agility learning never stops

SUMMARY: compare 1995 to 2025

Source:  My comment on a friend's Facebook post about how agility training never ends, January 2, 2025. 

TO DO: Add photos?

Susan P said: Lots to do- always lots to do. Agility- the sport for people who never reach a finished product! lol

Never finished, right! I remember a point in my agility career, probably around the end of my first year, when I'd been competing for perhaps six months after six months of class training, and I thought, we already know how to do all the obstacles and we know the rules and we can run a course, what more do we need to learn? 

Of course Nancy and Jim (Of Power Paws agility) kept figuring out more things for us to learn. Dang it! And I continued with all that sort of thing for almost 2 decades. And by the end of that time, agility was changing faster then I could keep up with. It is very different sport.

Equipment

Some changes are to the equipment. Back then, I thought we needed an even larger variety of equipment that was already available. But since then, most if not all American utility organizations (Based on what I know about AKC, UKI, USDAA, CPE, and NADAC – – the last one has gone even farther away with obstacles) have eliminated The following (in part, for safety, and part for their difficulty as an obstacle to set up and move around):

• the crossover, 
• the chute (collapsed tunnel)
• The table except in certain circumstances
•  I think the tire is on the way out? 
• and I'm not sure about triple jumps… I think they are gone?

other changes: 

• The A-frame is now rubberized (And so are the dog walk and the teeter) instead of plain plywood or metal, And is not as high
•  I don't think anyone allows an odd number of weave poles anymore But I remember encountering 11 at least once in a competition. And the spacing between weave poles is much more generous by several inches

Handling And training

i'm not sure that I can do a summary or even a list of everything that has changed here.Back when I started, it was not completely uncommon to see people trying to always run the course with their dog on their left side, as in heel position. In my training, it was all about doing the right body language and the right obstacle name to get the dogs to go around a course. Now, everyone is learning Commands to verbally direct their dog to the backside of a  Obstacle or to skip an obstacle or to prepare to turn instantly after An obstacle. Handler's work at a much greater distance from their dogs, and that is particularly important because dogs have gotten so much faster.

Back then, pretty much everyone trained their dogs to at least stop briefly in the yellow zone at the bottom of the contacts. A few years into my experience, people were starting to work on figuring out how to train dogs to do running contacts, that is keep their complete speed but ensure that they got their feet in the yellow. More theories were evolving over that time. More people were successful with the training.Now, watching some of the national international championship runs, I think almost everyone is trying for running contacts and usually making them.

Dogs

back then, everyone began with whatever pet dog they had. Now, border collies Dominate the top two or three heights. When I first saw a fast Papillon on do a course, around 2000, I and everyone else were stunned to see the speed and that the dog's speed on the course beat even the top border collies. Papillion's became more common, now Some people are Breeding Border Paps To get the size and speed advantage of the smaller dogs and the working ethic of the border collies. As I understand it, that is still an experimental thing and the results are uneven, as to be expected when trying something new with crossing breeds.

And one no longer commonly gets a dog from Just someone that they know or at a shelter if they really want to compete at the top levels--people know so much more about which breeders are breeding for show versus breeders who are breeding for dog sports or herding...herding border collies are still a popular source. 

people have always worked on finding ways to get their dogs to do courses faster, to react to you faster, to move their legs faster, to make turns faster,but now there are so many activities and exercises to ensure their physical health and their attitude. That felt like they were just beginning when I started, if they were there at all.

In summary

everyone competing learns and relearns and relearns and relearns how to work with their dog on and off course as the standards for skill and time and performance and equipment change – – 

I would still love it if I were younger (because my joints did not age well). Sometimes I loved learning new things. Mostly I did. But towards the end, particularly as my knees and back got bad, I would look at the new "master handling" courses in USDAA and think, no way. Just no way.

But if I were younger and starting out…

Contemplating Changes...and Climates

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday. 

At least, no words of my own beyond this: Compare and contrast, say, precipitation (bright blue bars) or low and high temperature curves (lines).

California selected cities

Fremont

Half Moon Bay

San Jose 

Washington selected cities

Bellingham

Olympia

Port Angeles

Port Townsend

Sequim

Whidbey Island

All screen captures from https://www.usclimatedata.com/

>>  Visit the Wordless Wednesday site; lots of blogs. <<

Things. Boxes. Dog beds. Organizing.

SUMMARY: I despair of ever having the time or energy.

Oct 2005: This is what the entry to my office used to be.  Clean, simple, no boxes (well, just one temporary clear plastic one) in the aisle (and Jake). Made me look almost like a neat, tidy, organized person. Plus room to stroll through. I'd love to get back to that.  NOTE that the side of the kitchen table where I always sit is above the big bed. That's relevant here. Some differences that can't be helped: No Jake. The starry doormat seen at the bottom no longer exists. The purple wastebasket broke (sob!). The boxes on the bookcase are long gone. (Carpet color didn't change; differences in cameras or processing.)

Oct 2019: Main differences: The dogs almost never used the smaller bed there: Either used the big bed or lay under the table. So I moved that bed under the table.  (The big bed is still there, with that burgundy/black cushion on it.) Therefore the wastebaskets moved farther to the right (can't see them). The filigree metal screen (you can just see its edge on the right in 2005) (it's about 5'x5') moved to the left side because it blocked me from accessing the wires for equipment on the desk. Boxes boxes boxes. On *both* sides (you can't see the right side much). Almost all of them have been there 3-4 years (much related to my parents' estate, but not all). Makes me nuts every time I walk through there. But then, I'd have to look at each one and either make a decision of some sort (hard) or do with it what I had intended (often time-consuming).  Exercise pen unfolded in front of some boxes. Actually it's there so that I can sometimes move it to block their access, either into or out of the office. Too much stuff on lowest shelf of closest bookcase. (Bringing over all my parents' slides & photos is a storage challenge.)

Recalculating Route...

SUMMARY: Life isn't always what one expects or hopes for.

U-turns? Streets blocked off? Got lost and hence found things that one wouldn't have otherwise, or just wasted time? Map not up to date?

I have been pondering my life over the last week or so; not sure of the trigger, but I'm diving deep upon finding that I'm considerably less happy than I've been trying to be for quite a while.

A lot of it still has to do with loss in recent years. At a pace that continues accelerating--which shouldn't be surprising as I grow older, but still...

So much of it also has to do with my expectations about life, and although (seriously) most of my life has gone very well, still, I'm counting many things that have mattered to me and scoring them lower and lower.

At a high level, for example:

I expected to be married until he or I died, but that ended after 20 years.
I expected to be doing agility and hiking until I died, but arthritis is making that prospect dimmer--and that started showing up about the time of my divorce.
I did move on, bought a house, changed my expectations about the rest of my life.
 I've been lucky enough that the arthritis more or less was manageable for a decade and a half after that, but the last 4 years have been a rollercoaster.
Still trying to change my expectations about the rest of my life--or maybe trying again--but trying to change also is a rollercoaster. You know, wah wah, kicking my heels, I don' wanna!
People who have rediscovered themselves after much bigger challenges than mine are inspiring in reminding me that I have a lot to work with; just have to decide, again, how to do it.

[TO DO: Insert Future is Here photo when blogger/google drive is back up.](1)

I want to tell the Dungeon Master: Please, I'm tired of this game, and the challenges are getting harder and more tedious, and I'm just feeling like--like I'm having a low percentage on making my saving rolls. May I please start over? Or at least start a new game with all of my points intact? Dexterity, Agility, Energy, Enthusiasm, Health, Endurance, and also nice would be high scores in, say, Healing, Spellcasting, Unarmed Combat, Charisma, Falconry, Acting, Pottery, and particularly Philosophy and Wisdom and Financial Planning. And Dog Training and House Cleaning.  And Poesy.

Am I asking too much?

Sadly, the DM isn't answering my calls, texts, or emails, so I'll have to figure out something on my own. Hate when that happens.

Purely coincidence: After typing all the previous, a friend posted a link to this Green Day song, which hits me here, right in the middle of my blog.  I'm Still Breathing.... (asks: Are you scared to death to live?) Graphics are grim but in a hopeful way...

------

(1) Why I had trouble uploading images.

Photo credits: Signposts: Ellen Levy Finch (back yard--and also I made them); Future Is Now sign: Ellen Levy Finch (downtown San Jose)

Speaking of Changing the Environment--

SUMMARY: Yep, blog appearance changed.

Just felt as if, like other things in my life, it's time for a little change. Dang, should've done a screen capture of the previous format. C'est la vie.

So here's a capture of the new format. This should look freaky.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes (1)

SUMMARY: Happiness is a new paint job

Ten years ago, I had spent the spring and summer desperately searching for a house to buy that had a yard large enough for dog agility, was in good shape with modern wiring, had room for All My Stuff (walls for bookcases, storage in the garage, like that), could easily handle a renter living in the same house, wasn't too far from friends and work, and that I could afford.

I found--and bought--this house in August 2001:

One of my first thoughts on seeing it in person was, "wow, what ugly colors!" After I bought it, some termite/repair work (paid for in escrow) required the replacement of a few beams and boards on the front porch, which I primered but were then otherwise nekkid. Plus, the paint was starting to peel from the fascia boards and eaves in various places, so it was really urgent to get it repainted.

So the thought of what color to paint it (purple? sky blue?) was on my mind from that first moment of fascinated horror (sorry, previous owners, who really took very nice care of the place). It was only a few months later when, driving down a nearby street, I saw a gorgeous paint color combination that I WANTED ON MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW. However, seeing as how matching paint colors by eye or by description is a lost cause, I actually stopped and knocked on the door.

The nice people invited me in, looked up the names of the paint colors for me, wrote them down, and we had a nice chat about where she got the colors, who did the work, and so on. I stopped off at Kelley Moore on my way home, got some samples of the colors, and mocked them up on my computer like this to see how they'd look on MY house:

Then, on a free weekend sometime after that, I sprayed down the whole house to get it clean and daubed on a bit of paint in a few key places to see how it would look. Realized I didn't have time that weekend to really get started. Aaaaaaaaaand there it sat. Here's the front in 2004, with a little test daubing on the lower right.

And the front porch in October of this year, testing by the window and the front door. Yep, all my visitors saw my house like this for nine years. Nine. Whole. Years.

Fast forward through years of never having the time or energy to tackle it, through 2006, when my sister got married in my back yard and we spent weeks prepping and painting just the back deck (isn't it purty, in its nice tan and green and white?), and I realized that I was never going to have the time or energy to tackle this particular house, and starting to set aside money to hire someone else to do it.

To December of last year, when the eaves and fascias had become so badly weathered--ok, rotten--that chunks were just falling off randomly, and I hired someone to fix that (see my before and after photos of that in this Wordless Wednesday post), which depleted the funds again.

To this fall. Things were looking pretty bad in places by then. The south-facing wall was the worst.

But it was pretty ugly everywhere, including the side with the side garage door (with the mandatory test paint from 2002).

However-- I finally had the dough, got & looked up referrals, called painters, got estimates, and, yeah!, hired someone!
Here's what they saw as they drove up:

They worked really hard at the preparation--scraping the cracking and crumbling paint away made my yard look like it had snowed (well, with patches of fluorescent green here and there). And, oh, the mildew under the peeling paint on the back wall!

And here--finally--is what it looked like when they drove away four days later!

And all is right with the world.