Udder-ly Awesome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swimming!! In March?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taking advantage of the nice weather

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Irritants...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spring Training!

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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



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

If I knew then?

So today is a Dog Agility Blog Event -- something thought up and put together by Steve over at AgilityNerd. The theme of the day is, "If I knew then what I know now." I have to be honest, I'm really struggling with this topic! I wonder if anyone else is having the same issue?

Who doesn't have things they would have done differently, had they had the knowledge they gleaned through years of trial and error? That's part of life. Very rarely do you come out of the gate perfect at something -- at least I haven't been that fortunate.

Looking back, there are a million things I would have done differently in my life, but then there is very little likelihood I'd be where I am now. Is that a terrible thing, though? I suppose it depends on where the alternate path would have taken me. I think my number one regret is that I didn't go to school when I had the chance (ie: financial help from my parents). I have never been one to embrace change and the thought of leaving everything I knew behind (including my beloved horse) scared the wits out of me.

I was accepted into the vet tech program at a school in Iowa. I backed out in favor of taking the easy path -- staying in a town where I knew everyone and felt comfortable, continuing on my path with the horses, something I thought I would be involved with forever at the time. All these years later I still find myself with a burning desire to work in a vet clinic. And while everyone says, "It's never too late," I know that it's just not in the cards for me right now. So kids, go to school when you're young! lol

If I had a chance to go back to 2008 when I was house shopping, I would do things differently. When I set my mind to something I don't tend to be very patient about waiting for the right outcome. I looked at many different houses and was getting tired of the whole thing and just wanted to be done with the whole ordeal. I do *very much* like my house and my yard is perfect -- but the location is absolutely horrible for my needs.

Why did I buy a house in town?? Why did I buy a house in a neighborhood full of young families? It's like living on a different planet... Why did I buy a house in a city with the most stupid limit laws ever? Why did I buy a house in a city with outrageously ridiculous taxes? If I could do it all over again, I would hold out until I found a place outside of town. This would allow me to do two things that would make me very happy: Obtain a kennel license (if necessary, although most places around here allow 4-5 dogs outside of town) and teach at home without worrying about neighbors turning me in. I love teaching. I miss teaching. I find it very rewarding and hey, it's not like the supplemental income wouldn't come in handy!

So those are my two big life, "If I knew" ramblings. If you are reading this and have yet to make those choices, learn from my mistakes. ;o)

Living in the region where I live, there wouldn't have been much of an opportunity to change my early agility experience. The saddest part is that it isn't any different now and there are STILL absolutely no proper foundation agility classes available in my area. Training classes are still being ran exactly the same way, with dogs on leashes being led over, through and across full sized equipment. This is how I learned agility with Luke, like every other person who lives in this area. Thankfully my present and future dogs will benefit from what I've learned about providing proper foundation training over the years. Looking back, I actually find it remarkable that Luke and I have managed to come as far as we have with the training that's been available to us. I figure my obsessively determined personality is to thank, as well as my years working with the horses that taught me a thing or two about training.

I am ever so thankful for productions such as Clean Run and the numerous training articles and blogs that can be found online. There is so much education out there free for the taking if you are willing to look for it. We owe it to our dogs not to settle for the status quo, especially when the instruction available to you is second-rate. I hate seeing teams struggle with the same issues over and over at trials, yet they continue on the same path and never seek anything different. How is that rewarding to the dog or handler?

My number one goal in this agility journey is that my dogs have fun. If they aren't enjoying themselves, we tend to both be miserable out there. Agility is a game, not an obedience drill. Find the joy, even if it doesn't always lead to Q's.

Almost Perfect

Secret far exceeded any expectations at our trial this weekend. One never really knows what to expect when you are coming towards the end of a winter with no training, so the fact that Secret ran 9/10 over the three days of our NADAC trial at Family Dog Center just blew me away. She ran with joy, had fun and was even pretty speedy (for her) with the exception of her last two runs on Sunday when she started to tucker out.

Secret was entered in two runs on Friday night. My goal was to finish up her Elite Versatility Award this weekend and to do that she had to Q in both Weavers & Touch-n-Go. Apparently my confidence in her is pretty high, because I didn't bother to enter her in either of the other rounds offered over the weekend. ;o) She didn't disappoint! Weavers was up first and it was a lovely run. I was surprised to see that she came in a full 10 seconds under course time. She was even five seconds under the large dog time. It never feels like she is going that fast when I run her, but apparently her stride is deceptively large or something.

Touch-n-Go wasn't quite so zippy, but still managed to come in 7.5 seconds under course time for that title. Kaiser was three and a half seconds faster than her -- So Secret, stop letting the little dog beat you. lol (Note: She did manage to beat Kaiser AND Luke in Jumpers on Sunday!!)

Saturday started out with a lovely run in the first round of Regular. Her only NQ of the weekend came in Round 2. Most of the time when any of my dogs NQ on course I am the first to stand up and take the blame for it. I'm sorry, but I am NOT taking the blame for this one. lol The start of the course went from a hoop to the a-frame. There was a tunnel under the a-frame, but the entrance of the tunnel was waaaaaaaay off yonder and not anywhere near the a-frame. Secret was pointing straight ahead towards the a-frame, but when I released her she darted sideways into the tunnel. Oh Secret, you naughty, silly girl. I didn't bother to fix it and just ran the rest of the course.

Apparently there was some sort of malfunction with my videographer during our Chances run on Saturday and all I got was a flash of Secret's tail in the place where that clip should have been. That's always a huge bummer when the run is a Q! Yes, another Q in Elite Chances! Yay!! She did just a lovely job on a course with a couple of hard turn-aways, layered jumps and weaves at a distance. Rock on, baby dog.

Jumpers was really fun! We like Jumpers and Secret seems to find it to be the most motivating thing to do. She put in a nice speedy run at 5.6 yps -- which was faster than Kaiser, but slower than Luke. :o)

Sunday started with Jumpers and it was a course filled with pinwheel after pinwheel. Ugh. I really thought it was a stupid course, but Secret found it enjoyable enough. I threw in one really nice blind cross (that you can't see on the video....) and had actually debated using all blinds to make the run more interesting. The judge even complimented the blind after the run, so it must have looked nice! She ran 5.6 yps again in this run and was faster than both Kaiser AND Luke by about half a second!

Chances was next for us and I had my doubts if Secret would like it or not. It started with a discrimination, which Secret doesn't tend to have much problem with, but she never comes off a contact with much impulsion. From the a-frame you had to get the dog to turn toward you (another impulsion sucker) and then flip out to a hoop with a tempting tunnel in their line of sight. Secret did it very nicely, but then totally landed on her face coming over the next jump. :o( Thankfully she recovered quickly and finished the course easily. Poor dog. The judge actually replaced that jump with a hoop for the Open & Novice levels because Secret wasn't the only one to land and take a digger there. Thankfully face-planting isn't a fault and she got another Q! Two Chances Q's in one weekend! Which means.... She's down to needing just seven for NATCH! Wow!!

In addition, that run was her 100th Q, which earns Secret her 1000 point award! I realized that this was technically her one-year anniversary of trialing, as her first trial was at the end of February last year. Wow. One thousand points in a year of limited trialing. I'm pretty in awe of the baby dog.

There was not much gas left in the tank for Secret's final two runs in Regular. In round one she was really fixating on the dog running before us, which I think made things even worse. I put her behind a different dog for the second run (I have to move her in the run order anyhow because of how close she was to Luke) and it felt like that run went much better -- although now that I actually look at the times, the second run was exactly 0.03 seconds faster. lol She certainly is consistent.



Kaiser had a good trial weekend, too! He also ran in ten classes over the three days and managed to Q in six -- Including Touch-n-Go on Friday night! We rarely get TNG Q's, so that was nice. My mentality for the dog walk was to stop if I could, run if I couldn't. The only time I didn't manage to get ahead of him over the course of the weekend was in one round of Regular on Saturday. Of course he didn't stop in that case, but somehow the contact didn't get called and he actually managed to Q! He got both of his dog walks in Regular on Sunday, but an a-frame call in the second round kept us from a clean run. He was starting to peter out on me and just didn't have enough "oomph" over the apex to land in the contact. It happens.

He had lovely runs both days in Jumpers! He really had very little stress in these runs, which is always nice to see considering Jumpers is where he tends to have meltdowns (everything is TOO CLOSE and his space bubble rules often get broken). There is no doubt he is happier at 8", though, which depresses me for his future in USDAA. We'll see.

And finally, Chances.... Oh Kaiser. NEITHER course this weekend had a dog walk in it -- Oh happy day!!! The course on Saturday had a stress point for him right away, though. Kaiser *hates* sweeping across the feet and there was absolutely no way to avoid that move in that course. Even thought I stayed back as far as I could, he still went into la-la land when I tried to direct him through this part. Thankfully I managed to get him back on track without back-jumping or coming across the line and then we were golden. Yay!! That was his O-ECC title, so just three more to go for NATCH!

He was just a little turd for the run on Sunday. ;o) Truth be told, I'm probably to blame for setting him up poorly. The dog in front of us was having some trouble and we went into the ring far too early. Kaiser was actually getting pretty hyped up and ready to go, so I had him lay down. I'm sure he was staring at the tunnel the entire time we were in there, as that's exactly where he ran when released..... I should have just done a slingshot like usual --- although it may not have mattered, because he was quite enamored with the next tunnel on course that he was supposed to turn away from. Alas, he did eventually get it but there was no Q. Darn.



Luke was a good boy. He pretty much thought it royally sucked to not run on Friday night, but he was actually very well behaved. I expected him to bark all night long, but I was told he never made a peep during our runs.

I learned that it might not be fair to expect bonus line work out of him at this point in a winter of no training. We definitely had our wires crossed in the first round of Regular on Saturday. Once we lost it, I never really even came close to getting back on track. I ditched the idea of bonus lines after that, except for in Chances that day. The course was something Luke could do in his sleep and the 20 point line really wasn't THAT far back from where I would have normally handled the course with him. Again, though, it just didn't work. When I set him up to try again he of course nailed it as I knew he would.

Luke enjoyed having me run with him in Jumpers both days. He's been doing really great in that class lately when I stop doing bonus line attempts. :o)

Our nemesis of the weekend was definitely the a-frame. Our stop has gone missing, which isn't all that surprising considering we haven't had an a-frame to practice on since October. After several calls & close calls, I decided to make a point of MAKING him stop in Regular on Sunday. I was able to lead well out in the first round and achieved the goal. In round two I was ahead of him, but he decided to just go ahead and jump off the side when I got in his way. Naughty, naughty boy. I took an E to train on that run. We'd already NQ'd earlier in the course so it didn't much matter. Always good to end the trial on a positive note, though.



Missy was a super star all weekend long. There was one time that I heard her cry out a bit when I took all three dogs outside without her, but aside from that she never made a peep. You may notice the absence of any sort of crate coverings in the photo -- that would be because she kept trying to pull everything into her crate. Later on, we actually pulled her crate away from Kaiser's because she moved on to trying to pull all of HIS furnishings in to her crate. lol Poor girl, she was bored.

She got lots of play time and met lots of new people & dogs. The woman who I had in mind for her did indeed like her quite a lot -- but turns out she's like me and has a bit of a color theme going on. Who knew! Another friend was very interested in her but never really said any more about it to me.

That said, I heard from Melissa last night that we finally have some folks interested in Missy that have turned in applications. Yay! Sounds like they are pet people, but as smart and driven as Missy is I by no means feel she has to be in a sport home. She's playful, but she doesn't have crazy high energy or anything. Melissa is going to put me in touch with the top applicant to see if we can't get something arranged. Fingers crossed!

Springtime Jump Drills

Oh wait, it's not spring yet! You might think so by the look of my yard, though. :o) Yup, on February 27 I was able to set up a fun little jump drill in my dry, snow-free yard.

It may not last, unfortunately. The weather guessers cannot make up their minds, but it looks like something is coming our way. Originally it was forecast to dump up to a foot of snow on us, but the storm keeps tracking north and now they are saying 0-2" of snow. Hoping it stays to the zero end of the spectrum, but we'll see. Either way it won't last and we'll just end up with more mud again. Yay. Mud.

So with gloomy weather in the near future, I more or less figured I was required to do SOMETHING with the dogs last night. Considering several of my jumps are in the basement (along with my weaves, teeter & table), it doesn't exactly leave a whole lot of options.

Of course I considered bringing the broad jump out again, but ultimately I was lazy. So instead I just brought out a handful of jumps and laid them out randomly.

You know what's nice about training for a venue like USDAA vs. NADAC? You really don't have to worry and futz with spacing and angles at all. lol Just plunk down a jump pretty much anywhere and deal with it. Okay, okay, I jest. Sort of.

I really didn't give a whole lot of thought to the layout other than that I *didn't* want it to be all uniform and "NADAC-y". There were lots of fun things to play around with in this set-up and I'm very happy with how well Secret & Kaiser knocked it out (Luke thought it sucked, which makes me lean further towards not bothering to put him in the Veteran classes, as I just don't know that he would enjoy Masters courses).

We have a very, very weak area that we need to work on, however. Snooker skills. Specifically, going past or between obstacles without taking one. This is a completely foreign concept to both of them, as one of the core aspects of NADAC handling is, "Take whatever is in front of you." So we have homework to do, I guess. Early indications are that this won't be too difficult for Secret, but Kaiser really struggled with the idea last night. His little brain says, "Yes, I'm coming to you, let me take this jump on the way!"

Secret did all of her jump work at 22" and we actually were out there for quite a while and she never quit on me. Woot! Kaiser did all of his exercises at 12" and I didn't really see any jumping issues with him, so that is fantastic. Nonetheless, I'm sure he will be happy to be at 8" again this weekend at the NADAC trial.

Missy got her first tunnel introduction last night. I didn't expect it would be very difficult to get her through one, but she surprised me with just how eager she was with the whole experience. I think it was less than five minutes before she was going through the full 10' tunnel. When it came time to pack it up and put it back in the garage, I couldn't get her OUT of the tunnel! When I picked it up, she tried to jump in it! I think someone likes tunnels.

I'm trying to teach her to roll over and it's not going so well. Maybe you need to teach that before you teach them to spin. lol We'll keep trying. What other fun, easy to teach tricks impress adopters? The people who come into our shelter seem to just love dogs that do tricks and I think it's a bonding experience when a dog will do tricks for them -- so the more I can stuff into Missy the better. I suppose I should try speak next... That's a crowd pleaser.

Three coats of paint later....

If there's one thing I tend to do when making agility equipment, it's that I tend to go a bit overboard on the paint. I think my table has four coats of paint (two primer, two color), so it looks like I'm cutting back. :o)

It took almost a week to actually get it done because I rarely got more than half of it done on any particular day (paint the top, let it dry, turn it over to paint the bottom, let it dry, so on & so forth). But it turned out pretty and should weather the elements well!

I can stripe it this summer if the mood strikes me, but I'm leaving it white for now. My a-frame needs to be painted this spring, so I'll have an abundance of colored paint available. More or less, though, I'm guessing I'll be sick to death of painting after that project and the broad jump will just stay white!
My plan was to use stick in the ground weave poles as the marker poles at the edges of the jump. The ground is still too frozen to get them in more than 1/8" of an inch, though -- go figure! So I had to schlep out a few jump standards, which works just as well as anything else, I suppose.

Daylight is sticking around a bit longer these days, so we were able to have a brief training session when I got home from the shelter last night (last coat of paint was applied before I left in the morning!). I decided to just throw Secret at them and set the spread at 48" straight away without worrying about building her up to anything -- I figured our quicky session when I brought them home was enough for her to understand the concept and I had nothing to worry about.

Secret had already stolen her Jolly Ball out of the garage (naughty girl....), so I went ahead and used that for her little training session. I sent her over the broad jump by itself several times and we had no issues with it, as I expected. I tried to get a picture, but the camera phone doesn't do action shots so well. lol

Since she was having no problem with the jump by itself, I figured it was time to throw it into a little sequence so that she can learn to adjust her striding. We didn't have time for much, so I just brought out two jumps and set them as a 180 before the broad jump. This gave us a few different jump drill options to play with, too. I set the bars at 22".

Secret did great! She seems very happy to do agility these days, which is always nice to see. She did super well with the 22" jumps and had some lovely wraps, push-throughs, back sides, etc. Considering my jump bars are only 36" wide, she really has to think about where she's putting herself to not knock over the standards. Yeah, I made my jumps that narrow on purpose..... ;o) Stupid oversight or not, it never hurts to train on narrow jumps, IMO.

So that's that -- not too exciting, but I never expected her broad jump training to be difficult. I don't anticipate it's something we'll have to spend a ton of time addressing in the future. Hopefully now that she's seen one we will be fine at the next trial. The more I think of it, the more I feel the issue was with me, anyhow. I was so concerned about what she would do at the broad jump that she probably got all nervous because of MY nerves. Now that I know she can and will do it, hopefully I won't sit and worry about it and it will be a non-issue.

Now that we have one to train on, though, it would probably be a good idea to address rear crosses and other handling maneuvers we might need to use at this obstacle at some point or another. I know there have been drills in Clean Run that specifically address this rarely trained obstacle. I will have to go searching to see if I can find them!

Brief Missy update -- I talked to Melissa and sadly, for whatever reason, there has been NO interest in Missy yet. :o( A litter of eight week old puppies recently became available and several applications came in for them. Apparently a couple of people backed out because they felt those puppies (husky/lab/whoknowswhatX) would be too large -- Melissa tried to steer them towards Missy with no luck. Huh. We don't know why she isn't pulling anyone in, but I think I'll start to work on a new video for her to show off what she's learned since she's been with us.

To do that, though, I feel like I need to teach her a few more things. lol Her "tricks" include sit, down, spin & shake (both paws now!) and we're still working on "sit pretty" without so much of a lure. She crates up nicely, she waits until released to eat and to come out of the crate. Considering where she was when she arrived, I realize that's quite a lot -- but it's not very flashy for video. :o) I figure I could probably teach her to do a tunnel pretty quickly (for as food motivated as she is!). Heck, I could probably even get her on a tiny teeter since she doesn't seem scared of anything. Fetch is not in her repertoire yet, so unfortunately we can't have any that fun stuff like I put in Joe's video.

I'll have to start working on something, I guess. Meanwhile my plan is to try like heck to push her off on someone at the NADAC trial this coming weekend. lol I don't have many other options considering we don't have another trial for well over a month and Missy won't have any other exposure!

Speaking of the NADAC trial, I did finally send my entries last week. I decided to run Secret & Kaiser in the four core classes on Saturday & Sunday and then give them two games each on Friday night. Kaiser will do Tunnelers & Touch-n-Go because he is behind on points in those classes. Secret will do Weavers and Touch-n-Go to try to wrap up her Elite Versatility Award. Poor Luke is not running anything Friday night, but I did go ahead and put him in four runs per day at this trial. I was only going to do three (one Regular run each day) to "save money," but then I figured it's just another twenty bucks, so why not just let him play. I think I'm feeling guilty about him not playing in USDAA...

The premium is still not posted for the April USDAA trial at On the Run....

It's like Christmas! In February! Without the snow!

Oh wait, we didn't even have snow at Christmas this year, so I guess that doesn't apply. lol

Look what we have already! Yay!! Who has the best dad ever? If you answered, "Me!" you would be correct. :o)

I went and dug through the USDAA web site on Monday to find the specs for the broad jump -- aka: Long jump, but nobody actually calls it that.... It was terribly nice of them to break it down into instructions so simple that even someone like myself could almost figure it out. Note, I did say almost. I dropped out of geometry and stink at math, so this whole business of figuring out measurements and angles is not exactly up my alley.

But my dad rocks at it, so I printed everything out and showed it to him that afternoon. In a matter of seconds he punched out a few numbers and told me how much wood I needed to buy and what I should get (that would be 3 1x8 pine boards if you want to build your very own!). I was going to wait until I went to La Crosse and could hit up Menards, but I was impatient and ended up dumping the dogs at home and running over to All American just up the road from my house. They had what I needed and $16 later I was home with my three boards trying to figure out how I was going to get the dogs to the office with me the next day.

We worked it out (although Secret was NOT happy about her co-pilot seat being folded forward to accommodate the lumber). And by 3:30 on Tuesday afternoon we had our very own broad jump! Yay! Someone on Facebook called me "determined" for obtaining our latest "trouble obstacle" so soon after the trial. Well, yeah, that's kind of how I tend to acquire ALL of my agility equipment. lol You buy or build it when you need it! I just hope I don't end up having to go out and buy a competition teeter next....

The wood traveled back home much easier in its nicely nested fashion. I was just planning to set it up for the picture and then stick it down in the basement to be painted, but you KNOW I couldn't just do that. So Secret got a quickie introduction to the broad jump. I started out with the two front planks and then added the third and the fourth. She didn't instantly realize that you are supposed to go over the center and was taking it at a bit of an angle, so I'll likely dig out the old stick in the ground weave poles to use as marker poles (or whatever the poles at the four corners are called). Once I straightened her approach she figured it out well enough, but the poles are there are trials and she needs to get used to them anyhow.

I spread the boards out further than you see in the picture, but I didn't have a tape measure outside with me and I don't believe they got to the regulation distance of 4'. Seriously, 4'! That's a lot! Whatever the spread was that we were working with, though, Secret did not have any problem with so I don't anticipate any problems.

The yard is pretty wet & sloppy right now so we didn't go overboard with our little play/training session. The new jump got christened with plenty of little mud droplets, but that will soon be covered by paint! I figured I can get them all primed up in the basement over the next few days -- I don't know if I'm talented enough to properly stripe them, so they may just stay white. We'll see. :o)

I wish the weather would make up its mind already. It kind of stinks to keep having periods of rain or snow that melts right away that keeps the yard boggy. Oh well, we have plenty of time before the next USDAA trial -- speaking of which, the premium still isn't posted for the trial at On the Run. I am such an impatient person.... Not that I would send it in right away or anything, but I keep checking daily regardless!

I do need to get entries sent in for the next NADAC trial in La Crosse, though. The closing date is Monday and the trial is next weekend. I think I'm going to stick Secret in Weavers and Touch-n-Go to get the last Q's she needs for her Elite Versatility so we can at least get that out of the way. Then of course we'll all cross our fingers for Chances Q's! Secret still needs 9 and Kaiser needs... Four? So close!

First USDAA Trial! aka: What is THAT???

Well, the big day finally arrived! On Saturday I packed up the crew -- minus Luke :o( -- and went to our first USDAA trial. Cannon Falls is two hours away, which is pretty darn swell for an away trial, really. We left home at 4:45 a.m. to allow for plenty of time to set up crates, get measured and get acclimated to everything.

Unfortunately, when you arrive at the trial THAT early you tend to have a problem finding anyone you actually know... The rings weren't labeled as to which was which and I failed to notice the crating area at the far end down by the ring which ended up being ours. As a result, I ended up crating next to the Masters ring. Even worse, I crated right next to the entrance/exit of the Masters ring. This meant that I had to wade through a sea of people to get from my ring to my crates AND it meant that Secret barked like a crazed fool whenever she saw a dog playing/tugging in front of her crate. Umm, it's USDAA. Do you realize how many dogs tug frantically at USDAA? Yeah. Thank goodness I had an extra blanket along and was able to completely shield her view, which did help.

I worried about how far from our ring we were considering how few dogs were between Kaiser & Secret, but it ended up being a non-issue. And really, the walk from the crates to the ring was probably a good warm up for them.

The P1 dogs were up first in Gamblers. Kaiser was the first dog on the line. I'm not so sure I chose the best opening for him, as the line from the start jump to the tire was not exactly pretty, which resulted in him going around the tire and straight to the a-frame. I sent him to the tunnel and then ran to get ahead on the dog walk -- he didn't stop, but he did get his contacts. We went from the dog walk to the weaves, followed by the jump and the teeter. Kaiser had the most spectacular fly off on the teeter.... Unfortunately the buzzer went off when he was in the tunnel after that so we didn't get a chance to try to fix the teeter. He sent out easily to the chute but I failed to notice that nobody switched the double out after the course walk before we started our run... And apparently this took Kaiser by surprise as well, as he knocked it pretty hard, and then went wide and didn't get the last jump in the joker. He seemed more stressed in this run than I've seen him in a long time -- but I'm sure it was all because he was reading my own nerves.

Secret was a good girl! I changed my plan with her and opted to start with the dog walk instead. So many good things to note about this run! Secret didn't freak out at the judge (who RUNS along with us for the contacts)! She didn't seem to notice the smaller tire at all. I didn't bother with the weaves for Secret (figuring that's a time waster for her and we *needed* to try the teeter). Our plan went a-frame, tire, jump, teeter. And she GOT her teeter! It surprised the holy heck out of her and she had a major, "OMG, what was that?!" look on her face before I sent her into the tunnel. We still had time to kill, so I made the massive error of going back to the teeter for another try. She went on and froze, at which point the buzzer sounded and I let her just bail.

I can't say I had any concern for her getting the gamble, as Secret has never had a problem with the chute before. She loves the chute! Well, not this one. I was running merrily along the gamble line when I realized my dog wasn't with me anymore. Where was she? She stopped cold in the chute and backed out... What? I tried to send her back out to it, but she was having none of it and just sat and barked at me. Great. The buzzer went off and we ran out and finished the last two jumps. She had something like 27 points without the gamble and ended up in 3rd (I don't take ribbons unless they Q...).

P1 Standard was up next, and only Kaiser was entered. Once I was there I did wish I would have entered Secret (same goes for Snooker!), but then again it's probably best to not overload her brain at this point.

Kaiser was just off for this run -- very stressed. He got his dog walk again. I think the slats slowed him down enough to alter his striding, because he still didn't stop for me. Once again I found myself running by myself, though, when Kaiser hit the a-frame and stopped. He was not a fan of the higher a-frame at all. I went back to fetch him and my motion sent him straight back into the tunnel. So much for that. We continued on and then took several tries to actually get our weave entry, but after that we were fine through the table -- and he actually did stay on the table! Yay! We had another fly off on the teeter, although not nearly as bad as the first..... Then finished fine with the last two jumps.



The score person came running after us as we were walking back to the crating area. He explained that the timers had not worked properly during our run and we didn't have a time. The judge was apparently offering us the chance to run again just to post a time. The two faults would stay with us regardless of what happened on that run. What did I want to do?

I hemmed & hawed, trying to determine what the right answer was for my dog. I had carried treats down to the ring with me and did feel that Kaiser was probably sufficiently rewarded for the first effort, so I didn't think it would shut him down to go again. Ultimately, I thought that having another shot on the equipment was incredibly beneficial, so I took it.

I'm so glad I did! The second run was so nice. Kaiser got his dog walk AGAIN (yay!) and this time I made sure to support his effort at the a-frame and he went up on the first try. He nailed his weave entry and made his way smoothly to the table. I took more liberty with his table on this run since I wasn't worried about the fault. I led out to the next jump so that I could be ahead to stop him on the teeter. It worked perfectly and he *finally* stuck his teeter. Yay! Too bad the run didn't count for anything but time, but it was a good time for his class!

After a bit of a break (for the dogs, I was volunteering), Performance Speed Jumping/Steeplechase was up next. It was definitely not a bad course at all and offered many different handling opportunities.

After running past the a-frame at #4 the first time, Kaiser actually went off course between 7 & 8 to start going up the a-frame. Come on, what is up with you little guy? So we were whistled off there, but allowed to continue. He really collected himself at the broad jump, but did it without a problem (granted, it's pretty small for the 12" dogs). He again ran past the a-frame at the end, but I didn't bother to fix it.



I was quite happy with Secret's go at PSJ! We all know how much she *loves* weaves at the start of a course. Add to that, because of the course design and lack of exit gate, the finishing dog is stuck in the ring while the next dog starts the course. If you're lucky, the dog before you will wait until your dog has gone over number three before leaving the ring. If you aren't so lucky, the previous dog & owner will walk right past your dog as you are in the weave poles.... Sigh.

Secret missed her first entry, but went in on the second try. When she missed that entry I prayed that the previous dog would PLEASE stay put in the corner. I had a mini internal panic attack when I realized that was not the case, but THANK THE LORD Secret stayed in her weaves and didn't seem to notice the exiting dog. Not only that, but she weaved fast & happy -- at the start of a course!! And she hopped; she didn't do her dreaded double-stepping that we see so often at trials. One of my friends was wondering at the FDC trial if she was doing that because she didn't want to slip -- and granted, that's not an issue on dirt, so maybe that is part of it.

Secret looked at the judge coming down the a-frame and this might be part of the reason why she was so slow going to the tunnel -- who knows. She was doing nicely.... Right up to the broad jump. Remember how I said she's never seen one before? And how everyone said, "Oh, she'll go over it no problem." Yeah.... Not quite. She slammed on the brakes and gave me a very clear WTF look before she started barking at me. Tried again -- Nope. Tried again -- Nope. One more time -- She sniffed at the planks and gave a little hop to come through the side. I figured there was no point in pushing her more and continued on to finish the course, so we got E'd. Guess I know what I need to build next!


The dogs had another break while Snooker ran. It was a nice course and I wish I would have entered them. It originally had the teeter as #7, but the teeter in the Masters ring broke and they stole the one from Ring 2, so Snooker actually ended up having the a-frame. Darn, that would have worked nicely. Oh well. ;o)

Last up for the day was Jumpers. Kaiser was slow. :o( But he tried hard and stayed on course, just knocking a bar at #14 for an NQ. I think the tight spacing between 13 & 14 took him by surprise. Guess what buddy, it's not NADAC.

Secret really shined on this course. As I always expected, this type of stuff is right up her alley. She was a happy girl when we went in the ring, as she had just been playing with my friend's dog, Tazer. She even lined up with a "peekaboo" at the start line (going between my front legs) which I've never actually had her do in the ring before. Her speed seemed to increase as we went through the course and she put in a lovely run for a Q & 2nd place! It was a great way to end the day -- I so wish I would have had that run on video, but oh well.

There was a lot of great stuff to take from this trial. Secret exceeded my expectations with how well she dealt with the judge in the ring. I'm very happy with how she handled the 22" jumps, too. She had fun and stayed happy -- she did her teeter! She didn't seem bothered by the different contact equipment (slats and higher a-frame).

Obviously there is still a lot we need to work on. I really need to get her on other teeters -- and apparently more chutes as well. Of course, we also need to find a way to train the broad jump... Thankfully the next USDAA trial isn't until the end of April, so we do have quite a bit of time on our side.

Yesterday I set up the chute in the back yard (which is snow free again for the time being). As I expected, we had no problems with it and Secret shot through it for her Jolly ball. I also went down to the basement to assess her teeter, as the last time she was scared by a new teeter she wouldn't even go on mine for months. Phew, no problems there. I even raised ours again to make it more in line with the height we saw at the trial and she was fine with it. That's good, at least we didn't regress this time! Hopefully we will be better prepared for the next trial, as I really would like to enter her in all of the basic classes.

Bottom line -- I really enjoyed our first USDAA experience! Even at the Starters/P1 level, I found the courses to be more interesting than what we have come to see trial after trial in NADAC... I am so ready for change.

Missy did really well at the trial all day! She was quite the popular little puppy when I took her out and about to socialize. The popular opinion of the day is that she is a Border-Staffy. I lost count of how many people offered that thought. What are the odds that she was a purpose-bred dog (for sport) vs. a backyard oops? Not high, but hey, if we can increase her value with the sport folks by calling her a border-staffy, why not go for it? lol There were several people who were just absolutely smitten with her, so we'll see if it manages to go anywhere. I still haven't heard of any bites on her yet. Training continues to go well -- now we are learning to shake!

What a mess!

Secret was a hot mess at her chiro appointment yesterday. Holy buckets, it's a good thing I got her in before the trial!

If she was dealing with these issues at our trial two weeks ago, she certainly is becoming more stoic. Maybe the Back on Track blanket helps to mask or deal with the discomfort, too, who knows.

I lost count of how many of her ribs were "out." In previous appointments there have been a couple of times when one or two were out of place, but this time I swear Dr. Engel found like five or six!

Secret's lower back/pelvis area was surprisingly decent this time. As with the last visit in early December, her issues this time were located in the mid-back region. That would be right at the 13/14 area on this wonderful diagram:

I have no idea what would cause her to be such a mess in that entire midsection area. I'm sure some of her frisbee leaps can be blamed for the spinal issues, as Dr. Engel was explaining that the majority of flexion occurs in that area -- and with her being such a long-backed dog, well, there are bound to be issues. No idea what to think about the ribs, though. It's not like we've done a phenomenal amount of weaving since our last appointment or anything.

Interestingly, both Dr. Engel and our previous chiro, Dr. Schilling, made it seem like it's pretty uncommon for dogs to have ribs out of place. Really? Luke ALWAYS has issues in that area.

Whatever the case, I'm very tempted to get another small dog (PAPILLON!!!) for my next dog. Small dogs don't have nearly the issues that we see in bigger dogs. I took Kaiser in with Secret simply because he hasn't seen Dr. Engel since before we left for Champs and I figured it wouldn't hurt to have him adjusted before making him go back to 12" jumps. She didn't find much, but she did do some adjusting in that same thoracic area that Secret had her issues. He had clicking in his patella, but that's no surprise!

I don't know if it's puppy neediness that's behind it or what, but Secret has been exceedingly cuddly lately. She was actively seeking out affection from everyone at the clinic yesterday. Dr. Engel remarked on it several times, stating that she remembers when Secret first started coming and how she used to retreat to the corner of the room. Yesterday we could hardly get her out of the way when it was Kaiser's turn and she kept going up to Dr. Engel and her assistant looking for petting -- yes, petting, not even treats! Although she likes those, too. ;o)

She's also been fairly needy at home the last several days. Since I kicked Missy out of my lap (hello, sometimes we need to learn to sleep on our own, puppy!), Secret has taken up residence there. I don't know if she's having some jealousy issues or what, but she's overall been quite a bit more affectionate lately. She will even come up and randomly press herself against me asking for attention. Maybe she read my post about why I like boys more. lol Maybe it's just part of her growing up. It took a long time for the two of us to really form a relationship, but it was worth the work it took to get here.

Missy may not have a fan in Secret, but she seems to have wormed her way in with the boys. Luke is exceptionally tolerant of her and we all know how much Kaiser loves her.

I think we've turned a corner in potty training! Not that we ever really had a difficult time with anything, but I think that the whole idea of, "We pee & poo outside" has clicked with Missy now. I know her schedule and have to be paying attention, but she does let me know when it's time (ie: at work she will go sit in front of the baby gate and look at me) rather than just squatting and going when the mood strikes her. We have also graduated to going outside at home without me standing guard to make sure she goes. Considering what a lazy sod I can be, this is a huge step. :o) The only thing I ever really find displeasing about potty training is having to get dressed and bundled up to go outside with the puppy. And somehow I always tend to end up with puppies in the winter.....

I found a new way to tackle the feeding issue without having to sit and hand feed her meals. Although I'll still do this frequently to give myself a chance to work on training, if I feel like being lazy (like last night and this morning....) it works a treat to dump her kibble into one of the Kongs and let her at it. It slows her down considerably, gives her something to do and doesn't result in a shaking fit. She would be a dog who would LOVE one of the Kong Wobblers that we have at the shelter, I'm sure. I'll definitely bring up the idea to her adopters in the future!

I haven't broken it to Bethany yet, but I do think I have to bring Missy to the trial on Saturday. She needs the exposure, after all, if we expect her to find a new home! If nothing else, though, there is a woman who comes to our NADAC trials who was really eying up Joe when I had him. Assuming Missy is still with us the first weekend in March, I figure I'll spend some time talking with this woman (I am so bad with names....) and see if she might be interested in Missy. Obviously Missy and Joe have nearly nothing in common..... But her other dog is a female, so she obviously doesn't have anything against them (like certain other people...). We'll see. Missy needs to find a home before she's not little and cute anymore. lol I stuck her on the scale here at work the other day and she's already 22 pounds!!!! I don't know how accurate it is, but she was 16 two weeks ago... Puppies grow too fast.

Oh! Speaking of weight -- Secret was only 46.2 lbs when she got weighed at the chiro appointment yesterday. Wow. I would have never expected her to lose weight in the winter. Dr. Engel joked that maybe the Back on Track jacket made her sweat the weight off. lol Truthfully, I had been cutting her back a bit because I was concerned about Secret GAINING weight this winter. Guess that is not a concern. She is fit & thin, but there is certainly such a thing as too skinny and I do need to be careful not to go too far in my obsession to have thin dogs. Kaiser was 16.7 pounds, so he is maintaining his light weight nicely this winter -- no doubt thanks to the fact that no training = no treats.

Fourty-seven hours from now we will be on the line at the USDAA trial. :o) Sweet.