Holy Cow

I knew that having a puppy would be exhausting, but I had no idea that doing almost nothing could be so exhausting.

At the breeder's: Drove down to Morgan Hill Thursday morning. Played with the puppies just a little bit to be sure--she looked so beautiful when I saw her, I really wanted to take her home with me. Funny, I didn't notice until yesterday morning that she has different-colored eyes, just like her mom.

Signed the papers and asked a bunch more questions about all the things I have no experience with. Puppy got her current shot from the breeder. Then we introduced her to my dogs in the front yard. Now, I walked my dogs past their puppy pen last Thursday and Friday at the agility trial; Jake avoided the pen, the puppies crowded all over each other to try to get at Tika, and Tika walked around the pen a little stiffly, sniffing carefully and examining cautiously. A couple of times made nearly a play bow.

This time, the breeder had Boost on a leash and I got Tika out on a leash. Tika was much more interested in greeting the breeder and checking out the yard than she was in investigating the puppy. Not that she avoided it; more as if it was an insignificant blot that wasn't really worth her trouble. But they did eventually sniff at each other. Boost likes Tika.

Then I put Tika away and opened Jake's door--where he can sit and look out the window. He was trembling. He didn't want to get out of the car. Eventually I convinced him to come out. We kept him and the puppy firmly apart from each other, although it didn't take much effort: Jake refused to look in the puppy's direction, pulled to the opposite end on his leash, very deliberately ignoring the puppy, and tried very hard to keep me between him and it.

I had a crate for the puppy--small one borrowed from previous housemate. It was too small for Casey by a little bit, which is why she left it. I figured it would be a good size for a puppy for a little while. Well, turns out that this 11-week-old puppy is already getting to be a decent-sized dog. The crate is big enough...today. I'm going to have to go buy a full-sized crate in the next couple of days.

I put the crate in the other back seat facing Jake so that Jake could see and smell her all the way home. At first I thought he was going to face the door the whole way home rather than lying down where he can see me, but he fairly quickly adjusted himself and lay down in the usual position.

And she dozed off, too, fairly quickly.

She *has* been around quite a bit in her short life, since her breeders and parents compete a lot in agility. So a car trip was no big deal.

Pet store stop: Puppy has been on a raw diet; breeder gave me a supply for a day or two to mix in with kibble, but I had to get a bag of puppy kibble. My sister came with me to pick up the puppy, so she stayed with the puppy in the car while I took Rem and Jake into the store for yet another episode of Smell the Packages.

Got some small knotted rawhide chews and a solid rubber chew toy; got a long but thin/lightweight leash. (How can I have so many leashes already and none of them be suitable?!)

I forgot to get an ID tag.

As I was starting to look for puppy chow, a nice man with a badge asked whether he could help me and I told him I was looking for puppy chow. He asked what kind; I said that I have been feeding my dogs Nutro Natural Choice and so would probably want to do the same for the puppy. So he led me directly to the Nutro puppy chow and we had a nice discussion about the various types. That's when I noticed that he was wearing a Nutro company badge, not a Pet Club badge. I commented that I apparently had said the right brand, but he assured me that he would have helped me with whatever brand I would have wanted.

He then helped me pick out an appropriate puppy chew toy.

Why on earth is a nice Nutro man being helpful in Pet Club? Maybe he was trying to show them how to do their jobs?

Home again. It's already getting a little foggy. I pottied the puppy. She went very quickly. I fed all the dogs. I was already quite tired, and I hadn't done anything! But I had to go to Foster City for an interview for a contract. Decided to take Boost with me rather than leave h er at home in a crate for more than 3 hours.

On the road again.
Once again, she settled right down and dozed off. It was about a 45-minute trip, with good traffic, but when I got to the job site, there wasn't a spot of shade to be seen. Huge, fairly new parking lot with lots of little trees. Nearby streets were all no parking. I ended up driving into a nearby condo complex, where I found one single Visitor parking spot deep in shade. I stopped the car and glanced at Boost; she half opened her eyes and glanced at me. So I locked up the car and scurried off to my interview, hoping that no Neighborhood Watch resident would call me on it.

All through the interview, I had images of the puppy having woken up and started screeching while I was gone. I ran back to the car afterwards, where a snoozy-looking puppy barely raised her head to see who it was and then dozed off again. I figured I'd potty her when I stopped for gas (running on empty), but she barely twitched at the gas station, so I drove all the way back to Mountain View and my company's offices, where I wandered her around until she pottied.

Later, on the way home, I stopped at my parents' house, where my mom took pictures. She explored the back yard a little bit, but she seemed quite subdued still. Dozed off again as I drove home.

Home again again. Pottied the puppy. Played with my dogs. Gave the dogs dinner. I dunno. Did some other stuff, interspersed with doing dog stuff. Exhausted. Went to bed early. Puppy was restless and occasionally whiney for about 3 hours, waking me half up periodically. Finally, about 12:30, I woke up when Tika jumped off the bed, panting dramatically, and realized that I was sweating, too. How can it be so cool outside and so hot inside? I figured I'd take the puppy out while I let Tika out--but after I put on my robe and slippers and got out the puppy, Tika jumped back onto the bed and closed her eyes.

So I staggered outside, set the puppy down on the lawn (already gone: my resolve to teach her to pee only on the mulch, not the grass), and she had a little tiny puppy pee almost immediately.

Then we went back to bed and everyone slept solidly until nearly 7, when either I or Tika was the first to stir. (Hard to tell, because she always gets up and starts snuggling if I show the faintest signs of consciousness OR if she needs to potty.)

I was still exhausted.

Today: Puppy has been mostly subdued all day. I threw in a trip--by myself--to Mountain View again (so tired ysterday that I forgot to pick something up for owrk). But around 3:00 she started being a bit rowdy. Tore up most of the newspapers in the x-pen that I have set up for her. Tried pottying her several times and she wasn't really interested. Finally she settled down and has been napping (restlessly) for 45 minutes or so.

Herding dog: She is exhibiting classic Border Collie herding behavior with Tika. She lies down with the Eye on Tika, or gets into that half-stalking lowered stance. When I'm playing tug-of-war with Tika, Boost is doing the circling thing, watching her legs carefully. Yikes.

I'm exhausted again. And I haven't accomplished anything useful in 2 days. But I still havent' *done* anything!

Introducing--Boost--

Pending the vet check on Saturday morning, here she is to stay (held by her breeder).

Things Will Change

I was just out in the yard scritching my other dogs and pondering how my life will be evn more chaotic than it already is.

Tika is still not really a well-trained household dog. Don't know whether she ever will be. In the last recent few months I've been making more and more of a push all the time because I'm just tired of it:

- Rewarding lying down behavior all the time. (For example, this weekend, she got treats whenever she was out of her crate and lay down.)

- Demanding lying down behavior when I'm eating.

- Demanding lying down behavior when I'm getting dressed, instead of the usual play-intermingled-with-yanking-on-clothes routine. I've kept a stash of goodies hidden up there for occasional random rewards. I think she's getting better & better.

- Being more aggressive about nose-checking-the-table behavior. I need to be even more aggressive on that front. This week I got out a spray bottle and used it a few times but probably just need to keep one at the table all the time.

- Being more aggressive about not accepting leaping 40 feet into the air repeatedly while I get out the leashes for a walk--demanding a sit before I open the closet door. That used to be impossible to achieve but there are hints that it's taking this time.

- More determinedly pursuing behaving on leash when there are other dogs shouting obscenities at her from nearby yards or from leashes in the near vicinity. I have been very good about taking goodies & clicker with me. We sometimes spend more time just in waiting and practicing good/calm behavior than we do walking.

- Working to decide what to do about Tika's wildness when people step through the front door. Thrusting her into the yard or living room behind the gate is a stop-gap; sooner or later she will occupy the same general real estate as the person who has come in. I'm trying various things--again, more aggressively.

- And we've been successfully demanding and getting a lie-down behavior while filling the dog bowls for months now.

It's coming along, but SO slowly on some fronts. (Interestingly, she seems to be catching on very quickly to the relaxing while I'm dressing thing, which I was completely unsuccessful at when I used to work at it--oh, say, 2-3 years ago. So maybe a little maturity is helping.)

What I just don't need is to have her teaching a puppy the wrong things.

I Think It's Going To Be a Girl

Looks like I'm going to go pick myself up a border collie tomorrow morning.

Let's just say I negotiated a long-term debt.

The only problem is--I've been willing to consider a puppy because, after all, I work at home virtually always and would be here to manage & train & deal with a puppy. And then--after I made the offer last weekend and have been waiting with bated breath, my company sent me email late last night (like 10:30 or so) sending me on an interview for an interesting-sounding job--full time onsite in Foster City! Just about the first time in 10 years (11 years?) at ESI that I'll have had to work onsite. And certainly the first time I'll have had to commute 40 minutes each way (if I can avoid traffic) on top of working full time.

Of course I have to get through the interview tomorrow, first.

What a big crappy mess. I never thought I'd say this, but--I hope it's a short gig if I get it.

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Read from the 13th Up

If you're just checking in, be sure to start reading at the 13th and proceed in chronological order.

Dog Cancer (sadly) Redux

Backfill: April 18 Waiting at home is an email from another friend from my Wednesday night class (in which the Corgi I mentioned a few days ago was diagnosed with cancer). Her dog--also a Pembroke--suddenly lost energy and appetite and she took him in for tests. Sure enough, he has cancer in his prostate that has spread to his lungs. Apparently this type of cancer doesn't respond to chemo, but it might respond to basic antiinflammatories, at least for a while. He's been among the top 12" dogs in the country from time to time, and has been running just beautifully in class, belying his age (11, perhaps?--well, a spring chicken compared to Jake's 13 1/2). This week is getting depressing.

I really need to get another dog in training soon.

The more I see of this little blue merle BC, the more I like her. I shouldn't have gone and looked before I knew the asking price. Now I'll be disappointed if I can't get her, but I just don't see how I can do it.

Saturday at the Big Agility Trial

Backfill: April 18 Well, crud. I didn't really want to do a 4-day event, nor take Thurs-Fri off for it, when I'm already planning multiple days off for USDAA Nationals in November. The reason for doing it this year was because the club lost its weekend site to some AKC trial, so they combined with another club to host this event. At the last minute I gritted my teeth and decided to do Thurs-fri-sat because that's when all of the National qualifiers were taking place (Team thurs/fri, Grand Prix and Steeplechase sat). The crud part is because they announced that, since this was so successful, they're going to do it again next year. I find myself resenting agility that takes away even more of my vacation. I didn't go to Power Paws Agility Camp this year because I couldn't afford the time off. Grumble grumble grumble.

Last night was enough warmer (well--less cold anyway) to be quite comfortable all night. No long underwear in the morning, and the one layer of fleece jacket came off shortly after getting up (at 6 a.m.). Wore a short-sleeved shirt. Slathered sun lotion on my face but not my arms because--yeah you remember--they get plenty of sun anyway so they're more tanned plus I'll stay in the shade all day.

Master Gamblers: Since I'm entering Jake only in events that I have a good chance of running all the way through (thereby eliminating Snooker and the short Pairs, if they even offer the latter for veteran dogs) and that I can avoid ever having to do a dogwalk in since he pops the contact with depressing predictability (thereby eliminating Standard), I entered him only in Gamblers and Jumpers this weekend. Great. An impossible Gamble on Thursday and--guess what--for possibly the first time in my 9 years of agility competition, there was a *#&(@ dogwalk IN the gamble itself! Jake performed all the gamble obstacles with no problem at all, and in plenty of time, but he took off about halfway down the dogwalk ramp, missing his contact by a mile.

I apparently chose the wrong handling position for Tika and ended up trying to push her up the dogwalk, which failed miserably (worked for Jake, though). Instead, she came straight at me, and apparently I let up the pressure enough that she lunged at my shoes and started grabbing them, something she's lately been doing only at the finish--or when I really let up pressure or give really confusing instructions on course. I found out later that, not only did we not get what seemed like a pretty simple gamble, but we didn't even get credit for our opening points because the judge Eed us for biting in the ring. That hasn't happened in probably 2 years.

To get to her MAD title (first major stop on the way to an ADCH), we need ONE gamble (didn't get EITHER this weekend), one jumpers (missed yesterday's), and two Standards (well--ok, we got one of those yesterday. Maybe we'll get the 2nd one today).

Altogether put me in quite a foul mood to start.

Grand Prix nationals qualifier: We need 2 of these to compete at Nationals. Last competition-year, she Qed in all of the last 3 GPs in which we competed. You can do it with 7 or fewer faults--knocked bar is 5, refusal is 5, missed contact is 5 I believe. So you can do ONE of them. This competition-year, she missed the first one--bad handling move partway through for a refusal and then knocked the last bar--Qed on the second one, then missed the third one--beautiful run but over-handling at the next-to-last obstacle caused an off-course. We don't seem to get many off-courses any more--usually it's knocked bars or refusals for stupid handling moves. Sigh.

I really wanted to get this over with so I don't have to keep pursuing the elusive Q.

It wasn't a hard-looking course. Tika's start-line stays have been beautiful lately, after being so bad by the end of last year, so I led out quite a bit. The first obstacle was a tire, so she couldn't knock the bar on the first jump, sometimes a problem when I lead way out. But--she knocked the 2nd bar. So I've just barely started, and already I'm at my fault limit. On about the 8th obstacle (of 20), I overhandled a tunnel entrance (DANG this is sounding familiar) and she side-stepped and hesitated on the approach, earning a refusal, and just like that, we're out of the Grand Prix.

Oh, well, at least there's the Steeplechase later in the day, which she has done very well at the last few times. Competition's much stiffer here, but she's very fast and easily capable of Qualifying (top 30%).

Masters Standard: I've been overhandling tunnels all weekend, and there's yet another C-shaped tunnel that you have to get the dog into the near side. I decide to just pull slightly with my body and not say much else--and, guess what, OK, that's UNDERhandling, as she went into the wrong end of the tunnel. A quick E and there goes *that* run.

Steeplechase: A very fast course--which is what the Steeplechase is supposed to be. And they've got TWO turn-into-the weave entries, one even harder than yesterday's. If Tika can do a fast Aframe like she did a fast dogwalk last night, we have a good chance of placing well on this course because I'm confident that she can get that weave entry. The only other hard part is a push OUT to come in over the back side of a jump that's perpendicular to the dog's path.

I watch lots of very excellent dogs miss that weave entry again. And then we're up. However, once again the brain fails to engage properly. There's a place where I want to do a front cross to prevent an awkward approach to the Aframe, but for some obscure reason when I get there, I do NOT do the front cross (even though I walked it a billion times the correct way), pulling her off the Aframe and having to spin her around to make the entry. Lost a second or maybe 2. But she does a very fast Aframe and I release her immediately. She nails the first, slightly easier, weave entry.

There are some very fast get-ahead-and-front-cross moves required, and I nail them without tripping over my feet. We approach the perpendicular jump and I tell her out. She moves a little bit but I'm thinking she's still going to miss it, so I give her a big "Out!" command--and she spins right away from me out towards the outside of the course, dagnabbit, it's SUCH a good out but it's not what I wanted! Wasted another second or maybe 2 recovering.

We nail the really hard second weave pole entry as beautifully as we did last night. We are hauling. I make the final get-ahead-front-cross with aplomb, just 2 jumps to go straight ahead to the finish--and she knocks a bar.

Auuuuuuughhhhhh!

I guess we go home and work on not-knocking-bar exercises.

The fastest dog's time among all those stunning Border Collies is 31.08 seconds. We did it in 35.58 WITHOUT a running contact (which many of these fastest dogs have) and WITH two bobbles costing us probably 2-4 seconds. I'm pretty happy with the time--it would place us at about 8th, with 18 dogs Qualifying and going to the second round. HOWEVER--with the 5-point fault, our total score drops to 40.58, placing us 20th, so missing the cutoff by 2 dogs. (Note to self--beat Hobbes' time again but I didn't see his run so I don't know how smooth it was.)

I'm bummed in some ways, but (a) that means I have to make no stupid decisions about coming back tomorrow just to be in round 2 (where there's a chance of earning $ if you're in the top 8 dogs); and (b) I think it's pretty darned good to earn a 5-point fault and still have such an excellent time that we're that close, and (c) I think it's pretty darned good that we had obvious wasted time on the course and were still fast enough to rate in the top 10 in speed in this field of dogs. It's small compensation, but what the heck.

I have only one chance left to Q--Masters Pairs--and it's based on time plus faults, and we're plenty fast enough to overcome at least one course fault and maybe even 2 and still qualify (if we don't go offcourse like we did on Thursday, but we really haven't been going off course that often...until this weekend...)

Master Pairs: It is dinnertime. It is *past* dinnertime. I'm looking at driving home in the dark, even with daylight savings time. We are one of the last pairs up. But at least that gives me lots and lots of time to finish tearing down camp, and it's cool enough now that I can put the dogs in the car, so we're ready to leave as soon as we're done running.

Our partner says her dog hates to wait and doesn't do as well if she has to sit, so she takes the first half, which is OK because it's got some ugly u-turns in it and she's an experienced handler/dog. The second half is (IMHO) a piece of cake. It's wide open and easy to move the dog around without any real off-course opportunities. And the flow for the handler is smooth and simple.

Then my partner gets a refusal on one of the u-turns. Then...she gets another refusal on another one of the turns. So we have to be completely perfect probably to qualify. So it's our turn. Tika takes off without knocking the first bars, even though I have to call her sharply for the next tunnel--no over or underhandling, she nails it withoug a backward glance. And THEN the brain disengages AGAIN and a place where I absoultely did NOT want to do a front cross to avoid pulling her off the dogwalk--I did a dagnabbed front cross, pulling her off the dogwalk, for a runout error AND a wasted second or two and now I'm pretty sure no matter how fast we go, we can't make up for 3 5-point faults.

The rest of our run is gorgeous. She is nailing her weave entries so beautifully.

It turns out that the course was either a cinch or killer. About 1/3 of the teams E, which surprised me. All the rest earn Qs. Except there are a unique set of 4 teams that just barely drop below the Q line--most of them with faults AND slow times. We've got a really fast time but too many faults, and we miss qualifying by 2 seconds. Sighhhh.

I might as well have not even come on Saturday. Gone home early. Did I learn anything today that I didn't already know? I'm not feeling good about things.

Driving home: A long drive is a good thing sometimes. Gives me time to think about things and put them in perspective. One friend had to scratch her dog from the rest of the weekend after he came up with a swollen knee on Friday, and they had been in 10th place in the Team event. My dogs are healthy. I'm very happy to get the Team qualifier out of the way--that would be an expensive even to keep trying and failing at. I'm very happy to get a Master Stanard Q AND place 3rd in this crowd. And the weather was generally quite lovely, and there were a lot of nice people around over the weekend.

I can ignore the fact that my arms are quite sunburned.

Friday at the Big Agility Event

Backfill: April 17 Thursday night was not quite as cold, but still plenty chilly. I was quite warm and snug in my down cocoon. Wore my long underwear and one layer of fleece until around noon; lost the fleece then and, shortly thereafter, disappeared into my tent to get out of the long underwear. I slathered sunscreen on my face first thing in the morning but the damage had already been done the day before.

Didn't put any lotion on my arms--they get quite a bit of sun normally, plus I'll just try to stay in the shade most of the day.

Regular Classes

Masters Standard: Started the day very well indeed by placing 3rd and Qualifying in Masters Standard. Given that the competitors at this event have come from several states around and even Canada, and there are many familiar top-level dogs here, this is quite an accomplishment. In some ways it doesn't feel like it--Tika crept down her contacts (I'd been standing still & waiting a few seconds yesterday because she was not waiting for the Release from the contacts, which can really screw up my handling). She ticked a couple of bars but fortunately didn't knock any. I almost managed a refusal at one tunnel entrance by overhandling (ack) but came away without a fault. To my surprise, all but half a dozen of these 40 spectacular 26" masters dogs had faults or Eed completely, leaving us in 3rd place. We were 6 seconds off the pace of the first-place dog, but the contacts easily accounted for that. I have *got* to work on fast contacts. (I *have* been working on speeding up--and respeeding--and respeeding--our contacts.)

Masters Snooker: A speed course with an option of 3 or 4 reds in the opening (no, I'm not going to explain snooker again today; someday I'll add links back to the earlier explanations). The 7-pointer was two paralell tunnels with a 6-pointer set of weaves between and the four reds around the outside four corners of the course. We gave four 7s a good try but it pushed the limits of things that we had trained for (such as crossing behind straight tunnels and turning the opposite way) and we had a lot of wide turns and confusions that wasted us a lot of time. Made it through four 7s in the opening and then through #5 in the closing, where we knocked a bar, but then the timer ran out immediately after that, so we wouldn't have made it thru #7 anyway. It's a Q, which is nice, but not a Super-Q... even if we had made it through #6, we'd have still been out of the Super-Qs. Four 6s in the opening and then getting through the closing, it turns out, would have been enough for a Super-Q. I had guessed that it would have had to be four 7s, but apparently that process was just challenging enough to knock out a lot of people.

Master Jumpers: Almost the last event of the day. Jake, in his only appearance of the day, ran fast but I lost him on a front cross and he took an off-course. I attributed that to his being deaf and not hearing me call him at the same time I did the cross, although I had thought he'd be able to see me. An hour or so later, Tika--on the same course--went offcourse in the same place on the same front cross. So the handler was doing *something* wrong there. Sigh.

Team Competition, 2nd and final day

Started the day with Team Snooker. Now, Tika is a fine Snooker dog. Sticks with me well. Isn't at all disconcerted by sharp turns and calloffs. Still, I decided to do what I felt was a conservative opening course because this was, after all, Team Snooker and the important part was to get *reasonable* points, not to get *as many points as possible* (at least to earn a Q). So I lined her up to run forward and wrap tightly around the first red jump. I positioned myself for a lead-out pivot--and she went right past me and over a 2nd red, for an offcourse right away. A bloody 1-point Snooker run.

I was not the only handler to do this--I watched rather a lot of very fine world-class handlers take 1-point runs in this particular Snooker set-up (there were 5 reds arranged in a circle fairly close together in the very middle, so a long-strided dog could easily take 2 reds almost with a bounce-jump). Still--that hurt us. Fortunately my partners hung in there, placing in the top halves of their height groups. But we dropped precipitously to 24th place. At this rate, we'll slip off the top 30 Qing teams by the end of the day. Arghh. I kick myself all day.

Team Jumpers: OK, this is another event in which it's important simply to not E. Speed helps, but not nearly as much as staying on course helps. I watch my partners both run clean runs--not super fast, but clean. The pressure is on. I hate Team. In regular Jumpers, if I screw up, well, I've just screwed up one Jumpers run and just for me. In Team, if I screw up, I've screwed up potentially 5 whole classes for the weekend, making it necessary for 3 different people to try all 5 classes again on another weekend to try all over again to place in the top 50%. Arghhh.

We somewhat hope that a lot of the really fast dogs will end up with offcourses, giving us a better chance with dogs who aren't super fast, but--guess what--no one is Eing! Only a very few dogs are taking off courses. It turns out to be an easy-enough course to do. So suddenly it becomes about speed again, almost as much as about staying on course. That's the other thing I hate about Team--you hope for other teams to do worse than you so that you can qualify. That's not what most of agility is like.

And then--we run. And then--we knock a bar. And then--we're at the finish line after a mighty fast run and have STAYED ON COURSE! Hooray! That knocked bar drops us to 24th out of 50 in our height, but still above average.

When the results are posted, we have moved back up to 21st! Whew! Now, to get through the Relay--

Team Relay: The Relay is rough. Each dog has a maximum of 150 points for this class. An off-course (E) loses you all 150 points. Each dog has to perform about 10 obstacles and stay on course. This turns out to be noticeably harder than the Jumpers course. One dog offcourse could still possibly lose the whole weekend for us: The top team has 886 points after four rounds; we have 706 points and are in 21st place. The 31st place team has 652. Only 50 points separates us. With 150 points PER DOG at risk, we could still lose it in the relay (assuming that the other teams in the middle all do well and don't E--it's not likely, but it's certainly possible).


I have a choice of two parts of the course; I end up with the one with the really ugly weave pole entry. Missing it is merely faults and wasted time to go back and fix it; it's not an E but it'll lose you several points anyway. Tika and I have been working and working and working on her weave entries and she has nailed even tough weave entries for quite some time in competition.

We are team number 37, so we get to (have to) watch 36 other teams ahead of us. I watch dog after dog after dog miss that weave entry. Those fast dogs whip around the far side, trying to make that 90-degree turn, and take the 2nd pole instead of the first. Nancy, with multiple national championships and international championships under her belt, misses the weave entry. Our instructor, Rachel, who has been on our (all of our) cases about being more methodical in training weave entries and whose dogs have wonderful weave entries, misses the weave entry. And then we're up.

But there's a problem. When I take Tika out of her crate, she's still panting from the Jumpers run more than half an hour ago. I walk down the road towards the starting area, and she is walking calmly by my side. This never happens. I set her up in front of a practice jump to do some don't-knock-the-bar drills--and she goes around the jump. I set her up again--and she goes around it. I set her up a little farther off the jump--and she goes *under* it. Three times.

This is almost scary. She doesn't seem to be limping. She doesn't seem to be drooping. But I've never seen her do this before.

We're third in the relay. I put her in a down stay, and she relaxes by leaning over onto her hip and casually sniffing the ground. Good lord, we're supposed to be the fast team, and my dog has died. What do I do if she won't run? My two partners run clean--but the 2nd dog has high prey drive and the handler warned me not to take off until the dog is on leash. He thrusts the baton into my hand, grabs his dog, and starts fumbling, trying to get the leash on. It's taking forever. I decide that the dog is under control, cross my fingers, and take a few steps of lead-out. Tika is still kicked over in a relaxed state, sniffing the ground.

I give the release command--and BAM! a rocket goes past me at about 500 miles per hour. I worried that she'd come into me after the initial tunnel and end up going onto the side of the dogwalk again, which is the 2nd obstacle for us, but she blasts straight ahead and slams across that dogwalk like there's no agility-tomorrow. No slow contact here; I'm pumping like crazy to catch up to her.

My plan is to hang off to the left of the end of the dogwalk so that I can be out ahead of her as she blasts from there across the jump and the tire and I can run straight at the back ring rope so that she doesn't pull in too sharply to the weaves. So--I am indeed off the end of the dogwalk, and she sticks her contact despite the speed, and I release her--and there is NO WAY I am going to beat her to the tire. All I can do is yell "weave!", and she hits that entry like it's the easiest thing in the universe. I don't have time to pump my arm and shout "Yes!" because she's through those weaves like a shot, and then I just have to spin her around through a tight wrap and a circle in the opposite direction, then into the tunnel, and we're done--and she drops a bar. Then I think she's about to go off course and I panic, but in the nick of time realize that we're actually THERE at the END and that's the CORRECT TUNNEL and I send her in--and we're done!

My partners are grinning up at me. "We did it!" Gwen says quietly, and we take our dogs out of the ring and start celebrating--cautiously.

Then there are another 23 teams to run, and then all the long calculations and data entry before the results are finally posted.

We placed 24th in the Relay, which is good enough to allow us to finish the Team event in 19th place! A good solid qualifier. We had a total of 1053 points--compared to the first-place team with 1263; the 31st-place with 924; and the last-place team with 231 (but there were a few teams who lost dogs for one reason or another and couldn't actually complete all the events).

I am very happy.

Puppy Puppy Puppy

Backfill: April 17AND I looked at the Border Collie puppy again. And again. I'd love to take her home, but I just don't think I can afford her. I mentioned what I thought I could afford; now I wait to see whether they are willing to go anywhere near that. I think they won't. Sigh. The initial response was to let me pay the full price but on a payment schedule of however long I wanted. The issue isn't not having the money *now*--the issue is not having the money.

I could drop still more agility events for the year, I suppose, than I'm already planning on dropping... but that wouldn't be fun and I'd resent it. I'm already working on paying off money borrowed (against my home equity) for a few necessary expenses this year, and I really don't want to add more to my debt load. I could, um, make *all* of my meals from scratch for about 6 months rather than eating frozen dinners as often as I do--I'm fairly certain I'd save enough money by doing that, but I'm also absolutely certain that I wouldn't manage the time and effort, certainly not for that long. I've already cancelled my earthquake insurance to allow me to keep doing agility, which I'm also not happy about. I'm pretty much out of things to do without.

I hadn't budgeted for an expensive dog. Just training and vet bills and such were enough to make me squeak when pondering a new dog.

Life is hard when you haven't won the lottery yet. Maybe buying a ticket would help.

Very Sad Doggie News

Backfill: April 17 On the very down side, another friend lost a young dog this week. She likes French Bulldogs, which are cute in a gremlinish sort of way, but can have a lot of problems common to short-faced dog breeds. Her first Frenchie is still going strong at a fairly ripe age. She got a new puppy about 4 years ago and lost him within the first year in a swimming pool accident (among other things, this breed can't swim).

She got another puppy, whom she had been training to be what would likely be a speedy and enthusiastic agility dog. The training has been interrupted by two operations on the palate (too long to fit in the mouth--affects breathing and swallowing, I believe), several bouts of pneumonia, another operation for another problem caused by the short-facedness, and recently persistent pneumonia. Tests revealed that parts of the dog's larnynx (?) were growing into the throat, yet another defect related to the head and face shape. The operation to remove them this week didn't seem to ease his breathing and he wasn't doing well at all. The next step was another operation to perform a tracheotomy--probably would have to be permanent. So she decided--wisely--to let the dog go.

An active and enthusiastic dog who can't breathe is not likely to be a happy, comfortable, or pain-free dog, even if he were to recover from the various operations and bad pneumonia. What a heartbreak. Especially when all the other dogs in the litter seem to be healthy--poor Felix got all the problems.

Thursday at the Big Agility Event

Backfill: April 17 To save money (vs. motels) and frustration (driving from hotel to agility site in a.m.), I tent camp at agility trials whenever I can. The weather reports said that this lonnng weekend would be clear, although on the cool side, so I drove out Wednesday evening and set up my tent in the near-dark.

The event drew so many people that they had to measure the entire fairgrounds and number well over a hundred separate spots for campers, motor homes, trailers, vans, and tents. They did a great job, I thought. It was nice to simply drive in and have a spot rather than dealing with the usual wandering-around-looking-for-a-space-to-squeeze-into dance.

It was very cold overnight. I had to wrap my down comforter (itself in a comforter cover) under me as well as over me, like a down sleeping bag, to even come close to being warm. Also under me: air mattress, old thin ensulite pad, mattress pad, two flannel sheets. Also over me: wool blanket.

The wind blew hard and cold during the night and on into the following day. It was cold enough in the morning that I dreaded getting out from between the covers, even with a full bladder (and a large furry dog with a full bladder) egging me on. The wind lasted all day; the sun came out for most of the afternoon but I remained glad the entire day for my long underwear and double-layer fleece jackets plus windbreaker.

As a result, I never really thought about sun lotion and my face became a bit red.

Competition

We competed in three regular events and two Team events (for the national qualifier) on Thursday.

Gamble: The day started poorly, with a Master Gamble that only about 5% of the dogs were able to complete. Neither Tika nor Jake (in his one appearance of the day) even came close. It was an interesting set-up, in which you shot the dog through a tunnel to the far side of a dogwalk--thereby leaving you and the dog separated by a large agility obstacle. We have practiced gambles in class on the far side of a dogwalk, but usually parallel to the dogwalk. This one not only started perpendicular to the dogwalk, but then sent the dog parallel away from you with a gamble line preventing you from moving in that direction.

Standard: We also did a Standard run--in USDAA Masters level, you have to be perfect and they fault refusals (dog hesitates or turns away from obstacle before taking it) and run-outs (dog passes entry to obstacle and then comes back to take it). Those alone make it hard to earn a Q. Tika managed to both knock a bar and (I guess) earn a refusal on an over-handled tunnel entrance.

Pairs: Then, in the Pairs Relay, we went off course for a complete E(limination). We've been so good lately about not going off-course that it was a bit of a shock to me. And depressing, too.

A brief interlude on Team scoring: The Dog Agility Masters Team Tournament consists of four individual events and one 3-dog relay. For each individual event, a maximum number of points is given to each dog and then points are subtracted for things like how much time you take or faults that you have--or else, in point-accumulating events such as Gamblers, they multiply the number of points by a predetermined factor to determine each dog's score. For example:

• In Team Standard, each dog starts with 130 points. If you go off course, you lose all 130 points. Otherwise, your course time and your faults are simply subtracted from the 130 (knocked bars are 5 pts each, e.g.). So it's not possible for a team to earn 390 points because at the very least their times are subtracted from the total. Jumpers is similar.
• In Team Gamblers, each dog's total score is multiplied by a factor (say, 1.5). So, in this example, if we earned 30 points in the opening and got a 25-point bonus gamble, we'd end up with 55*1.5 = 82.5 points. Snooker is similar.

All the individual scores for the 3 dogs on a team are added together to come up with a total that determines overall team winners and those 50% of the top teams who qualify to go to the Nationals.

It doesn't matter what height you are--all teams of all heights compete against each other. There were 60 teams entered this weekend (180 dogs). I tend to compare my scores against other dogs in our height, but actually the important comparison is against all the dogs. You'll just have to extrapolate.

So the trick to qualifying for the Nationals in the Team event is: Don't "E"! (Or the equivalent. Like--not getting any gamble points, or not getting any Snooker points.) It's very stressful. Two or three Es among your three team members over the various events almost undoubtedly drops you to the unqualifying 50%, unless you do astoundingly well in the remaining events.

Team Standard: We all started stressing immediately about not going off-course. That took first place against any other possible criteria--which becomes an obsession. My team did well in the Standard event--none of us "E"ed. Tika knocked a bar, which dropped us to 27th of 50 in our height; one partner was right behind us at 29th; the other partner ran clean and was 25th of 83 in his group. Tika is very fast; partner number 2 is "fast enough" and #3 I'd say is "reasonably fast". But I'd also say that the other two are more consistent than we are (sigh)--e.g., we might be able to do more obstacles in a given time period but we might knock more bars or miss more contacts or whatever. We'd never win on combined speed; it would have to be accuracy and simply trying to stay in the top 30 teams.

We were delighted to discover that we were in 17th place after the first round! Huzzah!

Team Gamblers: Things brightened up a bit in the Team events. The gamble was nontraditional--no distance work, and after the first whistle blew you could accumulate various quantities of bonus points by completing certain combinations of obstacles. The trick was that, if you didn't thereafter cross the finish line before the 2nd whistle blew, you lost all bonus points.

Tika was a very good girl and I also ended up exactly where I wanted to be to try for a 25-point gamble (three contact obstacles) and we crossed the finish line barely in time. Some dogs managed to complete both a 25-pt AND a 15-pt gamble within that time--this was a case where fast dogs with fast running contacts have an advantage over fast dogs with stop-and-wait contacts, like I trained Tika with, even if the wait is almost instantaneously released.

We completed a 7-pointer in the opening that we didn't get credit for because someone's bad handling (the theme for the weekend) pulled Tika around the up contact on the dogwalk. AND we almost completed another 5-pointer before the whistle blew, but didn't quite get credit for it. Even so, we were 15th overall out of about 50 dogs in our height--probably about 40th (?) out of 180 dogs in the team event. I'm not displeased with that.

In theory, this particular gamblers event had no top score possible. As it turned out, the highest-scoring dog earned 91 points (!) compared to Tika's 57 (dang, wish we'd gotten those extra 7 plus maybe 5 more pts). Then multiply by 1.5 (or whatever the exact factor was)...

One of my three teammates didn't get any bonus gamble points, which was a bad thing. But at least he got a reasonable number of opening points so he wasn't dead last in his group. The other did well enough, placing in the top half of her height class.

Still, the lack of bonus points for one dog dropped us to 20th place for the day. We'd have to hang on tomorrow...

Qualifying for the Nationals

Well, we're about to take off for a long weekend of agility.

For various arcane scheduling reasons, two clubs joined their usually-separate agility weekends into a single, long 4-day weekend of agility, which is turning out to be a very large event, stretching the limits of their site (Dixon May Fairgrounds in Dixon, west of Sacramento).

They're running three qualifying events for the USDAA nationals, which will once again be held in Phoenix in November, and Tika's doing good enough that I'm inclined to go again--there goes all my vacation for *this* year, too. BUT we have to qualify to get there!

There are three National Champion events at the USDAA nationals (really International championships--top teams come from several countries):

• Steeplechase: Designed to have the dogs moving at a great rate of speed over a course with no dogwalk, table, or teeter but including one or two Aframes and one or two sets of 12 weaves. Dogs must be in the top 30% of those competing in at least one Steeplechase to qualify for the Nationals. Remington and Jake almost never Qed. Tika has Qed the last 2 Steeplechases we've been in, which is quite a thrill for me.


• Grand Prix: This is what people usually mean when they talk about the "USDAA National Championship". It's a standard course--all obstacles (except no table anymore)--designed to be somewhat challenging but not overwhelmingly so. To qualify for the nationals, the dog must have 7 or fewer faults at two separate qualifying events. A knocked bar is 5. An offcourse is an elimination. Tika has one Q so far this year; at the last 2, she had an offcourse on the next-to-last obstacle (my fault) and then some other stupid thing also my fault...


• Dog Agility Masters Team Tournament: A bit more complicated. You need only one Q to go to nationals; you must be among the top 50% of teams at a qualifying Team event. You team up with 2 other dog/handler teams. You compete over 2-3 days in four individual events and then, if you're doing well as a team, you also compete in a 3-dog relay at the end of the weekend. The teams' scores are cumulative over all 5 events to determine who qualifies. The trick to qualifying is primarily NOT earning an elimination (off-course usually). This is indeed tricky with 3 dogs over 4 individual events PLUS the relay. Tika has only ever been in one DAM team event; one of our teammates was clean all weekend but we Eed once and the other teammate Eed twice (hmm, or maybe only once--for some reason I don't have that info), and that was one too many Es to allow us to qualify.

The other thing about earning Qs in these three Tournament classes is that you now need to earn one of each (I believe) to earn your ADCH (Agility Dog Championship), and even more to earn your Tournament titles.

Which leaves me with the question: Should I go to Camarillo in May, where they're having another Grand Prix and another DAM Tournament, to try to pick up more Qs? (Even if we should be lucky enough to complete our Qs this weekend for nationals, I'll still eventually want those Qs for Tika's titles.)

The problem with southern CA is that it's a long drive--I have to take another day off work to get down there, and then coming home I usually arrive after midnight, completely wiped out to start my work week.

The problem with all of these tournament classes is that they're EXPENSIVE to enter. USDAA is making quite a profit off of us. I can see why people want to start their own agility organizations... Regular events in USDAA have now inflated to as much as $12 per run, but (for example for this weekend) Steeplechase is $15, Grand Prix is $18, and Team runs from $50 to as much as $70. I don't have that big a budget all the time...

Compare this to CPE trials, where fees are more typically $10 a run.

Dog Cancer

It just never ends. There are so many dogs with cancer. I get email on a fairly regular basis from people whose dogs are diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma and who thereafter find Remington's pages with all the details of his illness.

Another friend's Aussie was diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma a couple of months ago. I haven't heard lately how it's going or what the prognosis is.

Another friend's Pembroke Welsh Corgi, who is nine, has been on-again, off-again in agility for a while, then developed a limp; in the process of trying to figure out what the limp was, the friend (also "Ellen") had a thorough exam done including internal scans and discovered nodules on the spleen, which they removed and sent out for testing. The news is now even worse; it indeed looks like it's cancerous. I'm hoping that perhaps there's something they've missed or, if indeed cancer, it's nonmalignant, or if malignant, then slow-growing and/or treatable... You can also read Cali's Health Diary.

No Decision Yet

I haven't decided about the puppy! I'm so swamped with stuff to do (seems to be my permanent state of affairs any more) and I'm sort of hoping that the decision will make itself somehow. Like--someone else will take the puppy before I make up my mind. Or I'll wake up one morning and realize that I HAVE TO HAVE THAT PUPPY RIGHT NOW. Or who knows. I haven't even thought about it much since the first day after seeing the litter, when I went through all kinds of what-ifs and what-am-I-willing-to-sacrifices.

I'll definitely want another dog soon. But I think in fact I'm more excited about the idea of finding yet another rescue with tremendous potential than I am about "selling out" and getting a border collie. Although I've liked Border Collies for many years, since way before I'd ever heard of agility. AND this would be a *blue merle* BC, which is I think the only kind I'd take. AND I really like the mom (as an agility dog, anyway) and the Dad's pretty good, too.

But am I willing to give up several agility weekends to cover the cost? ...That's a tough one, since I'm already giving up several agility weekends to (a) meet my budget and (b) have more time at home--when I really want to be doing agility. Such inner turmoil! Where will it end! (?)

Sigh. Who knows.

To Puppy or not to Puppy?

Some agility people I know have a litter of Border Collies. Both the mom and dad are excellent agility competitors. Of course you don't know how the puppies will turn out in the long run, but the odds seem good that they'll be driven competitors.

They were born on my birthday.

There are two or maybe three still available, all female. The owner thinks that the black & white one might be the better agility dog--says she's very fast, the first one to race across the yard to them, and yet totally snuggly and relaxed. The two blue merles are a bit more wriggly (to consolidate my inexperienced experiments into one word), so they might not be as relaxed and snuggly, but does that make them more driven? I'm assured that they all love chasing toys and playing tug of war (I confirmed) and that none seem to be noise sensitive. They have all kinds of things to crawl all over and around--noisy, moving, etc.--so it seems likely that they won't be intimidated by agility equipment.

The blue merle ones are kind of cute. I always did like blue merles ever since I read about them in Albert Peyson Terhune's books. And I find it very hard to get excited about owning a basic black and white Border Collie, being around dozens of them at agility trials every weekend.

But these are AKC dogs, I believe (I didn't ask but I'm pretty sure) from quite desireable parents. They're asking (gasp) $1000 each. Holy toledo. But Nike Animal Rescue (where Remington came from) is now asking adoption fees "starting at" $175. Humane Society is $145. Of course, those fees include some things, such as spay/neuter (I didn't ask what the puppy's owners preferred to have happen with their puppies).

Am I ready for a puppy? My last puppy was Amber, in early 1979. I remember being exhausted then, and I'm *already* exhausted now. Can I afford a dog of known and extraordinary ancestry? Argh.

Trial Chair

I'm co-chair for this weekend's Bay Team CPE trial at Twin Creeks.

In the past, when filling this role, I've felt as if everything got delegated quickly & early. This time, with everything else I'm involved in, it's now the last minute and I keep finding more things that were just not dealt with adequately earlier.

Biggest thing is the equipment for the trial. Because one of our trailers is completely out of commission, we could have used people to haul some of the equipment in their own vehicles (like we used to do in the old days). But--we didn't get the equipment lists from the judges until the end of last week, and it's been raining so it's been hard for the person who's storing the trailers to go through the equipment, and they're up in the east foothills so it's a long drive and their classes have been cancelled so no one is going up there, and so we have virtually no volunteers to go get the equipment.

I was going to go up and try to fit a little bit into my van, but it looks like we might be able to just pay the guy's gardener $15/hour to help load and haul the equipment. This wasn't particularly in our budget. I hope we at least break even this trial. We're getting a lot more entries than we had expected, but that also means that we had to hire a judge and rent half a field for an extra day, too.

Sigh.

OK, off to OSH to look for contractor's tape in at least 3 colors.

The Oddest Thing

Backfill: March 24 The oddest thing happened this morning. I was upstairs getting dressed to go for our usual morning walk, and the dogs were helping. For Casey, this usually means singing as loudly as he can and wagging his tail; for Jake, this involves sweeping back and forth around my ankles, looking extremely happy and emitting occasional woofs in exchange for a good rub on the back; for Tika, this involves leaping on and off the bed with Rope or Snake, giving it overwhelmingly over-the-top shakes, dropping it off the bed for me to pick up, and playing ferocious tug-of-war with me.

So all of a sudden I turned around and Tika had stopped her frenzy and was standing in the oddest way, sort of half sitting, with the oddest expression on her face. I started towards her to see what was up, and it wasn't until she started to move again that I realized that she had just peed quite thouroughly onto my carpet.

I was so startled that I didn't say anything specifically to her; just shouting something generally disturbed into the atmosphere and raced downstairs to get the appropriate clean-up implements.

I can't remember Tika ever doing her thing inside the house, even when I first got her. Not ever. I worried all morning over whether she might be ill in some odd way.

Then, later, I wondered about something that I had previously wondered about (although less intensely): Seems that, as the morning wears on, she pesters me more and more about paying attention to it being Walkies Time and less and less time out in the yard, so that when we actually go for a walk, after we get off our little street, the first thing she has to do is pee. So I've been thinking that she's just not bothering to go out into the yard but is instead holding on because she knows we'll be going for a walk soon.

And, on this particular morning, I was at least an hour, maybe 2 hours later than we usually go walking.

Alienating the Neighbors

Well, we've managed to do it again. I've been trying to be good about always taking a clicker and goodies with me when we go for a walk, but then we hardly ever see other dogs on a leash in this neighborhood, and so I get lazy again and don't take anything. Plus today it was kind of dreary and drizzly, so what fools would be out walking their dogs, anyway?

Today, just as we were passing the house with a German Shepherd who lives in the garage (or at least barks there--perhaps he misheard what that room was to be used for), two dogs came down the other side of the street on leash. Tika starts to whine and yap and leap at the leash, so I tighten up on her leash and tell her as calmly as possible, "I don't think so." Well, the other dogs are not peacefully walking by--at least one of them, a large black probably Lab, is hauling at the leash in our direction and making his own racket, and then Tika's actions set Jake and Casey off on barking, all of which together--German Shepherd barking 10 feet away, me holding her firmly and trying to get her to lie down, Jake & Casey barking, and the other dog screaming obscenities at her from across the street, make her go completely apeshit. She thrashes and screams and sounds altogether like a 6-dog dogfight all by herself.

I'm trying to keep myself between me and her line of sight for the other dogs, and I can barely get her front end down and it takes all my effort; I'm starting to yell in casey and jake's faces to SHUT UP! to get them, at least, to be quiet.

And a lady in a bathrobe comes out the front door of the house 8 feet away and says, "Is there a problem?" Well, yes. I say, "Did I wake you up? I'm so sorry." And she comes back with some variant of "Is there a problem?" and I'm trying to hold onto Tika who is thrashing and shrieking, and I say something like, "I'm sorry, there were other dogs walking across the street and she got very excited." And she says, "My dog is very nervous" with some other words before and after it that I honestly can't hear, so I'm not sure whether she's telling me explicitly to please move out from in front of her house or what.

But the other dogs are finally out of sight, and I manage to get Tika into a down position, and she's heaving breaths and whining with each, still tense but now breathing instead of shrieking and spouting.

OK, so how many people did I manage to alienate with that episode? Everyone who has encountered me and Tika walking around the neighborhood where there's another dog in sight most likely thinks I'm an idiot dog owner and Tika is a nasty aggressive dangerous dog who shouldn't be allowed in public. No one has ever said that, but that might be what *I* was thinking if I saw something like that.

At least it was 10 in the morning, not 8 or so, when we sometimes walk.

Moral of the story--always always carry goodies and a clicker when you're walking an insane dog.

No Madera USDAA

So here I am, at home, and there's a USDAA trial in Madera. It has been a long time since I've missed a Madera USDAA trial. My limited budget, limited vacation time contributed heavily to my missing it, but the final straw was that I was out of town the last 2 weekends and I'll be doing agility next weekend, and four committed weekends in a row is just too much for me--I keep saying that I'm trying to cut back and keep some semblance of a Real Life.

But I miss it. And all my friends are there. (OK, not entirely true; I've received email and a phone call from 2 friends who have often also gone to Madera who expected that I'd be there this weekend and didn't expect a response from me.)

Sigh.

Looking for a Housemate

Well, the lady with 2 dogs isn't going to move in after all. I wish she hadn't spent 3 weeks implying that she was going to (including 10 days out of town) and then changing her mind. Back to square one.

Anyone want to share a big house--rent 2 bedrooms & have access to the yard, probably with their dog? (I'm not sure that non-dog people will be interested.) View Craigslist ad.

True Doggie Devotion

OK, I bought a house based on whether I could do agility with my dogs in the yard; I bought a minivan for my dogs even though I'm not a minivan fan; I spend my weekends doing weird dog crud.

But. I do not have a credit card with my dog on it, like my (soon-to-be-ex) housemate just got! Is that cool, or what?

Got a Pesky Colors Leg!

Tika had a very fine weekend. We had 10 runs for the weekend, and Tika Qed in 8 of them, including finally getting one of those elusive Level 3 Colors legs.

We had trouble taking 1st in the various classes, though, but not for lack of trying--we just happened to have two of the best dogs at the trial competing against us in many of our classes. Sigh. For example, in Saturday's Full House, Tika earned 49 points--losing 2 points in what I believe was a timing error but I can't prove it--leaving us with 47 points. That made us the 3rd-highest scorer of all 38 dogs at levels 4, 5, and C (championship) who ran the same course. Within each of those 3 levels, dogs were divided into roughly 5 height levels. So there were actually somewhere between 10 & 15 different groups of dogs for placements. But guess where the other 2 higher-scoring dogs were grouped--yes, indeed, Tika's height and Tika's level.

(The 49 pts would have put us in 2nd place. The 1st place dog had 55 points, so I had to ask what course she had chosen for her dog. Turns out that they made more efficient use of their yardage than we did, so they got more lower-point obstacles, more than bypassing our score where we covered more ground to get fewer high-point obstacles. Interesting course.)

Still, she took 1st 6 times out of 10. (This is NOT USDAA. Had a discussion this weekend with someone about how USDAA is probably the most competitive and challenging venue of all of them, with AKC probably 2nd. Most "competitive" people (including myself in that lot) don't do NADAC any more. Most also don't do CPE. But, since I don't do AKC--here I am.

Of Tika's two non-Qs, one was a Jumpers course for which Tika's handler made a bad mistake, resulting in an offcourse, and the other was a Jumpers course in which Tika did not wait for the release at the start line, and her handler (although not in position) foolishly let her go, resulting in an almost instantaneous offcourse.

So we've kept up our pretty much perfect record for Jumpers of: perfectly run course: bars down; offcourse: no bars down.

The particularly exciting news is that Tika did not drop a single bar all day Saturday. Wahoo! I don't know whether that's ever happened; I'd have to search the last 2 years in detail. She did drop 2 bars on Sunday, both of them the first bar on the course, both after she lay down at the start line and was (I think) a little too close to the first bar for a lying takeoff. But she lay down for other rounds, too, and didn't knock bars.

Jake ran, too. He had seemed confused and disgruntled at the last 3 trials where he didn't get to run at all, so I entered him in level C in Jumpers both days. He did beautifully. We had no bobbles, and only a couple of places where he slowed slightly when he wasn't entirely sure where to go next. I hustled to get in front of him on turns. Took 1st both times, too. What a dog! Why did I want to retire him?

He jumps 12" as a Veteran in CPE. People have suggested that I move him down to "Specialist" (the equivalent of Level 3), where he could jump 8", but that's just laughable at the moment for a dog who jumped 24" and 22" in USDAA for most of his career.

Off to Turlock We Go

Aaaaaand it's another CPE agility weekend. I'd rather be doing USDAA, but somehow I decided to do this weekend at CPE instead of next weekend's USDAA in Madera. In retrospect, I'm not quite sure why.

Will Tika ever earn a Level 3 Colors leg? She needs 2 to move to Level 4. She's already in Level 5 in 3 or 4 classes and Level 4 in the other 2 or 3. But can we get that Colors leg? Noooo--

Colors is a short course. Judge lays out 3 possible intertwining routes on the field, each of about 8 obstacles. Our problem is not doing the route--it's keeping the bars up. In CPE, you're allowed to earn a Qualifying score in most classes even if you knock a bar, but I guess they figure that with only 8 obstacles, you'd better be able to keep the bars up, because no dropped bars are allowed. So we've done lots of very nice on-course Colors runs with just a single bar dropped.

Someday--

Spay or Neuter Your Dog!

I'm sure that people aren't looking for a lecture when they call to ask about my rental. I try not to lecture, but it's soooo tempting.

Me: So, I assume that your dog is spayed (neutered)?
Phoner: Er, no.
Me: And why is that?
Phoner (answer 1):I will, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. [Ed note: Dog is 2 years old.]
Me (in my inner voice): You idiot, what are you going to do when your dog gets pregnant by some random tramp who climbs over the fence when the dog is in heat? Do you know how many unwanted mixed-breed puppies are euthanized every year just here in Santa Clara County? What are you thinking? Do you have a brain? If your dog is a male, what kind of irresponsible owner are you? Do you know how hard a male dog will work to get to a female in heat? Do you want to be responsible for random quantities of unwanted mixed-breed puppies that you never even see or *have* to take responsibility for? What are you thinking?
Me (in my outer voice): I'm sorry, I'll take only spayed or neutered dogs. I don't need the whole hubbub around females in heat or males chasing females in heat or marking territory or fighting.

Phoner (answer 2): I'm planning on breeding him/her eventually.
Me: Oh, so your dog is a champion of some sort?
Phoner: Answer A: No, he's just a really cool dog. Answer B: No, but he's from champion lines.
Me (still in my outer voice, politely): Oh, so you're showing your dog or competing in some format to earn a championship, or he's a proven working dog?
Phoner: No.
Me (still in my outer voice, trying to be helpful): Oh, so you have some kind of agreement with the breeder?
Phoner:No, it's just my personal plan to breed him/her.
Me (in my inner voice): You raving lunatic, don't you think that *every* dog is a cool dog? I've had 5 dogs, all but one rescues, and they were *all* cool dogs, and should I have just kept cranking out random puppies because they were cool? And, in fact, my first dog was of championship lines on BOTH sides of her family: German Shepherd and Golden Retriever. Guess I should've bred *her* repeatedly, too? Oh, yours is a *pedigreed purebred*, huh? OK, go look at the English Bulldog/Golden Retriever/Rottweiler/Jack Russell rescue pages on the web and go talk to the shelter people about how many *cool purebred* dogs are unwanted out there. Sure, add a few more so other ignorant people like yourself can breed more unwanted dogs of purebred lines. And of COURSE I'm SURE that you're planning on carefully interviewing each prospective owner, visiting their home, writing up a contract that the dog must revert to you if they ever decide they don't want it, and following up with the owner over time to see how the dog is doing, like any RESPONSIBLE BREEDER would do?
Me (in my outer voice): I'm sorry, I'll take only spayed or neutered dogs. I don't need the whole hubbub around females in heat or males chasing females in heat or marking territory or fighting.

It's not like I've always understood all this myself, but I always had my dogs spayed/neutered--only Sheba managed to become pregnant. We had an appointment for her to be spayed and she managed to escape the first week we had her and when we finally got her back she was pregnant, and we just gave the puppies away to random people. Nowadays, the pound takes care of the neutering before the dog ever leaves the premesis, which is wise.

*How* many dogs?

The most promising response to my ads for a new housemate came from a 3-year member of our agility club--whom no one had ever met. She started agility classes but then didn't have time for it, so never started competing, but maintained her membership, thinking she'd get back to it eventually, I suppose.

She has--well--*two* medium-large dogs, a young female Aussie (smaller than Tika but with a similar skinny build, not the stocky show-Aussie build) and an older "Labrador-Springer" mix, but he looks like a Flatcoated Retriever to me.

That would be four dogs, for those who weren't sure about the two plus two thing. Not counting the hypothetical dog that I might want to get later this year. It could be interesting.

The young Aussie is a bit reactive to strange things--of which there seem to be many in her world--and isn't too keen on having anything to do with other dogs, but once she set the boundary very clearly with Tika, Tika wanted to have nothing to do with her, which is wise (as opposed to deciding to fight).

When Casey first moved in, Jake pretty much hid up in my bedroom for the first couple of weeks, but he eventually got over it. Tika and Casey, however, got along fine from day one.

These other two dogs apparently are great friends--male and female--and I don't really know exactly how the whole thing would work. But the woman is out of town this week and I'm waiting to hear back from her whether she wants to proceed. And meanwhile *I'll* be out of town (without the dogs! Yes!) for the weekend, so I probably won't know until next week.

I'm not sure that I'm enthused about this particular mix of four dogs, but they did spend a few minutes at the park in each others' vicinity and then in the back yard for a while (them not interested in my dogs particularly; Tika mostly hiding in the house and Jake hugging my legs). But the lady seems nice and the dogs seem basically good, so-- we'll see--

Boring. And weave entries.

In some ways it's good that I've not got much to add.

Mostly I've been working a lot, which tires me out and bores the dogs--a bad combination. And it's been raining quite a bit off and on the last month or 2 (surprise--it's winter!), which makes me not want to play in the yard, which bores the dogs--a bad combination. So instead I eat a lot of Girl Scout cookies and Valentine's candy and other healthy things.

In class about 3 weeks ago we got the lecture on consistently training weave pole entries. "Consistently training" meaning clearly identifying and tracking where in a 360-degree arc from the weave pole entry do you send the dog, and whether over a jump or not, and whether the dog is on your right or left; noting where you are for each side of the weave entrances from which side of your body, etc., and start each training session where you last left off being only partially successful, so that you're not always going back to the beginning and spending (wasting) time redoing things that you already do well, instead working on the entries that need improvement.

This has proven challenging. Not getting weave entries--Tika's are already pretty good and get better and better the more I work on them, which is something that I can do easily on my yard--but identifying where exactly they break down. For example, let's say I have a jump about 9 feet and 45 degrees away from the weave entry. I note my starting position. I note Tika's starting position. I direct her over the jump and into the weaves and she's fine. Using the same setup, I move her slightly to one side from where she had been. She doesn't make the entry. Or I move her one foot back and she doesn't make it. But move her 2 feet back and she does make it.

So I know that in that general vicinity we sometimes have trouble making the entry. But I can't say that, with the jump 9' away at a 45-degree angle and me on the left, she makes/doesn't make the entry. I also have to factor in how far she is from the jump and where she is in relation to either side of the jump. This is too many factors for me to track.

So I'm falling back on "practice weave entries that I know are difficult for her".

Another One-Ribbon Weekend

Well, I suppose one ribbon is better than no ribbons. Out of 3 USDAA weekends so far this year, we've earned two relay legs and one Steeplechase Q (which I'm happy about, no doubt at all).

She mostly ran very nicely this last weekend. Wet weather didn't seem to affect her one way or another. Unlike Remington, who used to adore wet, cold weather for doing agility.

Standard saturday: A training issue: I put her in a down-stay at the start line going into a chute and led out to the next obstacle, slightly offset from the chute. When I released her and started moving forward, she zoomed *past* the chute and we were offcourse instantly.

Grand Prix saturday: We need one more GP to qualify for the nationals. All we have to do is have 7 or fewer faults. That would allow, say, a knocked bar or a missed contact. Instead, we were faultless up until the next to last obstacle, when I overcalled her and she took a jump backwards for an offcourse, which is an elimination.

Jumpers saturday: Two bars down.

Gamblers saturday: Nicely run in the opening; we ended up exactly where I had planned when the whistle blew. She even did the gamble--but it included an A-frame, which she popped off above the yellow zone, negating the gamble. I said "touch" but I think I rushed her, which was stupid--we had 5 seconds left in the gamble out of 14 seconds, so there was no need to rush. (I didn't know how much time I had on course, but we were where I had planned and my walkthrough said that we had plenty of time. I just got excited, I guess.)

Pairs relay sunday: Tika was clean and fast; partner had a bar down but our total time plus faults still allowed the team to Q. That's 3 pairs Qs; we need 5 for our master's relay title. At this rate, we'll finish that before we ever get a gamblers or jumpers leg for our MAD!

Standard sunday: A nice run on a course that caused fully half of the dogs to go off-course, on a really muddy soupy field. We got called on the up contact of the teeter, for crying out loud, after making the up on our problematic dogwalk! And then we knocked a bar. But we weren't offcourse-- Only two of the 30+ 26"-inch dogs managed clean runs on this course.

Snooker sunday: She got a challenging opening beautifully, although slightly bobbled one weave entry. Then she failed to carry out ahead of me to #3 in the closing, heading straight for it then spinning back towards me for a refusal and a whistle-off-the-course. That's 3 times in 3 weekends we've had a failure to carry out. It might be me, not keeping up the pressure? Although I'm sure trying to keep it up. Time to go back to finding someone, anyone, to videotape my runs to see what's going on.

So, once again, she's running beautifully but we're not Qing. And now it's nothing consistent that I can really point at--e.g., she really didn't knock many bars this weekend.

Blogger problem partially resolved

OK, here's a little more background for those who want to know: After my post on Feb 7, the next time I tried to post, my Blogger screens displayed no buttons for allowing me to complete my posting, and in addition I got error messages. This happened identically in Netscape (my usual brower), Safari, and Firefox. I installed the latest versions of each of them just to be sure.

I had installed no new software since the last week in January, so it didn't seem likely that any of that would have had an effect.

Indeed, it didn't--software I installed at the beginning of December, many many blogger posts ago, NetBlockade, disables something that Blogger now appears to be using, because when I disable NetBlockade, Blogger now works correctly.

So I'll try to catch up on My Life With Agility Dogs over the next few days.

testing again

OK, I'm on someone *else's* 10.3.7 Mac OS X and the screen looks fine. So it's my system, I guess. But what? What? WHAT?

Technical Problems with blogger--sorry no posts lately

I have lots to say, but have been unable to say it--blogger is not working suddenly with my OS X version. They don't know what the problem is. I don't know what the problem is. I'm now back to running System 9 and it looks like this will actually work. That doesn't answer the question of why it won't work on OS X.

...Ooops, I get an error ("required field must not be left blank") in Netscape. So now I'm trying IE 5.0 on sys 9. I don't get all of the buttons, but it looks like I've got a "publish post" button. If this works (or not) then I'm off to try another person's computer with OS X to see whether it works *there*. Ta.