Lions and DOCNA and Bears

ETA: I fixed the links to the photos.

It was a busy holiday weekend and I took an extra day off since I hadn't taken any vacation days yet this year so I had 4 days of fun. There was hiking and biking and lots of dog walking and some agility and wildife and a bbq and the rest is all a blur.

Sunday was fun at a DOCNA trial for the trouble twins. I left Cody at home with Jonny and it made me sad but was probably the better thing for him and was definitely the better thing for my wallet. It's a 2 hour drive to this trial which is why I chose to do only 1 day of the 3 since I didn't want to pay for a hotel. It's a shame though because it's a nice facility, parking and crating are close to the ring and it's only a one ring trial so I could relax and not worry about conflicts. The judge had some nice courses and was so nice to deal with. The entry was small so she wasn't rushing us into the ring while the other dog was finishing so I was able to keep Strum relatively calm before his turn and go in after the other dog was finished. We got through 5 events by 2:00 pm so no I wasn't dragging out the day. In fact I was set up and ready to go several times before the 'Go' signal was given.

On paper our results look good. Both dogs Q'ed and took first place in their Jumpers and Standard classes. I left the ring 1 second early for Lola's Time Gamble and something like .38 secs too late for Strum's so we missed a Q in that class and those were all the classes I entered. However in reality Lola's Standard run was a mess of run-bys and I kept fixing them which I don't like to do and I'm not sure why I did. Her Time Gamble went o.k. but there was some weirdness to my handling because she didn't follow my plan and I had to make something up which sometimes doesn't end well. By the time she got to her Jumpers run she was stress sniffing on the start line, something I haven't seen in ages, so I started with her instead of leading out and had to alter my handling plan yet again and I got a bit lost for a moment but I got her through the course and it was a nice run. I hate seeing her stressed out though, even if it's only a little bit. I'd trade a crappy run with a Q for a nice smooth, happy, barking at me in joy run with an NQ any day. We have another trial next weekend and I'm going to remember not to mess with her on course if things go wrong.

Strum also had a not so pretty Standard run that was a Q but felt like it shouldn't have been. The highlight was his running dogwalk and A-frame. Both were things of beauty. However he hit the weave entry with too much speed and missed the 2nd gate, my forward motion was to blame. I should have stopped and let him find the entry then caught up to him since his weaves aren't yet independent. Then my lungs exploded after he exited the blue tunnel for the second time and my handling went right down the crapper. We held it together for the Q but ugh, not a very smooth run. Thanks to Greg we have video. It isn't pretty but oh well, he's just a baby and it was only his second standard run at a trial.



The worst part of the trial for him and me though was his A-frame during the Time Gamble. It was the first obstacle and he did his launch over the top and land at the very bottom of the frame thing which is frightening and not at all what I want him to do. When it happens in practice I always mark it very strongly with a no reward marker. This does seem to work because the reps I get after that are good in practice. I should have stopped him during the run, told him 'No way mister' and had him try again. Instead I kept right on trucking, I was so focused on the handling and getting ahead of him, he's so fast. It wasn't because I cared about the Q and in fact had I stopped and redone the obstacle it wouldn't have mattered because it's Gamblers so that wasn't why I kept going. I need to remember to reinforce my training in the ring and let the run go if I feel like I've lost the flow of the handling. I get so single mindedly focused sometimes, have to work on that.

His Jumpers run was awesome though, a wide turn but otherwise no problemo and he had the fastest time of the entire Starters class, all height/divisions. We pulled off some nice lateral sends and front crosses, even a rear cross-fun! No bars down in Jumpers or any of the other classes unless I didn't notice something go down in Time Gamblers. Perfect startline stays for all his runs too. Teeter in Standard could have been better, I've been letting his teeter slide lately. He behaved nicely for the most part at ringside and though he took a few glances at the ring when I had him off leash at the practice jump he chose to stay and work with me. I felt like he was calmer (relatively speaking) and more composed and focused then he was at his last trial so hopefully we're making some progress in that area.

Here's a great photo of Strum jumping with his tongue hanging out, what a goofus. And Miss Lola doing what she does best. Strummy's flying dogwalk. And looking like a kangaroo on the teeter.

One of the cool things about this trial is that you get toys for your Q's. The dogs loved getting new toys and we spent Memorial Day playing with them.

The girl with drive who don't take no jive.


All mine.



Strum did manage to get his paws on one.


Pleeeeeeeze throw it for me?? Pleeeeeeeeze??!!


As for the lions and bears. We went up to a friend's house for Memorial Day and she lives in the Foothills above Boulder, just 10 minutes up or so but still it feels like you're up there and beautiful views of the surrounding hills. They were even more beautiful because a storm was blowing through and low clouds settling in between the hills. I was going to bring my camera but changed my mind at the last second, didn' want to be bothered with photography during social hour. Yeah, I know, what an idiot. I felt even more so when the bear made his appearance. We were sitting in the living room in front of a roaring fire listening to my friend's tales of the wildlife she's run into living in this house including a mother bear and cubs coming right up to the living room window. Next thing I know I see a bear come up near the window and I'm on my feet pointing and yelling and nearly peeing my pants 'Bear!!!! Bear!!! There's a baby bear!!!' It was a yearling actually but still very cute. He made his way around the house and we all followed him from room to room, some of us running downstairs, some of us staying up and everyone running when someone yelled 'There he is!'. We had to yell to scare him away a couple of times, once when he went in the garbage can (it was empty) and once when he started licking the grill (food was all inside but we left the grill out to cool and forgot about it). It's no good for the bears if they get used to people. Eventually he disappeared when he realized we weren't going to let him get anything good. We told our friend we expect to see a bear everytime now when we come to visit.

Then the next day I noticed a Division of Wildife truck cruising my neighborhood. He parked in front of my house and hung out for awhile which made me suspicious. I went out and asked him if something was loose in the neighborhood and he said a mountain lion had attacked a goat last night and headed back towards the hills right through the neighborhood. He was listening for radio signals in case the cat had a transmitter collar. The goat attack was maybe 1/2 mile from my house (goat was o.k., Great Pyrenees dog chased the cat up a tree). Hard to say but it's likely the cat ran up a drainage ditch that runs just 2-3 houses away to get back to the mountains. I'm worried he may come back now that he knows about the goats (there are tons of babies) or maybe he'll come back for wee Lambchops who lives only 2 blocks away. I've been looking in the yard and up in the trees and calling 'Here kitty kitty' first before I let the dogs out in the yard. There are so many deer in the neighborhood in addition to everyone's dogs and livestock it must be so tempting for the cats to come into town. There are a lot of foxes about too, I saw 3 yesterday in the space of a few hours. Not sure if the cats eat them though. I'm always on the lookout for mountain lions but we've never had one come so close before. Much as I'd like to see one from the comfort of my living room I'm hoping he'll stay in the mountains where it's safer for everybody involved.

Cheery thought for a Sunday morning

'Soon we won't have any music by people who are alive' said Jonny this a.m. as he played a J. Church record (singer died of some autoimmune disease or something). This made me feel old and sad.

On a lighter note, Strum redeemed himself at the NADAC trial yesterday. 2/2 for Q's in Novice Weavers and Jumpers with a 3rd and 1st place respectively. Best of all he was so well behaved and relaxed and excited (but not crazy foaming at the mouth excited). Totally focused for his runs and flying full tilt around the courses and feeling a little bit less like a baby dog. I'll post a full report later. We go back this afternoon for Tunnelers and another round of Jumpers. I'm so hoping he'll be as well behaved today.

Who was zee sexiest collie at zee agility trial?

DOCNA Trial

A great weekend all around-fun trial, great judge (Ann McQuillen, same as we had at DOCNA Champs), nice fast fun courses with some good challenges, all the dogs did great and had fun as well.

Strum did awesome for his second trial. He was well behaved, no lunging or barking fits, was good in his crate except for barking when I'd leave him behind, especially when I left to run another dog. He only ran in Traditional Gamblers, 2 rounds of Jumpers and the Strategic Time Gamble which I'm still getting the hang of. His jumpers runs are on the video, both were nice but with little glitches that cost us a Q but wow, I thought he did a nice job for his second trial. The first run fell victim to some poor handling on my part and the second run shoulda been but he got distracted by something outside the ring, maybe the next dog stepping in the ring to the line, and pulled off a jump for just long enough to cause a run-by then a back jump. His jumping at the end of that second run was awful, jumping WAY too early and I'm sure it's because he spotted the next dog stepping to the line. You can see his ears and tail go up for the last 2-3 jumps. We'll have to work on those distractions for sure and some jumping exercises. I've been focusing so much on contacts and weaves that I've been neglecting the jumping.

I knew his Traditional Gamblers run would be a no Q since the A-frame was in the gamble so I didn't worry about timing it to hit the gamble and picked a course to work on weaves, teeter and some handling. Again, he did a nice job, only got 2/4 of his weaves (popped out once and missed an entry I think), had a nice teeter, was listening for the most part but seemed a little distracted at some points. It went by so quickly, I can barely remember what happened. He did a send to the tunnel for the gamble then I called him to me and we bypassed the frame on our way out of the ring.

He saved the best run for last with the Strategic Time Gamble. I picked a course with a million tunnels and I'm not sure why I thought sending him through all those particle accelerators was a good plan but somehow I managed to keep up without having to break out the defibrillator. He hit all his weaves, beautiful teeters, so fast, 9 zillion points, at one point I said to the judge 'will the whistle ever blow?' because he finished all the stuff I had planned and I had to keep adding more so I wouldn't finish too early. You have a 30 second opening then a 15 second closing and you have to leave the ring in a certain window of time, 2.5 seconds I think? We got out in time so he got his first DOCNA Q. Even though we had the most points we finished quite low in the rankings (6th or 7th I think) because what's most important is how close you finish to 45 seconds, then points count next. Or something, I don't quite understand the scoring. The winners were all 44:xx and we were 43:xx because I ran out of obstacles too soon. I didn't care though, what a gorgeous run and lots of people telling us how amazing afterward, even people I didn't know.

This was a welcome change from all the zillions of people, including the judge, telling me how much fun Cody was having during his Traditional Gamblers run. Uh, yeah, not so much fun for me. Probably the less said the better. He redeemed himself with 2 nice standard runs though, both Q's. I've got the second one on the video, could end up being his last run in a trial. Yeah, I know, lots of big loopy turns but I was pleased with him anyway. I thought he looked good for 10 1/2 years old but still I think maybe it's time. He looked so slow compared to how he used to run and I worry about him.

Lola had a blast in her runs on Sunday. The courses were perfect for her and she had a chance to stretch out those long legs and RUN. She ended up with Q's in Strategic Time Gamble and one of her Standard runs and missed a Q in the second Standard run with a missed A-frame contact but otherwise such a nice run and she looked so happy. Love it when my girl is kicking up her heels and barking at me with joy, couldn't ask for anything more.

Strummer's First Trial

First off can I say what an awesome husband I have? He came to the trial at 2:00 to videotape us and cheer us on. We didn't have our Tunnelers run until around 4:40 and our Jumpers run was at 6:40. Now he likes watching agility and was especially keen to see Strummer's debut but he doesn't love it that much that he wants to sit around for over 4 1/2 hours to watch less than a minute of Strummer in the ring, especially when they turned the heat off at 5:00 and it got so cold he was shivering and he had hardly eaten all day, etc. Heck, I don't love agility that much either.

The highlight of the trial for me was Strummer's behavior. I worked so hard on that and yesterday it paid off. He had absolutely no problems around the crowds of other dogs, had wonderful focus on me, no lunging at the dogs in the ring, nothing even approaching an outburst, what an awesome boy when I think about how far he's come. I realized I need to teach him a few more tricks and improve on the ones I've already taught him so he has more to do while he's warming up and waiting his turn.

His first run was Tunnelers and it was a bit wild. He had a zillion run-bys, not entirely sure why. On the one hand you could argue that we never practice a whole course of just tunnels so maybe he was confused but I can't shake the feeling that maybe it was something with my handling. I was mad at myself afterwards for having him go back and redo every tunnel that he missed. My plan, as it always is, was to keep going if he missed a tunnel, not sure what gremlins took my brains hostage and made me do otherwise. Honestly I could care less about a novice tunnelers Q. I'm not sure how much NADAC we'll end up doing anyway, I only signed up for this trial because it was 20 minutes from my house at the arena where Strum takes classes and goes to practice run-throughs so I thought it would be a great opportunity for him to get some trial experience. And it was.



After that crazy Tunnelers run I was determined we were going to do better in Jumpers. The course was easy, no side changes for the way I chose to handle it and only one trap. He had a beautiful fast run and I had a stupid timing error with my handling, pulling him off a jump. At least I was early with my cue and not late but in essence I ended up calling him off a jump he was supposed to take. Poor guy did it too, he's such a good boy. I felt terrible about confusing him. Highlight of the run was his recall to heel on a 3 jump lead out. We've practiced this a zillion times with 1 or 2 jumps but not so much with 3. He collected perfectly and had a nice turn. What a nice startline stay too, I was most nervous about that. He broke his stay at the warm-up jump a couple of times which was unusual, I think I've been careless about pairing too much motion with my arm and his verbal release. He was solid in the ring for both runs but I'll have to proof that stay a bit more so there's no confusion in his mind.

I thought his jumping looked nice for a baby dog, no ticked or knocked bars and nice take-off and landing points for most of the jumps. Still I think I need to work more jumping drills. I've been slacking off of those lately because of the focus on weave pole training. I hate to work him on too many strenuous things at once.

I didn't hang around to find out what his placement was but even with the 4 seconds lost to the refusal he was 6 seconds under course time. Technically it was a Q because NADAC doesn't charge refusals but again I don't care all that much and it didn't feel like it should have been one. Didn't even think to pick up his Q ribbon. Jonny thought I should have since it was his first but oh well. It would have ended up lost in a pile somewhere anyway.



Poor guy was exhausted when we finally got home. I'd taken him and Cody for a 3 mile walk/run in the morning before the trial. I left him in the car rather than bother with a crate inside where it was noisy and crowded but I have no idea how much he rested. He seemed calm enough when I went to get him out of the car but who knows if he slept any.




Can't wait for our next trial, he's a kick in the pants to run. I signed him up for a DOCNA trial at the same venue in February. Not sure if his contacts will be ready for the ring but I figure we can run past them if we have to. I'm more interested in getting some ring experience at this point and I want to take advantage of the opportunity to do it at a laid back one ring trial on his home turf.