Weave Practice :o)

Well, I ended up putting entries in the mail today for Secret & Kaiser to do the 18-pole Weave Challenge at the Wisconsin State Fair in August. I don't know if there are still openings or not, but I guess I'll find out. I'll also find out if they are serious about the whole Bordetella vaccination, because the vet records I sent in didn't mention that due to the whole issue of "I stopped giving it." I figure if they ask about it when they email to confirm (or not confirm...) I can just say they will have it before we go. Kind of adds to the cost of the trip over, but oh well. We'll have to see what they say about it I guess.

But for now we just wait. Wait to see if we got in. Maybe they would let me try to get Secret in the dock diving pool again afterwards?  ;o)

It was no big surprise that Kaiser had the fastest time, but I thought Secret did super awesome! Here's how it all factored out:

Kaiser:
Total -- 28.43
Round 1 -- 13.72 seconds
Round 2 -- 14.71 seconds

Secret:
Total -- 29.12
Round 1 -- 14.37 seconds
Round 2 -- 14.75 seconds

Kizzy (for fun):
Total -- 41.45 seconds
Round 1 -- 20.52 seconds
Round 2 -- 20.93 seconds

Times are approximate based on my ability to operate the pause button in movie maker.   :o)

Luke did come out and put in a valiant effort, but he never managed to put two sets of 18 together and he started to peeter out pretty quickly. I didn't push him on it and let him just chew on his ball the rest of the night.

I set up the web cam to spy on the dogs while I was at work today. I realized that I've never done that since Kizzy joined the pack, so I have no idea what they do all day while I'm gone. Turns out they don't do anything different than when there was only three of them. In fact, I rarely saw Kizzy on the camera all day long. I have no idea where she hangs out all day....

Tempted....

Do you remember our kind of pointless trip over to the Wisconsin State Fair a few years ago (it's been three years already???)? I was all excited to go to our first dock diving competition since, you know, Secret is such a crackhead about jumping into the river and all. Well, that was a big bust. She never jumped into the pool.

This year, though, they are having a weave pole challenge! It's an 18-pole up and back deal. I assume because there isn't enough room for the traditional 30-pole up and back ("traditional" in the sense that this is the format the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge adopted a couple of years ago instead of the old 60-pole challenge). The main thing holding me back is the 7:30 start time. I was able to make a day of it with the dock diving thing, whereas it hardly seems worth it to drive over for something this short. Granted, I could do it without missing much work...

And look! Money!  $$$  There is money to be won! Hmm. It's getting tough to say no.

I won't lie, I'd be hanging my hat on Kaiser for this thing. He's a little fart, but he's a stinking fast and solid little weaver. Plus he'd win the crowd over, and who doesn't love that?  :o)  The rules say there is no food in the competition area, but they do allow toys... Which means that Secret could even put in a fairly respectable showing under the right circumstances. There are two rounds and they combine the total time to come up with the winners.

So of course tonight I set up my own little weave challenge. I still have my old stick-in-the-ground poles that I stuck on the end of the regular set of weaves. This threw Kaiser off at first and he was having a difficult time ending on the stick-in poles due to their irregular nature, I'm sure. I finally got them spaced a little better, though, and he rocked it. Secret, surprisingly, didn't have a problem with the 18 poles at all! She totally nailed it on the first try. Kizzy and Luke both made it through all 18, too, but I would leave them at home for this.

Hmm..... The only downside is that we have an AKC trial Friday, Saturday & Sunday before these dates. This wouldn't affect Kaiser, but Secret would probably be about at her weaving limit after that. Meh. It's only a $10 entry! I should just go. Maybe my dad will go with or something! That could be fun!

I actually trained the dogs this weekend and failed to share the update. We played on another fun Happy Hurdle Day course by Ann Croft Agility Coach. It was hot. Bleh. It was actually bad enough that Luke came out and was like, "this sucks," so I didn't even make him do it. lol  Everyone else had two very short sessions because we all melted in about four minutes and needed a break. I figured we needed to do something challenging since I just got word that we made it into the trial mid-July where we get to run ISC classes! Yay for fun stuff!

This weekend I work both days and then we get to go play AKC in New Berlin the weekend after that!

NATCH 5 Luke!!

What a weekend! I can't remember the last time I felt so great about a full weekend of agility. It's pretty common for us to have one awesome day. Or maybe even for one dog to have a really great couple of days in a row. But usually some stupid mental issue on my part will cause me to disconnect and flub all over the place with my dogs. It's not their fault, they just do what I tell them to do.

That said, this weekend was outstanding! Every time we stepped to the line everyone really gave their all and we just had a blast. I felt connected on every single run; and even when I was starting to drag for those last Regular runs of the weekend, I managed to pull it together and give my dogs the effort they deserved and they did not disappoint.

The highlight of the weekend, of course, would have to be Luke earning his fifth NATCH! With his two V-NATCH awards, that makes his 7th Championship title overall. I am beyond proud of the old man and all of his achievements in life. There has never been a dog who tries harder and gives it his all quite like Luke does. I don't have any runs on video from this weekend, but if I did you'd see that he saved my sorry butt not once, but twice on this Chances run. We survived two redirects to earn this title! He pulled out an extra Chances Q for good measure again today, again saving my behind with a redirect to a tunnel. He is such a good dog.

Just look at how amazing my crew is!  :o)  The final tally of the weekend was 10/12 for Kaiser (man, that's a lot of runs, no wonder I don't do it often), 5/6 for Luke and 5/6 for Secret. Kaiser did not get Chances either day (my fault on both), Luke knocked a bar in Jumpers this morning and Secret missed the dog walk contact yesterday when I was pushing too much for speed. They were all just flawless this weekend!

Not only that, but they were FAST! Whee!!! Secret had YPS of 5.26 and 5.56 in Jumpers!! Her Regular runs were 4.55, 4.64, 4.88 and 4.95. That is super awesome for the long-legged border collie! I still run her at 16" Skilled (because I can) and we use these NADAC runs as fun-building exercises. I'd say it worked.  :o)

Luke had Jumpers runs of 4.81 and 5.46 YPS (he was hauling today when he knocked that bar). His Regular runs were a respectable 4.02 and 4.14. Good job big guy.

Kaiser just totally blew me away this weekend. He was ON for every run. I'm looking forward to seeing the results posted online to see how many DRIs of 100+ we squeaked out. I'm really hoping to get a Platinum Speed Star with him yet and with weekends like this it would add up quickly. Kaiser's Jumpers YPS were 5.13 and 5.51 (so check that out, as fast as he was, Secret beat him!!). His Regular runs were in the 4.8-4.9 range. Touch-n-Go was 4.99 and 5.29. He managed a 5.09 in Weavers and almost hit 6.0 in Tunnelers with a 5.9. It's no wonder I'm so pooped tonight, my dogs had me sprinting around the course all weekend!

Kizzy ran her two Jumpers runs and while she didn't bring home any Q's I am thrilled with how they went. Yesterday she did earn an E because someone was being a door-blocker (just in case) but had their dog with them, so she ran out to visit. But once outside the door she came straight to my hand, so that was fantastic. On that particular course she missed one jump in the middle when she went wide on a rear cross and then she also ran past the last jump going 100 mph. Gosh darn it she is FAST at trials....

Today was even better! We are having an issue with her going, "I'm FREE!" when the leash comes off -- she runs towards anyone sitting in the ring (a friendly Klee Kai, go figure), but she always runs right back and starts the course with me. Today she again went super wide on a rear cross (gosh it would be nice if I could manage to teach that skill to her) and we kept going, but we finished strong and we finished TOGETHER. I decelerated pretty hardcore coming into the last jump and she actually slowed and turned INTO me -- and came STRAIGHT into my hands! I was so ecstatic that I could barely manage to get the leash over her head. We ran out of the ring and had a huge party after that run!

I had planned ahead and brought the dogs' water toys with today, so after the trial was done we drove over to Airport Beach to swim for a bit. Thanks to the rain that had just passed through the area and likely due to the high water that pretty much made the entire beach disappear, we had the whole thing to ourselves. I like going there because I can throw the toys way out without worrying about a current pulling them away, so the dogs get a much better swimming workout. The little dogs enjoyed playing in the shallow water and eating god knows what they were finding in the grass... Then we came home and everyone got a pig ear that I'd picked up at Petco on Saturday during Luke's "buy whatever you want as a celebratory treat" visit. It's been a pretty great day to be a dog in this house!

I'm working at Petco the next two nights, so hopefully the dogs enjoy two days of rest and relaxation following the busy weekend - while I will be trying not to keel over from exhaustion. I'm looking forward to a couple of days of AKC coming up over the 4th of July. I also sent entries for the AKC trial in New Berlin on the 18th and 19th. I couldn't pass it up because they are offering the ISC classes on Friday! Then today I won a free day of trialing at the next NADAC trial, so I guess we'll be coming home from New Berlin and then going to play NADAC on Sunday.  :o)

"Mock Trial" at home

Oooh, how long has it been since we've had a fancy paint drawing of a course map?  ;o)  Yeah, yeah. Maybe some day I'll spring for Course Designer. I haven't even done the free download on my computer yet because I don't want it there taunting me after the free trial ends.

Last night I dialed my brain back into "NADAC mode" and fabricated this little number. The goal of the night was pretty simple -- replicate, to the best of my abilities, the behavior chain that Kizzy would go through at the trial this weekend. I kept Kizzy to a simple 13-obstacle Novice course (3 jumps to tunnel, serpentine, S-shape sequence to finish), but was able to add a few more loops for the other dogs to replicate more of an Elite course. With Kaiser and Luke I practiced more Chances skills than anything. My only goal for Secret was to run fast, and with the jumps set at 8" for everyone, she pretty much did just that.

If Kizzy manages to keep it together even half as well as she did last night I'll be thrilled. She got to play first last night. We started in the house by putting her on a slip lead and going out into the garage. We had some "focus time" together in the small pen and did hand touches. Then we left the treats behind and walked into the yard on leash and set up for the first jump. She was tugging on the leash at this point and I let her do it (and I will do the same at the trial if she chooses).

She did take off for the leash when I chucked it across the yard, but came back when I called. The first time I think I just took off without setting her up again, to be sure I kept her engaged and happy. I did a blind cross on the first turn of the serpentine and she ran past the middle jump, but we kept going and didn't correct anything. At the finish we ran straight to the leash where she practically stuck her head through it by herself, then left the yard together and went and had a party.

We did this once more, again starting with the nose touches before heading into the yard. This time Kizzy didn't chase her leash and gave me a nice wait at the start line. She missed the middle jump in the serpentine again, so hmm, handling error there I guess. The finish was wonderful again, with Kizzy letting me put the leash right over her head and going going out the gate to get our treats. On the second time especially I had worried that she'd leave the yard to go help herself to the treats since she knew the routine, but she didn't!

After everyone had played through their turn I brought Kizzy out for one more go. This time Luke and Secret were both laying in the yard chewing on their toys. I figured they could offer some level of distraction for us. Kizzy was tugging on her leash as we went to the start line again, and again she chose to the follow the leash when I chucked it. I called her back and this time I did ask for a wait at the start, which she gave me. I emphasized that middle jump in the serpentine this time and she got it, and ran the course clean. It was followed by another great end-of-run behavior sequence and we had a big party outside of the yard.

Truthfully, this training session went about as well as I could hope for. I will still be trying to control the sun, moon & stars at the trial to make sure the environment is as success-producing as possible for her, but hopefully we are well on our way to growing more as a team.

Kizzy is also coming along nicely with the trick training/shaping exercises that we do with her dinner each night. The nose touches are pretty solid, and Kizzy has totally picked up on the touch light trick! That one was actually pretty solid by the third session, so she ended up learning it faster than I thought she would based on that first session. Last night we started to work on "sit pretty." The girl has like zero core strength, apparently, so this will be good for her. I should start working on a video of the stuff she's learning.

Training field trip for Kizzy

I don't know how much I've written about it, but I've been trying some new (okay, not new, but new to Kizzy) stuff with Kizzy's training in an effort to build our working relationship a bit. She's been on a trialing hiatus since I believe it was the beginning of March. While her overall performance in the ring was improving and she's even managed to bring home a handful of Qs, the pain point of her leaving the ring was getting worse, not better.

This spring we were able to start working at home again and even there we struggled at times. What I would find is that she would engage with me until she didn't want to, at which point she'd just leave. This would happen if there was something we struggled with or if she just felt our session was getting to be too long (she is not a heat-loving dog, by the way).

I started to work Kizzy more with food instead of toys in training. I found that food kept her attention for longer bouts of time. Overall I felt she was running a bit slower, but stayed engaged more so than with toys.

A few weeks ago I upped the ante in an effort to test the waters to see where she was in her ability to work with me through distractions AND without the reward being carried on my body. I started out very small, with just a simple box of jumps set near the deck, on which was placed a bag of treats. We would do one or two obstacles and then run to get a treat.

We progressed to eventually doing much longer sequences and even a full Happy Hurdle Day drill with three "treat stations" set out in the yard (baggies of yummy treats in boxes). Not only did Kizzy have to choose to stay with me when I did not have the motivator in my hand, but she also had to make the conscious decision to continue past the treat stations. This was hard for her and she was running fairly slow as a result, but I was impressed with her ability to make good decisions and return to play the game with me. We also worked a lot on coming to hand and getting lots of petting before running to a treat station, so I am hopeful that this will translate into end-of-run behavior at trials.

In addition to the work we've been doing around agility equipment, Kizzy and I have also retreated indoors for some team-building exercises. It is time for Kizzy to "learn stuff." It's always been a bit of an embarrassment that Kizzy doesn't really have any tricks in her repertoire. People ask, "What does she know?" and the answer is always a mumbled, "Nothing...." Tricks are something I teach to puppies when they are too young to do that "fun agility stuff." I did nothing with Kizzy for nearly her first month with me because I didn't plan to keep her. Then when I did decide she was staying, I pretty much jumped straight into agility work because, after all, she was around 18 months old. Fail. Huge fail.

So we are starting from square one. Kizzy has been introduced to the clicker and we started off with a nose touch to the hand. I'm happy to report that she picked this up rather quickly, although that is not to say that the process has been flawless. It's been interesting to see how her brain works, and she's not really one to explore options if nothing is happening. She has the propensity to just lay there and zone out if she doesn't know what to do. As a result, I have kept things very simple up to this point and with a very high reward schedule. I felt that she was solid enough on the nose/hand touch that last night I introduced an object to interact with -- the touch light. Yeah.... This will probably take a few sessions for the proverbial light to go on.

Yesterday I loaded Kizzy up to take her on a private little field trip to Petco. Not only have my coworkers not met her yet (or Luke; sorry Luke), but I felt it would be a good chance to check her ability to pay attention to me and work through distractions.

I felt that the trip went very well! We took some time in the parking lot for her to realize that I was attached to the other end of her leash. Once in the store she was sniffing and exploring everything, but I was able to get her to check in with me regularly. She quickly improved as I asked her for behaviors in the aisles. She did hand/nose touches in a new environment. She stood or sat nicely while I talked with coworkers. She even did her nose touches for one of the girls I work with!

We had a bit of squawking when an anxious black lab skittered by the end of the aisle. That was a very distracting experience for her, but once the other dog had moved on she settled down and checked in with me again. In general it was a very good experience for her. I get another huge, fat, "FAIL" for not having spent more time working on these skills with Kizzy.

We were only at the store for about a half hour but it was a very exciting half hour that took up a lot of brain power. That, combined with running around the yard while I mowed in the morning, made for a very tired Kizzy. She was zonked out for the entire trip home. Everyone got pig ears to make up for the neglect of those who had to stay behind.  ;o)  And also because I was ditching them to go volunteer at Butterfest for the rest of the afternoon.

Because I do feel that she has made advancements, and because I want to do a check to see where we're at, Kizzy has been entered in Jumpers for both days at the NADAC trial this coming weekend. It is anticipated to be a VERY small trial. I figure it's not fair to put her in anything with contacts since she hasn't seen any in so long (another training fail!), and the Novice Jumpers courses should be fairly Kizzy-friendly. Of course, it's the last class of the day on Saturday and the first on Sunday, so we'll just have to see how things go....

Because it's our only event for the entire month of June, Kaiser gets to run everything (figured we may as well start working towards that second V-NATCH), Luke is in 3 a day and Secret is also entered in 3 a day (Regular & Jumpers for her -- I'm sticking to my "no more Chances" with her since she hates it so much). I have faith that our judge this weekend will be accommodating to Kizzy's quirks, but I'm hoping the work we've been doing will pay off and she'll just be a little angel.  :o)

Just what is "Success"?

Success is a difficult subject on which to pontificate. It can mean so many different things to so many different people. As life has shown me, success is even measured differently from dog to dog -- and the measure of success will undoubtedly change numerous times over the span of a single dog's lifetime.

Luke was my first agility dog. In the beginning days of our agility career there is no doubt that there was only one measure of success in my mind -- the qualifying runs (Q). It was likely at one of our first (NADAC) trials that I learned of the "big award," the NATCH. Instantly this became the end goal; the reason we were doing agility. I took this game called agility far too seriously and gosh darn it, why wasn't my dog getting there faster???

Then Luke was diagnosed with Addison's disease in October of 2009. When you fear you will lose your dog, your perspective tends to change. If my memory serves correctly, Luke had everything he needed for his first NATCH at that time, save for six or seven Chances Qs. Upon diagnosis, not knowing anything about the disease, I didn't know if we'd ever do agility again.

Luke did return to the agility ring, and in only a few short months he had returned to his previous fine form (only faster, thanks to all the weight he dumped when he was sick ;o) ). While I still placed altogether too much pressure on myself and my desire to be a Champion, my attitude towards Luke, agility and this thing we call "success" had changed and I was simply grateful that we were able to still play this game together.

Those last few Chances Qs came together rather quickly and Luke earned his first NATCH in July of 2010. That was a pretty special day and I felt pretty successful for a number of reasons, but mostly that we kicked Addison's ass and came back to meet our (okay, my) goal. Luke has gone on to complete a total of four NATCH awards (one Chances Q away from five!) and two Versatility NATCH awards. At 10 years old, I am beyond thrilled with his achievements in life. We reached another goal at NADAC Champs in 2013 by making the finals. You couldn't ask for a more awesome first agility dog.

Kaiser had the dubious task of being my second agility dog. He had big paws to fill, following in Luke's footsteps -- and this is where I learned humility and that every dog is different and you cannot expect them to fit into a mold.

While he was my second agility dog, Kaiser was my first Klee Kai. That in itself lent itself to more challenges than I would ever have anticipated (perhaps I should have done more research?). Kaiser was absolutely brilliant in training. Distance work seemed to come naturally to him, so I figured he would be a stellar NADAC dog from day one and would sail right through the levels to earn his NATCH in record time (because yes, success was still measured by that Champion title).

What to think, then, when we spent nearly the first year chasing him out of the ring and begging him to trot nervously through courses at trials? It was such a trying year that had Kaiser been my first agility dog, it is quite likely that I would have quit. This is where I started to have a different view of success. Now success was no longer measured by the Q, but by whether or not my dog stayed in the ring with me for an entire run. Success was when my dog was happy to be in the ring with me.

We celebrated each of those small successes and I learned not to take this game called agility so seriously. Eventually those small successes built into larger successes and Kaiser became a real agility dog! He has won several classes at NADAC Champs (my own shortcomings kept us from larger success in that realm), has now earned two NATCH awards and one Versatility NATCH, and is now starting his journey to the PACH in AKC.

Even with his impressive list of achievements, I still measure Kaiser's success by his happiness in the ring. If he's not happy, we're not having fun, and that's the most important thing to me. He tries his little heart out and I just want to do right by him.

You would have thought that I would have learned my lesson in humility and what success was really all about by the time Secret arrived. Alas, I had all sorts of preconceived notions flitting about my head regarding border collies and their capabilities in agility. The weight of my dreams was on Secret's shoulders when she arrived, and it was a heavy load to carry.

If I were to measure success by total number of Qs or percentage of clean runs overall, there is no doubt that Secret would be my most successful dog yet! She managed to get her NATCH (despite hating the Chances class with a hot, fiery passion) in under two years and sailed right through the lower levels in both USDAA and AKC. Qs have never been a problem for Secret -- happiness in the ring has been.

At the end of every run with Secret I measure our success by her happiness and speed during that run. Some of my favorite runs with Secret have been non-qualifying because she was so HAPPY and driving forward that she took an off course obstacle! We celebrate those moments and hope for many more of them! Secret will be five years old in a few months and I am amazed by all that she has achieved. But mostly I am just happy with the fact that she is enjoying herself in the ring now. We still have our moments and some runs are faster than others, but we are a team out there and to me, that is success.

Kizzy's arrival has taken me back to those early days with Kaiser, but to an even more challenging level! Her agility journey is just beginning, but she's again teaching me about those teeny tiny measures of success (like staying in the ring). Kizzy has a few Qs under her belt (miraculously!), but I hardly even count those. They are certainly not a measure of her preparedness to move on to a higher level.

With Kizzy the true measure of success will be her desire to interact and play this game with me at trials. I am sure that we will get there, it will just take time. But until then, it's just another great lesson in humility.  :o)

Ultimately, I still love awards. I still have goals of Champion titles for all of my dogs. But it is no longer how I measure success. Success is in the relationship we have with our dogs, as that is more important than any title or trinket.

Today is another great Dog Agility Blog Action Day! To see what others have to say on the topic of "Success," please visit this link!  http://dogagilityblogevents.wordpress.com/success/

I guess it's summer now

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stupid weaves...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swimming!!

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

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

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

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

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

3 Days of Agility Fun -- CKC AKC Trial

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A new toy for running!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekend Catch-Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enough with the rain!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easter makes for a Perfectly good day of AKC!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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