Masters Jumping
Thursday was a half day session in Masters Jumping and it was hot (mid 90's) and sunny for most of the afternoon. We started out with a short sequence involving a push to the back side of a jump, a threadle and a rear cross. The push to the back of the jump was a similar scenario to one from the Jennifer Crank seminar I did last February and since I'd made a mistake with the handling choice last time I remembered the 'correct' way to do it this time and handled it no problem. I guess some things are finally starting to sink in. The threadle was no problem, again stuff from that other seminar was a big help there. The rear cross was another matter. In fact so many people had trouble with the rear that the next thing we worked on was a rear cross drill. Turns out my biggest problem with the rear cross is that I rush. I scurry around all frantic-like. Daisy told me to try walking through the drill taking big long strides (as big as I can manage with my short legs anyway) and I was amazed at how well that worked. I also had trouble with a rear cross on the flat which I found surprising because I've been doing them in trials lately with no problem. This was a much sharper turn though and I couldn't pull it off. So she added a jump for us to head to then took away the jump. We got it eventually but it wasn't pretty. Something for us to practice.
We also worked on a jump drill that involved 3 jumps in a line and a curved tunnel at each end. Send the dog through the tunnel then run down the line and send them through the other tunnel. At first the jumps were evenly spaced about 18' apart then she moved the middle jump closer to one of the end jumps in 6" to 1' increments. The idea was to get the dog to think about adjusting his stride for the shorter distance. He wasn't allowed to bounce jump. Strummer was completely off his head for this exercise in part because he was wound up from the sound of the other high drive dogs flying through the tunnels. Every time the distance changed he'd bounce jump so Daisy put a jump bar on the ground where he'd want to land so he had to put in a full stride and that worked. I'd never thought about bounce jumping one way or the other and it's not something I ever taught or encouraged but I could see how he had a lot more control over his body for the next obstacle when he added the stride versus flinging himself over the jump with the bounce. I'll have to look at some of my old video but I doubt he's done much bounce jumping at trials because of the nature of the Starters courses he's been on in USDAA and even at the Masters level in DOCNA the jumps are a fair distance apart. I'm supposing this is more of an issue for the tighter AKC/International style courses but it's something I'm going to start watching out for and may throw that drill into the mix every once in a while since clearly it's and issue for Strummer.
The final exercise was another tight, tricky course with a push to the back side of a jump and a threadle. There were at least 7 different ways to handle it and we had to come up with 2 to try. Strum was bouncing a jump again and sailing off into space for one of my handling choices but the other way worked o.k.
Masters Handling for high drive dogs
Friday was a full day of handling and the main difference from the day before was that we had a full course to handle that included weave poles. No contact obstacles though, just jumps, tunnels and weaves so not all that different from the Jumpers seminar. We had a much nicer day weather wise though-cooler and cloudy for most of the day with a bit of cooling light rain in the late afternoon.
Walking the first course of the day was intimidating. It was a very technical international style course-more pushes to back sides of jumps and threadles-and there were people who are a lot more skilled than me who were puzzling over it. It's not the sort of thing I see in competition, especially in DOCNA, and unless UKI catches on here it's not the sort of thing I'm likely to see. Again it was very like the sort of thing I saw last February at Jennifer Crank's 'International Course' Seminar and thankfully there were a few things I remembered that helped me figure out what to do. I needed some help with the execution of some of it but at least I wasn't totally lost with what was going on. It's interesting to learn how to do this stuff from a handler's point of view but from the dog's point of view? I can't imagine it's all that much fun for them compared to a course where they can stretch out and run a little more but I guess it depends on the dog. Maybe some dogs are thinkers and like this sort of thing. But I like a course with a bit of both, some running and some thinking and I think DOCNA and USDAA are a good compromise for that. On the other hand while this sort of thing isn't my cup of tea-guess I'll never be on the World Team ; )-I can see the value in learning it. The basic concepts of how to use your motion and other cues and how to combine them are applicable to any kind of course. I think some of this stuff only seems more difficult because I'm not used to seeing it.
My biggest problem with my handling seems to be my rushing around. This is no surprise, I even noted it a few posts ago in my DOCNA trial report. Not many bars came down during the seminar and many that did come down were the result of rushing which is as I expected. A couple came down that Daisy couldn't tell me why and this happens occasionally in lessons with Joy. It's frustrating not to know why because how do you know what to work on but I guess for now I work on the things I know I can control, like my scurrying around in a panic. I wasn't the only one there with this problem it turns out. Not that I'd want to wish it on anyone. Again there was a part of a course I was rushing and flailing my arms and worrying and Daisy told me to walk through it rather than run and sure enough it made all the difference, everything all calm and smooth (well, smoother anyway). It'll be hard to have the discipline to do that during a trial but I think I'm going to have to experiment with it in places where it might be appropriate because it settles both me and Strummer and things go much better.
We did do one course that had a lot of running and distance between jumps, reminded me of a Snooker type course, and that was fun. It wasn't easy and I had my share of mistakes, most of them again involving rushing things, but it was fun.
Overall it was a fun and worthwhile seminar. It was tiring driving up to Fort Collins everyday (a little over an hour each way) but I found a scenic route through the backroads that was quicker than the highway which jangled my nerves on the first day and I had someone to carpool with one day so it wasn't so bad. Normally I'm not fond of the seminar format, so much sitting around watching other people and waiting, I get bored after a couple of hours and I don't typically learn all that much from watching other people. Occasionally I'll pick up little things here and there but it's not the most effective way for me to learn. But there were a lot of great handlers there, it was interesting to watch them and to see that they also struggle with things.
Strummer was bad in his crate for the first 2 days because it was too hot to put him in the car for most of the time and he got worse with each day. It's simply too much stimulation for him to be so near the ring and it builds up making him even more sensitive to it. Flooding doesn't work with this dog and in fact it makes him worse. I did manage to keep him from barking his fool head off the whole time, just, and he wasn't disruptive to the seminar but it was tiring having to deal with him. On Thursday it was cool enough that I could keep him in the car and it was a much more relaxing day for both of us. He almost seemed relieved and I was able to watch the other people more and hear what Daisy had to say to them. He was more relaxed ringside waiting his turn too since he wasn't spending all his down time getting worked up. Silly dog, one of these days he's going to be normal, or so I keep telling myself.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Daisy Peel Running Contacts Seminar
Yesterday was a half day running contacts seminar with Daisy Peel. It was her first such seminar and she was honest about being hesitant to even offer such a thing since she's only trained one dog to competition level so far and the training for running contacts is still in its infancy. But in my mind somebody has to start somewhere so why not share what we know and what we've done so far and maybe it sparks further ideas and debate.
You know how you can never seem to get your dog to make the mistakes you're having trouble with at the seminar in front of the expert eyes? Yeah, not a problem for us yesterday. Strummer had about the worst day he's ever had on the dogwalk, he was so high and wound. Sky as a kite. I wasn't thrilled with the huge number of misses but on the other hand I got exactly what I wanted, some feedback on what to do when he keeps failing like that. A good part of the problem is that he doesn't care that he's failed. Sometimes he'll get in a sort of loop where he'll repeat the same mistake over and over. Not always, sometimes he'll start trying different things but sometimes he gets stuck. So the suggestion was to take him by the collar back to the start of the exercise when he misses so he knows he's made a mistake. Daisy felt he didn't even realize he'd made a mistake and I'm inclined to agree because he's quite happy to keep running around and start the exercise over again. At the very least I think the act of leading him back to the start at a walk may help to calm his brain a bit. It didn't seem to have much effect yesterday, he still had a very low success rate but I'm going to try this plan for a while and see if it works. I'm going to try it with the weaves as well. Daisy also said that some days are just bad training days and she'll stop if it's getting really bad which is what I've done on occasion. I always wonder if it's better to push on through loads of failures or to call it a day and I guess the answer is that most of the time you push through but sometimes it's best to quit and I suppose you figure it out through experience. She pointed out that you need to be able to tolerate your dog failing a lot if you're going to train running contacts.
One interesting deviance she had from the way I'd trained at the very start was that she had the dog sending away to a toy or treat gizmo on the flat, ideally at a run. The idea was to simply observe what the dog would do. One of the things we were watching for was would the dog pounce on the toy and if so how soon before it got to the toy. If the dog starts pouncing way before it gets to the toy then you need to place the toy farther off the end of the plank when you get to that stage so the dog doesn't start pouncing while it's on the plank. Then we progressed to sending the dog across a line of rubber backed carpet mats about the length of a dogwalk plank to the toy/gizmo. I thought this was a really clever idea because you can easily take them anywhere to practice and I can't imagine they were hugely expensive. Then we progressed to the slightly elevated plank. When I started out the process I stood in front of the flat plank with Strum facing me and called him to me which obviously doesn't teach him to run out ahead of me. I like the idea of teaching the send from the start. Strum had difficulty figuring out that he had to run across the carpet mats but he was perfect once he got on the elevated plank. This mirrors how our original training went, he had a hard time on the flat plank but things improved once we got to the elevated plank. It was the full length dogwalk that was a disaster. In fact all the dogs that did the full length dogwalk had a fair amount of misses, including one that's had a nice dogwalk in competition for a few years now from what I've seen though I don't see this dog all the time.
A funny aside was that one of the reasons Daisy gave for choosing to train running contacts was that she was bored with Q'ing all the time and a few others chimed in with the same 'problem' and these were people with fast dogs. The certainty of Q'ing was boring to them. I don't know, I'd love to have some people's problems and I heartily offered up Strummer to them if they'd like a bit of uncertainty. I'd love to see a top handler running him or even someone who halfway knew what they were doing though, that would be cool to see.
Yesterday was hot, high 80's I'd guess and today is supposed to be 96. Not my favorite sort of weather for agility. Luckily there's a hose at the site so I kept Strum doused in water all day yesterday and he seemed fine. Plus it's a great reward for him, better than food or a toy, and even though it's weird and a bit inconvenient Daisy encouraged me to let him have it. I've been using the hose to reward him after his runs at trials so I was happy to be able to use the hose for reward at the seminar. This afternoon I go back for Masters Jumping, we'll see if my brain melts. Maybe I'll get under the hose myself. Agility wet t-shirt contest anyone? I took Strum for a run this morning so hopefully he won't be so over the top today.
You know how you can never seem to get your dog to make the mistakes you're having trouble with at the seminar in front of the expert eyes? Yeah, not a problem for us yesterday. Strummer had about the worst day he's ever had on the dogwalk, he was so high and wound. Sky as a kite. I wasn't thrilled with the huge number of misses but on the other hand I got exactly what I wanted, some feedback on what to do when he keeps failing like that. A good part of the problem is that he doesn't care that he's failed. Sometimes he'll get in a sort of loop where he'll repeat the same mistake over and over. Not always, sometimes he'll start trying different things but sometimes he gets stuck. So the suggestion was to take him by the collar back to the start of the exercise when he misses so he knows he's made a mistake. Daisy felt he didn't even realize he'd made a mistake and I'm inclined to agree because he's quite happy to keep running around and start the exercise over again. At the very least I think the act of leading him back to the start at a walk may help to calm his brain a bit. It didn't seem to have much effect yesterday, he still had a very low success rate but I'm going to try this plan for a while and see if it works. I'm going to try it with the weaves as well. Daisy also said that some days are just bad training days and she'll stop if it's getting really bad which is what I've done on occasion. I always wonder if it's better to push on through loads of failures or to call it a day and I guess the answer is that most of the time you push through but sometimes it's best to quit and I suppose you figure it out through experience. She pointed out that you need to be able to tolerate your dog failing a lot if you're going to train running contacts.
One interesting deviance she had from the way I'd trained at the very start was that she had the dog sending away to a toy or treat gizmo on the flat, ideally at a run. The idea was to simply observe what the dog would do. One of the things we were watching for was would the dog pounce on the toy and if so how soon before it got to the toy. If the dog starts pouncing way before it gets to the toy then you need to place the toy farther off the end of the plank when you get to that stage so the dog doesn't start pouncing while it's on the plank. Then we progressed to sending the dog across a line of rubber backed carpet mats about the length of a dogwalk plank to the toy/gizmo. I thought this was a really clever idea because you can easily take them anywhere to practice and I can't imagine they were hugely expensive. Then we progressed to the slightly elevated plank. When I started out the process I stood in front of the flat plank with Strum facing me and called him to me which obviously doesn't teach him to run out ahead of me. I like the idea of teaching the send from the start. Strum had difficulty figuring out that he had to run across the carpet mats but he was perfect once he got on the elevated plank. This mirrors how our original training went, he had a hard time on the flat plank but things improved once we got to the elevated plank. It was the full length dogwalk that was a disaster. In fact all the dogs that did the full length dogwalk had a fair amount of misses, including one that's had a nice dogwalk in competition for a few years now from what I've seen though I don't see this dog all the time.
A funny aside was that one of the reasons Daisy gave for choosing to train running contacts was that she was bored with Q'ing all the time and a few others chimed in with the same 'problem' and these were people with fast dogs. The certainty of Q'ing was boring to them. I don't know, I'd love to have some people's problems and I heartily offered up Strummer to them if they'd like a bit of uncertainty. I'd love to see a top handler running him or even someone who halfway knew what they were doing though, that would be cool to see.
Yesterday was hot, high 80's I'd guess and today is supposed to be 96. Not my favorite sort of weather for agility. Luckily there's a hose at the site so I kept Strum doused in water all day yesterday and he seemed fine. Plus it's a great reward for him, better than food or a toy, and even though it's weird and a bit inconvenient Daisy encouraged me to let him have it. I've been using the hose to reward him after his runs at trials so I was happy to be able to use the hose for reward at the seminar. This afternoon I go back for Masters Jumping, we'll see if my brain melts. Maybe I'll get under the hose myself. Agility wet t-shirt contest anyone? I took Strum for a run this morning so hopefully he won't be so over the top today.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
DOCNA in Denver
A fun weekend of DOCNA for Mr. Strummer man and me. I originally signed up for only Saturday but they were taking day-of entries for Sunday and we had so much fun that I decided to go back for more.
Not a lot of Q's but lots of good stuff and improvement. He's finally getting his weave entries, not 100% but it was his best trial by far. 'Over the top' agility training must be working. My training partner had much success with her contacts too. The dogwalk success rate seems to be improving slightly as well. He had some fantastic tight 180 degree flips off the dogwalk and A-frame into tunnels off just his verbal cue. The key is for me to tell him early, right before he hits the down plank, and to not overwhelm him with too much body language (ie turning into him and/or waving that outside arm to indicate the flip).
Strum did get the one Q I really wanted, Intern Standard, which earned him title and puts him in Specialist (Masters) in everything. Was a beautiful run too, everything nice and tight for 1st place and a 5.50 yps. and nearly 20 secs. under standard course time. His first shot at Specialist Jumpers was also a beautiful run, 6.22 yps and .01 yps behind a dog that regularly makes the USDAA Finals and has some podium finishes as well. That was a fun run. Except for the one stupid bar that came down but oh well. On Sunday's Jumpers run I tried to be patient and focus on my timing/handling and not rush in order to keep the bars up and I did a good job of it, no bars down, but unfortunately I took a wee wander around the course in not the direction that the judge had in mind. Was such a wonderful run otherwise and I thought I'd made up quite the creative course.
Had another fast, tight Standard run on Sunday for his first go in Specialist for a Q and 1st then his second Standard run was something of a disaster, likely because I was rushing.
Don't have time to go through the rest of the gory details of all 10 runs but in general if I my timing was late or I was rushing things went south very fast. If I was focused and patient then things went much better. As I suspected Specialist courses are so much easier for me and it seemed like there were less problems with bars coming down. There are so many more turns and places to collect him, I prefer them over the nightmare of Starters. Let's forget about Starters and never speak of it again.
Final Stats:
Intern Standard-Q, 1st place (5.50 yps)
Specialist Standard-Q, 1st place (5.29 yps)
Specialist Strategic Time Gamble-Q, 2nd place
Titles Earned:
Intern Standard (last Intern title)
No more trials until DOCNA Champs at the end of September and I'm not happy about that. May decide to enter a run or two in USDAA over Labor Day but I'm back in Starters and Advanced and I want practice on more difficult courses. Today I have a half day Running Contacts seminar with Daisy Peel then a half day of Master Jumping tomorrow then a full day of Masters Handling for high drive dogs on Thursday, which is also my birthday. Bizarre way to spend your birthday I suppose but oh well, I'm looking forward to it. Better than spending it at work which is how I usually spend it when it falls on a weekday.
Did a brick (bike then run) yesterday and lived to tell the tale. We'll see how well I keep up with Strum today. I have a triathlon (not my big race) this Friday night too on top of all else. Gotta pack in all I can before summer bids adieu.
Not a lot of Q's but lots of good stuff and improvement. He's finally getting his weave entries, not 100% but it was his best trial by far. 'Over the top' agility training must be working. My training partner had much success with her contacts too. The dogwalk success rate seems to be improving slightly as well. He had some fantastic tight 180 degree flips off the dogwalk and A-frame into tunnels off just his verbal cue. The key is for me to tell him early, right before he hits the down plank, and to not overwhelm him with too much body language (ie turning into him and/or waving that outside arm to indicate the flip).
Strum did get the one Q I really wanted, Intern Standard, which earned him title and puts him in Specialist (Masters) in everything. Was a beautiful run too, everything nice and tight for 1st place and a 5.50 yps. and nearly 20 secs. under standard course time. His first shot at Specialist Jumpers was also a beautiful run, 6.22 yps and .01 yps behind a dog that regularly makes the USDAA Finals and has some podium finishes as well. That was a fun run. Except for the one stupid bar that came down but oh well. On Sunday's Jumpers run I tried to be patient and focus on my timing/handling and not rush in order to keep the bars up and I did a good job of it, no bars down, but unfortunately I took a wee wander around the course in not the direction that the judge had in mind. Was such a wonderful run otherwise and I thought I'd made up quite the creative course.
Had another fast, tight Standard run on Sunday for his first go in Specialist for a Q and 1st then his second Standard run was something of a disaster, likely because I was rushing.
Don't have time to go through the rest of the gory details of all 10 runs but in general if I my timing was late or I was rushing things went south very fast. If I was focused and patient then things went much better. As I suspected Specialist courses are so much easier for me and it seemed like there were less problems with bars coming down. There are so many more turns and places to collect him, I prefer them over the nightmare of Starters. Let's forget about Starters and never speak of it again.
Final Stats:
Intern Standard-Q, 1st place (5.50 yps)
Specialist Standard-Q, 1st place (5.29 yps)
Specialist Strategic Time Gamble-Q, 2nd place
Titles Earned:
Intern Standard (last Intern title)
No more trials until DOCNA Champs at the end of September and I'm not happy about that. May decide to enter a run or two in USDAA over Labor Day but I'm back in Starters and Advanced and I want practice on more difficult courses. Today I have a half day Running Contacts seminar with Daisy Peel then a half day of Master Jumping tomorrow then a full day of Masters Handling for high drive dogs on Thursday, which is also my birthday. Bizarre way to spend your birthday I suppose but oh well, I'm looking forward to it. Better than spending it at work which is how I usually spend it when it falls on a weekday.
Did a brick (bike then run) yesterday and lived to tell the tale. We'll see how well I keep up with Strum today. I have a triathlon (not my big race) this Friday night too on top of all else. Gotta pack in all I can before summer bids adieu.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Arapaho Glacier Trail
Say cheese
We did the Arapaho Pass Trail last year and you can see the photos and enjoy Strummer's tour here. The first 2 miles of the trail are the same and it's interesting to see how much more snow was on the mountains in July which is when I went last year vs one month later in August of this year. It's amazing how quickly the snow melts in the summer.
I almost didn't start the hike because the wind was howling so badly in the parking lot. I'd brought warm clothes but not a hat and mittens because hello, August, hat and mittens never crossed my mind but it was a cold wind for no hat. The trail starts at 10,120 feet and I turned around at about 12,200 feet/3 miles and the wind and these elevations can be brutal when it's bad. But we'd braved the rough steep dirt road for 25 minutes and in fact Strummer had started whining maybe halfway up Boulder Canyon so after listening to 45 minutes of him carrying on I was going to have some kind of hike dammit. Poor dog hates steep twisty roads and it's even worse if they're rough bumpy dirt. Poor guy was a basket case when we got out of the car. But as you can see from the photo above he quickly got over it and there wasn't a peep out of him on the drive back home.
This trail is famous for its wildflowers and even though it's a bit late in the season there were still plenty of beautiful displays.
Maybe you can sort of get a feel for the wind from the photos.
Here's a photo of the glacier. At this point the wind was still not too bad.
If the trail gets faint just look for the cairns (heh)
Once the trail started getting well above treeline and more exposed the wind became much fiercer and colder.
The trail winds up this hillside.
Not a bad view to admire while having a snack so as not to pass out in the Boulder Chipotle.
This was my turn around point. You can see the road I came up on and the very tippy top of the Eldora ski area to the right of and above the road.
The trail continues on up to the top of South Arapaho Peak shown here but I wasn't up for those shenanigans, especially in that crazy wind.
As it was a couple of my fingers turned white and started to go numb. Luckily the descent went quickly and when I got back to the main trail the wind had died and it was nice and toasty. Well, 60's anyway.
Heading back down. You can see the Arapaho Pass trail down below and heading for the saddle which is the one I hiked last year.
Baby Ptarmigan
Mom and the other baby took off running when they saw us but this baby froze and decided to rely on his camouflage.
Giving me the stink eye. At this point he was fed up to the eyeteeth with posing for photos with the wildflowers.
We were out for around 4 hours, I'd say 3 1/4-3 1/2 of that was hiking. I stopped a few times for food/electrolytes. What a pain but I've been feeling so much better for it. The electrolytes help to balance the PH of the stomach so I don't get nauseous and I can eat more which also helps with the nausea and the not passing out.
DOCNA trial tomorrow, we'll see if I have any legs left.
We did the Arapaho Pass Trail last year and you can see the photos and enjoy Strummer's tour here. The first 2 miles of the trail are the same and it's interesting to see how much more snow was on the mountains in July which is when I went last year vs one month later in August of this year. It's amazing how quickly the snow melts in the summer.
I almost didn't start the hike because the wind was howling so badly in the parking lot. I'd brought warm clothes but not a hat and mittens because hello, August, hat and mittens never crossed my mind but it was a cold wind for no hat. The trail starts at 10,120 feet and I turned around at about 12,200 feet/3 miles and the wind and these elevations can be brutal when it's bad. But we'd braved the rough steep dirt road for 25 minutes and in fact Strummer had started whining maybe halfway up Boulder Canyon so after listening to 45 minutes of him carrying on I was going to have some kind of hike dammit. Poor dog hates steep twisty roads and it's even worse if they're rough bumpy dirt. Poor guy was a basket case when we got out of the car. But as you can see from the photo above he quickly got over it and there wasn't a peep out of him on the drive back home.
This trail is famous for its wildflowers and even though it's a bit late in the season there were still plenty of beautiful displays.
Maybe you can sort of get a feel for the wind from the photos.
Here's a photo of the glacier. At this point the wind was still not too bad.
If the trail gets faint just look for the cairns (heh)
Once the trail started getting well above treeline and more exposed the wind became much fiercer and colder.
The trail winds up this hillside.
Not a bad view to admire while having a snack so as not to pass out in the Boulder Chipotle.
This was my turn around point. You can see the road I came up on and the very tippy top of the Eldora ski area to the right of and above the road.
The trail continues on up to the top of South Arapaho Peak shown here but I wasn't up for those shenanigans, especially in that crazy wind.
As it was a couple of my fingers turned white and started to go numb. Luckily the descent went quickly and when I got back to the main trail the wind had died and it was nice and toasty. Well, 60's anyway.
Heading back down. You can see the Arapaho Pass trail down below and heading for the saddle which is the one I hiked last year.
Baby Ptarmigan
Giving me the stink eye. At this point he was fed up to the eyeteeth with posing for photos with the wildflowers.
We were out for around 4 hours, I'd say 3 1/4-3 1/2 of that was hiking. I stopped a few times for food/electrolytes. What a pain but I've been feeling so much better for it. The electrolytes help to balance the PH of the stomach so I don't get nauseous and I can eat more which also helps with the nausea and the not passing out.
DOCNA trial tomorrow, we'll see if I have any legs left.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Winter Park, Mesa Trail, and some weave practice
My contract work is mostly done for now. There will probably be little bits of mop up work as time rolls on but for the most part I'm on vacation. How long that vacation lasts remains to be seen but for right now I'm so tired and burnt out that I'm not going to think about it for a bit. Going to cram everything I can into what's left of the summer.
Starting with a trip to Winter Park where I got nice and dirty riding my bike.
They'd been inundated with rain so parts of the trail were way muddier than I've ever seen them. But the wildflowers were out of hand, going crazy all over the place. And yeah I know I have gnarly knees. Those knees have seen a lot and have earned every scar and wrinkle.
Tipperary Creek Trail
Do I look ready for my race?
Wait, don't answer that.
Flume Trail
The Winter Park area has been hit hard by the pine beetle kill but this view was a shocker to me.
Just last year this part of the trail was dense, dark, shady forest, certainly there were no mountain views. You can see the huge pile of dead trees and you can see the brown hillsides of dead trees in the photo above it. It's been a dramatic and fairly catastrophic event to watch over the years, whole mountainsides turned to brown in the space of a few months. On the plus side there were copious amounts of wildflowers springing up in the new 'meadows' or 'sunspots' I believe is the logger's euphemism for the space left behind after a clear cut. Unfortunately the beetles have made their way to this side of the Continental Divide (Winter Park is on the other side) and just this past weekend I spotted some newly dead trees on the West Mag trails. It's just a matter of time until we start seeing the same brown hillsides here.
In the end it was a 3 hour ride and I was tired but it was a great day on the trails. The Tipperary Creek Trail is one of my favorites but it's a long way to Tipperary and these days I'm less willing to make the 1 3/4 hour trip when West Mag is 40-45 minutes away. But it's nice to get out of town every once in a while for something other than a dog trial where I often don't get to see much other than the agility ring.
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The day after my encounter with the bear I took Strum for a hike on the opposite end of the Mesa Trail. There's still a good chance to run into bears and snakes and maybe a lion but I decided to risk it.
Because it's a nice trail and only 20 minutes away.
And Strummy can go off leash
Everything is so lush and green right now. It's been a nice summer for moisture.
I kept him on leash a good bit of the time in places where bear/lion/snake encounters were more likely or in places where it would be problematic if I did run into something. He doesn't stray far from me anyway so being off leash for him isn't all that big a deal but it's nice to be able to let him go when I'm hiking down the steep rocky bits so he doesn't pull me.
As it happens the trailhead is right next to the project I've been working on these past months. They're nowhere near to starting construction on the house renovation which is the part I worked on but they're constructing the riding arena and had just put up 72' long trusses the other day. I could see them from the trail but apparently they looked more impressive close up at the job site. Even more impressive is how they got them up the narrow residential curvy dirt driveway/road to the site. I can't even imagine how that worked.
In all the hike took around 2 1/4 hours, not sure how far that is distance wise but without a dog I can do it in around 1 hour 50 minutes. It's amazing how much time his sniffing eats up. But I was tired from the trail run the day before so I wasn't in a hurry anyway. Sometimes it's good to kick back and smell the pee.
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Last night I finally made it to my friend's house to practice some 'over the top' agility. She's got a couple of high drive dogs so we took turns running our dogs in the hopes that we could proof for the excitement of a trial. I'm not sure how helpful I was to her but this was excellent practice for Strummer and finally I was able to get the failed entries that I see in trials but not at the practice field when I go by myself. There was quite a lot of failure actually but we worked through it. Sometimes he almost seems to get some kind of loop in his head and he'll repeat the same thing incorrectly over and over. I have this problem with the dog walk too. Part of me thinks it's best to stop and give him a break when this happens but the other part thinks maybe it's better to keep working at it until he succeeds and then stop. I went with the second option last night but I'm not sure that was the best decision. I know I need to keep at it but sometimes I feel like I'm bashing my head against the wall and need to try something else. But what else there is to try I don't know. My friend thought at first that he wasn't collecting but after a while she could see that he was but that he was almost aiming for the second pole as if that's what he thought he was meant to do and I've often felt this as well. She pointed out that I was being sloppy with my body positioning and that it would help him if I paused and let him get the entry before moving forward. Sometimes this helped sometimes it didn't, I do this at trials with the same mixed results. I had been proofing for motion out at the field so I wasn't too surprised. It's SO nice to have a second set of experienced eyes when I'm practicing though. I wish I could have returned the favor and been more helpful but it was all I could do to keep Strummer under some semblance of control when she ran her dogs. Also she wanted me to tug with him and get him riled up next to the contact equipment so she could proof her contacts so I couldn't watch too closely but wow her dog stuck his 2 on/2 off even with Strum going nuts with his tug right next to him. It's hard to proof for trials when your dog is that good in practice.
We're going try to practice some more, she lives about 7 minutes away so it's very handy for me and her agility yard is fantastic. Beautiful lush grass with a gorgeous view of Boulder and the Flatirons below. Over the top agility at the top of the world I call it. Hopefully I can get his issue worked out by DOCNA Champs next month.
We've got at least one day of a DOCNA trial this weekend so we'll see if the practice helped. I only signed up for Saturday but they're taking day of entries so I may go on Sunday too but with 3 days in a row of seminars next week I'm thinking maybe I should give us both a break.
Starting with a trip to Winter Park where I got nice and dirty riding my bike.
Tipperary Creek Trail
Do I look ready for my race?
Flume Trail
The Winter Park area has been hit hard by the pine beetle kill but this view was a shocker to me.
Just last year this part of the trail was dense, dark, shady forest, certainly there were no mountain views. You can see the huge pile of dead trees and you can see the brown hillsides of dead trees in the photo above it. It's been a dramatic and fairly catastrophic event to watch over the years, whole mountainsides turned to brown in the space of a few months. On the plus side there were copious amounts of wildflowers springing up in the new 'meadows' or 'sunspots' I believe is the logger's euphemism for the space left behind after a clear cut. Unfortunately the beetles have made their way to this side of the Continental Divide (Winter Park is on the other side) and just this past weekend I spotted some newly dead trees on the West Mag trails. It's just a matter of time until we start seeing the same brown hillsides here.
In the end it was a 3 hour ride and I was tired but it was a great day on the trails. The Tipperary Creek Trail is one of my favorites but it's a long way to Tipperary and these days I'm less willing to make the 1 3/4 hour trip when West Mag is 40-45 minutes away. But it's nice to get out of town every once in a while for something other than a dog trial where I often don't get to see much other than the agility ring.
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The day after my encounter with the bear I took Strum for a hike on the opposite end of the Mesa Trail. There's still a good chance to run into bears and snakes and maybe a lion but I decided to risk it.
Because it's a nice trail and only 20 minutes away.
And Strummy can go off leash
Everything is so lush and green right now. It's been a nice summer for moisture.
I kept him on leash a good bit of the time in places where bear/lion/snake encounters were more likely or in places where it would be problematic if I did run into something. He doesn't stray far from me anyway so being off leash for him isn't all that big a deal but it's nice to be able to let him go when I'm hiking down the steep rocky bits so he doesn't pull me.
As it happens the trailhead is right next to the project I've been working on these past months. They're nowhere near to starting construction on the house renovation which is the part I worked on but they're constructing the riding arena and had just put up 72' long trusses the other day. I could see them from the trail but apparently they looked more impressive close up at the job site. Even more impressive is how they got them up the narrow residential curvy dirt driveway/road to the site. I can't even imagine how that worked.
In all the hike took around 2 1/4 hours, not sure how far that is distance wise but without a dog I can do it in around 1 hour 50 minutes. It's amazing how much time his sniffing eats up. But I was tired from the trail run the day before so I wasn't in a hurry anyway. Sometimes it's good to kick back and smell the pee.
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Last night I finally made it to my friend's house to practice some 'over the top' agility. She's got a couple of high drive dogs so we took turns running our dogs in the hopes that we could proof for the excitement of a trial. I'm not sure how helpful I was to her but this was excellent practice for Strummer and finally I was able to get the failed entries that I see in trials but not at the practice field when I go by myself. There was quite a lot of failure actually but we worked through it. Sometimes he almost seems to get some kind of loop in his head and he'll repeat the same thing incorrectly over and over. I have this problem with the dog walk too. Part of me thinks it's best to stop and give him a break when this happens but the other part thinks maybe it's better to keep working at it until he succeeds and then stop. I went with the second option last night but I'm not sure that was the best decision. I know I need to keep at it but sometimes I feel like I'm bashing my head against the wall and need to try something else. But what else there is to try I don't know. My friend thought at first that he wasn't collecting but after a while she could see that he was but that he was almost aiming for the second pole as if that's what he thought he was meant to do and I've often felt this as well. She pointed out that I was being sloppy with my body positioning and that it would help him if I paused and let him get the entry before moving forward. Sometimes this helped sometimes it didn't, I do this at trials with the same mixed results. I had been proofing for motion out at the field so I wasn't too surprised. It's SO nice to have a second set of experienced eyes when I'm practicing though. I wish I could have returned the favor and been more helpful but it was all I could do to keep Strummer under some semblance of control when she ran her dogs. Also she wanted me to tug with him and get him riled up next to the contact equipment so she could proof her contacts so I couldn't watch too closely but wow her dog stuck his 2 on/2 off even with Strum going nuts with his tug right next to him. It's hard to proof for trials when your dog is that good in practice.
We're going try to practice some more, she lives about 7 minutes away so it's very handy for me and her agility yard is fantastic. Beautiful lush grass with a gorgeous view of Boulder and the Flatirons below. Over the top agility at the top of the world I call it. Hopefully I can get his issue worked out by DOCNA Champs next month.
We've got at least one day of a DOCNA trial this weekend so we'll see if the practice helped. I only signed up for Saturday but they're taking day of entries so I may go on Sunday too but with 3 days in a row of seminars next week I'm thinking maybe I should give us both a break.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Get your Cowboy on - UKI at the Larimer County Fair
The County Fair and agility, I'm not sure it gets much better. I loved the County Fair as a kid and I still do. I probably wouldn't take the time to go though if it wasn't for the agility trial. Last year was USDAA but they gave the club such a hassle this year that the club decided oh forget it we'll just do UKI instead. This was Colorado's first UKI trial and I was excited to try a new venue. Unfortunately we were stuck in Beginners since UKI doesn't recognize DOCNA titles for grandfathering but otherwise the venue has a lot of nice amenities including reasonable jump height cut-offs and lots of heights to choose from, 24" weaves (though we didn't have them for this trial because the club hadn't received their new set yet), displaceable tire which the club did have, no up contacts are judged-hooray for the big dogs! The upper level courses were on the tight, twisty, technical side which a lot of the dogs didn't seem to care for. Lots of frustration, 'you want me to go where?' barking going on. The Beginners classes were fine though, similar to what you see in USDAA. In a way I was glad we didn't have to do the harder courses but in another way I think we would have done better on them because it's more the sort of thing we practice in class with Joy. Strum collects a lot better and keeps his head about him more when there are lots of turns. It's when things are more wide open and he starts charging around that he loses his head and the bars come down. Still I think too much of that technical stuff is demotivating for the dogs even if it is more interesting for the handlers.
Last time I had photos and no videos, this time I have video but no photos. I thought I'd try a video montage this time and I have some great footage subject wise-pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits, a wee kid leading a bull around, a chihuahua in a pink dress, a log rolling competition, a kick ass Bluegrass band playing a Cheap Trick cover (does it get any more County Fair than that?), 4-H girls in shorts, pony tails and stylish cowboy boots with their pigs and sheep, and a pig with the hiccups. But unfortunately most of it sucks. Too dark inside the livestock barns and it turns out my video talents lean towards the 'Blair Witch Project' and are more vomit inducing than the carnival rides. But I pieced together a small bit of it and added it to my agility runs that a friend with better video skills taped. I'm starting to wonder if the taping I do for people at trials comes out this badly.
Oh yeah, there was some agility too. Strum had no Q's which should have been depressing but he was running so nicely and finally hit a weave pole entrance on a full set of weaves like he knew what he was doing. I was SO happy over that since that was my main training goal for the trial. I feel like he's finally starting to get it. He got 2/2 of his dogwalks and 2/3 of his A-frames. I'm a little doubtful over whether the miss was truly a miss but oh well. He hasn't missed in A-frame in I can't remember when and I thought he'd got it but to be honest I wasn't watching all that closely. The only thing I wasn't happy about was the amount of bars that came down. One cost us a Jumpers Q and he had one down in Standard and Speed Stakes. I think he kept them all up in Snakes and Ladders. I've never had a bar knocker before and it's frustrating. I don't think it's a jumping issue, I think it's mostly a handling issue and maybe a little bit of overexcitement. It's the #1 reason for us to miss a Q though. I haven't had a lesson in months, Joy's not teaching right now and nobody else teaches masters level classes in my area. I've been so focused on the weaves that I've let the handling slip. I signed up for a handling seminar and a jumping seminar with Daisy Peel in a couple of weeks so hopefully that'll get me back on track.
Anyway, here's the video. A little mistake here and there with the knocked bars, a horribly executed rear cross, and it wouldn't be the Larimer County Fair if I didn't get lost on a Jumpers run but otherwise nothing too terrible. I'm rocking a pretty good crazy dog lady look with my new hat which predictably falls off during the last run and distracts me enough to cause Strum to miss a jump. I know sunglasses are bad because you can't make eye contact with your dog but I think I need to go back to them because I have yet to find a hat that stays on. You can click on the link of the video title for a bigger view.
Strummer's runs
UKI at the Larimer County Fair from colliebrains on Vimeo.
I put a little bit of the Bluegrass band, The Blue Canyon Boys, at the start of the agility tape but I also thought I'd put all the footage I had in their own video. Unfortunately I came into earshot of them at the end of their last song, a cover of Cheap Trick's 'I Want You to Want Me'. This literally sent me running to the stage but still I was only able to catch the end. I have to confess, a stand-up bass sends my heart to pitter pat. Again, the video footage is a bit dizzy making in places, I was finding it hard to stand still. These guys were great, I was so disappointed that I only caught the a couple of minutes. The other tragic thing is that it was like me and an old guy in a lawn chair watching them. How did nobody else see how great they were and come over? Oh well. I see they're playing an outdoor concert in the park in Lyons which is only a 15-20 minute drive but it's on a Thursday night and I'll probably be too tired but we'll see.
Blue Canyon Boys-'I Want You to Want Me'
Blue Canyon Boys-'I Want You to Want Me' from colliebrains on Vimeo.
The only downside to the day at the fair is the parasites, and I don't mean the slumming Boulder trust funders. Last year the dogs came back with a suspected case of lice sending me into a minor panic. Of course I notice Strummer scratching as soon as he gets in the door then Lola starts up on cue then my head starts to itch. Then last night I dreamt my arms were covered in 3 layers of parasites, each layer a bigger bug that had come to eat the bug in the layer below. I've been up since around 4 am after waking up screaming from that nightmare. Probably shouldn't be reading Stephen King's 'It' before bedtime.
Last time I had photos and no videos, this time I have video but no photos. I thought I'd try a video montage this time and I have some great footage subject wise-pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits, a wee kid leading a bull around, a chihuahua in a pink dress, a log rolling competition, a kick ass Bluegrass band playing a Cheap Trick cover (does it get any more County Fair than that?), 4-H girls in shorts, pony tails and stylish cowboy boots with their pigs and sheep, and a pig with the hiccups. But unfortunately most of it sucks. Too dark inside the livestock barns and it turns out my video talents lean towards the 'Blair Witch Project' and are more vomit inducing than the carnival rides. But I pieced together a small bit of it and added it to my agility runs that a friend with better video skills taped. I'm starting to wonder if the taping I do for people at trials comes out this badly.
Oh yeah, there was some agility too. Strum had no Q's which should have been depressing but he was running so nicely and finally hit a weave pole entrance on a full set of weaves like he knew what he was doing. I was SO happy over that since that was my main training goal for the trial. I feel like he's finally starting to get it. He got 2/2 of his dogwalks and 2/3 of his A-frames. I'm a little doubtful over whether the miss was truly a miss but oh well. He hasn't missed in A-frame in I can't remember when and I thought he'd got it but to be honest I wasn't watching all that closely. The only thing I wasn't happy about was the amount of bars that came down. One cost us a Jumpers Q and he had one down in Standard and Speed Stakes. I think he kept them all up in Snakes and Ladders. I've never had a bar knocker before and it's frustrating. I don't think it's a jumping issue, I think it's mostly a handling issue and maybe a little bit of overexcitement. It's the #1 reason for us to miss a Q though. I haven't had a lesson in months, Joy's not teaching right now and nobody else teaches masters level classes in my area. I've been so focused on the weaves that I've let the handling slip. I signed up for a handling seminar and a jumping seminar with Daisy Peel in a couple of weeks so hopefully that'll get me back on track.
Anyway, here's the video. A little mistake here and there with the knocked bars, a horribly executed rear cross, and it wouldn't be the Larimer County Fair if I didn't get lost on a Jumpers run but otherwise nothing too terrible. I'm rocking a pretty good crazy dog lady look with my new hat which predictably falls off during the last run and distracts me enough to cause Strum to miss a jump. I know sunglasses are bad because you can't make eye contact with your dog but I think I need to go back to them because I have yet to find a hat that stays on. You can click on the link of the video title for a bigger view.
Strummer's runs
UKI at the Larimer County Fair from colliebrains on Vimeo.
I put a little bit of the Bluegrass band, The Blue Canyon Boys, at the start of the agility tape but I also thought I'd put all the footage I had in their own video. Unfortunately I came into earshot of them at the end of their last song, a cover of Cheap Trick's 'I Want You to Want Me'. This literally sent me running to the stage but still I was only able to catch the end. I have to confess, a stand-up bass sends my heart to pitter pat. Again, the video footage is a bit dizzy making in places, I was finding it hard to stand still. These guys were great, I was so disappointed that I only caught the a couple of minutes. The other tragic thing is that it was like me and an old guy in a lawn chair watching them. How did nobody else see how great they were and come over? Oh well. I see they're playing an outdoor concert in the park in Lyons which is only a 15-20 minute drive but it's on a Thursday night and I'll probably be too tired but we'll see.
Blue Canyon Boys-'I Want You to Want Me'
Blue Canyon Boys-'I Want You to Want Me' from colliebrains on Vimeo.
The only downside to the day at the fair is the parasites, and I don't mean the slumming Boulder trust funders. Last year the dogs came back with a suspected case of lice sending me into a minor panic. Of course I notice Strummer scratching as soon as he gets in the door then Lola starts up on cue then my head starts to itch. Then last night I dreamt my arms were covered in 3 layers of parasites, each layer a bigger bug that had come to eat the bug in the layer below. I've been up since around 4 am after waking up screaming from that nightmare. Probably shouldn't be reading Stephen King's 'It' before bedtime.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Winnie the Pooh does Chautauqua
I have a couple of days off. Ah the luxury. I had a leisurely early morning swim at the Rez with the masters group then an even more leisurely breakfast then decided a steep trail run was in order. I settled on my old standby Enchanted Mesa/Skunk Canyon/Mesa Trail loop that starts at Chautauqua Park, a mere 12 minute drive. I takes me just under an hour, I'm guessing it's around 4 miles or so but there are some good steep bits as well as some steady climbs so it's perfect training for my race plus beautiful scenery and most of the trail is in the woods and shaded.
I went back and forth about whether or not I should take Strummer. Dogs are allowed off leash and he's very good on the trails but this time of year there are rattlesnakes to worry about never mind the mountain lions and bears plus it's a bit hot for him. In the end I decided I didn't want to have to watch out for him and worry about him overheating. Sometimes I swear I must by psychic or something. Because 4 1/2 minutes into my run a guy with a poodle coming the opposite way down the trail is waving his arms at me. I assume he's a guy I know from agility and start asking him how he is but it turns out he doesn't know me but he does want to warn me about the bear up ahead. Very close up ahead. Walking right down the middle of the trail. I hesitate about going on. I've spared you the details of how long it took me to park and how crazy crowded Chautauqua was and how oh so wrong I was about how it was going to be empty because it was a weekday. First of all it's the height of tourist season and secondly nobody works in this town anyway so weekday means nothing to the La De Da Crowd. Anyway, I've parked in the next county and braved the throngs of tourists, trust funders and kept spouses to get here, I'm not letting a silly thing like a bear turn me back.
I carry on up the trail at a walk and on red alert for Mr. Bear. I don't see or hear anything for a bit and decide he's probably moved on. I can't count the number of times someone has warned me about a rattlesnake or bear and then I never see it. But then I hear a huge rustling noise right next to the trail about 10' away and sure enough an enormous black bear comes out of the brush and steps onto the trail right in front of me. As he emerges from the brush and hopefully before he notices me I turn around and calmly walk back down the trail. On the one hand you're not supposed to turn your back but on the other hand I want him to know I'm not a threat and that I'm heading out of his territory. When he gets on the trail I turn back around and walk backwards so I can keep an eye on him. He's so beautiful and I feel like I should be more scared but even though he looks right at me he seems relaxed and not bothered. He slowly crosses the trail and ambles down the hill towards the Chautauqua concert and dining halls, perhaps in search of a cheesy omelette and some classical music. I was half expecting him to nod and say 'Mornin'. I can't imagine a more perfect way to see a bear, up close and in the wild but not in a threatening way. I'm glad I didn't have Strummer with me. And I'm very glad the man warned me or I would have needed a new pair of shorts. Of course I didn't have my camera with me.
The rest of the run proceeds without incident. I see bear poop but no more bears or critters of any kind. The hills didn't feel too bad on my legs, maybe there's hope for me yet. Now I have to figure out how I'm going to tire out Strummer for the day. Maybe I'll risk the rattlesnakes and naked hippies out at the north side of the Rez so he can go swimming. Heck I've faced a black bear already today, I suppose I can deal with the naked hippies.
I went back and forth about whether or not I should take Strummer. Dogs are allowed off leash and he's very good on the trails but this time of year there are rattlesnakes to worry about never mind the mountain lions and bears plus it's a bit hot for him. In the end I decided I didn't want to have to watch out for him and worry about him overheating. Sometimes I swear I must by psychic or something. Because 4 1/2 minutes into my run a guy with a poodle coming the opposite way down the trail is waving his arms at me. I assume he's a guy I know from agility and start asking him how he is but it turns out he doesn't know me but he does want to warn me about the bear up ahead. Very close up ahead. Walking right down the middle of the trail. I hesitate about going on. I've spared you the details of how long it took me to park and how crazy crowded Chautauqua was and how oh so wrong I was about how it was going to be empty because it was a weekday. First of all it's the height of tourist season and secondly nobody works in this town anyway so weekday means nothing to the La De Da Crowd. Anyway, I've parked in the next county and braved the throngs of tourists, trust funders and kept spouses to get here, I'm not letting a silly thing like a bear turn me back.
I carry on up the trail at a walk and on red alert for Mr. Bear. I don't see or hear anything for a bit and decide he's probably moved on. I can't count the number of times someone has warned me about a rattlesnake or bear and then I never see it. But then I hear a huge rustling noise right next to the trail about 10' away and sure enough an enormous black bear comes out of the brush and steps onto the trail right in front of me. As he emerges from the brush and hopefully before he notices me I turn around and calmly walk back down the trail. On the one hand you're not supposed to turn your back but on the other hand I want him to know I'm not a threat and that I'm heading out of his territory. When he gets on the trail I turn back around and walk backwards so I can keep an eye on him. He's so beautiful and I feel like I should be more scared but even though he looks right at me he seems relaxed and not bothered. He slowly crosses the trail and ambles down the hill towards the Chautauqua concert and dining halls, perhaps in search of a cheesy omelette and some classical music. I was half expecting him to nod and say 'Mornin'. I can't imagine a more perfect way to see a bear, up close and in the wild but not in a threatening way. I'm glad I didn't have Strummer with me. And I'm very glad the man warned me or I would have needed a new pair of shorts. Of course I didn't have my camera with me.
The rest of the run proceeds without incident. I see bear poop but no more bears or critters of any kind. The hills didn't feel too bad on my legs, maybe there's hope for me yet. Now I have to figure out how I'm going to tire out Strummer for the day. Maybe I'll risk the rattlesnakes and naked hippies out at the north side of the Rez so he can go swimming. Heck I've faced a black bear already today, I suppose I can deal with the naked hippies.
Sunday, August 01, 2010
The git 'er done trial
Did someone say agility?
Do you know what it's like to have AC/DC stuck in your head all day? 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap' over and over and OVER in your head and no relief in sight from this noxious earworm? It's not pretty folks. But that's what they were playing in the coffee shop at 6:07 a.m. when I stopped in for a mocha because there was no way I was getting through a 2nd day of summer agility without the aid of much caffeine and sugar and chocolate. Extreme crankiness turned to an irrational, disturbing yet peaceful love for all the world as soon as the concoction hit my bloodstream and we were good to go. Middle aged agility lady Ecstasy. Anyway, I couldn't use my MP3 player in the car because the radio reset when the car battery died at the trial site the day before, which was super fun by the way, and it wanted some secret password code to turn back on again and oh how I tried but I could not guess the code so the radio denied me my Gaslight Anthem and I was stuck with AC/DC. As an aside I was on a Perf. Team in USDAA called AC/BC and nobody got it. Blank stares from middle aged lady dog agility world. Maybe that's a good thing? I thought it was a good team name though I wasn't the one who thought it up.
Anyway, Strummer and I had a DOCNA trial this past weekend, 2 full days which is normally more than my sanity and pocketbook can bear, especially in the depths of summer, but for once I had some Stuff I wanted to accomplish, a git 'er done type of deal, which is not normally how I like to approach agility but sometimes that's how it goes. The big thing I wanted to accomplish was to get Strum qualified for Champs in the North American Challenge (like USDAA's Grand Prix) event in the Specialist (or Masters) level. This was the last trial before the cutoff date and they were offering 2 chances so I signed up for both days. I also wanted to get him into Specialist in all his regular classes which meant I needed a Q in Jumpers and 2 in Standard. I also needed a Q in Trigility and Snakes and Ladders but I wasn't so concerned with them.
We started out Saturday morning with such an appalling Traditional Gamblers run that I was ready to quit agility with him right then and there. You know when people are talking about your crazy scary leap over the A-frame 3 hours later that it was bad. Let's not even talk about the disaster of the weave poles which we practiced over and over and OVER. However I managed to convince myself that we had ponied up all this money and gotten up at such an unspeakable hour that maybe we should gut it out for at least another class or 3 and we ended up the day with 4/6 Q's, one each in Standard (1st place), North American Challenge (7th or 8th place, we just eeked out a Q with 10 faults), Snakes and Ladders (2nd place) and Jumpers (1st place). Missed that second coveted Standard Q by one knocked bar on an otherwise beautiful run. Unfortunately I have not a shred of video. I brought my camera but was so shaken up by the first run that I wanted to focus on Strum's warm-up, in particular making sure he was able to do something to run his monkeys out, and didn't want to distract myself with having to explain the camera to somebody. This worked out so well that I didn't bother on Sunday either. Oh well, maybe next week I'll get some at the UKI trial since my videotaping buddy will be there.
Sunday was Trigility and I was paired with someone I've know forever with the fastest little poodle on the planet and a woman I've never met who came up to me and introduced herself on Saturday and told me her story of how she's a Stage 4 cancer survivor and very happy to simply be walking the planet and playing agility with her dogs. She hasn't Q'ed in her past 26 runs and I tell her do not worry, there is no pressure from either of us. At the best of times I never care all that much about these team type events and certainly I think if you've survived Stage 4 cancer you can drop as many bars and miss as many contacts as you like. I tell my poodle friend we should call the team Team Mayhem because her dog is a bit like Strummer in a poodle suit. We understand each others pain (and joy) of how do we handle these crazy fast high dogs.
Turns out they need an accommodating dog for another team and I eagerly volunteer because any ring time we can get is great, especially for free. Strum runs the Standard portion of the course (there are Jumpers and Gamblers courses for the other 2 dogs) and it means we get more chances to practice our weavepoles. It's only a set of 6 but still good practice. There's also a dogwalk with a 180 degrees flip away to a tunnel so we can practice our verbal 'Turn tunnel' cue which I've shock horror actually been working on. Crazy dog nails the whole course perfectly both times, hits his weave entry, beautiful dogwalk with tight turn to the tunnel both times, couldn't ask for more perfect runs. Team Mayhem Q's with a 1st place, the other team not so much but at least we did our part for them.
The Standard runs are both lost to knocked bars and though we had a gorgeous run in the North American Challenge we had one blip which ended up in a rare off course so no Q but so many nice things in that run I was happy anyway. I used the Strategic Time Gamble to train weaves again and it was as disastrous as the other Gamblers run, minus the air show on the A-frame because we didn't exactly make it to the A-frame. We finished all those runs by 1:15 and it was hot, I was tired and I decided Strum had had enough fun for one day so we missed out our Jumpers run. We'd finished up the title on Saturday and I didn't want to hang around in that heat for a couple more hours for 14 seconds of ring time. Got home by 3:00 and still don't regret that decision.
I was a good boy
Overall I was thrilled with how he did except for the weavepoles. The only contact he missed all weekend was 1 dogwalk. We got all the Q's I was hoping for except one and he needs only that 1 Standard Q to be completely in Specialist (Masters). The weavepole issue is driving me a bit crazy, you have no idea how long we've spent and it's not transferring consistently to the ring. My next plan of attack is to work with a partner with a high drive dog. She lives about 5 minutes away and has a big enough yard for some weaves and contacts so we'll switch off running our dogs and hopefully this will allow us to proof for the excitement of a trial (her issue is contacts). I've been working on proofing for my motion out at the field this past month but it's hard to proof for the excitement of a trial when I'm on my own all the time. I know someone else who offered to work with me as well but I've been going out to the field at 8:00 p.m. on the spur of the moment and haven't had a chance to coordinate a practice, mostly because of work.
Two more weekends in a row of 1 day trials then 3 days of a seminar with Daisy Peel then we see if I can get my ass up that crazy hill in the triathlon. Twice. Oh and I signed up for another triathlon for practice on the Friday after the 3 days of the seminar. I'm not exactly sure what sounds more exhausting.
And one final tip, if you can't figure out how to jump start your car just stand around the open car hoods with a frustrated look on your face and 2 other middle aged ladies with puzzled looks on their faces and sooner or later a boy will come and help you.
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Final Stats (mostly for my own crappy record keeping)
Intern Standard Q-1st place
Intern Jumpers Q-1st place
North American Challenge Q-7th or 8th place, 10 faults
Snakes and Ladders Q-2nd place
Trigility Q-1st place
Titles Completed:
Intern Jumpers
Intern Snakes and Ladders
Intern Trigility
Qualified for Specialist North American Challenge for 2010 DOCNA Champs
10/11 correct dogwalks
8/8 correct A-frames (I'm not counting the one where he flew over the top. Technically it was 'good' but obviously I don't want him doing that but I hadn't sent him to the A-frame, he did it as we were running out of the ring)
Do you know what it's like to have AC/DC stuck in your head all day? 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap' over and over and OVER in your head and no relief in sight from this noxious earworm? It's not pretty folks. But that's what they were playing in the coffee shop at 6:07 a.m. when I stopped in for a mocha because there was no way I was getting through a 2nd day of summer agility without the aid of much caffeine and sugar and chocolate. Extreme crankiness turned to an irrational, disturbing yet peaceful love for all the world as soon as the concoction hit my bloodstream and we were good to go. Middle aged agility lady Ecstasy. Anyway, I couldn't use my MP3 player in the car because the radio reset when the car battery died at the trial site the day before, which was super fun by the way, and it wanted some secret password code to turn back on again and oh how I tried but I could not guess the code so the radio denied me my Gaslight Anthem and I was stuck with AC/DC. As an aside I was on a Perf. Team in USDAA called AC/BC and nobody got it. Blank stares from middle aged lady dog agility world. Maybe that's a good thing? I thought it was a good team name though I wasn't the one who thought it up.
Anyway, Strummer and I had a DOCNA trial this past weekend, 2 full days which is normally more than my sanity and pocketbook can bear, especially in the depths of summer, but for once I had some Stuff I wanted to accomplish, a git 'er done type of deal, which is not normally how I like to approach agility but sometimes that's how it goes. The big thing I wanted to accomplish was to get Strum qualified for Champs in the North American Challenge (like USDAA's Grand Prix) event in the Specialist (or Masters) level. This was the last trial before the cutoff date and they were offering 2 chances so I signed up for both days. I also wanted to get him into Specialist in all his regular classes which meant I needed a Q in Jumpers and 2 in Standard. I also needed a Q in Trigility and Snakes and Ladders but I wasn't so concerned with them.
We started out Saturday morning with such an appalling Traditional Gamblers run that I was ready to quit agility with him right then and there. You know when people are talking about your crazy scary leap over the A-frame 3 hours later that it was bad. Let's not even talk about the disaster of the weave poles which we practiced over and over and OVER. However I managed to convince myself that we had ponied up all this money and gotten up at such an unspeakable hour that maybe we should gut it out for at least another class or 3 and we ended up the day with 4/6 Q's, one each in Standard (1st place), North American Challenge (7th or 8th place, we just eeked out a Q with 10 faults), Snakes and Ladders (2nd place) and Jumpers (1st place). Missed that second coveted Standard Q by one knocked bar on an otherwise beautiful run. Unfortunately I have not a shred of video. I brought my camera but was so shaken up by the first run that I wanted to focus on Strum's warm-up, in particular making sure he was able to do something to run his monkeys out, and didn't want to distract myself with having to explain the camera to somebody. This worked out so well that I didn't bother on Sunday either. Oh well, maybe next week I'll get some at the UKI trial since my videotaping buddy will be there.
Sunday was Trigility and I was paired with someone I've know forever with the fastest little poodle on the planet and a woman I've never met who came up to me and introduced herself on Saturday and told me her story of how she's a Stage 4 cancer survivor and very happy to simply be walking the planet and playing agility with her dogs. She hasn't Q'ed in her past 26 runs and I tell her do not worry, there is no pressure from either of us. At the best of times I never care all that much about these team type events and certainly I think if you've survived Stage 4 cancer you can drop as many bars and miss as many contacts as you like. I tell my poodle friend we should call the team Team Mayhem because her dog is a bit like Strummer in a poodle suit. We understand each others pain (and joy) of how do we handle these crazy fast high dogs.
Turns out they need an accommodating dog for another team and I eagerly volunteer because any ring time we can get is great, especially for free. Strum runs the Standard portion of the course (there are Jumpers and Gamblers courses for the other 2 dogs) and it means we get more chances to practice our weavepoles. It's only a set of 6 but still good practice. There's also a dogwalk with a 180 degrees flip away to a tunnel so we can practice our verbal 'Turn tunnel' cue which I've shock horror actually been working on. Crazy dog nails the whole course perfectly both times, hits his weave entry, beautiful dogwalk with tight turn to the tunnel both times, couldn't ask for more perfect runs. Team Mayhem Q's with a 1st place, the other team not so much but at least we did our part for them.
The Standard runs are both lost to knocked bars and though we had a gorgeous run in the North American Challenge we had one blip which ended up in a rare off course so no Q but so many nice things in that run I was happy anyway. I used the Strategic Time Gamble to train weaves again and it was as disastrous as the other Gamblers run, minus the air show on the A-frame because we didn't exactly make it to the A-frame. We finished all those runs by 1:15 and it was hot, I was tired and I decided Strum had had enough fun for one day so we missed out our Jumpers run. We'd finished up the title on Saturday and I didn't want to hang around in that heat for a couple more hours for 14 seconds of ring time. Got home by 3:00 and still don't regret that decision.
I was a good boy
Overall I was thrilled with how he did except for the weavepoles. The only contact he missed all weekend was 1 dogwalk. We got all the Q's I was hoping for except one and he needs only that 1 Standard Q to be completely in Specialist (Masters). The weavepole issue is driving me a bit crazy, you have no idea how long we've spent and it's not transferring consistently to the ring. My next plan of attack is to work with a partner with a high drive dog. She lives about 5 minutes away and has a big enough yard for some weaves and contacts so we'll switch off running our dogs and hopefully this will allow us to proof for the excitement of a trial (her issue is contacts). I've been working on proofing for my motion out at the field this past month but it's hard to proof for the excitement of a trial when I'm on my own all the time. I know someone else who offered to work with me as well but I've been going out to the field at 8:00 p.m. on the spur of the moment and haven't had a chance to coordinate a practice, mostly because of work.
Two more weekends in a row of 1 day trials then 3 days of a seminar with Daisy Peel then we see if I can get my ass up that crazy hill in the triathlon. Twice. Oh and I signed up for another triathlon for practice on the Friday after the 3 days of the seminar. I'm not exactly sure what sounds more exhausting.
And one final tip, if you can't figure out how to jump start your car just stand around the open car hoods with a frustrated look on your face and 2 other middle aged ladies with puzzled looks on their faces and sooner or later a boy will come and help you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Final Stats (mostly for my own crappy record keeping)
Intern Standard Q-1st place
Intern Jumpers Q-1st place
North American Challenge Q-7th or 8th place, 10 faults
Snakes and Ladders Q-2nd place
Trigility Q-1st place
Titles Completed:
Intern Jumpers
Intern Snakes and Ladders
Intern Trigility
Qualified for Specialist North American Challenge for 2010 DOCNA Champs
10/11 correct dogwalks
8/8 correct A-frames (I'm not counting the one where he flew over the top. Technically it was 'good' but obviously I don't want him doing that but I hadn't sent him to the A-frame, he did it as we were running out of the ring)
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