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.

Thoughts From Last Weekend and CPE This Weekend

SUMMARY: strengths and flaws and fun.

Some things I noticed from last weekend:

• Both dogs left the start line early once last weekend. I don't remember which course(s). I didn't even write it down afterwards. I don't know why I kept running--well, maybe I do: It has been ages and ages since either left before I released them, and I think (a) I was surprised and already starting to move, and (b) I chalked it up to, as Bartholomew Cubbins said, one of those things that "just happened to happen and was not very likely to happen again."  It's random, I guess. I hope.
• Both dogs had awesome downs on the table. Why last weekend? Who knows. I have been practicing a bit with Tika doing quick downs while running or repeatedly on the table at home--but I've done that before with no apparent help in the actual competition. It's random, I guess.
• Boost had some weave pole issues. It's another thing that she hasn't really missed or popped out of in a while, but I think we had 3 different cases--hit the entry and skipped, popped out early, and ran past them completely. Why now? Who knows? I hope this isn't the start of another "I don't know how to do weave poles" era. It's random, I guess.
• Boost actually handles well at a distance but from the side, not behind. Like, it seems to be no trouble to do a huge distant arc of jumps where I'm twenty feet inside the arc but parallel. More trouble if I'm closer to her and parallel, or if I'm behind her. And I think knocks more bars if I'm ahead of her. I'm not sure what this all means. Not sure whether it's random.
• Tika is less comfortable now with me crossing behind her. Need to try to find ways to stay ahead of her and always in her sight. This is challenging, because she can still move pretty darned fast. Dang, now I have TWO dogs that I have to manage more.
• Boost's contacts were lovely. I think she left only one early. Why now? Who knows; we haven't been practicing these the last couple of weeks. It's random, I guess.

This weekend: CPE locally. Only about 25 minutes from my house. I go because it's close, because it's a fun relaxing weekend for me, and because I want to support any trial that's close to my house. Unfortunately we don't seem to get many entries for this trial. I don't get it--we used to get lots of entries for the CPEs at Twin Creeks, which is only about 30 miles away. Oh, well.

So we might not ever have agility really close to my house again. The challenge of living in a dense suburban/urban area, I guess. Lots of conveniences--like I had several choices of which theater to go to tonight for a 3-movie Batman extravaganza--but nowhere to do huge USDAA trials.

Maybe I'll go practice some agility stuff with the dogs. Randomly.

Semiretirement

SUMMARY: Time to scale Tika back. Dunno about Boost.

This was another weekend where Tika didn't look like she was having a lot of fun in agility. After the previous competition where she was back to grabbing my feet at the end of her runs, this weekend she did it only twice, and only half-heartedly (token grab and release). She wasn't fast. She didn't want to play before the runs and I couldn't jolly her into it. She stretched out fine, so no obvious signs of soreness.

And, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, her ears came up and her eyes sparkled and she ran full-tilt after the frisbee on saturday morning, saturday evening, sunday morning, sunday midday, and sunday at the end of the trial on the lawn where the rings had been.

I'd already decided after that last DAM team tournament that we're not doing team any more (with one exception to team with our long-time teammate Brenn who's also briefly coming out of team retirement), because the last couple of teams she's not been getting the individual Qs, and I don't really want to have to do 5 runs with her to get one team Q. And we don't need team Qs for *any* reason except Lifetime Achievement Awards (LAA)--and even that is iffy whether we'll finish the 58 more that we need for Platinum. It might be doable, but I guess I'm going to do it more gradually.

And, in fact, way more gradually. Since I don't know whether it's some soreness that doesn't show up in general stretching and play, or been-there-done-thatness, or thyroid, or what, I'm going to gradually do fewer classes with her and see how that goes.

Bay Team's May USDAA is this coming weekend, so here's how I've adjusted our entries as of last night, and why:

• Standard: 2 runs, doing those. She needs 3 more in my quest for her PDCH-Gold. When she gets those, I might stop doing standard, since the escalating battle for her to go down on the table could make it very hard for us to get Qs and obviously she just doesn't want to, for whatever odd reason, after 10 years of doing tables. The awesome Hobbes Michalski also went into greater and greater table refusal mode as he got older, and this weekend the awesome Heath LeClair's human dad said that he's considering ceasing Standards with him since he also no longer wants to go down on the table. As someone who no longer wants to sit down on the floor because it's so hard to get up, I might understand.
• Gamblers: 2 runs, canceled both. She used to be my Jedi Gambler girl--Gamblers was the first thing she reached Perf Gold in-- but between my miscues and her hearing, since she got that 35th Q, we've gotten only 1 out of the following 8 (12% Q rate). (Took her 58 tries for those 35, so 60% Q rate.)
• Jumpers: 2 runs, doing those. She always liked jumpers--no pesky weaves or contacts; yesterday's jumpers is one of the only two classes where she grabbed my foot this weekend; she still Qs pretty regularly.
• Snooker: 1 run, doing that. She needs 5 more in my quest for her PDCH-Gold. They don't have to be super-Qs, and I'm trying to pick easy, flowing courses now where I used to always pick fun, challenging ones because my excitement would get her excited, too.
• Pairs: Canceled that. Actually worked out well because our dog partner Chaps is feeling a little wonky and his human mom already scratched him from everything except pairs for this weekend, so we talked and we're now both scratching pairs. I feel less comfortable doing pairs now because I'm now feeling like Tika and I are an unreliable pairs partner, after several years of feeling pretty reliable.
• Steeplechase: Doing that. Well, she's not fast, but so far she's mostly still Qing and mostly still bringing home a small pittance of $. Or everyone else could crap out or scratch, like this weekend, and we win by default. [grin]
• Grand Prix: Canceled that. Her Q rate is actually pretty high still in GP, but I just don't want to run that many runs right now. Probably if/when I stop doing Standard with her, I'll put her back into GP. So glad they did away with the table in GP (about 10 years ago).

Boost: Dunno. After my angst after Sunday's steeplechase round 2, I asked why I keep doing this to myself. And the answer was: HER excitement, bright eyes, and speed--and the thrill of the half courses in which everything clicks and she's flying around the course and I'm living at the edge being her guiding teammate.  Curses on the other halves of those courses where it all goes to pieces.

I've been so close to shutting down her number of runs, too, but then her amazing gambler's opening on Saturday, her jumpers Q on Sunday, her oh-so-nearly-perfect snooker on sunday, things like that-- those random rewards that keep telling me, hey we CAN do this sport and someday she WILL get that 5th jumpers leg and two more super-Qs!

Jumpers Qs came for us in April 2010, November 2010, August 2011, and April 2012. An average of one every 8 months. So it could even happen this year. [sighs again]

Well, we'll see how this coming weekend goes and gradually shape our strategy.

SMART USDAA Day 1

SUMMARY: Tika reliable and slow, Boost fast and, well...

Here's the deal.

We had 6 runs each dog today.

Tika Qed in everything except gamblers, and that's because she was slow enough that she wasn't even close to where I thought she'd be, and so I wasn't prepared, and managed to push her *past* the first gamble jump, which disqualified us, but when I brought her back around, she did the whole gamble perfectly.

My overwhelming feeling is of slowness. She's still Qing with plenty of room, but plod plod plod--compared to her former self and of course compared to Boost. F'rinstance, her yards per second today in standard was about 3.4, which is among the half dozen slowest YPS she's ever gotten on standard courses--all of which have been in the last 6 months. So, yeh, slow.

She even placed:

• 3rd of 9 in  Standard (but, as I noted, slow, so a lot of that was other people with faults)
• 4h of 7 in Gamblers (and got few enough points that, even if she had Qed, she'd still have been only 4th
• 3rd of 9 in Snooker--I picked a lower-point course for ease and comfort
• 4th of 8 in Jumpers--a full 6.5 seconds slower than the winning dog who ran it in 22.02
• 2nd of 5 in Steeplechase--2 of the 5 E'ed
• 2nd of 9 with partner Chaps in pairs relay--and if she hadn't seemed so uncertain in 2 or 3 places, we'd have made up the half second we were behind 1st.

So, yeah, I'm happy and sad at the same time. I'm not quite jollying her through the course, but she doesn't seem drivey at all. Doesn't seem sore or unwilling, but also grabbed my feet only at the end of the first run of the day and no others, so she's not her normal excited self.

I worked on managing her more, to avoid recent hearing-related communication issues, but we still had some iffy spots anyway.

Boost, on the other hand,  NQed in everything except Steeplechase, and even that wasn't lovely-- Backstory: Second run of the day was Gamblers, and I was pretty sure we weren't going to get the gamble, so I went for points points points in the opening for Glory. And indeed, we had the highest opening points of all 40 22" dogs and the 2nd highest out of all 96 dogs at the trial. And we were in a good position for the gamble, but we failed it in 2 different ways. Anyway, after the 1st contact, she realized that I was releasing quickly and so started self-releasing and instead of nipping it in the bud, I let it go so that I could get my Glory. (Which, incidentally, no one else pays attention to because we didn't Q.)

As a result, the rest of the day she continued to self-release, so in Steeplechase she was ahead of me going over the aframe and didn't even slow down, just came off and turned back to face me, so I had to put her into a down to get myself past her to finish the course. Other than that it was pretty nice--kept up her bars, got her weaves fine, etc.

Boost E'ed on refusals and runouts in 2 of the classes today, sigh. 

It was a beautiful day to be out in the open air at Prunedale doing agility. A little warm in the sun midday, which might have contributed to Tika slowing down. Heat never used to affect her, but now I notice that it does. Don't know what that's going to be like as we get into summer!

We came home this evening and I put Boost over some contacts and tried to get her to release early, to no avail. Maybe that'll be  a reminder.

Oh--and practiced some fast table downs with Tika; hmmm, come to think of it, it has also been only the last few months when she hasnt' wanted to go down on the table in Standard, so that sure could be the main thing affecting our yards per second, and today was no exception.

Also, for years I've been putting Tika into a down-stay at the start line, because the Sit-Stay was too tempting for her to stand up and take off early. Lately, she's been not wanting to go down at the start line, either, although I've insisted. Twice today I gave up and let her sit. Sure enough, she was already up and creeping forward at the end of my lead-out, but she hadn't actually taken off yet.

Funny. Odd. Different. Strange. All takes adjustment.

I guess I'll go back tomorrow and give it all another go.