Hiking with the Merle Girls

SUMMARY: Up up up and down down down at Santa Teresa County Park.

Yep, made it up the hill once again. Elevation 1150', starting elevation about 400'. 5.8 miles round trip. This time, I picked a longer, more scenic route, about 3.2 up and 2.6 back, rather than a cardio straight-up-the-mountain workout.

Here we are atop Coyote Peak at our usual portrait spot (compare and contrast using the link above):

Agility/geocaching/hiking friend Barbara and her two dogs, Jersey and Sheila, a borrowed dog (Bandit), and the Merle Girls and I started the hike at 9:30 on a moderately warm day--certainly for early August, not nearly as hot as it can get; San Jose's official temperature barely reached 80 (27C), although that's north by the bay; probably was hotter in the park on those exposed hillsides.

Another amazing thing for August was how very clear the views were. On typical hot days, you get enough urban haze to make things fuzzy. Mount Umunhum, with its cold-war era radar base, was clearer than I ever remember seeing it from here. They're still in talks about how best to open up the top of Umunhum to the public--of course the old buildings have asbestos and lead paint and orcs and icky stuff like that--but I do so hope that they'll leave the radar tower there, as it's such a familiar landmark.

Still, on the way back after noon, even though it was downhill all the way, the sun beat down on the dry hills and dark dirt trails, and the breeze was cut off about knee level by the dry vegetation, and Tika flagged a bit at times. About a mile from the end, there's access to Santa Teresa Creek, which runs through the park. I've seen people in there with their horses, so I didn't worry about letting the dogs in to cool off.

Tika was very happy to be in the water and seemed disinclined to get out. But she's the one who'll also pop into the pond(s) in my yard when we're playing. Surprised me a bit that Boost, who does her best to never put her delicate little border collie feet into water, also walked right in without a second thought. Guess it was warm.

I started to worry about Tika in the last half mile; she developed an odd gait and would speed up and slow down. I finally spent a minute going through all her toes looking for burrs or anything else that didn't belong. Didn't find anything, but then she was back to normal, so there must've been something there. Still, she couldn't wait to get into the car (only shade at that time of day) and lie right down.

With her at 10 and a half, I'm trying to keep track of what she can really do these days. Especially with her thick coat. Her only exposed skin anywhere is inside her ears, so I kept moistening my finger and spreading a thin layer of dampness on that skin to help cool her ever so slightly.

More stuff:

• All 21 of my photos are here: http://elf1.smugmug.com/Hiking/Santa-Teresa-Hike-Aug-6-2011
• Map of our route
• Description of park and downloadable topo trail map
• A little about Mount Umunhum
  

Funny, What One Remembers (Or Not)

SUMMARY: Big Qs in (my) history.

I guess some things DO get to be old hat after a while. Especially as agility has been around longer and longer, and there are more and more trials where people can earn Qs, and as I earn more and more titles at higher levels with more dogs.

I can remember so clearly when Jake earned his MAD, landing on the table at the end of the gamble (who uses tables for gambles any more in USDAA? gone!). I floated for days. People I barely knew rushed over to give me hugs. A MAD was a huge deal back then--for me, because it was my first, and for everyone, because they still weren't all that common.

I remember most of the NADAC Standard run on which he earned his NATCH. I remember thinking that he'd been slow and wasn't sure whether he'd actually made time, so didn't even know whether to celebrate. And I remember that the people at the score table told me to go away and not bother them and shielded the score sheets with their bodies so I couldn't even look over their shoulders, and wouldn't even tell me what the Standard Course Time was so I could compare the run on my video. That's when I decided never to go back to that club's trials. That was up near Placerville, in a beautiful little park whose name I no longer recall. [video appears below, after some delay to think about it, apparently--from 2001. Starts out looking funky but it will display a course map and then our run:]

I also remember clearly the exact gamble on which he earned his ADCH. A gamble that I had been chasing up and down the state, driving hundreds of miles in a weekend to try to get, and I finally got it on a course I didn't walk, right here at one of our own trials on the soccer practice lawn at Cal State Hayward (before it became Cal State University, East Bay).

I remember where I finished Remington's NATCH--also a gamble--up in Eureka at a pleasant site, the only time I went to that trial, desperate for

I remember Tika's first-ever USDAA run, which was a Novice Jumpers run (back when there were Novice and Starters, depending on whether you'd ever titled with a dog before). I halfway remember the whole course. I remember that she was super-fast and knocked a single bar. Since that was back when only Standard was titling in Novice/Starters, Jumpers was time plus faults--and she *still* came in 2nd with the 5-fault bar penalty! That was in the covered arena at the horse park in City of Industry in southern California.

I remember where I finished Tika's ADCh, on a Snooker course at Nunes Agility Field in Turlock, watching Rachel Sanders and her dog once again do our course but much much faster, and thinking that once again we'd be one out of the SuperQs as we had been so often. But then, woo-hoo, turns out everyone else didn't do so well, so we came in (2nd to rachel) but picked up that final Super-Q. (Ah, ha, see the course map and read about it in this blog post ... videos below:)

But the things I DON'T remember these days are telling: Although I thought that Tika took forever to get her first Jumpers Q (ha! maybe 18 nonQs?), I have no recollection at all of where or when it finally came. I have no idea when or where I finished her ADCH-Silver, although I do know it was a Standard Q that she needed. I have no idea where or when or even what class it was when she finished her ADCH all over again in Performance--perhaps because it was coming so easily to us by then. F'rinstance, when she moved to performance, she started getting SuperQs in snooker more often than not. She stopped knocking bars pretty much and started Quing in almost everything all the time (sometimes seemed that way, anyway).

I don't even remember anything about the time, place, or circumstances of her more advanced titles, the bronze performance ADCh, the bronze lifetime, the silver lifetime, dang, not even the gold lifetime although that was only earlier this year! It's all just whipping by, pleasing me, but not with the emotional intensity needed to burn it into my memory banks.

I remember where Boost first earned a Masters Jumpers Q, after more than 40 attempts--at Dixon May Fairgrounds. It completed her MAD, but I was more excited about the simple fact of getting a Jumpers Q. I bought a cake the next day for everyone to share. But i don't remember WHEN it was or anything about the course itself.

Will I remember the course, time, and place of Boost's first-ever Super-Q this last weekend? It was so amazing to me to have finished that course clean, and then for it to be a Super-Q, too. At the moment, it's seared into my brain, but will it be in another year? Or two? or three? I think it might be--the emotional impact was huge. Of course only time will tell.

Meanwhile--thanks, susan P, for this gift of a photo (honoring our Super-Q) from the trial photographer Bamfoto (so typical, one ear inside out and the other flying!):

I Have A Database And I'm Not Afraid To Use It

SUMMARY: Just going over some USDAA numbers for my own entertainment, Tika amazes me, and I finally do something about Boost.

Tika has Qed in 18 of the last 21 gamblers. This amazes me. So yes, you, too, can go from sitting in a corner crying because you've only gotten, like, one gamble out of the last 30 with 2 dogs (11 years ago--this also amazes me) to actually getting gambles.

Boost has gotten only 4 of the last 21 gamblers.

Tika has Qed 16 of the last 21 jumpers. This amazes me. So you, too, could go--same dog--from 21 novice/starters jumpers with no Qs before you get the one that you need to move to advanced--get that one advanced immediately--then take 13 tries in masters to get your one jumpers Q for your MAD... to Top Ten Performance Jumpers. (6 years later.)

I'm still waiting for that miracle transformation for Boost in Jumpers. The count now is 67 masters attempts with 2 Qs to show for it.

Tika's qualifying rate for the last year is 66%. Out of her last 100 runs, her Q rate is 72%--and over the last 4 trials, 81%. In USDAA! This just amazes me, period. I can't believe this will continue like this, but it's nice while it lasts.

Boost--well--Sigh. But she sure is cute.

I did get a private lesson this week and I'm jazzed about the specific things that I now can work on. And we adjusted what we did in class Thursday night, too, to avoid things that invoke our problem spots, and we did pretty good (that means not running exactly the same course as everyone else, tweaking one or two places).

Next trial isn't until the first weekend in July, so we have a chance to make progress if I keep up my motivation.

USDAA Weekend Quickie

SUMMARY: Tika successful, Boost not--but yes--but no--

Rain rain rain, all day Saturday. Bleah. Sun came out Sunday afternoon but the weekend ended in a downpour, too.

Tika amazed me once again by Qing in all 12 Q-able classes this weekend. In USDAA! She's such a good girl, fixing things that I screwed up (but I think got lucky on one dogwalk contact call). The odds in my agility career of Qing that often in anything, let alone that many USDAA classes, are nigh impossible. Won Jumpers, Standard, Snooker, Grand Prix, and Steeplechase round 1 on Saturday; won Steeplechase round 2 ($8 winnings! woo hoo), Grand Prix, and Team Jumpers on Sunday. Admittedly, the 22" Performance crowd was very small this weekend--only 4 to 6 dogs entered per class--but I'll take the placements!

The DAM Team Q completed her Performance Tournament Gold (at least 35 tournament Qs, with at least 7 in each of the three tournaments). In just under 2 years!

Boost picked up a Pairs Q (which completed her Relay Silver--25 Qs), a Standard Q--in which she managed to place 5th of 28 dogs (not a super fast time, but others had faults)--and had me in tears at the score table in frustration with her, myself, and her agility career after our first team class of the day Sunday, Team Standard...what is frigging wrong with Just. Taking. Jumps. In front of you!?! And then finished the last individual Team class this afternoon, Team Jumpers, by OMG running a flawless run and WINNING! Out of 24 dogs her height (22" class), three were as much as half a second faster but had bars down. This is the way it should be!--and had me in tears at the score table in joy at finally FINALLY having a really nice run with no bobbles, hesitations, or screw-ups of any kind on either of our parts.

And that, kids, is it before I go crawl into bed.

Six for the Price Of--

SUMMARY: The Careful Shopper's Diary, plus Who Hates Pet Stores?

So, it's not only people-related stuff that can be subject to goofy pricing. At Pet Club, you can buy one individually wrapped Savory Prime 4.5" pressed rawhide bone for 69 cents:

ORRRRRR you can buy the 6-pack for a mere $4.49.  Wouldn't you think it's cheaper to package 6 at a time rather than 6 individually? Guess not. Am I paying extra for the convenience?

To be fair, there are places where it's an extreme in the other direction. For example, I can buy a single 12" Cadet Bully Stick for--$4.99?!? Holy steerpizzle! My dogs sometimes get 2 or 3 or 4 of these a week! EACH. That price would kill me!

Fortunately, you can buy a one-pound bag (usually 9 to 12 sticks) for $19.99. (And I cut the bigger ones in half.)

Boost likes these at home, but she hates pet stores. HATES them. Tail down, ears down, miserable terrified little Border Collie. I keep trying to take her into these places briefly so she can see the wonders of all the food and toys, but she HATES IT MOM LET'S GO RIGHT NOW. On the way out a couple of months ago, she suddenly hunkered down,  went into growling mode while I tried to figure out what she was looking at, then into full-scale alarm barking. I realized she was looking UP.  A cute little flop-eared cartoon dog on a sign, fer pet's sake!

Tika, like all my other dogs before her, loves pet stores and would spend all day there finding little scraps of food and chew toys and bones in open bins that someone left there JUST FOR HER. However, since no pet store is immediately at hand--same bed, 12 hours later--she rests up for the coming weekend.

Class Night

SUMMARY: Everything's normal and the photos are all blurry.

We all went to class last night. I ran just fine, although I did warm up a bit more than usual to be sure I could run. Tika did everything right; Boost did almost everything right--great weaves!--and knocked at least one bar every exercise. Normal normal normal.

Watching the other dogs run is inspiring.

Silvina and TCam demonstrate their pretty new high-five trick.

Silvina brought empanadas and Jim likes that. So do the rest of us.

Nancy never holds still long enough for a photo.

Stacy and Roo (?) are new to our class. That curly tail never stops being curled!

Isn't that just the cutest border collie in the known universe? Now she has FOUR different colors in her eyes!

OK, if Tika can't have the treats on the chair, she'll check between every blade of grass for crumbs, since I never feed the poor thing.

I intended to get a photo of Tracey and Cal coming towards us. Apparently this camera is confused.

Boost loves watching the other dogs run.

Oh--wait--that's not Boost!  Imagine that you and your siblings grew up and moved out and then your parents had more kids. Here's Boost and her little sister TCam, who already knocks a whole lot fewer bars than Boost does. But not zero. They were working on not being rewarded for knocking bars.

Sisters! And then my camera filled up and I couldn't remember how to delete a couple of photos so I could try some better shots. Next week!

Friday at Haute TRACS

SUMMARY: 6 additional runs per dog, no Qs for Boost, 4 for Tika plus PDCH-Bronze--and how about that Grand Prix!

NOTE: FYI, All of Boost's classes are in the Championship program; Tika's are in the Performance Program. Both dogs have been jumping 22" for the last 2 years.

Friday morning

... did not go well for Taj MuttHall.

Tika Snooker: A 0-point run. (Knocked the first bar and my second obstacle was only a single full stride after that--no way I was calling her off it.) That's our 9th career 0-point Snooker; her last was three and a half years ago. May there be no more! And it was SUCH a doable Tika-style snooker. Sigh.

Boost Snooker: Knocked a bar on a 7-pointer in the opening, taking us out of SuperQ contention, then gave me a 'what this jump" refusal on #5 in the closing, so not even a Qualifier.

Tika Jumpers: Nice and flowing, felt like we were moving nicely (we were--we had the fastest time, I believe) but she knocked a bar in the middle and not sure why. No Q.

Boost Jumpers: Auuuughhhh! She was doing all the moves I asked, but I pulled her out after she'd knocked 4 bars in the first 9 obstacles (one of which was a tunnel).

Friday afternoon

...picked up a little for Tika:

Boost's Standard: I must've been getting tired of writing down all the ways we were blowing things after 2 days of it; I have no notes on the course. But I believe she had already had more than one fault when she left the Aframe early and so I pulled her off and put her away.

Tika's Standard: For several years now, I've been putting her into a Down at the start line, because in a sit she either lay down anyway or took off early. In this class, she would NOT "down" at the start line. I didn't want to get called for delayed start, so I left her in a sit and led out. Sure enough, she took off early, bounced off me as I was pivoting, which stalled us out for a moment (and while I briefly pondered taking her off the course), but then we continued, Qed, and even placed 2nd of 7 dogs. That was nice, because it completed the 15 Standard Qs we needed for our Performance Champion Bronze title! W00t! Nice to have that out of the way.

Boost's Gamblers: More lack of notes. Not very good opening points, refusal on the tunnel in the gamble (starts to go in, pops back to look at me, then goes in, ARGH!), then instead of going in a straight line from the tunnel to the jump in front of her, veers out of the tunnel straight towards me, so no gamble, either.

Tika's Gamble: I apparently had a crappy opening plan; we had some bobbles, she popped her dogwalk for 0 points, and although she did the gamble itself spot on and Qed, we didn't even place, which is rare for us when we do get the gamble.

Friday afternoon final two classes

Tika's day picked up even more. Boost? Well. Hm. Back to seriously considering not entering her in trials; it's just a waste of money most of the time without me doing constant maintenance training and upgrade work. So much to work on, all the time.

Boost Pairs Relay: On a lead-out pivot, blasted right past the 2nd jump and into the next obstacle for an off-course. (Hmm, she did this once already this weekend, which course was it?) Otherwise it was lovely, and so was her partner's run. Can't even get a danged Pairs Q (of which she already has 23, which is twice as many as she has anything else).

Tika Pairs Relay: Tika and Maddie teamed again. We did great. But another team did even greater. So we Qed with a 2nd of 9 teams. Not complaining!

Boost Grand Prix: Yet another course with no notes. We Eliminated on that one, too. It was SUCH a Boost-able course, smooth and flowing and I could keep ahead of her all the way through, and what happened? I think I did a lead-out pivot and she ran past the first obstacle, but don't remember for sure.

Tika Grand Prix: Tika and I came off that course with me yelling "Best Grand Prix Course IN THE UNIVERSE!" (thanks Pat Corl) and Tika biting my feet. (Which she does after every course, but no matter.) We ended up winning, the first time EVER in my agility career earning a bye voucher into the regional semifinals. Happy happy happy! (Tika has previously placed 2nd in Grand Prix 6 times.) Finally!

Here she is with our Steeplechase and GP ribbons.

Is Tika Getting Older

SUMMARY: I'm looking for signs in her face and her performance.

Tika turns 10 on Monday. Is she becoming an old dog yet? I dread the day, of course-- so I'm looking for signs.

Here's Tika's photo from Wednesday:

Here's the closest similar shot I could find, from seven years ago, March 2004:

Sooo is she getting whiter in the face? It's so hard to tell, with her already speckled and white-flecked coat. Is the front inside her ear more white than tan? Are her eyelashes white but weren't before? Her little eyebrows look white from the side in yesterday's photo, but in person, looking more straight on, they still look tannish.  Her teeth are definitely more worn down--but you can't see that. :-)

Next, I plotted her non-Eliminating Jumpers yards per second in Masters and P3.  I included runs with faults, which could be bars, refusals, or runouts (which could make the times slower). Debated leaving them out, but in fact even our nominally "clean" runs could have detours and major bobbles that didn't show up as faults, and knocked bars  are less likely than those unrecorded bobbles to affect our time.

Soooo is she slowing down? There might have been a very gradual trend downwards, until she moved to P3 in October 2009, which popped right back up there, and the numbers have held steady since then. (Except the last 3 on the chart, which were, respectively, 1st place of 10 dogs ("late calls but good for 1:30 on a very hot day"), massive time-wasting bobbles, and 2nd place of 10 dogs, only .1 off 1st. So I think they were slow courses rather than us slowing down.)

My conclusion: Happy Birthday, Tika! Looks like you've still got plenty in you!

The Weekend

Note about photos: All scanned in, and I apparently did a crappy job of it. Will have to redo eventually. Not tonight. Sorry. They're blurry & not all that great-looking.

One: It was danged hot.

Tika ran very fast despite the heat, but it slowed her a bit eventually. She never did stop panting.

Probably in the high 90s each day, and progressively more humid each of the three days. Ah, agility in the Central Valley in July! I suspect the humidity might have had a lot to do with the neighbors flood-irrigating their huge, huge fields. The owner of the agility site says that that also has a lot to do with the clouds of mosquitos that we encountered at certain times of the day or night.

So we're busily emptying our flowerpot drip pans, and meanwhile there are gigantic fields of stagnant water all over the central valley--

But I digress from the heat. Even I, who usually perspires not a drop, had thouroughly soaked through my jeans and polo shirt by midday Monday.

Two: Toenails Too Long

Tika allows me to do her nails, but she always looks away or hides her head. I don't know why--noise? Smell? Can't bear to see whether Mom'll hit the quick?

Everyone got his or her toenails dremeled this weekend. Jake's toenails are mostly black, so I can't tell where the quick is, really. Boost's are white/clear and I've been trimming them fairly often and she's still fairly young so they haven't become overly long. Yet. Tika's are also clear and I can see the quick and it's much further down the toenails than one would ideally like. If only I had the get-up-and-go to just touch them with the Dremel every couple of days, I might chase the nails back to a reasonable length.

Three: The old guy

Jake, who's cool no matter the circumstances.

Jake ran in only 5 classes this weekend—three Jumpers, one Snooker, and one Jackpot (Gamblers). He was very smooth in all of them, but did not get the Gamble. Qed in four of five, what a good guy. Placed from first to third out of about 4 dogs, all considerably younger than himself. And he seemed pretty happy, although I've seen him run faster...for example, last night in class! Maybe it was the heat.

Four: The baby dog

Boost at five months.

Everyone tells me how cute Boost is. Of course I think so, and maybe they're just under the spell of puppydom, but it's nice to hear. She got to play with one of her sisters for a while, although Beck (your basic black & white BC) wanted to lie in the shade more than she wanted to run around like a crazy dog. It barely got Booster panting, although she did do quite a bit of running. I tried to remember to put her into a crate rather than the x-pen whenever I took one of the dogs out for an event or took both for a walk, but I forgot a couple of times, and one of those times she apparently climbed out of the pen, was caught by a neighbor, and plunked back into the pen. She didn't try again in the few opportunities she received.

Five: Tika's Championship Chase

Tika weaving, with both eyes open in the photo for once.

Tika Qed only 8 out of 15 this weekend, but there were some that were plenty my fault and not at all hers--

• I ran the wrong course in Snooker
• I forgot where I was going in one Jumpers and one Standard
• She had *two* chances at two different gambles in one Jackpot and missed both--thereby proving that I'm not training & practicing gamble-type operations nearly enough with her, as they were both fairly straight-forward (although only 3 dogs out of about 50 got either gamble--and those got BOTH gambles. So either you can gamble or you can't.)

However, she was running really nicely. Stayed at the start line, lying down only once. Left a couple of contacts early at the first opportunity on Saturday and I made her lie down after each (earning an elimination for training in the ring--there went another Q), and then she was good for the rest of the weekend. Hardly grabbed at my feet at all at the end of the run, although once she leaped in the air and grabbed my shirt, which could be a bad thing. Did her dangedest to do everything I asked her to, and very quickly. What a lovely girl!

Still, back to knocking bars again. Knocked a bar in probably half of the 15 runs. Better than sometimes, but not as good as the previous CPE weekend, with NONE down. So--back to practicing jumping drills regularly. Sighhhh--

We DID get another Jackpot that only a few dogs got. AND we got two Jumpers and two Colors legs (out of 3 and 2, respectively), towards our C-ATCH. So we could still finish at the Bay Team trial on the 23/24 if we get both Jumpers and both Colors. A long shot, but it could happen...

Tika Scared of Jake

Now this is weird. Yesterday and today (and maybe the day before?) Tika has been acting frightened of Jake half the time. I haven't seen anything on Jake's part that would warrant this, although of course they have been alone in the house together occasionally.

Last couple of days, when Jake has started to sniff her underparts, she reacted as if he had threatened her--first time she kind of snarled and spun away off the bed with her tail down (too short to go between her legs) and wouldn't come back onto the bed; the second time I was just skritching her ears and Jake came over, Mr. Casual, and started to sniff, and she skittered away so abruptly it was almost as if he'd bitten her--which he didn't.

Now here in the office, I offered to let her half onto my lap to give me a hug. She complied, but when Jake ambled over, she again tucked tail and ears and tried to hide on the far side of my chair. Wouldn't come back to snuggle with me at all, even after I got Jake to lie down (where he lay quietly, obsessively licking his feet). Wouldn't walk by Jake--tried to hide behind another chair when I tried to call her over. This is so odd. She has never seemed intimidated by either dog before, even when Rem was grouchy and landed on her for various transgressions.

I think she was still crashing into him with her ball outside this morning as per SOP, but now I'm not so sure about that.

I'm thinking it might be some kind of delayed reaction to Remington being gone, but I can't think why or how or what.

She has also been licking between the two outer toes on her right foot a lot since Wednesday. I can't find anything there, no cuts or irritation or anything that feels swollen or embedded. Her toenails were pretty long, so I trimmed them back. Hard to tell if she stubbed a toe or something.

Toenails: Explain to me how a dog can keep her dew claws worn down to a stub but the middle front toenails grow unimpeded.