Monday Recap and What's Next

SUMMARY: Who's anal, who ate too much of the wrong things, who needs a camera, who's doing some real hikey-climbey thing.

Who ate too much of the wrong things (at Vicon)

Spent Friday through Sunday at the 25th annual Vicon (VIsalia CONvention, although it's not a convention and this year wasn't even in Visalia, so some people are calling it Sarcon because it was in Saratoga this year). It's a giant 3-day sleepover party for a bunch of college friends who have somehow turned into programmers, tech writers, parents of teenagers, VPs of engineering, PHDs in psychology, executive administrators, retired Captains, and other sorts of things that you wouldn't expect to see at a sleepover party.

Except this year, because it was closer to home, most of the weenies showed up only for Saturday afternoon and evening. Only half a dozen of us slept over, even though it was only 20 minutes from our assorted houses. It's the spirit of the thing, really. Felt kinda lonely Saturday and Sunday morning from the usual 20 people for breakfast. But it was still fun and something like 34 people (including half a dozen small children) made an appearance at least briefly sometime during the weekend, so it was pretty successful anyway. I woke up to a stunning swath of bougainvillea both mornings. What could be better? (I slept on a lawn chair; one guy slept in a tent.)


No dogs at all--TMH Merle Girls stayed home with Renter--but coming out of the kitchen on Saturday, trying to negotiate the small children's toyfield, I almost tripped over this:

The hard part was eating healthy. We had robust healthy breakfasts.

Vegetarian lunches.

Hamburgers and thickly mayoed potato salad for dinners. Plus handy snacks.

And dessert. The cakes arrived with no phrasing, so I was volunteered to add appropriate messages.

Cameras

After a weekend spent mostly trying to take photos in difficult lighting situations of mostly moving objects with a basic point-and-shoot that doesn't like difficult lighting or moving objects, I really really miss having a real camera. Took my borrowed one for a few photos, but battery is getting low. The difference in photos was obvious in most cases. Sighhhh. So what to do about... [ominous fwahhhh]...the Glacier Point hike?

Hiking

It's T minus 5 days. Less. In 5 days at this time I should be on the trail going up. To some AWE. SOME. VIEWS. Need camera. Will figure out something.

This weekend, to prepare for the hike, in addition to my healthy diet regimen, I walked for 2.5 miles around the neighborhood--no hills, but inclined streets--on Saturday, another 1.5 on Sunday, and hauled tons and tons of heavy gear from my house to my car (kinda like dog agility, only not as furry) and in to the party site and helped set up and rearrange and so on all weekend, for a total of about 6 miles worth of steps saturday and not sure how much Sunday, since my pedometer somehow reset itself.

The neighborhood is fancier than my neighborhood. Neo-plantation homes, fancy shrubberies, huge lawns, like that.

This 3-bedroom, 2-bath house is for sale. How much do you think they want?Did you guess $1.7 million? (Details here.) THIS is a depressed housing market? Sure, because it says that average listing price is $2.2M! Life's rough.

Here is some cool information about the trail to Glacier Point, with some photos and a link (at beginning of article) to a topo map of the trail and more photos; thanks, Dad, for the link.

That anal thing

Got home yesterday evening. Middle of the night, Tika starts licking her under-tail vicinities vehemently. Crap--could it be anal gland again? Have been trying to keep an eye on it. Will have to wait till after sleep and breakfast. By then, however, Tika had popped it open by dragging the afflicted vicinity across the hard soil. Very muddy. Bloody. Gross, actually. So I cleaned it up, applied warm compresses, applied ointment. Will repeat 2-3 times daily for a week. Plus MORE PRUNES!

OK, fans, that's all the excitement I can handle for today. And I am just not in the mood for rotating those photos because Blogger's upload is not behaving itself and I just don't have the time or patience. Turn your head sideways. I'm sure they'll work just fine that way.

I have many many photos to post for the weekend; will do later. Maybe much later.

Just Another Day

SUMMARY: A little sore, a little agility, no conditioning hikes whatsoever.

Work deadlines. Trying to take a 3-day weekend; not going to make it. No walkies at all.

After yesterday's hike, my hip muscles are sore, of all things. Legs and knee are fine. No recurrence of toe blister from last weekend.

Today they cancelled our usual evening class in lieu of world team coaching & practice. Invited us to an earlier class, but I was too determined to try to get this document update done before bed, so didn't want to go early.

Did a little bit of agility in the yard: A little bit of "out"/gamble work with Boost, and stopping FORWARD on the teeter instead of slued around to face me. Both dogs--blasting in a huge oval between 2 tunnels & trying not to knock the jump in between. Man, it's only at 20" and both dogs are bringing it down! Lead-out pivots, start-line stays, send-and-runs, sharp angles over jumps... Sounds like a lot, but did only a little of each with each dog. Plus the usual weave games.

Might or might not be on the web this weekend. Annual 3-day party! Dogs will go stir crazy here without me. Renter plays with them a bit, but not much. And I still need to get out every morning on my own & get in a couple of miles.

Live, love, laugh.

Sleep seems like a better plan at the moment.

Dogs Get To Use Their Four-Wheel Drive

SUMMARY: Hiking up Coyote Peak.

Today's conditioning hike, T minus 10 days and counting to our Glacier Point hike, is 4 miles round trip and 950 feet elevation gain.

I decide not to drive 45-50 minutes to join the Sierra Clubbers for a mere 450 feet elevation gain; we have bigger game in mind! And that is Coyote Peak in Santa Teresa County Park, just 15-20 minutes from home. Less poison oak, too, from what I remember of Pulgas Ridge, which is important because the Taj MuttHall Merle Girls are coming along on this one. I'll miss the companionship of the Wednesday Night group, but will probably catch up with them again next time as they come closer to my part of the world.

There's Coyote Peak. Our goal: the radio towers.

The trail goes pretty much steeply up the whole way. Dogs don't care. LET'S GO HUMAN MOM!

Ah, the joys of hiking with dogs and no trash cans anywhere. Plus expired camera batteries.

Hey--we made it! Just over an hour, just under 2 miles, and 950 feet up up up. Stopped for breathers several times and once for a nice big drink. Who cares if the temps are maybe just now dipping below 80? We are studly hikers!

We catch some sunsetty clouds on the way back down.

View all 40 photos, plus a marked-up map, with comments about our adventure.

The Insurance Thing is NOT Finished After All

SUMMARY: Insurance companies are not your friends.

I finally received my final check from the insurance company a week or so ago and started looking more seriously at cameras and lenses. But wait--my annual renewal notice just arrived--

I'm trying hard not to be brokenhearted, but really-- Travelers Insurance pays me $1400 for a $2500 loss and now my premium goes up by $350/year for the next 5 years? This = $1750! How can this be right? Thought I could maybe afford a replacement camera but guess I can't. Have to save the insurance money to pay insurance premiums.

The lady on the phone was sympathetic but explained, "We're insuring you for a total loss of your home, not smaller losses." She said that (a) I lose the no-loss discount AND (b) I get a penalty for making a claim! Isn't that double jeopardy?

I haven't made any kind of claim in maybe 25 years. And this was someone ELSE breaking into my car, committing a crime against me! And *I'm* paying a penalty?

It is true that my policy says that I get a discount, but it doesn't in fact say how much, nor does it spell out a penalty for making a claim. So I had NO CLUE that it would cost me that much--and in fact it never occurred to me to ask (doh! you'd think at my age I should think of these things with insurance companies)--but it bothers me immensely that the insurance person with whom I dealt never even hinted that it would cost me more in the long run than I would ever get out of the claim.

Here's the catch--now no one else (so far with a couple of samples) wants to insure me except at about twice that much because--ka-ching!--I made a claim! For an amount less than 2 years of premiums!

Today I feel more violated than when the original break-in occurred. Then, I cried a bit here and there. Sometimes these random acts of evil fall on your doorstep and what can you do. Today, I bawled my heart out. Then threw up. Then found that I couldn't do anything for about an hour and a half after the [long] conversation with the insurance company. Couldn't read. Couldn't work. Couldn't think. Couldn't blog. Nothing. Shaking. Betrayed. Stunned. Angry. Shocked. Hopes for a new camera dashed. This is not a random act of evil; this is a systematic, institutionalized screwing of customers.

The other thing that really hurts is--I spent SO many hours getting the claim processed, for which I will never be reimbursed. And now I have to spend more hours checking with other insurance companies and/or trying to get this claim removed from the record, if that's at all possible. Hours for which I will also not be reimbursed.

And no camera. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm sure I'll think of something eventually.

THANK YOU SO MUCH TRAVELERS INSURANCE. Funny that just last night I was commenting to my renter that Consumer Reports rated them the lowest in customer satisfaction for homeowners insurance, and I said I wasn't sure why, mostly I was satisfied with how they handled my claim. Today--well.

Keep Moving Those Legs

SUMMARY: Dogs might not be climbing Glacier Point, but dangit if I'm moving my butt, they are, too!

We are all ensuring that we're in excellent shape for the 9-mile (14.5 km) round trip, 3000-feet (914 m) elevation gain Glacier Point Trail hike--11 days (11 d) to go! Even if the dogs aren't going, you KNOW that they want to support my effort in every way possible.

Yesterday's conditioning hike: Tried to get to Postal Annex--a mile away--and back again in under half an hour. The mission: Mail my Bay Team USDAA Regional entry, with check. The reasons: (a) Not supposed to leave envelopes with checks in your own personal mailbox (hence to PA). (b) Need to keep putting those daily miles in for GP**. (c) Sister & Bro-in-law coming to take me away for dinner (hence, half hour).

**For you other USDAA-heads: NOT Grand Prix; Glacier Point!

Uphill? Suurrre! The condos near the shopping center have rolling 4-foot lawn berms, at least half a dozen. So we got at least cumulative 48 feet (15m) elevation gain! We rock!

Photos? None! Were you paying attention? Hurrying!

Discovery: With dogs, even jogging across all the streets and not letting them check every newsworthy tree, cannot do it in under half an hour. Hard to believe. I mean, we hustled! Closer to 40 minutes.

Today's conditioning hike: Dogs came with. 1.5-mile circuit around Oakridge Mall because I needed to get my monthly supply of healthy, nutritious Diet Coke at the famed French department store, Target (pron: tar-ZHAY). (One prior such urban hike, with map, here.)

Uphill? You betcha! 77 steps up the parking garage at the Sears end (and back down); 79 steps up the parking garage at the Tarzhay end (and back down). Must be at least 100 feet cumulative elevation gain!

Photos? None! Camera safely ensconced on my desk! Where it can't accidentally be used to, say, take photos!

Discovery: Squirrels who live in holes in perimeter berms make an incredible shriek-ping racket when dangerous canine types come into view.

Tonight it's dinner with other chunks of the family. Tomorrow night the Wed. Night Sierra Club group is off to Pulgas Ridge, which not only allows dogs, but has an actual (smallish) off-leashey hikey area! It's just...it's about a 50-minute drive there. Or should I just hit Santa Teresa Park again on my own, on-leash? (Dogs, I mean.)

Tune in next time for the exciting next episode of TMH, in which we are probably STILL not taking advantage of our 6 weeks off from competition to hone our keen agility knife [note to self: metaphor falls apart here] and instead are doing other undoubtedly worthwhile things.

Hiking Among Other People's Dogs

SUMMARY: Blurry photos of the day, with exercise.

Here's the plan for Aug 22:
* Meet friend in Hayward (40 minutes, elevation ~10 feet) at 6:30 a.m.
* Drive to Yosemite Valley (4 hours, elevation 4000 feet).
* Hike up the trail to Glacier Point (4 and a half miles, elevation 7000 feet). (It's called "four mile trail" but it's longer than that.)
* Hike back down.
* Drive home.

That's dang ambitious for moi, up 3000 feet and back down in one day. I was tricked into agreeing to it by another dog agility person whose name we wouldn't mention if it didn't happen to also be Ellen. The dogs will stay at home.

You want to know what 3000 feet straight up a granite cliff looks like? Here's a photo from Glacier Point looking down into the valley where the trail starts. That's a lonnnnng way.

With this in mind, on Friday evening I walked a brisk 4 miles around the neighborhood with the dogs--no uphill/downhill, though. Then yesterday hiked at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park (hopefully not one that will be closed due to budget crisis) in the Santa Cruz Mountains with 2 other friends. About 6-7 miles round trip, cumulative elevation gain about 1000 feet (and back down again). It was a perfect day for a hike among the redwoods, but unfortunately, dogs weren't welcome on the trails we wanted to do. Fortunately, they were welcome on some trails, so I got in a few shots of dogs.

With my crappy point and shoot, which doesn't do well in low light (can you say redwood forest?) and particularly not with motion (can you say dogs?). But here ya go anyhoo.

Borzois. Turns out my friend's son was once a student of the borzoi owner. Small world.


Labrador. They zoomed past, playing tug, to distract the lab from the borzois.

Cattle dog. Following along with a group of people on horseback. Didn't matter whether it was trail or water; faithful doggie.

And finally, an eager Siberian Husky who had better things to do than posing, or even slowing down.

Then there's me at the obligatory redwood forest cutaway with historic dates. Left hand, birth of Christ. Right hand, 1066 and the Norman Invasion. Didn't have another limb that would reach out to the early 20th century.

The full photo essay (about 40 photos, with captions, crawdads, snakes, and more trees), here.

Weave pole fakeout

SUMMARY: Who's doing the weaves well is not whom I expected.

Tika is a pretty good weave pole dog; has been since she started competing. Finds the entry. Stays in all the way through. Recently she's missed some entries and has popped out some.

Boost, of course, if you've been riding along with TMH, has had an ongoing weave pole disaster. Misses entries. Pops out. Not so bad lately (again--hope it stays fixed) but still not as reliable as Tika.

So we've been doing weave entry and pop-out drills. Guess whom I can't get to pop out for nuthin'? Boost! Most I got was when I ran alongside her, turned abruptly in the opposite direction, and threw the toy next to her. She slowed wayyyy down but stayed in the poles to the end! So how come she pops in competition?! And guess who *is* popping out in several cases? Tika! Dang! What's with that?

OK, so who's been making even difficult weave entries from the right over a jump aimed in various directions alongside the poles? Boost again! While Tika shleps into the nearest pole the FIRST time in a drill and then does her usual good work the SECOND time.

Bah. Will never figure out dogs.

Some things I'm doing to try pop-outs:
*Drop toy next to dog
*Throw toy ahead
*Wiggle toy next to dog invitingly
*Run with dog then dart off to side.
*Run with dog then stop suddenly.
* " then drift slowly to side
* " then slowly come to halt
* " then do a pirouette and keep going
* " then turn in opposite direction
* Put dog into weaves then run to far side of yard.
* " then run to far side of a jump, tunnel, etc.
* Stop suddenly and say "Yayyy! Good dog!"
* Anything else I can think of.
* Here are more ideas I posted last year, also read in the comments.

Fair is Fair

SUMMARY: TMH takes a break from the TMH dogs and visits the county fair.

Have cameras, will travel. To the really really scaled-down urban Santa Clara County Fair. A mere shadow of what it was 20 years ago, barely hanging on by its fingernails. County supervisors want to sell off the land for housing and/or business. We seem to be the only county in california that can't put on a successful Fair. This year, parking and admission were free, and STILL almost no one showed up. Sighhh--

Apparently dogs were allowed onsite, as we saw several on leash. But the chaos with Tika and the livestock would have been--uh--distracting. So they stayed home. But plenty of doggishness going on anyway!

We arrived at 11:30, to discover that "dog demos" occurred from 10-11:00. I had spent 20 minutes trying to find anything at all of use on their web site. They told me that (a) there is a fair, and the dates, and (b) the concert times. NOTHING else, NO...THING. I wonder why no one comes to the fair?? Had I known about the dog demos... well... So onward.

Most of the goats and sheepies looked like dogs in their x-pens: Snugged up against the side, keeled over, snoozing their little heads off. But this goat couldn't get enough attention. He liked his face and throat scritched exactly the same way that Tika does! And wouldn't let me go for hours! The beast!

It was kind of like agility--people walking around with handfuls of ribbons. Except in their pockets.

At the midway, dogs of diverse breeds hung around everywhere!




And there was dog food aplenty, too.



Whoaaaaaa! Now here's a probably non-dog-related unexpected dead celebrity encounter! Do you think that this helped them attract more kiddie customers?

In the building containing all the various student's submissions in zillions of categories, I particularly liked this prize-winning container garden:

And here we see that my sisters with their Very Large Dogs(tm) as reported in an earlier post do not in fact have a monopoly on riding in style.

Finally, last thing before we left, we met this gorgeous critter who, it turns out, is NOT in fact Boost. His mother was [something like] an Aussie/Border Collie mix and his father was [something like] a Kelpie/Cattle Dog mix. This would have been my PERFECT next dog, absolutely perfect!

Blue merle. Mixed breed. Smallish (a bit smaller than Boost). Short hair. Apparently extremely energetic and driven, based on how he was described (although here he just wanted to keel over and snooze his little head off, probably after worrying about all those unherded goats and cows and sheepies all day). What are the odds I'd find something like that if/when I'm ready for the next one?? But this gives me hope that he/she might be there--someday--

Meanwhile, if you'd like to peruse ALL the County Fair photos, including piggies and fun with photoshop, with captions, go here.

Don't Get Me Wrong, I Love the Game

SUMMARY: --but sometimes--

I've been trying hard this year not to spend time bemoaning my failures in agility and instead celebrating the successes and forming plans to overcome our weaknesses. Boost and Tika are so much fun to run. I love their speed and their drive and the way their eyes light up and their ears perk and their tails rise when we're out running in the ring. (Compared to my first dog, Remington, who loved it--as long as we didn't do too much of it or as long as I wasn't too stressed about it; I never knew whether I'd have the happy fast dog or the slow distracted dog--.)

But, OK, sometimes this overwhelms me: Tika has run 624 runs in USDAA at the masters level (including P3 and tournament); she has earned a blue First Place ribbon a paltry 11 times, 5 of those since moving into P3 this spring. If we were a major league pitcher, we'd be SO outta there.

And so, sometimes, I feel like this (click image for larger size):


[Source: http://comics.com/peanuts (Aug 2, 2009; originally printed Jul 29, 1962)]

I'm sure that I don't work as hard at it as those who do win. Probably not as hard as Charlie Brown practices. So I probably shouldn't ever feel like this--but sometimes I do. There ya go.

So Far So Good

SUMMARY: Even Boost does well in class.

Last night, things look good. Even Boost did some difficult gambles--including one that no one else managed (didn't try that one with Tika). Even some with weaves at quite a distance with me dashing in and out among obstacles. Want no excuses from her at the next trial about popping out of weaves!

She ran well all evening. A joy.

Tika was happy and energetic, no sign of slowing down or soreness at all. Still practicing at 22" instead of 26".

Life is good.

Titles, tongues, trekking, tunes, with photos

SUMMARY: Still practicing terseness with assorted updates.

Titles

This arrived today. Woot! 50 Tournament legs at Championship level, highest possible tournament title. Never thought we'd never get there. But now already have 8 at Performance level after 10 tries.

Tongues

Exercise the beasts in warm weather and see what hangs out.

How does such a small face contain such a gigantic tongue?

In case you always wondered: The inside of a panting dog.

Tika has a natural paw-tuck when lying down. Usually when I try a photo, she leaps up to check me out.

Trekking

Left the Merle Girls at home and took myself for another 6-7 mile Sierra club hike with ~500 feet elevation gain at Rancho San Antonio. The hills were richly colored with this brilliant red foliage. Yeah, well, poison oak.

We don't often see horses on these trails, but this one passed us twice, trotting past the ubiquitous brilliant red foliage.

Air was a bit hazy/smoggy, but still had a nice view of the blimp hangar and wind tunnels at Moffett Field and of the south end of San Francisco Bay.

Looking down towards a section of trail on the dry hillside, probably the one on which we came up. And the requisite rich red foliage in the foreground.

Tunes

Bad enough I make up bad lyrics when I'm awake. Last night dreamed I was in agility class and we were discussing the bad traffic coming home from the trial. (This is the only relationship that this topic has to dogs. It's a stretch but it's what I've got.) I said I had no trouble. Friend said it was awful just trying to get onto the freeway, how did you get around the on-ramp? I burst into song (to the tune of I'm Getting Married In The Morning):

We're stuck in traffic on the on ramp.
We're stuck in traffic going slow!
Pull out the stops! But let's watch for cops!
'Cause we're passing traffic going slow.

She looked at me blankly. I said, "Haven't you ever seen Mary Poppins?" which woke me up immediately, because of course it wasn't Mary Poppins, it was My Fair Lady. And it stunned me that the lyrics actually worked in real life, too, not just Dreamworld.

Weaves. Terseness.

SUMMARY: wha's'up?

Practicing being concise, succinct, terse. Short blog posts. Yes. Sure.

Practicing weaves. Tika, who doesn't usually pop out in competition, I can get to pop out many times. Boost, who too often pops out in competition, I can't trick into popping no way no how.

Practicing serpentines. I need to practice (after all these years) to be in the right place. Boost needs to practice coming in & going out at sharp angles. I think we're both doing better.

No bar-knocking drills so far in the last week. Need to get back to that; bars are coming down again.

No competition again until Augst 29! Yay! Boo! Yay! Boo! Yay!

Why Agility?

SUMMARY: My sport of choice, but why?

Many Muddy Paws passed along this topic from another blogger and made her own post on the subject. What got you into your sport of choice...why that one, why not another type of dog sport? What else have you tried, but don't care for? What haven't you tried but would like to? 

 Sometime in my teens, I decided that I wanted to train an Obedience Champion dog someday. When I got my first dog, Amber, I taught her come, sit, heel--but I had no real concept at all of how demanding obedience standards were. Not that it mattered; when I signed up my mixed-breed dog with an AKC obedience class, they told me essentially that, if I wanted an obedience champion, I should get a purebred dog. I gave up on that idea for many years.

When Remington came along, I took up the competitive obedience thing again; Mixed Breed Dog Club of America and UKC (and others?) provided same titles with same rules for non-AKC dogs. Learned a lot. Took private lessons from an instructor with a lot of successful students. Remington did very well. 

But I didn't find it exciting, really, or particularly active, although the ideas for training intrigued me. Practice was dull dull dull. And, the more I found out about the rigid SUBJECTIVE performance standards, the less thrilled I became. But I kept with the training with that "obedience champion" goal in mind until I broke my foot in early 1997. 

 I loved teaching him tricks; taught him everything I could think of, bought books and taught him more; tested out of "acting" level 1 and went into level 2 where we already knew several of the tricks. Tricks are a great crowd pleaser and turned out to be handy when he had to spend a lot of time at the doggie hospital for his cancer. Made him popular there and gave him something to do besides worry. We took a couple of 6-week sessions in scent tracking. Oh, mannnnn talk about dull practice! Although it's fun to see the dog start to get the idea and follow a track through a field, practice was: Find a seldom-used field (around here? tough). Spend about 10 minutes setting up a track. A couple of minutes following the track. Now, if the field is big enough, spend 10 minutes setting up another track. A minute or two following it. And then you're out of field. And not supposed to use the same field again for a week. Bleah. 

 
When I broke my foot, a friend arranged the loan of a sled-racing training cart with wheels. Remington was less than thrilled and preferred to have someone else do the pulling. 

The year before my broken foot, I had started competing in agility. Just 6 trials that year. As my foot healed, I discovered that I wanted to spend time doing agility. Never went back for more obedience lessons, tracking lessons, or "acting" lessons. 

I like agility because it involves both of us acting as a team at all times on the course, it's exciting, it's physically active and calorie-burning for both of us, it's mentally challenging for both of us, I can practice in my yard (now that I have enough equipment and almost enough space), judging is largely objective, not subjective [mostly], and all of my dogs have seemed more than eager to do it any time, anywhere. I've watched flyball, dock diving, freestyle (dance), rally-O, disc dog, herding, and lure coursing, and have read up quite a bit on all of these sports. 

•  Obedience and rally-O work you as a team and you can practice in your yard, but none of the rest (for me and my dogs, anyway). 
•  Tricks fill several of the items but not the physically active or calorie-burning bit, and "judging" is very subjective if you enter any kind of contest. 
• Dock diving and flyball are all about the dog; all the handler does is get the dog excited and then watch him go. (Sorry, fans of these sports, I know there's training involved, but really--the handlers are watchers, not participants.)
• Scent tracking--nothing there for me.
• Lure coursing: Boost will do it sometimes but sometimes not; it terrifies Tika; and it's VERY expensive for what you get IMHO. And no teamwork, no training, nuthin' except fast running for the dog.
• Disc dog: Maybe if I thought I could throw a frisbee worth beans, it would be OK, but physically it's still more about the dog and performance standards are largely subjective.
• Freestyle: Just doesn't appeal to me.
• Herding: Have had Boost on goats/sheep a few times. It is a complete blast watching the instincts guide her. If I had a lot more time and money, I'd probably pursue this just because of that. But--can't do it in my yard, not even in my city--too urban, there's just nowhere available! 

The mentally challenging part of agility is important for me; every course is different, so you're designing strategies during the walkthrough even for numbered courses. And the execution is done with your partner moving at 5 yards per second and you have to adjust on the fly as Things Happen. 

And one big thing: even after all these years, when I walk up and see an agility course with its brilliantly painted equipment in glowing rainbow colors spread out across the bright green lawn, it gives me the same Disneyland thrill and awe that hit me the first time that i ever saw an agility course, that night at Power Paws when I drove up to see what it was all about.

Antithistle Crusaders Strike Again

SUMMARY: What I do on nonagility weekends, number 33.

The native grasses in California were predominantly perennial bunch grasses, which were less inclined to flame on. Today, hillsides and meadows everywhere are predominantly tall, dry, highly flammable annual grasses such as oats and foxtails. Various groups make heroic efforts to try to preserve some of the few remaining bunch grass meadows. One effort is in yanking out the nasty invasive yellow star thistle from Los Trancos Open Space Preserve.

I've heard about these efforts for years but never tried it before; this year, I volunteered for the project and, so, got up to the alarm at 7:30 on this Saturday. OK, sure, that's better than 4:30 for dog agility, but the operative phrase here is "got up to the alarm." Bleaaaahhrrrr.

Dogs were excited, though, because 98% of the time when I get up to the alarm, it means DOG AGILITY YAYYYYY!!!! My goal was to be out the door by 8:30, showered, dressed, breakfasted, with lunch and supplies in hand. And, according to the official Taj MuttHall clock, yay!, I made it!

Had my official TMH purple leather gloves, knee pads, and my official Salinas/Monterey Agility Racing Team water bottle ready to go, so it would be almost exactly like being at an agility trial, at least as far as water bottles are concerned.

Dogs drooped miserably when I left them at home. Poor babies. But thistle would not go well with dogulouses.

...But wait--! MUTT MVR's official clock says that is is 8:41! Where did those 10 minutes vanish?

Ha ha, I always set MUTT MVR's clock ahead by 5 to 10 minutes to help me make sure to get places on time. Maybe it works. There have been no scientific studies to prove it.

I get to the open space place on time after just under an hour's drive, and we spend nearly 4 hours pulling the nasty stuff.

Now I'm home, dogs inform me that they're bored, I have photos photos photos backlogged everywhere plus am a little sleepy from getting up to the alarm bleaaaahrrrrr. So if you'd like to see more photos (about 20 total) and commentary, you will have to pop over here.

OK, Last Videos from Last Weekend, plus Standard Analysis

SUMMARY: Three Masters Standard runs: Compare and contrast.

This course was not a gimmee. From my point of view, the toughest parts were 5 to 9, 10 to 15, and 16 to 18. Hmm, that's pretty much the whole course, eh? But I divide them like that because they really presented 3 major handling issues.

From 5 to 9. Coming off the Aframe, the dog's path over #6 is toward the dogwalk, so they have to change leads to get to #7, so now they're heading for the tunnel, and now have to change leads again to get over 8 and to the dogwalk.

You could try a front cross between 6 and 7 if you could leave your dog on the Aframe and trust her to get the contact. But it's a lonnnnng way to go to get to the correct position; you need to be out beyond the North/South 80 line to have a straight line in your path from 7 to 8. So, to cover that huge distance, you're driving towards the dogwalk, which pushes the dog even harder in that direction when what you really want is for them to be turning tightly to get to #7. Some people managed it, but not many even tried.

Most of us sent to #6, hanging back so that we could run in a straight line from near the corner of the Aframe directly towards the far wing of #8, giving perhaps a bit of a serpentine cue for #7. Then rear cross 8 to get a turn to the dogwalk.

10 to 15. Here, you have to ensure that the dog goes through the tire on her way to the chute, which is a Northward push. In an ideal world, you'd like to be on the inside of the curve from 11 to 15, which means that you'd have to be in front cross position on the far side of #12 (around the 40N line) before the dog is coming out of the chute; if you're not far enough, you'll have to veer out around #12 , pulling the dog off #13.

But getting to that position is really tough given the push to #10 and the dog's speed from 10 through 11. You'd have to cover 40 feet in about 2-3 seconds--I'm not that fast! Most people with faster dogs opted, instead, to stay on the Aframe side of #12, give a serpentine cue, and rear cross 13.

16 to 18. The line from the table to the weaves is not straight. If you can leave your dog on the table while the judge is counting down 5 seconds, you could get into front cross position between 17 and 18 and get a nice smooth controlled path into the weaves.

You could also get into serp position on the Aframe side of #17. I think that either of these, if done right, would get the smoothest entry into the weaves.

Boost I don't trust to keep her elbows on the table. Tika might be OK, but I'd have to watch her carefully and not make an sudden moves or gestures or she'd be off the table in a flash. I elected instead to stay on the teeter side of #17, pull as if we were going to #14 until the dog was in line with the weave entry, and then use "left weave". Both dogs executed well, but I think it's a slower entrance than the preceding choices because it's not as obviously a semistraight line to the dogs.

Tika's Run

Tika's time was 43.75 on a standard course time of 54. We lost some time when I didn't get my line from 6 to 8 quite right and she turned the wrong way after 8. Still, it was good for 2rd place out of nine P3 22" dogs--the winner was 3 seconds faster.(3-Dog Video versions.)

Boost's Run

Boost's time was 39.96 (4 secs faster than Tika) with a SCT of 51. I expect her to be faster than Tika--in fact I expect her to be MUCH faster, so with Tika's wrong turn, their times are really disturbingly quite close to each other. The main thing with Boost is the stop on the contacts, which I'm not ready to sacrifice for glory in most cases. Not interested in Top Ten points particularly (except for fun). (3-Dog Video versions.)

Gina's Run

I include this with running contacts for comparison with littermate Boost. Tim has worked very hard on consistency; there was a long time where they weren't making a lot of contacts, but this weekend they were gorgeous. Now they just need to fix the bar-knocking thing. (Sound familiar?) And Gina moves through the course with a bit more confidence than Boost, it seems to me. Her time was an amazing 34.2ish, faster than ANY other masters or p3 dog, including Luka (in the same range) and the fabulous Sweep (36-plus). I love watching them run. (3-Dog Video versions.)

Obstacle Times

SUMMARY: Are we competitive? Are we excellent? Or are we just dawdling along?

Kathy Keats has did a lot of work over several years accruing statistics on how quickly dogs do various agility obstacles. She was one of the first to start treating agility as a professional sport, where details like exactly how fast your weaves are or how quickly you cover ground is extremely important competitive information.

The latest post that I've seen of her data goes back to 2004; I've tried Googling for more recent info and haven't found any. Anyone seen anything more recent?

AGILEDOGS Digest - 23 Aug 2004 - Special issue (#2004-679)

From Kathy Keats

These have changed quite a bit in the last year or so...now:

A-Frame
Respectable 2.5
Competitive Less than 1.8
Excellent 1.3

Dog Walk
Respectable 3.0
Competitive Less than 2.2
Excellent 1.6 (fastest big dogs are pushing 1.4)

SeeSaw
Respectable 2.0
Competitive Less than 1.5
Excellent 1.0 (big dogs only)

Weaves - a lot of people think that weaving is faster than it is. In
the 60 weave pole challenge dogs are going just over 12 seconds for 5
sets of poles. 12 seconds divided by 5 is 2.4. Although you can argue
the dogs slow down as they get tired, even a dog weaving at 11 seconds
which no one has come near yet is only going 2.2 seconds per set. The
first 3 poles of a set requires the dog to slow a tiny bit and get his
rhythm.
Respectable 3.5 to 4.0
Competitive Less than 3.0
Excellent Less than 2.5

Taj MuttHall times

I'm operating off the videos with a stopwatch, rather than working in real life with electronic timers, so it's hard to know how valid these numbers are. Here's how I timed them:

Contacts: From first paw hitting the obstacle to first paw on the ground on the other side.

Weaves: Head past first pole to head past last pole.

I thought that Boost's contact obstacles were significantly faster than Tika's; in execution, to my great surprise, they're very close on the Aframe and the Dogwalk because Boost runs up from the bottom and down to the end while Tika flies onto the up ramp and leaps off the down ramp in her "modified running contact." The main differences are the teeter and the weaves.

Here's what I got:

Tika:
Aframe: 1.6 seconds
Dogwalk: 2.4 seconds
Teeter: 1.3 seconds
Weaves: 3.3 seconds

Boost:
Aframe: 1.55 seconds
Dogwalk: 2.4 seconds
Teeter: 1.18 seconds
Weaves: 2.5 seconds

Videos Videos Videos! GP and Pairs

SUMMARY: Grand Prix and Pairs Relay vids.

OK, trying something different for these videos from this weekend, rather than directing you to the 3-Dog Video site. These are all lower-resolution MP4 vids, displayed larger than their actual size so they're sort of grainy. You can click the 3-dog video link to have your option (like the prior day's vids) of which size/resolution to play.

I was able to purchase these videos on an introductory special price. Can't do it every weekend, but it was nice to get some for a change.

For discussions of these runs, see Saturday's and Sunday's posts.

Grand Prix

Grand Prix Boost
See the Dread Border Collie Spin in two places, one for a runout 5-point fault. But the rest is nice. (3-Dog Video versions.)

Grand Prix Tika
See her try very hard in 2 places to take the off-course obstacle but come back to me thank goodness gracious. (3-Dog Video versions.)

Pairs Relay

Tika goes to investigate the judge and gets a runout. (3-Dog Video versions.)


Boost pops weaves, knocks bar, and skips a jump. (3-Dog Video versions.)

Boost Steeplechase Round 2 Video

SUMMARY: Thanks, 3 Dog Video!

Here is Boost, just two steps to the right from taking home a big Steeplechase purse. :-)

Between the first jump and the tunnel there is another jump; you can see that she is NOT jumping between there. Really, the jump was almost in her way (I lined her up deliberately pointing at it and not at the tunnel) and it wasn't very much of a lead-out pivot at all, but dang she didn't get it. Rest of the run is lovely, though.

Boost Steeplechase Video

SUMMARY: 3-Dog Video comes through again, thanks Steve.

Boost's Round 1 Steeplechase video. Same deal as Tika's; pick the resolution at the top (when you click the play arrow).

Boost's run was 5.46 seconds slower than the winning dog that round. I've used my stopwatch to figure out some differences; held her on the two Aframes for a total of somewhere around 1.5 seconds; the place nearing the end where she slows down to look back at me, turns back to me, spins, and then finally gets going again is at least 3 seconds.

Running contacts, I tell ya-- plus a dog who'll just keep taking obstacles in front of her!--would be handy.

And here's the course map:

Tika's Saturday Steeplechase Video

SUMMARY: viewing online

Here's video of Tika's Steeplechase (Performance) run on Saturday. There are links at the top so that you can see it in whatever definition your computer will handle, from smallest (web) to high def.

You can see where I sent her offcourse: After the first aframe, the next two jumps are incorrect--I clap my hands in a little frustration realizing that I blew it and then deciding to go on with the correct sequence. The rest of the course is correct, although after the wrong jump, Tika's flow is bad briefly because she's not coming from where she should've been coming from.

Her course time WITH the extra jump and veering out of line there is STILL well within qualifying time, so she was hauling. In fact, looks to me that it's actually even within *Championship* qualifying time. Sighhhhh such a nice run--

Yessirree I Have Agility Dogs

SUMMARY: Another fine weekend, all in all.

The drive back down to Carmel started the day nicely with entertainment from Mother Nature. The sunrise took various forms and colors and I captured only some of them.

It's interesting, driving through a sunny morning and yet being able to see that you're about to drive into a fog bank in the next low-lying area.

Then, suddenly, you're in the fog. And fog is seldom more entrancing than when it's wrapping around some of the distinctive Monterey trees.

Several of us volunteered to wear leis to be the "ambassadors" who could answer anyone's questions, whether Starters folks trying to understand Snooker or Members Of The Public with questions. I got one to match my tie-dye.

We started the day with Snooker with a deceptively devious course. I thought that I could easily get Tika through a six and two fives, but this course required precision handling every step of the way and not many of us were up to it; not a lot qualified, and considering that there were 4 reds, only maybe 3 or 4 out of 120 dogs got more than 50 points. We made it through 6 and 5--barely--and then Tika took a bonus red at the wrong time and we were out.

Boost I had figured on 3 sevens; acutally I liked the flow better than Tika's course, but it covered a lot more ground and I didn't believe that Tika had the speed for it, whereas Boost does. We in fact got through the three 7s in the opening very nicely, with just a couple of occurrences of "this jump?" dancing around, which cost us time. But then I managed to NOT handle the #2 in the closing the way I had walked it, got in Boost's way, and she knocked the bar, and we were done. We *might* have had enough time left to finish the closing after our opening bobbles, but it would've been close.

So no Snooker Qs again.

Tika qualified in Performance Grand Prix *again* and *again* took 2nd place, not the lovely 1st that would earn us a bye into round 2 at the regionals in september. Explain me this, that tika can continually win steeplechase against the same dogs that she can't beat in Grand Prix? Argh. I shouldn't be complaining about Qing OR about placing 2nd in GP, but still...

And Tika had a lovely Standard run, getting enough toes into the contact zones to convince the judge that they were legal, although I miscued something and she turned in completely the wrong direction, losing several seconds to get her back on track. Don't know whether the correct execution would have gotten us the win; she Qed and came in 2nd there, too (to the same dog who beat her in Grand Prix) by a big gap of 3 and a half seconds.

Boost's Grand Prix was SO close to being lovely, but an ominous thing happened--instead of doing the "refusal dance" at 2 jumps ("this one? this one? really?"), she did the dread Border Collie full-speed spin! Ack! Not a good sign; don't want her to start spinning--it's a terrible habit for the dog to get into. But it's a sign of not getting the right info fast enough. Still--it really was SO close to being lovely! And we got called for only 1 refusal, so it was SO close to being an actual Q!

Boost's Standard run was scheduled near the very end of the 120-or-so masters dogs, and that class was still getting going while *everything* else, including my score table job, finished and the courses cleared away and packed. I really didn't want to wait for an hour or more for Boost's run and have it be another mess or something that would reinforce those ugly spins.

But... well, I waited. And I'm so glad I did, because Boost ran PERFECTLY! Stayed at the start line, went over jumps in front of her, hit all her contacts, made her weave entry and stayed in to the end--oh, it was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, like a run with a fast dog like her SHOULD be!

I could tell in a couple of places that she slowed slightly, not showing a CONFIDENT drive forward, but still DID go forward, even responded correctly to TWO rear crosses AND a serpentine... I mean, really, it was beautiful, and I have no complaints whatsoever; it's quite a breakthrough for her, and I don't expect her to be as confident and driven through a difficult course (only 8 of 38 dogs in her group Qed) as some other dogs, so for her at this time it was a spot-on, flawless run.

I am still floating.

Furthermore, she was fast enough to place 3rd of those 38 dogs! She's never earned Top Ten points before, ever, and this weekend she did it in TWO classes (Gamblers yesterday and Standard today). Wooty woot!

Now, it's not like she was really super-fast--just fast enough. Her time was 39.96, only about 4 yards per second. The 1st place time was 38.73, which makes her look pretty good--until you realize that dogs like Sweep [Basic] had a time of 36-something (although with a contact called), and Boost's sister Gina had an absolutely drop-dead astounding time of 34-something (although slammed through two jump bars).

So we can just keep doing what we've been doing, I guess, and her confidence will build, and so will her speed, and then I can also start releasing her very quickly on her contacts (if I want to go for placements)--note that Gina has glorious full-out running contacts and Boost stops at the bottom of each one. That alone makes quite a difference.

On the way home, traffic came to almost a complete stop much sooner than it had yesterday evening. Grumble grumble.

Gave me a chance to roll down the window and admire strawberry fields forever.


After taking 20 minutes to go half a mile, I looked at the map and saw an alternate route that took me a few miles out of my way, but at least I drove at the speed limit the whole way. Back on the main highway 101, traffic was at only about half speed through Prunedale and beyond, but finally picked up to near speed limit.

Today, my 1 hr/15 minute morning drive turned into a 2-hour evening drive home. Gahhhh.

But here we are, I'm happy, dogs did quite well again.