It was a gorgeous weekend, but thanks to work obligations and then spending a great evening with my parents on Mother's Day, I wasn't able to take advantage of the lovely weather to play agility. Thankfully Mother Nature cooperated and today was another beautiful (if warm) day. It was over 80, that's all I know. I broke out shorts and a tank top and it was just right.
Last week Steve at AgilityNerd posted a course on his Facebook page that rose a lot of eyebrows. It was a Danish jumping course from a new online resource for courses: http://www.agilitycourses.dk/index.php?c=324 Sadly, now that I look at it and see it's only a Level 3 (out of what, 5 or more?) I feel less superior. lol
The fuss was over using an "octagon drill" in an actual course. The octagon is a great training tool, but kind of mind blowing for competition use. Can you even imagine trying to walk a course with everyone milling out in the same small area the whole time? Yeah, pretty miserable, I think. Thankfully I don't have to share space with anyone at home and had it all to myself. Walking it in person was far, far better than it appeared to be on paper. I still figured we would struggle to avoid off course jumps, though. The course is at the link I posted above, but I'll insert it here as well.
Once again Secret really impressed me. The only error she made was a missed weave entry because I set her up too shallow for it. I mean, look at that weave entry! It's kind of wicked. I probably cheated and shaped the entry more than I technically should have with both dogs, but we haven't done a lot of flat entries like that one. I set them up for success by pulling them to me a bit and then rear crossing. I did force in a front cross with Secret before the weaves on one try, but it was very awkward and uncomfortable.
The spacing from 10-11-12 was quite tight, just over 10' really, but Secret bounced it nicely the first few times. She started throwing a short stride in there when she started getting tired. Considering how warm it was I'm happy she kept playing at all. :o)
The little man had another good practice as well, again with the jumps set at 12" (well, the first time I took him through I discovered very quickly that jump 7 never got bumped down from 22" -- whoops!!). Kaiser is VERY VERY prone to taking off course obstacles when they are presented anywhere near his path, so I know I way over-handled him through this course. That said, I'm still shocked that we got through as well as we did. I was unable to rear cross the 7-8-9 sequence without an off course, but the front cross on the landing side of 7 worked well. He cut behind once when I layered the jump between 14 & 15, but other than that he did super great!
I'm getting more comfortable with my new video editing software! It has lots of nifty features that the old version didn't have and I can do lots of fun things with it. I haven't even scraped the surface, really. Fun, fun, fun! I really need to move my music library onto the new home computer so that I don't have to keep fishing online for free music. New music is good, though -- Yay for Glee, as they don't restrict on YouTube. lol
A gentleman from A-1 Glass in La Crosse came by the house today to measure for our new "in-the-glass" dog door to be installed in the patio window. We went for the 12" x 24" model due to Luke's size. It will be interesting to see what the dogs think of it.
Because the weather was nice this weekend, I propped the door open to give the dogs free access to the potty yard while I was at the shelter both days. My parents still dropped in to check on them Saturday and then picked them up to take them to their house on Sunday so I could go straight up after work. As such, this wasn't yet a true "all day" test, but I figured it was a good warm up for them. So far we all seem to be okay with going potty in the small yard, but we will only poop there if forced and it causes a LOT of stress. As in, blow up the insides stress.
Secret was asking to go out this weekend so I let her out -- with the gate closed, so she had to go in the small yard. She was whining and started to dig at the bottom of the fence to find a way out. I yelled at her and told her to go potty. She did pee at that point, but then went back to trying to find a way out so that she could poo against the back fence line like usual. I kept insisting that she go there and when she did she kind of exploded. Lesson learned. I'm hoping they learn to accept it sooner rather than later. Although really I only care that the don't go in the house. If they want to hold it all day until I get home they certainly may, but the hope is that if they have an emergency they will use the stinking little potty yard. Time will tell, it's still brand new.
Luke had an emergency at 4 a.m. this morning (probably due to the bit of pork rib I fed him at my parent's house). Someone, I'm guessing Luke, missed the turn into the gate and slammed into the fence, leaving a nice head impression in the wire.... Really hoping they catch on to this soon! lol
Yay! I'm connected! It's going to be so nice to be able to update regularly from home instead of depending on finding free time at work. :o) Especially considering that I highly doubt whatever job I end up finding in the (hopefully) near future will be as understanding about personal internet use. I figure it's about time I join the 21st Century and get hooked up at home.
Our project of the day is posted above -- the dog yard is done! Well, as done as it will be until the dog door goes in (measuring on Monday!). We decided to hold off on the rock for a bit so that the dogs learn to use this space to go potty. I wasn't sure if asking them to go to the bathroom in an unfamiliar area on an unfamiliar surface was the way to go, so I'll let them figure it out and then add the rock later. It may be that it would be okay without rock, but ultimately I think it would just be cleaner (especially in the spring!).
The project also included installing lattice around the perimeter of the deck railing. This would be because a certain little dog fits through the posts and quite enjoys dismounting the deck this way on a daily basis. Honestly I've never liked that he does this, and we can't have him leaping off the deck and getting stuck out in the yard -- so lattice was the way to go!
I have my dad to thank for all of this. I am so lucky to have such a handy father who is so good at building stuff! I wish I could say I did more, but the extent of my participation was to put some staples in the gate and to hold the roll of fence wire. My parents actually came out and did a lot of the grunt work (putting posts in the ground) on Thursday while I was working at the shelter. Have I said lately how much my parents rock??
The internet dudes came while we were finishing up the fence project. The dogs had to get locked in the bedroom, which they so enjoyed. The install process went better than I expected (I didn't think my house was wired AT ALL, but there was a buried cable in place already) and they were gone before 3:00. With all that free time on my hands, I decided I may as well test out the video software on the new computer to see if I would be able to work with it with my current equipment.
I set up a Power Paws drill from the recent issue of Clean Run -- A modified Letter H drill with weaves and a tunnel. I was so uninspired.... I foolishly decided to just go out there without a plan, which never ends well. As a result, Secret was about as enthusiastic as you'd expect her to be. That's why there isn't a ton of agility stuff in the video. lol Oh well, lesson learned. I didn't push her terribly hard, either, because shortly before we went out to play she head slammed into the patio window chasing after a fly. She seemed a little out of it for a bit. Poor girl. Klutzy girl...
So yeah, the video isn't much to write home about. It was more a test run for me to play with the software than anything. You get to see a tour of the new potty yard in addition to a little agility stuff from all three. I have a lot to learn with the new software, but we'll get there. I think I'll be able to figure out how to do trial videos at least, and that's what is most important! lol
And now I will wait a half hour to publish this..... My internet speed is faster at home, but the video file is HUGE because I didn't have to convert my mpg to be able to work in this version of WMM. So yay for higher quality videos, but boo for taking 45 minutes to upload to YouTube. I'm not used to that!
OH! Speaking of trial videos (kind of).... I sent off our entries for the Think Pawsitive trial over Memorial Day weekend. We will head over just for Saturday (seeing as I'm working at the shelter on Friday & Sunday, ugh). Secret is entered in EVERYTHING -- five classes -- that will be a big day for her! I decided to bring Kaiser for another test. I think I put him in Standard, Gamblers and PSJ. Interesting conversation after I posted to the Clean Run list about his jumping issues. Linda Mecklenberg, herself, believes he may have ETS. Huh. I figured that wasn't even on the list!
I was sooooo tired last night. Words cannot express how much I wanted to sit on the couch watching movies and eating ice cream all night. It was a lovely evening, though, and the dogs hadn't gotten to do much of anything lately due to all the rain we've been getting (I heard on the news this morning that we apparently went 10 days in a row with measurable precipitation -- no wonder it seemed like it rained every day, lol). I had grabbed my video camera off my desk on a whim as I left work, so I decided to go ahead and make myself set something.
Now that I'm back on the Clean Run subscription trane, I figured the Backyard Dogs drill from the most recent (May 2012) issue was as good as anything. I briefly considered setting one of the International style Jumpers courses I've been sitting on for a while, but that would have been WAY too much work. ;o) This particular Backyard Dogs set only required seven jumps and that worked for me. I had fun using my course setting skills for this one (there were no related distances anywhere) and think I got it set pretty nicely.
The focus of this set was entirely on finding the backside of the jump. Some of the drills were super screwy and didn't appeal to me at all. I'm all for pushing myself out of my comfort zone and learning new skills, but I thought a few of the exercises would just be very demotivating -- particularly for Kaiser. I chose to work on exercises three, four and five. There was no way my brain was going to be able to retain more than that. As it was, I almost decided to just learn one at a time because I was struggling so much. The dogs seem to do better getting everything done at once (vs. coming out three times), so I just plugged away and somehow managed to learn all three drills. I think I even got the courses right this time and didn't take any jumps from the wrong side. I think... No promises because I get so confused by these things! :o)
I went in order this time, although I hardly found any of the drills from this set "easy." That considered, the dogs really did a nice job. We haven't done a ton of work on sending to the back sides of jumps, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I know that this style of work is up Secret's alley. I more worried that it would completely blow Kaiser's mind, but he held it together and did very well.
I handled the opening of Drill 3 the same way in both runs, starting with the dog on my left and then a front cross after three, before five and after six. Still with me? lol I know, it's hard to follow. I handled the close of 7-8-9 in two different ways, first using a post turn to keep me on the inside of 7-8 and then a bit of a combo front cross wrap followed by a rear cross at eight. Honestly I expected the second maneuver to work better due to my dogs' general dislike of post turns, but both dogs drove through the turn much better using the post turn. Go figure.
I chose drill four because I know that this set-up (the backside of number two) is very difficult for us. We have not had a lot of success in the past with this configuration! Really, aside from that it's just a bunch of push-throughs and Secret is pretty comfortable with those, assuming I'm actually in position. Kaiser is getting better with them, but still handles them better than threadles.
Secret surprised me and didn't have any issues whatsoever with finding number two. I did completely fail to support the third jump on our first try; probably because I was still marveling over her success at the second jump. lol I did better on the second try, but then I forgot that I was planning to do more of a send from six to seven to allow me to be in a better position to support the push through from eight to nine -- so that was a little awkward. I did better the next time.
On Kaiser's first shot he went over jump eight instead of two. Not surprising. He did come to heel when released the second time, but we had a little discussion over what side of the jump to take. After that he seemed to figure out really well and did a great job. He did totally blow off my "come" from seven to eight the first time through there, but that's pretty typical for him. I exaggerated my rotation after that and he got it, although his first push through was pretty herky-jerky since I was more or less in his way.
Any issues we experienced in the third run were entirely because my brain was fried. lol I REALLY struggled to commit this one to memory, to the point where I almost bagged it. I think I edited out over two minutes on video of me standing there during Secret's turn, trying to figure out what the third one was again. She happily gnawed away at her Udder Tug the entire time.
Again, this drill worked on more of the same skills. Two to three was a nice 270 followed by a push through to four. I did a front cross, an inside wrap and a rear cross wrap in the 5-6-7 sequence and undeniably the front cross worked the best. I was able to blind cross between eight and nine for Secret, but I don't tend to like to use those with Kaiser (seems like any time I take my eyes off the little fart he runs off to the hinter lands for an off course obstacle). For Secret I was able to stay on the inside for 9-10-11, but Kaiser was very prone to taking the back side of 11 (an issue probably made more likely by the evening's exercises), so it worked best for him to put in a front cross between 10 and 11. I hadn't even tried that in Secret's run since it was a non-issue for her, but in a trial situation the front cross is surely the safer option.
After everyone was done, I let Secret do her favorite thing -- Sprawl out in frog-dog style and chew on her Jolly Ball. She's like a crack addict with that thing lately. I've almost given up on trying to keep her from stealing it out of the garage. They are all becoming naughty little thieves -- Kaiser likes to take Luke's red Jolly Ball out of the box to chew on and torment Luke. Poor Luke.
By the way, I did attempt these exercises with Luke and it went as well as I thought it would. I thought of making a video showing all the reasons why Luke will NOT be playing in USDAA, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. lol He tries so hard, bless him, but this stuff is just not for him.
I set all of Kaiser's jumps at 12" last night and the little fart did great. He was a good little jumper, even with these "stressful" type courses. I guess one can hope that if we keep working on this type of stuff at home, maybe he won't find USDAA courses stressful and thus, might jump better at trials? Who knows. As frustrating as the situation is, I am happy to see that he CAN, in fact, jump quite nicely at home.
Like I mentioned earlier, I got video! And like all Backyard Dogs drills, the bonus is that it all fits nicely into a smaller space for good stationary video footage. :o)
Secret:
Kaiser:
Hopefully your internet speed is faster than mine today..... But oh! I am having internet installed at home on Friday that is about 100x faster than at the office. I look forward to blogging from home in the near future! I'm a little more apprehensive about video production since I've gotten so comfortable with my system at work (seriously, I can bang these suckers out super fast!). The new computer comes with Windows Movie Maker, but it's a much different version than what I'm used to. I just hope all of the equipment is compatible. My dad said that he can't get his phone to connect with his Windows 7 software. :o( That would suck, considering that's where all of my pictures come from!
At the trial on Saturday the Starters & Advanced participants were given a "bonus course" on their print-outs. There was a bit of confusion since only Masters Jumpers was on the schedule for that day. I enjoyed the courses that Tim Verrelli brought for us, so I thought it would be fun to take this one home and run to see what he had in store for us, would we have ran Jumpers that day!
Considering it's a Starters/P1 course it wasn't terribly technical or challenging, but we had fun with it. Honestly, I don't know that I would have had it in me to set/run anything more complicated last night. lol As it was, I set this when we got home and then went and sat in the house for a good half hour before bringing out my first dog (Secret -- why is Secret always first?).
I made a point to handle it several different ways. The opening sequence could be handled entirely from the right with a long enough lead-out (which even Kaiser gave me -- apparently pulling him off that course on Sunday made a big impact!). Or one could run with the dog and opt for a rear cross from four to five. Secret's preferred handling was a front cross between three and four, no surprise. Front crosses always seem to get the most speed from her.
That theme pretty much held throughout. I made myself run the course entirely with rear crosses once and she was noticeably slower. She still maintained decent speed, but there was certainly an appreciable difference from when I stayed in front.
Overall I was very happy with her speed. I think she even bounced 7 to 8 a few times.
I staggered my final line a bit more than pictured on the map to up the difficulty some. I was behind by a bit the first time and Secret totally didn't see the final obstacle. A rear cross at 14 (which was the tire in my case) helped solve that, as did making sure I was able to get into position for the push.
It was a warm evening and Secret did great with the jumps at 22". She knocked 13 once, but I believe that was her only bar of the night.
I ran Kaiser at 12" to get a comparison of how he jumped this weekend vs at home. Sure enough he was awesome. I can't say that the Adequan hasn't helped him, because I do feel that he is faster and smoother at home now. He didn't have a single hitch the entire night and was really jumping beautifully. I just keep coming back to the fact that so many of his jumping issues are mental.
I brought it up to my vet at our appointment this morning and he mentioned doing an experiment with an anti-anxiety medication. I'm not thrilled about the idea of medicating my dog for agility -- especially since it's a full time every day drug, not something I could just give him the morning of a trial. I can't deny that it would be interesting to see what it did, but I happen to like Kaiser's quirkiness and am loath to drug him to possibly get more clean runs -- especially since he rarely stresses at 8" anymore.
I did try a "calming" essential oil on him many trials ago when there was a vendor at the trial. All it did was give me a headache, so I don't plan on going that route with him again. Ultimately, he eventually got over his issues in NADAC and maybe he'll do the same with USDAA. Hard to say, especially since I've more or less decided that if I go over to New Berlin at the end of the month I'll just take Secret. Have to send those entries next week if I'm going. I wish I wasn't so broke.
For those who enjoy this type of thing, I thought I'd share our courses from the USDAA trial this weekend. Our judge was Tim Verrelli. He was SUPER nice and brought some really fun courses with him.
Day two of our USDAA trial was fantastic! Yay! We love USDAA! :o) I'm glad I decided to "splurge" and do both days of the trial this time. I believe that having the opportunity for them to get used to the equipment and the new setting was invaluable and likely will go a long way towards their generalizing skills with new equipment.
Because the second day was starting with Masters Snooker followed by Masters Jumpers (then Advanced, THEN us), we took it easy in the hotel Sunday morning. I didn't even set my alarm to go off until 7:00 (trial started at 8:00) and then we took our time packing up and heading out. I get a little twitchy sitting around with nothing to do, though, so we still got to the trial around 9:00, which was right as Snooker was wrapping up. It was nice to be able to watch the Jumpers rounds -- There are so many amazing teams that trial in USDAA in this area and it was lots of fun to watch them.
The order was reversed and we were running tall to small on this day, which meant that Secret finally got more attention/warm up (with only a few dogs between them, she more or less got yanked out of her crate and ran on Saturday). I was super happy to see that she wasn't reacting to all of the noise in the arena -- I don't think I mentioned it on Saturday's post, but the noise in that arena is pretty loud. Every time a dog would go through a tunnel or over the a-frame it sounded like thunder. And of course the teeter was one of the loudest bangs that Secret has heard to date. I was worried that she would have a meltdown over it, but she managed to hold it together and by Sunday it wasn't bothering her at all.
We loved Jumpers! It was a fun little course and I even threw in two blind crosses and they were just lovely. There wasn't a lot of space for me to "run" between 3-4-5 and Secret slowed down a bit there, but then she really kicked it into gear for the rest of the course. Result -- Q and 1st place! Yay!!
Kaiser, oh Kaiser. I took his leash off and he sprinted away to grab a tunnel near the start of the course. Because his jumping had been so iffy the day before, I opted to pick him up and do the walk of shame to save his jumping efforts for the Performance Speed Jumping finals that was next. In hindsight this turned out to be an excellent decision because not only was he jumping much better for PSJ, but he also held his stay the rest of the day! Go figure!
Kaiser had a mini meltdown when I was way off on my timing for a front cross before a tunnel in PSJ, so he went off course there. The rest of his run was nice, though -- And by Sunday he seemed to accept that the USDAA a-frame was not so bad and he started attacking it with gusto (he was avoiding it on Saturday as he did at the February trial). Unfortunately if you are eliminated in Round 2 that means no money for you!
Secret was up first in P1 Standard. The teeter was the fourth obstacle in on a nice line after the weaves and she actually did step on it immediately, but then stalled out a bit. I was able to encourage her forward without her jumping off of it, though -- so YAY! The table was not an issue this time, so all was clear there. And again no problems with the chute, phew! She had a super nice run and earned Q/1st again!
Kaiser was not happy with my over-management of his contacts and let me know this by running past both the teeter & the dog walk (as I stood in "hover" position). He got back on track both times, though, and we managed to stay clean and on course for a Q/1st for him as well!
Pairs was up last. Kaiser's teammate came up to me earlier in the day to ask how Kaiser's weaves were because apparently they are an issue for her dog. This was great news for us, because the first half of the course (with the weaves) was far better suited to Kaiser's skills. The second half had both the dog walk and the teeter in it, so I happily consented to taking the first half and Kaiser banged it out like a super star. Our teammate did a super great job with all of the hard stuff on her half and just had a little "oops" when the dog back-jumped the jump after the teeter. We were easily fast enough to come in well under the time + faults cap, though, so we got a Q/1st in that run, too!
There was a fairly small amount of drama surrounding who would be Secret's teammate. Well not really "drama," per say, but I didn't have many choices. There were a grand total of 5 P1 dogs entered in Pairs, and two of them were mine. Two of the dogs entered don't weave yet, so they were both entered on the 2nd half in their rounds. The accommodating dog must run the opposite half of what they ran in their first run, which meant if either of them ran with Secret they would have to weave -- pretty much an automatic NQ there. That meant our *only* option was a young Malinois who I don't believe has trialed before and her owner was concerned about putting her in the ring with an unknown dog (she and a friend specifically paired their baby dogs to get them ring experience).
We figured we could work it out, though, because Secret would run the first half and she could keep her dog on leash until they started. I obviously couldn't make any promises about Secret since we've never done pairs before, but I was reasonably sure that she wouldn't try to interact with the other dog after her run.
It was a perfect run! First of all, it works out pretty well that several of Secret's favorite toys are fairly similar in size/shape to the baton used in Pairs. lol She saw something in my hand and immediately thought, "TOY!!!" Holy crap, her weaves were as fast as they are at home and she sailed right through the course just as speedy as could be. I told her to lay down at the end and she bowed -- close enough. She never even looked at our partner dog. Our baby dog partner absolutely rocked her half of the course. I can understand her owner's concern if this was her first time running, but she should be super proud of just how awesome her dog was. They ran their half clean and fast, easily earning Secret a Q/1st. I felt bad that the Q didn't count for our partner, especially since I saw that they NQ'd on their official run. Oh well, baby dogs.
Sadly, we didn't get any video at all from Sunday. I just didn't want to deal with the stress of asking people that I barely know and seeming like a bother. Who knows, maybe not worrying about that helped me to run better that day. I'm bummed that I don't have all those awesome moments on video, but it is what it is. So instead you can watch Saturday instead! :o)
I'm very proud of both of the dogs. They had a lot of new stuff thrown at them this weekend and they both really rose to the occasion.
I worried about Secret for a bit -- She would NOT stop barking in her crate while I watched Masters Standard on Sunday. I thought maybe she was mad that Kaiser had gotten to get out for the PSJ finals and she didn't, so I took the dogs for a walk --- Where Secret promptly blew out her insides (and did so a couple more times that day). She had poo'd just fine at the hotel in the a.m., so I'm thinking that perhaps the hard boiled egg that I let the dogs share might be to blame. Whoops. On a related note, if you ever want to see something really funny, you should see Secret try to eat a hard boiled egg. Ha!!!
I really cut back on her treats for the rest of the day and she seemed to be fine -- or at least her stomach issues didn't bother her in the ring at all. I made sure to go on LOTS of walks that day. I think that getting out and about more, in addition to some extra stretching, is what helped Kaiser's jumping a lot more, too. Little man just needs more warm-up time, I think.
So there you have it, USDAA trial number two in the bag. Now for my dilemma. I took off work from the shelter on Saturday, May 26. I can either go over to a USDAA trial in New Berlin, WI that day or I can take all three dogs to a NADAC trial in Zumbro Falls. I haven't missed the Zumbro Falls trial in years. We are still trying to finish NATCH for Secret & Kaiser. But oh, I have so much more fun with the USDAA courses..... So hard to decide.
I'd also need to decide if I would even bother to take Kaiser. I'm just not sure about the whole jumping 12" thing for him. Maybe I'll just wait and see if USDAA lowers their jump height cut-offs like our judge mentioned this weekend. I just think he'd have more fun if the jumps were lower. We'll see. I'm going to talk to our vet on Thursday about the situation, but I know he'll just say, "If the Adequan didn't work, there's always surgery!" Umm....
This was a really long day. Fun! But long. It never helps that I sleep just awful the first night in any hotel. I can't even blame rude neighbors this time. It was a good reminder as to why I started getting up at 3:30 a.m. to drive to trials. I can go to bed at 8 p.m. at home and at least get good sleep up to that point. Oh well, I think the dogs slept okay and I suppose they matter more than me! :o)
Even staying at the hotel, though, our day started bright and early with a 5:20 a.m. alarm! Since Kaiser had to be measured I had to be sure to get to the trial fairly early. On the Run is about twenty minutes from the hotel we're at (La Quinta -- no dog fees!), so not terrible but I wanted to give us plenty of time to settle in.
The Starters/P1 dogs started out the day with Gamblers. Kaiser was up first and racked up a totally smoking opening of 31 points (one point shy of the highest in Performance 1), but then he crashed the first jump of the gamble. :o( Poor Kaiser. He was jumping well up to that point, but any time he crashes he loses all confidence.
I had a totally different plan for Secret because A) her weaves aren't as fast -- they were the 7 pt obstacle -- and B) I really wanted to get her on the teeter. I planned her opening to go tire, jump, teeter and she nailed the teeter with gusto, but then got a bit spooked after. I kind of lost her for a few obstacles, but I did manage to get her back on track to get in the a-frame and a few more jumps before the buzzer went off. The gamble was pretty simple, just a jump-tunnel-jump sequence about ten or fifteen feet beyond the line. Secret got it easily and earned a Q and fourth place!
Standard was up next. Kaiser was a little spastic but was pretty good (for him). He was clean up to a few obstacles from the end when he went into the wrong end of a tunnel. Oh well, I'm pleased as punch that he got his contacts and did all of the obstacles!
Secret was a good, good girl! It took a few tries to prompt her onto the teeter, but she got it! She didn't even hesitate at the chute after the weaves, but then she kind of had a melt down about the table. Yes, this table looks worlds different from ours at home, but I didn't expect it to be that big of a deal! I did finally get her on the table just to have her jump off again for five faults. She got back on and finished the course super nicely. Can't say I expected us to NQ on the table!
We had a nice course for Performance Speed Jumping. Kaiser was just off from the very beginning with his jumping. There was lots and lots of stuttering and herky-jerky movements. Despite that, we somehow managed to stay on course and remained fault free until the end -- and heaven help me, we made it to the finals tomorrow! Barely, by about a second. The other two dogs in our height are shelties and I dare say he doesn't have a shot if he keeps up the wonky jumping. One bright spot is that our judge told us this morning that USDAA is strongly considering changing the jump height cut-offs and Kaiser, at 14", would be eligible to run 8" Performance if they go through with it. Fingers crossed, because I don't know that I can keep doing this with him at 12". I'm sad that the Adequan hasn't helped at all, but it just tells me the issue is more with the luxation of the patella vs. the arthritis behind it.
I totally failed Secret in PSJ! I get a bit spoiled with the way she tends to follow me so well, I guess, because I apparently couldn't be bothered to tell her where to go. She shot off course after the fifth obstacle (for an E) and then grabbed two bonus jumps after the broad jump (yes, she did it easily!) because in both situations I more or less just watched her go and didn't give her any cue whatsoever. I'm not used to Secret careening off to grab obstacles on her own. Hello, handler, wake up!
Our last run of the day was Snooker and it was completely doable, but one of the required reds was way up at the top of the course. For Kaiser I opted to avoid going through the sea of obstacles because I know he's likely to take whatever is in front of him, but then he back-jumped the last red. For Secret I thought it would be safe enough to cut through the middle to that last red, but she saw the weave poles in front of her and decided they needed to be passed through, so we heard the whistle there. So in other words, neither dog even made it to the closing! We obviously lack Snooker skills. lol
We should be able to take it easy in the morning. The trial starts with Masters Snooker followed by Masters Jumpers, then Advanced and then us in Starters/P1. I figure we're probably safe to arrive at 10:00, but I won't push my luck. Plus who knows, maybe my name will actually be on the worker's schedule tomorrow. I wasn't scheduled for anything today, which made for a VERY long day.
Thanks to my friend Chris, I actually did get video of everything except Snooker (everyone was gone by then). She isn't there tomorrow, so hopefully we can find another friendly soul to help get our runs on tape. Class I'm most interested for tomorrow: Pairs. lol Kaiser's partner came up and introduced herself to me today and she is a lovely woman. Secret is a "draw," so who knows who we'll end up with. Some kind volunteer, I suppose, but there aren't many to choose from!
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Behold! My magnificent Paint skills are at work again! lol Actually, it looks better than the one I drew by hand and snapped a picture of, so it's what I'm using for the post today. It would be awesome if I would actually invest in Course Designer one day, but until then this will have to do.
I think my course design skills are improving. Not that this was a terribly technical course or anything, but it was fun and the last half after the chute lent itself to several variations.
As I posted yesterday, my only real goal of the evening was to have a brief refresher on the equipment we don't usually see at trials. It was a breezy evening, so I brought the chute out first to test the angle of the wind. I bet you can guess which direction it was blowing. With that figured out, I more or less built off the chute -- and my table, which I was too lazy to move. Obstacle one is the tire (not a hoop). Secret's jumps were at 22" and the boys both ran at 12" with the table set at appropriate heights for each.
Everyone ran very well and we didn't encounter any issues -- save for the one time when Secret jumped through the center of the broad jump to slice the turn to jump four.
I did a little experiment with Secret and tossed her toy over by the finish line to proof running with that distraction and no reward on my person. Yeah... Not so much! When I chucked her Udder Tug across the yard she was a good girl and held her stay, but she fixated on the location of the toy and wouldn't look back at me. When I got her attention and released her at the first obstacle, she instantly started to take off for her toy. I was able to stop her with a quick, "Ah!!" to get her attention and we started the course -- but when she came blasting out of the chute she ran straight to her toy and that was the end of that. Might be something we should continue to work through!
I'm happy with Kaiser's performance at 12", but he's always a better jumper at home it would seem. This weekend will be a big test for him to see if he'll be able to continue forward with USDAA. Tonight he will receive his seventh in a series of eight shots of Adequan as part of the loading dose process. Typically they are as "good" as they'll ever get during the loading dose period, so if he is still noticeably uncomfortable or hesitant at the trial this weekend I think I'll have my answer. I already know that he has no problems at 8" and he would be fine to continue running NADAC at that height -- So I guess if that's his only option I'll just deal with it.
By the way, for anyone who might be interested in this information and isn't able to keep up with all of the changes in NADAC (yes, that's right, there's been *another* change) --- There is no longer any designation/separation between Skilled and Proficient at any level. The MEDAL/NATCH-S is no more. A NATCH is a NATCH is a NATCH.
I don't really care. I've been listing titles for Secret & Kaiser (who both run in Skilled) as Proficient titles all along (ie: EAC vs EAS). I planned to say they earned their NATCH, so this just works swell for me. :o) I can certainly understand why some people might view it as "unfair" or whatnot since Skilled has those stupid 5 pt Q's (which I hate, for the record), but it is what it is. And come on -- to those talking about how it devalues the award, didn't we already go over that when the video Q's were combined with those earned at a trial? You really can't get worse than that.
Practice is overrated, yes? That's the stance I'm taking going into our second USDAA trial this weekend. Life has been a little on the crazy side the last week or so and as a result we have done, well, pretty much no training to speak of. Because the table & teeter are in the yard I have incorporated them into our fetching games, but that's it. It's something, I suppose.
I had high hopes that we'd be able to get some more teeter practice in on Monday, as Family Dog Center had an open agility session on the schedule. I had spoken to our friend Travis about the possibility of setting up something NON-NADAC for this session to give people a chance to work on equipment that we don't see enough. He was all for it. Then he didn't get scheduled to work. :o(
I had picked up a shift at the shelter on Monday and called FDC on my drive back to Sparta. I was hoping to talk to Travis to confirm that it was worth the bother of driving all the way back to La Crosse with the dogs, only to find out that A) He wasn't working and B) the teacup equipment was still out from the trial over the weekend. Well great. Lovely. So much for that idea.
If the rain holds off this afternoon I plan to set up something using the table, teeter, chute & broad jump just so Secret sees all of it again before the trial -- and then that's it! We leave for the Cities Friday afternoon for a fun-filled full weekend of USDAA! Kaiser and Secret are both entered in all of the P1 classes plus Performance Speed Jumping. That amounts to five classes on Saturday and three classes on Sunday (unless someone manages to make it into the second round of PSJ!).
I don't know if I'm going to get video. :o( My friend, Rich -- The person who essentially talked me into jumping over to USDAA in the first place -- isn't coming to this trial and are only a small handful of people I know. That kind of sucks. It's not that I don't appreciate the opportunity to meet new people, but I'm not really the type of person to go up to a total stranger and ask them to video my runs. Meh, we'll see. Maybe my desperate desire to have our runs recorded will trump my social fears. lol
We haven't had a hotel stay since Champs. This will be the first time Secret & Kaiser travel to an away trial without Luke, so that will be a new experience for them (and me!). I kind of look forward to only having the two dogs to worry about and hope it gives me a little more time to spend with them before and after runs -- although there are only 5-7 dogs in each of our P1 classes, and two of them are mine! So while the rest of the day will be pretty low key, it will be a mad dash of craziness during our classes. Oh well.
I was unable to find a spare minute (or $$) to take Secret to the chiropractor before this trial, so we'll just be depending on the magical powers of her Back on Track mesh sheet.
I got some not so wonderful news about the future of my employment last week. As a result, I have no idea what opportunities I'll have to trial in the coming months -- knowing this, I'm going to try to enjoy myself this weekend and really try not to think about the fact that I may not get to keep doing this.
Considering that Secret will be running her first Standard runs in less than two weeks, I figured it was time to revisit another obstacle we rarely train -- the table! I've been so focused on the teeter lately that I tend to forget the other basic parts of the course we will see in USDAA.
We played shaping games with the table in the basement this winter and all of the dogs had fun with that, but I figured it was time to put some speed back in to the approaches. So that's what we did last night after I schlepped the table up from the basement. Now if only I'd pull up the jumps and 2x2 weave poles that are still down there....
Our set-up for the night was pretty straight forward. I set a line of three jumps spaced at about 15' leading into the table. The table was also set adjacent to the teeter, with another jump placed perpendicular to that so that it, too, could lead back to the table.
As pictured in the photos, the table was set at Kaiser's height of 12". I do need to swap out legs and have Secret work the higher table at least once before the trial, but for our purposes last night I figured the lower table would work fine.
The first time I sent her down the line Secret was totally oblivious to the table. She spun and barked at me -- table? What table? Once she figured out what I wanted, though, the rest of the night was just peachy. The only concerning part was that she started with an auto down and progressed to standing there barking at me. We finished the night with rapid fire on/down/off for her beloved Jolly Ball and that seemed to help a lot.
What I am pleased as punch about is her jumping! All jumps were set at 22" and as I mentioned, spaced at about 15' feet or so. She was really extending nicely and actually BOUNCED the sequence several times! There were a few times when her striding was off and she brought down bars (which is a rarity for her), but that's fine by me as she's figuring this out.
I brought Secret out for a second session and this time I skewed the jumps at odd angles to give her something to think about. I saw a bit less extension from her in that session, but still very nice drive. In both sessions we mixed up extension & collection work with wraps and sends -- Secret was a very good baby dog.
Kaiser did great in his session, too! The table has always plagued us, going back to his Teacup days when we couldn't Q a Standard run to save our life because he used the table as a trampoline. Bounce! He's come a long way and in our sessions last night there were times that he hit the table with such speed that he went skittering across it but still managed to hold on. He's even coming along with his auto down. Good job, Kaiser!
Then there is Luke who always views the table as a broad jump the first time out. lol Oh Luke... That said, he has the most impressive auto down of the three once he starts to actually get on the table. ;o) Too bad USDAA is just not his thing and he won't get to show it off at a trial.
Curious, did anyone notice Ms. Chicken Legs in the trial video I posted? Nobody said anything to me about it at the trial, so maybe nobody noticed. Or maybe they are just too polite to comment on the horrible thing I did to my dog on Friday.
For as short as her overall coat is, Secret has always gotten crazy long skirt hairs on her bum. It's like she has Poodle genes back there and the hair just keeps growing and growing and growing. Periodically I've been known to trim these hairs back for sanitary purposes, as they tend to occasionally catch poo or pee.
I may have went a *little* overboard with my trim job Friday afternoon. I blame my crappy scissors, as they were doing a really bad job of "taking a little off the ends" and the only thing that really worked was for me to hold the hair tight and cut behind where I was holding.
The result was very uneven, so I kept taking off more to try to even it up a bit. You know how that goes. It was horrible!!!! So I took off more. lol I eventually forced myself to give it up, but then when I was shaving feet a bit later I used the clippers to try to even it up a little, thereby removing even more hair.
Oh well, the good news is that Secret grows hair at a very fast rate, at least where her fringe is concerned. I expect it won't even be noticeable by the time we go to our next trial in a couple of weeks -- By the way, entries were sent and I have already received confirmation for our USDAA trial at On The Run! I entered Secret & Kaiser in all of the P1 classes plus Performance Speed Jumping. One of these days I suppose we'll have to try our hand at Grand Prix, but I figure there is no use in blowing that cash until I know they can handle the courses!
In my rushed post about the trial results, I totally forgot to share -- Secret PLAYED at the trial on Friday night! I brought her Udder Tug along to see if I could get her to engage in a trial environment. I was semi-successful in getting her to play with me near our crate, but there was just way too much activity nearby that was stressing her out. She would halfheartedly pounce at the toy and mouth it, but never really latched on to tug.
I took her to the back of the room away from the main action and she actively tugged with me! She wasn't stressing, she wasn't worried about the other dogs -- she just played! It's a huge step for her and it's something I need to continue to work on in trial settings. Our play session was between Weavers & Tunnelers and she went into Tunnelers with a great attitude & speed. So maybe playing at trials more will continue to bring that out in her.
Did we have a trial this weekend? Hardly feels like it. The picture above was taken shortly before we had to leave on Friday. I took the day off work because I've been just exhausted lately and I always like the dogs to rest up before a trial, too. They were fairly antsy and restless all day on Friday and I didn't feel like they really slept all day! Of course they crashed on the couch around 3:30 or so when we had to leave by 4:30. Oh well, they ended up being fine!
Kaiser & Secret both had really nice Weavers runs! Kaiser smoked Secret by four seconds, running 5 yps through the course (pretty good for a little dog!), but Secret held her own and put in a really good time. While she runs Skilled and gets Medium Dog time, I always check her times against the 20+ times she would be scored against if she ran Proficient. I was surprised to see she was almost five seconds under big dog time! She just doesn't feel like she's running THAT fast to me. Luke and I always struggled to make time in Weavers and he was running as hard as he could. I feel like Secret just kind of lollygags through the course, but somehow her times just aren't as bad as I would expect. Must be that deceptively long stride of hers!
I lost Kaiser to a blind cross in Tunnelers, which is to be expected. Honestly, I know better than to try that with him!! As I put in the video, never take your eye off the Klee Kai. lol Blinds work just swell with Secret, so I used the same maneuver in her run and it was great. Luke & Kaiser were making a ruckus at the crate in the middle of our run and I think that somewhat contributed to her pulling off a tunnel, but we recovered quickly and finished with a decent time. Luke got to run Tunnelers with our friend, Erika --- They ran clean on a tricky course, but ended up with time faults because Luke was entered in Elite. That's better than the E they got last time, so it's an improvement!! :o)
Kaiser broke his start in a naughty way in Touch-n-Go, then took the off course tunnel right next to us. I set him up to start again, thereby earning us an E, and then got a really nice lead out! His run was lovely, save for the off course of taking the tunnel next to the a-frame at the end which I didn't bother to correct. Secret started off like her feet were stuck in the mud, but gained speed as we went. The beginning of the course was set very tight and I just wasn't able to run at all -- we know how motivating that is for her!
Because we were only running Chances today, I didn't set my alarm and we slept in until 8:00. Then I farted around the house taking my time, figuring we'd leave around 11:00 or so. The run order was supposed to be Regular (all six rounds), followed by Touch-n-Go THEN Chances.
I got a phone call from our friend, Denise, around 10:00 saying that they had just changed the run order and that Chances would follow Regular. They were already starting Open Regular! Ahhh!! Thankfully I was ready to go at that point, so I threw our stuff together and ran out the door as two more friends texted me with the news. Agility friends are awesome.
We got to FDC as Novice Round 1 was finishing up, so the dogs got to settle in nicely before their run. The course was totally doable and didn't have a dog walk! Yay for Kaiser!!!
I screwed up Luke's run. :o( I called WAY too hard with my RFP at the a-frame because he's been known to be a naughty tunnel sucker lately AND I needed him to slow down to stop on his contact. He pulled right to me and crossed the line before I could stop him. Drat.
I had my doubts as to whether or not Secret would be able to stay out between the tunnels and I know my hesitations drew her into me. For a brief moment I thought I'd be able to send her back out, but then she offered me a nearby hoop instead and we NQ'd. Oh well, that's okay -- Lord knows I don't want her to get her NATCH before Kaiser, anyhow. lol
Kaiser was a superstar! His a-frame contact could have been deeper for my liking, but the little man rocked it. This puts him just two more Q's from his NATCH! Go, go, little man! He will be the first Klee Kai ever to earn it and I would really like to wrap it up this year yet -- hard when you aren't doing much NADAC anymore, but oh well.
Sorry for the rushed post --- Dinner plans with the family tonight! I did manage to slop all of the runs into one video. No fancy music or anything. You get to hear naughty Luke & Kaiser going bonkers during Secret's tunnelers run. Sounds like they were being nasty little crate guarders to me....
So. We kind of sort of have a NADAC trial this weekend. I say "kind of sort of" because we aren't doing much --- We are doing a few games classes on Friday night, but on Saturday the only class I entered everyone in was Chances. The USDAA trial at the end of the month is blowing my trial budget and technically I shouldn't have entered the NADAC trial at all. It's hard to finish big titles like the NATCH if you don't run, though, so I just entered everyone in Chances since that's all we need. It should be fun to run that as everyone's "first class of the day" and have them be nice and crazy. Of course, luck of the draw always comes into play with regard to course design. Let's just hope, for Kaiser's sake, that we luck out and don't have a dog walk!!
If you've been following this blog, you are likely well aware that we haven't worked on any NADAC-related skills for, well, a very long time. Honestly, I don't know if I've specifically focused on NADAC stuff since training for Champs last fall!! Ever since the weather turned nice and we've been able to play outside again, I've pretty much focused entirely on skills that are completely anti-NADAC and not at all conducive to distance skills.
Whoops. That is not really going to help me when it comes to running Chances as my only run of the day!
So with that in mind, last night I created a course that would help us to work on some of these skills. For fun, though, I threw a chute and a broad jump into my course design. :o)
Because I still haven't brought my contacts out of the garage, my course was limited to jumps, hoops, tunnels & weaves. I set up several traps and I'm actually quite happy with the end result. With two performances of the weave poles, it's not something you'd see in an actual Chances course, but otherwise I figure the challenges are pretty on par.
My course drawing skills apparently have improved marginally since all of the drawings I made during Champs training. I did this one on the first try. :o) Note, when I originally set the course, obstacles 5 & 6 (in the circled numbers) were hoops. We REALLY struggled with the switch out of the weaves up to number five, so I ended up making #5 a jump and #3/8 a hoop to see if it would help Secret to find the obstacle a little better. Not so much, but we'll get there in a bit. The obstacle straight out of the weaves was also a hoop, they just look really stupid when I draw them so I made everything look like jumps. Ha!!
The circled numbers are the main course I used. The square numbered course was used to switch things up a bit on them so they didn't get totally pattern trained.
This course made one thing glaringly obvious. Turning out of the weaves is HARD. Very, very hard for Secret. I have not seen this level of frustration from her in a long time. I'm happy to report that she didn't shut down on me as she did when I started working discrimination at a distance with her -- Instead she just stood there and barked at me. I, in turn, had a truly "bad trainer" moment and stood there and "barked back" at her and repeatedly said, "out." Yeah.... That so doesn't work!!! Okay, it works with Luke sometimes, which is probably why I'm dumb enough to keep trying it.
Aside from the mega-frustrations involved with getting that turn out of the weaves, I'm otherwise very pleased with how well Secret did. She really drove forward nicely out of the start. Often times she disconnects on tunnel starts and turns back to me, but she drove very nicely out to the second jump with no assistance from me. She nailed her weave entries at speed and, until she got super frustrated with me, had great speed through the weaves as well.
You can't see it on video, but she also totally attacked the broad jump and chute at the end. The baby dog needs to be careful, though..... She was leaping with gusto into the chute and catching her head and/or back on the entrance. That's all well and good with my nylon collapsible model, but that is going to hurt if she does that on a solid chute!
With the hoop set as number five, I never actually did get a turn out of the weaves without crossing behind Secret to the top of the poles. Since that would be a required part of the challenge if this were actually an Elite course, there's no way she would have been able to Q, no matter how hard we tried to get it!! When I switched it out to a jump I was finally able to successfully get her up to that obstacle without passing the line of the poles, but I was well over the line I created for myself.
Now, I don't know that this is a skill Secret has ever really had, so I can't really say that it's something that has degraded with our lack of distance training of late. Both of the boys struggled with the turn on their first try, but after that nailed it time and time again. So if they can do it, I suppose maybe I ought to spend some time working Secret on it. I think it would help greatly if I placed the jump closer to begin with. I used true wide open NADAC spacing on this course and that obstacle was just waaaaaaay out there. Baby steps get you further in these cases, I'm sure.
I really debated making a video at all because everything is so far away -- but you can still see good moments and bad moments. :o)
This has been a "light bulb moment" week for me. For whatever reason, the stars are aligning and some rather big name trainers all appear to be blogging on the same subject. It's a very profound subject for me, because it's something that I struggled with for so long with Secret. And what they have to say has made me really reflect and see exactly where I went wrong and how I actually CREATED the lack of toy drive that bothered me so greatly.
One of my Facebook friends posted a link to a recent blog post by Denise Fenzi. I suppose I should just subscribe to her blog, because every time someone links to one of her posts I seem to have an epiphany. The link to this particular post is here: Balance -- food & toys
Wow. Really? It's that simple? I'm the one who created the dog with no interest in toys? This is something I was considering just last week as I was watching one of my very first videos I made with Secret. She actually DID show interest in tugging when I first got her and I was wondering where I went wrong with that. Well, Denise's blog post pretty much spelled it out for me. I took the easy road. I chose food.
One of my weaknesses as a trainer has always been that I like results and I want them NOW. While Secret did show some initial interest in toys, the level of drive wasn't enough to consider using them as rewards. I introduced her to the clicker straight away and the obvious choice was to pair this with food since toys didn't yet have the value. We did a LOT of clicker training in the beginning. As I struggled with building interest in toys later on, I often reflected back and wondered if all of the shaping/treating I did early on was to our detriment. Turns out, it likely was. Oh.
Check out this quote:
"If the handler finds the rapid success with food to be highly gratifying, the tendency is to go back to the food while wistfully thinking about how much they’d like THIS dog to show better toy drive."
That was me!! That was totally me!!
I love that Denise points out that "dog training is not a race." Because to me, it was. I wanted my puppy to learn an amazing amount of tricks in a very short time. And she did! Secret was a brilliant puppy. Despite my frustrations at her lack of toy drive, I kept plugging away with food based training because I did see results there. And by doing so, I more or less kept decreasing her interest in toys. Fantastic, right?
Susan Garrett has also been talking on a similar subject lately. Her most recent newsletter really went into this in detail. One paragraph in particular caught my attention straight away:
"What happens is that many dog owners try to "interpret" their dog's actions and make dog training decisions based on these interpretations rather than the dog's actual responses. For example, a 16 week old puppy has been tugging since he came into his new home, but has also been growing a bigger and bigger love for his training treats. One day during training the puppy chooses to not tug when asked, possibly because he smells the treats and is trying to source them out (however the reason actually isn't important to me). The owner's interpretation of this choice is that her 16 week old puppy is feeling pain due to the fact he is teething and his mouth is likely too sore to tug. So she decides to just hand out treats in her training until all of the puppy's adult teeth come in. Five weeks later we have a puppy that no longer has any drive to tug. That is just one example of how tug drive may have been lost, but sadly, there are many more I could give you!"
Susan then went on to list ten common mistakes that people make when trying to get dogs to play -- and sadly, I did almost all of them.
It was following many of Susan's suggestions that eventually did help me to succeed in building Secret's interest in toys, so it is no wonder that many of the things she goes on to suggest are things that we did and ended up working for us. Limiting access to toys, only asking her to play when she was energized & excited, keeping sessions short, using lots of different toys (heck, we STILL do that, lol), etc.
The newsletter was super long and jam packed with really good information. Susan did follow up on the subject in a blog post, which is also worth reading. You can find it here.
It was a very long & frustrating road, but I'm very happy that Secret & I seem to have overcome our early difficulties with toy drive, or lack thereof. I do all of her training at home with toys now and the results are exactly what I hoped for -- more speed, drive & love of the game. We are still working to be able to bring out this same love of playing in stressful situations like trials, but our results at the run-through this past Friday really give me hope for this!
More or less this is all information that I'll be storing in my back pocket and keeping in mind for the next dog. If my goal is to have a toy/play driven dog, I am not doing myself any favors to dispense treats like candy. So much of my early training is food based, so it will be a hard habit to break, I'm sure. In the long run, though, I have no doubt it will be worth it and help me to achieve my goals. What I have to remember is that it's not like I have to do away with treats, but a healthy balance should be the goal.
I love the internet. There is just so much great information out there!!
