplace than outdoors! We now have agility trials twelve months of the year -- you can pick your organization and trial every single weekend if you are independently wealthy and wish to do that sort of thing (still waiting for my sugar daddy, by the way!). It has gotten to the point where outdoor trials are almost a novelty.

I love how my dogs run outside. We obviously train outdoors on grass at my house, so it is their preferred surface on which to run. I know my dogs run cautiously on synthetic surfaces (like the turf at FDC) and I hate seeing them slip.

So why do I find myself gravitating towards all of the indoor trials at my disposal? Because I am a giant weather weenie, that's why. I love running agility outside when it's 60-70 degrees with clear skies. I'm not so fond of rain, wind or high heat & humidity. I get grouchy when I'm not comfortable and I figure that's not fair to my dogs. And ultimately, when I fork out $200-300 for a day or weekend, I would really prefer that the odds be in my favor for being able to run my dogs to the best of our abilities.

I have to put in my time off requests at the shelter very shortly, so I need to decide for sure what I'm doing. There are several USDAA trials in MN this summer that are outdoors --- I know quite a few people who go to these trials and always enjoy seeing them. My other option, though, is a facility over in New Berlin, WI that hosts indoor trials. Most of the trials for that club fall on weekends before or after the MN trials, so it comes down to picking one or the other. Distance-wise they are almost the same. If anything the WI trials are closer than a few of the MN trials, which makes it an easier decision.

The downside is that I've never been to the facility and it's a complete unknown to me at this point. The people I know that have attended these trials seem to have nothing but good things to say about it, though, so that helps.

I just feel bad that I won't see my MN friends as often. :o( Especially since I'm also cutting back on NADAC. I suppose an argument could be made that this would afford me the opportunity to make new friends. That is never a bad thing.

Ultimately I know the best decision for me -- considering my limited finances and despise for poor weather -- is to stick to the indoor venues whenever possible. But come the first weekend in June, if it is 70 degrees and sunny with a light breeze I know I'll hate myself for missing out on the big MAC trial in Lake Elmo. Argh. I can't tell you how much I envy those who are able to enter trials every weekend and don't have to sit an agonize over such decisions.

Fat Dogs

First things first --- Missy has been adopted!!!! I feel bad that I didn't get some kind of going away photo, so this picture of Secret crashed on the couch will have to do. Secret doesn't really miss Missy. In fact, I think she's happy to have all the space back to herself on that side of the couch....

Missy's adopter spent almost two hours with us on Friday. I kept the rest of the crew locked away in the bedroom so they wouldn't be in the way and distracting. I'm pretty sure it was Secret that I heard scratching at the door several times. They pretty much thought it sucked (although when I opened the door to let them out she was sprawled out on the bed, so I don't think it was that horrible).

Missy was a good girl and showed our visitor all of her tricks and how well she is able to tug and play with toys. I was having a difficult time really getting a feel for how he felt about Missy. If anything I was getting the impression that Missy wasn't really what he was looking for, so I almost did a happy dance when he said he thought he'd have to go ahead and take her home with him. Yay for Missy! She won him over! I haven't gotten any updates yet, so I hope they are doing well together. I think they were a very good fit for one another.

Aside from Missy's adoption, I don't have a darn thing to write about -- Which is why I'm turning this into another soapbox day! This morning I was reading my February issue of Clean Run (yes, I'm still super far behind) and I came upon the article, "How much of a handicap are you giving your dog," by Donna Somers. I don't know who this person is or what her credentials are (there are no D.V.M. letters behind her name or anything), but I do want to reach out and give her a big old hug for just how PLAINLY she wrote this article. She didn't mince words or try to pad the blow -- She outright said, "Don't complain about drive or speed if your dog is fat."

Fat dogs in general are a pet peeve of mine, but fat dogs in agility are a boiling point. If a dog is overweight, there is only one being to blame -- the human. Dogs don't feed themselves (aside from counter-surfing or raiding the feed bin, anyhow!). I've often wished I had someone controlling my diet the way I do for my dogs. Wouldn't that be grand? ;o)

I get so tired of excuses. "But he's always STARVING, I have to feed him extra to get him to leave me alone." Who is training who in that house? "I just can't say no when she looks at me with those big sad eyes." I bet your dog would be just as happy to go for a walk -- sad eyes gone! "He gets into the food bin and steals off the counter." That house needs better management...

With the exception of true medical issues, weight management is not rocket science. Unlike humans, dogs don't struggle with the issue of willpower. Also unlike humans, most dogs think that exercising ROCKS and is the highlight of their day. Dogs are always ready to go for walks, chase balls & frisbees or head to the lake for a swim. My dogs would do this 24/7 if they could.

It could be that part of the problem is that people don't realize that their dogs really are fat. Being overweight has become so commonplace these days that it just blends in (says the overweight person). Watch any televised conformation show and you will think that dogs are supposed to jiggle & wiggle as they trot around the ring (well, if you own a Labrador at least!). I think a lot of people aren't familiar first-hand with what a truly fit animal looks & feels like.

I loved the part of the article that stated, "If you look at your dog and think he could stand to lose a pound or two, he could probably stand to lose more." (Loosely quoted, as I don't have it in front of me.) The author used the racehorse world as an example for her argument of how much extra weight impacts our dogs in agility. A weight of a few pounds is considered a handicap to slow down and animal that weighs over 1000 pounds. That is such a miniscule percentage of the horse's total weight, but it can have a dramatically noticeable effect on their speed. When we talk about taking a couple of pounds off a dog, the effect can be DRASTIC.

Luke was a prime example of this at work. When Luke and I first started in agility, he was definitely what would be considered pet/farm fit. He was heavily muscled from all of the trail rides and frisbee play that we did. He weighed 93 pounds and I don't know anyone who would have called him fat. As we got more involved in agility it was obvious that his weight/size was not doing him any favors. He had several minor injuries in those early days. In an effort to reduce this, I got him down to 85 pounds and he seemed to do much better. In addition, I did notice an increase in his speed (of course we were both gaining experience and that always helps, too!).

Skip forward a few years to 2009 when Luke was diagnosed with Addison's disease. Luke lost a lot of weight when he crashed. At first I was pretty horrified to learn that he lost almost 10 pounds and was tipping the scales at just 76 pounds when I took him home. The more I looked at him, though, the more I realized that he was looking pretty good. I didn't put much effort into putting the weight back on him -- My vet wasn't concerned, so I just fed him as usual. When we started back up in agility, I couldn't believe how fast he was! Even just three weeks off his Addisonian crash, my dog was faster than ever. We had always struggled to make time in Weavers, but after the drastic weight loss there was never a time that we didn't make time on course (save a major error, that is!) and he pounded out the Q's he needed to finish two Versatility NATCH's in less than a year! Weight has a huge impact on speed and course times. FYI, I now maintain Luke at a svelte 77 pounds.

A couple of years ago I would have never believed that Kaiser would now be my most difficult dog for whom to manage its weight. lol In Kaiser's younger days the bigger concern was actually getting him to eat at all. If I didn't leave food out for him 24/7, I honestly felt he'd waste away to nothing. I tried to teach him to eat on schedule when I got Secret, but after he lost over a pound I decided it was easier to teach Secret not to touch his food dish. Kaiser always self-maintained a weight between 16.5 and 17 pounds without any effort on my part.

Then the little fart got neutered. With that, suddenly he developed an appetite and was devouring anything I put in front of him. This is when I realized that I had no idea how much he actually ate in a day. Add in the running contact training we were doing (with copious amounts of CHEESE!) and it's no wonder the little guy suddenly ballooned up to 18 pounds. OMG. I was horrified that I had let that happen. I'm sure the extra weight wasn't helping the jumping problems he was experiencing at the time!!!

Just to prove that weight loss/control in dogs is not rocket science, Kaiser was back down to his fighting weight of 16.7/17 pounds within a few months. He doesn't get on a scale as often as I'd like, but we can generally maintain pretty well with feel. If I were to put him on a scale today I'd guess he'd be closer to 17 again -- he is not as thin as my other two, though, and could probably lose a 1/4 - 1/2 pound or so. Most people say, "Oh, summer is coming and he'll work it off then."" It's the opposite for Kaiser, though. More training in the summer = more treats, so now is the time to start backing off on his meal rations again. That's definitely one benefit to training with toys; you don't have to worry about the extra calories!

Thumbs up to Donna Somers for writing this blunt, to the point article -- and to Clean Run for printing it. I hope people take it to heart and realize that we are doing no favors to run fat dogs in agility (or any other sport). If your dog is sporting an extra pound or two, make it your goal this year to really improve their fitness. And maybe yours, too -- which is a never-ending goal for myself. :o) Who wants to come make all of my meals and implement an exercise schedule for me??

Free will and all that good stuff

I'm a big fan of free will. I think that most people are reasonably intelligent and able to make decisions for themselves. I'm not a big fan of people or organizations that decide to make decisions for me when I'm fully capable of doing so for myself.

In case you missed it, NADAC has once again done something that irks me. They are taking away your CHOICE to jump your dog at their measured height once they reach eight years of age. And once your dog reaches the age of 11, you are going to be forced to enter the Skilled division and follow a different award path than you have for the dog's entire career. It has been announced that this will not take effect until January of 2014, but since Sharon seems to gung-ho on the idea and so many minions are pleased with the announcement, it would not surprise me to see this fast-tracked and implemented sooner.

To be clear, I'm a big fan of the Veteran division (which begins at age seven) and the Skilled division. Luke ran in Proficient Standard on 12/31 and as a Vet the very next day when he turned seven -- I was going to take that height break as soon as I could. That was my CHOICE, as I was aware of the fact that jumping 20" was not the easiest thing on his body and that he is just better off at 16". That said, I know a good number of older dogs with builds more suited to jumping that continue to jump their measured heights just fine. Many of these dogs are competing in multiple venues at higher heights, so I take issue with an organization that says, "You *must* do this now." I really do feel that it should be left up to the dog's owner to determine the comfort level of the dog and what they are capable of doing.

I made the choice to run Secret & Kaiser in the Skilled division, so I obviously don't have a problem with it -- but I do have a problem with forcing people to take that track if it's not something that interests them. Luke is two years away from being forced to take another height drop, but I can tell you that if I were to run him at 12" today the ring crew would be very busy after our runs. He plows through 8" and 12" bars as though they aren't even there. By the time he's eleven it may come to be that he is better off running as a Skilled Vet, but again, that should be MY DECISION.

I really do feel that the vast majority of people in NADAC are looking out for the best interests of their dogs. I also feel that if a person is jumping their dog too high, it generally doesn't take long for someone to have a friendly discussion with them about the benefits of taking a height break. Ultimately, my biggest issue is simply taking away the choices that competitors with "younger" dogs get to make on their own. Let ME decide what is best for my dogs.

I don't know what's up with NADAC these days, but all of these changes are starting to irritate me. BTW, five weeks until our next USDAA trial. :o)

Enough ranting, onto training. I believe I shall declare this the Year of Backyard Dogs. At some point or another I suppose I'm actually going to have to do some training with the contacts, but I really do enjoy these exercises for the simplicity of setting them up and the fact that they force/encourage me to step outside of my comfort zone and work on new things.

Because I am currently reading the February 2012 issue that I recently received with my order, that was the obvious choice for our drills last night. The exercises were described as, "back to the basics" type drills and the first several were pretty simple. I chose exercises 6, 7 & 10 because they offered the chance to work on threadles, push-throughs and a back-side jump. It wasn't until I got out there that I realized only one of my drills actually used the weave poles. Oh well. I spliced everything together again -- And again, just click the picture to blow it up to see numbers.

Everyone rocked the first drill, easy peasy. I did get in Secret's way once and caused a knocked bar at number four, but that was the extent of that (FYI, I edited these videos more than usual to keep the crap out for brevity).

I was surprised at how well everyone listened to my pull into the correct end of the tunnel on the second drill. Kaiser especially so, since he found this so difficult the last time we saw this. We all struggle with threadles, so that's something to work on this year. Secret was doing the oddest wrap/turn at jump five to start with. The article wanted the dog to wrap the jump to the left, but something I was doing was causing her to flip and turn right. A wrap is a wrap, but that was wrong -- I started to go a little deeper into the jump and she managed to work it out. The 8-9-10 sequence went better for all than I expected --- That was a tight little space for them to jump into me!

I knew getting the number two jump on the third sequence was going to be difficult for everyone, which is why I specifically chose that drill. We need to work on a lot more of this type of thing! This is where most of my video editing occurred, as all three dogs took the wrong side of #2 on several occasions. In the clips where you see me standing waaaaaay out to the side, it's most likely because we'd just had two or three poor attempts.

Here is Secret's video:



The boys have a video, too, this time! They are together because theirs is shorter. Kaiser was pretty much perfect and didn't have many takes and I didn't ask Luke to do much. Note, I moved Kaiser back to 8" because the last few times I jumped him at 12" he just wasn't very speedy. I was happy to see him more himself again.



I didn't include it on the videos, but I also did weave work with all three dogs -- specifically, working on rear crosses. It would be nice to have more confidence in these to be able to do them at trials when needed. The dogs tend to do really well with rear crosses into the weaves at home, but they all showed me that they did get pretty rusty on this skill. All did well letting me cross behind while slicing that jump on the bottom, but the very sharp rear cross from that jump above the weaves was difficult. Everyone ended super well, though, so that's fantastic! Something to keep working on, for sure.

Happy news to share! Missy has a potential adopter coming to meet her tomorrow, so I'd appreciate it if everyone could think good thoughts and cross your fingers and toes! She has been with me seven weeks now and she deserves to find a home of her own! This person is driving from three hours away, so I'm very hopeful that he will love her and decide to take her home. He saw some other puppies that came into rescue this weekend and is trying to decide, I guess. Come on, who wouldn't want the puppy that has all the hard work done for you? ;o)

Udder-ly Awesome

Oh look, it's another new toy. ;o)

I've been wanting to try an Udder-Tug for some time. I don't know why; maybe just because everyone says the dogs go nuts for them. I guess it has something to do with the stretch factor combined with the "stinks like a barn" factor (they are all recycled from actual farm use -- what a boon, taking something the farmers throw away and selling them for $15 each!).

When I recently (finally) re-subscribed to Clean Run, I also had to order the back-issues that I missed. I figured if I had to pay shipping, I may as well add something fun to the box. I was just looking at these toys in the J&J catalog, so I threw one into my shopping cart on Clean Run.

While I've seen other people using them, I've never actually seen one in person so I wasn't sure of the size or construction of them. True to its word, it really does smell like a barn. Mmmm. For whatever reason, I expected the rubber to be a bit thicker or stiffer, but it's quite pliable and has a decent amount of stretch when the dog pulls on it. I don't see this as a toy that will last the ages with Secret, as it did show fairly considerable use after just one night playing with it. Oh well, we'll see.

One use that intrigued me was that I've heard some people put them over their leashes, thereby encouraging tugging with dogs who might not be interested in the leash itself. Hmm. Might be something I'd be inclined to try with Secret one day (obviously not at a NADAC trial). It is a continuous long term goal to get her to tug at trials!

Look what I dug out of the basement last night! The teeter! It never even saw the light of day last year. Secret made great strides this winter by becoming comfortable with the bang game and the rebound of the teeter, so I figured it was time to scrape a bit of paint off the walls to bring the teeter outside to test her in a new environment. Plus I figured she needed to learn how to apply speed to the approach again.

Family Dog Center had posted on their Facebook page that they were having an open agility session last night. Because we still so desperately need to see other teeters, I posted to ask if their course had a teeter. Of course, it didn't. Come on -- The club offers AKC and CPE trials, yet their open agility sessions never contain anything but NADAC equipment. I'm starting to understand the frustrations my students used to express about lack of ability to practice on equipment in this area....

So since I wasn't going to drive to La Crosse to practice a NADAC course, I figured dragging my teeter out of the basement was the next best thing.

I am terribly pleased with our informal training session last night (all the dogs were outside while we played -- thankfully with more room there is less worry of one getting squished under the teeter as happens in the basement...). I had one 22" jump set up about 15' away from the teeter plank.

We started out with the bang game, having Secret just slam the end down. And newsflash -- We did it all with the Udder-Tug! NO TREATS. I was thrilled with the confidence and enthusiasm she was showing me. She progressed from pulling it down, to pulling it down and assuming her bottom position (something she never really did in the basement) and then --- She jumped on it with all four feet and slammed it to the ground! That kind of attitude makes me terribly happy and hopeful that new teeters will be less scary.

We practiced loading onto the teeter straight on from the jump and with a bunch of nifty wraps and even a few ketchker moves. ;o) All were fun, fun, fun for Secret. I like having her happy teeter back. Let's hope it stays!

All of the dogs got to have their teeter fun last night -- Including Missy..... Apparently the puppy thought what the other dogs were doing looked like loads of fun, because she started to go over the teeter all on her own. Oh my. At least five times I found her on the plank, merrily making it tip. She has NO FEAR. She thinks it's fun! She likes the teeter so much that she went and crashed next to it when we were all bumming in the yard. Girl, you are an odd duck...

This morning I watched when I let the dogs outside and wouldn't you know it, she went up and over the teeter AGAIN. It's like her new toy or something. Apparently I'm going to have to put the teeter up somehow to keep her off it. I'm not terribly concerned about her getting hurt because she is just walking over it at this point, but nor should we take any chances.

With her fearless attitude and incredibly high food drive (and a pretty good play drive as well), I bet this girl could have quite the future in agility if someone wanted to go that route.

Oops! I forgot I was going to add a completely pointless video. :o) It's just Secret playing with her new toy --- And she's not going at it with quite as much gusto as usual because she was concerned that the puppy had stolen her Jolly Ball.... But she was able to keep tugging through that distraction, so yay Secret!

Swimming!! In March?

When you have record high temperatures several days in a row in Wisconsin, what do you do? You go swimming! In March! Sweet.

I love swimming the dogs. It's great exercise for them, it's low impact, it wears them out and we all have loads of fun! Honestly, in the summer I think I'd swim them every single day if we didn't have to work in that pesky training stuff. :o)

Secret has gone and jumped in the creek on our walk in the middle of winter, but I don't think we've ever had a true opportunity to SWIM so early in the year. It was 78 degrees when we went home from work on Friday and the day just begged for a trip to the river. I thought that surely we'd have it all to ourselves -- school wasn't out yet for the day and come on, it's March -- you can't tell me people are going to go swimming in March? That water is still pretty cold.

Well, the public was out in full force enjoying the beautiful day alongside us. The park where we go for our water access was fairly busy (for this park, at least) --- So I drove straight to the trail access and parked there. A small group of guys was leaving as we arrived, so I waited for them to drive away before I let the maniacs out of the car. Seriously, it's embarrassing how they all scream as soon as we pull into the drive.

With them driving away, I hoped we'd have the little beach to ourselves. We encountered one more person on the trail (who Secret barked at because I couldn't get the brat to come to me on time). Then as we rounded the bend to our swimming spot I saw a small group of people standing on the shoreline -- including a couple of small kids. Yay..... Secret does not have a history of doing so well around kids.

Well happy day, she was so excited about swimming that she completely ignored them all. I really hovered over her on her first several retrieves, but she didn't make any bug eyes at the group or give any other indication that they stressed her. The kids were shrieking and screaming quite a bit (hello, the water was COLD and they were swimming in it... I'd scream, too!) and it didn't seem to bother her at all. Score one for toy drive.

Saturday was even warmer than the day before! When I got home from working at the shelter it was still 82 degrees. I loaded the crew into the car and head out for day two of swimming. This time we did have the beach to ourselves for the first bit, then a group of teenagers came wandering down to do stupid things (ie: take a boat over those tiny little "rapids" in the first photo). The boys were the ones doing "brave manly things" in the water while the group of girls stood around and behaved as awkwardly as most teenagers do when they unexpectedly run into an adult and have to share space with someone they don't know. We just kept chucking toys into the water.

I thought Secret might lose it when the boat went by, but again thanks to the mighty power of the Wubba, she didn't even blink an eye. I don't think she's ever seen a boat in the water before, so I'm glad she didn't flip her lid or anything. She handled the passel of girls until one of them reached towards her as we were leaving, then she barked at them. Well, there you go -- Don't reach towards strange dogs, girls.

We destroyed another Wubba over the two days. Those things just can't stand up to Secret. :o( We have the carcass of another one that will probably make it one more trip, but after that we're toast. I might have to take the bumper and see if she'll fetch that in the water. It seems a bit more hardy -- not so susceptible to the tearing she likes to do when she brings it to shore. We have an endless supply of tennis balls, but Secret doesn't seem to show any interest in fetching those in the water.

Missy did great with her first water experience! She wasn't so sure when we first got there on Friday. She whined a bit and ran back and forth on the shoreline. I missed it, but at some point she must have fallen in or something because the next time I saw her she was soaked from head to toe. lol After that she had fun splashing and running around in the shallow water. She especially liked to try to "attack" Luke as he came back with his ball. Luke gets really upset when Rascal does this to him so I made sure it didn't get out of hand, but overall he didn't seem terribly bothered by Missy's behavior. Secret, however, was not going to put up with it and just wanted the puppy out of her way. Missy figured it out and stuck to jumping on Luke.

On Saturday Missy found her sea legs! While bouncing around after Luke she found herself in deeper water than she expected. She seemed surprised at first, but then she started to go on a little swim-about all on her own! She swam several more times that day. At one point I just had to laugh when I realized she was swimming in a circle trying to get her tail.... Oh Missy.

The potential adopter that is hopefully going to meet her this week lives by a lake, I guess --- So I figured it might up her "value" if we could say she likes water & swimming. I think it was a hit!

I didn't get home until close to 7:00 last night, so I passed on swimming three days in a row (even though it was still 78 degrees!). This weather doesn't show signs of stopping any time soon, so we may have plenty more opportunity to head over that way. Or, of course, I suppose we could practice some agility. I'm starting to think it may be time to get the contacts out!

Taking advantage of the nice weather

Secret is such a good sport. I didn't even have treats on me when I set her up for this picture. Of course, that could be why she looks kind of pissy... She was like, "Dude, I'm totally not barking and putting on a happy face for you without treats." Oh well. She's still cute.

After the last controversial post, I figured I'd just go back to lighthearted random crap again. :oP Seriously, I was pretty surprised by the number of hits that post got. Granted, it could be because I posted it on my Facebook wall (which prompted its own good discussion). There were many good points made, but to be honest I do think a lot of people live in la-la land and just don't realize that the habits they've developed are not in the best interest of their dogs. But whatever, if they're happy, they're happy. I just always like to think we can be BETTER.

In the interest of making ourselves better, I took advantage of the record breaking 71 degree day (and the fact that it's the only Tuesday/Thursday I didn't have to work at the shelter THIS ENTIRE MONTH) and set another drill from the Clean Run Backyard Dogs series.

I didn't put much actual thought into choosing one. Namely because I really didn't feel like setting anything at all but I figured I should. I just grabbed the last issue on my table (which happens to be January 2012 since I kind of let my subscription lapse -- no worries, I reordered yesterday AND ordered the back-issues that I missed....). The drill wasn't particularly inspiring to me, but it was better than something I would have dreamed up on my own.

I went and photomerged the three drills I picked -- go ahead and click on the picture to make the exercises actually viewable.

I think the bullet points at the top of the article said that it was designed to test weave entries as well as offer opportunities for front and rear crosses. I didn't pay much attention, but I do always try to read the little boxes for each drill to see what sort of handling they might suggest. If there's one area I suffer, it's getting stuck inside a box and not "seeing" all of the options in front of me.

We had good points and not so good points. Good points were that she totally nailed every weave entry thrown at her and she had super nice turns & wraps. Secret's trouble spots definitely stuck out. The one that was repeated over and over was her lack of drive through the poles when I'm not right there -- it doesn't help that she was weaving into the fence, which is about as demotivating as it gets for her.

Typically, I didn't want to go past the second or third pole because I wanted to stay ahead of her for the jump after. A few times she would just pop out and stare at me, wondering why I wasn't ahead of her. If she did stay in the poles they were quite a bit slower than usual -- Like, really slow. As soon as we moved past that and on to the rest of the exercise her normal speed would come back because I was running with her. Secret will do her weaves with great lateral distance, but getting her to drive independently ahead through them while I hang back has ALWAYS been a struggle point for us.

The other part that she hated was in the third drill, the continuous 360 from 6-7-8. Again we see a spot where I'm stuck in one spot expecting her to drive around me. Secret has always been pretty insistent that we both put in equal amounts of effort in this sport, which is how I find myself doing so many front crosses to stay in front of her. With that part of the exercise it was hard to do much other than shuffle my feet in place, so she put forth an equal amount of enthusiasm. I found myself wishing I would have picked a different drill, but then again, you never know when you might see that same set-up at a trial (not NADAC, obviously).

At that point she kind of just quit on me. That hasn't happened for some time, but there were several reasons. My own lackluster energy was largely to blame. The stupid neighbor kids were outside next door and I think it was a combination of the noise they were making (they NEVER play outside in the winter, so she hasn't heard anything over there for a long time) and the 360 exercise in the last drill that just sort of did her in. The warm weather seems to be hitting all of the dogs, too, in that they aren't acclimated to it just yet.

So I put Secret in the house for a bit while I worked the other dogs. I brought her out for a quick session before I put everything away to just do some simple fun things with the jumps still down at 12". I raced her through the weaves to get her happy weaves back. I did some back side of the jump work -- both pushing her around from the front and having her follow me to the backside, something I don't think we've really done much of. We finished with some fast paced easy crossing drills that made her happy.

Then we all just sat in the yard for the next hour and enjoyed the evening.

So I heard back from one of Missy's potential adopters yesterday! He said he really liked the video and would like to meet Missy in person. My schedule, of course, makes this sort of thing unfortunately difficult. At the moment we are looking at next Friday. Hopefully it works out!

Irritants...

Recently I opened up my big mouth again on the NADAC list about something I find irritating. In my usual fashion, my delivery was pretty direct and apparently offensive to some people. It's not the first time that's happened, and knowing my personality, it probably won't be the last. ;o)

I sent off another e-mail (that is awaiting approval via the normal NADAC moderating system) apologizing for the way I delivered my message and explained some of the reasoning behind what I posted. I thought maybe the subject would make a good blog post.

I am an easily irritated person, I will admit. And possibly quite a few people find ME irritating. lol When it comes to things that irritate me in agility, I have to stand up and admit that the reason these things irritate me is because I used to do them. Yes, almost every single one of the things people do that catch my attention are things that I, myself, used to do before someone told me otherwise. My irritation mostly lies with the fact that nobody has sat that person down yet to teach them a better way to do things. Maybe these "irritating" things work well for that team -- but if that's the case, I don't tend to notice it. I notice when teams are struggling with the same problem trial after trial -- Problems that I used to have with my own dogs until those habits were pointed out to me.

The question posed on the NADAC list was, "What do I name the hoop?" What a silly question, I thought -- First of all, if you are going to name it why not just say, "hoop?" Although I will say that hearing people "HOOPHOOPHOOPHOOP" around a course is more than an irritant; it's downright annoying.

My response contained the same message as several others that replied -- Why name them at all? My mistake was coming out and admitting that it irritated me to hear people naming every obstacle on course. I feel that the dogs get so used to us jabbering away at them on course that they start to tune us out. When we run into situations where they MUST listen to us (OMG, do not go in that tunnel!) they don't hear the frantic screams of, "Nooo!!" because they are so used to what you are saying having no real relevance to them (and hey, let's be honest -- your feet were totally pointing to the tunnel).

I used to jabber at my dogs. Not so much obstacle names (although I certainly did that in the beginning, too!), but lots of cheer leading and other mindless directional babble. It *really* added to Kaiser's stress levels. When someone pointed this out to me I took it to heart and really made an effort to not talk so much. I still have my moments where I revert back to cheer leading (I just can't help myself if they are slooooow), but overall I really do try to keep my trap shut. I don't think I have ever hooted out, "Hoop!" on course, either, and I hope I never do.

Another thing I find irritating (because I used to do it) is the endless use of HERE!!!!!!! on course. Gah!!!! There are some people that I think say "Here" at least 100 times on one course. Generally they do this as their dog is heading off in the wrong direction, when it's far too late. And because they overuse this word to oblivion, the dog has learned that it has little to no value. As a result you have a dog looking at a tunnel, you cry out, "here! here! here!" and they respond with, "Yup, I'll be right with you as soon as I take this tunnel."

It was my lesson with Debbie Erb up in Eau Claire that pointed out just how useless this word is as a cue. They hear it and it has no meaning. What does have meaning to a dog? Their name! Do not most dogs hear their name and snap to look at you? (If they don't, maybe you should spend some time playing the name game where you say their name and stuff food in their mouth.) When I need to get my dog's attention on course, I use their name, not "here." Since I started doing this their focus on me went WAY UP and our off courses and call-offs went WAY DOWN. It was so simple, but it was something I never knew until it was pointed out to me.

Recently my friend, Rich, asked me why I clap my hands so much while running my dogs. Uh..... I didn't have an answer for this. I knew I did it because often times my hands would sting terribly after a run (especially with Kaiser!). He asked me if I did that when I ran them at home and I had to admit that no, I don't clap my hands at home. Hmm. Could I possibly be adding to my dogs' stress levels by doing something different at trials than at training? Duh. Since then I have made a concerted effort to STOP CLAPPING on course. Stop clapping in the weaves, stop clapping on turns, stop clapping to try to "speed them up." And you know what, I think they are happier! I think it makes them faster and their turns are better now that I'm directing them rather than clapping. Go figure. I have caught myself once or twice since then and gave myself a mental slap on the wrist. As with all habits, I'm sure it will take time and effort to stop it completely -- but at least I'm aware of it now!

I train alone and I know a lot of bad habits creep into my routine. Some things I do because I was never taught otherwise. I always appreciate it when someone takes the time to point these things out to me so that I can make improvements -- even better when these tidbits are free from friends or off an agility list. ;o) So while I admit that my delivery could use improvement, if the message made an impact on at least one person then I made my point.

One more irritant from NADAC trials (lol). DO A FRONT CROSS. Thank you, that is all.

Missy's ears are doing strange and endearing things these days. Quite frequently they both stand forward with a floppy tip at the top. It is precious and I wish they'd stay that way, but she quite frequently folds her ears backwards and then they fall. I remember how Secret's ears did so many wonky things and changed daily through her teething period, so it's hard to say how Missy's ears will end up. I think she would look darling with prick or slightly tipped ears, though.

Missy's video has over 250 views on YouTube over the last 24 hours. Sadly, I never heard back from either of her potential adopters after I sent them the new video link. :o( I receive nothing but wonderful feedback from every person who sees the video. Every person who meets Missy proclaims what a wonderful puppy she is and how lucky someone will be to adopt her. Yet here she sits in foster care. We're coming up on six weeks now! For a wee puppy that is smart and adorable!

Melissa pointed out that I should perhaps lay off on the whole Border-Staffy subject when people ask what she might be mixed with. Let them decide for themselves, but apparently I am better off sticking with, "Border Collie mix." There's total truth to this statement -- I mean, we certainly can't say for sure what she's mixed with at all. I went with B-S because so many people see it in her and *I* don't have a problem with that particular mix -- they are bred for sport, after all and for some people this would be a bonus! But I know from my experience at the shelter that there certainly *are* people who will have issues with that mix (especially pet people) and we are probably better off leaving it at BCX. Sigh. Poor Missy.

Today on our walk with her ears standing up in the wind and her tongue hanging halfway to the ground (it's in the mid-70's!!), I started to see more border collie in her. Maybe her nose is going to grow out after all. :o)

Spring Training!

Spring training has begun! As you can see by all of the lovely dead grass covering Secret, the yard is nice and dry at the moment. We've had a nice stretch of dry, windy weather that did a great job at getting rid of the mud. Yesterday was a record-breaking 67 degrees -- what a beautiful day!

Somehow the stars aligned and I found myself with a day off work and no agility trial to attend. I didn't ask off or anything, I just didn't get put on the schedule for whatever reason. Seeing as I didn't work at all last weekend because of the trial, this kind of stinks for the paycheck, but having an actual DAY OFF turned out to be such a blessing. We thoroughly enjoyed our day. Because it was so beautiful, we spent the majority of the day outside. The dogs loved it!

Of course I wasn't going to let the day pass by without taking advantage of having the opportunity to train the dogs! Ever since I got the broad jump built, I've been planning to pull out the Backyard Dogs drill that I remembered seeing that featured this piece of equipment. My memory surprises me at times, for when I looked up which issue it was that contained these exercises, it was from January of 2010!! Why on earth did that stick with me so long? At any rate, I pulled out the issue and the article was just was I was looking for. It gave us lots of fun things to work on!

My brain can successfully retain three drills at a time, which tends to work out quite well for the dogs so far as keeping them fresh & engaged. I memorized the first three and then ran all three dogs (Secret, then Kaiser, then Luke). Then I flipped the broad jump the other direction, took a break for a while (so that I could work on video footage for Missy's new video -- more later!) and then came out and did three more exercises a bit later in the day.

For Secret, all of the jumps were set at 22" and the broad jump was set at 48". She handled everything with ease and I'm very happy with how well she did. She did start to peter out on me by the 6th drill, but other than that she was doing great at keeping up her speed & enthusiasm. I threw a pretty bad blind cross at her, which she handled without a problem. I think the blended front cross I did with the last drill was something new for her as well (for both of us, really!), but we got it figured out and ended it very nicely.

Aside from offering such a wide variety of skills sets with which to work, I also appreciate Backyard Dogs for being set in an area which makes it quite handy to get on video. :o)



I did video Kaiser & Luke's sessions as well, but I haven't decided if I'll bother putting them online or not. I've been editing video all day and for now I'm done. The boys did well in their own ways. Kaiser was not really feeling it yesterday and was noticeably slower than usual for whatever reason (I was jumping him at 12", it is worth noting). He also has his issues with blowing me off and taking the wrong tunnel entrances, but that's Kaiser for you.... Luke did well but sent several 12" bars flying. He was a little frantic and excited, but much of the blame is on me because my timing is just off with him on the tight work. I'm not going to worry about it, because tight just isn't his thing.

So, back to Missy. Yes, she's STILL with me. It's been over five weeks now and the poor girl still hasn't found her forever home. She started losing her front teeth last week, which we figure puts her right at 16 weeks now. We went to the vet on Friday for her rabies shot and to get her microchip implanted. What a good girl she was at the clinic -- she's just not scared of anything. She desperately wanted to play with Olivia the clinic kitty, so I think she was happy that she got to go visit Bethany on Saturday to play with Asher (oh, and Rascal, too, I'm sure -- lol).

There was a very promising potential adopter that I spoke with last week. We were hoping to get together on Sunday since I had the day off, but something came up and she wasn't able to make it. Melissa sent me info for another interested party and I spoke with him Saturday night when I got home from work. It sounds promising -- I told him I'd been planning to do an updated video to show how much she's changed in the last month, so that's what prompted the whole video project on Sunday. I'm pretty pleased with how the video turned out. I made it a full scale adoption promo video in case for whatever reason he (or the first person) decides he's not interested after all. That way it can still be used on the BCRMN web site for other people to see.



I got a "share" on Facebook by a pretty "big name" person in the border collie & rescue world. I think a lot of hits have come my way from her post. So cross your fingers, hopefully something will happen soon for Missy! She deserves a loving family of her own.