Happy Birthday Raven!

Been back in Perth nearly a week now and have finally found the time to update my blog. I forewarn of much euphoric happiness in this post because yes, our trip was just that good. Better even than the Victorian Nationals last year (Even better than winning three events and making three finals!).
We left Perth around 4.30pm on a Thursday afternoon and the flight was pretty smooth and uneventful (apart from a guy falling unconscious momentarily and a concern that we might have to divert – no chest pains though so he survived just fine) and we landed in Canberra around ten past ten at night. I had ordered a Ford station wagon from the hire company which apparently translated to a Toyota Kluger 4wd. *Shrugs* No extra charge but not quite as roomy in the back as the station wagon so Spryte’s kennel travelled on a slant which was no problem for her – just annoyed me. But the superior driving experience of a nearly brand new Kluger made up for it. Took us around 45 minutes to follow Glenn and Robyn back to our accommodation which was about 35 minutes out of the Canberra CBD (and therefore in another state! We crossed over into NSW on the way!). The Christmas Cottage was great and is probably one of the best places to stay when you have dogs. Between the 8 of us we had 18 Border Collies and 1 German Pinscher and there was plenty of room for them to run around in.
Friday was a fairly laid back day – we trooped down to EPIC (Exhibition Park Showgrounds Canberra) to watch a bit of the herding, scope out the grounds, put up shade and collect numbers. That was all good and then we (Rosanna, myself and the three dogs) took off for a drive towards the Snowy Mountains and visited a very pretty little town called Cooma. I really wish I had taken my camera and taken pictures but it just got forgotten. Anyway this town was gorgeous and we had lunch there and the dogs got to run around a bit before we checked out a few spots for look outs and had some spectacular views. Stopped in at EPIC on the way back after stopping off at the grocery store to pick up a few items to give the dogs another opportunity to stretch their legs. Spryte was the only one going in the show and I soon realised the Canberra red dust was going to mean her bath on Thursday just wasn’t going to cut it for the whole weekend. Canberra grounds are very dry, red, caked and baked clay and dusty. We came home and had a BBQ with some decent scotch filet steak that I filled up on knowing I had 15 runs ahead of me the next day and knowing that I rarely have the time or the inclination to eat anything at trials.
Next day we were up at 6am in order to get our asses into gear quick enough to get down there for 7.30am given the first showing event was on at 8.30 and that people would be walking the first course in agility then. I also had to give Spryte’s legs a clean up with some spray on water and soap, the soap ended up a lovely caramel colour by the time I’d finished but with a bit of talcum powder she was looking freshly bathed again so all was good! Novice Agility was first and none of us were in that but next up was Excellent Agility and it was a nice flowing course that didn’t look to have too many possible problems. Spryte found one though! Deciding to self release on the a frame because apparently she knew where the course was going next, she cut across the front of my feet and took a spread jump backwards instead of heading to her left and onto the seesaw! Instant DQ but I was happy with her run apart from that. Next up was Open Agility and this was nested with Excellent so it was no time before we were walking this one with the distance being a number of jumps on a pinwheel. They started with the 400 height and so Spryte was up pretty quick and I am pleased to say she did this one perfectly, held her seesaw and handled very nicely to go clear and eventually win the class! This is awesome because Raven won this class back at the first BC National in Sydney 2006. Raven also did the course beautifully but I think the first run of the day and she was feeling a touch punchy and decided to apply her brakes a little late on the seesaw the first time and came off it when it was still in the air! After we redid that though she had no issues with any other contacts all day. Cypher was going very well till about 5 obstacles from the end when he hit the weavers for the first time and didn’t quite cope with how springy they were as they were nowhere near as pegged as we have them here and he kinda bounced off the first two poles more than usual and it literally looked like he got sling shotted out of them and missed a gap! He kept weaving completely oblivious! The dag! Took him back and redid them after realising he needs more of a stride check before entering these poles. Apart from the weavers his run was very smooth.
Masters Agility up next and just Raven and Cypher in this one. Raven handled like a dream even with her handler interrupting her flow a little when she pulled her off the right jump and had to bring her round! Raven was heading straight for the spread and for some reason in my head I had “No no! We pull right hard here Rave!” Well yes Simone you pull hard AFTER the spread you idiot! Anyway we ran clear in that one with her doing everything perfectly and it was good enough to win the Masters Agility class at the 2nd BC National! Onya Rave! And on your 9th birthday too! How cool is that?
Cypher did everything I asked and I couldn’t have wanted anything else from him but I think I must have overcompensated (read: got a little paranoid) about the weavers thing because I ended up getting a refusal at the weavers with my dithering about getting him to stride check more – he just ended up barking in my face as though asking what my problem was and are we doing the weavers or not?? Ooops. Oh well you get that...his run was very nice apart from that little glitch.
From there we started the Masters Gamblers class and in the meantime the judges went for lunch and we could walk it as much as we needed to. Spryte was busy up in the showring by then with Robyn and I am pleased to say that from about 42 Intermediate females in that show class she got cut to the top 11. I was just chuffed she made the shortlist! Then I was back down planning for Raven’s course in Masters Gamblers. I was grateful to see no pissy little weave points – so no 4 poles or 6 or 8 poles....there was just the 12. And they were in the gamble with the dogwalk between you and your dog. The trickiest part was getting them on the right angle going into the gamble so that their momentum would take them out to the weave poles. I actually finished my opening sequence quicker than I thought (I had anticipated Raven tiring fairly quickly as 45 seconds is longer than she spends on any course usually) so getting the angle wasn’t a problem in the end and she completed the Masters Gamblers class clear and with enough points and a fast enough time to win! So that’s her second National Masters Gamblers win after taking out the Victorian ones last year.
Excellent Gamblers next and the gamble nowhere near as hard this time so I tried to make sure we got the weavers in twice and did all the contacts twice, Cypher gave me everything and I was absolutely thrilled with it despite a nail biting moment in the gamble section where he nearly didn’t find the dogwalk due to the less than ideal angle I’d put him onto the gamble with! But I just kept up my verbal cues (read:yelling) and he eventually got the message....luckily fast enough to complete the gamble, make enough points go clear and win it! What an awesome day it was turning out to be! Raven had completed two winning runs so far, Spryte had Open Agility and now Cypher had Excellent Gamblers.
Novice Gamblers was next and the gamble this time was completely different – four simple jumps made much less simple by having them span across the middle of the course virtually! It would be a challenge to make sure that A. The dogs didn’t take more than one of them in a row in the opening and B. To make sure that none of those bars got knocked! I came up with a plan for Spryte that steered most of her opening sequence as far away from those jumps as possible but that still accumulated enough points – I didn’t quite get through all of my opening sequence plan (seems the contacts were not quite what they were at the start of the day funnily enough and we had to redo an aframe) however we garnered enough points to pass and just had a minor hiccup with the last jump of the gamble, she’d thought we’d finished but then realised when I was still frantically running the gamble line and arm signalling the last jump that perhaps she had one more jump to do! The last jump was at a different angle so she just didn’t see it in her path. Thankfully she did it in time and surprisingly for me (since we didn’t get all the points we could have) she won this class too! The last half of the day was dedicated to jumping and we started with Masters Jumping. Brian Hillier designed a fast flowing course with a couple of subtle challenges. Raven and I got on the start line and it turned out to be one of those runs that you just want to bottle. She and I were totally in sync and the run was one of the smoothest, tightest MJ runs we’ve done in a while. I knew when we finished that it was a good time and she was more than ten seconds under the SCT. I was kind of grinning like an idiot by that stage, not quite believing the day could go any better. And then Cypher surprises me...I ran hard, really hard and he was with me the whole time on that course never letting me get to far in front of him, his ground speed will never be as fast as Raven’s but with closer handling his turns can be tighter and as a result he finished that run less than a second and a half behind Raven which for him is something special. Ultimately Raven and Cypher ended up in 1st and 2nd place respectively and really? Can’t do better than that. *Is still beaming*
Open Jumping was next and Spryte was first up in that and she felt a little slow through the weavers so I was wondering if she was feeling tired. Anyway she pointed out a challenge to me that I hadn’t recognised when I was walking it and couldn’t see a jump in a side by side jump tunnel discrimination. So I fixed that with Raven but by then I could see the efforts of the previous four runs had taken their toll and she dropped a bar. We finished that course with the one fault and I had never been more pleased with her than that day – she’d had a ball and had worked really hard to give me everything she had. That bar only came down because of a lack of confidence in my directional cues so for a dog who I have spent vast amounts of time on working on her bar knocking this effort today was just absolutely brilliant. Cypher came the closest to a clear on this one, he was four obstacles from home and shot out of a straight flexi tunnel so fast that I was unable to redirect his trajectory quick enough to avoid a refusal on a jump set slightly offside before the last line of jumps to the finish line. Think I must have been feeling tired by then too. It didn’t bother me in the slightest though I must admit...the day had been brilliant enough!
Last run of the day was about 5pm in the afternoon and they were hurrying to get through the runs before the light went. Spryte was in Excellent Jumping. And given her run in Open Jumping I decided she must be feeling as tired as I was by that stage (I had had little sleep the night before and had even consumed a V energy drink during the day which I normally avoid) and so I had given her a small handful of Advance biccies in some water after Open Jumping, hoping that might pep her up for Excellent Jumping. I don’t know if those helped or if she’d just managed to sneak in a super power nap between OJ and EJ but she was firing! We had about 18 obstacles and we finished that course clean and in 20.23 seconds! I think adrenaline was the only thing powering me by that stage and somehow I managed to keep up and a little ahead (the course design did help that – plus a dog happy to run straight out to a tunnel whilst you got your own ass in a better position) and we finished our last run of the day off with a win! Yes, I’m still beaming.
I was a little shell shocked by our successes that day I must admit. I’ve been playing this sport for nearly 14 years now and never has anything gone quite that well all day for me. I’ve had great days for sure and I can recall them just as vividly but this? This was just amazing...and all on Raven’s 9th birthday. A dog currently in remission from Canine Lymphoma and still receiving chemo. Out of the nine events I had entered that day, between the three of them they managed to carry off the first places from seven of them! I’m so happy I got to take them all. Spryte’s improvement from her first trip east back in August last year to now is really quite noticeable and I have to admit that whilst I know she will never be another Raven (honestly I don’t think there ever could be no matter how fast they were) she is proving to be just as much fun to run in her own right as Raven is. When the time comes for Raven to retire I just know Spryte is going to be just as much of a thrill to run as Raven was.
I managed to get some photos of the dogs - thanks to Lara Sedgeman, one of the National photographers and I post them here. For all her agility photos of the Nationals go here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/GunShotPhotos

Cypher looks rather pleased to be free of those weavers!

A four shot Cy On Seesaw sequence - he's really quite polite
waiting for the cue to leave - either that or he's just making
sure we can all see his best side.

I think this was Open Jumping - so not the pretty
jumping style Cypher!

Performing the difficult distance challenge with style!

Cy on the Masters Jumping course - on his way to second place!
Note the improved jumping style on this one!

Cy on the Excellent Gamblers course having fun!

Raven's first run of the day - seems her ABS was not quite
up to par!


So we did that one again - and this time did it right!

Lara took good shots of Raven weaving!

Mandatory dog running photo - complete with shaved hock!
Having a ball on the Masters Gamblers course.

On her way to first place in Masters Agility!

Same jump two different courses! Top one Open Jumping
bottom one Masters Jumping!

Last run of the day and looking a little tired on the
Open Jumping course.

Two shot sequence of Spryte's winning Open Agility
seesaw! She totally looks like one of those frou frou showdogs here!

Spryte weaving!

See what I mean about the Open Jumping feeling a bit slower?

Great tunnel photos - thanks Lara!!

And our last run of the day - no more feeling tired we were
hooning round this one!

So the upshot of this trial is that we came home with a seven brand new Silver Eagle Cool Coats, embroidered with the Nationals logo, a brand new Black Dog trialling gear bag (thanks to Cypher’s 2nd place in MJ) and seven 9kg bags of Purina Pro Plan. No I didn’t bring those back on that plane with me. I managed to sell four thank goodness and bring one bag home (along with a 2kg bag) and only ended up having to give away two of the bags. I’ve sold two of the Cool Coats, I’m keeping three so still have two available for sale if anyone is interested. They retail between $105 and $120 and I’m selling these for $100 each. The National logo on it is quite nice if anyone is interested let me know. Of course I need to show what the coats look like. :-)

Raven

Spryte

Cypher

The Three Amigos

Now I’m pretty sure that Spryte has her JDX title but it seems I cannot find her cards for it. The cards I’ve found add up to four passes so far. I am going to have to go back through her results to see if I can find them and see if I can find the cards. Or maybe I’m wrong. Either way she has picked up her fourth pass for ADO so only one more to go on that one and she is now into Excellent Gamblers. She has also one more pass to go for ADX. Cypher has one more pass to go for his SPDM title and one more to go for SDX. Raven is now sitting on one pass left for SPDM, three for GDM still (that seems a lot to me but again I can’t seem to locate any more cards) and four for Masters Snooker. The next trial up is another games trial so that will be good to try and finish off some titles. As soon as Raven has her GDM title though I’ll only enter her at big events for that one – 60 seconds non stop at that level of intensity definitely takes it out of her energy wise (not to mention my obvious need for oxygen at the end of those runs and I’m not even doing any obstacles!) so really unless it’s a National or a Royal or a Classic we won’t be doing the GDM class too often.
Since being back the most I’ve done is take the dogs for a run around the Canine grounds so it will be back to training next week, our next big event being the State Agility trial I guess, Friday and Saturday April 17th and 18th. Spryte will need much more repetition on her contacts and further proofing. There are lots of smaller less used skills that we need to work on too. I was very pleased with her start lines all day Saturday, she was in a rock solid sit on all of them and I should remember not to let up on the reinforcement of that during our training sessions. The next Border Collie National is being hosted by the Tasmanian Border Collie club – hopefully in 2012. I just hope it’s in the latter half of 2012 because I’ll need some financial recovery time after doing a trip of around 5 months at the end of 2011, early 2012 to the US, Canada and Alaska. But I must admit I’ve always wanted to visit Tassie and really – what a perfect reason to do so. I’d definitely make it a two week trip at least I’d think. It would be fantastic if they could organise it in school holiday time but that could be just me.

In non-agility related news caught a horror flick last night at the cinemas – Friday the 13th and have to say, for a person who never does horror films usually, I was entertained.
One might suggest I’m easily entertained these days but I beg to differ, I am pretty sure the older you get the harder it is to be entertained by things whether they be people, books, movies, tv or various other past times. Perhaps it is because the genre is quite new to me, cinematically speaking that is. Anyway as far as horror movies go I can see why it broke opening box office records for the horror genre in the US. It did help that it had one of the Supernatural boys in it I suppose but still....worth the $8 voucher tickets we used.
Probably better than My Bloody Valentine as well (sorry Jensen) because there was a definitely much more on the edge of your seat kind of feel to it.

Another hobby I am currently trying to cram into my somewhat bursting schedule is learning the piano. I came home from Canberra to a Casio piano keyboard (yay for Mr Tim! *mwha*) and I am determined to learn how to play my favourite pieces of music.
It could be a challenge because I am not that keen on the actually learning how to read music part but god bless the internet and Youtube for wonderful How To Play videos that show you where to put your hands and fingers. In the back of my mind I’ve always had the impression that it’s a pretty special talent to be able to play the piano but in just these past few days I have come to be just in awe of those world renowned piano players because who knew how hard it is to have your left and right hand doing totally different things AT THE SAME TIME!!!! Honestly you’d think having the whole Gemini thing going on, split or twin personalities that I’d be able to just flounce on in and start playing but no...it would seem something like playing a beautiful classical piece takes practice and a helluva lot of concentration! Who knew!?!! No matter, I shall persevere and probably drive Tim mad playing the same thing over and over but in the end I and my piano playing skills (once I acquire some) shall prevail!

Update #2 - Spryte's Success and the Nationals

So finally I get the chance to do some updating of this blog. The last post was written two months ago but only posted today. My only excuse is that I've had other stuff to do and this blog is not so high on the priority list right now.

So going back to after the hip dislocation. Within three weeks Raven was going for fairly lengthy on lead walks with me. She had several weeks of massage and stretching and heat packs. Plus crating. The crating wasn't a huge hit with her I must admit. But no way was I going to be giving her the opportunity to reinjure the hip. She was pulled out of all the trials leading up to the Nationals except for the one on August 24th where I put her in one NFC Novice Jumping class run. We started some pretty intensive swimming sessions as well. Intensive in that they happened every couple of days. She only swam for five minutes sessions initially and we worked our way up to 15 minutes. She stayed on the Rimadyl for three weeks.

Spryte had some good results during this time. She is now officially known as Winpara Out Of Sight AD JD JDO HT.
At that July ACWA Trial she managed to WIN the Open Jumping class against quite a large number of dogs, and in Open Agility she picked up a 3rd behind two very fast, experienced much older dogs so I was very impressed with how she ran even if we couldn't get it quite together for the Novice classes.

Geraldton
The following weekend we drove up to Geraldton (me, Cypher and Spryte - Raven got to stay home and look after Tim, not sure that she would have chosen that option but there was no way I could take her without her doing her nut in the back of the car when I ran the other dogs, with my luck she would have done her hip again) to compete at a double header trial over the Saturday and Sunday. It was quite a fruitful weekend giving Spryte a little taste of going away and competing on different grounds, like a mini National practice I suppose.

Cypher picked up a 4th in Open Agility, 5th in Masters Agility, 8th in Open Jumping, 4th in the second Masters Agility, 9th in the second Open Jumping and a 4th in the second Masters Jumping. Six qualifications from eight runs was a good result for him, especially with some top 5 finishes.

Spryte won the first novice Agility for her first leg, picked up a 4th place in the second Open Jumping behind some very fast, experienced dogs again, then came 2nd in the second Novice Agility for her 2nd leg behind one of her pairs partners, the very fast, very exciting to watch Guirmere Snazzy and Cathy. At the conclusion of this weekend she only needs one more pass for her Open Jumping title (JDO) and one each for her AD and JD. So I was very happy with how the weekend went, it's good to have all that effort pay off because the four hour drive home can seem very long when it's one of those weekends where nothing goes right!

GSDA
The next weekend was the GSDA trial and this turned out to be a more expensive than usual training session for Spryte! We had the novice dog weave popping issue and some disagreement about contacts again. As in I wanted her to do them and she didn't. :-) Totally my own fault. I have been a bad bad trainer when it comes to contacts. Wait let me rephrase that. I have been a bad bad TRIALLER when it comes to contacts. As in letting her go if she happens to get them even if she doesn't give me the two on two off behaviour. I know as I'm letting it go in trial runs that this will be all bad. I think really I am just engaging in a form of procrastination again. Yes I know, it's a shock to me too. Heh. But anyway...I keep putting this whole "must insist on trained contact behaviour in the ring" approach off. She runs through a contact and I think "Hmmm next time I'll fix that". Funnily enough it's an oddity of dog training that once a dog does something (and really enjoys it, I mean literally you can see the GLEE on their faces, I kid you not) they tend to do it again. And again. And again. Of course this is not a new concept to me. *Sigh* At least Cypher was good old Mr Reliable again giving me two clears in both Masters Agility and Masters Jumping. I mishandled him in both Opens but was very pleased with both of those runs too.

CAWA Double Fundraiser Trial August 10th
Cypher was a good boy for this double trial. Picking up a clear round in both Open Agility and Masters Jumping in the morning and in the afternoon for four qualifications for the day. Spryte? Well we had eight practice runs. *vbg* I figure it was all part of our strategy, we didn't want her peaking too early before the Nationals. Well that's my theory and I'm sticking to it. From what I can remember there was the odd bar down and disagreements about contacts again. The following day at the Teams and Strategic Pairs event Nifty and Cypher paired up (Nifty's partner Raven being out of action and Cypher's partner Sage being out of action as well) and managed to go clear for a pass in the Masters Strategic Pairs class.

CAWA Fundraiser Trial August 24th
Spryte was back in form for this one, which was good considering we were leaving in four days for the Nationals! She won the Novice Agility class in the morning and that gave her her AD title. Cypher picked up a qualification in Open Jumping as well and did a beautiful run for SECOND place in Masters Agility. Very pleased with that as getting into the top 3 in Masters here is not easy. This was the trial where I tried Raven out for the first time with a Novice Jumping run in the NFC class. We had been doing single bits of equipment for the week before, single bar jumps etc, the ends of contacts. I really thought it wouldn't be wise to take her over to the Nationals without some sort of course under her belt in nearly two months. She held her startline, I led out and ran the entire course silently, she managed it fine knocking one bar when I did a lazy rear cross on her. I was handling conservatively I must admit that but it will be some time before I feel she might be up to a bit of excited handling. She goes quick enough without me pushing so we'll see. She pulled up fine from that run, having had plenty of massage and stretching before hand and a decent warm up. I walked her out afterwards and she was fine, no signs of stiffness at all. I'd pretty much decided by that evening she would be attending the Nationals.

ANKC AGILITY NATIONALS Friday, Saturday and Sunday August 29th, 30th and 31st
This National was an eye opening experience for many reasons. Overall I was absolutely over the moon with how my guys went although in retrospect I think taking three was slightly over ambitious. That said though I managed to get each of them into a final and for that I was immensely proud of them. Nearly 4000 runs took place over the three days. The first day was a teams event plus games and the first qualifying heat for both Open Agility and Open Jumping. The second day was the fullest with another teams event in the morning followed by two qualifying heats for every class - Novice, Excellent, Open and Masters Agility and Jumping. The third day was the last qualifying heat for Novice, Excellent and Masters plus the finals. So the schedule was very tight and packed and to be honest I think the next Nationals is going to have to span four days. Anyway onto my results:
Day One (Friday) - This was the best day really for us, as Raven is now the

2008 National Masters Gamblers Champion

and

2008 National Masters Strategic Pairs Champion with her pairs partners - Sue Hogben with Nifty

I was stunned to tell the truth. Here's this dog with a dislocated hip less than two months ago and a full bone marrow transplant back in June and she doesn't just compete at the Nationals. She wins! Not much would have been able to wipe the smile off my face after finishing those courses with her.
Yet still it seemed as if more good fortune was due our way. Little miss Spryte in her first run of the day in the Novice Strategic Pairs class with her partner Spice and Andrea Patching (who was very tolerant I must say as I basically had numerous courses to remember so I simply asked if she could do this part and that part and that's how we were going to do it!) took out first place there too. Spryte is now the

2008 National Novice Strategic Pairs Champion along with her partners Spice and Andrea.

This all took place in the morning so I was kind of wondering if that was going to be it for our successes of the weekend because really - how much good luck can someone have? If I'd had to go home at that point I would have still been extremely happy with how we had gone.

Anyway in the afternoon we took a hike out to the back paddock to the Open Jumping course. It looked quite tricky for the baby dogs but I figured I'd get Raven and Cypher through it. I ran Spryte first in the 400 height and was stunned to see us finish the course clear. The distance challenge was not easy for the baby dogs so I was very impressed than not only had she run clear at the Nationals she had also finished her title. What an excellent way to finish the title and how odd that she gets her JDO BEFORE her JD. I ran Raven and she was going great guns until I just did too much of an exciting front cross way in front of her which always causes her to accelerate madly and bars came down. I withdrew her immediately figuring A: I had enough running to do that weekend and B: Wanting her to conserve her energy as much as possible. Cypher ran it and ran clear as well too so was very pleased with him. Now to get into the finals you needed to finish in the top 7 out of something like 180 dogs. Needless to say I didn't think either Cypher or Spryte would have a chance. Cypher is just not quick enough and whilst Spryte is quick I don't think you can afford to have even the slightest wobble at the Nats and she had one going into the distance challenge. And yet at presentations that night Spryte's name got called out! In 6th place! I was just as stoked about that as I was about her first place in Pairs. My baby dog at her first nationals makes a final of one of the most hotly competitive classes there. What a little star! Open Agility - what happened there....I'm trying to recall it. Well Raven had decided that two months without out any kind of training meant she could break her startline so she was through tyre, up the dogwalk, down the dogwalk running through the colour and flattening out over two bars before I'd pretty much got past the first up plank on the dogwalk. Yeah we withdrew from that one. Cypher qualified in this but it was a generous clear I thought since I pretty much caused a refusal of a bar and had to bring him round to do it again. Idiot handler strikes again! And Spryte? Hmmm...I think we had an off course into a wrong tunnel entry or was it a missed contact. No wait. I remember. She dropped a bar in the distance challenge. That's right I remember now, she was going great guns too, but on memory I don't think I was able to call her off the wrong tunnel entry in the distance challenge as she was just so far in front of me.

So that was the Friday. We won some stuff, got quite a few clears and went home tired but pretty happy with the results. More importantly Raven had pulled up fine and no sign of any stiffness or soreness after the days events. If anything she was a little too UP! I slept like a log that night. A solid six hours.

Day Two (Saturday) - This day was a mixed results day but still one that left me feeling good about our achievements so far. I had gone to this National with Raven just absolutely thrilled to be able to be there and compete. To win or qualify was just icing on the cake as far as I was concerned. So when Raven pulled off a clear run in the hardest Masters Jumping course I've ever done and managed to finish in 6th I was absolutely chuffed with her. Honestly this course was so challenging that word spread ike wildfire around the grounds (and these grounds were huge by the way - to walk from one ring to another sometimes took like ten minutes!!) and the course became known as THE TUNNEL ONE. I have never run a design like this before and I hope to never again. In fact it is so unique I feel the need to post the course design right here. I think there were 8 qualifiers in about 170 dogs. Raven had made a Masters Jumping final. I was more than thrilled with her. In the morning the Masters Agility course looked to be quite challenging as well but much more in the way of could be do-able type challenging. Raven just knocked one bar and I withdrew. I then ran Cypher and we did a pretty solid run and I got him through it clear. We were early on in the running order so I thought nothing of it, lots more dogs to run and no doubt lots more clears as well. Spryte had some hard luck stories - although that said some of those stories did involve contacts and me not being able to walk the course because I was involved in three other rings at the front of the grounds whilst the walking was taking place down the far end of the grounds. She did a beautiful Open Agility run at one point and just missed the a frame contact by a toe and it was in the distance challenge so that didn't help. To be honest with her first run of the day in Novice Jumping I was completely stunned by her speed. It seemed like she had shifted up about 6 gears and it caught me by surprise my reactions definitely not quick enough in giving her the information she needed quickly enough. Then I mishandled a rear cross with in another Novice Jumping run. The Novice Agility courses were more challenging than I was used to, with some strong call offs and sharp turns for the youngsters which left very little room for error. And in my case no room at all! So no clear rounds for her all day. Cypher had a couple of qualifiers and one that I count as a qualifier - a very nicely run open Agility course that was speedy for him and without a single wobble. However the judge decided to give me a penalty because whilst I placed him on lead immediately I lost hold of the lead when he tugged with me as we left the ring ropes. Yeah. Not going to talk about it except to say that there was some rather extreme interpretations of the rules at this event (over the whole weekend in fact) that were not necessary by a long shot. Agility is supposed to be fun people - stop sucking the fun out of it! Where was I? Oh yes Cypher. Turns out by the end of the day he finished in FIFTH place in the Masters Agility class and had therefore qualified for a final. Good old Mr Reliable....though I really shouldn't call him old, he's only just about to turn four! I was very pleased with how he ran all weekend actually, he tried his best, did everything I asked and is the most consistent dog I have ever had the pleasure of owning and training. I know I bag on his speed sometimes but really he goes as fast as he can and enjoys his agility and the tugging afterwards, can't ask much more than that.

Day Three (Sunday) - Today was the last chance to qualify for the finals and yeah my guys didn't do anything in the morning. I had pulled Cy from Masters Agility and just focused on Jumping. I had pulled Raven from Masters Jumping and just focused on Masters Agility. And Spryte was in both her Novice runs. Cy ran clear in Masters Jumping but so did about 26 other dogs I think so he finished in 18th or something like that. I prefer that to the 8th place we finished in Open Jumping Saturday afternoon! It's great to know he nearly made it into a final like that but sometimes you just go perhaps I don't want to know he missed out on a finals run by point nothing of a second! Raven did an absolute ripper on an Agility run that would have made the finals easily time wise but she just knocked one bar. This course I didn't withdraw on thinking that this could possibly be out last ever run in a Masters Agility class at a National! Spryte? Well Seems like Idiot Handler had been missing in action for a while and chose her Novice Jumping course to come out on. Firstly I got lost. Yes. Lost. On a bloody 16 obstacle course. Unbelievable. So unbelievable in fact that I was completely flustered by this and tehrefore forgot to handle her properly for an off entry tunnel. So there went that chance! In Novice Agility? You know how I said that contact thing always comes back to bite you in the ass at some point? Well this was our point. Big time. Missed the a frame contact by about a toe length. Perfect other than that. *Shrugs* What can you do? I had pretty much sealed that fate with all my fart arsing around with her contacts in trials so I took it on the chin as you do and still gave her the biggest hug at the end of her run. She was in a final already - no point being greedy. :-)

Finals - There were 8 finals to be run. I was in three ofthem. The last three. Open Jumping, followed by Masters Jumping and followed by Masters Agility. So I got Spryte out eventually to get her ready for the OJ final. When I walked the course I realised it didn't matter how many times I walked this she would would be very unlikely to get the difficult distance challenge. She was third into the ring in 400 height class. After all my doubts about her she went and bloody did the distance challenge! I was absolutely stunned as the spectators could tell by my tone of voice. We were five jumps from home after the weavers and I hadn't anticipated the sharp turn and thus call off for the angle home. She took a jump off course. Bugger! My fault entirely but to be honest I didn't feel the slightest bit disappointed. She did exactly everything I asked and had completed a challenge that it turned out only ONE dog out of the entire finals class could manage to go clear on. She's just turned 2. She's gonna have a few more goes at Nationals in her lifetime. I can't wait to share them with her. Raven in Masters Jumping was up next. This course was pretty much as hard (and in some places harder) as THE TUNNEL ONE. Heh. And by this point our start line behaviour was non existent so I'm quite sure that we didn't get past just three before we had a fault. I withdrew after a bit because by that stage the grounds were wet, boggy and muddy and very slippery. So we thanked the judge and left the ring. She had made it to the Masters Jumping finals startline. It was more than i could have ever hoped for.
Cypher in Masters Agility - by the time it was his turn I think there was maybe one clear round. I revved him up something chronic with his tug toy and he was buzzing on the start line. This was a nice course to run but really to be honest, none of the handlers felt particularly safe running on the grounds as they were incredibly boggy and slippery by then, you did feel that you could land on your ass very quickly if you weren't careful. Cypher did a cracker of a run, he was going great guns and we had about four obstacles left when I opened my mouth and said 'Out'. One tiny word. And of course he did it. He went out just like I said. When he didn't need to go out he just needed to turn with me into a tunnel. With the way he was running he would have finished in at least 4th if not 3rd place. Ahhh well. This was disappointing because I had made the stuff up here and this was a Masters final that he could have quite easily gone clear on, unlike Spryte who I wasn't expecting to do anything with in the OJ final. Cypher of course was none the wiser, tugging like mad at the end of his run. He had done me proud, ran well, ran fast and did everything I asked. And this from a dog I was wondering if I should bother with the expense of taking!

And so that was it. The end of the Nationals. As a last note I have to make mention of Western Australia as a state and how well they did - we walked away with FOUR out of the eight finals wins, we had a couple of runners up and top 6 finishes in the finals. As a state we did very well, we won FOUR out of nine possible Games classes and had top 5 finishes in the rest just about. I am proud to be part of our WA Agility community because we can say without hesitation our dogs are some of the fastest, best trained and best handled out there. To live and compete in WA is to set the bar high for our agility standards and that has to be an asset anyway you look at it.

Roll on 2010 and the next Nationals - to be held here in sunny Perth at the end of April.
I will post some pics and some courses in the next post.

Of Updates and Heatwaves

Righto. Time for a blog update. Yes real life obviously did not stay this side of normal and I am a few days overdue. Lots of news to report it’s kind of daunting to think where I should start! The Western Classic perhaps? Well we had some rather spiffy courses to run and we had judges from Queensland,Tasmania and South Australia so a very national flavour in terms of course design.

Spryte – had her debut in her first official competition and the Novice Agility course by Barbara Murfet was a very nice first course for her. Absolutely nothing wrong with the course design or the dog who worked beautifully for me. I had a case of ‘Holy crap she’s really trialling for the first time’ nerves and completely forgot that this is a dog I have actually trained the table with properly. She got on the table and I froze. You know how when under pressure dogs revert back to default behaviours, humans have the same issue. Or at least this human does. I stood there not moving, freaking out that I had a ‘Raven’ on the table and of course blocked the next two obstacles very nicely from Spryte’s line of sight. Hence we had two lovely handler enabled refusals. But I was still extremely pleased with the way she worked. Her speed is coming on very nicely, literally in leaps and bounds and her obstacle performance is on it’s way to complete proficiency. Then Novice Jumping with Peter Hofto – also a cracker of a course, slightly more technical than the agility one. This required much more tighter handling in a couple of parts and this showed our weaknesses when I turned close on bars and she brought a couple down. Showed up very nicely exactly what things we should be working on.

Cypher – Picked this weekend to try out the zero percentage pass rate feeling. Nothing I could have done really. Masters Agility (Judge: Roger Green) he missed a dogwalk contact – I was completely stunned by this, as it would bring his grand total of missed dogwalk contacts in trialling to 2. Then I believe he took a bar down as well for good measure. I didn’t notice it much as I was still in aftershock from the missed DW! Open Jumping (Mr J Ryan judging) – one bar down. Open Agility (Judge:Roger Green) he decided the distance challenge wasn’t enough and decided to take his own obstacles moving laterally away from me. Plus took one bar down. I’d decided he must have been saving it for Masters Jumping (Mr J Ryan judging). We were three easy bars from home when he took the third last bar down. I admit I was a little frustrated when I asked if anyone wanted to swap their dog for Cypher. Ah well.

Raven – Masters Agility, cracker of a time and no off courses yet two bars down. Open Jumping – she had a great time in the distance challenge figuring that if I was moving away from her laterally she should just go through the bars instead of over them as that meant she returned to me much quicker. Think she had about 3 down by the time I stopped her, told her I wasn’t playing, thanked the judge and withdrew. Open Agility – fastest time on the night, one bar just tapped off the uprights. Think I was going to be surprised by this point if I actually pulled a clear round so I just laughed at Raven’s joy and berated the time keeper for telling me she had the quickest time by two seconds…I think she took some evil delight in informing me. Masters Jumping, I think we got through this with one bar down near the end. And that was that. Classic Individual Agility and Jumping trials over for another year! I had run Andrea’s Sheltie Rumour and both times we had one fault so I seriously was completely jinxed that night.

Sunday night was the Obedience. I did have Cy in CCD but was utterly bored out of my mind waiting till he came on at something like quarter to 11 that night so scratched him. Raven got into the UD ring at 9.30pm and we had a lovely practice round withdrawing halfway through the signals heelwork. It was only ever going to be a practice round since I hadn’t realised I’d entered her till a few days before and had done zippo training with her. So she got the seekback, did her own Raven Interpretation of the directed jumping which included far more reps of the jumps than just boring old two. Why go straight out to a box when you can have fun taking a jump on the way out? I’m sure she just thinks that exercise is a completely lame Novice jumping course. Nailed her articles so was pleased with that, did some nice slow pace heelwork in signals and then must have just been coiling herself tight during the slow pace because when I went back to normal pace she unsprung in a major way. So we withdrew thanking the judge for his patience and his good humour. I haven’t found a judge yet who has managed to supress a smile at her very evident enthusiasm for all ‘active’ tasks in UD. At this stage, gaining a UD may be off our short term goals to achieve. I’ve decided she needs some fairly intensive training for it and unless someone would like to offer to take her in and get it done I’m thinking I may just skip the UD getting part all together. Any offers? *vbg* She’ll work for anyone if she thinks they are good for treats….only comes with moderate to severe badly trained habits that I’m sure any competent trainer could overcome in five seconds and to make up for that she has about 10 times more enthusiasm than any Obedience dog needs. She’ll make you laugh I guarantee it.

Monday night was the teams event and I tried to keep my odds good by placing my three dogs in three separate teams. It worked fairly well finishing in the top four in both the Agility event and the Jumping event. Cypher’s team mostly had a good night. Cypher decided he can keep all the bars up, running clear in the Jumping and having only one fault in the Agility with an A frame contact. It was fairly close and I made a mental note to work contacts all week with him. His team finished 4th in the Agility. Spryte had a ball and we did parts of both courses very nicely and some parts not so nice. She did do something new to me though…all of a sudden she shot off to what she thought the next obstacle was without me even moving there. Then she came back in really quickly and I had to dodge her to avoid tripping on her. She’s definitely gaining in confidence with every run but I need to make sure that’s tempered with self control. It’s great that she is feeling confident and sassy enough to pick out obstacles to do as it indicates her drive to do obstacles is increasing but I need to be pairing that with handler focus as well. Her team The Spice Girls, consisting of two shelties (Rumour being one) and of her and Spice, Andrea’s young NZHD came third in the Jumping so we were very chuffed having two brand new baby dogs on that team! Raven – well she had a ball. Especially on the agility course, I was chicken with the table and didn’t move and she was pointing the wrong way and so jumped off the table one side, saw me going the other jumped on the table again and then ran to the next obstacle. I was laughing from that new little move and didn’t handle the rest of the course at all well and she realised I had stopped handling altogether on around her second circle lap of tunnels and jumps. She came back we finished the course and I couldn’t do anything except grin at her complete and utter enjoyment with not a care in the world. She redeemed our performance in jumping by running clear though. And that was the end of the Classic. At least I didn’t come home completely empty handed picking up a couple of placements with the teams. The courses were great too, I must try and get copies of them to practice at training.

So that brings us to this weekend just gone. Raven, Cypher, Nifty, Sue and myself left for Adelaide on Saturday and landed in 39 degree heat. Just yummy. Not. We’d actually had thunder and rain for a couple days during the week. It had cooled somewhat so of course we up and leave for heatwave temps again. The trip went smoothly till Avis lumped us with a Fiat van (unlike the Toyota HiAce we had ordered and rung up to confirm THREE times before we left)…the Fiat Van has a name – Sauna Box. A fully enclosed cargo section with metal on all four sides and no ventilation. We drove to nearest shady spot at West Beach five minutes down the road and then refused to move until Avis replaced it with a Hi Ace. There was a ‘mix up’ apparently sounding remarkably like a lack of communication to me but we didn’t mention it. 2 and a half hours after landing we had our Hi Ace and all was right with the world again. We headed off to Highway 1, a very nice and full of dog people from all over Australia, holiday park. We settled in, had fish and chips for dinner and generally chilled out in the air con. We headed over to SACA park Sunday around 10.30ish. Adelaide bears a striking resemblance to a red dust bowl currently having been in a drought situation for some time now; everywhere is dry, rock hard and dusty. SACA park was no different. Trailers, cars and tent cabana gazebo land with every piece of shade snapped up we wandered the grounds for a bit checking things out as you do. WA has it very sweet that’s all I will say on that, there is no doubt in my mind that our grounds are the best in the country, though I won’t state that categorically until I see QLD and Tassie.

So the teams event was under a huge marquee used for showing at 1pm. The first agility course was by NZ judge Lyn Sayers and had some challenging technical points in it combined with fast flowing extended segments. It was fun to run and Raven ended up with two refusals only and no DQ which was amazing really given all the DQs happening. Turns out she was saving the DQs for the second round! I handled the lead out badly on Ashley Roach’s (NSW) course, so we picked up a DQ at the beginning, then one about halfway through the course, another one when she went over a jump after the weavers having missed one and I’m not sure where the 4th one came from. She had a real issue with the weaves in the second round and it took three attempts to complete them. I had no idea where she was missing one but she kept coming out on the wrong side. Not like her at all and I do wonder if the stick in the ground poles are an issue for dogs when they have been shunted and pushed aside by previous dogs. A number of Agility Champion dogs had issues with them. C’est la vie as they say. Some great runs by a number of dogs, notable ones were Ronnie’s two Jak and Cricket, a nice run from Wendy and Hollie and a couple of other 1 fault runs that were still very nice to watch. South Australia won overall and that was great to see Danni, Wendy, Darren and Michelle go up and get their prizes.

The following day was Monday and a double Jumping single Agility trial was held at West Beach as part of the Pedigree Autumn International. It was hot still but not quite as hot as SACA had been. We managed to keep the dogs quite cool under the verandah of the clubrooms. Sue and Nifty had a good day taking home 3 first places (both MJs and an OJ and 1 fourth place in the AM OJ).

Raven picked up a second place in Open Jumping and a clear 7th place in Masters Jumping, we wasted a couple of seconds whilst Simone tried to think quicker (and clearly failed given her time!) She had two bars down in MA and I screwed her second MJ run up by pulling her off a jump – I blamed the heat frying my brain then. In Open Agility she took one bar down the same as in her second Open Jumping run. She told me it must have been the heat then too. The photographer got some good shots of her mad running dogwalk in OA where I just took off on her as she finished the weaves determined to beat her to the end of the dogwalk. Check out this page: http://www.inmotionphotography.net/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=318&page=34

Photos 38 to 41.

Cypher was clear in four out of six runs which was much more than I was expecting given our zero percent pass rate the weekend before, the heat (he feels it quite a lot with his coat) and also his travel confinement for the previous two days. He picked up passes in the morning OA and OJ, and in the afternoon in OJ and MJ. Took the dogs to the beach afterwards, they had a swim and then we headed back to the holiday park. We enjoyed a leisurely lie in before flying home just after lunch yesterday.

So here we are at Wednesday. Last night when we got in I happened to be checking Raven’s lymph nodes out, like I usually do…every day much to her disgust. The right hand side one felt a little bit abnormal to me. So I checked in with Ken Wyatt today at Murdoch. He decided I wasn’t being paranoid this time, that there was a slight change which could quite well be an inflammatory response to her allergies playing up (she’s been very itchy on the same side of her face) or it could be ‘something else’. We refused to name it out loud. So he took a fine needle aspirate and told me to ring for the results tomorrow. That is the only change in her. He thoroughly checked her over, listening to her heart and checking all the usual areas. Apart from that one slightly changed node everything else is fine. Raven of course tells me nothing as her behaviour has been completely normal for her, running courses and generally acting like her feral self. Certainly not a typically refined and dignified 8 year old but more like a 3 year old on uppers, the heat seemed to have no effect on her at all…I was secretly hoping it may have given us just a little bit extra in the control department but no such luck. So now we wait. Till lunchtime tomorrow. I refuse to even think about any possible implications until then since there is absolutely nothing I can do right now. Although if it is something I think Adelaide will definitely have to come off our list of places to compete in as that is just too suspicious!

From just this trip alone I’ve decided that the Cool Champions Cool Coat is well worth the investment (I borrowed one Sunday off Sally – thankyou muchly!) and it actually worked. As in when I stuck my hand under the coat after it had been on Raven for a good 20 minutes it was definitely cooler than the outside of the coat. And she felt cool on her fur and skin to touch. I was pretty impressed. So I am looking at purchasing a couple but I am interested to see if anyone else would like to purchase one with me, if we order enough we can get a discount. If you do let me know via email – borderaussie@iinet.net.au.

Definitely a must have for hot weather trialling and we certainly do enough of that even in the evenings round here.

So that is it for now, I am going to update with some training stuff soon. Spryte’s progress with her contact training and Cypher’s jumping work. In the meantime some non dog related recommendations:

Go see Jumper with Hayden Christianson, who is improving with each movie he does. It’s a fast paced, high action, sci fi flick based in reality with some fantastic effects.

My other recommendation is this book: Spud by John Van de Ruit. It’s an absolute crack up and I haven’t laughed out loud as much reading a book since Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals.

Also for a good darkly comedic television series I have to vouch for Showtime’s Dexter, a thoroughly well written and delightfully black humour series about a serial killer with a moral code. This led me to Six Feet Under which is also rather addictive and out on DVD (five seasons) as it finished in 2005.

And these pics below are just for fun...for some reason the breakfast thing made me laugh.

And this just blew my mind as it is *NOT* photoshopped.

And here endeth massive update...comments, queries, rude suggestions? Anyone?