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.

Here's something they don't teach you in dog training class

This morning I got a laugh out of this post from Little Miss Runner Pants. This would make a great trick for clicker training though it might be hard to find someone to play the unsuspecting runner. You'd have to put it on a cue pretty darn quick too or things could get out of hand.

As long as I'm linking to other people's blogs here's one of been meaning to add for a while: Wide Lawns & Narrow Minds It's not about anything in particular but the author is a great writer and she has some hilarious stories. Sometimes she has me roaring with laughter, other times her stories are melancholy but always well written and worth the time to read them. Today she talks about her trip to see Barak Obama speak. If you want a good laugh go to the April archives from this year and read about her Passover experiences. My family is also Jewish so maybe this hit a little closer to home than it will for most people but she had me in tears and I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt. Plus anyone who shares my disgust of gefilte fish can't be half bad.

Mrs. Crankypants Runs the Bolder Boulder

Welcome to summer reruns. No, I didn't run the Bolder Boulder yesterday. This race report is from 2003. But eventually I want to get all of my pre-blog race reports cut and pasted into the blog so I can have them all in one place. This report originally appeared on an old defunct running forum.

For those unfamiliar, the Bolder Boulder is one of the biggest 10K (6.2 miles) road races in the U.S. I think there were 44,000 or so people in this race in 2003, not sure how many raced yesterday. For some people it's a highly competitive road race, for others who walk it it's a big street party. Competitiors dress up, there are bands and belly dancers lining the streets for most of the course. Anyway, here's my old race report to tide you over until I have time to write about more recent events.

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I entered this race completely untrained and had no goals in mind other than running as best I could. Someone gave me a free entry form a few weeks ago so I thought what the hey. I've been running only 2-3 times per week-one long trail run on the weekend and 1 or 2 short lunch time runs, and the past 2 weekends were spent at dog agility competitions so even those trail runs weren't happening. This is my 6th Bolder Boulder, I run it every other year or so, and I'm sure it'll be my worst, at least time wise.

My pre-race tactics involve trying to arrive at the start line as close to my wave start as possible so that I can lessen my chances of hearing a Bruce Springsteen song and getting it stuck in my head for the entire race, as almost happened to me at the Chicago Marathon. I leave my house at 6:55 am, park the car at 7:00 and have a nice 10 minute warm up jog to the start line, arriving just in time to hear the last 30 secs. of 'Born to Run'. Aaaaaargh!!! I try to drown it out with just about every Ramones song I can think of and finally succeed. My wave leaves around 7:30, within seconds of its advertised start time, and the Boss is mercifully purged from my brain.

Soon just about everything else is purged from my brain as I try to keep up with my wave. My first mile is 9:50, yes I know it's slow for most of you but for me, well, I honestly can’t remember the last time I've run a mile this fast, it was at least before starting to train for the Chicago marathon last June. I feel like crap and I can't remember why I thought this would be fun. The second mile's a bit slower at 10:05. I pass an Elvis impersonator and I still have enough oxygen making it to my brain to slightly enjoy his crooning. By the third mile I'm feeling much better despite the course heading uphill. This is usually the hardest part for me but all that trail running must be paying off as I'm actually passing people and my mile split is a 'blazing' 9:25 despite the hills. My split at the halfway mark is 30:36 and this is the last split I can remember despite looking at my watch at all the mile markers. The rest of the race is just a blur. Through the haze I think I see my massage therapist in a line of belly dancers and maybe my dog sitter playing African drums. Unfortunately I have enough of my wits about me to recognize the theme from Rocky being blared from two different locations on the course. At least it's the original theme and not 'Eye of the Tiger'. Somewhere between miles 4 and 5 there are jokers passing out donuts and hot bacon. Somebody actually takes the bacon and I turn my head away so I can't see the horror of him eating it.

By the time I reach the final short but steep hill up to the stadium/finish line I'm trying to figure out if I can possibly break an hour but I'm just too out of it to do the math. I look up stupidly from my watch to find an elderly woman in front of me who's crapped her shorts and is wheezing and staggering alarmingly up the hill. Being the kind and thoughtful person that I am all I can think is that I really need to get as far away from Miss Crappypants as I can or I'm going to lose my breakfast. Thankfully someone with a firmer grasp of priorities (and probably less oxygen deprivation) tries talking the woman into stopping. I'm angry with myself for being so selfish but keep on going up the hill, hoping very hard that the lady takes his advice and seeks medical attention.

My finish time is 1:00:31, pretty slow but over a minute faster than my worst time 2 years ago so I don't even manage the PW I was aiming for. I thought it would be a lot uglier so I really can't complain and now that it's over I've decided it really was kind of fun.

After the race I met up with the Colorado contingent of the V-teamers, very cool to meet them all though with the noise of the stadium I was having a hard time hearing (too many loud concerts in my youth). I didn't hang around to watch the pro race, it would have been fun to see in person but I've seen it other years and I really just wanted to get home. I actually preferred it when the pros ran the same course thru the neighborhoods as the regular folk and they didn't have the teams but I watched it on tv and enjoyed it anyway. The worst part of the whole race was having to wait 50 minutes for the freakin' bus. I could have walked home quicker. Instead I waited & waited while some crazy old guy from Ireland who was touring America told me bad jokes. All in all a pretty fun day.

Pueblo Trial

I wish I would keep better notes during trials. Or at least notes period. By the end of the thing it's all a blur and I'm lucky if I can remember what we Q'ed in.

We've been having such a nice, unseasonably cool spring but of course as soon as it's an agility weekend the temps. climb freakishly high. Saturday was windy again, not as bad as the weekend before but it was hotter, into the 80's then 90's for Sunday. Poor dogs, they always seem to melt down during at least one standard run at this trial and true to form both of them did on Sunday. Both standard runs ended when they refused to lie down on the table, not even for a second or two so I could leave the ring with something to reward. They'd been doing so well with their tables up until last weekend. The heat and being outside makes such a difference. Cody had a nice standard run going on Saturday until the table, then got a refusal when he ran around it. I finally got him on and into a down, again fooling him into thinking I had treats then ran out of the ring to reward when he finally did it. Lola did manage a decent table on Saturday and picked up her very first masters standard Q. How we're going to get 4 more good tables with nothing else wrong is anyone's guess.

We managed to get a bunch of Q's we didn't need and none of the ones we did. Cody popped his weaves during Snooker so no Super Q for him. Lola did get a Snooker Q but already has her title. She was just got shut out of the Super Q's too and since I'd had the same plan for Cody he wouldn't have gotten it even if he'd done his weaves. Unfortunately the 7 was the weaves and there was no way I was going to ask him to do 4 sets of weaves in that heat on the very last run of the trial. I picked a fun flowing course and hoped for the best but it didn't pan out this time. Why are weaves so often the 7? We'll just have to hope for a better course next time, this one just wasn't strategic enough (only 3 reds).

Cody picked up 2 more gamblers legs that he doesn't need (both first places, go Cody man) and Lo who has only 1 got shut out. Both gambles were easy, the test was whether your dog could hit the A-frame contact at a distance. Lola missed both times plus she melted down so badly that she didn't even get enough opening points.

Cody again got a 5 fault Grand Prix Q and 4th place, Lola who still doesn't have her Q for Regionals got nothing. She was running nicely but had a refusal at the weaves due to a handling error on my part then missed her dogwalk down contact. After that I lost my concentration and I think we had an off course somewhere. She was running much better in general this weekend, heat aside, once I realized that I needed to keep moving and give her an excited 'let's go' every once in a while to keep her moving. We've been down this road before with me running her while not being able to move properly and it never goes well. At least she didn't get totally shut out this weekend, that standard run was really nice. She had a beautiful pairs run too, her partner went off course so no Q but so what, it felt good for her to have a nice run if only for half a course. I think once we get practicing and maybe some lessons with Joy things will be fine again.

Cody's dogwalks were terrible this weekend but I think he hit all his A-frames. Lola missed some dogwalks too, unusual for her I think. I think she got most of her A-frames except the ones in the gamble. I've got a month to sort out what to do about Cody and I've not got a plan. He's so old I don't want to do anything that requires a lot of reps. Maybe I'll sign up for one day of the ASCA trial since they allow training. Do the dogwalk over & over until he gets it right then run out of the ring to reward, that's all I can think of for now. Taking him out of the ring of a USDAA trial or otherwise marking it when he blows it is not an option with him.

My foot still hurts but I think I was moving better this weekend, at least by the end of the trial. The start of the trial is always worse for some reason. I don't have another trial for a month and I'm hoping by that time I'll be moving a bit better.

Stacy Peardot announced one of her rare workshops on Monday and I just happened to be checking the Colorado list at just the right time so I snagged a spot. It's just a half day masters handling workshop next month so hopefully that will be a nice tune-up before Regionals.

It was a fun trial despite the weather, a nice venue and well run. Was fun to meet fellow blogger 'Wishy' who had come up all the way from AZ for the trial. She gave me some good info. about Susan Garrett and I've decided to sign up for the dog training seminar as opposed to the agility handling. We'll see if I can pay attention for 2 whole days.

Now I get to spend the week playing catch up. Two weekends of no house or yard work, seriously, you don't even want to know what I found tonight but it involved bugs. Inside the house. There are some advantages to having a small house & yard though. I managed to mow the lawn and vacuum the house tonight in just under an hour or so. Let's hear it for compact living. Or maybe it's because my motto when it comes to cleaning is 'close enough'.

Monday Night Masters

I was out of town at an agility trial this past weekend and I'll get to writing about that but I wanted to get this masters workout down while it was still fresh in my mind. Yes, I dragged my butt to masters the day after a tiring trial and let me tell you I needed a sprint workout like Prince needs Viagra but I gutted it out. I was dragging a bit and fighting the wall of the pool in the end lane again and still struggling with breathing to my off side and had no one to swim with in my lane and wah wah wah so my times weren't great but I suppose could have been worse.

North Boulder Rec. Center
Coach: Jane

Warm Up:
4x125 free on 2:30-2:40
1x100 non-free on 2:30
4x125 free on 2:30-2:40
1x1:00 non-free on 2:30

(my intervals were supposed to be 2:30 for the first set, 2:20 for the second set but I couldn’t hold them. I was swimming the 125’s on 2:25 or so)

Main Set:
1x50 free on 1:00
1x25 free on :30
do twice

1x50 free on :55
1x25 free on :40
do twice

1x50 free on :55
1x25 choice on :50
do twice

1x50 free on :55
1x25 choice on :60
do twice

12x25 on :40

The 50’s and 12 25’s were meant to be fast sprints and the single 25’s were recovery. I did the first 50 on :44 then most of the rest were on :50 with a :48 once or twice. The 12 25’s were on :22 or so.

Final Set:
3x100 free (pull w/ buoy & hand paddles) on 1:45

I was tired for these, did them on 1:35-1:40.

Cool down:
50 yards back stroke

Total yards: 2400 yards

Anyone out there ever been to a Susan Garrett seminar?

Susan Garrett is coming here the week before Regionals and she's doing a boatload of seminars. They're way expensive though, $100 a day just to audit the handling seminars. She's got a 2 day seminar over the weekend called 'Advances in Dog Training' that is billed as '...for anyone interested in learning how to improve your relationship with your dog and how dogs learn'. It's $270 for both days plus a nearly 2 hour drive each way for me plus maybe hotel room if I don't drive back Sat. night plus there goes my weekend plus it could be mega-crowded, over 90 people maybe. Then she's got 2 days of master handling seminars during the week, those are the ones that are $100 to audit plus gas again plus a day or two off work. One is called 'Greg Derrett's Double Box Foundation to understand the benefit of Greg's handling' (whew, what a mouthful). The other is 'Rear cross execution and driving lines'. Not sure I need help with rear crosses and I have no idea what 'driving lines' means. I have Greg Derrett's 'Shame about the handler' DVD where he goes through a bunch of double box drills as well as his latest DVD. Anybody familiar with any of this? Is the seminar much different than the DVD? Is the 'Advances in dog training' worth it? Do you have to be fully indoctrinated to her/Greg's handling system to get any benefit from the handling seminars? The working spots are long gone and I didn't even try for one in the lottery so I'd be auditing. You can email me at 'colliebrains at Juno dot com' if you want to respond privately.

On the one hand it's so expensive and a hassle and the week before Regionals (can you say Agility Burn Out?) but on the other hand it's not like she comes here every day and maybe it's a good opportunity to learn some stuff.

Tuesday Night Masters

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
S. Boulder Rec. Center
Coach: Jane

Warm Up:
150 yards choice
6 x 75 free on 1:40/1:30 (longer interval is alternate breathing)
(my swim times were 1:20)
4 x 100 (75 non-free/25 kick) on 2:30? (can't remember interval)
50 yards kick

Main Set:
3 x 350 free on 7:10 (first 350 is with hand paddles, no buoy, others are no
equipment)
(my swim times were 6:15, 6:20, 6:25)
4 x 100 free on 2:00 (swim times were 1:40, 1:45, 1:45, I only did 50 for the last
one because I thought we were only doing 3)

Final Set:
4 x 50 non-free on 1:20

2500 total yards

Photos from the weekend

Here's a link to some photos from the weekend. I love the look of total crazed madness on Cody's face on the dogwalk. That must have been the first run of the trial where he was running wild. And Lola looks like she's doing some freaky one legged yoga balance pose on the dogwalk. Most interesting is the photo of Lola coming out of the chute. I've been having a bad problem with her leaping up right before she exits the chute and sometimes getting tangled but in the photo she's coming out nice and straight. I did a little bit of chute work with her before I had surgery but not a whole lot. Hard to say why she's doing it properly there. I've been trying not to call her name for a turn while she's in the chute, maybe that's the difference but hard to say. More likely could be that the wind was blowing the chute open a bit so she could see the exit and didn't feel the need to leap to get out. I love agility photos, I wish I was made of money and could order them all in 8 1/2 x 11 and had a big wall to hang them all on.