Gone

RIP Strummer, March 2005 - June 24, 2016

Had to say goodbye to my bestest buddy a week and a half ago.  Came up limping on 3 legs the Sunday morning after Xterra Lory, diagnosed with an inoperable tumor Monday night and gone on Friday.  There was a slim chance the tumor was an abscess so we'd been giving him antibiotics and pain killers since the vet assured us he was in pain though aside from not wanting to bear weight on the bad leg he seemed his perfectly normal self.  Tearing around the house and yard, barking, playing with his toys and the garden hose, full of himself, pure Strummer.  Then Thursday night his leg looked bigger and by Friday morning his leg started to explode in size, a big new lump around his hock, obviously not an abscess.  Still his crazy self though.  We'd been torturing ourselves all week over what to do.  He didn't seem in pain despite what the vet said but who can say with a dog like Strummer.  But after his leg blew up so quickly on Friday the decision was obvious.  Difficult, heart breaking but obvious.

Could not even bring myself to write about it until now.  Not that this is easy.

This photo came up as a memory to share on my Facebook the other day.

I hate Facebook.  Been avoiding it more than usual partly for this very reason.  Had to tell people about Strummer though, did not want to explain it over and over.  Not even really happy about writing about it now but I have to put something here.

What to say, what photos to post?  The task is overwhelming.  The whole story of his life with me is in this blog.  How to whittle it down to a single post?  Impossible.

The very last photo I took of him is in the post below, having his morning nap in the sun with Ruby on May 25, a crappy cell phone picture.  This photo below was taken 2 days prior with my point and shoot.  Not very interesting but I can't bring myself to pour through all the zillions of photos, not right now anyway.

He was such a force of nature, we were sure he'd live to 15, the only questions was whether he'd live to 16 or 17.  As such he'd been a bit neglected with Lola approaching 16 and having a noticeable decline in mobility and Ruby being a new dog and then having surgery, Strummer was being pushed to the background a bit and I'd been making efforts here and there to have time for him.  I'd been making plans for stuff to do with him this summer post agility career.  It turned out we never even had a final trip to the Rez for swimming, one of his favorite things aside from agility.  At least he was his crazy self right up until the end.  I suppose that's something.  But I'll never again name a dog after a punk rock icon who passed away suddenly, tragically and way too early while he was still putting out some of his best work.

Strummah

I've not written about the wee Strum man for ages. We've been taking private lessons with Joy all summer, just handling stuff on jumps and tunnels and a little bit of work on weave entries. These lessons are mostly for me, I need a lot of help with my handling. I think my main problem these days is that I get all in a panic while I'm running Strummer since he's so freaking fast, I forget to think about where I'm running or how fast I'm approaching an obstacle and where exactly the crazy rocket dog zoomed off to on course. Joy had to put a bar on the ground last week to keep me from running to close to a jump. I'm getting better about keeping my arm up all the time and the flailing is getting better but I still revert back to the old habits now and then. So much to think about all at once while running and trying to keep an eye on a black and white poof of smoke. He's like those cartoons where one moment there's a dog there and the next just a puff of smoke in the shape of a dog.

I set my sights on a Feb. DOCNA trial for his first trial just so I have a goal to shoot for, otherwise I'll mosey along forever with his training. Then I thought what the hey, let's embrace the madness and enter him in a NADAC trial in December. Just Jumpers and Tunnelers. Just to see what will happen. I know, I'm nauseous about it already. Both trials are one ring at an indoor arena less than 20 minutes from home. Also, they have drop-in courses set up once a week so I can practice there well before the trials. Also I'm seeing about getting him in his first group class there but we'll see. I sent an email to the instructor that basically said 'hi, my dog doesn't know all the obstacles and is a bit crazy, can we be in your class?' How could he refuse? Actually I know the guy and he knows Strummer so we'll see what he says. These classes are at the same place as the drop-ins and trials so it will also be great practice for him. We were splitting some of our lessons with Joy with one other dog and that went great so I'm hoping he's finally ready for a class. Got to start somewhere.

Weaves are oh so close. He's still having problems collecting when he's excited and he either misses the entry or gets the entry but skips the second pole. I finally got him up to weaving 12 straight poles but he has to be in a sit right in front of them with me standing at the very end of them facing him.

His contacts are doing great, we're up to a 16" table at Biscuit Eaters and a 12" table at home. The plank at B.E. is a proper sturdy dogwalk plank with slats and the one I have at home is just a 1x12 with no slats and it's not nearly as sturdy. I'm going to see about reinforcing it a bit this weekend and maybe making another plank so he can run up and over the table then down the second plank like a mini-dogwalk. I don't have room in my yard for a full size and probably only barely have room for what I'm proposing. Maybe the up ramp will have to be short. He's at 80-90% accuracy so it's time to move up the heights. Sylvia Trkman recommends moving up at 2"-4" intervals and I discovered that 4" so too much of a jump so I'll need to cut some more table legs this weekend. I was reading a training journal where the person was increasing in 1/2" increments but that's too much sawing for me I'm afraid. She was using a different sort of setup too so I'm not sure it's a fair comparison. We'll see how it goes at 2", hopefully I won't have to go to 1". I'm hoping to start him on a low dogwalk in 4-6 weeks depending on how things go. His teeter needs some work too. He does it no problem but he's not stopping at the bottom. He's not flying off either but I'd like a stop so I'm working with him on a very low teeter for now. He won't focus forward and I think I may experiment with using the treat gizmo.

So much to learn for a crazy little border collie. I'm giving Team Old School a bit of a break from agility to focus on the Strum man. Hopefully I can finally get him up and running.

Driving Lessons

Do the Hustle


Strum had his second agility lesson on Weds. night. This time the whole hour went to him partly because storms were possible and Lola hates thunder but also because it's something of a challenge to have 2 dogs at work when one of those dogs is Strummer.

The Trouble Twins


They're not that bad but one is so much easier and of course on the very rare occasion that they do decide to misbehave at the same time it's in front of a client or my boss or, if I'm really lucky, both. I was really lucky last week so decided to keep it to one dog this week. An hour turned out to be too long of a lesson for him so I'll be back to twofers next week or maybe I'll find someone to split my lesson with. I think Strum's ready to start working with one other dog in the field.

We started out with what should have been a simple jumping lesson-a gentle arc of 5 or 6 jumps heading into a tunnel. The jumps started out with one slightly staggered then the amount of stagger would increase. The idea was to teach Strum to look for jumps. First off, Strum has never worked with more than 3 jumps at a time or more than 2 in a row so this was way more difficult than I thought it would be. We started off with just 2 or 3 jumps then increased by a jump each rep. First Strum didn't want to send to the tunnel, something I know about and have been working on. I have to run right up to the tunnel entrance. Joy gave me some good tips on how to work on this and we've been practising but not a whole lot. Then when we got up to 4 jumps or so he would jump then look at me and miss the next jump, running right by it. Or he'd take 2 jumps then run by the 3rd. Part of the problem was that I was running right next to the jump standards, crowding and confusing him and of course drawing even more attention to myself. I finally managed to convince mysslf to run a fair distance out from the jumps but he was still missing them. It took a lot of reps and a lot of running (oh poor knee) before we finally got it. Let us not even discuss how fast Strum is. I thought Lola was a little red rocket dog (she's slowed a lot now that she's older) but this guy needs a 20 year old with good reflexes to run him, not an old lady with bad feet and gimpy knees. I think maybe my next dog will be a Bassett Hound.

We worked a bit on the teeter. Strum can do a full height teeter now but I'm having trouble fading the liver paste at the end of the teeter. If there's nothing there then he does any number of things but none of which is correct, ie stop at the end with all 4 feet on and wait for release. After trying many things with a low teeter Joy had the idea of teaching him a verbal for his stop at the end and keep with the liver paste until he starts to learn the word because that's the best way to get him to stop in the perfect position. Once he's got a word it will be easier to fade the paste because I can tell him what he needs to do. Shaping this with a board on the ground would be too confusing for him because of the running contact work we're doing already with a board on the ground.

As far as the weaves go, Strum can easily weave 6 poles with the channels closed and we've been working on entries. I've been using 2-3 poles so I can click just the entries and also because he was having a problem with diving into the space between poles 2 & 3 and missing the entry. I showed it to Joy and her diagnosis was that he was not collecting at all, even with just a few feet to run before the entry. She suggested a wire guide on the 1st and 2nd poles which is easy enough since I have some at home. I was avoiding them because I'm trying not to have to fade props but we'll give it a try and see if it helps.

The last thing we worked on was the 'Turn' cue, which means turn away from me. I started out teaching this on the flat with a hand signal but decided I didn't want a hand signal with it so we've been working on getting just a verbal with no body language cues. I'm pretty close I think, I don't need an arm at all but it's possible he's still cueing off of some subtle motion like a slight deceleration when we're walking in anticipation of the turn. I tried running with him then saying 'turn' and he had no clue so we need more practice. I want to start working with a jump standard though and I was having some problems so I asked Joy for some help. She told me to approach the jump standard at an angle rather than straight on and it worked a charm. She also had me practice with a tunnel, walking parallel to it then verbally turning him into the entrance, like coming off a dogwalk and turning away into the tunnel. He got that straight away but I think I was cheating a bit and using slight arms/body cues to help. More homework for us.

I stopped for food & gas on the way home and by the time I got home it was after 8:00 pm. By the time we had dinner both Strum and I were flat out on the couch/floor. It's the first time I've ever seen him too tired to do anything else. And I overslept the next morning and missed my early morning swim practice out at the Reservoir. Plus we won't talk about the swelling in my knee. I wonder how many bags of ice I can fit in my freezer.

Strummer's first agility lesson

I was finally able to arrange a time & place with Joy for an agility lesson, my first in a whopping 7 months. We were at a different place from my normal training field and unlike my normal training field this place allowed her to reserve the whole field for lessons so I decided to try Strummer out at his first proper lesson. I've been working my way through Linda Mecklenburg's jumping foundation book and since Joy had been training with her over the winter and was familiar with the exercises I thought it would be good if I could go through them and she could tell me if I was doing them right. And of course I wasn't. I wasn't too far off, but apparently it matters which way you point your feet and you're supposed to take a step as part of your cue. I looked back in the book very briefly this morning and couldn't find any text explanations about feet and what to do with them. There are some photos showing her with her feet in the proper position but no text explaining it, at least not right there with the individual exercise explanations. This is why I hate learning from books & articles, I always seem to manage to miss some detail out. Anyway, in general you have one foot behind facing the dog and the other in front facing the direction you want to go. You cue the jump then step the foot that's behind forward to meet the forward foot. I know, I would probably be confused too if I just read that. I think I need to stick to lessons from actual real live people. Once I got the footwork down it all started to make more sense. All my previous work wasn't for naught though, Strummy did a pretty good job of things once I got my end down. He had some jumps where he didn't collect enough and overshot me but all I had to do was not reward him and he'd get it on the next try or two. He knocked only 2 bars in over a half hour of working and both of those were on extension exercises which I hadn't been doing all that much of since I felt the collection stuff was harder for him in the beginning.

One exercise that caused him some problems was this:


Strum



I------I I------I


...........Me

In this exercise we're facing each other and with my left arm I'm cueing him to take the jump in front of him but he kept running straight to me to take the jump in front of me. I had to move a ways to the left until I was nearly right in front of him then inch my way back to the right over a series of reps. but he eventually got it. It'll be interesting to see if he gets it right away when I try it again in practice or if I have to start over in front of him again.

I also showed Joy what I was doing to train running contacts and she suggested a piece of PVC or tape in the yellow zone to mark the area where he needs to put his feet. In general I'm not big on props but this sounded like a good idea to start with both to help me mark correct performances and also as a little guide to Strum to help him get the idea more quickly. I'll probably fade it very quickly, I don't want either of us to get too dependent on it but I like the idea for the beginning stages.

Overall I thought Strum did great especially considering he was in a totally new place and he worked for over half an hour, way way way longer than I ever train him in a session. He never got distracted, stressed or overstimulated. He did break his stays in front of the jumps and that's a new one. I need to work on proofing that in new locations. Joy remarked that he seems calmer and that when he makes a mistake he tries something different the next time. I'm not sure if that's because that's the way he is or it's a result of all the clicker training I've done with him or maybe a combo. In any case it sure is nice to have a dog that doesn't shut down at every little mistake. I haven't been making a big deal out of errors. Sometimes I won't say anything, just won't give him a reward and other times I'll say 'oops' then 'let's try again' in a happy voice depending on how frustrated he is. I signed up for the 'Advances in dog training' seminar with Susan Garrett instead of the handling seminar and the more I've been thinking about it over the past few days the more I think it will help me more than I first thought because there are lots of little training things like that that I don't think much about, esp. with the obstacle and foundation training.

Lola had a lesson too, more on that later.

Good dogs, good foot-what more can I ask for?

A good weekend all around. Saturday morning I set up an exercise focusing on contacts out at Biscuit Eaters for Cody & Lola and also to test out my foot. I saw the doc on Wednesday, told him what I’d been up to and showed him some video footage of agility so he could see what was involved. He told me everything sounded good and that after watching the tape he was even more confident I’d be fine for the trials coming up in 3 weeks. He’d also had a chat with my PT and he was fine with what she’s been having me do. So I decided to try running the dogs for real for some short exercises. I spent nearly 1/2 an hour dragging equipment around and setting up an exercise and the dogs spent less than maybe 5 minutes each in total running. It was such a hassle for such a small bit of training but I didn’t want to overdo my foot or the dogs. I wasn’t nearly as fast as I’d hoped but I was able to go fast enough to get in some front crosses and more or less keep up with the dogs. My handling/timing were so off it wasn’t funny but hopefully in the next few weeks I can get back into it without screwing the dogs up too much. They were both so happy to be out & running. Each of them was barking & jumping up & down when it was their turn, big fun. We had an audience in the form of a cyclist that stopped to watch and oddly enough it threw me off a bit, strange since I’m oblivious to the crowds at trials.

In the afternoon I took Strummer down to an AKC trial in Golden to work on his trial manners and practice with the measuring device. It’s always something at those AKC trials-last time I had Strum on a gentle leader and a friend I was talking to told me she was pretty sure they weren’t allowed at AKC trials. Nobody hassled me about it but yeesh, what a dumb ass stupid rule. This time I was working on Strum standing still on the table under the measuring device thingy and someone came up to me and told me that earlier the judge had gone off on someone for doing the same thing. He’d actually left the ring and come over to reprimand the person. For crying out loud. Luckily I was just about done anyway and the judge never came over. Maybe all the stupid rules is why people are so nervous & uptight?

The good news was that Strum was so good, not a single bark or lunge at the ring. I even brought him in the stands, something I thought I’d never be able to do, and he laid down all on his own. I never got around to writing about it but a couple of weeks ago we had him down at the Boulder Rez when the Canine Classic 5k/10k running race was being held. It was pure chaos, hundreds of runners & dogs crammed in a small area plus the spectator crowds, vendors & loudspeakers. He was so good there too, even when a loudspeaker squealed to life with feedback right when we walked past it. Today we were back at the Rez with another race going on and he strolled right past the loudspeakers without showing any signs of even noticing them. A couple of dogs lunged & barked at him but all he did was look at them and get a little stiff, not even a tiny growl from him and no barking or lunging in return. Hooray for the Strum man. I think clicking and treating him for calmly watching the things that overstimulate him has been a big help. He’s still not as relaxed as I’d like and I feel he still has some ways to go but I’m so pleased with his progress.

I saw Joy at the trial and asked her about starting up with lessons again. She’s going to World Team Tryouts next weekend so of course she’s focused on that right now but she told me she’d be back to doing lessons some time after she gets back. I haven’t had a lesson other than a one day seminar since the end of October, is it any wonder my handling is in a state?

Today I hit some trails with hills on my bike. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do the whole trail let alone make it up a steep hill at the end but it was all no problem, my foot didn’t hurt at all, I wasn’t tired (but wasn’t pushing myself), and I finished in 1 1/4 hours, way faster than I thought I’d be though not a fast time for that trail. Next week I’ll try some tougher trails. I’m encouraged that I’ll be able to hit some ‘real’ trails by next month and certainly by June when the high country trails should be rideable.