I guess it's summer now

It was such a long, miserable and cold winter that I am really trying not to complain about the weather. But would it have been too much to ask to have at least a little bit of a spring this year? You know, days that are nice and clear with highs in the 60's and low 70's? Because aside from a couple of weeks of highs in the 50s with lots of rain, we pretty much jumped from "freezing" to "hellishly hot" just like that.

We actually set this course up last night. The circumstances were not ideal -- it was 86 degrees, somewhat humid, and Luke & Kaiser had just had a vet visit. I probably SHOULD have taken the girls for a run, but I've been a bum about that lately, and I thought that agility sounded like more fun.

And.... I about died. OMG, by the time I wrapped up the second dog I was pretty much gasping for breath. Secret ran first and pretty much did the best of anyone. I did video the runs from last night but I didn't do anything with them. The little dogs were very "meh" about the whole thing (didn't help that they broke into an open food bag in the garage....).

I'm home this morning and a bit before 10:00 a.m. I figured I'd go out and give it another shot, thinking it would be cooler and go much better. Well, it did go much better, but cooler it was not. I checked the weather when I was done and the real-feel was already 84 degrees. Sheesh. I will say, though, that for as miserably hot as it was in the sun, we all sat in the one corner of shade in the back of the yard when we were done and it was quite nice.

And now it's getting close to 88 degrees out there and Kizzy is sunning herself on the deck.... The rest of us are hunkering down in the air conditioning the rest of the afternoon until I have to leave for Petco. I did think about taking them down to the river before I have to jump in the shower this afternoon, but we just put Advantix on the other day and I figure we'll let that soak in a bit more.

I got confirmations for the 4th of July trial this morning, so either a draw was not needed or we made it in on our chosen days. I should probably book the hotel today since it's a holiday weekend, I suppose. Looking forward to a fun weekend at that trial!

Stupid weaves...

Yesterday we left home at the buttcrack of dawn (that would be 4:38 a.m.) to drive over to Sheboygan for some AKC fun. I entered this trial more or less at the last minute after the trial secretary posted that they still had openings. It's been a nice, cool spring, so I thought we'd take a chance on some possible rain and do some agility outside. Because at least it would be cool, right?

Or not. It was freaking hot! Hot AND steamy, because it started raining as we were walking the first course of the day. It stopped before we started running (except for the brief, tiny shower that started right before Secret ran), which more or less just made it super humid and gross.

That said, this trial site was perfect! We truly had the best of all worlds, as we got to run in some really lovely outdoor grass rings and the dogs got to spend their day in the comfort of the air conditioning in their lovely indoor arena. We would gladly go back to Sheboygan Dog Training Club in the future! It really was a beautiful site. The roads on the majority of the drive were crappy and bumpy, but the 3 hour and 10 minute drive really wasn't that bad. And the trial didn't start until 8:30 -- that extra half hour was pretty much the deciding factor between me driving over the day of vs the night before.

Now.... I can not grumble about the courses because I knew full well the style of this judge going into this. His courses are about as vanilla as vanilla can get. We ran in Karl's JWW ring in Cannon Falls and it was the course I likened to a NADAC Open Jumpers course with a set of weaves thrown in. But whatever, we were just going to have a fun day of playing agility outside. The biggest surprise was the spacing. It felt like I was walking a teacup course. The bars were already set at 24" when I walked it so I didn't stride it out like I normally would, but it was tight. I don't think Secret minds that, though. The short spacing tends to work well for her.

Secret did well on this course. As I mentioned above, we had a quick little shower right before going into the ring. All this really did was make things slick for us. I think it was the landing of the triple where she fell onto her shoulder, but she picked herself up and kept going. I used all blinds in this run. Her weaves started out a little cautious but then picked up speed nicely. Secret got 3rd place, 9 speed points and her MXJ on this run!

Kaiser seemed happy to be running outside! I always feel like he jumps better in natural lighting and he did really well yesterday. I got in all fronts with him except where I threw in the blind between 14 & 15 (with nothing else in the path I figured it was safe!). Kaiser won his class (and there was actual competition this time!) and got 17 speed points.

I was concerned about the start of this course for Secret because it didn't allow for much, if any, movement on my part. She did well with it, though, and was running very happy through the first part of this course. I picked her up on my right out of the #9 tunnel, which was my original plan, but it was solidified when I saw dog after dog going to the a-frame instead of the table when the dog was on the left. I raced her off the table to squeeze in a blind cross before the teeter. This was a risk, because the off course jump was only a short 6 strides from jump 14.

Secret had a great teeter and moved off confidently over the triple and through the tire. She hit her weave entry and then got a totally blank look on her face as she veered off towards the fence to her right. There was a peanut gallery sitting just outside the fence, but I can't imagine that would be that much of a distraction. Watching the runs in the Std ring, I would venture to say that AT LEAST 50% of the dogs were faulting at the weaves yesterday. There is absolutely no reason for it that I can see so far as course design goes. It was a very straightforward entry. And it wasn't even the entries that were getting dogs. Many were getting pulled out by something after they were already in. Someone suggested maybe it was the breeze coming in from that direction. I have absolutely no idea, but it was the oddest thing.

So of course I had a complex when it came time to run Kaiser. His run started great, too, and he got his table!! Yay! That is always reason to celebrate! I was waffling back and forth on whether or not to push for a front before the teeter or to hold back and cross him on the exit (which I knew he wouldn't really like). I got enough of a head-start off the table that I was able to get there in time for the front. Kaiser hit his weaves and stayed in them, so I figured we should be home free. I *may* have took off for the finish jump a stride too early, but Kaiser is not known for leaving his weaves early. But he did, at pole 10, and that was that. We became one of the 50%+ who faulted at the weaves.

We were completely done, packed up and on the road by 11:45 a.m.! It's probably a little insane to drive almost 6.5 hours for a trial that lasts just over 3 hours. Oh well, it was fun! And we got home just after 3:00, which meant we still had plenty of time to go swimming. By the way, I do not suggest walking 1 mile each way in flip-flops... The dogs did not understand my need to walk slower than usual. It was the perfect day for a swim, though, and everyone enjoyed themselves. And Secret managed to completely destroy the new Chuck-It bumper that I *just* got (this was its 2nd trip to the river). Sigh. That was the last one available at Petco, too, so hopefully we get a new shipment in soon. I work tonight, so I'll have to look for a replacement. Because lord knows Secret isn't going to chase a boring old tennis ball into the river...

I sent in entries to the AKC trial at Think Pawsitive for the 4th of July weekend (to run Friday/Saturday). We don't have any more AKC planned until then, unfortunately. The only thing we have in June is NADAC in La Crosse, so odds are high that everyone will get to play a bit that weekend. Maybe even Kizzy, we'll have to see how adventurous I'm feeling.

Swimming!!

It was 82 degrees when I got out of work today. I don't have any scheduled shifts at Petco until Saturday, but do have the option to go in and sit through a few more hours of training videos -- But who could do that on such a lovely evening? So I came home and took the dogs to the river for a swim.

I was waffling because the water in the local waterways is still so very high and fast from recent flooding. I had no idea what to expect from the little river that goes through our local park. I decided to take the chance and walked the dogs down. On the off chance that we wouldn't be able to swim, at least we'd get a walk out of the deal. FYI, they are all a bunch of raging lunatics when they know there is swimming to be had.

The water was, indeed, very high and quite fast. I did not throw their toys out nearly as far as usual -- especially when I looked up once to see Secret's new bumper floating in a little whirlpool created by the rapids, but no Secret. Secret had gotten pulled downstream and was trying desperately to swim back upstream towards her toy. I finally convinced her to swim sideways towards me and then sent her back out to get the bumper (questionable, perhaps, but hey, it's new!  ;o) ). After that I was much more careful about where I tossed the toys and kept everything pretty close to shore and away from the swirling waters of the little rapids.

I kept the little dogs on 6' leashes to avoid the bedlam that could surely ensue with two dogs roaming on 20'+ flexi leashes. Four dogs, two on leash, is just more or less a pain to deal with at the river.... We may have to rethink this plan in the future. Kaiser enjoyed splashing in the shallow water as usual. The big surprise was when Kizzy went charging in to the water! I don't remember that from her last year. Thankfully I'd brought an extra tennis ball along and she enjoyed fetching that from the shallow water several times. I think the two of them would have more fun down there on their own on flexis next time. Maybe I'll just have to make two trips!

My knees are still farked up from the weekend and I think I sprained the big toe on my left foot. Awesome. Hopefully everything works itself out for the trial on Monday.

3 Days of Agility Fun -- CKC AKC Trial

Our 3-day agility extravaganza is behind us. At the end of the day today part of me was like, "Phew, glad that is done," but then again, it sure would be fun to go back for more tomorrow!  :o)  Judge Lisa Patterson brought some fun courses with her (I don't remember her courses from the last time we saw her, I should look them up) and Kaiser & Secret had a very good weekend.

The only downside was that my knees were absolutely wrecked at the end of the day on Saturday. I have no idea what that is about, other than to think that maybe my ancient turf/trail runners have ran their last trial and need to be retired. I iced my knees last night, took a ton of Advil & Ibuprofen and switched to a new pair of trail runners today and things went much better. There was still residual pain from yesterday, but it definitely didn't get any worse. Considering the old shoes have holes in them, it's probably time for them to go in the garbage. I have an attachment disorder to shoes...

Our weekend started off with a Standard run on Friday. Kaiser needed just one more Exc Std Q to move up to Masters for the rest of the weekend, so the pressure was on (self-imposed, obviously). He put in a really nice run. I led out near jump two to get the front cross on the landing side of three. His running a-frame set us up nicely for the front cross to 8. You couldn't be a lazy handler at the chute because it was almost like a backside send to jump 10, which many handlers didn't make because they didn't follow through after the chute -- I almost did the same with Kaiser, but was able to shoot forward at the last second to support the jump. He had a nice teeter and didn't jump off the side for the first time in several trials. I stayed on the inside of the tire and handled the weaves from the right, doing what I think might have been my only rear cross off the weekend into the tunnel. Kaiser had a great dog walk and then..... Bounced the table.

Groan!!!! I thought we would be okay on this table set-up because he wouldn't be coming at it with a ton of speed. Oh well. Stinker. To his credit, it's not like we've practiced the table in the last several months or anything. From there it was just a fun and fast finish.

Secret was having a ball on this run. It was really, really nice until I pushed for a blind while she was on the teeter and ended up pushing her straight to the off course jump ahead of her. Totally my fault. The rest of the run was really nice, including weaves that got faster as they went and a nice zippy finishing line.

Kaiser NQ'd in JWW, but I'll take the blame for it. He was not happy with how much I crowded him at the entry and then when I scooped him up at the end to push up to 9 he read it as a push out and took the off course jump 12. Looking back, I wonder if he would have been happier if I had front crossed before and after the weaves to stay out of his space. Oh well.

Secret had a nice run full of fun blind crosses. She earned a Q and 10 speed points on this run.

Saturday started with JWW and the big dogs were up first. Secret was the second dog on the line, but we had plenty of time to prep and she was ready to go. I did a front cross on the landing of jump 13 because the angle was just a little off for the blind, but otherwise I was able to use blinds everywhere else. This was a really nice run for Secret with 13 speed points! That's her second-highest score for JWW.

I stuck with fronts on this course for Kaiser and we still had a couple of close calls where he was veering towards off course jumps. We managed to keep it clean, though, for a Q and 22 speed points. That straight four-jump finish certainly didn't hurt anything. He loves those finishes and really turns on the afterburners.

This was a fun Std course. There was no babysitting to be done on the a-frame if you wanted to be in place for the front cross after 3. Jump 8 was REALLY close to the weave poles (the judge said it was the minimum of 4'), which meant that you had to be careful not to get in your dog's way (if they are sensitive to that sort of thing). With Secret I stayed ahead of her and it wasn't a problem. With Kaiser I opted to layer the jump and stay out of his way, especially after crowding him the day before.

I managed a cross on the landing side of 9 with both dogs, and even got the front with Kaiser before the chute (blind with Secret). The majority of the rear crosses done there were pretty ugly, either earning refusals or resulting in the dog turning the wrong way out of the chute and having to look for the handler.

I was hopeful that the table in this location would be Kaiser-friendly. It was again right off the dog walk and this time into the wall with nowhere to go. He stopped! He stayed! Good boy! With both dogs I led off the table a bit to be able to support a straight line for the next few jumps. Many handlers were behind and their dogs took the off course jump 4 as a result. The dogs had a lot of speed coming down that line and over the triple, so then you pretty much had to slam on the brakes for the teeter. Both dogs were excellent. Kaiser got that last Q for his AXP and Secret got 18 speed points on this run and QQ#4!

Kaiser was entered in T2B this weekend because of the small size of the trial and because I opted out of running Kizzy and figured I may as well blow that money on Kaiser.  :o)  This was a really lovely run, but I started pushing too hard around that top turn and Kaiser ended up crashing jump 14. Darn. My fault.

We stopped at Petco on the way home from the trial because my coworkers wanted to meet my dogs. There is no way I'm bringing all four in at once, so I figured this was a good opportunity to start with two of them. I had reservations about bringing my two most anti-social dogs in first, but Kaiser & Secret were angels and made a great first impression! The store was a madhouse with people everywhere -- many of whom had no qualms about reaching out to pet them without asking. I was worried about how Secret would react, but she actually did really, really well! They were model citizens, if you don't count Secret standing up on the counter to beg for treats.  :o)

When we got home last night the dogs went nuts and pretty much ran laps in the yard for the next few hours. Ideally I like to practice the art of staying quiet on trial weekends to reserve our energy, but my knees hurt so bad that I just let them do whatever they felt like doing. I figured it would bite me in the butt with Secret, but it ended up being Kaiser that was more pooped today.

Today started with T2B and Kaiser just was not feeling it. I led out a bit to do the weaves on the left side and he missed the entry. There are no refusals counted in this class, so I fixed it. Then I failed to support jump 5 because I was trying to move into position for a front cross, so he ran past it. He got better as we went along and finished strong. Once again he was the only dog in the 8" Preferred class, so by virtue of running "clean" he got first place and 10 points. This was his only Q of the day.

Std was kind of a mess for the little man. He looked hard at the dog walk but I was able to get him over 2, but then he cut to the inside of 3 and I didn't fix it. He missed his weave entry again and I didn't fix it. He did get his table again, so yay!! Then he was a good boy and held his dog walk with me running ahead to get in place for the front cross after 15 for a nice finish. No QQ on his first time in Masters.

Secret was having a good, good run. Considering it was day 3, this was a really zippy run from her, weaves and all! Then I did the same as I'd done with Kaiser, pushing and running ahead to beat her to 15 -- and I pushed her, once again, straight ahead to the off course jump. I screeched (FYI, I hate it when I do that) and she *almost* was able to put on the brakes, but her momentum carried her over the jump for the fault. It was such a nice run, too. Stupid handler!

Our weekend ended with this fun JWW course. When I looked at the map this morning I almost squealed with delight -- Look! A wrap! It's sad that this is the most exciting thing we have ever seen on an AKC course in our year of trialing in this organization.

Kaiser went off course at the tunnel and took the wrong end, so we were done there. He was also running very slow and stuttering on this run.  :o(  His slower-than-normal speed did make it easier for me to hit my spots, though, which means that I actually did make it into position to do a Ketschker/Jaakko at 9 (I'm pretty sure it would be classified as a Jaakko since I used my outside arm, but I get so confused by these terms, lol). I also made it for the front cross after 13, which shows just how much slower than usual he was going. I was worried that he was having tummy troubles from 3 days of treats (plus the treat I picked up for them at Petco for the drive home that he didn't even finish), but I could NOT get him to go to the bathroom on any of our walks today. Of course, immediately following this run he had a giant bowel movement -- totally normal, just huge -- so I think he was "backed up." He sprinted off with a relieved look on his face after that, so this could have definitely been the source of his "offness" today. Why he was holding it in I do not know....

Secret's run was picture perfect on this course! Her 6th run of the weekend was just as happy as her first, even with the weaves right at the beginning! I ran ahead at the weaves and did a blind on the landing side of the jump to guarantee the proper side of the tunnel. Then I beat her down the line to get in place for a really nice Jaakko turn at nine that worked just beautifully. For the record, I do believe I am the only one in the entire trial who opted for this route. A surprising number of handlers (by far the majority) wrapped to the inside, despite this not being the best line for the dogs (in my eyes, at least). Those who did turn to the left all rear crossed to get the turn. Several dogs went out to take the start jump as an off course. I'm happy I stuck to my guns with my handling choice because it worked beautifully. I finished the course with blinds and Secret got a Q and 9 speed points on this run. I thought it would be a little higher than that, but it's still good for day three. Plus she was just .02 seconds over the round number, which means she was .02 seconds away from 10 points instead of 9. Oh well.  :o)

I was thinking of taking the dogs swimming when we got home this afternoon, but I've been lazy and napped instead. I did take Kizzy out to start a new training plan, though, that I hope will help with her trial behavior. I need to stop carrying her reward/motivation on my body and teach her to play with me and accept delayed gratification. Our first session was tough for me because I want that gratification as much as she does, but I held my ground and did not carry treats on me for any of it. I just had a simple box of four jumps set up and had a bag of treats on the deck. Kizzy started out agreeable enough and I kept the exercises VERY short. The sun was out and it was like 72 -- which I think is perfect, but apparently the Klee Kai thinks she will die of heat exhaustion in this weather. It didn't take very long before she was standing under the deck refusing to come out. Of course when I grabbed the bag of treats she was all like, "Whee! Let's play!" But I wasn't playing that game. We ended it there and I went in the house to cut up the rest of the treats in the roll.

We went out again after dinner to try again. I brought the treats out in a small cooler to be able to place them in a different part of the yard (eventually I want to have several "treat stations" so that she doesn't know where the reward will come from). She did better, but definitely still had her moments where she gravitated towards the cooler and sniffed around a lot. She did much better about recalling to me when asked, though. The bigger problem in this session was running around the start jump when I'd set her up to wait, and then bypassing a jump and running straight to the cooler when we would head in that direction. I think this is going to be very good for her...

A new toy for running!

I have looked off and on for one of the hands-free leash setups for running with the dogs, but always balked at the price of them. The skijorring rigs, especially, always seemed so spendy. Last week a friend was asking about various brands on Facebook and one of our friends piped up that she was very happy with her gear from Iron Doggy. I was not familiar with this brand, so I went and looked it up -- and liked what I saw, so I decided to bite the bullet and give it a shot.

The shipping was super fast! I ordered it at the end of last week and it was scheduled to be delivered Tuesday (today), but it actually was in the mail when I got home last night! I wasn't going to go for a run at 10:00 p.m., though, so it had to wait for today. And unfortunately I also desperately needed to finish mowing my lawn that I started on Sunday (and then it grew so much that I had to do the whole thing tonight anyhow...), so I just took the girls out for a quick two-mile spin to see how things went.

When I opened the package I was dismayed to see that I'd somehow ordered the short leash (the "sidekick") as my second leash. I thought I'd ordered both the same length and wasn't sure how it was going to work out to have two different length leashes. It was actually pretty perfect, as the length of a big dog on the short leash works out to be pretty much identical to where the little dogs run on the long leash. It wouldn't work out as well to have both of the little dogs out at the same time, but it rarely happens and I think the short leash is still long enough that it could work out. Kizzy would be stuck on the short one, though, since Kaiser has some weird aversion to being anywhere near me when we run...

I'm really happy with this setup! I haven't had my hands free while running for quite a while (well, I suppose the treadmill, but I think my form is different on there anyhow). The dogs didn't pull me along as much as I'd hoped, but that's probably a good thing.  :o)  Kizzy's leash actually stayed bouncy and loose for pretty much all but when we saw a bunny and while Secret did tend to stay out near the end of the leash, she didn't feel like she was pulling as much as she usually does (and I've come to rely on!). I'm sure it's the elastic and this is probably a good thing. There is a chance that I'm being pulled along more than I realize, too -- or maybe it helps to have my arms free -- because my pace was actually fairly decent for this run, even despite getting stopped by traffic three times. I can't complain.

Secret and I went to visit Dr. Marta for another adjustment yesterday, so Secret should be good to go for our 3-day agility extravaganza this weekend here in La Crosse. There wasn't much of a puppy update to report -- Marta tried doing an ultrasound on Gwen last week and they didn't see anything, but the progesterone test pretty much said 100% positive that she was pregnant. There's a good chance that maybe there are only one or two puppies in there and they were missed on ultrasound. Who knows. She was going to try again and see if they could see anything. If there are only one or two puppies then I don't need to worry about finding a way to say no when I desperately want one.  :o)  I have a friend who might be interested, too, so maybe I could pawn one off on him and live vicariously...

I have officially started at Petco finally! I'll be making my first employee discount purchase after my shift on Thursday, to buy some more FreshPet Vital for the trial this weekend. I tried that stuff before our last AKC trial and I'm hooked. The dogs love it and I don't have to cook or cut anything. Sold!

I was not 100% sure that I was hired to be a dog trainer because all of my hiring paperwork just listed me as a sales associate. Everyone keeps introducing me as the next dog trainer, though, so I guess it will happen eventually. Right now I'm just taking in the culture and learning how everything works. So far so good and I'm enjoying my time there. The dogs seem to be doing okay with the craziness of me leaving the house at 7:00 a.m. and getting home at 9:30 p.m. -- but thankfully it's not an every day occurrence, so we'll be okay.

In addition to our fun three-day weekend coming up, I also entered one day of AKC on Memorial Day over in Sheboygan, WI. It's an outdoor trial, and for some reason I've been wanting to do one of those again. We really don't see too many around here anymore. I figure we train outside, maybe the dogs would like to run outside for a change. I figure if the weather sucks I'll just toss the one day of entries and stay home. I hope it's nice, though!

Weekend Catch-Up

Did your weekend consist of anything other than watching the International Team Tryouts (ITT, formerly known as WTT, or World Team Tryouts) on the internet? If your answer is yes, then you accomplished WAY more than I did this weekend. After a solid week of rain we finally had a couple of days of BEAUTIFUL spring weather, and I spent the vast majority of it sitting in front of a computer screen.

I had contemplated (quite seriously so) making the drive to Hopkins, MN to watch the event in person for the first time ever. This was the first year I would have ever had the opportunity to do so, as in previous years I've always had to work. When it was announced that the entire thing would be broadcast on the internet, though, I couldn't really justify the gas money and time spent away from my own dogs who never see me. Not only that, but watching it on the internet very likely presented me with a better view of the action than I would have had in person. Win-win!

I watched EVERY SINGLE RUN of the entire weekend. Okay, I might have fast-forwarded through a couple by the end of the day Sunday... It was a lot of runs and I had to watch The Amazing Race.  ;o)

There were many of the teams you would expect to see at an event of such caliber. Some of the teams, though, just made me scratch my head. I consider AKC Nationals an event for all dogs. If you work hard enough you can qualify, go, and if you run three clean runs you may just have a shot at the finals -- even if you don't have the fastest dog there. But this is the tryouts for two major International teams. Teams that are expected to showcase the best agility that this country has to offer. It is beyond my comprehension, then, why some teams would choose to travel completely across the country with a dog who doesn't have a shot in hell at making the team. Spend your money at Nationals. Go and have fun -- but what are you proving by attending tryouts with a dog that gets 15 time faults on every go-round (I'm not pointing fingers, this would be Secret!)? And not only that, by the end of the weekend you could TOTALLY tell what dogs were just not familiar with this style of agility -- several were just shutting down and completely demotivated by Sunday. What is the motivation of these handlers, I wonder. What are they trying to prove?

Speaking of time faults, though -- Holy bejezus. If I thought that the course times in UKI CH Jumpers were tight, they've got nothing on what's expected of a team at ITT! Maybe that is part of the problem. Maybe some of these "average" teams run very comfortable times at regular trials on more flowing courses. I'm sure it's kind of a "holy shit" moment to put in what you thought was an amazing run on a very tight & twisty course and then find out you had time faults. There were some SMOKING runs that I saw -- Runs that would win any local-level trial and likely have like 30 speed points -- and they were over SCT. Seeing that basically ingrains in my head that I will never attempt to enter ITT without a truly speedy dog. At least not in the 26" class. The lower heights were slightly more forgiving, but not much so. The Klee Kai could probably do it.  ;o)  Too bad Kaiser can't jump that high and Kizzy is light-years away from competing at that level (let's be real, competing in general, lol).

I would love the opportunity to travel and do agility abroad some day, but it's looking like it will be a while before I have to worry about that. Maybe by then I'll have an extra week of vacation at work to blow on travel. Ha!

I did do slightly more than sit on my butt in front of the computer (but not much). I was perusing Facebook Saturday morning between classes at ITT and came across this course map posted by a friend attending a trial down in Chicago. She keeps telling me that I have to go down there to an AKC trial because they get all of the fun judges who bring challenging courses. Apparently it's what people down there ask for -- versus up here where people with bitch and sob if you have a backside or 270 on course.

When I saw this course map I could not pass up the chance to give this course a try. It was like our own fun little piece of ITT at home (because the ITT courses are 140' long and don't fit in my yard). It was SO FUN. Kaiser was the only one to get it on the first try. Secret was a little high at first and it took us a bit to connect -- plus I always run her first for some reason, so she has to deal with me figuring out the course, too.

I elected to run Kizzy with food the whole time to work on her focus. I broke the course up into sections and eventually put it all together and she actually did it! Yay little crazy dog!

On Sunday I just set up a big speed circle with seven or eight jumps and then plunked the weaves in the middle of the yard to work on those, too. Jumps were set at everyone's competition height to get them thinking a bit more than when they just blaze through the hoops on the ground. Secret did great at 24". It's good for her to learn to go over big jumps fast.  :o)  Her weaves were also super nice, which I haven't seen for a while.

I think Secret's chiro appointment made a world of difference. I can tell she feels so much better, so I have to try hard not to let her get so overdue in the future. Then, of course, I went and flushed it all down the toilet with our frisbee game tonight -- where Secret had a misstep and ended up going ass-over-teakettle on one of her catches.... Oooooh, it just made me cringe. She seems pretty tough, though, and didn't seem affected by it. It's probably a good thing we have another adjustment coming up next week!

Enough with the rain!

It's like living in Seattle or London without any of the perks of actually living in a nice city such as those.

Blargh. It's been raining pretty much nonstop since Sunday. I had reached the point where yesterday I said I'd take the dogs out for a walk when I got home regardless of what it was doing, but I weenied out because it was coming down rather good when I got home. It did let up about an hour and a half later, but by then we'd pretty much settled in for the night -- so basically the dogs have done nothing since Saturday (we did five miles on the bike trail - picture below!). Yay for total inactivity.... Fingers crossed for tonight. It was still raining this morning, but maybe we'll luck out and get a break this afternoon??

We had a vet appointment on Monday. Aside from really hating the Rottweiler that was in the waiting room (and I'll guess that the Rottweiler wasn't a fan of other dogs, either, based on the fact that the owner was trying to hide him in the back corner) Secret did very well. She was friendly and social -- and Dr. Randy even commented that her tail wasn't tucked to her belly button when he came in. She wagged it, even! I think she's decided that she likes Dr. Randy, though, so once that happens we're pretty much golden. Secret got her Lyme & lepto boosters (fat lot of good the Lyme vaccine does us....). Kaiser was due for his yearly wellness and Lyme booster.

We have lots of vet appointments coming up over the next few months! It's nice to spread out the cost and I don't like to overload anyone with all of their vaccinations at once -- but it sure is a lot of appointments.  :o)  Luke is next up in a couple of weeks for a couple of shots, then we'll be back in June for his wellness, more shots plus one more for Kaiser, then Kizzy's turn is in July. Then we're clear until Secret in December and it all starts up again. I don't want to think about how painful it would be to do everyone at once!

Secret has the first of her two "pre-trial" chiropractor appointments tomorrow morning. I'm not even sure when we last saw Dr. Marta, but it's been too long. I'll see if she notices/says anything about Secret's body condition. I believe she was around 46.1 lbs on the scale this week. Randy said that's only a half pound lower than when he last saw her, but he thought she was bonier than he remembered -- specifically he commented that he felt there was less muscle over her top line. We really haven't been doing a lot of jumping lately, I explained, and frisbee has pretty much stopped since the snow started to melt (the yard is fine now, but it's always so damn windy lately!) --- so that might be an explanation for less muscle? Or I suppose I could feed her a little more, she surely wouldn't mind.  ;o) An extra pound wouldn't hurt -- I do think she probably looks a little better at 47 lbs.

On the flip side there's Kizzy... I'll be curious to see where she's at with her weight. I have never had trouble getting my other dogs to what I feel is their optimal body condition, but with Kizzy it's a constant struggle. I feel like I feed her nothing and she just always looks like a chunk to me.

I finally got a start date at Petco -- I go in a week from today to get started on the paperwork and then we set my training schedule from there. That means this is potentially my last free weekend for a while. I'm very tempted to drive to MN to watch the International Team Tryouts. I've never been there in person. But then I heard that 4 Legged Flix is supposed to be streaming it online. They did an awesome job with AKC Nationals, so now I figure maybe I can stay home and watch it online AND maybe even get to work my own dogs a bit. We'll see.

Easter makes for a Perfectly good day of AKC!

Yesterday we got up at the butt crack of dawn (I guess it's been a while, though, so I shouldn't complain too much) to make the drive over to New Berlin to play AKC. Normally when doing one day of a trial I like to do Saturday and then enjoy sitting on my butt all day Sunday to recover from the long day and the drive. Not even realizing it was a holiday weekend, I opted to enter Sunday this time because they tend to be a little smaller (knowing that the trial didn't fill because I entered at the last second). It was a two-ring, two-judge trial and I think they had fewer than 330 runs combined, so entering on Easter definitely worked to my advantage. We were back on the road home before 12:30 p.m., and that's after putzing around a bit. I was even able to make Easter dinner at my aunt's house.

The dogs did great. Secret brought home QQ #3 and Kaiser earned an unofficial QQ and now needs just one more Q in Excellent Standard before he gets to start the countdown for his PACH.

Secret was up first in the Standard ring. The 24" class was scheduled to start at 8:30 (Time 2 Beat started at 8:00 in the other ring), but it ended up being pushed back past 9:00 a.m. because they had to wait for the teeter out of the T2B ring. I have no idea why, I would think that Think Pawsitive has more than one, but whatever. I crated out of the car and did not bring any crates inside this time. There was plenty of room that I could have, but I didn't even bring any spare ones along. This may have been a bad idea, as I do think that maybe Secret does benefit from having some time to decompress in the trial environment. I think it's hard for her to go straight from the car to the ring without getting used to everything going on around her.

I did my best to get her revved up before her run, but it was pretty pokey. Weaves at the start are never fun for us, and then they were followed almost immediately by one of the dreaded Think Pawsitive tunnels. I will NEVER understand why, but Secret just hates tunnels at this place. And god help us, they are always like 30' long (seriously, they are the longest tunnels I have ever seen). She came trotting out of the tunnel under the dog walk, but thankfully she did pick it up nicely at that point.

She was happy and barky at the table and had a great finish to this course. Like most people, I was really struggling with how I would handle the triple after the a-frame. For reference sake, the chute after the triple changed places with the jump following it, if that would play into your handling choices at all. The off course jump 18 was a VERY attractive option for many dogs. Most people were opting to stay on the right side of the triple and rear cross the jump, but there were lots of errors in this area. I ended up pushing hard, did a blind after the a-frame and ran up past the triple and it worked beautifully. I also got in a nice front cross in the tight space between 17 & 18, which resulted in a much nicer line than the multitudes of people doing a rear cross on the landing side of 18 -- more often than not this move resulted in the dog face-planting and sliding on the turf before finishing their course.

Secret picked up 15 speed points (definitely a bit low) and 4th place on this run. Despite it being a smaller trial, the 24" class was HUGE! This is likely due to the club being hosted by the Doberman Pinscher Club and also having the Rottweiler National Specialty being ran at the same trial.

Kaiser's JWW run was up next in the other ring, but blessedly I had zero conflicts at this trial and felt like I was able to give everyone the attention they needed. I led out to jump 2 to help get a nice turn and avoid the off course that would be more likely if I was running after him. He did great with this, but then stalled so long in the tunnel (yet another 50' tunnel....) that I started to worry that he was going to come out the entrance -- if he would come out at all.... I heard several people grumbling about their dog getting "stuck" in that tunnel, so who knows if there was something in it or what.

At any rate, he did come out the proper end and we continued on. I did a front cross on the landing side of six, taking care to rotate enough so that I wouldn't push him straight over the off course jump. He had his typical lovely weaves and I went ahead and threw a blind at him between 10 and 11 since there weren't really any off course options in front of him. From there it was pretty straight forward. He's twitchy around tunnels, so I didn't push to get in front of him after 17 and just did the rear cross at 18. The 8" Performance Masters class was actually quite good-sized at this trial, but Kaiser was the only one to Q so he picked up 1st place and 16 speed points.

Secret's JWW run was next on the schedule. I knew blinds would work well for her pretty much everywhere on this course, so that's what we did. If I thought she was pokey on the first run, this one was worse. She came trotting out of the never-ending tunnel and never really picked up speed like she usually will. Of course, this wasn't a very motivating course with her the way it was split up with tunnel, weave, tunnel with a few jumps in between. I was ahead of her at jump 13 when I looked back and she darn near refused it before hurtling herself over it in a not terribly graceful manner. After that I made sure to support the triple and the double that followed, and then I zipped in place for a blind between 17 and 18, which did seem to light a little fire under her butt. But then we were done, so.... However, AKC does reward consistency, and consistent we were --- So Secret picked up her third QQ and six speed points. She seems to average 10 points in JWW (highest was 15, lowest before this was 7), so I mean I guess it could have been worse. At any rate, I called the chiropractor this morning and she has two appointments before the big 3-day trial in La Crosse. I know she's way overdue.

I think Secret was done by 10:30! Then we just had to wait a bit for Kaiser's Standard run -- and because he's still in Excellent, he was one of the very last Masters dogs to run. I so badly want for him to be in Masters that I had to try very hard to make myself not hover and handle him like a freak. We had a few, "OMG, did she call that?" moments on this course. On the teeter he did what's becoming a bad habit -- rode the tipping point down to the ground and then jumped off the side. Thankfully he had a paw in the yellow, so yay for the Klee Kai, I guess.

I *wanted* the little stinker to hold his wait on the bottom of the dog walk so that I could get ahead a bit to support the table, but Kaiser didn't think that was a good idea. Thankfully he DID think the table was a good idea and actually jumped on it and stayed there. I had no problem leading out from the table to be on the right side of the next jump and then I pushed hard on the a-frame and was well ahead and in place for a front cross before the triple. My little off course king managed to not go off course in the hardest part! Yay! I was too hesitant and didn't feel like I could make the front cross at the end without pushing him to the dummy jump, so I chickened out and did one of the bad rear crosses like everyone else. It worked, except then Kaiser said, "forget you" and was going to leave to go get his treats --- leaving the ring in AKC is a VERY BAD THING and even if they come back in that's an E. He didn't make it ALL the way out between the two gates and I didn't hear a whistle, but I honestly had no idea until the results were posted if we had a Q or not. We did! Hooray! That's 2/3, so hopefully we can wrap up that title in La Crosse!

Kizzy came along for the ride because the trial info said that there would be a VMO present. I never saw anyone measuring, but nor did I ask, so we're still waiting on that second measurement. I made sure to get her out several times and took her in to show her the rings between Master & Open. She did fine, probably largely because of what we did on Saturday:

We went back up to the Experimental Forest and this time the stupid snow & mud was gone! It was a beautiful day on Saturday -- It was the first time we hit 70 degrees in OVER SIX MONTHS. How depressing is that? We have the longest winters ever...

We ended up hiking 6.2 miles! Normally I try not to do anything "too active" the day before a trial, but I was worried that if we didn't do something the dogs would never go to sleep that night (and we need to go to bed early for that drive, so...). And once you make the drive somewhere to hike, you feel like you may as well take advantage of it. We ended up going all the way to the end of this trail, which was just under 3 miles, then we hit up an extra bit of field road on the way back to make sure that we would hit 6 miles, because I like even numbers.  :o)  We saw a few people up there that day, but no dogs. Everyone had a great time and miraculously, I have not found any ticks.... (Knock on wood)

Tonight I set up the giant arch of hoops in the yard -- six hoops (and one jump standard without a bar) spanning the radius of the yard. The only purpose of this exercise is for everyone to run as fast as they can, and I think this is just what everyone needed. Everyone was hauling ass, which was good to see. I feel Kaiser's been being more "careful" at trials lately, so it was nice to see him flatten out again. And Secret, holy hell, she can really move (if only she'd do it at trials...).

I kept Kizzy's sessions very short and never did the full arch with her. Her first turn was with a toy and she was doing great -- until she wasn't, and she left with her head up sniffing at something in the corner. There was something in the air tonight, as Kaiser kept getting pulled that way as well. I somehow, by some lucky fate, managed to snag her collar as she tried to bolt past me when I went to catch her and end the fun (that she ended by choosing to leave me). Oh, was she MAD!!! That was NOT in her plan. I just scooped her up, carried her into the house and stuck her through the door and had Luke come out for his turn. I kept Kizzy's second turn VERY short with just a couple of runs. I scooped her up while she was playing tug and then fed her a bunch of yummy treats before putting her back in the house. I had just a few treats left over after Kaiser's second turn, so I had Kizzy come out once more and take a few short passes for food, ending with a collar grab while she ate treats. I definitely need to continue to end the fun when she chooses to leave the game, but it is so stinking hard to catch her. Totally lucked out tonight....

We'll keep playing this game. It's good for everyone! Sometimes I get so caught up in the fun handling stuff that I forget how important basic speed work can be.

Kaiser's super awesome NATCH ribbon

I'm not sure how I completely forgot to share this, but at our trial this past weekend I was presented with Kaiser's NATCH ribbon that he earned at the March NADAC trial at Family Dog Center. FDC has moved to these amazing personalized ribbons that somewhat remove that "instant gratification" that we're used to getting when winning large awards, but I'd say they are worth the wait!

They do still have some of the traditional style ribbons left over, which make for handy props when posing for your NATCH photo -- which then gets placed onto your super special personalized ribbon. It's such a fantastic keepsake. I'm really looking forward to having one for Luke's NATCH 5, especially since it will likely be his last. And I dare say I'm now kind of tempted to drag Secret out and make her get the nine Chances Qs that she needs for NATCH 2, just so that she can have a super special personalized ribbon, too.  ;o)

I posted the photo on Facebook this morning and a friend made a comment that "FDC's entries just went up." lol  Isn't that true, though? We agility folks are kind of ribbon whores in that way. We go to where the good bling is! I fully admit to hand-picking trials when a NATCH has been on the line, based on bars & ribbons. Now that I'm not traveling for NADAC anymore it's not quite the issue, but I used to try to make sure I was spreading the love and getting bars and ribbons from a variety of clubs in the area. We did a pretty good job of it, too. I should share my loot pile one of these days. Or, you know, actually do something with it to display it nicely....

There was a really fun Happy Hurdle Day course posted this week on Ann Croft's Agility Coach Facebook page, so I couldn't help but run home and set it up. Thankfully this was possible because we did NOT get a foot of snow like our friends in Minnesota did the night before last.... We did get between 1"-2" on Sunday night, but thankfully it melted by Tuesday and pretty much just served to help green things up nicely. I might have to think about mowing in the next week or so.... No complaining, it's not shoveling.

The dogs did well on this course. I jumped Secret at 20" to keep her fresh and happy for this weekend. I was most impressed with how well all of the dogs did with the tricky weave entries -- even Luke! The angles are hard to see in the video, but the course was set very true to the map and you can see that they aren't too easy. I did cheat a bit and shaped the entry to 4 with most dogs (especially Luke). The entry to the second set of weaves (9) was killer only because everyone wanted to take the off course jump on the way there. Snooker skills!

With Kizzy, I kept her turn short and opted to work only with food (cheese) since she's been having some distraction issues lately. I also feel like she really hates some of the rear cross exercises I've been working with her on lately in an attempt to get her to actually do them... And her response to those exercises seems to be that she's slowed down on me a bit. I'm a little perplexed by her complete hatred for rear crosses, but we'll figure out a compromise one of these days. I know all of my dogs have initially struggled with rear crosses at tunnels, but never like this one. I think everyone would benefit from a return to the big jump arch for some fun speed-building work again. I don't think Kizzy has ever played that game, actually. God help me, because she doesn't have distance skills, so I'll be running! lol

In other news, life will be changing for all of us shortly. With the addition of the van (or rather, the van payment), I knew I was going to have to look for a second job again. I worked two jobs for nearly three years and it's been exactly one year since I left my job at the Humane Society. It's been nice having that time off (to face it, be a bum on the weekends, because lord knows I never do anything productive when I'm not trialing), but that's coming to an end, as yesterday I accepted a position to be a dog trainer at Petco.

It will be a while before I actually have classes to teach, as first you have to go through all of the basic training for the general positions in the store, and then you have to complete like six weeks of their mentoring program (it used to be 12, so hooray for that), but once that happens it sounds like I'll be able to pretty much set my own schedule AND bring a dog to work with me! How fun will that be! And don't forget about the discount -- that was my main reason for seeking employment at Petco. I would have taken any position just for the discount. :o)  During my interview I was asked if I had applied at PetSmart and I openly said, "No, because I don't buy anything from that store and the employee discount wouldn't do me any good." lol  Honesty, it works every time.

My start date is pending the background check being completed, but I assume that it will be within the next couple of weeks. I think the dogs are used to me being gone now that it won't be too hard on them -- that was my main reason for backing off the Humane Society job, because it was hard on the dogs when I started my job at Kaplan and they were left home every day, and then I was also gone on the weekends. Now that they are in the routine of, "Mom leaves, we get Kongs" they seem to be okay with it.  ;o)  This job does involve working until 9 p.m. on week nights, though, and I'm sure that will take some getting used to -- but we may be able to talk my dad into visiting them on his way home from work those nights. We'll see.

We get to go play AKC in New Berlin on Sunday! It's a small two-ring trial thanks to it being Easter and all, so I'm looking forward to getting done early (especially since I'm driving over at 4:30 a.m....). We haven't been to Think Pawsitive for almost a year, when we last ran USDAA. I enjoy the facility and can't wait to see what their AKC trials are like. I'm hoping Kaiser runs okay there, as he's only ran 12" at this facility and of course, his jumping was absolute crap....

Decals!!

Finally, I feel like the van is "mine." It has felt so.... boring. So.... naked. In the parking garage at work it has looked just like all of the other vehicles parked next to it. Sure, I've got my personalized plates -- but it just wasn't the same.

This weekend at the NADAC trial, our awesome friend Kelly hooked us up with some rocking decals! For some reason I sometimes like to pretend that I have graphic design skills and play with various editing software that I have no idea how to use. And sometimes things actually come together and I end up with something I really like! lol One of the things I always liked most about my Klee Kai Agility decal was that I made it, so this last week I sat down and came up with a couple more designs. I actually really love how everything turned out! Choosing colors was about as hard as it gets, but that worked out, too.

Of course, as soon as we (and by that, I mean Kelly, because I'm useless at such things) applied them, I instantly started thinking, "Hmm, I could put something there, I should put something there...." lol I mean, look, there is empty window space! For the back end, though, I'm seriously considering doing a mirror image of the border collie on the other side, and then possibly doing paw prints with the dogs' names going up the (currently) empty bottom corner.

Luke thoroughly enjoyed his weekend as an only dog. I did, too, although I will admit there were many times when I found myself wishing the other dogs were there because I knew they would enjoy some aspect of the courses we were running. Even Secret would have LOVED the Regular courses today because it was essentially a Jumpers course with contacts and weaves (it didn't even have a tunnel in it, so weird).

Luke needed to get both Jumpers runs and both Chances in order to come home with NATCH 5 this weekend. He's been on a streak lately with something like 6 Chances Qs in a row, but looking back on my records his last Jumpers Q was in October!! I had no idea it had been so long... Darn all that fancy handling. lol

Well, unfortunately it wasn't meant to be and we NQd in Chances yesterday. It was so close, though! The course ended with a dog walk/tunnel discrimination and with the way Luke has been about his dog walk lately I knew that he would prefer to take the tunnel option. If I called too hard I was liable to pull him off the dog walk completely, so I figured I'd just cue the dog walk normally and if he took the tunnel then well, he was choosing what he felt was best for him. And he did. Everything up to that point was lovely, though, and it was a decently tricky course.

I'm glad for that NQ, though, because otherwise I fear I would have played it "safe" in Jumpers, and what fun is that? With nothing to lose, I figured I'd handle the course the way I wanted to, which means BLIND, BLIND, BLIND!  :o)  I did "chicken out" and throw in one front cross when there was an off course tunnel as an option, but otherwise I blinded my way through the course and Luke did a FABULOUS job and picked up one of the Qs he needed!

He also got to run one round of Regular and Hoopers yesterday. Regular was a good effort, especially with two dog walks in it, but I apparently dropped my arm and he crossed behind me on a sequence. Whoops. Sometimes blinding will bite you in the butt, I guess. Hoopers was awesome and I blinded the heck out of that run, too. lol

We got to play some EGC after the trial. Family Dog Center will be offering EGC runs the Friday of the their next trial (June), so judge Jim set up a couple of Novice courses for people to play on and get a feel for the game. This is where I really found myself wishing the other dogs were there -- or at least Kaiser, as I've been curious to see what he would do on these courses. Luke rocked it, of course. Our first course was "gaters" and he missed one gate on the first go for 2 faults (still a Q) and then nailed it on the second go for a clean run. After that we set up extreme hoopers, or whatever the thing with the giant circle of gates is called. He stalled out in the gate circle both times when a send to the far hoop was required, but redirected so I have no idea if that would be a Q or not. It's not likely that I will enter EGC, but it was nice to have the chance to try it out.

Today Luke just had Jumpers and Chances. Jumpers was so fun because I think I threw in like six blind crosses! I probably didn't need to blind my way through a serpentine, but why not? Ha! Luke's Jumpers and Hoopers runs were all clocking in around 5.5 yps this weekend, which is totally awesome for the old man. He likes the blinds! Chances was totally a Luke course today. It didn't even have any contacts, just nice and flowing with jumps, a tunnel and the weaves. He nailed it --- so now he just needs one more Chances Q for that next NATCH. Hopefully we can do it in June with one of our favorite judges, Roger Coor.

Unfortunately for all of the dogs who were stuck at home this weekend, the weather has been pretty crummy. There was a HUGE storm that blew through yesterday -- It was so bad that a ton of rain blew in through the dog door. Wonder what everyone thought of that?? At least we were able to sneak in a walk after I got home yesterday. Not so lucky today. It's been raining steadily since I got home, so we are stuck indoors tonight.

Looking forward to AKC next Sunday! Hopefully Luke forgives me for leaving him at home again after his "only dog" weekend.  :o)

Oshkosh Kennel Club AKC Trial

So here it is, Tuesday, so I figured I should probably get around to doing a write-up about our trial at Oshkosh Kennel Club this past Friday & Saturday! I'm really growing to like this facility and the people who regularly attend their trials. The drive over is not bad at all and the dogs seem to do well there. Unfortunately it looks like there aren't any more trial opportunities there until this fall. Boo.

Friday's trial didn't start until 11:00 a.m., which was especially nice considering the weather. It was doing this nasty mix of snow/rain/sleet here at home when I left, but in less than an hour it all turned to rain and I pretty much just drove through drizzle all the way to Oshkosh. The roads were fine for a change, thank goodness! We ended up making good time and pulled in around 10:00 a.m., which meant I had a whole lot of time to kill. They were starting with Master FAST, so it was going to be a while.

This was the first trial I've gotten to crate out of the van and it was AWESOME. I did haul one crate inside to have a "home base" of sorts to keep stuff and to use before and after runs. This worked so well. It was so amazingly stress-free to not worry about the dogs barking (or screaming...). I'm sure it had to have been nicer for them as well! The weather was a little cold on Saturday morning, but I cranked the heat on the drive over and then the sun kept things comfortably warm. By noon or so I rolled the windows down because it was actually getting a little stuffy in there.

We ran Standard first on Friday. The order was small to tall, so Kaiser was up first. Unfortunately this run was an NQ right at jump 5. I didn't support the jump because I was in a hurry to beat him past the tire for the push to the right, so that was my fault. There was lots of good stuff in this run, though, like getting his table, a nice little flip from the dog walk to the tunnel and a nice closing.

Learning from my mistakes, I made sure to support jump 5 with Secret -- so much so that I ended up running with her and doing a blind before the a-frame. Then I threw in another blind after the tire, and then for some reason front-crossed her onto the table. Oh well, it worked. Her weaves were fairly pokey, but she, too, had a really nice flip into the tunnel followed by a nice, fast finish. It was good enough to pick up 2nd place in a class of 14!

It was a fun little JWW course. It started out with an "almost backside" at number two that had the dog jumping back into your line and sometimes Kaiser can be iffy about stuff like that. He was a champ, though. I handled him conservatively through this course and made sure to support everything and not take anything for granted. We had one OMG moment when he came out of the tunnel the first time and went straight to the weaves, but we saved it and stayed on course. Kaiser picked up a Q and his AXJ-P title! On to Masters for the wee man!!

Secret did just great and I pushed to stay ahead of her with the blinds on this run. I used blinds everywhere on this course and it worked great. I ran ahead on the weaves so that I would be ahead to run the outside line (blinding again as she finished the poles) and she was much speedier on this run. She picked up 1st place in this run for QQ#2!

Our La Quinta was pretty swanky -- I used reward points and it's an "8000-point" location, so I knew it would be nicer.  ;o)  When I opened the door and saw the room I was SO GLAD that I packed a sheet to cover the bed (and that I left the dogs in the car until it was in place). White linens! Eek. With the cruddy weather that day it could have been really bad! I'm thankful I finally started to practice good dog stewardship in the last year. lol

One of the neatest things about our hotel was that it was right on a golf course -- which happens to not be open yet this early in the season, so we went out and wandered around for a bit in the horrible wind and yuck. Secret got to chase off a couple of geese, which she thought was the most awesome thing ever (especially when she jumped up and almost got some tail feathers...). She needs a part time job chasing birds off airport runways or golf courses. Then she almost went swimming while wearing her Back on Track blanket, but thankfully I was able to talk her out of that.

The JWW course on Saturday was fairly friendly. Kaiser really appreciated the flowy NADAC flavor that it had, especially in the middle. The big dogs were struggling with the weave entry off the triple, but Secret managed it just fine. She picked up another Q, 3rd place and 10 speed points (she got 10 on the JWW the day before as well, so she's consistent).

Kaiser nailed his first Masters run, won the 8"-P class and got 18 speed points. Whee! Now if only we could get a Std Q...

Unfortunately nobody managed to pick up a Std Q on Saturday. Secret's only fault was in the weaves. I was on the a-frame side of the poles and the judge was standing over by the teeter. Secret cranked her head towards the judge right in the middle of the poles and skipped one. Nice, Secret. She was the first dog and I noticed that the judge stayed further back after that. Oh well. It happens. The rest of her run was very nice, although I probably shouldn't have put in a blind between the jumps following the table. With the a-frame calling her name, Secret went way wide on that turn. Sometimes a front would be better...

Kaiser was pretty much a hot mess on this course. He left his weaves early (??), took the off course jump after the a-frame, took the long way to the table after the chute (three extra jumps...) and then had a table fault. I led out from the table to do the front cross with him and he had a zippy finish. He's still just 1/3 of his Exc Std Qs....

Kaiser got to redeem himself on the Time 2 Beat course. I entered him in this because I knew we'd be waiting around for Kizzy's runs, otherwise I don't usually see too much value in entering it. Kaiser was the only 8"-P dog in the class (the other one entered was absent) so he just had to run clean for another 10 points. He almost took a second trip through the tunnel at the start, but put in a nice run after that. It didn't feel that fast, but he did end up with one of the fastest times in all of the heights, so I guess it wasn't that bad!

Kizzy did well and tried hard. I was really happy with her FAST run on Friday and how well she stuck with me. She ran past the first jump in the send and I wasn't sure if that faulted us, so I just kept going and finished with the NQ. Unfortunately she had a bit of a fly-off on the teeter during that run and it apparently wigged her out a bit. She started Std strong on Saturday with some nice weaves, but then bailed off the dog walk right at the top. Then she went halfway up the teeter before bailing, then refused the a-frame. Poor thing, she's never really been spooked by contacts before!

Jumpers was good until I lost her about halfway through. She again did her weaves (2nd try), but I lost her on a cross at the back of the course and she ran for the exit and popped through the gate to get to the other dogs. So much for not leaving the ring in Oshkosh... Too bad she figured that one out.

Kizzy will be taking a break from trialing for a bit. I was running her throughout the winter more or less to just get/keep her on equipment during our weather-induced hiatus, but now that we can train at home again it's time to work on solidifying her skills a bit more. A running trend has been that I lose her on crosses, so there is some sort of disconnect happening there. I'll just keep working with her at home for now and see if we can't find a few opportunities to train in other places -- but right now I couldn't tell you when her next trial will be.

There is NADAC in La Crosse this weekend and I have decided to only enter Luke. With AKC this past weekend and then again on Easter Sunday, I figured the old man deserves a weekend by himself. He's running four runs on Saturday and two on Sunday. If he qualifies in both Chances and both Jumpers runs that will be NATCH 5 -- at which point I think he just may retire. We'll see. I haven't fully decided yet, and probably won't until it happens! I stuck him in one round of Regular on Saturday so that he has a chance to warm up and run before Chances, but I've pretty much pulled him out of that class already due to some of the struggles he's been having with the dog walk. He's been hesitant about entering the dog walk at the last few trials, so the last thing I want to do is risk a fall. We'll take it easy and see how it goes this weekend.

Energy

After watching my last video, I got to thinking that maybe Secret's lack of energy wasn't so much related to her need for a chiropractic adjustment -- but instead maybe it had something to do with the lack of energy that *I* was giving off. Especially with a dog like Secret, I can't really expect her to be jumping out of her skin if I'm giving off "blah" vibes.

So tonight I set another Happy Hurdle Day course (hot off the press today!) and went into our training session knowing I had to bring some energy of my own to the party. It made a HUGE difference with Secret. I'm thrilled with the run I picked for the video, but you should have seen her weaves the first time we went through. Holy cow, she was moving! She even pushed the poles around, so Go Secret!

Kaiser was Kaiser. He always seems to have energy whether I do or not.  :o)

Kizzy and I are struggling slightly at the moment. I started working on "calm" with her -- especially at trials -- and she seems to be losing interest after a bit. Calmness doesn't float her boat, at which point I tend to go get food so that I can still keep her focus. It occurred to me tonight after her turn was over that perhaps it wouldn't hurt to bring out her food-stuffable jackpot toy a few times to reinstate the "happy happy." In her defense, there are a LOT of smells in the yard right now -- one was so good that she stopped during her turn to roll in it....

Luke even did awesome tonight! The old man still has it.

Tonight is the calm before the storm. Now they're saying 4"-6" of snow Thursday night into Friday. Isn't that exciting.

Two days in a row!

Okay, so this is incredibly tardy... The last couple of nights I've ended up sitting at the computer until almost 9:00 and didn't feel like staying there any longer to do a blog post.  :o)  So here's just a quick update before I get too far behind.

We got to play AGAIN on Monday after work! Although it was incredibly windy and I didn't think we'd get through it without all of the jumps blowing over (we did), it was 67 degrees outside and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to set up something and play with the dogs. We did our first Happy Hurdle Day course of the year! We have a whole winter's worth of courses to catch up on, although admittedly not all of Ann's courses appeal to me. Some are just a little *too* "international" in flavor and probably not quite motivating enough to do on a continuous basis.

This one was fun, though, and everyone did great! Kaiser (surprisingly!) probably did the best and knocked out a couple of clean runs straight out of the gate. Secret was lacking a bit in the motivation/speed department, which leads me to believe even more strongly that she really needs to get in to see the chiro. Hopefully it doesn't affect her too terribly this weekend. I just entered Secret & Kaiser in a day of AKC over in New Berlin on 4/20, so I should probably try to get her in before that and not wait until before the La Crosse trial in May. Kizzy also did super, but I did have to switch her from toys to food due to the distraction of BIRDS landing all over the freaking yard during her turn. She tried hard, but the allure was too strong and she just couldn't keep focused. Once the food came out things went much better.

I forgot to mention in my last post that we went hiking this weekend! Saturday was a nice day in the upper 40's/low 50's and I -- foolishly -- thought that maybe the trails up at the experimental forest would be starting to clear. This was based on my snow-free yard, which has absolutely no correlation to anything located at the top of the bluffs....

The trails were still completely snow & ice covered, which made for some slow-going at times. This was preferable to the top of the fields, though, which were mostly mud with patches of snow interspersed. My choice of footwear was based on the expectation of at least mostly-dry land, so I was woefully unprepared.

We put in five miles that day, which made for some very happy, albeit muddy, dogs. Thankfully there was enough snow towards the end of the trails that the dogs got at least somewhat cleaned off before getting into the van. Everyone had towels in their crates and by the time we got home most of the nastiness had come off the dogs and into the towels, so clean-up was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be! I love having wash-n-wear dogs.  :o)

Lest you think spring has actually sprung in Wisconsin, we are back to crap weather again. Yesterday had a high of 34 with snow flurries. Today is supposed to be in the 40s so we will likely try to squeeze in a bit more agility fun at home tonight, but then the weather is taking another turn for the worse. The real kicker is Thursday night through Friday --- of course we would have winter storm warnings when I have to drive across the state! The original forecast was for sunny and 50s on Friday, which I thought would be perfect for crating out of the van at the trial. Now I'm undecided and should probably plan for all circumstances in case it ends up being too cold. Sigh. The winter that never ends.

And finally, still no dental floss. I'm starting to think this will be like the Christmas squeaker that magically appeared in March....