Team Taj MuttHall in the Agility Ring

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

Start Line

Weave Poles

Table 

 A-frame

Broad Jump

 Jumping jumping jumping

Running Running Running

Finish Line

Thanks Sarah Hitzeman for all the photos from last weekend.

Bar Knocking, Weaves, and Oldness

SUMMARY: Boost training update, Tika aging update.

In class last night, on the first exercise, which I wasn't sure I could get through, Boost and I did great. Except that she knocked 2 bars.

Our instructor complimented Boost's run and said that she's ready to help me go back to working on bar knocking any time I'm ready. I said, OK.

We started on this a couple of times in the past and then decided that getting Boost to actually do obstacles was the bigger issue. This issue hasn't gone away, but she *does* look really nice in class a lot of the time these days. Did it take her turning 7 to start getting the idea of what's going on?

So the first step is that I need to stop her (in training or class) as soon as she ticks or knocks a bar. This is harder than it sounds--I'm so busy trying to figure out whether I can actually do the body work for a serpentine-to-rear-cross that the fact that she's ticked a bar is invisible to me. Or so busy trying my darnedest to get 3 obstacles ahead so I can do a deceleration for a threadle that the fact that she's knocked a bar is not high on my radar. But I think I was doing better by the end of class.

I also need to count--all the bars that she attempts, and all the bars that she ticks or knocks. That was hard just in class! If we stopped partway through an exercise, and restarted some other part of the way through, repeat 3 or 4 times, jeez, how many bars did we actually attempt?

I have not been doing tons of agility work at home.

About the only things I've been practicing with either dog are table-downs with Tika and weave entries with Boost, who appears to have decided recently that a weave entry, instead of being an entry with the first pole to her left shoulder, is one of:
* Enter between the first two poles, but starting from whtever direction she's coming.
* Enter between the second and third pole, starting from whatever direction she's coming.

It's insane. We've been working on weaves for almost 7 years and she's still not figured out the real rules. Or, at least, she gets it for a while, then somehow decides that that's not what it is after all.

Anyhoo--we've been practicing weave entries.

Homework from class this week is assorted moves-to-rear cross: threadle to rear, serpentine to rear, front to rear. After all these years of agility, I am still not coordinated!

Tika, meanwhile, I swear is still getting deafer. Yesterday in the quiet kitchen, she was lying facing away from me, and I had to say her name 3 times, louder each time, before she turned her head to look at me, but in a "did I hear something?" fashion rather than "my name is being called in the kitchen! yay!" which would be normal.

Her energy level does seem lower lately. She still runs after her ball full-tilt, but might chase it only 2 or 3 times before rushing into the shrubberies to continue excavation on her tunnel to China. She doesn't bother getting up off her bed often now when I'm doing something with Boost.

We're planning on hiking several miles this weekend, and none of us have done much hiking or walking lately, just too busy & distracted. Hope things go well for all of us on the trail.

Snooker Point Averages

SUMMARY: While I'm having fun with my database--

NOTE: In USDAA, you need 37 points for a Q; in CPE, only 32 at the highest level, down to merely 24 at the lowest level.

The maximum points in a CPE Snooker is 51; in USDAA it might be 51 or it might be 58.

Boost's Snooker stats:

• CPE: 45% Q rate (10 of 22--8 of those >=37 so Qing in USDAA); average points/run: 29.5
• USDAA: 13% Q rate (16 of 120); average points/run: 25.5 [deep sigh]

Remington:

• CPE: 33% Q rate (2 of 3); average points/run: 24.3
  
• USDAA: 20.5% Q rate (8 of 39); average points/run: 27.4

Tika:

• CPE: 73% Q rate (43 of 59--38 of those >=37 pts); average points/run: 38.15
  
• USDAA: 50% Q rate (88 of 176); average points/run: 32

Jake:

• CPE: 63% Q rate (19 of 30--17 of those >=37 pts); average points/run: 31.8
  
• USDAA: 61% Q rate (37 of 61); average points/run: 35.12 

You can see why I always expected Jake to make Top Ten in Snooker, at least in performance where his Q rate was 66% and SuperQ rate was 25%. Just not enough dogs competing in performance in our area at the time to get the Top Ten points. But I can still picture him running through a course, ears flying in the breeze--and never* knocking bars!

*What, never? No, never! What, NEVER? Well...hardly ever.

Training Notes

SUMMARY: A little work with both dogs and myself.

One of my concessions to entering a squillion more agility trials this year  was that I needed to work on the things that have been problems or are frustrating me.

As yet, I have no written, quantified plan. At this point, after months of not feeling like doing anything at all, it is enough for me to feel like training with the dogs, and to actually do it at least for a few minutes a few times a week.

Hence, I've been:

• Practicing deceleration moves with both dogs (that seems to be the move du jour for some reason), after observing that in some cases neither one seems to notice that I've stopped moving.
• For Tika, down on the table, lots of food rewards.
• For Boost, practicing just running and going going going over jumps (and tunnels) without hesitation or looking back at me, over and over and over.
• For Boost, trying to build as much value in doing jumps as in doing tunnels.  (We seldom get refusals on tunnels; we also play in tunnels a lot at home.) So, for example, sending her over a jump to get her toy rather than only running through tunnels or on the flat.
• For Boost, trying to put more name recognition value on "Hup!" She's pretty good at "weave", "climb" (Aframe and dogwalk), "teeter", and "through" (tunnels), but just "hup" isn't one that I ever practiced very much.
• For both dogs, some "out" work (for gambles).
• For both dogs, "touch" to a nose touch at the end of contact obstacles (Tika with emphasis on the dogwalk, because that's what she's most likely to do oddball things on, and not at all on the teeter; Boost with emphasis on the teeter because that's where she's been coming off the side.)
• For me, just trying to get a better grip on getting to where I need to be. I have been reviewing online videos of other people's timing, watching so carefully the people in class who are really good at that with their really fast dogs--which (after all these years) I'm finally remembering has more to do with how quickly you can leave the dog on the previous obstacle than with rushing to get to the next one. Boost has made this more challenging for me with her propensity for pulling off of obstacles, but some things we've been analyzing in class lately, on really learning where your dog is taking off for, say, a jump, is helping me refocus on this. I'm not really fast, myself, but watching the people who are really good at being there--90% of the time they're calmly almost loping into position.
• For me, running. Just lifting my feet and moving. Trying to do at least a little jogging around the yard or a little jogging and a sprint or two when we go to the park.

I'm alternately worried and not worried about Tika's hearing. I think she is having some hearing difficulties. Oh, no she isn't. Oh, yes, she is.  I keep thinking back to Jake and my earliest introduction to his hearing deterioration was that he seemed to blow me off on course when I was clearly and loudly calling him or giving him clear and loud verbal instructions. Tika is sort of manifesting the same thing. Sometimes.  Like, she always used to send to tunnels fine. Now she's turning back to me more often, as if not certain what I want her to do.  Now she's not "COMEing" (in nonagility situations) where she used to be fairly reliable about that. She seems to startle more if she's napping and I touch her or something louder happens. A few times she has started alarm barking when the renter has made some noise in the house, as if she can't recognize the noise or its provenance.

In class, she alternates between doing even complicated courses with her usual not-super-fast experience ease, and then completely messing up things that I thought were simple for us to do as a team, and that often involve verbal cues.

This is an evolving question. I am working on emphasizing COME and her name value with treats, with the assumption that if she's not losing hearing, it will help, and if she is, it won't hurt.

Boost seems to be doing better with the run-run-run strategy, even though I'm only doing it in small loops in my back yard. At least, better in class. Last couple of classes, no refusals at all. .. oh, except that she still still STILL doesn't get the  serpentine cue.  Should work on this again; so far haven't been.

Of course--like this last Thursday night--it's all about the bars. At least one bar in every run, but she was fast, kept going even when I did rear crosses, got her weave entries and stayed in, got her contacts, and did nose touches.

So, yeah, need bar-knocking drills again, too, I suppose. I haven't been adding them in because right now the Take Obstacles In Front Of You seems much more critical.  And I have mixed feelings about stopping dogs and taking them off the course for knocking bars. The experts seem to differ on whether that's effective or causes more problems. When I do drills, I've decided that I much prefer rewarding for not knocking them and not punishing for knocking. I'm not consistent in this.

That's it for now; another note to myself that I'm actually working on things again. Not sure where that little dribble of renewed enthusiasm for training is coming from, but i'm glad it's here.

Weekend Steeplechase and Grand Prix Report

SUMMARY: with videos

Actually I don't have all that much to report.

SW Regional Steeplechase Round 1

I think the toughest spot was getting the dog into the right (right) side of the tunnel, but if you launched the dog to the jump after the Aframe and then turned and ran straight (as I did), you'd be aiming the dog straight at the correct side of the tunnel. It was a smooth and doable course--about half the dogs made it to Round 2.

Tika did fine, placing 5th of 16. But then, so did most everyone else in her 22" Performance group: 10 advanced to the second round.

However, in watching videos, I notice that she seems to hesitate or slow in several places in such a way that makes me think "she's not getting the right information from me fast enough." I've thought for quite a while that she's slowed down to accommodate me rather than me learning to handle her speed (and I fear that Boost may be getting to the same place, dang). This video shows it in several places. (And again we won't mention standing up at the start line to sniff for treats--)



Boost's run--well--some nice bits, except when I had to yank on every invisible rope in the universe to get her to come in over the 3rd jump in the pinwheel--a known issue, when she's blasting full speed ahead and I ask her to come back in to me (e.g., with serpentines, too), she keeps runnning in a big loop rather than trying to come in over the jump that's between us. And immediately thereafter runs past the 4th jump in the pinwheel. Yeh, could be she's not getting the info she needs either. Plus two knocked bars, the second on a rear cross after which she pulled in to me instead of going over the next jump that was, yes, right in front of her.



For comparison, here's our classmate Kicks! winning that class (22" chamionship). 30 of the 60 22" dogs moved up.

Grand Prix Final

I tried to push myself and Tika as hard as I could. Funny, watching the video, I look like I'm just loping along, but I *felt* like I was running all out. I clapped my hands a whole lot more than I think I usually do. Also funny, Tika's weaves look fast in the video, but the difference between hers and Boost's is amazing--with Boost, I have to run full speed to get to the other end before she does, but with Tika, I just jog gently.

We ended up 3rd, but the Malinois and Border Collie who beat us were 5 (!) and 4 seconds faster than we were. Still, we easily qualified for the Nationals Semifinals--but, no, we're not going to Kentucky.

(Will add map when available.)

International Agility--Jumps

SUMMARY: A creative idea in agility equipment.

June 12, 2011: Replaced some photos and added more!
One of the things that I've always loved about dog agility is the joyful, pure, brilliant colors of the equipment against the green grass of an agility field.

Jim B has been refurbishing and building jumps for use at Power Paws, and I love love LOVE the glossy paints he's using; the colors gleam at me and lift my spirits. But, even more, he's now deliberately turning the agility field into an international experience for those of us who tend to stick close to home with our dogs.

THe project's still under way, but it's so much fun, I thought I'd share.

Brazil:

Argentina:

Germany:

France:

Mexico or Italy, maybe still TBD:

Sweden:

Japan:

USA:

Spain:

And...Canada or Switzerland, take your pick...

Boost Snooker Issues

SUMMARY:Are the problems really what I think the problems are?

Just a little review of our snooker runs for 2010/11 to be sure I'm not focusing on the wrong things.

Here's my snooker code:
a/b/c/d+x-y
means
a/b/c/d which numbered obstacles we completed in the opening, so for example 7/7/6 means we did 1-7-1-7-1-6; 7/0/1 means we did 1 then 7 then screwed up the next red for 0 pts, then 1 then 0 pts for whatever we did after that 3rd red.
+x-y which obstacles we got through in the closing (e.g., 2 thru 6, 2 thru 3, 2 thru 7)

•  "1/23/2010","7/0/0+2-7 Knocked two of the 3 red jumps in the opening, got through the closing.
• "2/13/2010",Off course pretty early.
• "2/14/2010", got only 1 point, didn't note what went wrong.
• "4/16/2010","0/7/7/7+2-4, knocked the 1st red in the opening; I fell partway through and was down for a bit and we ran out of time.
• "4/17/2010","7/7/1+2. Weaves in opening bobbles bobbles bobbles, so didn't get credit for one of them and caused us to run out of time before #3 in closing.
• "4/18/2010","7/6/6/ Perfect opening! In closing, sent to back side of tunnel and she hesitated before going in for a refusal.
• "4/24/2010","7/6/5/0+2-6 knocked 4th red in opening, bobbles so ran out of time in closing after getting through #6.
• "5/1/2010","7/7/0/7+ 2-3. Knocked 3rd red in opening. Took my eyes off her for # 3 tunnel in closing, she turned wrong way then ran past jump #4 for runout.
• "7/3/2010"," 7/0/7+2-6  Lots of “this jump?”  on 2nd red and then knocked it, more “this jump” on 3rd red, so out of time in closing on #7.
• "7/4/2010","3 reds. 7/7/6+2-3. Lots of running past jumps in opening; got them but used lots of time;  backjumped #3  in closing when I didn’t get in my front cross
• "7/17/2010","5/6/7/4+2. Lots of time-wasting “this jump?” in opening, knocked #3 in closing.
• "7/18/2010","0/7/7+2-5. Knocked 1st red. In closing, couldn't pull her off wrong obstacle when going to #6.
• "8/28/2010","Bleh, a mess."
• "8/29/2010","5/6.  Knocked 3rd red and couldn’t recover.
• "9/6/2010","6/0/6/1+2-7. In opening, knocked 2nd red and #4.  Got all through closing.
• "9/11/2010","6/5/5/5+0. Beautiful opening, then knocked #2 in closing.
• "9/12/2010","6/6/1/3+2-7. In op, missed wv entry so didn’t get 7 pts. Otherwise nice (but not enough for Super-Q)
• "10/9/2010","1/7/1+2-7; In opening, knocked bars on 7 and 5. Got through closing.
• "11/13/2010", Did whole course well, really nice run, but I did same red 2x so almost all our points were taken away. Figures.
• "11/14/2010","5/0/7/4+2-3. Bobbles bobbles, knocked bar on #5 in opening, not sure why didn't get to #4 in closing (out of time?).
• "1/23/2011","4/5/6/2+2-6. Didn’t come on call  so took 2 inst of 6 in opening. In closing, went in wrong weave entry on #7, which would’ve been SQ even with the 2 in the opening.
• "2/12/2011","5/7/0+2-7. Kn bar 3rd red in opening, otherwise not bad.
• "2/13/2011","7/7/6/5+2. Mostly nice. Kn bar #3 in closing. 

So--would I say that knocked bars are our biggest problem? Yeah, I'd say so.

Boost in Flight

SUMMARY: Photos from July USDAA.

A teenage photographer (Gadabout Photography) came to the SMART USDAA back in July and took a ton of photos. Didn't find any of Tika, but here are some of the many Boost photos.

Boost keeps a low profile going over the Aframe. She's pretty fast, flying close to the surface.

She always hits pretty solidly in the yellow zone and almost always lands two on/two off--but whether she'll hold it and wait for my release is getting iffier. I'm kinda wishing I had taught her a running contact, although, boyohboy, if I think I'm falling behind her *now*--

When she's ascending to fly over a jump, her ears fall back--

But descending from a jump, those floppy little ears fly straight up! That'll be the only time you'll see her with pointy ears.

This could be part of our bar-knocking problem, although I haven't asked any experts for analysis--she's leading with her left foot but also looking left, meaning she'll land on the wrong lead and/or try to change directions in midair, possibly knocking a bar.  I wonder whether some dogs always tuck the same foot under when jumping and it's OK, or whether this is a symptom or cause of some of her bar knocking?

Here's another one--she's clearly jumping to the right and leading with the left paw (which would be correct if going to the right), but looking left, so I miscued or she misunderstood--too bad I never see any photos of her with the bar coming down! Maybe the photographers just never put those photos up?!

I wanted to find a nice photo of her jumping from the side, and, ah ha!, here's one--

Oops, but wait-- what's wrong with this picture?

Boost seems to get a thrill out of doing the teeter--and of course of taking off running again afterwards. Dang ear flipped backwards on top of her head again! Makes me crazy!

My 2.5-second-weaves Booster!

Flyyyyyy-in'!

Go! Go! Go!

SUMMARY: Personal training part 2: Working on Boost's bar knocking, refusals, and go on.

Continuing my notes on our Tuesday lesson with Nancy.

Go on

We're pretty sure that a lot of Boost's issues are that she's checking back in with me rather than thinking about what obstacle to take next while keeping me in her peripheral vision. Because that's what a superfast dog does; can't be waiting for the handler to be next to her to tell her what to do--that slows her way down and is prone to making her jump with the wrong lead, for example, and it can snowball from there.

So we worked on go-ons: Dog going full speed ahead over jumps in front of her while you're probably behind her. Because she's fast, and you're not.

• Can work with a toy on the ground beyond the last jump. Release the dog and say "go!" or "go on!" while racing to try to be the first one to the toy. Mix it up with just taking a step forward to send.
• DO NOT STOP when the dog gets the toy; you want to meet her at the toy and play there; otherwise, you're reinforcing the dog to turn back to you (for play reward), which is what you're trying to extinguish.
• Do more work with a thrown toy, so that the dog is learning to drive forward even if there isn't a lure on the ground (there won't be one in the ring). In that case, you must throw the toy ahead of the dog at the end BEFORE she has a chance to turn back to look at you. Even better, have someone else throw it.
• If I have to slow down, try to do it at a point where I can again pick up speed to drive her to the next jump.
• To get the dog to go, rev her up, like with hand in collar; don't spend time getting her to heel and sit at your side because that makes her look up at you more. Don't send until she's looking at the obstacle rather than at you. Remember to send by stepping forward with the foot closest to the dog.
• To work longer sequences, sit stay is fine while you lead out.
• If she runs past a jump or refuses it, I must fix it immediately (in training at least), bring her back right to that jump ASAP and make her take it.
  

Rear crosses and go-ons:

• We have some issues with rear crosses, too. Take a step forward towards the same side of the jump you're on, with leg closest to dog, and send; if you're not moving, she should turn back towards you on the side you're on. Toss the toy next to the jump if she turns in the correct direction. No toy if she's changing lead to go to the other side or if she knocks the bar.
• For rear cross, rev her up and cross quickly, and if she turns the correct way, toss the toy on the ground next to the jump on the side she's turning to.

Wrap-up

Huh, those notes sound so simple--we'll see how good I am at following up on all of this.

Training for the Weekend

SUMMARY: Serps, bars, USDAA this weekend.

Yes, boys and girls, we have a USDAA trial this weekend out in Turlock. And, since I've been concentrating on other important things in the meantime [um--facebook?--]*, and Boost turned 5 two weeks ago and Tika turns 8 this weekend, I figure it's time to finally spend some time fixing ALL OUR AGILITY ISSUES before the trial this weekend.

In class this week, Tika did our jumpers courses just absolutely beautifully and looked completely healthy. I'm sure that, had we done contacts, they'd have been perfect as always (they were last week).

It was Serpentine night, and Boost and I demonstrated once again that this is a major chink in our armour: Boost wouldn't come in, or knocked the bar when she did, or in one memorable escapade, took me out at the knees so that my denim-blue-colored fleece became stylishly mottled with mud-colored mud. Both with serps and with blasting through a tunnel, if I'm yelling to get her to come in my direction, she keeps going in her original trajectory full speed while LOOKING at me, and then after evaluating that I'm not moving, makes a huge ugly L-shaped turn to come in to me.

She also [gasp!] knocked bars in several places.

Tika and Boost do some warm-up drills.

So yesterday I actually set up some serp thingies with jumps and tunnels in my yard. Tika did them flawlessly (when my timing was good, anyway, and even sometimes when it was iffy). Boost had a terrible time.

So we backed off to just our customized bar-knocking drills, and after doing about 40 just-one-jump drills when she got to where she wasn't even ticking the bar any more, we went back to the serp drill and broke it down into pieces until she could finally do two at-speed single-jump serps without knocking the bar, and we quit that for the day.

Tika loves her bed. It's the best toy in the universe for playing "Keeeel eeet!" with in the morning. To loosen up for agility, of course. (You like the sign in the background for this?)

Also working on contacts with both dogs. I have suffered for my sins, oh Dogfather! I relaxed my nose-touch criteria and both dogs' contacts have deteriorated. So we went back to remedial nose touches to a target, then standing at the end of the ramp doing target nose touches, then partway down the ramp and running to targeted nose touches, until I ran out of special treats and we left that for the day, too.

I hope I can get more of all of that in today, among packing, going for a nice brisk hike with a friend, and work, and--um--facebook.*

---

*OK, some facebook, but really photography and work and random random random things, but saying "facebook" is funnier. I think.

---

Gotta Love Those Microclimates but How About Jump Bars?

SUMMARY: How much did it rain in San Jose yesterday?

• 2.2" per my rain gauge (south san jose).
• 1.1" South San Jose per newspaper (not sure where exactly).
• 1.33" San Jose airport (7 miles north).
• 2.9"  Rolling Hills School (6 miles west).
• 3.38" Los Gatos (8 miles west southwest).

In any case--wet. And the rain continues today. Good news is that the smaller reservoirs are now full or more full; biggest ones are creeping up on half full. Will still need more rain this year to get more runoff to feel that we're safe on water for the coming year (after 3 years of drought).

I'm debating setting up a jump in my living room and doing some close-in bar-knocking drills right there on the carpet. Not enough room for a running stride, but from a standstill to a hop over the jump, yes.

Gamblin' Boost

SUMMARY: Q in Team, good and almost great in Gamblers, and... that's it.

Boost's story this weekend included many chapters of knocked bars, popping out at the end of the weaves, and checking back with me constantly instead of taking jumps. Oh, yeah, and several runouts. Drat. Back to square two on all counts. How many times do I have to fix her weave poles, fer crying out loud? But she was fast and happy and her start line stay and contacts were spot on.

Saturday's classes consisted entirely of the three-dog DAM Team event. (All 3 dogs do 4 individual events, then combine for a relay, and the combined scores determine whether you earn a Team Q.) Recently, USDAA started allowing your performance in the individual events to count towards Qs for your Lifetime Achievement awards, but you have to be within (are you tired of this formula yet?) 15% of the average scores of the top 3 dogs in your height/class.

In Team Standard, Boost knocked 2 bars and popped the weaves, which I had to fix. Not fatal in Team; it's off courses in Team that kill you. Both her teammates did better than Boost and also ran without off courses, which is a pretty good grouping for Team.

In Team Gamblers, Boost had a pretty good opening--would've been better without 2 knocked bars and me forgetting which side of the teeter I wanted to be on to pick up another 5 points, oh, well, and then we were in perfect position for the gamble. We picked up a 20-point gamble (there were 10, 20, and 30 point choices), which was pretty good as not many dogs at all got the 20 or 30 pointers and quite a few didn't even manage the 10. We ended up placing 4th in 22" out 40 dogs, and her teammates were close behind her at 7th and 12th, so after Standard & Gamblers our team was in 4th place out of 25 teams.

Team Snooker knocked us back a bit, we thought--all three of us scored in the 30-to-40 range (with 4 reds available meaning that in theory 59 points were possible), but a late rush of dogs not wanting to do well in Snooker left us down a bit overall but not by much. (Boost spent the opening doing runouts and "what, THIS obstacle?" dances and in the closing got whistle for running past a jump.)

Team Jumpers we were all a bit worried about; very fast dogs with a couple of really wide-open stretches of just plain running plus tough call-offs. Boost knocked 2 bars and popped out at the end of the weaves (sound familiar?) but we did not off-course. Both our teammates Eed with off courses, so even our crappy run turned out to be the saving run for us.

And in the 3-dog relay, Boost knocked only one bar and, just for variation, headed into the weave poles but turned back at the last moment to see what I was up to, earning a refusal, but her teammates ran very nicely and again none of us off-coursed, which is also excellent for Team Relay. We ended up Qing fairly solidly, placing 7th of 25 teams after combining the scores for all 5 classes. Thanks, Lucy and Beadle!

Sunday, in Grand Prix, I apparently moved too soon and pulled Boost past a serpentine jump for a runout, then getting her back over it, she knocked the bar and then another one (2 jumps again). She did do the weaves OK, but the preceding obstacle was the chute and she somersaulted out of that--never seen her do that before--so it wasn't a pretty approach to the weaves.

In Steeplechase, we had two sets of weaves. She knocked--yes--2 bars, did the first set of weaves beautifully, ran past 2 jumps that we had to go back for, and then the last set of weaves she popped out at the end again and I didn't catch it before going on, so we Eliminated there, too.

Master Snooker wasn't awful--we placed 8th of 32 dogs, but it still wasn't a Q (one point short) and that's for two reasons: (1) She knocked a bar on a 7-pointer in the opening, so we didn't get those 7 points, and then she spent half the course checking back in with me instead of just &#*@(% going over the jump in front of her! Wasted SO much time. So by the time we got to #7 in the closing-- a 4-part combo--by the time she knocked a bar in the middle of it (2 bars again), our time's-over buzzer sounded. But so many people crapped out so early in this snooker, as I said, it was still a pretty good run given this particular course.

Master Gamblers. Sighhhhhh. Do you ever see a gambler's opening where the high-point course is so obvious to you that you think it's most everyone's going to do the same thing and the really really fast & good dogs are going to get in even more obstacles than you, and then you watch almost everyone do something different from yours and come in much lower than your plan--which should be 48 if you do it absolutely perfectly, although I really expected 47? Like people were getting in the 32-42 range mostly.

Well. So. It was our kind of course. And we did it perfectly right up to the obstacle before the gamble. That was a jump that would've been our 48th point. I actually expected the whistle (to start the gamble) to blow before we got to it, and I shot her over it and the whistle still hadn't blown, so I changed direction abruptly trying to figure out what other obstacles I could take, blown away that we still had time left over, and she knocked the bar.

And we were racing *away* from the gamble when the whistle finally blew. Turned and headed back, but we approached awkwardly to the first jump, and she did a bunch of "this jump?" kinds of things without actually looking straight at it, so the judge didn't call a refusal, and she sailed over it without knocking it.

The gamble included three jumps and a set of weaves, and the way we'd been going, I didn't expect her to actually do it, or to do it with faults. But she went fromthe jump to the weaves, did the weaves perfectly, did the next jump perfectly, and then danced around in front of me instead of going to the last jump, and when I finally got her turned around, the whistle blew as she was in the air for the last jump. All that wasted time-- just about a second over time. So no Q.

BUT out of 70 Masters dogs, one dog got 48 in the opening and one other got 47 in the opening. So I certainly can't complain about our execution on that part of the course!

The weather provided off and on rain showers all day Saturday and into Sunday morning, but not awful downpours. The weather was cold but not anywhere near freezing.

Tika got to come out of her crate to practice tricks instead of doing agility, but probably not nearly as much as I should've done with her. No sign of sore toe, but Saturday mid-morning she came out of her crate hunched over and not wanting to do tug-of-war like she does when her neck gets sore. And I'd been blaming doing agility for aggravating the neck. Apparently not. She remained off the rest of the day, but Sunday was absolutely fine again.

It occurred to me that Remington exhibited the same kind of seemingly-out-of-nowhere hunching over and then the next day fine several times before we discovered that he had that hemangiosarcoma tumor on his heart. It's a little scary, actually, how much it reminded me of that. Now I have to decided whether I want to pay the huge bucks for a screening ultrasound to find out whether there's anything there. I'm particularly sensitive since we've had so many dogs in our club die of hemangiosarcoma in the last year or two.

Hate to end the post on that worried note-- But we are all home safely, dogs are already dozing off (even though they got all that great crate rest at the trial and on the drive home), so I will sign off and head to my own comfy bed now, too.

Mice and Men Got Nothing On Us

SUMMARY: Sometimes things (let us say, just off the top of my head, CPE trials the day after Thanksgiving) don't go the way you planned, hoped, expected, or even imagined.

Here are some photos with circles and arrows on the backs of each one explaining what each one is to be used as evidence against us.

Had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat.

And didn't get up until the next morning, when we had to go to agility. In the rain.

I love--just ADORE--trials where I can crate out of MUTT MVR and the only set-up or gear hauling is hanging some sun shade.

Agility as a weight loss device

I swear that I took barely more than a forkful or two of anything on Thursday. ...Well, of *everything* on Thursday. Friday morning, 4 a.m., scale shows three (!) pounds heavier. Good thing I'm going to agility, where I'm physically active, have two dogs to run, and tend to eat lightly.

First thing in the morning, near the check-in window, there are huge stacks of really tasty-looking chocolate chip cookies. Well, what the heck, if I have just ONE that's not so bad, because I'm at agility and tend to eat lightly.

A while later alongside the course maps that I was picking up sat a really tasty-looking cake--not sure what for, but I don't often have a chance for cake (and frosting, which is what I *really* like), and what the heck, I'm at agility where I'm really active and so what if I have just one piece?

Then, middle of the day, WAG had a big birthday bash for one of their key helpers--he'd be like their estate manager--with an amazing-looking carrot cake with the thickest cream cheese frosting you've just about ever seen. Well, I'm fond of carrot cake and I really like cream cheese frosting, and really, OK, I know what's going on here, but I don't get carrot cake or c.c. frosting often, so I'll just have one piece of that.

In the worker raffle, I usually put most of my tickets into the bags for the free trial entries because I already have more beds, toys, books, bags, and so on than I know what to do with. But I usually look for something that I might kind of like to have that doesn't have too many tickets in it as a possible consolation prize for when I don't win the free entries and I'll put one of my tickets into that bag. So there was this huuuuuge tin of Almond Roca--

Need I say more?

On the other hand, my pedometer did indicate that, in one day of an agility trial. I covered enough steps to equate to 12 miles! I'll tell ya, after several years of doing mostly score table at trials, where what's involved is mostly sitting, at this trial I did leash running, scribe running, pole setting--all kinds of things where what's involved is mostly NOT sitting.

Maybe the day was a wash in terms of actual calories inhaled/exhaled.

One day of agility as a way to burn off bored dogs' energy

I get up at 4 in the morning, am out of the house by 4:30, drive 2 hours through occasional drizzles, arrive at the agility place, take the dogs over to the field for a little frisbee warm-up and pottying, and Tika turns sharply on the wet ground, yelps, and comes back to me on three legs.

I have several single-word comments on how I felt about that, most of which aren't printable here. Entry fees for 5 runs, down the tubes. Opportunity to burn off some mental and physical energy, down the tubes. Opportunity to win the Turkey Trot again--well, there's still Boost, but Tika's been my winning dog before and I had high hopes for her. Five chances to earn those precious CPE Qs since we don't do much CPE and Tika has a long way to go to her C-ATE, down the tubes. Damage to dog--don't know, but guessing that'll be more money down the tubes.

I couldn't find anything. Didn't do the hunchy-over thing like she does when it's her shoulders or neck, seemed clearly to be in her foot. Gave her a rimadyl and an hour's rest. Let her out of her crate. She hopped down from the van with no sign of problem. Stretched fine, did figure 8s around my legs fine, played tug-of-war vehemently. Trotted alongside me out to the field with the practice jump. Sent her out around a couple of posts. Everything fine. Sent her over the jump, and she flew over with enthusiasm, turned tightly towards me with bright eyes, yelped, and came up on three feet.

Scratched her from her first run and found the vet who is also an enthusiatic CPEer and is pretty much always there at WAG competing with her dogs. Waited for her to do her run with her dog, and then she looked Tika over. She saw pretty quickly what my inexperienced eyes didn't detect--the knuckle of Tika's left front little toe is swollen. She doesn't think it's broken, unless it's a hairline fracture. No way to tell without an x-ray.

I thank her for looking (hopefully profusely enough) and ponder what to do. Tika is on leash, has been over the practice jump, and despite now walking again with a limp, she is acting eager and excited to be near the agility ring at an agility trial and clearly WANTs to run. I ponder what to do.

The next class is Full House, which is like a Gambler's opening with no gamble, so we can do almost anything we want to. There are some tunnels and 6-pole weaves on the course, so I decide I'll try to have her just do a couple of those *gently and easily and slowly* to see what happens. So I line her up next to me in front of a straight tunnel, don't put her into a stay or anything, just release her gently and say, quietly and calmly, "Through!" (we don't say "tunnel", we say "through". There's a lady in our class with grayhounds who says "Be small!" it's very cute. They really do have to hunker down to get through the tunnels).

OK, anyway, those of you with driven, enthusiastic dogs just KNOW what happens--Tika blasts full throttle through the tunnel, and because I'm trying to be calm and sedate, I'm way behind her. So when she blasts out of the tunnel, she careens into a sharp U-turn to see what I'm up to (eyes wide open and bright and ears up and looking SO happy to be out there)--and suddenly halts and comes out of the turn limping.

I try once more a couple of hours later, in Snooker, with the judge's dispensation-- just one straight tunnel, which she does fine, and one gently curved tunnel--which she comes out of limping. And still bouncing back and forth (mostly on 3 feet) trying to get me to tell her which obstacle to take next.

So that's enough stupid attempts to satisfy both of our desires for her to do some agility. She's scratched for the rest of the day, including (sob!) the Turkey Trot.

The up side to this was that it completely vindicated my decision not to go to Nationals two weeks ago because Tika keeps coming up sore at random times. I was deadly disappointed today, but imagine how awful it would've been for this to happen in Arizona.

Tika as the Mondo Q-Earner in CPE and Boost as the also-ran

I hate going to trials and coming home with few or no Qs or placements. ESPECIALLY CPE, where Tika has quite the record of not only massive Qs and first places, but often THE highest score/fastest time of all dogs at the trial. It's an ego boost for me, who is obviously pathetic in her need for ego boosts like this, but there ya go. After Tika's injury, I was fully prepared to come home with next to nothing.

First run of the day was Wildcard (I am not explaining games today), in which a dropped bar is fatal. I pick a pretty darned simple course--it's essentially an M-shaped path, how hard can it be? We will have to successfully negotiate one rear cross, which isn't Boost's strong point.

Boost runs past one jump on the second leg of the M and I barely call her off the tunnel after it (but in fact she does call off and I get her brought around without backjumping), and she turns entirely the wrong way on the rear cross ( but I get her turned around and on course again with no faults), and, wow, we're CPE-clean and have a Q! But lots of wasted time.

The thing you have to know about "clean" in CPE is that there are never faults for refusals or runouts. AND, although not clean, at level 4 and 5 in CPE (which is where Boost competes now), on many courses you can still Q even if you have certain kinds of faults.

But now Boost has one CPE-clean run and a Q for the day. Not to my surprise, we don't win--but, jeez, with all that wasted time, we're still 2nd place.

Next up is Full House. I love full house with my dogs. Just get as many obstacles as possible (with a very minimal number of rules) for points. And this one was particularly juicy--I could do a course with basically two very smooth loops and one rear cross and pick up almost every possible point on the field--
6 out of 6 5-pointers
7 out of 8 3-pointers
5 out of 14 1-pointers (maybe more depending on how smoothly things went).

So--she breaks her start-line stay, so I immediately put her into a down-stay and walk calmly around her and then release her when I'm ready. Probably means we'll loose the final 5-pointer because of the wasted time. On the first loop, she ran PAST the tire (drop 3 points). Then she missed the weave entry (drop maybe 5 seconds to get her lined up and back in, so probably that means drop the other 5-pointer off the end. After that, she flew, but sure enough the whistle blew as she flew towards our last 2 obstacles, both of them 5-pointers. Ah, well, crappy run but a Q.

And, to my surprise, a win in our group (Level 5, which is almost the top leve). Not the highest points of the day by far if you compare to all other dogs, but I'll take a Q and a 1st anyway.

And, guess what! That's the last Level 5 Q she needs in that class, so now she's eligible for her first Level C ("championship") entry (just in that class) at our next trial. Yowza!

Next is Snooker. It's a very tight little course (really--laid out on a 70x70 field which is literally half the area of a typical USDAA course) and really fast long-jumping dogs--and especially the ones who aren't always the best performers--could have a tough time. I decided, what the heck, we IN THEORY have the skills required to do a three-7 opening and get through to the end. It requires that she hold her sit while I lead out, then pull her between a jump and a tunnel to the first 7-pointer--and of course that she keep all her bars up.

Anyway, once again she turned the wrong way on a rear cross, and it was almost a disaster, but we held it together and completed the course in well under the allowed time.

Turns out--ta-da!--she was the ONLY dog out of all dogs entered at the trial who earned the full 51 points! What a good girl. Pleased with that, indeed.

Next up was Jumpers. Man, some weird sequences in that one AND it would require a ton of running on my part to be in the right place at the right time. And then there's the bar-knocking issue. OK, so she ran past one jump--I pulled hard to keep her off a tunnel trap and she responded too readily--so wasting time turning her around and getting her back over it, and then there was the tough push/turn out of the tunnel that I just handled wrong, so we wasted SO much time on course, but in fact never went off course and no bars came down. So: Another CPE-clean run, another Q, and this time merely 4th place. (Slower dogs definitely had advantages on this course.)

And, finally, Standard, our only regular class of the day with contacts. Thank goodness, all of her contacts were spot-on perfect, and she handled a tough tunnel-dogwalk discrimination with aplomb, AND kept her bars up. So, OK, she ran past yet ANOTHER jump and it took a lot of effort to get her back to it, because I had been trying to send so was a long way away, and she turned the wrong way on a rear cross (sensing a trend here?), and fer cryin' out loud was headed straight at the weave pole entry but turned back to me to see what I was doing, wasting yet MORE time, but it was CPE-clean, so a Q. And apparently it was a tough-enough course that she managed her third 1st-place of the day.

So, for the day, five out of five Qs, three 1sts, a 2nd, and a 4th. Way better than I had expected.

Boost knocking bars everywhere

In CPE, she's jumping 20" instead of 22", and that seems to make a big difference. She didn't drop a SINGLE bar all day, out of 6 runs!

Turkey Trot

I so wanted to win! It's just a fun game, it has no meaning whatsoever, but since my dogs have won 4 times so far, I just really wanted to keep on winning. Plus you get these really cool embroidered Top Turkey awards and a goodie bag.

 

The usual wonderful Turkey Trot silliness ensued.

The game this year was 21. Your team had two minutes, and dogs took turns trying to earn 21 points EXACTLY. There was this simple little 4-obstacle gamble that of course our experience masters-level USDAA dogs should have no troulbe getting, which gave us 21 points automatically, rather than trying to accrue 21 points on the rest of the course.

The Turkey Trot gamble (jump teeter weaves right side of tunnel). Notice that simple but problematic blue jump located right where you want to push the dog out to the far side of the tunnel.

There was an alternative good route of 7 obstacles (including 2 aframes) that was pretty fast for 21 points if you thought you could do that exact course without popping the aframe or knocking a bar. (And of course many other choices on the course.) But we figured we could just do that 4-obstacle gamble over and over one after the other and rack up multiple 21-pointers. Piece of cake, right?

We were all so fast that we each got 2 shots at it and not one of us did it correctly even once (4 times into wrong side of tunnel, one teeter flyoff, and boost who couldn't even do the dang weave pole entry one of her times), which meant that we then had to take an additional 3 obstacles each time to make our 21 points. And then of course two of those runs the dog didn't quite do what we wanted, so it was more than 21 points.

Anyway, we ended up with four 21 pointers. Several teams had 4 or 5 and one had 6.

Then your team drew numbers out of a pot, one for each 21 you earned, and the sum of those numbers you drew determined the winner. (That's the element of luck. The skill is in getting enough 21s to earn the right to draw more numbers.)

Boost's team ended up in 2nd place out of 8 big dog teams, dang. So close. But oh well. Disappointing but not nearly as disappointing as not being able to run Tika in it. (And I don't want to act too disappointed because I LOVE the fun of the turkey trot and the different games each year and don't ever want Susan to stop doing it.)

However, the only other person I know who had 4 Turkey Trot wins going into Friday, a Bay Team friend (and was Jake's teammate on at least one of his wins, as was one of his teammates) DID win in the small dog division, so now he has 5 wins. Pretty cool indeed.

So--awake at 4:00 a.m., crawl into my own warm bed about 10:45 p.m., lights out!

And our agility heroes ride off into the sunset. Much later, after the Turkey Trot is done.