Devil's Tower

Here are some photos from Devil's Tower. One day I want to go back and spend more time there.

Lola was absolutely flying at agility class tonight, where was little miss speedy during champs? It was cold & overcast and she had a bee up her butt or something.

Final Thoughts on Champs

Ran yesterday's Team Event clean. It was only tunnels set in an 'M' shape, not really any challenge or handling to speak of and they didn't even let us walk the course beforehand. The hard part, well, this was a goofy event that involved one team member having to bat a ball through a hole in a 'wall' and the other members throwing and catching the ball through the same hole. You had to stand behind a line too. I hate sports with balls (yes, o.k., haha, snicker snicker but you all know what I mean), I have no coordination for it at all. After some practice we decided I should be the thrower. Took me 3 tries to get a good enough throw through the hole for my teammate to catch. Of course when we practiced I got a bunch in a row right away. During the event I had to run Cody first then throw the ball while keeping him in the box so I had hyped up from the adrenaline from the run and preoccupied with Cody leaving (he didn't, what a good boy).

I left the Camplex right after our run at 1:30 pm and got home around 6:30, just in time for dinner and crashing on the couch. It was fun but it's SO good to be home. I'm not really into travelling anymore and I like my routine.

Final Thoughts-overall it was a big success for us and I had fun. It was a great warm up for USDAA Nationals in Nov. because we got to work on fairly easy courses in a high stress environment. Both dogs did great amidst the chaos of all the other dogs, the announcer on the loudspeaker and the noisy crowds in the stands. I also got to see how they would hold up for 5 days and they seemed fine. Cody was a bit tired by the end but he's 8 so he's entitled. We picked up points for our Jumpers & Tunnelers titles and had fun with the team event.

In general though I'm not sure I would do it again even if I could pick up the bazillion points I would need to qualify for the standard event. 7 am until 9-10 pm for 5 days in a row is way too much and the general chaos and lack of organization was driving me nuts. I suspect this is another reason for the lack of all the top handlers in the country (there was only one who I would consider up there). The Elite (highest) level classes were small for a Championship event. There were people placing who had as many as 20 faults (that could be 2 off courses). The courses didn't seem all that challenging either unless you handled from the bonus boxes, an option most people did not choose by the end of the week. It was tedious to watch this from a spectator's point of view as many of the runs quickly turned south. While it was impressive to watch the ones that worked it still wasn't as exciting as watching the handlers that ran with their dogs. This is supposed to be agility, not sheep herding. I like running with my dogs and using distance when it makes sense, not standing in a box and pointing them around the course just for the sake of it.

I'm tired though and I've got a USDAA trial this weekend. Hopefully we can relax and recharge in the next few days. It's our last chance to trial before USDAA Nationals though and I want one last chance to get some practice in on those more challenging courses.

Gimme Gimme Gimme

I was stunned and amazed to arrive at the Camplex at 6:50 this a.m. to find the courses set up already and people walking them. I walked my Jumpers course and quickly warmed up the dogs because Lola was early in the running order and Cody wasn't long after her. The course was easy but I still managed to get refusals with each dog on different parts of the course. I got them back on course with no off courses though so we were clean but almost certainly over time. It's hard enough for the big dogs to Q these days with a nice, tight run and the slightest bobble puts you over for sure. But the agility gods giveth and taketh away and today they gaveth because the woman who heads NADAC decided to give Q's to all the clean runs regardless of course time so I got a couple gimme's. This means Lola Q'ed in 4/4 of her Champs runs and Cody in 3/4, a record qualifying rate all around. Cody ran clean in the team relay today too sort of. He ran the course clean but left the starting box before our teammate was done with her portion. I got him back in the box and we started properly but I'm not sure if they charge faults for that. If nothing else we wasted a bit of precious time. The course was the simplest thing I've ever seen, just a U-shaped run of obstacles, no handling or change of side at all. Cody hit his dogwalk contact and nailed his weave pole entry (and didn't pop out, yay) so that was something to be happy about.

I hung around the Camplex today to watch some of the standard runs and yack with the crazy dog people. I left at around 5:00 pm and I'm not sure if they'd even started the second round of standard. It's been taking them around 4 1/2-5 hours to get through the standard runs so those poor people are looking at another super late night. I heard they finished at 9:30 last night and hadn't even gotten to the last scheduled event. They ended up running it first thing in the morning concurrently with Jumpers so that's probably why they were starting so early this morning.

Tomorrow is the last day and the only event I have is Team with Cody. It's been fun but I'm so ready to go home. I'm tempted to go back to Devil's Tower before my run and do the little hike around the base since the weather's supposed to be nicer but I'm afraid I'll be too tired to drive home. It'll take me 5 hours or so with stops, I'm not sure I want to add another 2 hours of driving to the day. Also, they're having their 100th year celebration and I'm afraid the park will be crowded. We'll see how it goes.

Nasty Nasty

Woke up this morning to freezing cold temp's., rain and wind, not my idea of great weather for tromping around Devil's Tower. But this was probably the only day I could go (tomorrow is meant to be worse weather wise anyway). I checked in at the Camplex at 7 am and they were starting with Standard which I'm not in. Since there were 2 rounds of standard I assumed they'd do one then do the next one like at a regular trial so I figured I had a good 6 hours or so. I played with the dogs a bit in the freezing, sideways rain then decided I was bound and determined to go. I think my teammate thought I was crazy but it was only an hour drive and I really wanted to see this thing.

The drive was a bit slow because of the wind & rain but I was in no hurry and it was nice scenery part of the way. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to see the Tower because of all the clouds but I caught sight of it on the drive in and I was so happy I'd gone. It is really really cool and I think it was kind of special being able to see it with the clouds wisping around it and the rain driving sideways into it. You can see it pretty well without going into the National Park but I have a pass for all the parks so decided to take the 3 mile drive to the visitor center which is right at the base of the Tower. You can walk right around the bottom of it on a trail that's only 1.3 miles and I really wanted to but the weather was so so nasty and I'm a big wuss. I went up the trail a bit-there were 3 deer to greet me at the trailhead-and took some photos. To be honest I thought it was more impressive from further away somehow but it was still pretty cool to see close up. I went up the trail a bit and ran into a couple on their way down. I asked them if they'd made it the whole way around but they said no, they turned a corner and the wind was so awful they gave up (there were predictions for 50 mph gusts). I went a little further and as the trail left a small wooded area and became very exposed I came to the same conclusion. If I'd had my waterproof pants it wouldn't have been so bad but my cheapo crappo nylon pants weren't even water repellant and my butt was freezing. Mostly though I was concerned about overdoing it with my knee. I woke up with sore legs this morning and my knee was gimping out on me last night. I didn't want to do something that would take me out for the rest of the competition, esp. since that would screw up my teammates. So I soaked it all in until I couldn't take the elements anymore and zipped back to the nice warm car. My camera battery is all but dead so I'll have to wait until I get back to download & post the photos. Here are somebody else's photos on a much nicer day in the meantime:
Devil's Tower

Some interesting facts about Devil's Tower-it's the first National Park in the U.S. It's estimated to be 50 million years old but has only been uncovered by earth for several million years. There are several theories as to how it was formed and they all seemed to involved magma and other scientific mumbo jumbo. I preferred the Native American explanation which is brief is that a girl was playing a game of 'bear' and became a giant ferocious bear herself. She killed her entire village except for her sister. Her brothers returned from hunting and tried to save the sister. They took her to a large rock that told them to run around it 4 times then climb on top of it. They did this and as the huge bear approached them the rock rose up out of the ground. The bear tried to climb up and the vertical ridges in the rock are his claw marks. Eventually they all end up constellations in the sky. Though I suppose the magma explanation is more likely.

When I got back to the Camplex at around 11:15 am they still hadn't finished Round 1 of Standard so I figured it was going to be a very long day. I went back to the hotel room to dry out and try to get some work done only to receive a phone call an hour later from one of my teammates. They'd decided to run Team in between Rounds 1 & 2 of Standard. Huh, wuh, were they not running late enough already they had to somehow make things even more inefficient? Well, no matter, this is good news for me because it means I don't have to go back at 9:00 pm for my run which is when I was sure I'd have to go. To add to the drama, they'd been trying to reach me on my cell phone but Jonny had turned the ringer off unbeknownst to me so they finally called the land line in the hotel room. Doh. They had to show me how to turn the ringer back on but in my defense it took them a while to figure it out.

This Team Event had the 3 of us running all at the same time on different mini courses separated by curtains. There was a weaves and tunnels course, a contact and tunnels course and a tunnels only course. After assessing all our skills I took the tunnels only course. It was the most technical of the 3 because there isn't much to doing a tunnel correctly. It was a bit of a nasty course for Cody because there were many off course opportunities. It's tough to have him do a 180 degree turn when he's shooting out of a straight line of tunnels and there's another tunnel right in front of him. But he managed it with no problem other than a bit of a wide turn and we had a nice clean run. The class is scored by taking the time of the last person on the team that finishes and if you make a mistake on the course and don't go back and fix it you don't get any points for the run. I don't know which of us finished last but I heard clapping from the audience when I finished so maybe it was me or maybe 2 of us finished at the same time. One teammate said she had to redo part of the course so maybe we finished together. I noticed lots of the tunnellers dogs were finishing last on the other teams so maybe that course was longer or something. In any case it was a blast. It was great finishing up so early. This is the first night I'm not absolutely trashed. I think the break away from the Camplex this morning was good too. It's a nice facility but the arena is so dark and depressing. It doesn't have any natural light coming in like some of the other arenas I've competed at. No big deal but it's kind of depressing to spend the whole day in that mole hole for several days in a row.

I finally got Weds. Jumpers results and both dogs made time and Q'ed. They both placed middle of the pack-Lola was 26th out of 63 dogs and Cody was 31st. Our team was 13th out of 25 teams after yesterday's results. Still don't have my Tunnelers results from yesterday.

Tomorrow is Jumpers and another Team Event and probably more NADAC chaos. I can't wait to hear how late they end up running tonight. My guess is 9:00 pm min. but more likely 10:00 pm I think NADAC should change their motto to: 'Just Wing It'.

Three Fer

Ran all 3 runs clean today-yee ha. The Tunnelers course was super easy, just 9 tunnels and pretty flowing, not too many serious off course opportunities so it was perfect for Cody. Both dogs flew round with no problem. The Team event today was a relay but not like in USDAA where they use a baton. We had boxes marked out on the ground around the course that we had to stand in. When the first person did their part of the course and got in their box the second person could go and so on. I took the middle part of the course because it was best for Cody and he managed with no problem. The whole course was only jumps and tunnels which I thought was kind of weird. It was fun though and I think the only fault between the 3 of us was a knocked bar.

Lola's name has been quite the source of amusement with the gate stewards. I have to tell them her name when I go to the start line and they keep hearing me wrong (is that Kola with a K?) so I have to spell her name. I'm standing on the start line saying 'Lola, L-o-l-a, Lola' which of course causes the person to start singing. The best though was Lo's Tunnelers run today when the announcer starts singing 'Looooola, L-o-l-a, Loooooooola' over the loudspeaker while we were starting our run. It was all I could do to keep from busting a gut right in the middle of the run.

The only downside to all of this so far has been the complete disorganisation. There's no posted schedule so I have to go in at 7 am every morning to see what classes they're starting with. Yesterday I tried asking the person in charge of it all what order the classes were running in today and she said she didn't even know which classes were running then asked me what class I wanted to have run first. You would think it would be easy enough to set up a running order before the trial starts and that you would want to save yourself the headache of doing it during the trial. I'm not sure I'll be able to make it to Devil's Tower tomorrow even though I have only one run because I don't know when that run is likely to be. I still don't have my Jumpers results from yesterday, they were briefly posted at around 3 pm but they were wrong and hadn't been corrected when I left at 5:00 pm. I didn't get any results for today's run. Everything's computerized so I don't understand what the problem is. It seems like almost every class so far has had errors in the scoring. It's not a big deal but sheesh.

Where the Buffalo Roam

One of the cool beans things about the drive to Gillette was all the herds of antelope. The herd of buffalo was cool beans too. The massive amount of roadkill was not. I tried counting how many seconds from one dead animal to the next and the most I could get was 6 seconds. Average was more like 1-2.

I had some aggro with the Best Western over fridge/micro in the room and really I'm probably lucky I got a room at all seeing as how they overbooked. I made these reservations like 6 months ago, what is hard about this? It seems like every time I deal with hotels there's some problem. For once I'd like to just check in and get what I reserved without them claiming I don't have a reservation or giving me something other than what I reserved.

Gillette's not that bad really, there's a typical old fashioned type western style downtown area with very practical type stores, a refreshing change from Boulder's pretentious art galleries and snooty overpriced clothing boutiques. Now I wouldn't want to live here but I wouldn't call it an armpit either.

The Camplex facility where NADAC Champs are being held is pretty sweet. The parking lot is right next to the arena so I've been keeping the dogs in the car rather than the crating area so they can relax more easily and hopefully get some sleep. There are plenty of grassy areas for them to run, great for Lola who likes to play with her tennis ball for her after run reward.

One thing I'd forgotten about NADAC Champs is how disorganized it is. I was never sent a confirmation let alone any instructions about check in (there was none) or what order the classes will be in each day. So I got there for the first class walk throughs at 7 am only to find out it's a class I'm not in. There was a sheet up for volunteers that made it seem like the class running second wasn't one I was in either so I went back to the hotel room and planned to come back at noon, still plenty early for the third class of the day. However I got fed up in the hotel room and decided to go back and as I was leaving the room I decided to check my voice mail. I'm not a cell phone person and I'd forgotten to leave it turned on. There's a voice message from my teammate telling me that it's 9:45 and they're setting the Tunnelers course for the second event and I'm in Tunnelers. I look at my watch-11:15. Crap. I figure if I haul ass back to the Camplex (I'm only 7-8 minutes away) I might get lucky and make my jump height if they did the big dogs last. I won't get to walk the course but I can watch some others run and at least get to run-hopefully. I can't believe it, I've driven all this way (4:45 hours), took time off work, all the money on entry fees and hotels and I'm going to miss my runs. I have nightmares like this before almost every agility trial, why does it have to come true at Champs? I fly down the expressway which is eerily empty and sprint into the building only to find that they haven't even started watching yet. I'm relieved to find my teammate had said 9:45 instead of 10:45. The really stupid thing about this is that I left the Camplex at 9:40, if I'd been rational about it I'd have realized there was some mistake but I went right into panic mode instead. In any case, I was lucky she'd called because if I'd stopped for lunch as I was planning I would have missed my walk through. I calm down, walk the course, and sit around for 3 whole hours waiting for my turn, which lasts all of 39 seconds. But it was worth it. Miss Lo flew around the course to near perfection. I was a bit nervous walking up to the start line but what a rush it was running clean and getting a Q on our first Champs course. Cody's run didn't go as well even though I wasn't nervous for it. We had 2 off courses that were my fault but I still managed to make it feel pretty smooth and it was a blast. I was so proud of Cody, he's come so far when I think of where we started.

Then it was more waiting, 2 more hours until it was time for our Jumpers run. But once again it was well worth it. The course was fast and flowing, I was plenty calm and both dogs flew right around it, nice & clean. I'm not sure what our times were or what course time was. It's so inconsistent and tight in NADAC, esp. for the big dogs so I'm not sure if we made time and Q'ed and I'm sure we weren't fast enough for a placement in that huge class but I don't care (I'll have to wait until tomorrow to check my scores). It was such a thrill to be out there and have such great runs, that's good enough for me.

Tomorrow is the first round of the Team Event and second round of Tunnelers. Better get my beauty sleep.

All My Bags Are Packed

Finally finished packing up the car for NADAC Championships next week. I leave on Tues. afternoon but I want to go to masters tomorrow and I'll be too tired to deal with it when I finally get home. I'm not really nervous about it, I'm only entered in Jumpers, Tunnelers and the Team event and I'm going for fun and practice. I volunteered for a couple days when they were in Denver a few years ago and they were pretty laid back. Few to none of the really top agility people compete in NADAC Champs. and there is only one ring compared to 5 at USDAA Nationals. Part of the reason is that the woman who runs the organization has, in the past, designed the courses for champs. then competed on them herself and won. I don't know if she still does this but the judges that create the courses still do compete on them at Champs. and it's really untoward. I don't care because I'm not there gunning for first place but I can see why those at the top find it highly unethical and refuse to participate. In any case the absence of the top handlers makes for a pretty relaxed atmosphere and I'm hoping this will be good experience for Cody & Lola. USDAA Nationals will be a whole 'nuther animal so it will be good to get experience at a Championship event that isn't so high strung.

Cody and I are on a team called 'Rotten to the Core' with 2 other rescue dogs, Golden Retriever Chili who was our partner at the team event at USDAA Regionals and a big black hairy gorgeous mutt called Thor. This part should be pretty fun if I can figure out how the different events work. Lo's not on a team, I wasn't sure I could trust her in the ring with 2 other dogs when I signed up. Now I think she'd be o.k. but the closing date is long past and it's probably just as well I don't stress her out with it. She'll have plenty of fun in Jumpers and Tunnelers.

One of the other reasons I signed up for this is that Gillette, WY is 60 miles or so from the Devil's Tower National Monument, something I've wanted to see since I was a little kid. And yes, it's the weird mountain from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Dogs aren't allowed off leash in the park so I'll have to enjoy it from the car or if it's cool enough I'll leave the dogs in the car and have a short 20 minute hike. I think there's national forest that we can hike in in the surrounding areas.

I'm going to take my computer and try to provide updates. It seems I may have a lot of downtime and I'm probably going to take some stuff from work to work on. Gillette is supposed to be an armpit but we'll see. Ugh, I hate travelling so much but I usually have fun once I get where I'm going. It will be an adventure for sure.

Jump Around

Yesterday I decided that Strummer was finally ready to start jump training. He's around 17 months old so his growth plates should be closed or pretty darn near close. He's moving nice and smoothly these days, has nice muscle tone and has lost most of his awkward puppy galumphing (that's a technical term). His obedience and impulse control training are coming along well and he seems to be mentally ready.

Top handler Linda Mecklinberg has written a nice series of articles in Clean Run over the last 8 months or so and I've decided to try following her program. Both my other dogs started their jump training with a jump chute with 2-3 jumps set low. The dogs were led over the jumps on lead and/or called over the jumps from the other side of the chute. After that they went straight into sequences with little thought to any kind of foundation training. Actually it's not that I never thought about it with Lola (who was trained second), it's just that I didn't know what to do other than what I was shown in beginner classes. This time around I want to go more slowly and put more thought into it. In particular, I really want Strummer to understand cues for collection (ie shortening stride for a turn after a jump) and extension (jump big going in a straight line to take advantage of speed).

To start, I took one jump, set the bar at 12" high (really should've been 8" but my jump doesn't go that low) and stood facing it and perpendicular to it. The first time or 2 I lured Strummy over with a cookie (ie piece of kibble) but quickly he got the idea and was jumping back and forth on his own. Every time he jumped I clicked and gave him a cookie. I also gave him some squeaky verbal praise (Gooooood booooooy!) because he likes that. Then I progressed to sitting so I could reach in and reward him while he was still facing forward. Ideally I want him focusing on the jump and not looking at me for his cookie. Then I raised the bar 2" and started over from standing. Supposedly he should be able to get to competition jump height (which will be 22" or 26", I'm pretty sure he's right on the border) in one or two sessions. Since jumping from a standstill is pretty strenuous I decided to stop at 16". I probably could have raised the bar more quickly but I wanted to make sure I was getting plenty of confident, enthusiastic jumps before I raised it each time and by the time he was doing well at 16" he was panting and I thought that was enough for our first session.

We had a little play session with his tug toy then we moved on to weaves. I haven't worked them in a while but he remembered them and happily charged through the entry. We're ready for the next stage, I just have to read up on what that is.

Contact training was not as successful. I'm trying to shape a 2 on/2 off (rear legs on the obstacle, front legs on the ground) on a wood plank flat on the ground. He's so crazy and squirmy that he runs all over the board and even if he approximates what I want and I click, he's long lost the position by the time he gets his cookie and I want to reward him in position. We did get some successful reps with him being perpendicular to the plank in the correct position and even a few with him right at the end of the plank. Clearly this will take a while. At least he seems to understand his release command.

As for my own training I've decided to give the race next week a miss. After the hike on Monday I had some pain on my right leg, below and to the left of my bad knee that still hasn't gone away and is still sore to the touch. It's very isolated and I'm starting to fear a stress fracture. I know that sounds extreme and I'm probably overreacting-how could I possibly have gotten a stress fracture anyway? But so far every time I've suspected that something's been wrong I've been right. So for now I'm not going to do any running except for agility and I'm going to keep that to a minimum. The pain's not really bad unless I press on the bad spot and I don't want to go running to the doctor and messing with bone scans right now, I'm just so sick of doctor's offices. I'm hoping whatever it is is in an early enough stage that some simple rest will take care of it. I've got plenty of agility training that doesn't involve running to keep me busy for the next several weeks and I'm going to continue to go to masters and try to work in some cycling on the weekends.

Isabelle Glacier

Here are some photos from a hike we did over the long weekend in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area, about 45 minutes from Boulder. The photo on the left is Isabelle Glacier, the other shows part of the Continental Divide in the background. The trail starts out in woods around 9000 feet or so and eventually goes up to Pawnee Pass (over the Continental Divide). Lake Isabelle is about a third of the way up and is a beautiful area so we stopped for lunch. The trail gets steep, rocky and twisty as it winds it's way up to treeline, flattens out into some nice tundra for a wee bit and provides a nice view of the glacier, then climbs for another 45-60 minutes up some steep rocky switchbacks to the pass. We stopped at the tundra since I've been up to the pass a couple of times already and I was thinking it was enough for my knee.

The hike took just under 4 hours (previous longest hike was 3 hours up in Telluride) and was a bit too ambitious for me but I lived and though my bad knee got sore coming down I don't seem to have done any serious damage. I've still got an area on my shin below my knee that's sore to the touch but who knows what that's from. Part of the problem was that I went on my first real trail run (18 mins. on a steepy steep trail plus 16 mins. on a flattish trail) on Sat. which produced some sore quads then went a short (1 hour or so) but hardish bike ride on a local trail on Sun. before the hike on Mon. At least the stupid car crash injuries weren't bugging me and haven't for a few weeks now. Maybe I've finally got through the worst of that. Despite all this whining it was a beautiful hike on a perfect sunny, blue sky day.

Tonight was my first night back at masters in the indoor pool. Kind of a bummer, I love to swim outside. Roger was coaching and he helped me a bit with my stroke. I'm taking too long to breathe which is causing me to rotate too much to one side and throwing off my balance. I know this already but I'm not sure how to fix it. I tried taking quick breaths but this just seemed to exhaust me. Something I'll have to keep working on I guess. Roger suggested thinking about keeping my stroke symmetrical and this helped a bit though the advice is somewhat vague for my engineer brains. He's trying to get me to be not so analytical about it but I can't help the way my brain works.

I started a new agility class last night with Sandy teaching again. She's a great teacher and I'm sure my handling's improved quite a bit because of her. We worked on how to walk and analyze a course, walking the course from the dog's perspective then the human's. I do this already but she went into quite a bit more detail about setting handling points and figuring out how to work your way from point to point, an interesting way to look at things.

I thought the course was too easy but I still managed to make a couple of mistakes. I often take easy sequences for granted and get sloppy with my handling causing Lo to run by obstacles in confusion. Must remember to stay focused, even on the easy bits.

Strum is now 17 months old and ready to start jump and weave training but when will I find the time? Poor pup, he's so fast and motivated and I was looking forward to training a new dog but there are so few hours in the day. I'm leaving for NADAC Championships in WY in 2 weeks! Where did the time go? I'm only entered in Jumpers, Tunnelers and the Team event, it's mostly for fun and practice since it's only 5 1/2 hours away but I'm not taking Strum and this will be another week or so of missed training for him. Wish I could figure out a way to work part time and still keep my benefits. Stupid need for health insurance ruining all my fun. Whoops, posting after 9 pm again, must stop rambling now.

Dog Whisperer My Ass

Here's a link to an article on Cesar Millan, host of National Geographic's popular 'The Dog Whisperer' series Pack of Lies

I can't stand this guy and it's actually painful for me to watch some of the things he does. But people are attracted to quick fixes and his supposed magnetism (yeah, it takes a big macho man to drag a poor terrified pitbull down the street to prove to him who's boss). He has a long list of celebrity clients which is a bad sign in my mind. My favorite quote from the article: "Mr. Millan brings his pastiche of animal behaviorism and pop psychology into millions of homes a week. He’s a charming, one-man wrecking ball directed at 40 years of progress in understanding and shaping dog behavior and in developing nonpunitive, reward-based training programs, which have led to seeing each dog as an individual, to understand what motivates it, what frightens it and what its talents and limitations are."

I'm glad someone is finally calling him on his crap.