Last practices before DOCNA Champs

My awesome trigility team

We have t-shirts and everything.  For once I'm actually looking forward to trigility.

My focus over the past few weeks has been proofing weave poles and handling turns, especially 180 flips to a tunnel, off the dogwalk/A-frame.  I've been trying to get Strum out to different places with other high drive dogs working and to that end Morganne kindly invited us out to her digs last week.  Strummer was remarkably calm for being in a completely new place and working with a very high drive dog so either he's finally starting to calm down and learn how to work in exciting conditions or for some reason the environment wasn't as challenging as I thought it was and he was simply having a good day.  We worked on some challenging handling exercises, you can see them here.  We did exercises 5 and 6 with 5 being the harder of the 2 for me.  Lots of sending to backs of jumps.  I struggled with the #3-#6 jumps because that's not something I practice all that often but using deceleration from #4 to #5 was the key.  Seems lately that deceleration is the key to everything and I need to remember to take better advantage of it.  #7 to #13 was interesting as well, I was sure I'd get a front cross in between #9 and #10 but while running it I couldn't quite pull of the front but found that a rear worked perfectly anyway.  I did get a front in between #12 and #13 though.  Exercise #6 was easier for me and the only issue, aside from forgetting the course and running it wrong the first time, was a wide turn from #10 to #11.  Calling his name while he was in the tunnel tightened that up no problem.  I also worked some short weave sequences at the start of the practice session while he was fresh and Strum was near perfect, even with having to run towards a barking dog and make a turn to get the weave entry then weaving into a wall.  I didn't drill him too much and I think he got all but one entry.  Very encouraging.

Last night was mayhem agility with my other training partner and her high drive, barking dogs.  It was noisy.  So noisy that a neighbor started complaining.  And Strummer was perfect, not a single bark or lunge out of him the entire night and the course was built out to the extents of the yard so we were standing very close to the action.  He was a little wound for the first run and he kept dashing behind me at the first few jumps which were very far apart.  That sort of thing is rare but something he does it every once in a while when he's wound up and unsure of what I want.  I did a call to heel in extension at the start line, held back a bit instead of  trying to race ahead and made sure I was clear about where we were going and he finally settled down and ran it properly.   I have a bad habit of not using verbal obstacle names with him and assuming he knows where we're going like he's a masters dog or something and I don't support things and much as I should for him.  I'm always in such a rush to get ahead and it's not always necessary and sometimes counterproductive.

We had lots of difficult weave entries and he did so well, I couldn't believe it.  My training partner noticed a huge difference as well.  I'm hopeful this will transfer to the ring. 

The 180 turns off the contacts to tunnels seem to be a mixed bag these days.  For a while at the start of the training it seemed like he had it on a verbal and was fairly solid.  But now results are mixed.  I had a few practices out at the practice field where he seemed like he had it by the end of the sessions.  Then yesterday I remembered I had a practice tunnel and decided to try some turns off my table/plank set-up and he clearly had no clue.  I'm going to try a few quick sessions today but clearly I can't expect to see perfection in the ring this weekend.  Strange thing is he has a fairly high success rate in the ring.  Hopefully it'll all come back to him this weekend when he's in the ring.

As far as goals for Champs go I'm not too sure what to expect.  He's only had a couple of runs in masters in a trial so even though he can easily handle the masters courses in practice he hasn't had much experience in the ring with them.  I'd love to make the finals in at least one of the events (jumpers or standard) but that may be a stretch goal given our lack of trial experience at this level.  I could have intentionally kept him back at the lower level (intern) but at this point in our training I'd rather have the challenge of a masters course even if it means our chances for a ribbon or running in the finals are lower.  As far as reachable goals, I'd love to see him get his weave entries on the first try and I'd love to see me handling in a calm, clear fashion.  Deceleration, deceleration, deceleration.  And using my words.  Calling his name while he's in a tunnel when appropriate, calling out obstacle names, calling out 'Jump' when my motion doesn't support it (that was something Daisy Peel pointed out at her seminar).  No crazy flying arms unless I'm trying to send him way out somewhere.  Holding back and supporting jumps where it's appropriate rather than racing ahead.  I'll try to drill this all into my head while I'm driving to Grand Junction.

I'm looking forward to the trial, I had a great time at DOCNA Champs 2 years ago and I'm thrilled to be back again.  It'll be bittersweet for me though because I won't be running Lola.  I had really really hoped she'd at least make it to DOCNA Champs again before I had to retire her but it wasn't meant to be.  She seems to be doing fine as far as her possible ACL tears in her rear knees are going.  After the laser treatments and rest/rehab her P.T. noticed a large reduction in Lola's pain response in her knees when she does the little test they do.  But any twisting/turning motion in those knees is bad for her and could make the tear worse (if there is a tear) or possibly cause a tear for real that would require surgery.  So even though she has no obvious signs of lameness and I'm sure she'd run fine if I let her I can't take the risk.  She's done with agility and hopefully this will mean she'll stay sound well into her senior years.

I'll try to post updates while I'm at Champs depending on internet connections and my energy level.

Sweet sweet singletrack

What a beautific sight that dry as a bone trail.  Finally went out on my mountain bike for the first time since maybe November.  Felt so good to hit the trails, I could hardly contain myself.  Took Strum for an off leash run on this same trail yesterday but it was hardly the same as flying down it on my bike.  I can't believe how lucky I am to have these trails right out my back door.  I went out for an 'easy' 2 hour ride and was trashed by the time I got home.  I'm in really good shape in the pool but not so much on the bike and let's say we forget about the running right here right now.  Not sure what I'm going to do about racing triathlons this summer.  Don't want to spend the money on it mostly.

Further up the hill

Looking back downhill at some last remaining snow bits.

It was 35 degrees and cloudy this morning, perfect agility weather, so I took Strum to the field first thing in the morning and had the place to myself.  Weave pole training went great, dogwalk not so much for the reps without the treat gizmo, good (1 miss I think) for the reps with the gizmo.  Sigh.  I hate using props, such a pain to fade them.  Without the gizmo to focus on Strum comes flying at me from about 1/2 way down the board.  Doesn't even leap forward, leaps straight for me with much glee and enthusiasm.  I'm going to go back to using a jump then the gizmo.  Worked on a little lateral send into a serpentine excercise from the Jenn Crank seminar.  We see a lot of serps in DOCNA so it's good to work on those.  I have a habit of turning into the dog on the middle jump of the serp and I'm focusing on running straight and having him come into my hand so I don't have to slow down and get behind.  We're getting better with it.

Splurged on a 23" widescreen monitor and a proper desk chair.  My back finally gave in today, I can't do any more computer work at the dining room table on my laptop.  I'll be getting a new computer too.  My laptop is from 2002 and starting to sputter.  It doesn't have a high enough resolution to support the new monitor despite what the guy in the store said and I need the big monitor for drafting work.  It's amazing what you can get for not a whole lot of money compared to what I have right now.  My laptop has 30 GB of memory and the new ones have a terabyte (1000 GB for those of you who are as out of it as I am) which I'd never even heard of.  I thought my 179 GB external hard drive had an insane amount of memory.  Crazy.  I won't have to keep deleting my photos off the computer once I get them on the external hard drive and I don't have to hook up the hard drive every time I want to process videos.  It's all an unwelcome expense at the moment but I'll be getting some contract work and I need a decent office set up to be productive and not destroy my back and neck.  Guess I'm finally entering the modern age.

Extreme Agility DOCNA Style

I'm staring down a line of 2 jumps at Strummer sitting there ever so peacefully on the start line. A nice sunny day in the beautiful grassy park playing with my best little buddy, what could be better? I release him off and he explodes off the start line, a roaring freight train heading straight for me. 'Holeee Sheeet' is the first thought my brain has. The second is 'uh, guess I better move. And quick if I'm going to pull off that front cross.' I'm not entirely sure what happens after that. Oh, I have it all planned out, a front cross here, some deceleration there, a lateral send and another front cross, crazy mad acceleration (ie, run like hell) down the straight line of 4 jumps to the finish line and no crazy arms waving up in the air like I'm having a seizure. What happens is a blur of black and white fur flying around the entire course in full extension. On paper it doesn't look so bad-only 5 faults for a dropped bar and well under time despite running probably twice the yardage of the actual course, but I'm sure it was not a pretty picture to watch. Was I really that late with my cues or did Strum's brain leave the building at the end of a long day? Maybe a bit of both. Or likely a lot of the former with a little bit of the latter. No video of that fiasco. I wish I had some so I could see what happened but I'm also sorta glad I don't. Denial is a powerful thing.

I should have left after Gamblers first thing in the morning. Beautiful run, hit all his contacts including a flip away off the dogwalk into a tunnel and ditto for the A-frame (twice!). Almost got the gamble but for the last jump but an otherwise beautiful, fast, focused run. Yes, we are a team.

Not so fast. We then have 2 standard runs, the first of which is mayhem on wheels and the second of which is not too bad except for the small problems of the missed dogwalk AND A-frame and my crapporific handling. Overall he was 3/5 for his dogwalk, 4/5 for his A-frame and one of the those A-frame hits was very close. To be fair there was thunder and lightning going on for those Standard runs, esp. the one where he missed the contacts. In retrospect I'm amazed he ran at all. The lightning was visible but the thunder was in the distance but still, I'm guessing maybe he was a bit more wound up than usual. Or maybe that's a convenient excuse. More denial anyone? And yes I know it's very dangerous to be out in the lightning. It was a small front blowing through, one of those freaky things where the sky is blue, sun is shining and there is a small, isolated storm in the distance. It's a fact of life here in Colorado. I got caught on the edge of a sudden freak thunderstorm last night about a mile from my house. I don't intentionally mess around with lightning but sometimes it happens without warning.

Strummer's Standard Runs



Watching that video I realize that what I thought I was doing is not at all what I actually did in many places. I should have put in a front cross after the teeter in that first run instead of attempting that rear cross 2 jumps later. And what was with the late shoulder pull in the second run? I don't do that any more, that was supposed to be another move entirely. Sigh, poor Strum.

[On an unrelated note I finally figured out how to upload video so that it looks a lot nicer. Unfortunately I have to use YouTube which limits my music choices and the settings were so high it took for freaking ever but the end result looks a lot nicer than what I was getting before.]

Next up is the North American Challenge (NAC) which is similar to USDAA's Grand Prix. In order to qualify for DOCNA Championships you need only one run of the NAC with 12 or fewer faults. It's pretty easy to qualify for DOCNA Champs. but only if your dog's head is full of brains and not crazy rabid flying squirrels. It also helps if the dog's handler is calm and focused and giving timely cues and not flying about in a panic while waving arms in the air in seizure mode. Given that the NAC is a longer, more challenging course than Starters Standard and given how those 2 Standard runs turned out I'm not entertaining delusions of qualifying. But as it turns out the sky is clear of storms, Strum's brain is clear of squirrels and I somehow manage to keep it together for 20 obstacles and two, count 'em TWO, dogwalks with only a wrap jump between. Strum missed the first dogwalk but hit the second one which was another 180 turn away to a tunnel. He also skipped some poles in the weaves and I had to restart him. Twice. Otherwise though it was a fantastic run and a Q with only the 5 faults for the dogwalk, 5.30 yps even with the lost time to the weave restarts. This was the fastest time of all levels/heights and there were a few other fast dogs there. I'm not trying to be braggy here, I'm just saying I've got my hands full. But yay for that run, we are a team again. We even have people tell us what a nice run and what a nice job Strum is doing. Good thing they were probably gone for that Jumpers run and obviously didn't see the Standard runs.

So overall it was a day of extremes. I'm guessing it's going to be like that for us as I get used to handling such a fast dog and he gets used to handling the pressures and distractions of the competition ring. I was frustrated with myself since I felt I wasn't handling as well as I could yet I was trying to be focused and not fall into my bad habits. Did you see those flailing arms in the video? What is my problem? How many times does Joy have to point it out to me? I was hoping to focus on that one little thing for this trial yet somehow I can't help myself. Though I suppose I was otherwise distracted with trying to keep up with Mr. Pants On Fire.

We went out to the practice field this morning and I felt much better about things. Dogwalks were nearly perfect, 1 close miss out of 10-12 reps or so and I'm coming along with fading the gizmo. He wasn't even stopping at it by the last rep or two. Weaves were great too, no popping out. I think he was so overexcited at the trial that he hit the poles with too much speed and couldn't hold his rhythm by the middle of the set.

Our next trial is USDAA this weekend in Laramie, WY. Strum gets his CMJ measurement and hopefully it'll be his last. He has 3 measurements just under 21" so I'm hoping upon hope that the CMJ will also measure him under 21" so he can run in Championship. I think if he doesn't I can try for more CMJ's, not sure how that works and I'm not worrying about it unless it comes to it. I entered him in Performance for this trial though just in case since I don't want him jumping 26". If he ends up ultimately measuring into the 26" class I'm not sure how much USDAA I'll do with him since that means he'll have to be in Performance which also means when he's old there's no vet class for him which is the problem I have with my current dogs. Not sure I want to go through all that again.

I love this trial, it's one of my favorites and I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully the crazy rabid squirrels will stay away from Strummer's brain and I can keep my arms out of the sky and maybe not be so late with my cues.

Strummer's last winter class

Mr. 'I Was Born Ready' at your service


Strum had his last class for the winter at Boulder County Fairgrounds last night and it went better than expected. After his craziness at the fun match which was also at BCF I decided to break out his Gentle Leader. It's been a year or 2 since he's used it and it felt like a bit of a backslide having to use it since he's been doing so well without it but his barking and lunging at dogs in the ring have been on the increase despite my best efforts so I needed to do something. This turned out to be a great decision-he was a completely different dog. Oh he tried to lunge but as soon as he figured out he couldn't get anywhere he knocked it off for the most part and tried other things like lying down and offering his tricks to get attention when he felt himself getting out of control. Hurray for that, I was much more relaxed in class and able to focus on the lesson plus I had a lot more instances where I could reward him for watching the other dogs calmly. Hopefully this will turn him around and send his behavior back in the right direction. I'm going to bring the Gentle Leader with to his trial this weekend just in case but I won't use it unless I think he absolutely needs it. I think the distractions at the trial won't be nearly as bad as what he endures in class and he was fine without it at his first trial.

His jumping was much improved, he was collecting at long last though not as much as I would have liked in some places. He had trouble collecting for one handling manuever that he was doing no problem on Sat. and I believe it was mostly because he was distracted by the other dogs and the other ring and a dog even wandered onto our course right where he landed after a jump at one point. But I had him keep trying until he finally got it right. The distractions are Strum's biggest challenge right now so I was happy for the opportunity to work through them. He even did weaves consistently and got his entries at speed for me in class which was a first though the entries were easy.

Our instructor promised us a surprise for the last half of class and when I saw the Snooker flags come out I got all excited. I love Snooker, I know, it's not right but I do. I was the only one happy to see them though. Only one other person even knew how to play and she wasn't all that excited by the prospect though she's amazing at it. The only bad part was that just like regular Snooker we got whistled off the course at the first screw up and of course Strummy's very first ever Snooker run turned out to be a zero as he took a colored jump on the way to the first red. We got another shot at it after a rotation through the class and that time he made it through to the end though it wasn't pretty and I wished I could have gone back and worked through the rough patches. Technically we should have been whistled off about halfway through when Strum ran through the middle of the weave poles but my instructor must have felt bad for me and let me finish. He's going to be a USDAA judge and our class course will be one of his Snooker courses. If you happen to show under him and you get this course, woe to you because it was hard, one of the hardest I've seen for a while. We tried to convince him to make it easier by making the #7 threadle bidirectional in the opening but he didn't seem for it.

Dogwalk Practice
This morning I started working Strum on turns on the backyard set-up (4' table w/ plank). Silvia Trkman has a section on her website on turns but unfortunately I can't link directly to it. You can go here then click on 'our training' then click on the running contacts link then sift through the article. Anyway, she uses a jump and rotates it around the clock at the end of the dogwalk like you would for weave pole entries. She also puts a vertical piece of PVC pipe at the side of the end of the dogwalk so the dog has something to turn around. I don't have room in my yard for a jump so instead I moved the treat gizmo in an arc around the end of the dogwalk. Also I couldn't get a piece of PVC into the solid ground so I used a piece of 4x4 I had laying around and propped it up with a flower pot. This is probably harder to fade than the PVC but it's the best compromise at the moment. I hate using props in general but in this case I thought I'd give it a try because I don't want to lose the running contact. He ended up 10/10, no problem. The farthest I moved the gizmo was maybe 2:00 along the arc and it was 10' or so off the end of the plank so the worst case turn was not extreme at all. In the next few days I'll step it up a bit. Trouble is that my yard is too small, I'm going to have to get creative with the set-up and maybe only practice turns in one direction for a few days then move the set-up and switch directions. Once he's more solid on the full dogwalk at the practice field I'll start with turns out there and use a jump. I'm also going to start with distractions in the yard and fading the gizmo. Fun fun fun.