Omigosh omigosh!

(excerpted from email to a friend) Omigosh omigosh omigosh. What a weekend Tika had! In the "minor" events--Snooker and Gamblers, wherein we basically invent our own courses and try to rack up as many points as possible within certain time and obstacle constraints, she not only did great and Qualified and took first in her height in both classes, but also got much higher scores than any other dog of any height in her entire level. That's always a big stroke for my admittedly competitive brain parts. In her pairs relay class, she did great, but her partner had a bobble, which dropped us to 3rd out of all the pairs in our entire level (nothing to scoff at, though, even if you're inclined to scoff).

So then we get to our Jumpers run, which I really wanted to Q so badly but have been knocking bars for 2 years--our first USDAA Jumpers run was in Aug or Sept of 2002--she was nearly stunning! Not a bar down! Not a single offcourse! She veered slightly in the wrong direction after 2 jumps where I was crossing behind (dang--and our instructor has been after us to practice more cross-behinds the last couple of weeks, too), which cost us a little time and dropped us to 2nd place, about 1 second behind the first place dog. But she Qed! So now she can move up to the top level (Masters) in all of her classes. Yow. I am jazzed about that.

THEN there was the Grand Prix qualifier, which was the other thing I really wanted. I ran her conservatively, which meant holding her on her down-contacts for a couple or 3 seconds, and tried to be relaxed and confident because when I get stressed I tend to do really stupid things or rush my signals. She looked perfect, all the way through! We did get one fault, and it wasn't for something I saw--it was probably missing an UP-contact on her dogwalk, which we have problems with periodically. But it was minor enough that we still qualified! Wahoo! So she's going to the Nationals in the Grand Prix and I can relax about that.

AND, BTW, Jake also qualified, so now they're both valid for the National Grand Prix--although Jake already had the option of merely competing in the "veterans" division, for dogs who have previously competed in the National Grand Prix (which he did twice).

Then there was the bonus Steeplechase regional qualifier. I walked the course--it was a challenging course, but the more I looked at it, the more I realized that we were completely capable of doing it. Our instructor starts dogs out at a challenging level in classes and works up, more or less with the goal that nothing we ever see in the ring would be more difficult than what we've already faced in class. It really paid off this weekend, because I went out there feeling just confident enough--my goal was to get through the course without an offcourse and hopefully no bars down--and there were many opportunities for a fast dog to go offcourse without the right handling--because (as I said) I've almost never Qed in the Steeplechase before.

Man, she was a delight to run. I watched the first 8 dogs crap out on that course, and then we ran, and she ran clean and plenty fast. (She ticked one jump bar, and I thought I heard it fall behind me, but interestingly the *lower* of the 2 bars fell, and that's not a fault!) Only 10 of 40 dogs would be going to the 2nd round and qualifying for Nationals, and she was in 1st place after 9 dogs(!). Then I had to watch through the next 32 dogs as, one by one, these awesome dogs, some with previous national championships, also ran clean with slightly faster times. We were in 10th place as the last dog ran--and they were clean, but slower than Tika's time. So we were Qed for the Nationals again and moving to the 2nd round on Sunday by the skin of our dogteeth! I just about floated away from the ring.

7 of the 10 dogs would get cash awards on Sunday, but I knew we didn't have chance for that, because I'm just some shmoe who does agility and sometimes gets lucky with my dogs. Although Tika is really a fine dog; still, I'm not the best handler in the universe, and because it's all about speed, the finalists have to use the most aggressive handling techniques and the dogs have to be letter-perfect without slowing down. It's only been 6 months since Tika stopped being a rebellious teenage novice dog, testing me on course, and began slowly to settle down to learn how to work well as part of a team.

The Steeplechase Round 2 is a time-plus-faults course; in other words, if you run the course in 35 seconds with no faults, you could get beaten by a dog who ran the course in 29 seconds with a 5-fault knocked bar (29+5=34, which is less than 35). So it's not only speed, but accuracy, too. And the courses are usually very challenging, even more than the first round. (Oh, and, yes, the dogs are usually so fast and so close together in times that a single 5-point fault is likely to make your chances of taking 1st pretty much zero.)

So they set the course, and the first time I walked it, there were clearly half a dozen quite challenging handling choices--even the very experienced, successful handlers were trying several methods to see how they felt. And yet--and yet--I felt that it was a course that we could do without looking like dorks. Once again, all I wanted was to not crap out on a course where only the best were competing--no offcourses, no stupid spins because I didn't identify the next obstacle quickly enough, no running past obstacles. And I felt that we could do that. Didn't matter if we came in 10th but looked good--the whole rest of the trial shuts down while the Steeplechase Round 2 runs, so *everyone* is watching.

That doesn't actually bother me when I finally get out there--no time to worry about it, I'm so focused on my dog and my body and the course. But *beforehand* I could think about feeling humiliated if we mucked up, and my stomach started manufacturing butterflies. And yet--again--and yet--I still felt that it was a doable course! In the past, I didn't always feel so confident about that with the challenging top-level courses.

There were several places on the course that required particular attention or clearly masters-level handling skill, but one place in particular had me double-guessing.

At that place on the course, you had to send the dog ahead of you over 2 jumps and straight into a U-shaped tunnel and they'd blast back out at you and have to make a weave pole entry straight ahead. To be in the best position for the sequence *after* the weave poles, you'd want to try to outrace the dog and cross his path between the tunnel exit and the weaves, but the dog *really* blasts out of a tunnel in that kind of setup, and the slightest misstep on your part could knock them off the weave pole entry. And Tika has been fairly solid on her fast weave-pole entry the last couple of months, but it hasn't been that long since she was regularly bobbling the entry when blasting straight at them full speed without my giving her guidance--sometimes hit the first pole so hard that she'd knock herself right past the 2nd one for a fault, or fly right past the first pole and enter at the second. I walked it both with that cross and with the weaker but safer move of staying on the inside of the weave poles. I wasn't at all confident about trying to make that cross-- because I didn't think I could get there with Tika's speed, and if I tried and missed, for sure we'd blow the weave entry, and I didn't want to do that--and even if I got there, I wouldn't be giving her guidance, I'd just be picking her up on my left side and moving with her, and she'd have to rely entirely on her own (still limited) experience and skills to manage that weave entry. So I decided that I had to do the 2nd, conservative, choice, staying inside the weaves.

Then I had the advantage of watching 13 dogs in the class ahead of us. These are all really fast dogs. Two or three handlers stayed on the inside of the weaves, but they really had to work to get into position for the next sequence, as I had expected. But all the others *made* that cross between the tunnel and the weaves, even with their blazingly fast dogs! I decided that the only way I could be competitive was to do that cross. One handler did the cross but ended in not quite the right place and, sure enough, it caused problems for her dog in the weave entry. My resolve wavered, but so many others were making it that I finally decided "If THEY can do it, *I* can do it!" and decided to go for broke.

I also saw that almost all the dogs were knocking at least one bar, dropping them rapidly in the placements.

Well, boys and girls, she was a lovely thing. Did everything I asked, all the complicated turns and crosses. By the time we got to that pre-weave cross, she still hadn't knocked a single bar. I went for the cross--and got there perfectly! She smashed into the weave pole opening and my heart skipped a beat, but she was in total control and stormed those poles! We got through the next tough sequence beautifully--and then there were only 5 jumps remaining to the end, with a couple of tight but not difficult turns-- and, sigh, she knocked *2* of them. Maybe because I was relaxing and getting sloppier. But it was a totally beautiful run. I had pushed my limits as a handler and her limits as a working dog, and we both came through beyond my expectations. I was (and still am) one happy handler.

In fact, so many dogs were knocking bars or missing the weave entry or other bobbles that cost them time, that Tika ended up taking 6th place overall--for a big check of $10. She was actually the 4th fastest dog--which I'd been wondering for a while how she'd stack up on a well-run course in comparison to these other wonderful dogs--but the first-place dog, who was the 5th fastest, was the ONLY one who didn't knock at least one bar, and the times were all so close that that made all the difference.

Am I waxing ebullient? I'm a happy mom.

Oh please please can we qualify for the nationals?

Backfill: Aug 29 p.m. (from email to a friend)
It's dog agility this weekend and next. Both weekends provide me with opportunities to get Tika qualified for the big USDAA nationals in November in AZ. Gawd, I hope we manage it. There's one more chance two weekends after that, but I'd just like to get the stress over with.

Actually there are *3* events at the nationals--Steeplechase, Team, and Grand Prix, but the Grand Prix is the really big one and the one that people refer to when they mean "national championship". My dogs have only ever qualified for the Steeplechase twice in 8 years of competing--but it's a specialized speed event rather than the more general all-around Grand Prix -- qualifying in the Steeplechase requires that you be in the top some-small-percentage of the dogs, whereas qualifying for the Grand Prix just means that you meet the required standard performance. The challenging part about Qing for Steeplechase in this part of the country is that most of the top dogs in the country compete here, and the prizes are for cash, so they don't stop competing in the regional qualifiers even after they've qualified for the nationals, so the same dogs keep qualifying over and over.

And Team consists of 5 events--you and two teammates compete in four events individually and then all 3 of you compete in a relay. The combined scores of all 3 of you over all the events are compared to all the other teams to determine who Qs-- I *think* that the top 50% of the teams at any qualifier go to nationals. Odds are decent that we can do it, although all 3 dogs on my team this year are young and not that experienced yet. Again--kind of a specialized event.

Sooooo anyway Tika has one chance to Q for Team and two chances each to Q for Steeplechase and Grand Prix. Mostly I care about qualifying in the GP. The others would be bonuses.

AND I really want to qualify in Jumpers, because she's earned enough Qs in the other games to move up to masters if we can get only one clean jumpers runs. I think we're coming up on 30 total USDAA jumpers runs with only 2 clean (both in novice), so I'd really like to get there. But we have such a problem with knocked bars. (Takes only one to prevent a Q.) Still, we've been doing Susan Salo's jumping exercises and taking a few more lessons from her. Not sure that I can afford more, but I think they help. We shall see...

It's Been A While/That Old Deaf Dog

My, time flies when there's not enough of it.

Jake still teases me with his Am I Deaf Or Ain't I? scenario. When we're at an agility trial, walking to the start of the ring, I let him get ahead of me and turned away. There's a lot of ambient noise and distraction. I say his name loudly and he spins instantly, ears perked, eyes bright, looking for the goodie that he knows I have in my hand.

Sitting in my office, I have goodies in my hand. I wait until he's lying on the floor, head turned away from me. It's completely quiet except for the sound of the computer. I call his name. No response, although he's lying there with the ears-in-the-back-of-the-head posture, as though he's expecting to hear something. I call his name louder. Nothing. Finally he turns his head casually, as if it's something he just decided to do, then suddenly perks up when he sees me looking at him and holding food. Thirty seconds later--he knows I have the food--repeat with same results.

This puzzles me.

The other evening I was out with my sister in her car. Came home through the front door, rattling the lock and jingling my keys. Tika and Casey came blazing downstairs in a frenzy of ThankGodWe'reNotAbandoned-ness. Jake remained upstairs, out of sight, with the "woof----woof----" that says "I don't know why the other dogs are aroused and running around, but in case there's an intruder, I want him to know that I fully support the other dogs in whatever they choose to do." I started stomping up the stairs, saying his name louder & louder. Same level of time-delayed woof----wooof----woof-- until I poked my head around the doorframe into the bedroom, at which point he looked startled and shocked, and then absolutely delighted to see me there.

It's a challenge.

Talked to another agility person who runs a deaf Border Collie. I've been trying to come up with a gesture vocabulary for things--touching my nose means "good", swooping my open hand palm-up away from me and him means "release/OK"; I've always often used the forearm-swung-across-the-chest for "come" and forearm-swung-up-at-elbow for "sit", so you'd think he'd know those, but he seems oblivious. In agility, I've always tried to use a raised arm for contact equipment rather than pointing as I do for other obstacles. With Jake I've started using a wavy hand for weave poles.

She suggested having signs for every different obstacle that I'm likely to have obstacle discrimination on, so including a different gesture for tunnels than for jumps. Not a bad idea. She uses a closed fist for tunnels. I like this idea; we've been missing a lot of gambles lately in straight carry-outs to tunnels that he used to just blast through; now he seems to head out there, turn back towards me, see that I'm still pointing & gesturing, and loop around and sometimes make it back out to the tunnel. Maybe if I had a different signal that was for tunnels only, it would help. But I'll have to practice it a zillion squillion times and I don't know whether I have the patience for it.

People are asking me when I think I might retire him now that he has just about every championship in the book. (NADAC NATCH and O-NATCH; ASCA ATCH; CPE CATCH; USDAA ADCH and veteran's version APD. And even higher titles.) I keep looking at him running and thinking I have no physical reason to retire him. He looks like he's having a good time. Seems particularly to enjoy the time with me without the other dogs. Runs as crazy fast as he always did after his squeaky.

Oh, and that's another thing--he still squeaks a squeaky to make it squeak. Can he hear that? Can he detect the vibration? Is he just assuming that it's squeaking? Inquiring human minds want to know.

It's especially interesting to me now that I've been suffering for nearly 3 weeks with an ear infection or something that makes it extremely difficult to hear from my right ear. It's not like losing half of my hearing; it's like losing 3/4 of it. It's amazing what difference it makes, having only one side of good hearing. So I suppose Jake could have the same thing--maybe it depends on which ear is turned towards me (which I've sometimes had my suspicions about).

Oh, well, it's all a Learning Experience.

West Nile Virus vs Dogs Straining Themselves.

Tika investigates our main source of mosquito larva: the plant holder in the floor of the old pond

It is just not fair that mosquito-borne illnesses should creep into the American way of life! We used that lovely DDT stuff to wipe out the nasties that carried malaria decades ago--what's a few birds here and there? This year for the first time they're confirming the presence of West Nile virus in deceased birds in Santa Clara County.

Where before we were supposed to try to keep down places where mosquitos could breed, now we really ought to be taking care to ensure that we're never bitten. But musky-toe repellant should be for the outback! The hinterlands! The wilderness! Not for one's own backyard.

Or dining room.

Dog-modified screen door handle

See, my dogs don't get the thing with screen doors. Every time I try to leave a screen door instead of the glass door closed around the patio doggie door, some one of them crashes into it. At best, it knocks it off its tracks and it takes me 10 minutes to get it back on. At worst, it bends and cracks the frame. Tika has made my kitchen entry screen door almost unusable. Not quite, but almost. It certainly won't close and latch on its own any more, although I personally never wanted to do that. Doesn't look too good, either.

How does that go: Did you hear about the dog who ran through a screen door and strained himself? (OK, that's the best I can do at this time of the morning.)

Added photos--

...to July 22 and July 23 entries.

Where Did That Muscle Come From?

Maybe I'm ready for retirement. About two-thirds of the way through Tika's class this morning, I noticed that my legs had become a bit shaky, sore, and tired, as though I had been working them for hours. It is possible that we got in a few more, and longer, runs than usual; we seemed to be spending less time discussing them and more time doing them fairly successfully. At the beginning of our last run, I noticed that something on my inner thigh felt slightly more weird than my other muscles, although I definitely noticed calf muscles, hip muscles, lower back, shins, and outer thighs. Three obstacles from the end of this nice long run, that inner-thigh muscle sproinged and I couldn't run.

I don't recall ever having had problems with that muscle before. But as I hobbled, several other muscles began sending messages that they were on the verge of doing the same thing.

I don't know what the deal is. I've got ice on my inner thigh (might be my groin muscle but it seems to go from inner thigh across the front of the leg--unless it's 2 separate muscles). I have gotten really bad about stretching any more--used to stretch always before agility but not probably for the last year or more--but I'm usually so active anyway that I always felt warmed up.

This is totally out of character for my fibers. Wonder what they're thinking?

Is Jake Finished?

Interesting thing today in Tika's class. When Tika took off at the end of a run to go posture at the corner of the field where cats and squirrels often lurk, and didn't come back even when called, I escorted her to the car (note, though, that I actually got hold of her without her taking off all over the place to avoid me. Torn between rewarding that and not rewarding it because it's still part of the taking off bit...) and took Jake out instead. I just played with Jake, had him do some tricks for goodies, tossed a frisbee a short way--and every time I'd stop to pet him, he hurried over to the gate to go back out to the car.

Very odd. Like he didn't want to be out there doing stuff. Come to think of it, he was doing some of that in his class last week, too, but I attributed that to my attempts the last few weeks (at intructors' insistence) to get him to play without food rewards at beginning and end of runs.

Maybe he is ready for retirement. How do I know? How do I know?

Jumping Drills

After Tika's bar knocking escapades this weekend, I set up some simple jumping drills yesterday evening. Consisting of only 4 jumps, spaced starting at 8', on a line angling to the left (and, later, to the right). Jumps at various heights starting low. Gradually moved last 2 jumps to wider spacing.

Interesting contrast among dogs.

Tika had no trouble bounce-jumping the 8' up to 12' distances, and very smoothly--*if* her toy was on the ground at the end. If the toy was in my hand or if I left it in a chair behind us, she tended to tick or knock the bars and get an extra stride in the 12' section.

Jake had no interest in jumping when his toy was on the ground at the end--he repeatedly went around jumps to get to it, sometimes the whole line of 4. But if the toy was in my hand or on a chair behind us, he jumped beautifully, although he never did bounce-jump the 10' spread.

Casey is still learning to do sequences, so I backchained him a bit. But with his toy on the ground at the end, he bounce jumped everything perfectly without even a moment's hesitation. He's about the same height at the withers as Jake, although proportionally I think his legs are longer. Goes to show that if you introduce a dog to jumps in an orderly way, they have fewer problems doing excellent jumping.

Huh.

Not a Bad Weekend (another NADAC trial)

We all had a reasonably good weekend at The Bay Team's NADAC competition this weekend at Twin Creeks in Sunnyvale.

Had a few cruddy runs and a few lovely surprises (things that I thought we wouldn't be able to handle but did), and we brought home a few more ribbons, so I guess altogether it wasn't too bad.

California Cup

I had hoped (I always hope) to be in the running for the Seventh Annual California Cup, which combines your scores for 6 of the weekend's runs (4 Regular and 2 Jumpers) and the best performance wins the trophy. There were over 110 dogs eligible for the trophy at the beginning of the weekend. Primary filter was how many faults you had overall, and for those 6 runs, after the weekend's carnage cleared, only 2 dogs had zero total faults. Actually it's pretty amazing that *any* had zero faults; that's a difficult thing to do over that many runs, ever.

The tiebreaker was average yards per second for those six runs. The winning dog's avg was 5.68 yps--very wow. The runner-up made only 4.12 yps! There were actually 1st-3rd place awards for big and little dogs at 3 different levels of competition for a total of 18 ribbons (we didn't win any of those, either), and the next fastest dog out of all of those 18 had only 4.93 yps (and 10 faults total, which actually isn't bad--could have been one moderate mistake out of 6 runs, or 2 dropped jump bars).

Jake blew me off the second round of the first day (it's a long odd story as to why--and I can't remember when, if ever, he has done that before) and earned an elimination, so it put him out of the running right away. He's not that fast on average, anyway. For the other five rounds, he had two 10-point faults and an average course time of 4.03 yps.

Tika didn't eliminate in any round, which is above average (out of the original 110 qualified dogs, 50 had eliminations in at least one round), but she just kept knocking bars left and right, and those 5-pointers add up. It's a problem that we're working on, but not very consistently (because I'm too lazy to keep setting up the working equipment).

Tika is very fast, except that on the contact obstacles (places where she has to make contact with her paws rather than jumping over the contact zone), I make her stop completely and touch her nose to the ground, tell her she's good, and then let her go. That adds probably 10 seconds to our course time for each of those courses. I'm saving up on accuracy for the day when I finally decide that it's time to release her the instant she stops to try to win, oh, say, the $150 steeplechase or some such. If we ever get to that point and stop knocking bars... At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

ANYway, blah blah, she accrued 45 faults over those 6 runs, almost all knocked bars (sighhhhhh), and averaged 4.42 yps even including those long holds on the contact points. If I'm right about the 10 seconds per course for those four courses, and had released her immediately, then we'd have been at, hmm, let's see, add this, divide by, hmmm... 5.34 yps (oh, wait, we did have one off-course through an extra tunnel and she had to come back and do the correct obstacle... oh, well, never mind, I can't really keep guesstimating the "what ifs").

Over her two Jumpers courses, which have no contact obstacles, only jumps and tunnels, and where we made no mistakes (other than knocked bars), she averaged 6.35 yps, whereas the dog who won averaged only 6.30 over those two courses. But then, that Cal Cup winner didn't knock any bars. (Tika knocked only one of 20 and two of 20... really...)

The fastest of all dogs competing made 6.95 yps, and also knocked one bar; all the other dogs were at least 0.3 yps slower. Fortunately this dog is one of our partners for the upcoming Labor Day Dog Agility Masters Team Regional Qualifier. So if we can keep up the speed and keep on not eliminating and not knock those dagnab cornswaggled bars, we could do good...

OK, was that really interesting?

You can see that speed isn't particularly helpful if you're not accurate in your performance of the course or the obstacles.

Ghosts of Competitions Future

But what's really interesting (OK, from my POV) is that most of the top dogs in the area weren't at this weekend's trial. We face some *really* tough competition at September's trial. And at our two August trials. Many national champions and dogs who have earned their championship titles multiple times over. And who are also really fast--and tend to be a little less bar knocky.

Tedious Details: Regular (2 runs each day each dog)

Jake blew off almost all of his dogwalks all weekend, and I'm referring to nuclear holocaust kind of blowing off, where he's not even in the blast zone distance of the contact zone when he makes a leap for freedom. The only round that was different was Sunday's first round, where I walked onto the field with one thought in my mind: "If he blows off the dogwalk contact, by gum I'm going to blow off the whole round and we're going to train in the ring until he gets it right." And--dash it all--he did it very nicely, and stopped and looked up at me as pretty as you please!

That was the only Regular round in which he qualified, because in the next round I did not go in with that thought in mind, and he just flew right off that little downramp and I just kept on going (after a stop to tell him that I didn't think very much of his performance, and he didn't look like he cared a whit).

Tika had lovely contacts, although she was working hard at leaving the teeter before receiving the "OK" release. But she didn't take off, either--stopped as soon as she realized that I wasn't giving her the everything's OK cues.

She knocked 1 bar the first round, 1 bar the second round, and on Sunday in the first round we had a tough patterning situation where I didn't realize that I needed to give her a big push out and she went off course--and two bars down--and then, in the final Regular round, she saved my butt on some very difficult turns (for a fast, long-strided dog) and left up all the bars and, with her lovely speed, took first place. Wahoo! (She was 2nd and 3rd in her rounds with one bar down.)

Tedious Details: Jumpers (1 run each day each dog)

Jake ran nicely and smoothly both days, with only a couple of veers away from me on challenging cross-behinds, which I had been expecting with his recent hearing and/or seeing problems, and often at the Elite level in NADAC that's enough to have time faults, but he managed to Q both runs, although just barely (0.7 seconds under on Saturday, actually 3 seconds under on Sunday, which surprised me). Sunday's run was good enough for 2nd place; Saturday's only for 6th (of 9 dogs).

Tika was quite fast and oh, so smooth. We had no bobbles in either course, and she carried out on her own over the final jump beautifully. Her average yards per second (yps) over these two courses was 6.35. She seemed slower to me on Sunday than on Saturday, but then it was danged hot and she had been going all weekend (OK, yup, Saturday's was 6.64 yps; sunday's only 6.10, and I think it was a more open course; only the one additional run (Weavers) an hour or so later seemed slower). So she can and does slow down--I need to start considering that.

Tedious Details: Gamblers (1 run each day each dog)

Saturday's Elite Gamble looked like a complete giveaway. The dog went over a jump on the gamble line, angled directly towards a tunnel that veered slightly away from the gamble line; blasting out of the straight tunnel, there was a jump ahead of the dog and slightly towards the handler (who has now encountered the end of the handler area, even with the end of the tunnel), which should be a giveaway for a dog to go straight out and over; then the dog had to continue to bear left and come back in over another jump towards the handler. Piece of cake. I don't know how many full serpentines Jake has done in gambles, and blasting through a tunnel and continuing out over a jump is *so* easy.

However--Jake jogged out of the tunnel, turned towards me, stopped, looked mystified, looked around a bit, and finally went back into the tunnel.

Tika blasted out of the tunnel, glanced at me to see what I was doing, and was over the first jump in a trice, stayed out nicely and came back in quite smoothly over the final jump for a Q. Didn't even have to think about it, and *she's* the one who's still figuring out this gambling thing while *Jake* is supposed to be the old pro. Sigh.

Sunday's gamble was a different matter. There were 3 jumps more or less parallel to the gamble line--the third one was slightly further out. The fourth obstacle was an Aframe, much further back from the gamble line and whose entrance was more or less even with a line between the second and third jumps. So you had to either turn the dog away from you over the 3rd jump and keep him pushed out to the Aframe, or have the dog turn towards you over the 3rd jump, then send him straight out away from you between the 2nd and 3rd jumps to take the Aframe at a sharp angle. Most people were opting for the second choice, and some (not many) were making it. Both of my dogs are perfectly capable of doing turns away from me, but I haven't done a lot of them with Tika at a distance, so I wasn't convinced that she'd really do it.

Jake rather made up his own opening--we weren't communicating well--and he wasn't all that fast, but apparently faster than I thought, because I ended up skipping the final dogwalk/tunnel that I had planned because I thought he was too slow and we were almost out of time, but the whistle didn't blow and I had nowhere to send him except away from me over a couple of jumps, which is dangerous these days because he keeps going rather than looking back at me, which is what he did, and he finally turned and headed back towards me and then the whistle blew, so our timing was excellent to start the gamble (although we didn't get as many opening points as we might have) but our position was at a bad angle (and that was all one sentence). He veered away from me after the first jump rather than continuing on to the second because of that bad angle entry, but somehow figured out what was going on and came back in the correct direction, went over the 2nd and 3rd jumps, turned much more nicely than I had thought possibly away from me over the third jump, looked as if he was about to start wandering aimlessly as he sometimes does lately, but saw the Aframe, went up it, GOT the contact (which he almost never does on Aframes in gambles--something weird about the distance), AND despite the hesitations, managed to even get over the bonus jump for an extra 10 points, putting him in first place out of 7 dogs in his class.

Tika had a lovely opening, but because Jake had had so much extra time (even though he got 45 seconds instead of Tika's 40 seconds, I thought he was wayyyy slow), I inserted an extra two obstacles into Tika's opening, and then, dagnabbit, I sent her up the dogwalk at the instant that the whistle blew. I didn't want to pull her off it, so I let her get to the end and stop, but immediately told her to go and aimed towards the first gamble jump--the entry from the dogwalk was a perfect angle--but instead she came around in front of me, barking and snarfing, which is the old thing she had been doing when I wasn't giving clear signals or some other confusing thing. I *thought* I couldn't have been clearer, but I haven't watched the video, and Gina says she thinks that I was NOT clear and did it while standing still. So she had to spin and circle a couple of times before I got her to successfully do a BEhind and then go over the first jump. So we wasted all the time on the dogwalk (probably 3 seconds of our 15-second gamble time) and then with the chitcatting (probably another 5 seconds). She sent beautifully over the first 3 jumps and started to slightly turn away and I started yelling "left left left!" which we've only barely started practicing with agility obstacles (rather than simply standing and turning), and then she turned crisply, saw the Aframe, went straight up it--and the whistle blew, so we didn't complete the gamble in time. But she *did* do it, even waiting on the contact, and continued gracefully over what would have been the bonus jump.

Not one dog in Tika's class of 6 got the gamble, and so she easily placed 1st with all of her opening points.

Tedious Details: Weavers (Sun) and TouchNGo (Sat)

Weavers consists of only weave poles and tunnels. Jake usually has trouble making the Elite course time for these, as he doesn't generally weave quickly in competition. Never figured out why--he can do them quite rapidly in practice. It was the last run of the weekend on a miserably warm and muggy day, and both dogs were hot and tired. But it was a good weavers course for Jake--I could cross in front of him on all of the crucial turns so that he never had a chance to turn away from me or drift away from the correct path. He actually made time by a second and a hair. Good thing I've spent a lot of time combing out all of his shedding fur the last couple of weeks: I think those 30 or 40 fewer pounds made the difference.

Tika is doing simply beautifully in weave poles, hasn't missed an entrance in quite a while. But she was noticeably slower in this run than in any of the others, and I commented to someone about it at the end of the run. Sure enough, she was ten seconds (30.34) under course time (40.18) but yet 3 or 4 seconds slower than the absolutely fastest dogs, which I wouldn't normally expect. Still , in her class, it was good enough for first.

Touch'N'Go is all tunnels and contacts. It was the last run of the day Saturday, and Tika was the last dog. When I put her into a sit stay, the timer and scribe (whom I knew) and judge were in a sort of it's-almost-over relieved jokey mood, and so I had to actually ask whether they were ready for me to go, and when we got that cleared up, I think I said "OK" to them, and poor Tika took off to the wrong obstacle because I hadn't gotten into position, then I was kind of behind her and flustered and partway through the course I ended up giving her insufficient direction and again she went off course, but I tried to finish the rest correctly. She was a very good girl. And then the judge came by and said it wa their fault that we had messed up and they'd like to give us another chance to run. How often does that happen? So I said yes, but I hadn't given Tika any good-run goodies, and it was danged hot, and she was panting like crazy, and we had no way of hosing the dogs down-- But I decided to run it again right away. Tika was noticeably slower the second time through, but we executed the whole thing perfectly for a Q. She was so good. Again, she was 9 seconds under course time but 2 whole seconds slower than the first place dog, so good for a 2nd place. If only she hadn't slowed down so much the 2nd time-- but of course this is *Tika* slow.

Irish Wolfhound in England

The Irish Wolfhound is the mascot of the Irish Guards, who are the bright red chaps with tall black furry mounds of fur upon their heads whom you can view parading around in front of Buckingham Palace at 11:30 every morning of the week.

In browsing around the internet for more information, I found this delightfully written bit of prose (read more here):

It is with a certain amount of diffidence that this essay is entered upon, as there is a widely spread impression that the breed to be treated of is extinct. That we are in possession of the breed in its original integrity is not pretended; at the same time it is confidently believed that there are strains now existing tracing back, more or less clearly, to the original breed; and it also appears to be tolerably certain that our modern Deerhound is descended from that noble animal, and gives us a very fair idea of what he was, though undoubtedly considerably his inferior in size and power.
Had it not been for these facts, the courage to write this article might have been wanting; but they appear to be so clear to the writer, that he can proceed, with the feeling that most of his readers will perceive that he is amply justified in undertaking a history and description of this very magnificent example of the canine race-that, indeed, may be said to have been its king.

This was written over a century ago, which would explain some of the stylistic difference. Aren't you glad you live now?

Various Notes and Random Bits

• Backfill: July 23 a.m.That Lovely London Scent: Somewhere in the past I mentioned that Tika gets catnip-style pleasure out of my used washcloths. Don't ask me, I'm not a dog. Or a cat. I got home very last Monday night--essentially Tuesday, in fact--washed my face and hands, and crawled into bed. When I dragged out of bed Tuesday morning and turned on the sink faucet to warm up water for morning face-scrubbing, Tika followed me into the bathroom, which is not unusual.

What is unusual is that she stopped abruptly below the towel bar, whereupon a slightly stunned or startled look crossed her face. She reared up onto her hind legs and stood there for a few moments with her superb sense of balance, examining the towel bar. Then, ever so gingerly, she took one corner of my washcloth in her frontmost teeth and pulled it, ever so fastidiously, off of the towel bar. She then carried it gently up onto my bed, where she shook it shortly twice, laid it carefully onto the bed, and rubbed her cheeks into it repeatedly for about 30 seconds. Then she was done.
I was so stunned that I didn't scold her for taking my things from my purview. I wonder what odd or unusual odors I imported from London on the skin of my face? Perhaps it was the London Fog altogether, because when I opened my luggage to slowly begin unpacking, Jake put his nose right in there and analyzed every square inch of clothing and imported product. They usually exhibit no interest at all in my luggage or its contents.



• Baths: I never bathes my dogs no more. Amber had very oily skin that attracted dirt like--um--dirt to an oily dog coat. Plus horrid flea allergies (this was in the days before those nifty one-spot once-a-month flea repellents). She needed bathing constantly. Sheba's pure white chest and underbelly and legs became grimy often, partly from the metal of her dangling dog tags, partly I'm sure from crawling out from under assorted fences. Remington got occasional baths, usually when Sheba needed one.

But I never tried just hosing Sheba down regularly. Rem, Tika, and Jake have all been hosed off frequently, because on warm days in agility it seems like the proper thing to do. In fact, I don't believe that I've ever bathed Tika, and probably hardly ever bathed Jake. I certainly don't think I've done doggie bathing since moving in here nearly 3 years ago.

But Tika and Jake are shedding miserably, and Jake has started scratching again, so I gave them both baths yesterday in my shower stall--yes, with actualy doggie shampoo. It helped to clump and loosen the fur, and they both look particularly clean and cuddly in the aftermath. Neither were pleased about the process, but they survived admirably.

Afterwards, I combed them each for about 10 minutes. Which removed about three mattress loads of fur but otherwise hardly seemed to make a difference.


• Jake's legs: Once again this morning, Jake yelped just after waking up when I briskly scritched his thigh. Often when he's standing or walking slowly, I see his hind legs wobble and slew side-to-side a bit. Something I've seen with my other elderly dogs. How he can be having problems with his legs and still blitzkreig his squeakie in the yard or haul over jumps (although they're all 16" now, not the 22" to 24" he jumped in his prime) is beyond me. What a guy. But I'm cautiously concerned. Pull him from agility or not?

What I'll probably do is not enter him in everything at every trial. Maybe. If I can convince myself to not do so--

Kensington Palace and its front lawn. Think of the agility you could do in your own front yard if you lived here!

• Dogs in London: Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens simply seethed with dogs. All cheerful. All well-behaved. All off leash. Playing frisbee or tennis ball, running with their owners, encountering other dogs of similar size and ambition and playing wild games of chase across the verdant expanses-- And British owners are no better (maybe worse) than American owners about picking up after their dogs (saw 3 violators out of 3 observed poops!) despite the parks having their own special private privileged waste containers for doggy poo and nothing else! (Photo forthcoming.)
• Dogs without me: Housemate reports that, while I was gone, Tika got out the front door once and (as usual) took off full speed across the nearest street. And, as usual, Casey and Jake decided it looked like fun and took off after her. Fortunately they were retrieved still alive. I don't know what to do about this problem. It's a serious problem. I need to do something. I've rambled about this problem before.
  

Catching Up

• Rodents: For about 2 weeks, there, the dogs were ridding the world of either giant mice or young roof rats at the rate of one every day or two. There were 6 or 7 that we know about, little damp ex-rodent corpses left in some funny spot in the yard (or, once, in some funny spot in the middle of my carpet). A couple of times, only parts of a damp ex-rodent, which I don't really want to think about. And then there was the evening that Jake had something unidentifiable in his mouth that he was carrying around obsessively and wouldn't let me pry from his jaws despite a suspiciously long thin sort of tail-looking thing hanging from between his lips. But it was dark under the table where I had crawled in an attempt to get it from him, and I couldn't tell, so I gave up. Then he crunched it and swallowed it. Erg. Try not to think about it. Better rodent-hunting dogs than live rodents anywhere in my boudoir (or elsewhere), I suppose. I don't know where they were finding them all!
• Jake has been yelping on more and more occasions. Can't figure it out. Something to do with his legs? Or not? Once when I was merely petting him, lying in bed. Couple of times when he sat. Sometimes on my lap when I try to adjust him slightly. Sometimes scratching. Arthritis? Something else? Should I take him to the chiropractor, as all my agility pals are recommending?
• Tika jumping lessons: We've taken a couple more of Susan Salo's private jumping lessons, which I can't afford. But she (Tika, I mean) seems to be getting the idea of handling different stride lengths in a consistent style, and of using her left lead as well as her right lead. I'd really like to solve the knocking-bars problem. Which, I suppose, if you figure it at $12 a run, and if she blows 4 runs in a weekend because of a knocked bar, I've almost paid for a Salo lesson--

The Global Economy

I call Cingular to ask about cell phone access from England. Yes, they do have an agreement with a company over there.

Me: Can you tell me what the rates would be from England to the U.S.?

C: Certainly. Hold on one moment-- OK, would England be considered Eastern Europe or Western Europe?

Have Camera, Will Abuse

See a page with thumnails of all of the dog-breed photos I've taken for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. And a few other random photos, too.

Meanwhile, I'm about to head off for London for 5 days, camera and film in hand.

What will the dogs do while I'm gone? With whom will they do it? So many questions. So few answers. I hope the answer isn't "they will bark all day long and piss off the neighbors."

Hiking Sans Dogs

Yesterday morning, took a lovely stroll through Alum Rock Park (go there to see some of my photos and a description of the park). Didn't take the dogs.

Without the dogs, our conversations revolved around such topics as:

• Why isn't "iron" pronounced "EYE-ron" instead of "EYE-ern"?


• If something made of metal is metallic, why isn't something made of iron considered to be ironic?


• If we got poison oak despite being very careful, would it be ironic or just stupid?


• Did Poe write The Raven in idyllic pedometer or some other form?

With the dogs, the conversations would have revolved around:

• Watch out for the poison oak.


• C'mon, that's enough sniffing.


• No! Leave it!


• Watch out for the poison oak!


• Stop pulling! It's only a mountain lion!


• Hang on, I have to pick up the dog's deposits.


• Don't--DON'T--Oh, dagnabbit, that was poison oak!

In any event, this particular park doesn't allow dogs. Just as well. Single-file, we could barely avoid the poison oak on parts of the trail. But the view of the valley from the South Rim Trail was lovely, the weather was beautiful between 9 and 11 in the morning, and we certainly got our exercise.

Dogs are going stir crazy, though. Can hardly wait to see what they'll be like after I get back from London--

In the evening, I joined a group of agiliholics up at Power Paws Agility above Alum Rock Park for a big picnic. Most stayed for viewing the fireworks--from there, you can see every fireworks show from the south valley up the peninsula almost to San Francisco--but it was already 9:00 and I was tired and last year after the fireworks getting down the hill was a traffic nightmare. So I left early, just as the fireworks were starting. Caught glimpses of them around my as I tooled along the freeways.

And I got a lot of tooling in, because I forgot to take 101 south from 680, and parts of 87 were closed (which is why I should've taken 101) because in years past tons of dorks apparently started stopping along the freeway shoulders to watch fireworks. So there was a tremendous traffic jam at 87, which I wriggled past and went all the way out to 17 south to 85 south to home.

Tika was dashing in circles around the yard, barking pointedly at I'm not sure what. I'm wondering whether she was after the fireworks or the popping and rumbling noises; didn't look quite like chase-the-roof-rat-along-the-fence style barking. She does sometimes run around the yard barking at birds flying overhead, so who knows. Just needs something, anything, to do.

Casey Teaches Me A Lesson

In fact, I'm not sure who taught whom.

I'm a big believer in teaching all agility obstacles from all sides at all times. So, if I'm teaching weave poles, we practice equal quantities of the dog entering on my left and on my right from both ends of the weaves. If teaching tunnels, we practice equal quantities of the dog entering from my left and from my right to both ends of the tunnel.

I haven't worked a lot with Casey, although he's a smart, fast, agile little guy. Mostly what I have taught him is tunnels and some jumping. He can usually, with a little backchaining, do a couple or 3 jumps or jump/tunnel/jump in a row.

With the nationals and all, I hadn't really been doing anything with Casey for a couple of weeks. So I decided it was time to put him through a couple of tunnels. Lo and behold, somewhere along the line he has learned to NOT go through a tunnel when I am on his left and I am aiming him at the left side of the tunnel.

I thought perhaps it was something about Tunnel #1 in the northeast corner of the yard. But nooooo-- for all 3 tunnels, he will go into the right end no matter which side I'm on. He will go into the left end if I am on his right. But he will not go into the left end if I am on his left.

I even tried to trick him by sending him in quick succession into the right side with me on his right, then on his left, then into the left side with me on his right, then with me on his left--and he skids to a halt and won't go in.

Dagnab the little brat!

Dogs Who Hear Quite Well, Thank You Very Much

With all the brouhaha (brouhaha?) (Yes, brouhaha) about Jake's hearing going, it's quite intriguing to realize how acute Tika's hearing is.

The other evening, I was sitting in my office. That's behind a desk. Jake was looking at me. Tika was upstairs napping, presumably on my pillow which is excellent for those of us with allergies and who love inhaling dog hairs while trying to drop off to sleep. I hardly ever invite Jake up on my lap any more because Tika gets jealous and wants attention, too. I've tried ignoring her but she's evil--I think I talked a year or so ago about how she'd go and find a squeaky, squeak it (which is not part of her normal repertoire, thank you very much), and Jake would leap off my lap to go see what the brouhaha (brouhaha? ... never mind) was all about. Then of course she'd come over and point out that my hands were now free for petting other dogs.


So I thought about this. Jake is looking at me. Tika is on the other side of the desk, around the corner, up half a flight of stairs, around a U-turn, up the other flight of stairs...all the turns and corners with walls in the way, mind you...around the corner, into my bedroom, around the corner, and muffled all snug as a bug with my pillow and down comforter fluffling up around her ears.

I thought to myself, thought I, "I'll bet Tika won't be able to hear Jake leap into my lap. On top of being up the stairs, around a corner, etc. [I often think "etc." to myself], he is standing on carpet, so his toenails will make no sound when he leaps. Plus the washer and dryer are both running full out [being dedicated overachieving appliances as they are], so it will deaden the sound of, say, his soft little feet hitting my soft little lap [no observations necessary]."

So I gently patted my chest, the signal for Jake to come up. He leaped. His tags didn't even jangle. I didn't even hear him make much more than a tail-fur-brushing-against-air-molecules sort of sound.

And, an instant after he landed on my lap, I heard kerTHUNKthunk from upstairs, which is the sound of a Tika leaping from a bed, and then the sound of toenails in a rattled tumbling down the wooden-plank stairs, and then Tika skidded into the room around the desk to see why Jake got to be in my lap while I wasn't petting her.

How did she know???

I refused to pet her. I guess she couldn't find a squeakie [spelling arbitrarily changes at the writer's whim], because she vanished and reappeared with a nice shakable toy, which she proceeded to shake vigorously and growl and leap about in Jake's sight. Well, Jake, whose brain molecules don't always cohere into something useful, decided that meant it was playtime and leaped off my lap to go find his own toy.

Of course it was not play time. I was working. But he lost his opportunity to hang out on my lap and offer technical advice about the content of the scripting guide I was working on.

Tika wanted to know why I wasn't petting her.

Bombed at CPE Nationals

Welllllll after we had such a lovely weekend the 5th and 6th, we totally bombed at the CPE Nationals last weekend. The dogs were mostly running nicely but through a combination of flubs, each dog qualified in only 3 out of 9 runs. And we managed only one first the whole time.

All of my Wed. night classmates who do CPE managed to *win* their height/level groups from a combined score over 3 Standard runs for the weekend. It's humiliating to be the only one in our class who didn't win and who wouldn't run in the final (optional) round. One classmate chose not to run her dog because the final run was a fast, Steeplechase-like run in the inside arena that had to be about 100 degrees.

They did award 2nd-place Standard winners for each height/level group, too, and Jake managed to take 2nd--pretty much for showing up, since there was ONLY one other dog in his height/level category. Sigh.

The horrible blow-by-blow weekend:

There were about 250 dogs entered for the weekend. We've had some very good weekends at CPE trials, my dogs are running well, I feel relaxed and confident. I would love to earn High In Trial, but I'm pretty sure that'll require earning either all Qs or maybe just one nonQ for the weekend.

FRIDAY

Full House

This is a point-accumulation game. Jumps are 1 point, tunnels and tires are 3, and there are 3 designated obstacles worth 5 points--in this case, a 6-pole weave and two double jumps. Usually the 5-pointers are harder to do or harder to get to. You can take each obstacle twice for points. You must get at least three 1s, two 3s, and one 5.

Tika excels because she is so fast and so responsive. We are seldom beaten by anyone on points in this game at any height or level. I pick a nice smooth course with a zillion points and my main concern is whether I'll run out of obstacles before time is up. I put her in a sit-stay and lead out confidently to the far side of the course, turn around--and she is standing up PAST the start line, so the clock has already started. She hasn't done this in many runs over several trials. In a regular trial, I'd probably have taken her off the start line and put her away. But it's the first run of a 3-day weekend and what counts this weekend are Qualifying scores to go for overall high in trial. So I let her run. We've hardly started, flowing beautifully, no knocked bars, when the whistle blows. I checked with the timer afterwards; she wasted at least 7 out of our available 30 seconds, standing there over the start line. We do indeed earn enough to qualify, but barely enough to be noticed. 3rd out of 6 dogs. No blue ribbon.

Jake runs a fairly nice, smooth but not fast course for a decent number of points, but 3 points less than the fastest dog, so a Q and a 2nd.

Wildcard

This is essentially a short standard course, but at 3 points in the course you must choose one of 2 obstacles, one harder and one easier. We must take *exactly* 2 of the harder and one of the easier. This particular course is a challenging course with lots of options for the dog and tricky changes of sides and such.

Tika handles it beautifully, no bars down, does exactly what I ask of her, gets through all of the difficult parts--and then on the last obstacle I don't call hard enough and she takes the wrong last jump. So we have to circle around to complete the correct one to avoid major faults. Despite being way out of place and having to come back in and take another obstacle, she's less than 4 seconds slower than the dog who took first. She's still good for a third out of 10 dogs, but at her level the offcourse prevents a Q.


Jake is good through most of it but we have a couple of close calls where he does that mysterious turn-in-a-different-direction thing and I just barely managed to call him away from the wrong obstacle twice. But he's slowing way down each time. We manage to be the only one of 3 dogs in our class with a clean run, so we do manage a Q and a 1st. I'm feeling somewhat good about Jake--2 Qs for 2 runs. But we're struggling with his deafness or whatever ails him and he's slowing down as the day goes on.

On the other hand, I'm extremely depressed about Tika's runs.

Colors

This consists of 3 somewhat intertwined courses of 8 obstacles each, each numbered 1 thru 8 in different-colored cones (hence "colors"). You pick one course to run.

Tika Qs in only about half of these, because they prohibit knocked bars and she does have a tendency to knock them. But she's been much better at the last couple of trials and so far today hasn't knocked any. I try a challenging lead-out pivot (yes, she stays at the start line), but when I release her, she runs *past* the second jump. So I have to run back towards the beginning, circle her around to avoid a backjump (which would be an offcourse); she comes with me nicely but--knocks the bar as she finally goes over it. At this point, I'm also on the wrong side for the rest of the course. We get through the rest of it with several spins and bobbles, but no other faults. Still, it's NOT that hard for most dogs to Q in Colors, and indeed we're the only ones who don't in a class of 5 dogs.

I run a different course with Jake (I used the course with the dogwalk for Tika because I liked the flow better for a long-strided, fast dog; I used the course with the Aframe for Jake because he often gets a fly-of on the dogwalk). Jake takes off from the start line at only a slow run. We get through the first couple of turns but then he again does that turn-away-from-me bit and I yell yell yell to get him to come back. He looks hard at the wrong obstacle but finally STOPS, turns, and kind of trots back to me. We get back on course and now he's barely trotting. This is the speed he uses when we go out for a walk in the morning! This is not agility speed! We're almost to the last obstacle and we merely have to go in a straight line to the final jump--and again he veers off at a right angle towards the wrong jump. I'm standing there, calling, calling; he slows gradually, almost to a stop, then resumes that miserably slow trot in the right direction. We are, in fact, completely clean. But the course time is NOT that generous when you have only 8 obstacles! Indeed, when the results come up, he is one blankety second over time. No Q. But someone must have done worse than we did, because he's 3rd of 4 dogs.

And that was my first day. One Q with Tika, no blue ribbons. We are probably out of the running, unless things go very badly for everyone else, but we can still get 6 out of 6 for the next 2 days and maybe, just maybe... Jake has a slightly better chance, since he has 2 Qs, but I don't know why he's slowed down so much, and missing a Q by a second is damned depressing. Is he not feeling well? No, half an hour later he's playing frisbee like a madman. Is it something I'm doing? I've been warming him up before his runs with tricks and treats. But I *know* he runs faster if I can get him to play tug of war beforehand. It's just that that takes SO much more work on my part, and then I'm tired when I get into the ring.

Thank the gods Tika is self-propelled. I don't know whether she'd be faster if I played tug before we went in. She couldn't be much faster! I'm more concerned with her about keeping her focused on me before we go into the ring.

All of my friends have all Qs for the day. Or maybe one or 2 of them (we have 25 Bay Teamers there plus of course lots of other people I know fairly well) have missed a Q. But there are Qs and blue ribbons all around me. I am not happy with my day.

SATURDAY

It's going to be a hot day. Warm already when we get up. First run of the day is--

Snooker

This game is also a point-accumulation game, with 2 parts: In the opening, you must take a red 1-pointer followed by a higher-point obstacle, then a different red followed by a higher-pt obstacle (could be the same one), then another different red and another higher-pt obstacle. In the closing, you do the obstacles numbered 2 thru 7 in the correct order. With this kind of set-up, the highest points that you can earn are 51 (1-7-1-7 in the opening and 2-3-4-5-6-7 in the closing). But it depends on where the 7-pointer is located how easy it is to get higher points in the opening.

On this particular course, the 7 is a sequence of 2 jumps and a 6-pole weave pole. The 6 is a combination of a jump and a tunnel. This is going to be a very tricky one, because the jump that's part of 6 is *also* one of the red jumps. So you could do that jump twice followed by the tunnel, which would give you a red and the #6. But you have to remember whehter you were using the jump as a red or as part of #6! The judge also says that if you knock the jump in the opening, it will count as 0 points for the #6 in the closing. Could be an issue with Tika, but ya gotta go for it.

Jake is never fast in competition in the weaves, and he was so slow yesterday. So I don't really want to try #7 in the opening for fear we won't have time to get through the whole thing. But I see almost everyone walking the course with three #6 in the opening because it's fast and flows fairly well. So I decide to start with one #7 and then go into two #6s. I walk several different combinations of all 6s or two 6s and a 7, finally pick a flow that I like, and walk it over and over because the tricky thing with that multipurpose jump. I get him revved up beforehand by playing tug. I have to really work at it, but he looks excited. Sure enough, he blasts away from the startline, whips through #7, and we're on our way to what I know will be a great snooker run. He's very responsive, running quite well, looking at me instead of turning away and looking at other obstacles. We blast through #6 and I suddenly panice, thinking I've already taken the red that we're heading for, so I swerve and take a different red on the way back to our second #6. Jake responds perfectly and happily and quickly--and the judge blows the whistle. Sure enough, I should have taken the red that I was originally aiming for, because I used one of the other reds twice in my sudden panic. Jeez, I've been doing this game for years and I always try to run it as a NUMBERED course (that is, I don't have options on the course--I pick the course, I learn it, I run it that way so I DON'T have to think on course).

So Jake was running beautifully but we were whistled off without even enough points to qualify. And because I stopped and looked baffled when the judge whistled, he called me over to tell me what we did wrong. And as a result I forgot to get to the finish before petting my dog. So we got a no-time and couldn't even get a placement ribbon (even if we'd have had enough points to place).

With Tika, who does lovely weaves and is always fast, I picked a nice flowing opening with two 7s and one 6. She stayed at the start line as I led out. She didn't knock the first red--which is good because then I would've had to try to get to another red instead of the #7 and I'd have never made it on that course. BUT then she knocked the first bar of #7, so I knew we wouldn't get credit for that occurrence. But normally in snooker you can fault an obstacle only once--in other words, if you knock the bar the first time, you don't get credit for that, but you do get credit for it the rest of the time.

She was flying and SO responsive and hit her weave pole entries perfectly. We swooped around for our 2nd #7--and the judge called 0 points a second time! It dawns on me that when the judge was talking about knocked bars, he was talking about ANY bars on ANY obstacle not counting EVER after you've knocked it. Now I know I'm doomed because there's no way I can get enough points to qualify, because I also won't get credit for the #7 in the closing. Tika runs beautifully, knocks no other bars, has no bobbles, gets all the way through the course many seconds faster than the next best dog. But indeed we fail to qualify. I'm in tears--again-- Even if I had realized that I wouldn't have gotten credit for the 2nd 7 in the opening, I would never have been able to make up another course on the fly that took her into, say, #6 instead of back into the #7 I walked. And she ran SO nicely.

Standard

A numbered course of between 14 (minimum at lower levels) and 22 (max at higher levels) obstacles, including all of the contacts, jumps, tunnels, chutes, double jumps, and so on.

Now it's time for the first Standard run of the weekend. Even if we can't get overall high in trial, we could get high in the 3 standard runs and earn an award there. The course is challenging but not as challenging as many we've run and succeeded at.

Again I warm up Jake with tug of war. Again he's pretty darned fast. He even gets his dogwalk contact. But the final stretch has a challenging right-angle entrance to the Aframe that is complicated by the tunnel underneath the Aframe facing the dog. Jake gets a little bit ahead of me, moving very fast, and doesn't react at all to my attempts to call him in my direction and takes the tunnel for an offcourse and there goes our Q.

Tika lies down at the start line after I have led out, so there is nothing I can do about it. Not too happy, because from there she often knocks the first bar. I release her--and she knocks the first bar. This would still be a qualifying run, although only half a Q. She runs it beautifully, including a lovely smooth handling of the threading around the obstacles where Jake went off course. We zoom towards the finish line, just 2 straight jumps, no offcourses possible, and I let up and drop my arm and say "good girl" or some such as she takes the last jump--and she knocks the bar.

Now we don't qualify at all. It was a hard enough course that Tika still places 2nd of 4 dogs. But I wanted the Qs.

Standard Round 2--Another chance at standard, although by now we're probably completely out of the running for any awards.

Again I warm up Jake with tug. Again he's super fast and happy. No bobbles. Challenging course but he handles wonderfully--until in the homestrech, where he has to push away from me to go up the Aframe and avoid going into the tunnel underneath (dang tunnel-under-the-aframe thing this weekend)--and he just isn't PUSHing and sure enough I run out of room and have to veer away and he goes into the tunnel. There goes our Q. But I still want to complete the course correctly. So I call him back, push him out towads the Aframe (he used to have a LOVELY "out") and at the last moment he veers into the tunnel. Repeat a third time. Dagnabbit. At least he looks happy and he's still running at speed.

Tika has a beautiful, nearly flawless run, but then for some reason turns back to me before the last jump (she used to do this often but not in a long time) and when she finally spins to take the jump, she knocks the bar. Half a Q for a 2nd out of 4 dogs, but that's not going to be good enough to save us.

Reno the Corgi, one of our friends with 6 Qs after the first day and the eventual winner of the Standard Final championship

I'm just about ready to pack everything up and go home. One half Q for the whole day. What a sucky weekend. This is quite below our overall average and WAY below our CPE average (Jake's is nearly 70% Qs). Can you say bummed? I know I'm supposed to be having fun, but I *so* believed that we could have been a contender, and we are doing SO badly, and my friends are doing SO well. Even the little dog who isn't built for running and also has a flat pushed in face so finds it hard to breathe has decided that THIS is HIS weekend and is hauling his butt and already has 3 Qs for the weekend! And they earned their Qs and really deserved them, too Most of my friends have 6 for each of their dogs. Not everyone, but all of my Wed classmates anyway. Or maybe they've missed 1. But I just suck. Self-flaggellation continues unabated.

SUNDAY

I am slightly more cheery today. Now I know that I am so far out of the running that it doesn't matter. In fact, I am almost too relaxed. As in, who gives a f**** if we Q, we are so f***** this weekend and f**** it anyway. I am probably not pleasant to be around.

Gamblers

A point-accumulation game with 2 parts. In the first part, you just take as many obstacles as you can to earn points. The trick is to be in a good running position when the whistle blows for the 2nd part, the "gamble", where you have to manage your dog over 4 or 5 obstacles up to 20 feet away from you without crossing the gamble line taped on the ground.

This one is a tough but doable gamble. There are 2 tunnels in U shapes facing each other with a jump in the middle. There is a table back behind the line of those 3 obstacles, between one tunnel and a jump. Dog goes into near side of the first tunnel, so he's coming out the FAR side of that tunnel, over the jump, then into the FAR side of the 2nd tunnel. This is tough because coming out of the first tunnel he's facing the NEAR side of the 2nd tunnel and he's running full speed. So you need to be way out ahead of him as he's going over the jump so you can turn and PUSH him with a good "OUT" command into the far side of the tunnel. Then when he comes out of the near side of the tunnel, you have to get him to turn directly away from you and go out to the table. Both of my dogs are capable of this if *I* handle it correctly.

Tika is first. I've picked an aggressive opening with lots of points. We just get started, and she lawn-darts her Aframe contact! (That is, takes off from up high and lands straight down on the groudn without ever getting her feet in the contact zone.) She hasn't missed a contact in maybe 8 months! We are both surprised, I think. It's not a fault in gamblers, but we do miss 5 points, and I don't want her doing it again, so we do sort of a standing-time-out (I go nowhere, she goes nowhere, which she hates). We go back and do the Aframe again and it's perfect.

But we've lost some time and some points, so I'm going to have to adjust the rest of my opening to make up for the time so I'm in the right place for the gamble. I try to send her *out* to another high-point obstacle instead of running with her, and she goes *around* it! And then she's growfing at me for being unclear and I have trouble turning her to try to get her to try it again, and we're bobbling around in the corenr between a jump and the beginning of the gamble, getting NO points, and the whistle blows. I manage somehow to give her a signal such that she goes OVER the gamble tunnel. That's still not a fault, and I somehow get her into the tunnel, but I'm in a very bad position and furthermore I hesitate as I start to run and look back over my shoulder to be sure she's---ZOOOM! She goes right past me and into the wrong end of the other tunnel, despite my feeble attempts at "OUT"--I'm just not in the right position.

Jake has a lovely opening. Usually he gets quite a few fewer points than Tika because she's so fast and has such good contacts. But he gets his contacts, and alhtough his turns are very wide, I don't actually lose him anywhere on the course and we are in absolutely the most perfect position you could imagine when the whistle blows and he goes into the tunnel and I run like heck and I am in the exact perfect spot and I turn towards him as he heads for the jump and I give a big "OUT!" and a very strong body, arm, and leg signal and I HOLD it so the pressure stays on and he starts to veer towards the var end of the tunnel--and then at the last mmoment turns back and takes the wrong end. Sigh. Maybe if I had REAPEATED the "OUT!" and pushed AGAIN, but sometimes that backfires...

In fact, Jake ends u with *8*!! more points than Tika in the opening.

No Qs again.

We're getting down to the end of the weekend and I feel that I have nothing to show for it. The placement ribbons are lovely huge rosettes, but I don't really care much because they're not coming with the Qs, which are what count.

Jumpers

A very fast numbered course consisting only of jumps of various kinds and tunnels.

But now it's time for Jumpers, which Jake almost always Qs if I can keep him on course these days, and Tika abosolutely LOVES and flies around the course although she does have a history of knocked bars--still, 5 out of her last 6 jumpers runs have been clean. And if she's clean, nobody beats her. It's a very fast course with essentially figure 8s made up of tunnels and jumps, but you have to do some serious call-offs as the dog is flying and there's one nifty 180-degree turn after a 3-obstacle straight run.

We get a chance to watch dozens of dogs on the course ahead of us. A lot of the fast dogs are crashing and burning, but a few are hanging in there. Most of the slower dogs, with times of 30 seconds or more, are doing fine. Tika won't have that kind of time, guaranteed. One dog finished the course clean in something under 23 seconds. A couple of very fast, smooth border collies are at 24 something seconds. We're wondering whether anyone can break 20 seconds on that course.

Sooooooo Tika stays at the start line until released and starts flying. At that danged 180, I call TOO early and call her off the last straight obstacle, and she responds PERFECTLY but I have to spin her around and get her to go out over that jump. That kind of maneuver is usually about 3 seconds. We get back on target and she is FLYING. I almost hardly have to move from the center of the course and she reponds BEAUTIFULLY. But then the last 2 jumps are a sharp 90-degree turn, and--cautious from the last call-off, I call too LATE and she knocks the next-to-last bar. Sighhhh...

She ends up with a course time of 23.52 even WITH that spin-around-missed-obstacle, and at her level she can still Q with a knocked bar, but it also drops her to a mere 2nd place out of about 5 dogs.

Again I warm up Jake with tug. This is working very well. Not only is he faster, but he seems to pay more attention to *me* instead of to obstacles. But, halfway through the course, he *crashes* a jump. Someone said afterwards that it's as if he didnt' see it until the last moment (it was a turn after a tunnel with me between him and it). He slowed down a lot, and I thought he might have hurt himself, but he picked up speed again and finished beautifully.

See, in Jake's ENTIRE agility career, he has knocked a bar in jumpers maybe 5 times, ever. EVER. So WHY at the d***ed NATIONALS is when he knocks a bar? Because, at his level, that is NOT a Q.

Standard Round 3

Taking us to our final Standard run of the weekend. I really feel kind of sick. I really feel humilated. My friends are still racking up the Qs. Most have now missed one Q for the weekend, but still... I just want to pack up and go home. But there's always that quest for MAYBE I'll Q THIS round.

It was another challenging course. Jake was happy and fast and, although he somehow fell off the side of the teeter when it hit the ground instead of running off the front end, he bounced right back up and rann ran ran and YAY we had a clean fast run for a Q. A couple of very wide turns, but no real struggles for control or veers away from me. Still, we were 3 seconds slower than that darned Max, who is also about 6 years younger than Jake. So again it was only a 2nd.

Tika was slowing down, of all things. It was pretty hot and the end of a long weekend. (But we did 18 runs each dog Memorial Weekend over 3 days, so this was nuthin'.) But still she ran beautifully, got all her contacts, kept all her bars up--and then, just before the last sequence of jumps to the finish, I forgot to cross in front of the weaves to handle a turn/turn over the last jumps--don't know why, I WALKED it correctly and I did it right with JAKE, but NOOOO I couldn't do it right with her--and so when I did a cross to make up for it, it was in the wrong place, pulld Tika past the next-to-last jump, and when I stopped, she was in such a position and angle that she backjumped the jump. Arghhhhh--!! There went my final possibility for a Q for the weekend.


Argh I immediately started packing up. I just wanted to get out of there. I couldn't stand the thought of watching everyone I knew in the final round and getting their awards and not being part of it. What a rotten attitude, huh? But of course I wasn't done packing before they started the final round, so I thought I'd just watch a couple, and then the people I knew ran SO nicely and they were SO much fun to watch, and I just stayed for a couple more... And by the time the final round was done, they were ready to hand out awards, so I went to sit and watch my friends get all of their trophies.

I hadn't realized that they were handing out trophies for 2nd place over the 3 standard runs--so I was quite surprised (in cynical and depressed sort of way) when they called our name to receive our trophy! I have been pointing out that there were only 2 16" championship-level dogs running standard, but I guess we do have to take credit for earning our way up to C level. Stilll... it's even less than anticlimactic.

Tika's Agility Adventure

I went on at length about *one run* in Jake's weekend; now here's Tika's info.

Tika is doing *so* well in agility! She Qed 7 out of 18 at Memorial weekend's NADAC, which isn't great, but I can attribute several of the non-Qs to really stupid handler tricks (it wasn't one of my greatest weekends--e.g., I left Jake's collar on for one lovely run!). And she Qed 7 out of 10 at this weekend's CPE, blasting away the competition with 9 first places (usually beating out all the other dogs, any height, any level), including a beautiful gamble that only 2 out of all of the dogs got. OK, it was a small, low-level trial, but still there were some pretty good dogs there.

She had perfect start-line stays this weekend; previous weekend she stood up once and I told her to sit & she did, and she lay down twice after I had walked away from the startline. Out of 18 runs, that's not bad.

All of her contacts have been beautiful. A couple of times she has left before the "OK" and I've done the standing-time-out thing and then she's been good.

She is so responsive and happy and fast. What a joy!

Here's the adventure, though. She has grown up and matured so much that I sometimes let her hang out around the canopy off-leash with me and Jake. Saturday afternoon she was snoozing on the grass while I rubbed her tummy. I got involved in writing notes about some of my runs. She suddenly leaped to her feet, all a-quiver, and just out of arm's reach. I said her name, and she took off in full squirrel-chasing mode across the crating area and towards the kennels next to the site.

It was then that I realized that a dog in the kennel had started shrieking and yowling, yipping and doing that thing that I don't know what to call--deep in the throat sort of howling/grinding sound that is SO grating... in fact, doing *exactly* the horrific noises that Tika does when I leave her in the house while walking Jake, or sometimes when there's a cat or a loose dog outside. Godawful piercing noises.

Anyway, she was trying desperately to get into the building where the noise was (like she runs back & forth trying to get thru the fence at class when she sees a cat or squirrel). I was right behind her as fast as I could go. I called her 3 or 4 times; about the fourth time, while I waited in one spot and tried to sound nonthreatening (I really didn't want her taking off in some other direction and didn't think I could chase her down) she decided that she couldn't get into the building and, instead of taking off around the other side, she actually came back to me. Very stressed looking, ears pointed back at the building, but she actually came. I told her briefly that she was good for coming back, and walked her on collar back to the crates.

In her crate, she went ape-shit. SHE started doing the same shrieking and that grinding/moaning sound, spinning and spinning and crashing around in her crate. I tried bitter apple a couple of times and it stopped it for about 10 seconds. Each time I walked away to go walk a course or whatever, she'd start all over again. You could hear her all the way to Timbuktu.

I took her out (on leash) and practiced just having her do things with me--walking at my side on a "Close" command, doing tricks, just massaging her and talking calmly to her, and more attention games and more tricks. She did them, but very agitatedly, her ears turned all the time towards the building (even after the dog finally stopped, she continued), and every time after I'd say OK or give her a goodie, she'd spin back immediately towards the building and lunge out on the leash.

She had to run a course about 10 minutes after the dog had stopped, but she was *still* frantic, still spinning in her crate, still shrieking, still totally wired when out on her leash. Before I went into the ring, I told Diane Blackman, "Here's my bet: She'll stay at the start line until I say ok, then she'll run straight at that building" (the shrieking dog had been RIGHT at the far side of the agility course we were about to run)--that's what she does in class with the squirrels and cats, right?

I sat her at the start line, and sure enough she tweaked herself to face the building. I moved her back to face the first obstacle and again she tweaked to face the building. I left her, waited briefly (she was looking at the building, not at me), then said OK. Here's the weird thing--

SHE CAME RIGHT WITH ME and did the obstacles! I was so startled that I crossed when I meant to push, and so then I had to call her AROUND the wrong obstacle, and she STAYED with me! And then I pushed when I meant to cross, and AGAIN had to call her off the wrong thing and spin her around, and now she was paying COMPLETE attention to me and sticking with me (although a couple of woof/growls for that "mom, you're messing up" thing), and when we had to leave the course, I just praised her like crazy and she was FINE after that.

Small victories... OK, actually I felt that was a BIG victory...

But I don't understand her behavior in response to that other dog. There were a few other dogs who seemed slightly agitated by it, but got over it quickly, but none that I was aware of who reacted like she did.

Jake's Sixth Championship!

Wow. We had a great CPE agility weekend. Tika Qed 7 out of 10, Jake Qed 8 out of 10.

Furthermore, we went into the weekend with Jake needing two Snooker Qs for his CATCH (CPE Agility Trial Champion title). The club just happened to be offering two Snooker runs, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. I had thought that I was viewing the whole thing as somewhat of an entertainment--after all, Jake has already earned his ADCH and APD (Performance equivalent of ADCH) in USDAA, his NATCH and O-NATCH (double NATCH) in NADAC, and in the process of the latter, his ATCH in ASCA-- and it seemed that way all the way through even Saturday's snooker run, which we got (and took 1st place, too) despite some hanging-by-the-hair-on-our-toenails turns and goofs.

In which Ellen discovers that she actually cares a great deal. But by Sunday morning my stomach was tied in gargantuan Wow This Is Big kinds of knots. Snooker wouldn't be until the third run of the day, and my tension grew by the minute. Snooker is, really, among Jake's best overall classes. And I knew I'd be looking for the most conservative possible course for the two of us, so it *shouldn't* be any big deal to simply go out there and run it. But I discovered that I really DID care and it really WAS a big deal to me.

How many CATCHes are there anyway? When the first CPE trial took place in CA just over 2 years ago, there were no CATCHes anywhere in the U.S.; the venue was just too new. A year ago, there were only about a dozen CATCHes. Now, of course, there are enough clubs offering CPE trials and dogs have been competing long enough that there were 48 CATCHes in existence after last weekend. And there have already been 2 CATCHes on California dogs this spring, so Jake wouldn't even be the first from CA. But he would be the first All-American from CA (and the first Semidachshund ANYWHERE, but unfortunately they just lump him in with all the other ORDINARY All-Americans). And being 3rd is still way better than being 200th or 400th or whatever we were for ADCHes and NATCHes. (Hmmm, I'll have to see whether I can track down those numbers....)

Several others are working on theirs, too...be the first on my block... As of a couple of months ago, when we all started counting how many Qs we needed for our CATCHes, there were 3 or 4 of us who could conceivably earn enough legs before the CPE nationals (next weekend) to have our CATCHes. Then Spike cut his foot open and was out of commission for several weeks, missing at least 2 CPE trials. Scully and Arlene had to pick and choose weekends because she normally works weekends, which meant that they had to earn *every* possible leg. And the odds are against that, and indeed a few fell by the wayside. But Jake kept racking up the legs he needed. Turns out that, at this weekend's trial, there were one or 2 other dogs who needed just one or 2 legs for their CATCHes. Although it's a blast to see other people earn their titles--sometimes I think it's more thrilling for the audience than for the handler--none-the-less it's nice to not have to share the weekend with others earning theirs, or to be the first if there's more than one. I dunno--just one of those ego things, i guess.

No Pressure, Nossir. In the past, I've mostly been low-key about telling people how close we were to key titles. I put enough pressure on myself, without thinking that everyone else is watching, too, and seeing my FAILURES if I don't get it. This time, though, Arlene has been quite the cheerleader, asking us all constantly about our status and coaching us through things and letting everyone within a 6,000-mile radius know how close we were... So people--including the Judge, who coincidentally happened to be the VP of CPE, first time any of the Big Muckitys from Back Easterly have been out to CA to judge--were asking me all weekend, Is This The Run? I Heard You're Really Close? Is THIS the Run? And it was a small trial (VERY small for a CA trial--only 200 runs a day! Bay Team's big trials can be up to 1400 runs a day!), so it seemed that everyone there knew by Sunday afternoon, even novice people I'd never had a chance to meet.

That is one nice thing about agility--everyone is so friendly and supportive.


Snooker course; actual course had about 20 feet of open space on all sides. The #7 obstacle consisted of 2 jumps that had to be taken in flow (up or down in the opening) but no wraps or other tricky stuff.
In which Ellen's friends take her under their wings. ANYWAY, it's Sunday morning. My friends, Arlene in particular, grabbed their Snooker course maps first thing in the morning and started sketching out possible snooker courses for us. "Conservative!" Arlene kept saying. She was quite miffed at us a month ago at our last CPE, where I had picked a low-scoring (but not perfect) opening and then at the last minute changed to a more aggressive, higher-scoring (and probably just about as doable) opening and then muffed it. The thing is, with Jake's difficulties hearing (and, I am believing more and more as he misses toys that I kick or toss in the back yard, and seeing well), if I want to guarantee to qualify, I can't pick a course where he can get ahead of me OR where he could turn away from me (which he has been doing more often) and find an obstacle that's easy to do.

Unlike Saturday's course, where there really was only one conservative (but high-scoring) path--which almost all the dogs used--Sunday's had many options for reasonable paths through the opening. On paper, my pals picked 2 or 3 options and explained them to me. Personally, I hate picking courses before I see the way that it really looks on the field. There are too many slips twixt the cup and the lip. Or some other appropriate aphorism. So I glanced at it to get a feel for what would be out there, but reserved judgement until I got there.

The options are almost overwhelming. By the time we get out there, the number of possibilities has blossomed. And as we start walking, my coaches present even more possibilities. I do a quick walk on each of them to see how they feel. Mind you, I not only have to pick one, but walk it enough times to feel completely comfortable with it so I don't have to think on course. This is what we always do, but at that moment the number of options was getting to be a bit on the high side.

(a) I could do lower-right red to #7 to upper-right red to #6 to lower-left red to #5 and into the closing (starting with #2). I didn't like this because we'd have to sneak from the bottom of #6 around #5 and the bottom of #7 and the red I'd already used to get to the lower-left red, plus then there was the wrap through #5 to get to #2, which just didn't look comfy.

(b) I could start with the lower-left red, do a big lead-out to #7, and then proceed as before (switching lower reds). Jake does an excellent lead-out for snooker and comes straight to me, ignoring equipment on either side. However, every once in a blue moon when I do a long lead-out, he either knocks the bar (in which case I'd have to scramble to figure out a replacement course on the spur of the moment) or even, lately, goes *around* the first jump. I didn't want to take those very slim chances this time.

(c) Lower-right red to #6 to upper-left red to either #4 or far end of #2 to lower-left red to #5. Still have that nasty wrap to #5. Plus going #6 to the upper-left red--Jake has lately been doing this weird thing of turning AWAY from me and taking an obstacle, so he could possibly have turned away and taken the upper-right red after the upper-left. AND I'd have had to keep him away from the #3 tunnel, which would be hard because I'd have to be on the inside of the course to get to 2 or 4. AND with #2 he could have gotten out ahead of me and taken a wrong obstacle. AND with #4 he sometimes pops that Aframe. I'd rather deal with that only in the closing, not the opening.


Handler path dotted line; dog's path solid line

My final choice was to be on his left side (his starting position (A) on course map), take the lower-right red to #6, push out ((B) on course map) to upper-right red towards the top and pull him, me still on his left side, into the right end of #3; then I could be in front of him as he came out #3 ((C) on map), pull to the upper-left red and cross in front of the red ((D) on map, me on his left again) to pull him into the weaves , and push hard just as his head comes around the last pole of #6 ((E) on map) into the #2 for the closing sequence.

In the closing, my concerns were getting from #4 to #5 (when he leaps off the Aframe, even if he gets toes in the contact zone, he can get way out ahead of me and I think that the lower-left red was closer than it appears), then from 5 to 6 instead of heading straight out to #7. I'd have to be on the inside (his left) of #6 to keep him away from 7, so then I figured I'd do a "turn" command as he came out of weaves to get him to 7A.

It seemed good. Fortunately Tika was up first, so she was my course beta-tester. Everything worked like a charm, except that when I said "turn" after the weaves in the closing, she turned sharply and tried to go right back into the weaves! I managed to push her away from them and get her out over the 7, but it gave me something to think about.

And here we go-- Stepping up to the start line with Jake, I could hear people talking about us all around the course. I put Jake in a sit, stretched my arms way out, took a deep breath, and cried out, "No pressure! None at all!" I led out almost to the weaves, and then released him. We were off and running. Once again, it worked beautifully. He did indeed fly off the Aframe in the closing a little early, but I heard the judge call out "4!", so I knew he got his toes in. I called called called, and he slowed gradually and turned towards me, fortunately long before he got to that offside red. The #5 to #6 was actually very nice because he had carried out from the Aframe so far that it was pretty much a straight line.

Then, from the weaves, I PUSHED his head out to #7 just as I had pushed to #2 in the opening and then crossed behind, and it worked beautifully. In truth, we needed only to get through the #5 to earn enough points, but of course you want to finish in style!

Wahooooo--stress gone! Jake's latest championship now official! VAST (host club) members were standing by ringside with our official Jump Bar and a big fancy purple ribbon for me to carry while we did a victory lap around the field. It didn't occur to me until afterwards to remember that, if I hadn't crossed the finish line with Jake before stopping to celebrate, I could have NQed the run and not gotten credit for it! Thank goodness that Jake carried out all by himself past the finish line.

Then they took our photos, then later I had a friend take our photos, then later again we had our photo taken with the judge. Arlene made me take off my sunglasses, and the breeze was briskly blowing my bangs back, plus I have a giant spaniel exploding out of the top of my head, so I'm not sure that I look quite like me, but I guess I'm recognizable.

Casey is a Handsome Beast

Backfill: June 7 '04 While my housemate was out of town last weekend, her friends Susan and Dave took Casey with their dogs up to the Sierras to have a scintillating high-sierra doggie hike or two. Dave is an aspiring Real Photographer to the Dogs, and he took some beautiful photos. I am awed by the quality, color, and clarity of the photos. Here is a low-resolution version of his portrait of Casey, He Who Can Usually Do a Jump-Tunnel-Jump In Sequence.

Allowing Comments Now--I Think--

OK, all youse out there. I have enabled commenting on this blog site. I think. This will test it. If it appears, I'd be delighted to see dog-related thoughts or responses to my posts. Here we go-- Format not great but that's for another day.

An above-average agility weekend

Statistics are so much--um--fun? Trouble? Pointless trivia? I figured out that, over my entire agility career with all 3 dogs, my qualification average is 40%. That is, out of every 10 runs we do in competition, we get qualifying scores in 4 of them. That feels like it sucks. Although I'm sure we do better then some.

One friend runs a French Bulldog. He's a game little guy, who for some inexplicable reason has been getting faster and more enthusiastic about doing agility the older he gets, and he's getting up there! But even when he's running full out, his body just isn't built for doing agility. I'm sure that there are some Frenchies who can manage to make time more often--just as there's at least one Basset Hound who can whup the Corgis' butts in this area--but I'm guessing it's rare. Still, they keep competing and they keep improving and she keeps having fun (which, after all, is SUPPOSED to be why we're here). I try to remember that when I'm annoyed at myself for doing something dunderheaded in the ring.

Seemed as though my head had more than its share of dunders this weekend. Still, I see that we Qed 16 out of 36 runs (sheesh! no WONDER I could barely move last night!), which is 44%, so I guess that makes it above average. If Saturday hadn't been so gawdawful--1 Q per dog out of 6 runs each--I'd have felt better about things.

If I hadn't left Jake's collar on during a perfectly executed, very complicated jumpers course that most dogs mucked up, I'd have felt better about things.

If I had Kept Up The Pressure when sending Tika out to--the Tunnel on Saturday, the Jump on Monday, the _______ (fill in obstacle) on __________ (fill in day), I'd have felt better about things.

The dogs were actually very good. People keep commenting on how good Tika has turned out after all of last year's challenges. And she is SO fast! In her Weavers course on Saturday, she missed the entrance to TWO sets of weave poles (and we've been working SO hard on that!) so I had to spin her around and restart them both--and she still beat all 16 dogs in her class by 2 seconds or more. Someone said to me "She's too fast to be in Novice!" (only in the "new games" that haven't been around for long).

Speed has nothing to do with it. I'm blown away over and over by the speed and skill of so many novice dogs these days. This is not your father's novice agility! (If your father was doing agility when it started here in northern CA 12 years ago, or when I started 9 years ago--)

And of course Jake is 12 1/2 and people marvel at his energy level. By Sunday afternoon on a danged hot day when I was drooping like 10-day old celery, even the driven Tika dog slowed down on her last run and then bailed off the Aframe! Only reason we could figure was that she just was hot and tired. But I got Jake out for his last 2 runs, and he was the superball of semidachshunds, leaping straight into the air to try to get me to give him more doggie junk food, wagging his tail, perky perky perky. Ran two runs and his tongue was barely hanging out, his eyes sparkling, dancing in circles asking for more.

I pray to the Gods In Charge of Such Stuff that I have that kind of stamina and energy when I'm his equivalent in dog years. Or human years. Whichever.

Ramble ramble ramble.