Lexie is here!

What is Secret peering at under the table? What is making her thump her tail so fast that it is a blur on camera? lol

Why, it would be Lexie! Lexie arrived yesterday from Canada and today was her first time meeting my crew. I think it was a little overwhelming for her at first. Kaiser was the worst, surprisingly. Secret snarked at first but then wanted to be best friends. Luke has not yet acknowledged Lexie's presence (as is usual with new additions, it seems).

Lexie decided that being under the table was her "safe spot" to go to when the other dogs were around. Secret & Luke can't fit and for some reason Kaiser left her alone there. But when my dad brought out the treats and my dogs started mugging him, Lexie was definitely interested in what was going on!

Here's a shot of the little cherub from above. Lexie is going on a weight loss program. She's done pretty much nothing (except eat....) for her seven months of life and it shows. If we are going to turn her into an agility star, we have to start by getting her in shape. :o) And how better to do that than to take her along on walks with us?


I can't believe how small she looks next to Kaiser. There aren't many dogs that make Kaiser look big!
And she's an absolute midget next to Secret. Secret is very interested in Lexie. I'm sure some day it will be mutual. :o)

I wish I had more to share, but we honestly have not done a lick of training since the trial last weekend. Nothing. Partly because of the weather, partly because of my schedule, and partly because I'm just lazy. We should be able to do something this week, though. My contacts are still in the garage.....

Secret's 5th Trial!

I actually had to look back to see which trial this was for Secret. It is hard to believe it is number five. For some reason it feels like we've been doing it longer, but I guess five trials since the end of February is actually pretty good. lol

As you can see, Secret had a good day! We got up at 4:30 a.m. and made the drive up to Lindstrom, MN. I was ever so thankful that they decided to push the start time back to a more respectable 9 a.m. vs. 8:00. I don't think I would have been able to get up any earlier and still function. I made Secret ride in the back on the way up there so that she would actually sleep.

Because this is what she looks like when she tries to sleep up front and the end result is that she doesn't sleep well (this was the drive home):

So we arrived at Oasis Equestrian Center at about 8:22 a.m. -- Pretty much leaving me just enough time to get stuff set up and to potty the boys. Secret, being the girl she is, refuses to potty quickly, so she had to wait until after the boys finished running Elite Regular. Thankfully we did have plenty of time for her to find the perfect spot before going in to run Open Regular.

I'm very happy with how Secret ran this weekend! I was even happier after watching the video because while running, it felt like she wasn't moving that fast, but on video she's actually looking pretty awesome. We had an interesting development with contacts, though -- Secret more or less lost her two-on/two-off on the dog walk, and even did a four-on at the a-frame once! I would stand there and wait for her to get into position and she would just stand there and bark at me, so eventually I just had to say fine and keep going. We need to get the contacts out at home to revisit this, I guess. Truth be told, though, I think it's almost a miracle that her contacts held up all winter with zero training.

Secret Q'd and got first in the first round of Regular. The second round was great right up until the end when she dove into the off course tunnel under the dog walk. Uh, Secret, did we forget what an RFP is? Again, lack of training.... She Q'd and got 3rd in Touch-n-Go coming in a good 8 seconds under time, so that's fantastic. Chances was an NQ all thanks to me calling her name right before the jump and causing her to cut to the inside. It happened on the other side of the line, so there was no opportunity to fix it.

I was surprised to see that Secret came in 6 seconds under time in Open Weavers considering we had to fix a spot when she cut in on the inside of a hoop and she got progressively slower (coming almost to a stop at the end) in the last set of (12) poles. Who knows what was going on in her head there, but thankfully she was covering enough ground earlier in the course to make up for it. Oh, and if you watch the video, take a gander at the blind cross I threw at her. No idea where that came from. I do blind crosses when the dogs are in tunnels, but never out in the open like that. I did it to Kaiser, too (but not Luke). I blame it on my lack of sleep. Thankfully it worked in both cases. Maybe we should train for something like that in case my brain blows up again in the future.

Open Jumpers was Secret's final and 6th run of the day. Thus far she's never done more than 5 runs in a day and I didn't know if it would be too much for her -- But darn it, that extra run was only $5 more, so all three dogs ran 6 runs this time. There was a long straight line of jumps that went straight into a serpentine with a VERY tempting off course jump at the end. I knew I wanted to get in a front cross with Secret since she doesn't yet send terribly well on the rear crosses and I didn't want to be behind her. I left her at the start and did a running wait, which seemed to jazz her up. I released her when I got to jump three and came nicely down the line and read my front cross cue nicely.

(I stole this photo off my friend, Robyn's, blog -- Thanks, Robyn!)

I ran Secret in Proficient at this trial, so she was in the 20"+ category. I feel that she handled it very well, but I could tell that her back was starting to get tight by the end of the day. She carries all of her stress in her back. I'm trying to make more of a point to massage her regularly. I also put liniment on her Friday & Saturday and that seems to help. I think it's something that I'm just going to have to get in the habit of doing or I'll end up with two crippled dogs on my hands (I shouldn't say that, Luke is well managed these days).

For whatever reason, YouTube isn't giving me an embedding option right now. So here's the Facebook version instead!



In other exciting news, Luke got his NATCH 2 on a lovely Chances run!



And now I am sad because we have no more trials until Memorial Day weekend.

And JUST IN CASE you were wondering, this is the annual Hawaiian Shirt trial. :o) That should explain my choice in attire. lol

We have a new family member coming!

It is official! In a week and a half we will have a new family member joining us! :o) No, she is not mine and will not be living with us -- But she will be coming to visit often because I plan to steal her away several times a week to train. Yes, I will be training a Scottish Terrier in agility. Fun times, fun times. lol I can't wait!

Currently her name is Pink (my parents are leaning towards Alexa/Lexi but my dad is waffling for some reason) and she is coming from Stalwart Kennels in Alberta, Canada. I found her through one of my scottie agility contacts, who let me know about her because she was turning out to be more petite than the breeder wished and they thought she would make a great agility candidate with her fine bone and spunky attitude. When we received the pictures, my dad was sold and we managed to talk my mom into it.

My parents have been without a dog for about a year and a half, since our Westie, Buddy, passed away at age 15 1/2 in November of 2009. It's been much longer since they have had a Scottie, as Cody passed away about a year and a half before Buddy. My dad is a long time Scottie lover and has dearly missed having one in his life. We are so excited to welcome the new addition.


We are curious to see what my dogs do. Pink is seven months old, so still very much a puppy. Secret likes puppies and small dogs in general, so I think she will be okay. Kaiser likes all dogs and especially girl dogs. Things might change for Kaiser.... Pink is coming on a breeding contract, so Kaiser might lose his boy bits here in the future. Time will tell -- We have to see how hard it is to manage. And Luke? Luke still doesn't think he's a dog so I'm sure he'll just ignore her.

My dad is flying to pick her up at the end of the month, so you can expect to see an update on "Pink" come May 2. :o)

New Collar!

The collar addiction continues. :o) Secret's new Chuckle Pup collar arrived in the mail. And after I finally figured out that it's adjustable (it was a bit snug at first), I had Secret model for some photos.

I saw the pink sheep ribbon posted some time ago, but I'd already ordered Secret's bling-bling collar and didn't think she needed another so soon. When I saw the ribbon posted again, I jumped on it -- Because, what female Border Collie doesn't NEED a pink sheepie collar???

Many thanks to Adrienne at Chuckle Pup for designing & creating this lovely collar for us!

Ugh.

Ugh. That's just how I feel. Secret's expression captures it well. Winter has returned to the upper midwest.

That was during our walk yesterday. It was towards the beginning of the storm. Even Secret thought the blowing wind and icy snow kind of sucked.

But not for long. She was pretty damn gleeful once we got home and she got to play in it. Super duper frisbee fun for all!

There's the Jumpers course (with a couple of hoops since a couple of my jumps are still buried under contact equipment in the garage...) we've been playing on for a few days. It's an Elite Jumpers course that I pulled off someone's blog last week to play with bonus lines for Luke. I've been running Secret at 20/22" and she's doing great. I'm glad I made myself practice on Monday when I was super tired because it doesn't look like we'll have any other opportunities before our trial this weekend!

And lest you think that a snow storm might stop Secret from doing what she loves..... Nope. She still went for a swim! Only Secret....

Video! Clean Run Backyard Dogs

Okay, I was not happy with the video that I posted yesterday. I thought it was way too far away and I hate that you can't see anything.

So I did a different one last night. I set up the Backyard Dogs course from the April 2011 issue of Clean Run. It happened to be the page I turned to during breakfast yesterday and I thought it looked challenging and fun -- And it was!

Secret did awesome. She stayed motivated & focused even through her break and kept up her toy drive (we used the Holee Roller for all of this). I'm very proud of how well she did. The jumps are all set at 20" for Secret and I think she should do just fine at the next trial at this height.

One nice thing about having three dogs is that it allows me to work through all of the exercises without wearing anyone out (besides me, that is). If you want to see what the boys did, here are their videos!

Kaiser


Luke

April Showers....

This is the scene in my yard following the storms that rolled through this weekend. One lone hoop remains standing amongst the carnage. Half of the plastic blew down, too -- Honestly, I would love to see if we could go without that retched plastic this year, but I have a feeling nothing will have changed with the stupid neighbor dog.

The first big storm came through Saturday evening. I was glad that it waited until I got home from work, but the timing of the storm also meant that we got little sleep Saturday night. First I had to convince Secret to even get on the bed (versus hiding in the closet) and then she was unsettled and moving around until the storm finished in the wee hours of the morning.

Another whopper blew in on Sunday, unfortunately while I was working at the shelter. We had a tornado warning, huge hail and tons of wind. I worried about what I'd find when I got home, but thankfully they seemed none the worse for wear. I dare say Luke seemed more stressed than Secret, and he's been doing better with storms lately. At any rate, I was happy to see that Secret didn't seem too bothered. The wind was blowing quite a bit against the house in the evening and she didn't seem disturbed in the least. Apparently it's just the thunder/lightening combo that upsets her.

We got in some training time Friday afternoon after work! I haven't gotten the contacts out of the garage yet, so we are focusing on jump work right now. I found a decent Open Jumpers (NADAC) course in my pile and decided to set that up for everyone. I took video -- It's about a million miles away, but you can still see some of it. :o)

Pictures from the trial

My friend, Jessica (who runs the cutest Boston Terriers!), sent me a couple of shots that she got of Secret at the trial this weekend. I *adore* the first shot. Look at Secret go! She looks, I daresay, SPORTY and FAST! lol It must be from one of her Open Regular rounds on Saturday by the looks of the course design behind her.

No idea which class this is from, but look at the focus and attention (and the cute ear standing up). :o) Very nice & efficient turn over the jump.

It's nice to see that Secret has decent form over the jump. Sometimes in the video it looks like she's just hurling herself over with very little effort. lol

I have to decide in the next few days, but I'm leaning towards putting Secret up to 20"+ Proficient at the next trial. It's on dirt, so I wouldn't have to worry about her having such crappy footing (like on these mats). I want her to have at least a couple of 20" trials under her belt at Open before I move her up to Elite. We should get oodles of practice in at home at 20" (or higher) before the Easter trial, so she should be fine.

There aren't any more NADAC trials in La Crosse until the end of July, so I'm trying to nail down my trial schedule and figure out what I'm doing. We are doing the Easter weekend trial back at Lindstrom, but I haven't decided on one day or two yet. If the trial would start at 9:00 instead of 8:00 it would be so easy to just drive up (three hours) the morning of, but I'm not thrilled with the idea of getting up at 3:30 a.m.

On any normal year I would be planning to go to the MMBC trial at Savage Park on May 21 & 22 -- But I recently learned of a NADAC Funraiser being held at Davenport the following weekend. Not only are entries cheaper at Funraisers, but that trial is indoors on the best turf around. I love MMBC, but that trial was *miserable* last year with horrid weather.

Our only real option for June is to head back down to Davenport on the 11 & 12. NADAC is dying in this area, it seems. Otherwise we could always branch out and try something else, but that will depend on if Secret gets over the teeter issues she developed this winter. We'll see. If she starts getting close to qualifying for NADAC Champs, I suppose we'd just stick with that route until after October.

Oh to have a limitless supply of funding, then we could just trial everywhere every weekend in every venue. :o)

Secret's 4th Trial!

Secret had her fourth NADAC trial this past weekend, held at Family Dog Center in La Crosse, WI (our "home turf"). It was her first time ever attempting to go for three days in a row -- You have to remember that two of her first three trials were single days, so this was a lot to ask of her!

Secret did awesome. She qualified in 9/12 events over the three days, earned her Novice titles in Jumpers & Touch-n-Go and earned her first Open Q's (six total!).

Everything started Friday night with games -- Secret was in Open Weavers & Tunnelers, and Novice Touch-n-Go. Perfect night! Yay! It ran a lot later than the last Friday night trial FDC had and we didn't get home until after 10:00. This was Secret before we went to bed:

I was a bit concerned about how she would hold up for Saturday because all of the dogs were pretty pooped (me, too!). She did start to fade as the day wore on -- Open Tunnelers was downright sad and she trotted through 3/4 of the course and somehow still managed to come in one second under time. She woke up in time for Novice Jumpers at the end of the day, though, and had a great run! We didn't Q at all in Regular. The first run was completely my fault because I was very late on a front cross and she went off course to the a-frame. In the second run, everything was going great until we got to the a-frame and she bailed!! It took four tries to get her back on the thing -- all I can figure is that she got corrected for going on the a-frame in that direction on the first run, so she thought it was "bad." Thankfully we got past it and there weren't any other issues.

Here is how worn out Secret was after the trial on Saturday -- yes, she slept like this for some time...

Because Jumpers was the first run of the day and I figured she would have plenty of energy, I decided to go ahead and move Secret up to Open Jumpers on Sunday. My eyes bugged out of my head a bit when I saw it was a 20 obstacle course -- the same number that Elite had, only the course was reversed a bit. That's kind of how Open was all weekend, though -- The courses were practically the exact same, with the exception of a set of weaves being replaced with a tunnel and the tunnel being removed from under the dog walk. (hence why I think staying in open is silly...)

Secret Q'd in Open Jumpers and had a great run in Open Weavers! I was late AGAIN with calling her to turn out of a tunnel in the first round of Regular, so she went off course up the dog walk on an otherwise very nice run. I cleaned up my act and we managed to Q in the second round, finishing up a very nice weekend.

Here's our video!

How is she physically capable of this?

I had to photoshop the heck out of these things to get Secret to show up -- That's what happens when you take all of your pictures with your cell phone and it doesn't have a flash. ;o)

Secret is the better part of 23" tall and just a couple pounds shy of 50 lbs. HOW does she fit under the bed still? I keep worrying that she is going to get hurt or stuck one of these days, but she actually shimmied all the way across the length of the bed this morning and popped out the other side.

I think Secret will be a gumby dog for the rest of her life. Interestingly, though, in some of our recent stretching sessions I have noticed a bit of resistance when stretching her front legs forward. Something to work on, I suppose. All of my dogs are tight somewhere or another it seems.

Our practice Tuesday night went very well! I found a really fun Open JWW course on the agilitycoursemaps.com web site that fit perfectly into the yard. I invited Bethany & Rascal over to play, too, but Bethany wasn't feeling up to running him so I did. Oh my. So out of shape.... I thought I was going to about die running the two of them back-to-back. I took a short break before running Luke & Kaiser. The good news is that everyone did a super job! The "kids" both ran at 20" and did great, although it does seem that Secret gets "tired" faster with the higher jumps. Or maybe she's just lazy, because she had plenty of energy later on that night. :o) The main purpose of the evening was to get her back on 12 weaves and she rocked it. I did learn that she doesn't want me getting yards ahead of her right now, though. She is much faster if I stay within 5' or so, which means that's what I'll do for now! I dare say I even saw her single step a few times!


Finally -- Look what we have coming in the mail!!!!!!! Yay! Isn't it SUPER CUTE???? It is coming from Chuckle Pup (which also happens to be the web site of which Secret's photo graces the cover page, although this was bought outright, lol). I saw her post the pink sheep ribbon months ago but thought it was a limited edition thing. When I found out that Adrienne still had some in stock, I said, "I NEED THAT!!!!" She just finished the collar and it should be here soon. Shame it won't make it in time for this trial. But really, this one will likely make it into our daily rotation. So cute!

I have to stop at Farm & Fleet tonight to pick up a new Jolly Ball. Sigh. I was putting together a few more jumps Tuesday afternoon and Secret helped herself to the JB in the garage. I didn't think much of it until I saw her going to town gnawing on the rope. I got over there just in time to see it separate into two pieces. The Jolly Ball on a Rope isn't much good without the rope -- And I can't imagine life without one, so I will replace it. And make sure someone doesn't help herself to it....

I didn't do it....

I still have the dog beds with holes in my office, and Secret still likes to un-stuff them regularly. I love the look she gives me -- "What? I didn't do it." Half the time it's with stuffing hanging out of her mouth.

The yard is coming along nicely! It didn't get sloppy & gross as it melted away this time, I am happy to report. Perhaps because the temperatures have been barely above freezing and it melted fairly slowly. Who knows, but the yard is clear again and we've been playing. I still haven't set up anything more than the jump arc, but it is on the agenda for this evening!

Secret needs to get her legs under her and learn to jump outdoors again. She's had two face plants in the last couple of days since I moved her up to 20" again. The one on Sunday scared me a bit -- She was going through the arc, mad for her Jolly Ball, and she misjudged her take-off. She suddenly went splay-legged and all four legs went in different directions as she landed on top of the bar and then pretty much landed face first. I was horrified, but couldn't let her know it. Secret popped up quickly and I assessed that nothing was broken and urged her to do the last two jumps, which she did. I checked her over and all was well, so we did a couple of single jumps to make sure her confidence wasn't hurt (it wasn't) and ended with a few more trips through the arc.

Last night she just had a digger on the landing. It was a patch of dry, dead grass and we were working on rear cross/switch cues -- I think she was anticipating the cue earlier than I planned to give it and when she had to change her plans she just lost her feet a bit. It was a hard slip, but nothing like the spill the night before. But still, the girl had better get her feet under her or she's going to get hurt one of these times...

The plan for this evening is to set up a JWW course. Time to drag the weave poles outside for a refresher on a set of 12! I want to finally put together the jumps that I've had pieces for since moving into my house, too -- I think I have five more? That way I won't have to use so many hoops on our jumpers courses. :o)

The dogs need Social Security Numbers....

I have come to the conclusion that I need social security numbers for my dogs. Heck, even if just Secret got one it would help. Have you seen the sort of tax deductions they give out for children in this country? As much as I dislike wee humans, it darn near makes me want to pop one out just for the tax benefits.

Well, not really. But it blows. I was hoping for a better tax return this year to help with some of these trial bills (the upcoming three-day trial here in La Crosse is.... well, breaking the bank). I suppose any money coming in is better than none.

If only I could find away to write off the agility stuff. There would definitely be some nice perks to figuring out a way to turn this into a business. :o)

I got a lead on another part time job.... It would suck away more training time, but with the goal of attending NADAC Champs on the horizon, any extra funds would come in handy. We'll see how that pans out.

To make this post somewhat related to Secret and that which she does -- We had a play session in the snow-covered yard last night when I got home from the shelter. She was going crazy nuts for the frisbee and just didn't seem to be dying out. So after I cut Luke off and put him in the house (he will run until he kills himself and I don't need him getting hurt before our next trial!), I got out Secret's Jolly Ball and decided to send her through the arc of jumps that is now frozen to the ground. Most of the jump bars either got blown off or are half propped up, with one or two still set at 12".

Holy moley, she FLEW! I have *never* seen her go so fast. It made me giddy to watch her. I hope that one day we can tap into that kind of enthusiasm and speed at trials. Wow. It was awesome.

Grrrr.....

It's back.

After going through the melting/mud season twice already, we are now set to go through it again. Granted, I should not complain too loudly because I hear my friends up north got MUCH more snow than we did (less than 2"), but I am still grumbling. Do you see those jumps in the yard?? I was so eager to be able to train outside again.

Unfortunately this snap is scheduled to last for the next week or so. It doesn't look like we'll get in any meaningful training before the trial in La Crosse next weekend. Speaking of which, I really need to enter. I more or less have decided to put Secret into Open. Granted, that decision was heavily based on the fact that I thought I'd be able to get her on 12 weaves before the trial... She'll be in Open Weavers on Friday, though, so she'll at least have the chance to see them before Open Regular.

Stupid snow.

Third trial -- We found speed (and horse poop)!!

Well, Secret proved that she isn't "little miss perfect" all the time, but I couldn't be happier! Secret found a new gear at our trial on Saturday. She RAN and she had FUN!

I brought jumps out into the (almost) dry yard on Thursday to try to get in some practice time. It was bad. I was being overly cautious trying not to fall on my butt in the mud and Secret was completely freaked out by basketball games going on all around us (so much as I can figure, at least, because she was hiding in the garage while I picked up poo). Probably not the best circumstances to play agility outside for the first time this spring. She went through the motions but she was slow, cautious and didn't want to play.

Because the night before had been such a gigantic flop, I decided to try again on Friday before we left town. Instead of trying some fancy-schmancy world team type course, however, I just set up the jump arc that Secret found so fun last fall. GREAT CHOICE. I brought out her Jolly Ball and she was over the moon with joy. I had all of the jumps set at 16" and she just flew through it, two striding between each jump. This made me feel much better than I had the night before.

We stayed at a friend's house up near the Cities on Friday night. Secret was *worn out* playing with the other dogs. I thought surely that would mean that she would sleep great -- Nope. Even though I "let" her sleep on the couch with me, she thought it was so wrong and she wouldn't sleep. It occurred to me that she has never slept anywhere but up by my head, so in desperation I went and slept on the floor to try to get her to get some sleep. This did help her, but not me...

Perhaps the hour-long nap on the ride to the trial Saturday morning helped, but Secret was ready to go right away! She was even playing & tugging before her turn in the ring, which thrilled me to no end. Her first two runs had speed on par with what I see at home! Were they clean? No -- but I was still thrilled with them!!

We did have an issue with searching for & eating horse poop. She found a big chunk of something at the end of the dog walk on the first run and that was it -- She remembered that spot for the rest of the day and found a few more as well. The only time it caused us real problems was in Jumpers when she slammed to a halt and then shut down a bit when I yelled at her. She was mad that I wouldn't let her keep eating poo and it took FOREVER to get her reset before the jump, making us come in just under 5 seconds over time. That was her fifth run of the day (I added Touch-n-Go to her runs in the morning), so I think she was getting pretty mentally tired.

She finished her Novice Weavers title on a somewhat non-traditional Weavers run (the club was a set short, so all Weavers classes ran with just one set that you performed twice). I think I'll go ahead and move her into Open at the next trial to get her on 12 weaves. I will have to decide about Regular.... I kept her in Novice for this trial to make sure the last trial wasn't a big fluke or anything -- And while she didn't Q in either run, the speed & confidence she exhibited made me happy and I think she would handle Open just fine. Then again, there's a possibility that Novice is encouraging that speed & confidence, so there is a point to be made on both sides. We'll see.... I have to get entries in this week, so I'd better decide!

DST, oh how I love thee!

Sometimes I think I am in the minority that I *love* daylight savings time. Love it, love it, love it! Always have! I love having that extra hour of daylight at the end of the day when I'm actually able to enjoy it. I'm pretty sure it stems back to my horse riding days and how much I longed to get out of the stupid indoor arena after a long winter. I've never boarded at a facility with outdoor lights, so the only way I could ever ride outside was when it started to stay light later than 6:00 p.m.

Not to mention that our long dark winters are just so freaking depressing! I can't believe how many people complain about "losing" an hour of sleep each year. Come on, folks, we are GAINING an hour of LIGHT! Happy, bright light! Oh yes, my mood goes up considerably this time of the year. Thank you, US Government, for extending DST. Now the next best thing would be to just adopt it year round...

Now that it is actually light past 6:00 p.m., we have only one more thing to wait for..... The ground needs to dry up and then we can start to PLAY again!!

That's the bike trail where we walk during the day. The frost started to come up today and it was a sloppy mess. The back yard really isn't much better. I have hopes that perhaps it will dry up by Thursday, but seeing the trail go from firm to puddle-filled mess overnight makes me worry that the frost will wreck the same havoc on my yard. Guess I'll find out when we get home tonight -- But overall, the yard is coming along nicely. Last night we tried in desperation to play fetch along the back fence line, the only real dry patch to be found. Alas, even when my aim wasn't horribly pathetic, the dogs typically found great delight in veering off to run through the slop on their return. It didn't last long...

Secret LOVES to be muddy....

At any rate, since there wasn't much we could do in the yard, I ended up taking Secret into the basement for a jumping session. We didn't do much, pretty much just worked on tight wraps and a couple of rear crosses and figure eights. She was an amped up wild & crazy girl. Secret's newest "favorite toy" is the bigger Holee Roller ball we had Karen bring for us at the last trial. It's not significantly bigger than the one I turned into a tug toy, but it's large enough that I don't worry for the safety of my fingers when we tug on it. I can't wait to use it outside where she can really dig in and run after it.

Look who SAT in the mud on our walk today....

I'm crossing my fingers that maybe we will be able to set up some agility stuff outside on Thursday, but if not, I feel pretty secure that Secret will still kick butt at our trial this weekend. We are traveling up to Lindstrom, MN and participating in Saturday only of the Agile Canines NADAC trial! It's in a giant indoor horse arena that I've never been to and don't know what to expect, but everyone says it's really nice. I love running the dogs on dirt, so if this trial goes well we'll hopefully shoot to do both days there in April.

Secret is once again running four classes -- Both rounds of Regular, Jumpers and Weavers. She has a chance to finish her Novice Jumpers & Novice Weavers titles! I opted to leave her in Novice for her Regular runs at this trial. I need to make sure that the last trial wasn't a big fluke or anything before I move her into Open. :o) If she continues to do well at this trial, I will more than likely move her into Open for the La Crosse trial the first weekend in April. I'm not one of those who is inclined to stay in the lower levels to earn the extended titles -- Plus, there is a part of me that thinks, "Hmm, maybe I can get her Q'd for Champs...." It's a massive long shot, but entirely doable if she were able to keep up her streak. We need 10 Q's from Open or Elite in Regular, plus two in all of the games. But really, I think if she got close she could get in. We'll see. Granted, that's just ANOTHER $250 entry to worry about. She's already lined up to be on a team, that is, if we ever come up with a team name!

Photos from Secret's first trial

I watched the photographer's web site like a hawk after Secret's first trial over in Kansasville, waiting for the pictures to be posted. I'm "facebook friends" with the photographer and knew that he takes some very nice pictures, so I was excited to see what he got of Secret.

Turns out that he got several good shots of her, so it was hard to choose! In a perfect world I'd get them all (including some very good shots of the boys), but at $25/each, I kept to two. Bummer, too, because there was one of Luke really digging into the dirt that was awesome. Granted, I could still get it! Maybe I should do my taxes and see what the heck I'm getting back this year... lol

The top picture appealed to me because it gives the illusion of power & speed. Awesome, right? Especially since in the trial video you can clearly see that Secret trots between that a-frame and the next hoop/tunnel combination. :o)

I liked this picture for two reasons -- Secret looks HAPPY! I think this was the second Tunnelers course where she started to enjoy herself more. The other reason I like it is because her ears are up. Ha! I still wish I would have set her ears. Oh well, she's cute as a button, regardless.

We had an appointment at the vet's office yesterday afternoon for SHOTS. Secret was due for Lepto & Lyme. Randy spent a good deal of time going over her for some reason. Partly because the clinic was slow and probably also because she wouldn't let him do anything the last time we were there. She actually let him stretch and move her legs all over the place, which surprised me -- But she froze up again when it was time for the shots, so I held her. Other than that she was really good, aside from climbing all the way up onto the counter on her own... Oh Secret.

Here's a shocker -- Dr. Randy actually said that Secret could stand to lose a pound or two. Everyone else thinks my dog looks anorexic, so that took me by surprise. She was a pound heavier than the last time, weighing in at 49 lbs yesterday. She has gotten a LOT of treats lately.... So we are cutting back a bit on her intake for a bit, at least until spring eventually arrives (if ever....) and we can get back to a more regular exercise routine.

Hmm. Maybe I should have signed Fatty up for a treadmill session on Wednesday...

Second Trial -- Whoa.... Wow!

Wow. I don't even know what to say. Secret totally blew me away this weekend at her second NADAC trial. She qualified in 4/4 runs both days. My baby girl qualified in 8/8 runs on her first full weekend of trialing. She is amazing!

She was scared out of her mind for the first run on Saturday. Her brain blew up when she realized that there were people and dogs all around the ring. That was one nice thing about the horse arena last weekend -- The solid walls around the ring made it pretty "safe" and private for her.

The good news is that she made it around the ring in one piece and realized that nobody was going to "get her" while she was in there. We ended up with 2.4 time faults on that first run (mostly because we held our contacts, but also thanks to having to reset a couple of things) -- But because she is entered in Skilled, she ended up with a 5 pt Q because we had less than 5 faults. I despise 5 pt Q's, but we'll take it! :o)

After that she just got progressively better with each run! I crowded her in Weavers, causing her to miss her entry a couple of times, but we quickly reset and were on our way. Jumpers on Saturday was AWESOME. I over-handled as we passed through a box, but Secret wasn't too upset by it and continued on without a hitch. It was a gorgeous run!

Secret was justifiably pooped on Sunday. I was a bit concerned when she didn't really even want to come out of the car and then immediately went to hide in the back of her crate. Thankfully, we ended up starting with Regular again on Sunday, so Secret had quite a while to chill and take a nap. By the time Novice Regular was ready to start, she was feeling much better and was ready to go!

We breezed through the first round of Regular without a problem. The course flowed very nicely. I was a bit more concerned on the second round of Regular because it had a dog walk/tunnel discrimination (requiring the dog walk) and we haven't had an opportunity to really work on those for a while. She read my RFP perfectly and totally nailed it. I was so proud of her!! That run earned Secret her NAC!

Secret found the Novice Jumpers course with THREE tunnel performances a bit demotivating and broke to a trot once on course, but otherwise it was a lovely run. I find that she tends to disconnect from me a bit while in tunnels, so hopefully that is something that we can work to improve.

Our day ended with tunnelers. Secret was absolutely pooped, so I wasn't sure what to expect from her after our long weekend. Well, she woke up and she rocked it on course! I checked when results were posted and saw that she made ELITE big dog time! Not by much, but darn it, I'm proud of her. :o) I really feel like she has so much potential. That Tunnelers run was her TN-N title! Two titles in three days of trialing!

Here's our video!

First Trial! Surprise!!

I said I would hopefully have big news to share on Monday, and Secret does not disappoint. She made the news ever better than I had hoped. :o)

Yes indeedy-do, Secret went to her first trial! And not only that, but Secret QUALIFIED and got 1st place in three out of her four runs! Holy cow, baby girl!

The whole thing was kind of a last-minute decision. The games trial being hosted by RACE Agility wasn't really even on my radar because I always figured I'd probably be working because I couldn't ask off two weekends in a row. But as it happened, I wasn't scheduled to work this weekend. Then the trial secretary posted to the WI/IL agility list last week that they were taking day-of-show entries at the trial. Hmm... I mentioned the trial to Bethany and she was totally gung-ho about the idea. The forecast looked okay for the three-hour morning drive over, so we decided to go for it.

We left at 5:15 a.m. and miraculously managed to pack all four dogs, two humans and all of our gear into my Saturn Vue. I didn't think it was possible, but thankfully Bethany packs pretty light and she just got a new soft crate that doesn't take up much room at all. The dogs traveled so well! My three pretty much slept the entire trip over and left Rascal alone, which was great because usually they pester him and try to play the whole time. With a long, busy day ahead of us, I was happy that Secret rested. Because she slept well, and because she had done so well during our practice the night before (Bethany & I drug tunnels & hoops out into the snow), I elected to go ahead an enter her in both rounds of Tunnelers along with one round each of Touch-n-Go and Weavers.

We arrived to the trial site at about 8:35, with the trial scheduled to begin at 9:00. Parking spots were slim pickings, but we found a spot against a snow bank a fair distance from the barn. I've never been to this location, but it appeared to be someone's personal horse farm. The arena was really nice, but crate space was really, really tight. After submitting our entries, Bethany and I just kind of stood there aimlessly for a bit while we tried to figure out where we could fit four dogs. It would have helped if one woman hadn't brought a huge freaking lounge chair.... But in the end, some kind person moved and made space for us.

I purposefully did not enter Secret in the first round of Touch-n-Go, as I knew she would need time to settle at the new location. There was a lot of noise and commotion when I brought her into the barn and she was totally freaked out and darted into her kennel to hide. I was able to find time to bring her out for a bit after Kaiser's first run and was happy to see that she was acclimating to everything and coming out of her shell nicely. By the time she was up for her first run, she was even starting to bark & sass at me!

Knowing that this was the first time I've ever tried to run Secret without toys or treats in hand, I honestly had no idea what to expect. She obviously felt the same way, because when we went to the start line she looked kind of baffled and wasn't sure what the heck was going on. The course started with two hoops to the a-frame (great 2 on/2 off!), then through another hoop and a turn to a tunnel. She had no idea what the heck was going on, but as she came out of the tunnel and saw the a-frame in front of her again, she lit up and took off! I was a bad, bad handler and rushed her through her bottom (gack, she's a BABY, we should be holding contacts!), but she still nailed it. Then it was nice & smooth until we got to the dog walk/tunnel discrimination.

I know I over-handled it in an attempt to make sure she didn't take the off course tunnel. This made her worry that she might be wrong, which is never good for Secret. Add that to the fact that the last dog walk she saw when we trained in Northfield scared the crap out of her and.... Well, she didn't trust this dog walk, either. After barking at me a few times, Secret offered the tunnel since she wasn't comfortable with the dog walk. Then she did the tunnel two more times, and hid in it once more before coming out, offering her end position on the plank and then finally turning around and going up the dog walk. GOOD GIRL. I really was worried that I wasn't going to be able to get her on it at this trial, so I was so proud of her for facing her fear.

Tunnelers was up next. Secret has never seen so many tunnels in a row before, so I figured she would either think it rocked or it would oog her out. Well, it was kind of a combination. There was a bit of trotting on course because she wasn't sure what the heck was going on, but she was very responsive to my cues and flowed nicely through the course to earn her very first Q!

She was much more comfortable in the second round of Tunnelers and seemed to kick it up a notch! One thing I've noted from watching the video (over and over and over) is that front crosses seem to really turn her on and inspire her to move out. I definitely can't be a lazy handler with Secret. :o) She trotted briefly in a couple of spots, but overall this was a really nice run for her second Q.

I wasn't sure how Weavers would go. It was her fourth run of the day and, of course, her first time weaving in public. The point of the whole day was just to go and have fun, though, so I figured we'd see what happened.

She was awesome! She didn't have the speediest weaves, but she started to really kick it up a bit between the sets of weaves. Secret totally nailed each entry and it was just a really nice, smooth run. Yay for her first Weavers Q!

Getting Q's in three out of four runs at her first trial is beyond awesome. She's off to a great start and it will be fun to watch her speed increase along with her confidence.

We get to play in La Crosse this coming weekend and I e-mailed Laurie to see if I can add the second round of Regular to her classes each day. I figure she can handle it after seeing how well she did on Saturday.

Tonight we get to go play on the underwater treadmill again. I likely won't sign Secret up for the Wednesday session after seeing how tired the last one made her. I need her fresh as a daisy for the trial this weekend. :o)

YouTube didn't disable my audio this time, so I can finally just embed from there instead of uploading to Blogger. No offense, Blogger, but your videos are small.