Mixed-Bag CPE Weekend

It was Taj MudHall this weekend.

It was wet and muddy and cold on Saturday and just cold and somewhat muddy on Sunday, but overall I had a good time. The nice thing for me about CPE at the moment is that I'm competing to play, since the next big title possible for Tika is hundreds of legs away and Jake is playing only for something to do during his retirement. So I take my competition in the form of where I placed compared to all other dogs competing on the same course.

Aaaaaand we didn't do so well this weekend, even though I felt that Tika and Jake were both running quite nicely all weekend. There was a wild variety of factors going into it.

Tika Saturday

Standard: Oh, my, she ran a beautiful and fast course. She stuck one of her 3 contacts, came off the other 2 without waiting for approval but I was pushing it. Stayed at the start line for the release. All that good stuff. I thought we had a perfect run, but found out later when looking at the results that she had knocked the next-to-last bar on a sharp turn that I thought we had nailed. Sigh. So no Qualifying score, although we did place 1st of the 2 dogs in our height class. And Tika had the 2nd fastest time of about 80 dogs who ran the same course, so I was right about it being a really nice run. Only Cody Hasey beat us, by .14 of a second (she said something about how they aren't *supposed* to have running contacts...).

Full House: This is basically like a Gambler's opening--you design your course any way you want, and you can do each obstacle up to twice for points. High scores depend on your dog's speed, your dog's flexibility to be able to pick challenging obstacles or angles or turns, your course choice, and your ability to actually make it happen. I think we had a stellar course design, Tika handled beautifully, and we had the highest score of about a hundred dogs running the same course with 46 points; our favorite competitor Brenn Chandler had 43 and Tahoe Grubel, an outstanding dog with an outstanding handler, came in at 41. I didn't see either run, so I have no idea whether they missed points because of knocked bars or popped contacts or the like. This was the only time all weekend when we managed to beat everyone.

Just another reminder that Tika and I are only playing at being a top team in CPE and there's a whole world of USDAA competitors out there who can smoke us coming and going. Humbling. Sort of.

Colors: I missed my group's walkthrough. But, this being CPE and because I was both working in another ring and competing in a third ring, I was allowed all the walkthrough I needed, by myself--but it's only 10 obstacles and a pretty clear path, so I only needed a couple of minutes. Tika handled like a dream, and I held her on the Aframe down contact since she's been leaving them a bit light all weekend, and then blasted to the finish line. our time was 16.69, but half a dozen dogs (out of about 70 running the same course) beat our time. (With Colors, you don't know whether the dog ran the same half of the course that you did, so it's not necessarily a one-to-one comparison.) One of our regular comparison dogs, Ana the Catahoula, beat us by more than a second; Chance the usual Sheltie and Brandy the JRT beat us barely, and Cory whom I never manage to see run was just behind Ana this time around.

Jumpers: Well, I tried to do a tricky but cool layering thing as Tika was coming out of the tunnel, and as we are fond of saying in our Wednesday night class, how quickly The Cool Factor turns into The Fool Factor, as Tika came in over the jump that I was trying to keep *between* us, for an offcourse, and then after that of course all comparisons are really off. But she was fast and having a good time, and except for that silly handling thing, it was good--

And notice that, once again, she keep up all of her bars in any Jumpers course where *I* screw up.

Snooker: I decided that, although we had time to do three 7s in the opening, the 3rd seven would be really hard and this is, after all, CPE, not USDAA. Hmmm, on this particular course, I might even have decided on two 7s and a 6 in USDAA. We ran On The Edge the whole way, with Tika just a stride away from the wrong obstacle half a dozen times, but she responded well to my panicked calloffs and we blasted through our planned 50-point course in 39 seconds, well below the allowed time. Out of the 100 or so dogs who did the same course, one in fact tried and succeeded at the three-7 opening, for 51 points, and three other dogs got 50, but only one of those beat our time (Jagger Glantz the amazing rehomed Sheltie)--by four seconds! They probably had nice neat little turns instead of Living On The Edge and racking up the extra yardage.

Tika Sunday

Jackpot: Well, I started off the morning with a snide comment about how this particular gamble was one designed to let people Q. I was proven wrong immediately. It was a pretty cool non traditional gamble, actually, after I got a chance to think about it. It was, at its essence, a circle of tunnels in the very middle of the course with a jump in the middle. The jump was number 1 and then you had to do the tunnels in flow around the circle for 2-3-4. My original comment was based on the fact that you could run in with the dog, there was no gamble line.

But people found many creative ways to not get the gamble. In the first two levels, more than half missed it, and almost all of them in a different way. And the pattern went on as the day went on:

• One went past the #1 jump and backjumped it.
• One went into one of the tunnels on the way to the #1 jump (a fairly common problem)
• One went past the #1 jump and into a tunnel.
• One tried to take just one tunnel in the opening but couldn't call the dog off the 2nd tunnel, which invalidated the gamble.
• One thought she had put her dog into the correct end of the tunnel, but he popped out as she ran on, and ended up going in the wrong end of the tunnel.
• Jake and I weren't as close as I'd have liked to the beginning of the gamble when the whistle blew, and when I sent him over an approach jump, he kept on going and going and going away from me and, by the time I got him back to do the gamble the whole way correctly, we were over time.
• Tika did the gamble beautifully and under time, but only after knocking the #1 bar.

(She also popped out of her weaves in the opening, which startled me while I was trying to convince myself to stick with my original plan and thinking about what to do next simultaneously. So it was pretty clearly something stupid that I did, since she virtally never pops out of the weaves any more.) Sigh. And because of the missed 5 points for the weaves and 1 point for a dropped bar in the opening as well, we weren't even in the running for top number of opening points among 100 or so dogs on this course. Well--I'm guessing we were probably in the top 10-20% but I didn't check.

Wildcard: A tricky, tight little course that didn't handle at all the way I thought it would. Right off the bat, Tika didn't catch my cue to come to choice A and instead took choice B, which was legal, but she was FLYING and I had to rearrange the rest of my course plan on the FLY to make that not be a non-Q. Well, somehow I managed to pull it off without even slowing Tika down and it was beautiful--and the stopwatch didn't get our time for some reason. We were given a chance to rerun it for time only, so all we had to do was to get through the course in a reasonable fashion--and man, we were offcourse in twelve directions at once. I don't know how I even managed that. So it was still a Q, but we had no way of comparing our times against anyone else.

Colors: Once again, Tika handled beautifully, including a very fast teeter for her (we've been working on making it faster), and we did the course in 14.37 seconds, about a second faster than anyone else (again, about 80 dogs on the same course, I believe)--except Cayenne, whom we hardly ever even SEE in competition and I had forgotten who they were (looking just at the dog's name) until I saw them again later, a really nice fast Aussie who came in at 14.09, wow, I'd have liked to have seen their run, because Tika's was super.

Jumpers: A very nice fast smooth run EXCEPT that as I sent Tika blasting straight into a straight tunnel, I started calling her name loudly to get her to turn sharply as she came out--but apparently she did a U-turn in the tunnel at full speed and blasted out in the other direction. I managed to get her back into the tunnel without an offcourse, and in CPE that's a Q for us, AND she kept all her bars up!--but of course quite a few fast dogs beat our time. Even so, I'm not sure how we'd have done--our usual complement of Really Fast Dogs were between 23 and 24 seconds (Tika came in at 27.37 with the bobble)--and the young upstart, Savanna Tatsuno the baby Border Collie, did it in 21 something! Yow!

Snooker: And, as our playing field sank slowly into the west, we were on another tricky, tight little course in which it was feasible to get three 7s in the opening BUT you had to be quick and your timing had to be impeccable. Wellllllll...our timing wasn't impeccable and Tika ended up going over a 3 instead of one fo the 7-point weaves in the opening, but once again somehow, unusual for me, I was able to think on my feet enough to recover and get her through the rest of the course without an offcourse, which was good enough for a Q, but even in our own height class of 6 level-C dogs, that was good enough only for 5th!

Jake

Jake ran fairly fast all weekend, but nowhere near fast enough to be placing worth mentioning. He did VERY nicely in his Jumpers run saturday, but the scribe sheet says that he knocked a bar, which I never saw go down (and he used to never knock bars, so this was unusual). And I picked a fairly simple course for him in Snooker, which he did with aplomb and Qed, but it was only 5th of 6 in his little C-level height group.

He did pretty good in his Jackpot opening Sunday, but (as I described above) was over time for the gamble. And in Sunday's Jumpers run, I assumed that he was going to carry out over a particular jump, but instead he came past it, and in the process of getting him turned around, he took an offcourse for an NQ. So he was again fairly fast for Jake, but to no avail.

So, oddly enough, the Jakester who almost always Qs on almost everything in CPE was only 1 for 4 this weekend, even though I felt that, overall, he ran well. Go figure.

So the dogs seemed to enjoy themselves, and they were both a pleasure to run, so really what more could I ask for? (Except more blue ribbons... and more Qs...will we NEVER get that perfect-weekend award?... maybe less chocolate--boy those choc-covered raisins at the score table were TASTY) )

Miscellany

• Better Living Through Adrenaline: I did a wee bit of agility equipment rearranging in my back yard this morning, in between doing about 5 minutes of agility work with Jake, another 5 with Tika, and another 5 with Boost, all of course involving excitement and tugs of wars and such. As I was collecting the assorted toys from the assorted dogs to put them away, I noticed that my right index knuckle was drenched in blood. Have a half-inch gaping slice, to which I ended up applying a butterfly closure. What a mess. Where did I get it? I have no clue at all.
• Steelechase rule changes: USDAA recently announced that they're changing the qualifying rules for Steeplechase to make it to the Nationals. (They've tweaked them before, too.) Now, to qualify, you must be within "125% of the simple average of the top three placement winners in the height class, provided at least five competitors compete in the class and receive a score". Used to be that the top 30% qualified, period (well, with some caveats for small groups of dogs...). In theory, this means that if all dogs are fast and clean, they could all qualify. It also means, in theory, that only the top 3 dogs could qualify.

  Let's say there are 20 dogs competing and the top 3 dogs run at 29, 30, and 31 seconds, averaging 30 seconds. 125% would be 37.5 seconds. Let's say that the next 2 dogs run at 33 seconds, well within competitive speed range, but each knocks a bar, for a total of 38, and the next dog is clean but has a time of 38.5. Under the old rules, all 6 would qualify. Under the new rules, only the top 3 qualify.

  Conversely, let's take the same top 3 dogs and say that the next 6 dgs ran at 32,33,34,35,36, and 37 seconds. Under the new rules, all 9 would qualify; under the old rules, only the top 6 would qualify.

  And one more trick, as the 12" dogs discovered this last weekend--five 12" dogs competed, but 3 of them were offcourse for Eliminations, which means they did not receive a score--so the 2 top 12" dogs were lumped in with the 16" dogs, which makes it much harder for them to compete on time, and neither ended up qualifying. Now, in this case it's hard to argue too much--one of them knocked a bar but probably would've qualified even with the 16" if clean, and the other dog went on a detour to investigate the judge (not a fault) before deciding the return to the handler and complete the course clean but enough slower than the 16" that she didn't Q.

  Next year, dogs will be required to Q in *TWO* steeplechases to make it to the Nationals, just as they now must Q twice in Grand Prix. Argh. Tika has barely squeaked out two GPs a year, but has yet to do two Steeplechases in a year. At least we're in for this year, and future nationals will probably be far enough out of state that we won't be going anyway. But it's nice to know that we could if we wanted to!

And We Were Having Such A Good Weekend, Too!

I carpooled with Arlene and her two Little Black Dog(tm)s to Madera. This time, we left Friday evening. It was a mix of good and bad. The whole (shortened) weekend, in fact, was the same way.

Friday evening

I originally thought I'd have to work late Friday to finish some things for work, so we were thinking that Arlene would get here at 7:30 and we'd then load up the car and be on the road by 8, which would mean a late arrival at the motel in Madera. However, it was apparent by midday that some moderate reorganization and research for part of my document was just not going to get done and it would have to wait for the next go-around, so we decided to meet at 6:30 instead.

Well--Arlene didn't expect the southbound traffic to be as thick as it was, and she arrived a bit later than expected (which was good because I was able to finish up work stuff without her sitting and waiting for me, but bad because it delayed our start a bit). We loaded everything into the car--yes, like a jigsaw puzzle or more accurately like those 3-dimensional puzzles shaped like eggs or cubes where every piece wedges into one place exactly.

Then she pulled out of the driveway to get out of my way...and my van wouldn't start. Best guess: battery is reaching the end of its useful life and I had the interior lights on most of the day. That was bad news because my jumper cables were now buried under dozens of heavy, exactly fitting jigsaw pieces. But Arlene cleverly had her own jumper cables (surprising to me how many people do NOT carry them), and we were able to successfully jump the battery. All of that plus handwashing and such probably delayed us another 10 minutes, maybe a bit more.

We had already agreed that we needed to stop at the local shopping center to (a) drop off my bills at Postal Annex and (b) pick up ice at Safeway. Well, the double bad news was that (i) we missed Postal Annex's closing by about 10 minutes, and (ii) because we didn't want to turn off the car while it continued to charge, one person had to attempt both errands.

We were finally on the road--about 8:00! So the good news was that we had tried to start earlier but if we had gone with the original plan, who knows how late we'd have actually been on the road! The other good news was that Arlene's sweetie of a spouse made us sandwiches to eat on the road, so we wouldn't have to make an extra stop for dinner. This turned out to be good news shortly--

Because the good news was that we got past the 152/156 nightmare backup because there *was* no backup at that time of the evening (a bonus for leaving later), but the bad news was that slightly after Casa da Fruta, traffic came to a near standstill. We turned on the radio and KCBS conveniently told us that there was a major injury accident in the clearing stages near Dinosaur Point (wayyyy at the top of the ridge, and we were still at the bottom), but apparently it had been closed completely for a while and now traffic was starting to get through. So, if we had gotten there earlier, we'd have simply been sitting, not moving, instead of creeping along at 5 mph. So the good news was that we hadn't eaten our sandwiches earlier, and this turned out to be an excellent and safe time to consume them. It took us almost half an hour to get to the accident site--I think it's about a 5-mile drive--and the rest of the trip passed without incident.

Saturday morning

Arlene took her dogs out for a quick potty and reported that the weather was cool (not cold) but quite nice, actually. So I stepped outside with 3 wild things on leashes, and it was raining! The nice thing was that there was a complete rainbow (I don't often see complete ones), and I managed to grab my cheap digital camera and get the whole thing in 2 photos. Not great photos, but it's there--by the time Arlene came out again a couple of minutes later, it had already faded to just a partial. I left my bill payments in stamped envelopes on the unoccupied Motel 6 (used to be Liberty Inn) desk, hoping they'd figure out to mail them, and we headed to the trial site.

Rainbow Saturday morning

At The Races

It stopped drizzling long enough for us to set up, and since it was quite a small trial for a USDAA event, we were able to set up near the middle of activity but in an out-of-the-way spot. The BAD news was that, as I was unpacking and setting up, I realized that I had completely forgotten that the zipper on Boost's crate had given up the entire ghost last weekend--totally damaged enough (after failing slowly for the last 4 months or so) that I simply could not zip the bottom closed at all. I had meant to get it replaced last week. But--out of sight, out of mind. The GOOD news was that, at this particular trial on this particular day, my van was parked three feet behind our canopy, with boost's and tika's crates easily available facing out the back. So I turned off all the interior lights and just used those crates for them. Next week's trial I won't be able to park anywhere near, so I'd better remember to get that crate cover replaced.

If I'm lucky, Doggone Good will have it in stock (they're just up the road a piece) and I can pick it up immediately.

Tika's first run of the day was Pairs Relay, and she was teamed with The Booster's mom (Tala). It was a gnarly course, particuarly the first part. I thought that we could handle both, but the first part had a dogwalk, so I suggested that Tala do that part. Turns out that Tala had an offcourse early on, so then it didn't matter that Tika knocked *two* bars on her part of the course, but we moved around the course itself very nicely.

Next class was Gamblers, with a send out over a jump to a set of weaves, then a slight push out over a jump and then in to a final jump. *I* thought it was going to be a piece of cake that I could mess up only by one of my usual stupid moves on "piece of cake" gambles and that everyone would be getting it. Well, turns out that (and of course I know this) (1) not everyone's dog has excellent weave pole entries, (2) not everyone's dog will send out, let alone to weave poles, (3) not everyone's dog will weave solidly through a set of 12 that's 15 feet away from the handler. And although in the opening we had one knocked bar (costing us a point) and a slight pause for disagreement and confusion when she didn't stick the Aframe contact (probably costing us a 3-point tunnel at the end that we didn't have time for), overall the opening was beautiful and we couldn't have been in a more perfect position for the gamble when the whistle blew and she did the whole gamble without a blink of doubt AND kept all 3 bars in the gamble up, and, wahoo, not only a Q, but we placed *3rd*--we hardly ever place in USDAA even when we Q.

Then came Standard. We don't have a lot of Masters Standard legs--only 3--because you must be completely clean and usually we have either a knocked bar, OR a missed up on the dogwalk, OR our other bugaboo, a refusal going to a table after a contact. Well, this course had a table after the dogwalk. I asked Arlene to videotape that portion in particular for us so I could see what the problem was. Tika kept all her bars up, but it looked like she blew over the up-contact on the dogwalk--although I couldn't see the judge's arm go up, I can't always see it when the judge is off to the side/behind like she was. So I really, really drove the entrance to the table from the dogwalk like I've never driven a table approach before--and she went right on and dropped to a down. Handling on the course overall was just lovely--she's running SO nicely!--and turns out that the judge didn't call the dogwalk up contact, so ANOTHER Q and ANOTHER 3rd place!

Steeplechase

The last event for the day was Steeplechase. We ran our standard run about noon and then we were done except for the Steeplechase. Now, the judge who was judging it had to finish the Novice ring first. Nowwwww, the judge who was judging the Novice ring for some reason didn't fly in on Friday night like she was supposed to (I never heard the story) but instead arrived in Fresno about 8:30 Saturday morning. So, instead of the novice ring starting at 8:00, it started about 10:00. Which meant that, instead of the Steeplechase starting at about 1:30, it didn't start until 3:30.

Which meant that the Steeplechase course was open for walk through for three and a half hours. Now, there were two potentially difficult places on the course (maybe more for others but overall I thought it would be a straightforward course for me and Tika). And there were two or three schools of thought on each of those two spots. The 3.5 hours were enough for many of us to rewalk and rewalk and rewalk and obsess endlessly and change our minds repeatedly. By the time the class began, I knew every inch of that course in and out and every possibility for handling every which was but Sunday.

Then I had the advantage of watching the entire 22" class and most of the 26" class run the course. The opening was one of the two problem areas. I had finally decided that we could get it no matter what we did and that I was obsessing needlessly--it was three jumps around a curve to the weave poles, and the choices were to push to the weaves or pull to the weaves. I had decided that the pull was what we were going to use, and it was interesting to see that by far most handlers used the push. Basically--it worked if you and your dog knew how to do it, and it didn't if you didn't. Seems obvious in retrospect, but this was just one of those places. I decided that Tika and I knew how to do it either way and she has great weave entrances, so I stopped worrying about it.

But I watched team after team blow the entrance or pop out of the weaves early. No faults, but lots of time wasted as they had to retreat to redo the poles. Now, remember, Steeplechase is time plus faults scoring. AND it's worth money! I became convinced that we'd beat most teams simply by having excellent weave poles. Our issue would be whether she could keep all her poles up, especially on that fast 3-pole lead-out curve.

The 2nd problem area was after the 2nd set of weave poles, when you had to pull the dog into a right-angle left turn, then go *between* the Aframe and a jump to get to a double (triple?) jump, which was the start of the final 5 jumps. Everyone was worried about the dog not making a sharp enough turn and losing the dog over the wrong jump. I had decided to weave away from my dog, veering close to the aframe while she completed the weaves,and just giving a quick mini-RFP to pull her my way.

So I watched handler after handler overpull their dogs *around* the double, which was another big time waster, and/or knock the bars on that jump. Maybe because the handlers were so worried about it. I decided that I knew what I was doing and stopped worrying about that, too. I was primed to go in and win the Steeplechase. (Well, you know what happens when you get cocky--or do you?)

I went to get Tika out of her crate--and she stood up all hunched over, her little nubber tail down, looking hang-dog. She came out of the crate looking miserable and yet eager. I tried to get her to move around a little to stretch out, and she yelped a couple of times. But then she looked mostly OK. She wasn't limping. She took goodies eagerly,but did Left and Right turns *extremely* slowly. I walked her out to potty and jogged her a bit, and she looked OK, but she absolutely would not under any circumstances grab a toy and play tug of war. I put her over a practice jump and she took it ok, but not really fast, and her nubber tail was down again. Yikes. I trotted her around again, and she looked OK, tail came up.

They were calling our names. So I took her to the line, set her in a sit, led out. She stayed like a good girl. I released her, and she went across all three jumps--not blazing, but smoothly--and they all stayed up. And she made her weave pole entrance perfectly--and stopped almost dead, took one slow step to the next pole, one very slow step to the next pole, giving me the most hangdog look, and I knew that I had a dog with a major problem. I pulled her out of the poles immediately and took her off course.

So much for the money

We checked her out on the sideline as much as possible, some massaging (which she seemed to enjoy) and trying to move her legs and so on. She's not one to let that be done (my fault--I should work at it more), but because she was getting lavish "good dog"s, she pretty much put up with it. Did yelp once and we couldn't figure out what caused it. Decided it wasn't obvious.

So after about 10 minutes I put her away again so I could watch the last of the steeplechase. Then I got her out, and she looked OK at first, but when I grabbed the goodies and she started to look eager, she yelped again.

The good news was that there was a vet onsite competing, and she hadn't left the grounds, and she was willing to check Tika out for me since I couldn't figure out the problem. Managed to narrow it down to her lower back more on the right side, but whether muscle or something worse like disk couldn't be determined mostly because Tika was so stressed and stiff about having someone play with her backside (and occasionally cause pain).

She suggested aspirin and no agility on Sunday and, if it didn't get better by Monday, take her in for x-rays.

Jake not competing

So was this good news or bad news: This was the first trial in which I hadn't entered Jake in anything. So my worst fears were fulfilled--down from 2 dogs competing to none. I had carpooled with Arlene, so I couldn't really go home, and I DO enjoy hanging out with my friends, and I could just work full time all day Sunday (like Karey did Saturday with her dog scratched due to injury). But Arlene kept asking are you sure you want to stay? And then she came up with a plan whereby she could stay and I could go home alone if I wanted.

I will leave out the long story in how we implemented it, but in fact I packed my bags and was home last night by 9:30.

(When I let the dogs out for one last run about 6:30, Tika blasted across the field full-steam with no sign of injury. Same thing when we got home in the evening--out onto the porch, bound down the stairs, across the yard just like normal. And this morning she was wiggling and twisting and turning like nothing had ever happened. So I'm SO hoping that was a fluke, maybe she pulled something a little bit overreaching for a bad frisbee throw earlier, I dunno. But I was SO scared and worried yesterday afternoon...)

Teaching a Dog to Weave

Anyone who can teach a dog to weave through her legs while she's walking can teach that dog to do weave poles--but let me be clear that it's not the same trick at all. The experience just means that the dog is accustomed to learning moving tricks and the handler is willing to work on it. Don't expect to teach weave poles (at least not the really fun, exciting, driving kind) by luring a dog through with a goodie.

Equipment needed: Buckle-type collar (that is, not slip-chain etc.) Shortened weave poles (unless you and dog are tall) Short tab lead Really fun toy

Short tab lead.

Having taught dogs to do both (weave through legs and weave through poles), I know that I can teach an eager dog to weave through my legs in a day or two at most; I've now taught 4 dogs to do weave poles and have watched lots of people do it and seen tons of techniques over the last 11 years, and it's my belief that a very experienced person with a driven, responsive dog can probably teach weave poles in a minimum of one week with 2 15-minute sessions daily. If you've never taught weaves before, expect it to take longer. It took me an elapsed time of 2 weeks and 5 days :-) with at least a couple of days off for rain, and I started with only two 5-minute sessions daily, AND I took what might or might not have been an unproductive detour with a 4-or-5-day experiment with fencing guides.

Disclaimer: Note that I also spent time off and on over the past several months just practicing driving between 2 poles from different angles and distances, first just throwing a toy ahead of the dog after she went through, then gradually moving the toy toss to a spot next to the second pole so that she was already starting to turn right after going through the poles. I don't know how much that helped on having drive during the rest of our training, but I do expect it to help as she becomes more independent and I start reinforcing the entry.

Here's how I taught Tika (who has very nice weaves--won't ever be a 60-pole Challenge winner but she'll be up there in the fast crowd every time) and Boost: Hand-in-the-collar.

The grip.

The Grip

Snug the collar up around the dog's ears. Hold your hand palm up, fingers forward. Standing next to the dog, slip your hand up under the collar. This gives you control over the dog's head movement because your grip pulls the collar up towards the front of the head, allowing you to turn the dog's head left and right.

Getting Started

I started with 4 weave poles (take off the rest of the poles) the first day or two just to get me and the dog used to each other and the motion. (3 is just a single turn and, IMHO, doesn't convey the right-left or left-right weaving motion.) Walking next to the dog, guide her through the weaves, turning her head just enough left and right to get her around each pole.

It might help right at the beginning to use the favorite toy as a lure so that the dog learns to focus ahead instead of on what you're doing next to her. If you want to do this, practice first without the dog. Goal is to keep the toy at least one weave pole ahead of the dog, in the line of the poles (not out to the side), just dragging it around each pole barely enough to get the dog watching it move from side to side and drive forward towards it. I did this with Boost just a few times at the beginning. Some people use it all the way through, but my theory is that (a) the dog is learning the process WITH THE TOY THERE and taking it away changes the picture, and (b) I want the dog to be aware of as little external info as possible, just the weaves in front of her. (Hence I also want to get myself and my hand out of the picture ASAP, too.)

If the dog is pushing ahead with excitement, as Boost and Tika both did during training, the hard part is in getting their head turned and slightly pushed enough to go around the next pole as she drives forward.

Keeping Dog Motivated

Don't make the dog move backwards to get a pole. If you mess up and she gets way past one pole, just cheerfully swing her out of the poles, around you, and race back to the beginning with hand in the collar, making excited noises (this isn't a punishment--you screwed up), and start over again.

If you mess up more than 3 times (maybe only 2x if it's a dog who turns off easily), just break it off, do something else that the dog knows well (e.g., a trick), reward and play play play and keep her excited and happy. Take a deep breath, compose yourself, try again.

Every time you make it through those poles, reward immediately with the toy ahead of the poles and play play play and verbally enthuse.

Repetition

Then go back and do it with the dog on your OTHER side! (If you used your left hand the first time, use your right hand the next time.)

Work both directions on both sides of the poles EVERY time. (That is, with dog on your left, go up, reward, come back down the same side of the poles with dog on your right. Then move yourself to the other side of the poles, go up with dog on your right, reward, come back down the same side with dog on your left.)

Move the poles every day. I moved them every day to a different orientation or location in the yard. I want the only constant thing in the picture to be the poles themselves, not the landscaping to the left or the right.

Next Step

As soon as you and the dog are used to the idea, move to 6 poles (I think this is really the minimum to understand the repetitious movement). Some people think you should start with 12 from the very beginning--same argument about wanting to have a consistent environment because 6 poles *is* different from 12. But I doubt my own energy, enthusiasm, and accuracy over that many poles and that many repetitions with my hand in her collar, and I want to be rewarding as fast as possible with small but meaningful successes--there are just so many more chances for YOU to mess up with 12 poles (remember at this point that it's never the dog's fault, never ever, don't even THINK about making negative sounds or actions!).

As soon as the dog is showing the slightest signs of understanding the idea of moving in and out of poles, switch to a tab lead to let the dog provide the head turning; your goal is to hold the dog back just enough to be sure she's making the turns and give a little pressure in the right direction as needed.

Note: If you find that you're dragging the dog through rather than letting her propel herself and you holding back and guiding from behind, go back to the hand in the collar and get a lot more fun and excitement into the process and reward like crazy each time you get through the poles.

You might need to go back to hand in the collar off and on as a reminder; I gradually did more and more tab work and less and less collar work; it wasn't a complete and abrupt switch.

My other theory is that you don't ever want to reward your dog for skipping poles. If you mess up and she manages to blast past a pole, swing her around outside the poles in a circle around your body, still holding the tab lead, fast and happy and excited --don't reward, but there's no punishment involved here--and start over. Same routine as before. Remember this all the way through your training.

More Independence

The dog will start showing signs of being able to do it on her own. (We're talking a week or 2 down the line, dozens and dozens of repetitions later.) Try relaxing the pressure on the tab lead gradually to give her space to succeed on her own.

This just takes time. I have trouble being patient, but patience is what it takes.

And then--breakthrough!--she'll do a whole series of 6 on her own! Reward like crazy, jump around, make a total fuss.

When she's doing 6 correctly 60-80% of the time on her own (that's 6 to 8 out of 10 times), add poles 2 at a time as fast as you possibly can. Add 2; as soon as she can do all 8 successfully 60-80% of the time, add 2 more. When doing 10 successfully most of the time, go to 12. Boost went from 6 to 12 in two sessions. It should be about that fast.

Now--on to true independence; at the moment I'm still running right exactly alongside her, can't move forward or hang back, not standing up completely straight, but all of that is going to change as quickly as I can change it, gradually moving further away from her, gradually moving ahead of her, gradually falling behind her, and on and on. And then there's reinforcing correct weave entries! There's still a long way to go to perfect weaves, but the hard part (for you) is done.

Final disclaimer: OK, I've taught Boost to weave using this method. Tika was only portions of this whole theory. I have no students to test this on. It's an accumulation of my experience in training my dogs to do many things, thousands of hours of class time with several talented instructors, many long seminars with many other talented instructors, lots of reading, lots of discussions, lots of observations of other students and their dogs. So there ya go.

Boostie the Weavin' Hound!

The little baby Booster is weaving sooooo nicely! We had no practice over the weekend. Yesterday she did several complete sets of 12, with a few bobbles; later, after a ton of other play and exercises, I tried to demonstrate for the housemate and she skipped poles several times before getting all the way through. I'm thinking she was just getting tired.

Today, first thing, she did 2 sets perfectly, one on my right and one on my left, then tried skipping the middle poles a couple of times, then did another 2 or maybe 4 perfectly. What a girlie! And she's FAST, too. I'm very delighted. And she seems excited about it; when she blasts out the end and gets her toy, she really gives it the heavy-duty, full-body shakedown, whereas she's normally more subdued in her (still enthusiastic) tugging. Maybe it's my level of excitement, too, but that's perfectly awesome that she responds that way.

In training I've always done both sides *every* time we did the weaves. Had a discussion with Bette's mom this weekend about how she's been doing dozens and dozens all on the same side because it's easier during hand-in-the-collar training--I told her NEVER again do 2 in a row on the same side, never ever ever. Sounds like they're on the verge of breaking through to actually doing independent weaves, too, but not quite there yet.

But, now, they're doing contacts and we haven't even started. Contact training makes me so nervous. Interestingly, they're OK on dogwalk and Aframe but not so hot on teeter; teeter's the only one of the three that I have an idea about how I might leap right in now and start working on.

Our Saturday morning classes have been very helpful--when there's been one and when I've been able to attend--but between my schedule and the instructor's schedule, I've had only maybe 4 or 5 classes in 5 months, if that. And the next one I could possibly make (if they have it) won't be until April. Power Paws has only one class for "puppies" going on (Bette's in it), but it's during a weekday again and I've been SOOO wanting to try to do weekends if possible. Still, I finally begged to be let in but it's all filled up and it's not clear that they'd want me in anyway since they've been working on their program for 5 months now. So I've signed up with Fortis Agility after a long talk about her training and handling methods. I don't exactly fit into their classes neatly, either; they're almost through their four 6-week beginners classes with the current class, and they're already doing contacts, and the next beginner beginner class won't start until April. Tania invited me to come to the class anyway and see whether we could make a go of it and then maybe, if needed, xfer to the beginning class. I'm looking forward to seeing her training strategies. No doubt at all that she's been successful with her dogs, but some things she's decided to pursue are different from what I've been getting other places. It'll be interesting, and, I hope, maybe even helpful.

CPE Agility in Turlock on a Cold Weekend

This weekend in Turlock was quite chilly, with occasional drizzles. I took my long down coat but never ended up wearing it; as long as I was up and moving around (OK--all weekend--sat down for lunch briefly both days), my body was warm enough with long underwear, jeans, henley shirt, fleece sweater, fleece jacket, lined thigh-length windbreaker. Wore a baseball cap a good portion of the weekend to keep the drizzle off my glasses and to keep the top of my head warm. There were times when my nose, ears, and fingers ached from the cold. Note to self: get cheap gloves that I can chop the fingers off and see whether those work better than full gloves (which I've pretty much given up wearing at agility trials because i have to take them off every few minutes to do whatever it is that I'm doing).

Some club members couldn't get here because they were snowed in--in parts of California that almost never get snow. There was a mongo 30-car pileup on 101 in wine country, I believe, due to ice and snow. Reports said that there was snow on the ground at Altamont Pass on Saturday morning, but when we went through about 5:30 it was too dark to see.

Jake Qed in all four of his runs, but never managed a first place. Barely Qed in Saturday's snooker, where I couldn't pull him off of a wrong jump, but he had just eked out enough points to earn that Q. Missed one weave-pole entry in his Colors run by a mile despite me trying to pull up short and give him plenty of room, but then in his Sunday Snooker run he blasted quite rapidly into a correct weave pole entry on his own and completed them nicely.

Tika, as usual, was fast and excited to be running. Saturday we Qed only 2 out of 5; knocked *2* bars in Jumpers and the last bar in Standard (which was probably me pulling up instead of pushing through) and I tried something tricky in Snooker that almost worked--she hesitated and slowed way down when I called her, but then I let up and she took the wrong obstacle. It probably served me right, because in that run, she did NOT stay at the start line and I let her go because I wanted to try out that snooker course. Fortunately, that's the only time she left the startline without permission all weekend; sometimes that slip on my part escalates. But I *was* more cautious and conservative with leadouts the rest of the weekend as a result.

Tika Qed 4 of 5 on Sunday, once again missing a Standard Q. Still had one of the fastest times of all dogs despite over-calling her on a couple of u-turns so that she turned before a jump instead of first going over it and then turning; knocked a bar again and went into an offcourse weave on one of those over-called turns.

She placed first in 9 of her 10 runs. I'll admit that wasn't hard this weekend because she was the only 24" C-level dog on Saturday and one of only two on Sunday, and the 2nd one is a veteran who's consistent and reasonably fast but slowing down. However, in CPE I always compare against all heights, all levels who ran the same course to get a better feel for how we're doing. There were between 60 and 100 dogs for each class running the same course. She was:

• Tied in points with one other dog (Brenn the border collie) for 1st in Saturday's Jackpot, although Tika had fastest time, so she was top dog
• 3rd highest in Full House and she had a spectacular run; I couldn't figure out how Chance the super sheltie (with 4 more points) and Elvis the super Boston (with 1 more point) could possibly have gotten those extra points, until my friend Arlene (who was trying to be patient with my incessant invented rivalries) pointed out that small dogs got 5 more seconds in which to accrue points.
• 5th fastest overall in Jumpers despite the 2 knocked bars and one missed jump entirely that we had to turn around and come back for; Brenn was 2.5 seconds faster with a smooth run and Chance 1.5 faster.
• 2nd fastestin Sundays' colors with a really lovely run; still, Brenn was.7 seconds faster, which just floors me. Maybe tika's turns weren't as fast and tight as I thought they were.
• 2nd fastest in Sunday's Wildcard; there's some variation depending on which on-course options you choose, so not everyone is running the exact course, but I really thought we had the fastest possible flow and I came off the run totally delighted. I'm sure we couldn't have done better. And...Brenn was .13 seconds faster. The next-nearest times were almost 2 seconds slower.
• 2nd fastest of all dogs who got the highest possible 51 points. For a change, we beat Brenn by .4 second--but little Keeper the BC snuck in and bested Tika's time by .7! Argh.
• 4th highest points in Sunday's Jackpot (Gamblers); we had an oncourse miscommunication that ended up with me struggling to get her to turn and start moving again in the right direction. We probably missed between 3 and 6 additional points by doing that, although of course I can't be sure. Elvis and Chance beat us by 5 points, and Brandy by 3 points--all small dogs with 5 more seconds. Brenn's mom left the event early and didn't do Jackpot. Arlene pointed out with what *I* thought was quite an evil grin, "Look, you beat Brenn!"

At any rate, I'm just glad that Brenn agreed to have Tika on her DAM team for the April Haute Traks 5-class team qualifier and for the Bay Team's May team qualifier. And Arlene's Sparkle joins us as the 3rd for Bay Team, where she can keep an eye on my competitive excesses.

'''Boost''' got to play with her sister Bette on Saturday. This was after both had been playing fetch for a little while with their respective human Moms. They chased each other around and around and around and around and around and around...OK, you get the picture. We practiced some recalls and they did OK--better than the last time we tried this a couple of months ago. When we finally stopped them, they were still chasing each other but in slow motion with tongues dragging on the ground like you might see in a cartoon where a dog keeps chasing a cat but they're both so hot and exhausted that all they can do is drag themselves along. And then, when I put Boost's leash on, she wanted to play tug full force and chased the frisbee a few more times on the way back to the crate. Man, wish I had that kind of energy.

We're Doing Weave Poles! We're Doing Weave Poles!

In class 3 weeks ago this coming Saturday, I found out that Boost's brother had just learned to weave, and he demonstrated them in class. I was bound and determined that I could teach my Booster to weave in one week if I worked at it, maybe 2 at the most. Well--I forgot that I had made commitments for Saturday mornings for at least the next 5 weeks and wouldn't be able to go to those Saturday classes (I didn't know when the classes were going to be starting up again) to show off, so there was alittle bit of a demotivator--no one to show off to. :-)

But I did work pretty persistently. After a week, I felt that we almost almost had them; she was doing weaves with my hand on a tab lead on her collar, but I was really hauling back on it to keep her from skipping and still guiding her through the weaves. She had wonderful drive, though, and I loved it. Wanted to keep that.

I started with 4 weave poles to get the motion down (3 wasn't enough to give the back-and-forth concept; that ended up looking more like a loop). Quickly decided that it needed to be at least 6, so I've just been working with six. Figured I would very quickly add 2 at a time to get up to 12 as soon as she showed signs of being independent.

Well--a week later, we were still almost there. Despite twice daily (most days) efforts, it wasn't clear to me that we were progressing.

So I experimented. Happened to have several of those little folding wire garden fences, about 12 inches tall and green, and they were perfect to set up channels on both sides of the 6-pole set. Her first inclination was to jump over them. Took a lot of effort to get her to still go through the poles even with my hand on her tab lead, but she finally figured it out.

My theory was that, if she could do the weaving motion without my hand on her, I could quickly fade the fencing and she'd be weaving. However, although she could indeed get through the poles on her own most times, she was suddenly very slow. And although I could move the fencing out to about 4 inches away from the poles, as soon as I bumped it even a bit more, she started squeezing between it and the poles.

I finally decided yesterday after several days of this that all the fencing was doing was giving her *more* things to look at and think about rather than *fewer*. I really missed seeing that drive that she had been exhibiting with the hand-in-the-collar method.

So yesterday afternoon and this morning and this afternoon we did really long sessions without the wires. Yesterday afternoon was exhausting and we just were really having a very high failure rate--me failing to get her into the right entry or not being able to control her to get her through every pole, and although once or twice i was able to let up on the tab lead a little and she'd complete them herself, as soon as I gave more ground, she started skipping like crazy. She finally got to where she was looking frustrated, so we did some fast tunnels and played a while and quit.

This morning I was finding that I could actually let up pressure on the tab lead and she actually managed to do about four in a row, skipping the last one, a few times, and maybe 2 or 3 times she in fact did ALL 6 WOW after I let go of her tab, but not twice in a row. Still, it was very exciting.

So, just now, we went out and hit it again, and after a few false starts--wow, she did the weave poles! Repeatedly! Not every times, but most times, all the way through, after I let go of the tab after the entry. Wahoo! So after several times of that and a break to do other stuff, I added two more poles for a total of 8, and it didn't faze her at all. 8 poles without my hand on! Not every time, but I think 4 or 5 out of 6--I was so excited I really couldn't keep track.

And I'm kind of still stooped over as if I had my hand on the tab, and I'm right next to her and she's a little herky jerky on the last couple while she remembers not to pop out too early, but she's definitely doing them on her own--and although not speed-demon fast, much faster that she ever did with the wire fencing on either side. Wahooooooooeeeeee!

We're doing weave poles! We're doing weave poles!

Getting Up-To-Date on The Booster

• We've almost got the weave poles done! Have been doing about two 5-minute sessions a day, missing a couple of days because I was busy or it was pouring rain. As of Friday I was able to put her on a tab lead instead of having my hand in her collar, because she was starting to find her way through the poles. As of yesterday, she was largely leading through the poles, still pushing hard rather than letting up to think about it, but still if release the tab lead, she skips poles wildly. If only I had been doing THREE 5-minute sessions a day--or had the energy for a couple of 15-minute sessions a day--we could've been done in a week, I think.


• Haven't had an accident in the house in just ages. Maybe it was just a matter of maturity for the last little bit of control. She did start waking up between 2 and 3 in the morning and making a fuss over the last couple of weeks, but I think what happened was that *I* woke up a couple of times and got up to get a hot drink, and let the puppy out at that point, about the same time that Jake had a couple of nights of diarrhea and had to be let out in the middle of the night, and so I decided that she had decided that that's something we're always doing now. So, 2 nights ago when she started making a fuss, I mostly ignored her and then told her to knock it off a couple of times, and she eventually settled down and lasted the whole rest of the night. Last night she was fine. (If she had continued to make a fuss and gotten louder, I was prepared to concede that perhaps she was having some bladder problems. But, no, it was just another case of Mom teaching something she hadn't meant to teach.)


• I just looked at our list from class from 2 weeks ago; jeez, I haven't worked on ANYthing except the weave poles (not even an official assignment) and occasional practice on a moving Sit. For some reason she does it better on my left, but on my right goes into a Down on the Sit command. An indication that I've been practicing too much on my left, I suppose.


• Food bowls--Boost finishes her meal and then thoroughly and determinedly licks out every nanoparticle of food or moisture from the other dogs' bowls. Doesn't end there, though. She constantly returns to Tika's bowl (not her own, much) to see what's going on with it. And she carries Tika's bowl around; I've occasionally found it out in the middle of the lawn. Not *her* bowl, ever. That, plus the obsession with Tika's poop, would get her labeled as a stalker in the human world. I wonder what dogs consider to be a stalker?


• Rolling in poop--I don't want to tempt the gods, but (knock on dog toys), the puppy hasn't had a roll in poop in quite a long time, either. This is good. I hope it continues.

The Lester Property

Here's a news release about that big property behind me ("The Lester Property") that will someday be a park, dated October 28, 2003:

In a remarkable commitment to preserve the County’s rich agricultural history, Walter Cottle Lester of the Cottle Ranch family has entered into an agreement with the County of Santa Clara and California State Parks to enable them to preserve and develop 290 acres of land into a historic agricultural park. Lester gifted the County with 153.3 acres and, in a separate transaction, sold State Parks 136.5 acres at a significant discount. The County of Santa Clara will develop and manage the entire property as the Martial Cottle Park. The park’s name is significant because Martial Cottle, Mr. Lester’s grandfather, originally settled the property in the 1860s.

Fencing Parts 3 and 4

The back corner showing daylight through fence, compost bin, neighbor's new fence to the right.

Closeup of part of old fencing, showing daylight through fence plus previous owner's wire-fencing fix.

Yes, you missed parts 1 and 2. (Although I might have covered Part 2 in this blog at least a couple of years back.)

See, my yard borders 4 other yards--the neighbor to the right, who replaced that stretch of fencing about 4 years ago (I paid half). The neighbor behind me, who replaced that stretch of fence maybe 2 years ago. (I paid half.) The neighbor to the left, who had told me that he was getting estimates for new fencing. And...my fourth neighbor is a gigantic empty lot of 290 acres, which is destined to eventually be a park, but who in fact cares not a whit that it shares 10 feet of fencing with me.

That 10 feet of fencing has been in a sorry state since long before I moved in. You can see in the photo that there are actually boards missing (not the ones to the left--the fencers have already started dismantling the fence to replace it--but all the bits of daylight you can see through the shrubbery) or shoved to one side or the other.

You can also see that the shrubs behind the round compost bin have kicked the bucket this year; not sure why entirely. But this is bad, because the other thing that you might be able to imagine is that, if Tika stands on the content of the bin, she can now put her feet on top of that old fence and look out into the wilderness. This has been worrying me a bit; I've left the shrubbery carcasses in place as a slight deterrent until I could figure out what to do.

There is a chain-link fence behind the wooden fence, but there's a slight gap. And you can see from the close-up that the previous owner had fastened wire fencing to this side of the wooden fence as a fix to keep their dogs in the yard. My fear has been that Tika would try to get out over the top , and would either succeed or would end up in that small gap between the chain link fence and my fence with no way to get her out. Fortunately, that hasn't happened.

Here's the bad thing. To replace the fence--because it's scrunched firmly between the chain link and the shrubs--they have to pretty much remove the shrubs.

Here's the other bad thing. I was intending to get some WORK work done today, like as in money to go do agility. Just before 10, there were some loud bangs outside. They continued enough that I started to head out to the yard to see what was going on. The dogs preceded me, raced around to the side yard, and started barking up a ferocious watch-dog storm. I followed, to find a complete stranger in my yard, my neatly piled stack of pipes and firewood tossed aside, and 16 feet of fence missing.

Someone somewhere neglected to inform me that I was going to have a fence removed today. I am glad only that I was home today. What would have happened had they cornered the worker in the yard without me there? Or if they had taken off through the open fence? It makes my stomach hurt, thinking about it. So instead of being able to plan to remove things that I had on or next to the fence, and do it slowly, carefully, and deliberately, I rushed through it; had to move an entire compost pile rapidly with my cruddy shoulder complaining the whole way, and no comfortable or easy way to do it because all my yard-waste-moving containers were full.

Thank goodness I keep a 35-foot stretch of chicken wire on hand for just such emergencies and was able to construct a temporary fence across part of the yard, leaving us no room for playing fetch or for practicing agility (such as those weave poles I'm supposed to be teaching Boost this week). Had I had more time, I could've constructed something further out in the yard using some of my 4x8 wood lattices, but noooooo...

So today instead of working I spent almost 4 hours moving things, trying to communicate with someone with whom I had no common language (while he tried to get someone on the phone who could communicate with me), building fences, etc. I'm physically exhausted. I've hardly done any WORK work and I'm pissed off about that, too.

I'm just grumpy. But I'll be glad to finally have the last of the crappy fencing replaced, although I have no clue how I'm going to pay my neighbor for it. I told him I'd have to repay him in installments. I'll have to pay the fencers up front for my 10-foot solo section, but that's a drop in the bucket in comparison to 70 feet of fencing. It's ironic, I guess--or maybe just annoying--back when I had a lot of free cash (like, before Remington's cancer and various random money wastages), my neighbor had no money to pay half of that fencing. So I let it go. Now he apparently has enough to spend on all kinds of things; has been madly dealing with all kinds of delayed yard and house maintenance. And now *I* don't have any ready cash. Oh, well, that's what equity lines of credit are for...

What a day.

Boost's Training

We had our first puppy class today for the first time since Thanksgiving weekend. Boy, do we need work!

Coming when called

Ha! When we arrived, Boost was completely overwhelmed with excitement about seeing other dogs, particularly her siblings (two were there, Derby and Kayla (oops--it's Caena; I keep hearing "Kayla".). She acted as if we'd never practiced walking on a loose lead. And, even at the end of the day after getting used to being there and working solidly for an hour, when we released the puppies together briefly, she was more interested in active dogs than in me. Derby's really good about coming when called. Caena didn't always come directly, but at least on hearing her name she turned her head and looked at her dad and weighed her options. Boost? Nada. Not a clue that she was even aware that her name was being called or that I existed in the universe. I might need some extra help on this one because I'm not quite sure where to go.

I've been trying to work through it at home. If the other dogs aren't playing with their toys, she's fine to work with me. But if she thinks that there's a chance that the other dogs might be chasing a toy, she loses all interest in me plus toy. I've been trying to work through it by letting Jake have a toy, which he'll drop at my feet. Boost drops toy and goes into cicling mode. I keep at her until she's back on her toy again. She's getting marginally better as long as I completely ignore Jake. But let's say she and I are actively tug of warring. I subtly stick one foot out to the side and touch--just touch---Jake's toy: Wham, she's off.

Weaving poles

The challenge is on! We've been working on 2-pole entries, but her brother decided to learn weave poles last week and badda bing, badda boom, he demonstrated very nice complete, fast weaves in class today. We haven't officially started them in class at all. OK, dammit, if Tammy can teach Derby weaves in a week, I can teach Boost weaves in a week. She used the hand-in-the-collar method, which is what I did with Tika. We did our first session late this afternoon with just 3 poles, and I've been having her drive so much through those first two poles that it was a real physical challenge to me to direct her just through that first turn into the 3rd pole, but we finally did it about 3 times with her on each side of my body. She's REALLY pushing, though, which is great.

But it's agony on my right shoulder, which is still completely messed up from Mulch Moving. I've been NSAIDing twice daily, icing it a couple of times a day, doing some simple exercises from the last time I messed it up, trying not to do too much tugging or throwing with that arm, but I'm still waking up in pain in the night, even after a 3-day break at Disneyland with no dogs (Linda and Paul just *wouldn't* play tug-of-war with me).

Lisa says she's going to start the whole class on weaves next week. Great. So now I *have* to teach them to Boost in a week so we can look like experts. :-)

Sit-stay

Boost didn't do too badly here at all. I was actually able to walk away from her, walk around the other dogs also in sit-stays; Lisa and others walked by her a few short feet away (but didn't say anything or look/interact directly), and although she lay down a couple of times, and although she wagged her tail and thought really hard about it a couple of times, she did beautifully. I was pleased. But I know I'd still lose her if someone else walked up to her. Need to practice. Dang.

Hands-on control

This is simply holding dog at side, them relaxed and completely in your control. We practice this often, and she did fine. we've practiced moving her from sit to stand and back again in this position, but almost never into down (it's just a bit harder physically for me), so we tried it today and she was completely compliant. Another success.

Moving sit or down

This is where the dog is walking at your side and you give the command without stopping and the dog should immediately obey. Boost and I practice the "down" version a lot, in particular because it's useful for the Table in USDAA and also a handy way to get the dog to wait a bit while I attend to something else. We can even do it at a trot. But we hardly ever do a moving sit. (It's needed for AKC Table, but I don't know whether I'll ever do that.) We tried it; first time she hesitated and started to sit and then didn't. Next few times she was doing it if I was slow enough, and stayed there as I kept moving. But we're still ahead of several of the dogs in class.

And she was just great on her moving down. See what I can do when I actually practice? Huh.

Nose touch

Argh, Lisa pointed out that she's still scooping at it with her nose when it should be a solid plonk. Same problem we've always been having,a nd I've been working so hard at feeding exactly right on top of the target. Lisa suggested moving the target in closer to her feet, and also (since we usually get a good plonk on the first touch but not subsequent ones) just taking the first one and rewarding enthusiastically rather than trying for repeats for a while, or try maybe one repeat and break off immediately if it's not good.

Also need to work on remembering that, when we're finished with it each time, to use release word and to have her drive out to her toy rather than handing it to her.

The Bang Game

Don't know whether this originated with Susan Garrett or elsewhere, but it was at a Susan Garrett seminar 3 or 4 years ago that I first encountered this. Basically you start with the end of the teeter slightly elevated so that when the dog leaps onto it, it bangs to the ground. Goal is to have dog leap onto it and drive to end, enjoying making it bang as hard as possible (and not be spooked by it). We haven't really done this (thought I had started this months ago, but if so I sure didn't continue it. So much to do!) and so it took her a few tries to think about getting onto the board. First she jumped over it to see what was going on elsewhere, then got a foot or two on, etc.

I need to remember to stand still and let her decide to do it; feed slightely ahead of her to direct her towards the end; remove hand immediately so I'm not luring and see whether she'll move further towards the end.

Bubbles!

Derby is one wild and crazy dog when Tammy starts blowing bubblestuff! He flings his whole body into the air, throwing legs in all directions. It's hysterical. He's hardly even grabbing for the bubbles any more, just loves the excuse to do aerial acrobatics. Boost didn't even seem to notice the bubbles; too interested in Darby's activity. I'll have to try it with her in the yard. Remington used to love bubbles and chase them endlessly despite sour soap-in-mouth faces, but he'd just jump straight up from hind legs, not throw his whole body around like this. Jake and Tika have never been interested in bubbles. (Oh--no, this wasn't part of class.)

BTW, Derby is almost 23", I think Tammy said! Wow and yow! I'm still hoping that Boost stays below 21 so we have the option of jumping 22" in USDAA.

Driving through turns

Lisa showed us how to use just a large bucket or orange cone or anything to get the dog to drive tightly into a turn all the way around it to chase a toy. That'll help them to do really tight, driven turns as they go over a jump and need to change direction or even wrap 180 degrees.

Jumps

I haven't asked boost to come over a jump straight at me while I face her; this plus food treat for reward confused her completely for a while. The exercise was the Linda Mecklinberg trick of having your dog jump straight up and over and turn immediately between you and jump as you turn as they come over, without ticking or knocking the bar. Need to work on this.

Actually had her going over 22" jumps in class today. I just haven't done that because at home, with her driving through jumps, she keeps knocking the 16" and I didn't want her to get into that habit. But we did some 16", just single jumps, not driving through, and then up to 22", and she didn't even blink. So I guess I can do more of that.

Is that it?

It was actually a lot for an hour. I think there's still more but I'm blanking and of course didn't write it down *during* class. Maybe I'll think of it tonight.

It All Ties Together

When I was just a little tyke (yes, I, too, once attended junior high), I decided that I wanted a job working with dogs. There was a spread on Stelling Road in Cupertino that I occasionally rode my bike past with a little sign saying something like "Phydelma and Lyle Gillette--Borzois, Salukis, Whippets, Beagles". (Yeah, sure, Beagles go right along with tall sighthounds!) There was probably a kennel name, but I don't remember it. The folks' names stuck in my mind, however, because they struck me as being amazingly unusual, and also so clever for having a couple with "Y"s in the middle of their first names. How often does that happen? Really!

So one day in 1969 or thereabouts, with my parents' permission, I rode my bike that huuuuuuge lonnnnng way down to Stelling, up the long driveway, and knocked at the door to ask for a job. They invited me inside while they thought about it. There were dogs and dog hair everywhere. Their couches and chairs had dog-print blankets on them, also covered with dog hair. I remember thinking that I wasn't going to do that when I grew up and had a lot of dogs of my own.

Phydelma and Lyle Gillette, undated photo from this site.

My parents report that the couple, to my recollection grayhaired at the time-- but then, at the time, everyone over 30 was pretty grayhaired to me-- were somewhat taken aback at what to do with this youngster about whom they knew nothing. My whole resume consisted of "We have a dog, too." They called my parents to check up on me and, when they were satisfied that I wasn't a dognapper or worse, they put me to work with really really simple chores.

First, they had bred a 9-year-old Borzoi named Zonn and they weren't sure whether the breeding had taken, but apparently her hips were starting to have troubles and she needed a nice long walk every day. So I walked her a few blocks down Stelling and back again.

They also had a litter of Saluki puppies. They were pretty big already, and I'm guessing that they must have been at least 3 months old, but what did I know at the time about puppies or anything about dogs, really, except that when quizzed I could name all the dogs in the AKC working group, the sporting group, the nonsporting group, and a good portion of the terriers (but who really cared--all terriers look alike anyway). They put me to "work" playing a bit with the puppies and maybe grooming them. I used a comb that I found but they put a quick stop to that and said that brushing was a much better thing to do. I don't remember why any more; I still prefer combing my dogs in most cases, even if it's with an undercoat rake. Maybe I just have the wrong types of dog coats.

Anyway, after they decided that Zonn wasn't going to have puppies, they gave me $5 (which I hadn't expected--I had said that I was volunteering) and said Thanks A Lot Kid, Now Scram (except much nicer than that). I was disappointed about not having a job any more, but at the same time, that lonnnnnnng ride down to Stelling was getting pretty tiring.

Highway 85 now runs through what had been their property. I never saw them or talked to them again.

So we pop forward to today, when I'm trying to find (for Wikipedia) a list of sight hounds that the AFSA (American Sighthound Field Association) allows to compete in lure coursing. And, poom, I bump into the name Lyle Gillette.

So it turns out that he wasn't merely some guy in a dog-hair filled house down on Stelling in a house doomed to be paved over for another 6-lane freeway. No, he was the "father of the sport of lure coursing in America" and the Lyle Gillette Memorial Trophy is awarded in the Gillette Stakes lure coursing event every year, even now. "The Gillette Stake is a premier event held annually at the International Invitational. This competition is to showcase form and function in our finest sighthounds and to honor the father of the sport of lure coursing in America, Lyle Gillette."

So I started doing a search, and he also apparently wrote some definitive articles about Borzois and lure coursing and so on in the 1980s. The Colorado Lure Coursing page says that "Lure Coursing is a performance event developed in the early 70's by Lyle Gillette and other California sighthound fanciers who hunted jackrabbits in the open field, which risked the harm caused by barbed wire fencing." The Borzoi Club of America says "The individual who really believed in lure coursing and took the effort to get the sport going was Lyle Gillette, who in 1971 went around the country demonstrating the sport to groups of Borzoi owners interested in coursing their dogs."

Phydelma ("Phyl"?) was also a writer; published a book in 1977, Life with Borzoi, that's apparently still in print.

Amazing what a small world this is--

UPDATED LINKS: March 11, 2008:
History of Rancho Gabriel (their Kennel)

Sample of Borzoi Action Gazette, magazine founded by Phyl Gillette

Brief note about their presence in Oregon in the '70s

Mention of Phydelma's death and trophy in their honor

Brief mention of Gillettes as inspiration

I mention them in my blog again in 2016

A Long Agility History Under Cover

Something I neglected to mention about January's trial is that it was the 10th anniversary of my first agility competition.

This January's trial was held on a drizzly day, in a covered 2-ring dirt arena at the Sonoma County fairgrounds in Santa Rosa. Covered arenas in California are rare--and we seldom need them, anyway, except that winter trials are more likely to be pleasant if one is available. However, except for the Elk Grove (near Sacramento) permanent agility arena at WAG (Starfleet Arena), there's nothing else generally used and most trials are outdoors on grass even in the winter.

Elk Grove's covered arena can fit two rings, but they're very small rings--I'm guessing about 70 by 80 feet. CPE, NADAC, and AKC I believe all work under such constraints, but I don't believe that USDAA allows rings that small. But the facility in general is nice--the two long sides of the arena are walled in, with crating space in and in front of what used to be horse stalls, and 10-15-foot walkways down either side, and the far end of the ring area is a good 15 feet (guessing) from one open end, although they have shade fabric or tarps or such over the open ends, as well, to protect from the weather. There's a little office space right inside there that's used for the score table. No built-in restrooms, you still have to go outside to the portapotties, but it's nice to have a permanent all-agility site.

The arena we used this year is way up in Santa Rosa--a nearly 2-hour drive from here, but for Bay Teamers (my club) who live up thataway in the north SF Bay Area, it's nice to have a trial within easy driving distance from home. This is in fact a very nice arena for agility if you can fit into 2 rings. That's a challenge for the Bay Team; most of our trials now run at least 3 rings and USDAA typically 4. (We went through horrendous arguments through the years over whether it was even possible for one club to stage a 3-ring trial, and a few years later whether it was even possible for one club to stage a 4-ring trial. And here we are.) USDAA doesn't allow entry limits, so we have to find artificial ways to limit entries. One way that we limited entries was by having it in Santa Rosa. While the 2 hours is doable for us in the south bay, that really does make it much harder for folks from southern california to make the jaunt. Another way we limited it was by having only Masters on Saturday and only Novice and Advanced on Sunday. So that meant only 5 runs per dog for the weekend, which is low, and nothing for dogs to do on their day off.

But I digress. The Santa Rosa arena has one end closed off; it contains a full snack bar that sells meals during trials, which is very convenient, and actual real restrooms. One long wall can be closed completely with roll-down metal doors, and the other open end and the other long side have sunshade-type "curtains" that can be lowered to still let light and air in but keep out bad weather. One long side is right up against the edge of the covered area, but that leaves the other side with a huge space for crating, I think about 40 feet all along that side, and the open end also has about that much space. The fenced area for the rings is huge; we can have two nearly full-sized rings with about 30 feet between them as entry areas and score table set-up for each of the rings.

I tell you all that to tell you this. My first trial was at an arena used only twice for agility, in San Martin. It was nice for me because less than half an hour from home, and AWAY from more-developed areas, so traffic wasn't quite as bad as going northward to our usual (now) Sunnyvale site.

However.

The arena was open on all four sides, with no way of closing off any of the walls. One end of the arena had a little bit of open space, maybe 30 feet, if that, for crating; everyone who didn't get there early had to crate across the area in another building. The long sides had walkways that were only about 6 feet wide, if memory serves me, which is barely comfortable to walk two people and their dogs past each other in opposite directions. So. Then.

It poured. We don't often get downpours like this in the Santa Clara Valley. It *poured*. And the wind blew. Water cascaded off the roof with Niagra-envy-like vigor and was blown right into the walkways, where it seeped into the soft dirt and created a shoe-sucking quagmire in which merely taking a step with mud-coated shoes was a tremendous exertion. From there, it ran into the rings, so people were constantly carting in sand or dry dirt or wood chips or I don't know what, halting the entire ring, trying to dam the inflowing water and sop up the soft spots in the rings themselves.

The short crating area at the one end of the arena slowly filled with water, with owners returning to their dogs to find them standing in an inch of water.

It was a completey miserable Saturday, except that Remington earned a qualifying ribbon in Gamblers, his first ever, and everyone had been so worried about how hard it was going to be. But I was exhausted from tramping through the mud, sopping wet (EVERYTHING was sopping wet), miserably cold and craving any hot beverage at all (none to be had, of course), angry about being asked to work in such conditions and at my first trial and while trying to tend to Remington, who was not all that happy, either, at his real first experience being left for long periods in an x-pen in a strange environment, although he sang along with the accordian player at the General Briefing and he was ecstatic in the ring.

If this is what agility is like, I thought, I will never do this again, never ever. What a godawful miserable experience.

On Sunday, the sun came up and dried up all the rain and the eensy weensy agility competitor got in the ring again. Remington earned a Jumpers Q, flying around the course, me almost losing my footing for a face dive trying to keep up with him but managing to stay upright. Everyone was cheerful (What a relief it wasn't like yesterday!) and happy and I had brought hot chocolate, although I don't think I drank any, and I took my two Q ribbons home and I was hooked with the adrenaline and thrill of competition.

I took hot chocolate with me to every trial for the rest of the year, and not once did I need it or want it, so eventually I stopped doing that. And now, after 150 weekends of agility trials, never again was I as miserable at a trial, and never again was there a trial so miserable.

You Can't Always Get What You Want...

This weekend had exhileration, disappointment, massive self-recriminations. Something for everyone!

The "Nunes Agility Field" in Turlock is a lovely site that John leases (I believe) from the vet hospital next door. It's old reconditioned horse paddocks. From the approach road, the first indicator you see is the spaniel sign.

The weather in Turlock was good for agility. Overcast and looked like it wanted to rain on Saturday but never did; good weather for running dogs. Sunday was bright sunny but chilly (comparatively speaking--probably mid-40s overnight and gradually warming maybe to upper 60s later in the day), also pretty good for dog activity.

This weekend only Tika competed. Jake is now officially retired from USDAA because I just don't want to jump him at 16" (in veterans!) any more. He'll still do CPE, where he can jump 12" in veterans or even drop to 8" (!!) in the "specialist" category--I have to decide this month whether I want to do that for CPE Nationals in June. Frighteningly, Boost will be legal for CPE in 3 months but we're nowhere near ready; legal for USDAA in 6 months.

Tika had 6 runs on Saturday and 5 on Sunday, which is a fairly intense load for one dog, but she was constantly rarin' to go-- which was bad for our last run on Saturday, the Jumpers class. It was a convoluted Jumpers course with some tricky maneuvers required, but I thought that we could handle it and show off our best handling ability. It was also the last class of the day, so in addition to a couple of periods of frisbee in the field, Tika had already run 5 classes. I set her at the start line and walked boldly and confidently out for a 3-jump leadout (which was about 50 feet in this case, over a line of sharply angled jumps). I wasn't quite at the third jump yet, when Tika came charging over the jumps to meet up with me. She got them all beautifully in order and fast without knocking any, but as I said to her about leaving while my back was turned and without permission, "we don't do that here", and walked her off the course. She walked with me, obviously subdued in mood but agonizing over not getting to run. I was disappointed both because I wanted to try the course and, of course, because we desperately need Jumpers Qs.

One of the entertaining features of the site is the active railroad right across the street. Now imagine setting up your nearly deaf dog at the startline in the ring closest to the road, and a 100-car train starts rumbling past.

She never actually left the start line the rest of the weekend, although on two occasions she was standing in a crouched-and-ready to leap posture by the time I got into position, so she was NOT in a sit-stay. As reinforcment to her for doing that, I let her go, and as reinforcement to me for letting her to that, those were our only two ribbon-winning runs on Sunday. Oh, well, I could do worse that have a dog who loves doing agility.

The Snooker Experience

We had two opportunities for a Snooker Super-Q this weekend. Neither were straightforward, flowing courses for Super-Q level work. On saturday, for a chance at a Super-Q, one had to maneuver around and between several obstacles to get one 7-pointer and two 6-pointers. We made it very well and very fast through the turns and twists through the 1-7-1-6-1, but on the way to the next 6, I lost her briefly and she started to go into the #5 tunnel as we threaded past. Now, I could see her feet and they didn't touch the tunnel. By Snooker rules, if they had, I would've had to complete the #5 instead of the 6, and on this course, this would also have meant that we couldn't get a Super-Q because I already knew what all the other dogs in our class had done. We could still have gotten a regular Q, but we already have 6 regular Snooker Qs (compare to our 1 Jumper, 1 Gambler, 3 Standard, and 6 pairs), so who cares.

SOOOO I called her hard and she pulled back (what a good, responsive dog!) and made it onto the #6 teeter, but the judge whistled us off anyway. I asked why, and apparently Tika hit the tunnel with her nose as I called her off (at least, after judge's brief explanation and what other people told me afterwards), which meant that she had touched the tunnel, which meant that I had to complete the tunnel. So I suppose that even if I had known that she had touched the tunnel with her nose (which I didn't) and even if I had know that that was the same as touching with a paw (which I didn't), it wouldn't have done me any good to do the tunnel anyway.

In retrospect, I wonder--if she had brushed the tunnel running BY it on the way to #6, would she have had to complete it? Or does the touch apply only to the opening? You'd think after 10 years I'd have figured out all the nuances of Snooker rules, but there's always some new twist...

SOOOOOO moving to Sunday's Snooker: For the first time in probably a dozen Snooker competitions, we were actually not last or next to last but about halfway down the order, but I could already see that we had to complete at least a 6-6-6 opening to hope for a Super-Q. This would be a speed course as WELL as a handling course, because the distances from the 1s to the 6s were very long AND you had to threadle around and among several obstacles to complete the 1-6-1-6-1-6 sequence. Even some excellent dogs and handlers weren't able to make it through without mishap. The closing wasn't an obvious one, either, not a smooth flow; had a couple of sharp turns to nonobvious obstacles with traps. I saw several people make a sharp turn from the #3 weaves to the #4 Aframe and instead push their dog into the incorrect tunnel underneath the Aframe, for example.

To do the three-6 opening, I had to leave Tika at the start line in front of the first #1 red jump and walk ALLLLL the way to the far side of the field to prepare for her to run to me across the #1 and past a couple of other obstacles and then turn her sharply 90 degrees and push her ahead of me into the tunnel. The first miracle was that she stayed while I led out. The second miracle was that she blasted straight towards me, not knocking the first bar (which she sometimes does when I'm so far ahead of her) and not even glancing at the other obstacles. And I spun and sent her to the #6 and we were on our way. My stress was so high, although I was trying to remain calm (remember how getting stressed about super-Qs has been causing my brain to shut down entirely time after time), that I missed a front cross that I meant to do, which meant that I had to *pull* her past an obvious obstacle instead of being able to run with her past it, and she did it perfectly without even slowing down.

And then, to my amazement, we were through the three sixes and into our closing sequence and the Super-Q was mine to win or lose! She did the #2 jump with a wrap to turn her 180 degrees without knocking the bar and blasted beautifully into the #3 6-pole weaves, which takes her just over a second to complete--at which point I realized that I had no idea where we were supposed to go next. And I came to a comlete standstill, brain frozen, looking around me for what made sense, and none of it did. And, true to form, as soon as I stopped giving clear instructions, Tika jumped up on me (and grabbed at my shirt). I'm not positive whether it was the jumping or the grabbing that got me whistled off (you're not allowed to make contact with your dog during a run although "incidental contact" is OK), but that dang Super-Q escaped me once again (and it would've been 2nd place, by the way) and, of course, it was the sharp turn to the #4 Aframe *behind* me where we were supposed to go. Sigh.

Our other moments of brain freeze and of self-recrimination came in the two Gambles; on Saturday we picked a nice opening and exectued it perfectly and had the 2nd-highest opening points (this isn't CPE, now, this is USDAA, where some of the people competing have often been in the top-10 nationally in Gambling in several different years), got the first hard part of the gamble, again like last weekend, a turn away from you to the opposite direction, and then I couldn't push her out over a jump that was right in front of her dagnabbit, a stupid issue that could be fixed but just a LITTLE bit more training and I know I need to work on that and I haven't been! And we fell apart completely in Sunday's Gamble, which was first thing in the morning; our opening was sloppy because I felt that my legs wouldn't move (I think they were frozen; wimpy californian numbs up in 40-degree weather), and we had bobble after bobble. Worst was right near the end of the opening, when I ventured in among the gamble obstacles to get some points--normally I stay away from there, because (a) if you knock a gamble bar in your opening, you negate the gamble, and (b) if you take ANY two gamble obstacles in a row, you negate the gamble--but I had a nice plan that had a fairly straight line into the gamble tunnel and back out without going anywhere near any other gamble obstacles. But because I'd been lagging her so much in the opening, I raced way ahead of her while she was in the tunnel to get back out to where I wanted to be, AND because I wasn't working her carefully, she came straight out of the tunnel (instead of bearing left towards me) and took the first jump in the gamble, thereby negating our gamble anyway, and then I was so flustered that when the whistle blew I barely got her over the first jump and she didn't even carry out to the blankety tunnel at all, so we didn't even practice the gamble well.

To add insult to injury, the judge commented to the group later that so many people had Qed on that gambler's course that she hoped headquarters didn't get on her case about it. (USDAA tries to keep the difficulty level such that it *is* a challenge to Q, whereas CPE, by comparison, says "we're happy if all the dogs Q", although the challenge level does rise the higher you go.)

Our home away from home.

The dogs monitor mom's camera activity, hoping that it will end up involving either food or frisbees.

Just Our Usual Run-of-the-Mill Unclean Courses

In Pairs Relay on Saturday, Tika knocked a bar, but again (since it's time-plus-faults scoring) she and her partner were plenty fast enough to earn a Q, although not place with the 5-point bar fault. In Standard on Saturday, she stayed at the start line, got her dogwalk up contact, but knocked *two* bars; just as in last weekend's Standard, I could take pride in the fact that we didn't go offcourse like more than half the other competitors, but no Q. In Standard on Sunday, she stayed at the start line, got her dogwalk up contact, *and* left all the bars up--but here's the kicker: The table was immediately after the dogwalk. I know from experience that, for some reason, whenever the table's after a contact and if I dont' get ahead of her (while she's waiting with 2-feet-on, 2-feet-off on the contact) so that I'm already moving and pushing towards the table, she turns back to me on the approach to the table and we earn a 5-point refusal. So I've PLANNED for this. I know EXACTLY how I'm going to do this...and then the dang dog stops two feet from the end of the dogwalk, not 2-on, 2-off! Argh! I don't want to go on until she's done it correctly, so I give her the Touch command once--she takes a step and stops. I say it again--and she jumps off the dogwalk and gets between me and the table. All I can do is turn and push as hard as I can--and as she approaches the table, she spins back towards me just before jumping on the table--and earns a 5-point refusal. Crap crap crap. As so many times before, "I can take pride in the fact that we weren't one of the >60% who Eed (offcoursed) on that course. In fact, the fault rate was so high that we actually were in 5th place, just narrowly missing a 4th-place ribbon taken by another dog who also had faults (this is rare in Masters) but who probably hadn't wasted time on the dogwalk down contact.

Jumping for Joy

OK, so now I can talk about the really good stuff. Sunday's Jumpers course looked, at first, like it had tricky bits, but as I walked it, I became convinced that it was actually a good course for our skill set. Indeed--although Tika stood up at the start line and was poised to go despite another 3-jump leadout--we zoomed through the course without a flaw and got several compliments on our run afterwards. We ended up with a Q in 4th place of 18 dogs, which in this crowd I'm extremely pleased with. We were less than 2 seconds behind the first place dog; we might have been able to squeeze another second out on one turn that I deliberately allowed to be wide to avoid calling her sharply over a jump and risking knocking it.

That Steeplechase thing

Steeplechase is unusual in the dog-agility world in that (a) it's a national qualifier (CPE doesn't have national qualifiers, by comparison; in USDAA, only the Grand Prix and DAM team tournament are also national qualifiers), (b) it has a qualifying round on one day, in which only 30% of the dogs Q (compared to, say, the Grand Prix where all dogs are competing against a minimum standard and in theory they could all Q), (c) it has a 2nd round on Sunday for qualifying dogs (none of the other events have 2nd rounds) which is popular to watch because of the speed and skill of those top 30%, and (d) the top finishers in round 2 actually get cash prizes (only event in agility that does so).

Once again, this was a tough crowd. I can't list everyone, but we're competing directly against Nancy Gyes and Panic--Nancy who has been on four (?) World Cup teams with two of her dogs, winning international events, multiple-times Grand Prix, Steeplechase, and DAM national winner, etc. etc; Susan Cochran and Aiko the wonder-border-collie (the one who should've been mating with Boost's mom in which case I'd have never gotten one of the puppies) and winner of the 2004 National Grand Prix (or was it Steeplechase); others from our around California who are in an elite group of consistently high performers and hard to beat.

There were 31 dogs in Tika's height class, so 9 would Qualify for the nationals and then go on to the second round. It was a tough, fast course in which we knocked a bar early, and my heart sank--Steeplechase is another time-plus-faults run, so if we could make up the 5-point fault by running 5 seconds faster than other dogs, we'd be OK, and there's no question that Tika is fast--and then we had two bobbles where she almost went in the wrong direction and I had to call her back, which wasted some of that precious time. Then, going over the last bar, I heard it rattle loudly behind us and I knew we hadn't made it. One bar, sometimes; two bars, never. But as I was congratulating her on a job well done (she is SO good at paying attention and not slowing down to do it), I looked back at the last jump--and by some miracle the bar had not dropped.

As it turned out, I could "take pride in the fact that we were not among the roughly half of the dogs who offcoursed", AND we had "only" five faults, so we were in 8th place out of the 9 qualifiers. YAHOO! we're Qed in two fo the 3 events for nationals; only DAM to go.

On Sunday, we watched Nancy and her 22" dog, Ace, win the 22" group--and go completely offcourse with her other 22", International champion, national champion dog Riot on the most-challenging part of the course, a turn into a straight tunnel followed by an immediate 180 onto an Aframe that, because of the course layout, you could handle by doing one of the following:

• Try to cross in front of the dog as they were turning to go into the tunnel, but you had to be really fast to avoid getting in the dog's way or pushing them onto the back side of the Aframe
• Try to cross in front of the dog *after* the tunnel, but you had to be able to send your dog out over a jump and trust them to turn into you and come into the tunnel while you raced for the other end
• Wait for the dog to come out of the tunnel and then move in behind them and flip them to the right away from you and up the Aframe.

Nancy tried the 2nd with Riot and Riot didn't make the tunnel entrance, instead going up the frame. Not sure which she did with Ace.

So with Tika, having walked all alternatives and deciding that I couldn't possibly make those crosses, I tried the wait-and-flip method. Well, she blasted out of the tunnel, I moved in and signaled a turn, and somewhere in the ensuing melee I stepped on her, whereup she yelped (excitedly) and turned in to me and danced at my feet but my insistent pushing and commands apparently counted as "direction" and she made it up the Aframe--and thank goodness in teh Steeplechase they don't have refusals, it's just time wasted on a really fast course. The rest went without incident AND (another miracle occurred) all her bars stayed up!

So we had a bobble. Nancy and Panic had a bobble whre Panic almost veered off course onto the wrong obstacle but Nancy called him back, so they had a bobble. Of course I as usual I had my video camera with me and never thought about it all weekend, so I don't have it on film to try to determine whose bobble took longer. But, as it turned out, we could take pride in the fact that we were one of only 3 26" dogs who didn't have faults or E--so I am absolutely thrilled beyond belief that my dog took 3rd in a Steeplechase qualifier! Sometimes things are good. And I got a check that actually paid for my entry fee into the Steeplechase. :-)

Overall

Tika handles so nicely and pays such close attention; she has truly matured as an agility dog. I just wish I could get over this one-fault-always thing we seem to have going. In the 10 classes we ran, even with faults or screwups, she placed in the top half in 8, the top third in 5 of those, and earning placement ribbons in 2 of those. It's not the first-place ribbon I keep wanting to earn in this crowd, but I'm very pleased with the results.

On the Road Again again again...

Well, we're off for another USDAA weekend. And then--nothing until March. Not because there's nothing available...we could be doing tons of agility...but because I'm trying to cut expenses AND spend more time at home and/or doing other stuff. We'll see whether we can avoid going stir crazy for five whole weeks. Argh. By that time, Boost could be doing weaving poles and contacts!

--Or not.

I'm still working the 2-pole entry but refining it. I've added two additional poles right next to the first 2 poles (so they function as one pole) but am realizing that I've been tossing the toy too far out in front to get a really excellent wrap, so I'm trying to work the arc around the entry and tossing the toy right beyond the 2nd pole rather than way beyond the 2nd pole. I'm working her on my right and left, standing and running (me, I mean), trying to vary the distance a bit. At the moment, our maximum distance is around 10 feet and we haven't gotten beyond a direct parallel line leading into the weaves--and at that point her accuracy drops way down, so I have to back up a little in the arc around the entrance and work that way just a little more slowly.

I just reread Susan Garrett's Foundation Training workbook (a collection of articles and handouts, really, but assembled by Susan & Co for sale) articles on 2-by-2 weaves. I'd like to jump right now into moving the 2nd set of poles six inches out but I think I want to work that entry a bit more.

This weekend

will be Jake's first without any entries--since last January, that is, which is where he rebelled about not having any classes to run. We'll see whether he's more relaxed about it having done only one or 2 a day since then.

Tika has six, count them, six, runs on Saturay: one of everything normal plus a Steeplechase qualifier. I'd like to get the Steeplechase Q under my belt so I know we're qualified for Nationals in that, then I have to worry only about Dog Agility Masters Team.

Only four runs on Sunday, plus Round 2 of the Steeplechase if she makes it.

But the weekend includes two Snookers, so if we could get another Super-Q this weekend (mantra to self: Don't get cocky. Don't get cocky.), that would be our Snooker Master title. And two Gamblers, also, AND two Jumpers and of course we desperately need any of those that we can get.

Have I been running Tika through her jumping drills? Noooooo. Have I been practicing gambling? Nooooo. Gail Mahood is running a gamblers practice up in Woodside this afternoon and I'm invited, but I have so much to do (like--work to pay the bills) including packing the car that the 45-minute drive one-way is a bit daunting, and it'll probably be in ugly commute traffic on the way home. I'd really like to go, though.

Camping out

I'm so tired of setting up the whole tent thing for me and the dogs. Lay out the ground cloth. Unroll the tent, insert poles, set it up, stake it down, add rain fly, stake it down. Haul in the air mattress, put batteries in the pump and get it going. Unload ensulite pads for me and for the dogs and lay them out. Lay out dog beds and arrange space for boost's crate (yup, even in the tent; I'm trying to be consistent). Haul in my clothing duffel. Top off the air mattress with the manual air pump. Disassemble pumps & store them. Haul in the mattress pad, sheets, pillow, down comforter (I decided a while back that I slept better with it made up like a bed than in my mummy bag, and often warmer, too), make up bed. Dig out tent light, insert batteries, attach it. Then, the next morning--do it all in reverse.

I finally landed a thought that had been burbling around in my head for a while--I'm going to try sleeping in my van this weekend. With all but 3 seats removed lately, there's plenty of room for me to stretch out behind the driver's seat towards the back of the van. Minivans don't have a *lot* of room, though--everything not involved in sleeping will have to come out or be neatly stashed, as opposed to the usual jumble of inbetween-unpacking-and-repacking stuff. I'm not entirely sure how the dogs will fit. There's plenty of room for one good-sized dog--say, Tika--next to my legs behind Jake's seat. Jake could probably sleep on that seat, although that means he has to curl up and can't stretch out at all. Maybe I can juryrig something by wedging stuff between him and the front passenger seat. All I can figure is that the Boost will have to sleep on the floor of the front passenger side (or on the seats if she wants, I suppose). No room for a crate, for sure.

We'll see how this works--not sure yet whether I'm going to go back to the down mummy bag or plan on wrapping myself with the down comforter. Guess I'd better decide soon.