Stacy Peardot in Perth DAY TWO

Today Stacy indicated that she wanted us to work on various handling skills such as our shoulder movements, front crosses and rear crosses. First up though, she talked about an exercise that someone had enquired about the previous day to do with teaching dogs to flex from the middle of their spine leading to greater and more efficient turning capability over jumps and on the flat. We organised a witches hat or cone that was around knee height and we tried a couple of dogs on the exercise however Stacy needed a dog that wouldn’t care about where mum was and was a high toy drive, in particular willing to tug with her. I was asked to bring Cypher out (he apparently has a reputation for his somewhat insane addiction to playing tug, he’s not even 2 yet!) and although at the start he was watching me closely as soon as Stacy brought the tug out the game was on, she had him in the palm of her hand. Stacy would hold him by his collar (as an extra note here she spoke about making sure our dogs were completely unconcerned about being held by the collar, that we should be able to reach out and hold the dog by the collar without the dog feeling like it was being corrected or feeling uncomfortable). So she held him by his collar in her left hand, had the tug toy in her right hand (this was a half meter length ropey tug toy – I think this exercise would be better with a longer tuggy rather than a short one). She held Cy so that he was facing just to the left of the cone, then she brought her right hand and the tuggy round the other side of the cone (she herself was obviously positioned fairly close to the cone). When Cy could see the end of the toy on the left side of the cone and was raring to get at she let him go telling him to “Get it” in an urgent excited voice. As soon as he leapt for it she dragged it quickly round, nice and close to the cone, Cy chased it turning really tightly round the cone and he grabbed it and played when they were clear of the cone heading off at a 90 degree angle to the cone.

He turned so tight the cone got knocked over but Stacy repeatedly said that this did not matter at all, in fact it meant that he was turning as tightly as he could and so it was a good thing. I have tried to do a rough diagram in the image below to try and illustrate the dog’s path, it was important to remember to get that full turning body movement that you reward with the tug toy at the end of the dogs path here (indicated in red). Of course Stacy reminded us that we should be doing this both directions equally even though both we and our dogs will feel a lot more natural and smooth turning one way more than another.

Another aspect that Stacy really wanted us to become better observers of is identifying when a dog was bending or flexing and turning from the middle of his spine or was just trying to pull its body round the turn using its front. From watching when I did it with Cypher a few times myself the others were able to see the difference between the two. An obvious clue is how tight the turn was, every time he flexed from the middle of his spine the turn was tight, if he didn’t the turn was loose on the cone.

The next skill Stacy addressed was the See Saw performance (or teeter as it called in the US). The previous day she had mentioned that she was not inclined to be satisfied with the seesaw performances on the agility course and she felt that we could get them much better. So to get an idea of what approaches dogs were using she had us set up the adjustable seesaw so that it was on full height to begin with. Out of the 12 dogs I think she was satisfied that maybe one or two of them were doing them to the best of their ability. The rest were a mixture of either being very confident yet not understanding the bottom behaviour therefore were prone to fly offs and those that were still slowing down to look for that point at which the seesaw pivots and then moving off. So because the majority were of the latter type we adjusted the seesaw to it’s lowest height (about 10 inches off the ground at the end) and all we did to start with was just run our dogs across the plank encouraging them to just keep running instead of thinking about what they had to do. We did this a few times until the dogs were quite relaxed and running across the plank happily.

She then asked us to give our verbal cue to the dog that we used for the seesaw end behaviour, and if we needed to we were to quick release them with whatever our release word was. This is where Cy and I exposed our big gaps in our seesaw training. (I knew we would, I haven’t been happy with his seesaw training much at all, it relies very heavily on me saying down at just the right moment and it is something that is almost impossible to be consistently on the ball with due to the massive variation we have in our seesaws in this state when it comes to how fast they drop, I’ve been trying to nut out what to do with his seesaw for ages!). We ran at it again and I said “Down” just as he got to the end, he downed immediately however one side of his rear end was not lined up with the plank and he kind of half fell off it sideways as the plank hit the ground, then corrected himself and lay there on the end of the plank waiting for his release of “ok”. It looked awkward, ugly and dangerous, all the things that Stacy observed out loud and I agreed with.

The issue with him is not about flyoffs, he doesn’t really like doing fly offs at all, the issue is that I’m not sure about what exactly I want him to do on the seesaw. I’ve never had to actually think about the process or behaviour before. With Raven I just yell “Wait” she applies the brakes and then self releases as soon as the board hits the ground. Sometimes she slides it into the ground other times she rides it and as soon as it hits she’s gone. She has an absolutely fearless approach to the obstacle and it’s always done us ok in trials so I’ve never thought to refine it or demand anything more formal. I think she has picked up the idea somehow that she has to wait till it hits the ground before she leaves but I’m not sure how. We’ve had a few calls this year for seesaws but again they are rare enough that I’ve never been motivated enough to perfect her seesaw behaviour.

I know I want him to run straight up it, get near the end (not right on the edge or anything like that – a good 30cm from the end) lie down and then release on my “ok”. So Stacy recommended that I take him back to the lower sized seesaw (in training each week) and work on getting that down in a better place and trying to fade that verbal cue out by getting so many repetitions on the low seesaw that he just starts to recognise for himself the behaviour he is running to do. I know it is going to be a work in progress for sometime to come and it is clear that the more different seesaws I get to train him on the better.

She recommended that for quite a few others, the more older dogs though who have been competing in Masters she suggested a bit of gaffer tape on the end of the seesaw with a bit squeeze cheese on it to encourage them to run to the end of the plank and ride it. From an early puppy stage though Stacy uses a very basic shaping with the clicker on the end of an extremely low seesaw (2 to 3 inches off the ground at the most) and she’ll straddle the board at the end facing the pivot point. Then she just shapes and clicks the puppies for getting all four paws on the board (starting off with a click treat for one paw, then two and so on) until pup is virtually throwing their bodies onto the board to get the treat. Stacy went into more detail about what are her next steps but I’m afraid I didn’t take those notes down! I’ll have to see if someone else remembers what she said. Next Stacy set us up the Jumping sequence for the day. She didn’t have any numbers up on it to begin with and simply showed us the first exercise. See the image below;

Stacy then asked us all to run it just being aware of what our shoulders were doing and without ANY verbals apart from whatever word we use for the jumps (Hup, Over etc), but no names or comes. Just about every single dog managed this exercise without any trouble, a few handlers got caught up running into the uprights of the box in the middle but other than that I think maybe one dog out of the whole group actually went into a tunnel. Stacy was impressed with how we managed this exercise particularly after several of us had all voiced our doubts about how we would get around this circle!

We then repeated the exercise in the other direction without too much difficulty. Some of us tried to make sure we stayed off the inner box, however we were still aware of what our shoulders were doing and by being conscious of where they were turning we were still able to keep a hold of our dog. All this without a single yell of a dog’s name or of “Come” or “Here”. I said nothing with Cypher, I just ran since I don’t tend to say anything for jumps. It was a really good shoulder awareness raising exercise!

The next exercise was more of a challenge, especially since the dogs had been patterned at least 6 times by now on the previous exercise.

This one was tough, we were still not allowed to say anything other than the jumps and now we could say the word “tunnel” or whatever word we used for the tunnel. We were not allowed to say the word “out” ARGH!!!! I got round to #5 at least three times and then Cy would cut me off each time to do #14 instead of the tunnel. This was the ultimate exercise in teaching shoulder/body cue importance. The only way I succeeded in the end was when Stacy told me that I needed to turn my shoulders more inwards on #1 to #4 so that when I straightened up and virtually pushed my right shoulder out towards the tunnel as he committed to #5 then he could see a much different picture about our direction. Several of us also struggled to not use our “off arm” to indicate the tunnel, when your shoulder is pushing out there it was incredibly hard to keep the arm from following it out there! This exercise was very valuable and one that I will need to keep working on. We didn’t even get a chance to run it the other way I don’t think, because so many of us found this one such a challenge enough already. All that thinking hard, being so self conscious about what your shoulders were doing whilst still maintaining connection with your dog was a challenge to say the least!

After lunch we then looked at tightening up our front crosses with the following sequence.

Stacy broke this one down for us after we had all had a turn on this (some of us did it well, others not so well). I felt like I was leaving Cy behind on the turns from the box jump to the outside jump, but then I was all too aware that these front crosses were definitely not our strong point.

Stacy wanted to see dogs collect themselves nicely for the front cross turns into the box jumps and she showed us how to encourage this by just demonstrating jump #1 and #2. The handler would stand in line with the inside upright of #2, leg on either side of the bar facing out. Handler holds left hand up to indicate the #2 jump leaving the dog in a wait at #1. Handler releases dog and as dog comes over #1 and as he commits to #2 our right hand come up we step back with our left foot and using our right hand to indicate the turn we ‘collect’ our dog up from the turn and direct them over #3. For a few dogs (including Cypher) it took a few goes before we started to see them showing some real collection in a bid to turn tightly towards us.

Another issue a few handlers had was the dogs bypassing #4, #7 and #10 due to the handlers being so concerned about getting into the right spot to show the front cross turn to their dogs that they stayed close in to the box jumps, just kind of pointed quickly to #4 and then ran off expecting the dogs to do the jumps by themselves. This was a problem as the dogs were on such an angle coming off the inside box jump that the jump was hard to see let alone to try and jump. After several handlers were made aware of this they supported their dogs more by coming off the inside box jump with them and shaping their line a bit better to the jumps. It was interesting when I did a comparison of this exercise with both my dogs, Cypher did fairly tight turns off the inside box and fairly wide turns on the outside circle, yet when I did this with Raven she quickly tightened up her turns on the outside circle however just could not collect herself nicely over the inside box turns, and frequently flung herself over the next box jump. It was almost like with her she’d worked really hard to turn nice and tight towards me on the outside circle and then when I’d caught her after that she thought she was in extension mode again immediately.

Cypher just has no comprehension at the moment of any collection over jumps that are generously spaced apart, irrespective of where my body is. This was something that Stacy noticed and suggested that I do a lot more cone work with him. Again this is an exercise that should be repeated as many times again in the other direction.

The last challenge of the day was rear crosses on this course. See the next image;

This was a great course to run and one that felt as smooth as silk when I ran it with Raven on another day. Cypher and I managed to get around it but he felt slow and was turning like a Mack truck again. He was still switched on to me though so I had a few goes at the course. He managed to read the rear crosses well at #5 to #6 and #9 to #10 and #15 to #16. I felt the line he took over these jumps though could have been much more improved. The dog should not be jumping over #6 at an angle that points him directly at the end of the tunnel. He should be more centred over the bar and should also be on his left lead leg rather than his right, so that he can have an efficient line to #7. A few dogs had issues with handlers not turning their shoulders just at the right moment to get the dog to cross. Too late and the dogs went in the tunnel too early and you pulled the dog off the jump, we even had a few dogs run between the jump and the tunnel. Stacy got up and showed them what line they themselves should be running and she occasionally blocked a tunnel for dogs that had patterned themselves incorrectly to take the tunnel. They took the jump once correctly and then they were fine. Again this is an exercise you can (and should!) do in reverse.

And that was the end of our day and thus our time with Stacy. I really hope she comes back again, as once again I found myself picking up lots of good tips and giving more direction to my training. My goal after this seminar is to have a crystal clear picture of what I want Cy’s seesaw to look like, to walk courses aiming to use front crosses when needed rather than just thinking that it’s always going to be a rear cross, to teach Cypher to flex from his middle all the time. To reinforce my contact behaviour with both dogs – maintain criteria!! Thanks to Deb Kelly of Blue Moon Border Collies who helped make this experience possible and final thanks to Stacy for making the trek out down under!

Bunbury Trial Sunday August 13th 2006

Last Sunday it was well worth the trip to the Bunbury trial (a 2 hour drive) as I came away with 4 qualification cards and 3 FIRST places! Cypher was a star, winning both Excellent Agility and Excellent Jumping. That puts him on 4 legs of his JDX title (1 to go) and it was his first leg of ADX. It was satisfying to note that the previous two weeks of having nothing but twelve weavers set up in my backyard (once they’re up nothing else fits LOL!) and me asking Cypher to weave everytime I went out in the backyard certainly paid off – in four runs he didn’t miss one set of weaves. It’s daunting to think though that he may be in Masters Jumping soon! His Open runs were very nice however my handling in a couple of sections meant no passes, but to see how focussed he was compared to a month ago at the ACWA trials was heartening to say the least! In Agility I simply didn’t give him a strong enough command and forgot what Stacy had told me about my overuse of his name. I am making him become less and less responsive to it if I say it too many times on a course. In Jumping I tried a handling move on him that had worked really well with Raven taking him from the weavers to the tunnel and then realised as he shot past me into the wrong end of the tunnel that it was a move that Raven was experienced in and that he was not! Valuable lesson learnt! Apart from that glitch his run was fantastic.
Raven – well I had some doubts about how day would be, first run up being Masters and she had the 2nd bar down which was only the #2 obstacle. Frustration plus – I dropped Raven and replaced the bar, agonised for a split second if we should walk and then asked the judge if I could continue. It was a really interesting course with some unique challenges and I really wanted to see how I handled the rest of it. So I continued and my handling was right on the ball as we negotiated all the tricky bits. Then 3 obstacles from the end Raven dropped another bar before the chute tunnel so I then stopped, replaced the bar and she left without finishing the course. I said nothing put her back in the car without any treats and then got Cypher out, hoping that she wasn’t going to set the tone for the rest of her runs that day. Open Agility she was brilliant, my handling fell down when I told her to turn after a tyre yelled “Walk it” for the dogwalk and then took off on her determined to get to the end of the dogwalk before she did. She completely and instantly responded to my body cues which did not even suggest the dogwalk was next. Proof once again that regardless of how clearly and firmly you yell your verbals sometimes they will always rely on your body cues first! She kept all her bars up so had a big jackpot at the end of her run. Then it was Masters Jumping. This time I kept my mouth shut apart from maybe 6 commands and we blitzed the course winning 1st place by over 4 seconds. Open Jumping her last run of the day was nearly perfect apart from a small wobble at a tyre which cost us 0.43 of a second to go clear and get 2nd place. It was a really smooth run though that felt really good. There were a number of us recalling the words of Stacy from the seminar the weekend before and the fact that 5 out of the 8 first places were taken by those who had attended the seminar certainly helped confirm the value of her instruction! Now we have another TWO whole weeks to wait till the next trial – thankfully a double one!

WA Dog of The Year Results

Just to let people in Western Australia who are interested know, this website here;

http://www.brynn.id.au/html/results.html
shows the Dog of The Year tally (being kept updated by Tom Weir - owner of Brynn *aka a really cool agility dog*) and this website here;
http://www.agilityclubwa.com/teamselection2007.html
is keeping the points tally up to date on the dogs in the running for team selection at the Nationals next year.

Stacy Peardot in Perth DAY ONE

This two day seminar (Sat Aug 5th and Sun Aug 6th) was well worth the monetary and time investment. I was curious after seeing and working with Stacy nearly 2 and a half years ago now to know what she would present to us this time. It was a very useful and rich mix of foundation training skills and exercises combined with some high level handling skills.

On the Saturday we set up a fairly Masters level agility course containing all the contacts, the weavers and around 20 obstacles. At 8.30am Stacy asked us all to walk it and then run it how we would in a competition – no treats, no toys first run of the trial type scenario. This was used as an evaluating exercise really on her behalf so that she could see what level we were running at. After each run Stacy usually had a few questions for each of the handlers regarding their contact cues but other than that she waited till we had all run and then gave us her honest and frank assessment.

After observing to us that we all had some good handling skills, that we had trained our dogs well particularly on the weavers and that we all in general had very motivated dogs and also that it was great to see the progress from the last time she was here (I have to do a small brag here – Stacy remembered Raven from 2 and half years ago and her jumping issues – she asked me before we ran “Is this the dog with jumping issues?...So how are they now?” I gave the guarded reply of that Raven had improved adding that she might possibly still knock every bar down! Raven was fantastic the whole day – she only knocked about three bars in the afternoon’s exercises but all morning she kept every bar up!) Stacy then gave us her thoughts on our areas of weakness, the first one being that she was unable to clearly tell from our runs for most of us what our criteria was for contacts, they were all over the shop, some were clearly two on two off, some looked like they might be running contacts but she wasn’t sure and that we were not showing any consistency from one contact to another with the behaviours we wanted from our dogs. The second bigger issue she felt was our choices on course about where we cross and what cross we were using. It looked to her like we were not very logical or consistent in deciding where our crosses should be and of course she observed much room for improvement in terms of how our bodies were executing the crosses.

So the first thing she discussed with us was the contact training and criteria that we had. She picked on a couple of dogs to show exactly how ‘untrained’ their contacts were and she made it clear that by no means was this example limited to these two it was just that they were good for demonstrating what she was talking about. Independent contacts are not about being able to send your dog on up and over an a frame and have that dog hold that 2 on 2 off position until the handler catches up (although that is a tool you will use at some point) – independent contacts are about your dog absolutely knowing without a doubt what that bottom behaviour on a contact is and driving to that same point every single time irrespective of where you are standing or running to on a course. Not only that though – the dog must perform this behaviour to 200% in training because in trialling she knows that 95% is probably the best she is going to get. No matter what we will NEVER be able to duplicate the atmosphere and environment of a trial no matter how many Show N Goes we try and do. It’s simple – we are not the same at Show N Goes as we are at trials so why should we expect that a dog will not notice the difference and behave differently according to their environment. So she asked what the majority of people were using with their contacts – we replied with two on two off for most of us. Stacy said that from our performances just now she wasn’t sure what we were wanting and that in itself spoke volumes about how closely we were adhering to our criteria *not very close*! She broke her contact training down into bit by bit and explained all the baby steps she used along the way to get the behaviour. A discussion ensued about what the value was in using two verbal cues over just one cue (ie Go “Climb” and then “Touch” versus just “Climb”). Stacy explained that from her point of view the contact obstacles really have two actions – that is the dog has to negotiate the obstacle and then the dog has to complete the ‘bottom’ behaviour. She felt that the obstacle name (Climb, Walkon, Teeter, Seesaw, AFrame etc) was not as crucial as the cue for the bottom behaviour (Touch, Stop, Contact etc) however she herself still prefers to use the two verbals together. One reason she prefers it this way is because she feels that she should be giving the dog as much information as possible re the direction they’re going, as well as that was just what she felt comfortable with. It also helped delineate between obstacles when the contact behaviour contrast (ie dogwalk may be “touch” for two on two off and Seesaw could be “stop” for driving to the end and stopping with all four on.)

Above is the Masters course that Stacy asked us to do. It then got broken up into section by section. We did obstacles 1 through to 8 to start with. When I did this I did a lead out to the left hand side of the #3 upright, I called Raven over #1 and #2 with my left hand out pointing at the jumps as she committed to #2 I brought my right hand up to indicate a steady over #2 as we were doing a turn I wrapped her round my left leg and she took jump #3 immediately after the wrap. She then went straight in the weavers when I started to move directly towards them. I front crossed and met her at the exit of tunnel #6 got her in close to my right side so she spliced #7 and then basically rear crossed as she went up the a frame. See diagram below the red dotted line representing my path;

I thought we’d managed it quite well however there were other ways to do the start – some handlers did a lead out a meter or so past #3 but in between #2 and #3. They did a lead out pivot move here, some others did just a simple shoulder pull, some others did a full front cross. Stacy wanted us to shape the line from #1 to #2 in order to make the turn from #2 to #3 as efficient as possible as well as to encourage the speed off the start. By shaping the line and wrapping the dog around your left leg between #1 and #2 it had a sling shot effect on their speed. See the diagram below;

Only about 2 of the dogs had an issue with #2 to #3 – or rather the handler’s had to work on their shoulder movements a bit more to get that nice line without pulling their dogs in too early thus causing the dog to treat it as a threadle or pushing the dog off #3 too much causing the dog to go past the jump.

I decided I really didn’t need to do the front cross between 6 and 7 (I had the vague idea that it may tighten Raven’s line to #7 but when I did it the way most people handled it; a slight RFP and then let go, this was actually the smoothest and undoubtedly quickest line for her). Handling from #8 to #9 certainly made us appreciate those independent contact performances. This also brought up the observation by Stacy that we don’t practice our quick releases enough in training. I have recently been of the mindset; do a 150 contacts in training each week where you proof the hell out of the position and reward heavily. For example in training each week I will load up the pockets with treats and I will ask for the 2on2off position every contact Raven does while I fly by running at full tilt, then I’ll do send away contacts, I’ll do contacts where I run with her and then stop dead half way along the dogwalk while she carries on to the position, throw food on the ground, have toys lying nearby etc anything I can think of to proof her driving to that position and holding it until I release her I will do during the week. Every successful contact she does I will run in and reward her with multiple treats one after the other up to 6 times. I figure that by doing this I’ll get those contact behaviours to hold up for most of her runs if not all of her runs at trials on the weekends. By ‘hold up’ I don’t mean the full 2on 2off behaviour I mean enough to get me slight pauses in the contact area, sometimes running into the area, sometimes enough of a propping type movement for her to hit the contact. This is, *I know*, a very haphazard way of training and trialling her contact behaviour, therefore I accept the occasional missed contact. I’ve kept records her stats this year are that she hits her contacts 90% of her runs. I’m thinking 10% missed contacts is certainly acceptable given her handler’s training technique but not ideal. Hence my younger boy at 22 months has missed *one* A Frame contact and *one* Dogwalk contact since he started trialling at 18 months (51 runs). But I digress – having a dog that hits the contact area/position and holds it until released is always going to be the best option when it comes to trialling and desirable contact behaviours. However as Stacy said “How often do we practice quick releases in training?” Getting that timing right is crucial and ensuring that the dog recognises that release word straight away is vital. Stacy recommended that when we train our contacts that sure we should be proofing the position using distance and movement and everything else however we should also be training like we trial and part of that is getting those quick releases polished up to the point where the dog is in the colour and is gone. In training do several proofing the behaviour contacts but then throw in a quick release one as well. Don’t do them repetitively or too many times throughout a training sessions but definitely include them. We did have a couple of dogs feel that they were being tested and needed a few repeats of their verbal release before they would leave the obstacle. It also showed that sometimes people were not consistent with their release cue – sometimes the dogs were releasing on various cues (obstacle name, the cue to ‘jump’, the ‘go on’ cue etc etc).

This leads into what Stacy wanted us to do between obstacles #8, #9 and #10. The majority of us when we first handled this course stayed fairly close to the a frame, ran to #9 with our dogs on the left and pulled the dog’s into the #10 seesaw and rear crossed on this obstacle. Here we learnt that Stacy very rarely rear crosses on contact obstacles and she stated that she only does it when it is a last resort option or when she is forced to. Her reasoning for this was that these are control points on the course and the dogs momentum has to be slowed already for them to negotiate them successfully so why should we make these obstacle performances even slower by rear crossing on them? Good question and again it led me to reflect that so often when handlers run fast dogs they rarely think about the dogs speed and momentum. We really think it is one of those things we never have to think about because with fast dogs we never worry about making time – it is time to start really embracing this fairly new mindset for us – this concept of when you have a fast dog you should be out there to try and get the fastest time on that course and not just go clear. Take it to the next level – ok so you don’t have to worry about making time, irrespective of this you should always consider your handling from the viewpoint “Am I slowing my dog down *unnecessarily*?”. A rear cross on a seesaw is probably going to do that.

So that said she wanted us to trust our dogs to do their contacts on the a frame move laterally away from the a frame and get a front cross in between #9 jump and the #10 seesaw. Every single on of us got there without any problems at all. The only issues we had were a few missed contacts, some handlers moving their shoulders into the turn too early causing the dog to go on the inside of the jump and of course the old late signal causing the dog to take #9 in an extended style over the middle of the bar and wasting time covering the wide turn. After we all had a few goes at this though we were all handling this section to a very high level.

The diagram above shows where we did the front cross to get the dogs to turn over jump #9 and head towards the seesaw. Next a discussion about how to handle jumps #11 to #12 and to #13. Initially it was handled by us in several different ways. Some people pushed the dog out to take the #12 jump and the just rear crossed on #13, others did a front cross between #11 and #12, and a few did a front cross at #12 and did a shoulder pull to bring the dog into #14 and they rear crossed further up on the course. Stacy asked us for the front cross at #12 and then a front cross between #14 and #15. Most of us could do the front cross at #12 without any problems, a few of us (myself included) had a problem getting the cross between #14 and #15 to work. What was happening is we either left the cross too late and dogs were flying over #13 so extended they went over #20, or people were so intent on getting there for the cross they didn’t support the dog to take #13 and so the dogs pulled off #13 and came towards the handler. Another issue I had was I’d be trying to turn before I was in the right spot and I just have Raven whip past me on the wrong side of me as she knew there was another jump behind me and must have thought her line was far more efficient than the awkward S shape line I was trying to make her take LOL! This whole section between #13 and #15 felt quite uncoordinated for me. Really only a few handlers mastered this to a high level. It was a fine line between pushing too far to #13 (over supporting the dog) and not pushing enough. I felt that I wasn’t getting a very tight turn over #13 and also that it felt really odd to be right in the middle of her path over #14 doing a cross. I started doing this weird movement where I felt the she was so close to crashing into me that I had to do a quick shift of my weight onto my toes – don’t ask me what that was in aid of, it really made no sense! It was a handling choice though that done smoothly as a few of us managed to do, looked extremely efficient and quick. Definitely a sequence to work on and perfect.

Numbers 15 through to 18 were not an issue for me but several handlers had problems with their dogs finding the walk, some of them pushed too far and sent their dogs into the tunnel on the outside of the walk and others over compensated for the left turn and actually pulled their dogs into the tunnel at the other end. Really I did not see it as any push out needed at all – our body positions at that stage meant that the dogs would have been far enough away already due to their momentum over jumps #15 and #16. I think where you started to turn your shoulders definitely had an impact on whether they took the walk or the tunnel. In situations like this though I prefer to not even consider that a tunnel is there. After Stacy had given some handlers advice on where they should move and when they should be turning we were all handling this finding the dogwalk challenge with ease. Stacy interestingly enough wanted us to do a front cross at the end of the dogwalk to push the dogs into the #18 tunnel. I don’t think anyone did this the first time they ran the course, I’m not sure but I think there were a few off courses into the wrong end of the tunnel when we first ran it. I chose to shoulder pull and it worked fine. I’m guessing for those it didn’t work for either the dog had been focusing in on the wrong tunnel entry anyway coming down the dogwalk and would have taken it regardless of how good the shoulder pull was or the handler was a little less definite than they should have been when it came to the shoulder pull move. Either way the handler can fix this. However Stacy wanted the front cross and then another front cross before the final tunnel #21.

See the diagram below;

I think the trickiest part for us was A: Remembering to stand and wait for the dogs to come out of the tunnel ensuring that we grabbed their attention straight away – if we ran off on them too soon some would go up the dogwalk again and others would go straight past #19. and B: Getting that front cross smooth between #20 and #21. It was again a front cross that put you in the dog’s path (a very foreign feeling for that to happen on the move – quite different from when you shape the dogs path at a lead out). It took a few repetitions but most of us succeeded at this one.
So at the end of Saturday we ran the whole course using the handling approaches we had practiced. It was good to see how much progress we’d made from being completely uncomfortable with some moves to being quite proficient in executing them. Stacy finished with why she prefers the front cross to the rear cross the majority of the time on courses. Basically you have more chance to speed your dog up from in front than you do from behind and that front crosses whenever you need to turn a dog or change your side should be your first choice or handling options. Rear crosses are often performed below par and frequently rely on the handler slowing down to perform them. Stacy’s attitude when people ask about what if you are unsure if you can get to where you need to be is to be positive about doing your utmost to get there and then if you know at the last second that you are not going to make it – it will turn into the best rear cross you can do, because then you have that back up option. Whereas if you just make your mind up to do the rear cross only then if your’s dog’s momentum and drive or your position is out of place and doing a rear cross is not going to work you just end up, if you’re lucky, with a rear cross that just misses being called a fault with a lot of wasted time and at the worst a complete refusal call. I really warmed to this idea and I am going to endeavour to walk courses keeping that type of approach to handling foremost in my mind. Stay tuned...Day TWO coming soon!

BAD HANDLER!!!!

Ok I will be kicking myself up and down the training field for the next 2 weeks at least! Raven was superb today she did not put a foot wrong she went exactly everywhere I told her to!!! She kept every single bar up in FOUR runs and was as responsive and as focussed as she has ever been.Stupid, idiot, dumbass handler today screwed up both Masters runs – and lovely steward came up to me afterwards and told me Raven had the quickest time on both courses today ARGHHHH!!!!!. In Masters Agility I called “Tyre– turn” and then forgot to say “out” or “over” or even if I had just left my arm up she would have taken the jump instead she ran straight past it – ARGHHHH!!!!!! In Masters Jumping I said “Out” too late – she had already done what she needed to do to get round the 270 jumps and then when I said a completely superfluous Out she went out ARGHHHH!!!!!!! Fantastic dog though she was awesome today! One trial soon we shall hopefully get it happening together on the same day! Open Jumping she had a tricky distance challenge angle onto the broad jump – I didn’t get her in towards me enough before I sent her over the broad and she had no momentum and had to try and clear a broad jump jumping sideways from a standstill – she tried her little heart out but ended up paddling the broad to try and get over it. I actually felt sorry for her then – and briefly thought wow she needs a new handler for sure!! Then Open Agility – we were nailing the course, I moved off from a front cross a bit too soon and she ran past a jump – again!!!*sigh* at that point I really did start watching other handlers wondering if they’d like a go at running my dog cos darn sure nobody else could do a worse job than I did today! Cypher – well he was hard work today right up until the last run of the day when he actually ran really nicely for me I just wasn’t able to cue a tunnel entry properly and we had an off course. But the other runs well – Open Jumping he did that horrible angle broad ok but I probably didn’t keep pushing forward quick enough once he had cleared it and thus he missed the jump. Then he vagued out on me on the rest of the course – we did it but it wasn’t pretty. Excellent Jumping and Excellent Agility were much the same – we did manage to get round on both courses till about the third last obstacle and he just switched off – in jumping he went off and did a tyre that was miles away and in agility he was busy checking out his surroundings so much on the way out that he got a refusal on a jump….ARGHHH!!!!! I hate boy dogs!!! But I was happy with his last run of the day – he nailed all his weavers today and did not knock a bar and all his contacts bar one a frame were great. But now we have to wait another TWO weeks till the next trial! He was a bit distracted by my friend Robyn who came down and trialled today for the first time in ages – Robyn is known to Cy as the keeper of all the girls that he loves, he spied Saffi (his favourite red and white) at one point and temporarily lost his brain nerve synapses for several moments. Ok he’s 21 months old – he WILL get through this I’m sure! Not sure how long it will take though!

My Faith in Humanity

Yes, again with the "Scrubs" reference - I was browsing looking for Scrubs sites when I can across this little gem - http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/tv/2002/scrubs.html
For all you poor lost souls out there who haven't a clue about whether or not "Scrubs" is suitable for viewing you can go there and read the rating (Caution, Usually Ok, Avoid). Here's a quote from one enlightened 15 year old
"Avoid -- ...its impossible to watch the show for two minutes without being offended by sickening language and sex. I find it sad that we have become so desensitized. - Nicole Hoffman, 15" This was funny as there is no swearing in this show at all and very little in terms of nudity apart from people in their underwear from time to time. It was actually funny until I read the age of the person who wrote it - 15 years old for crying out loud!!So sad that one so young has been already well and truly brain washed by her so-called parents (if they even are her parents - we could be looking at some sort of cultish sect from Utah here). But seriously who could not find this funny? A quote from the ever verbally profuse Dr Cox on his 2 year old "Is that a cat being gutted by a fishing knife? No! That's my son. He's hungry and he's got a load in his pants so big that I'm actually considering hiring a stable boy." Or this one from the Janitor:"Some hooligan keeps disconnecting the alarm. I told Security to look into it. But no, no, they'd rather catch the guy who's stealing organs from the transplant ward. "
See what you're missing out on Miss Hoffman?

My Philosophy

See from that blog heading up there you might be assuming that I am now going to get all whimsical on this post and impart my self-indulgent observations on all my avid readers (yes all two of you - I know who you are *insert knowing smile here*). 'Fraid not - the heading is actually a reference to what has to be my favourite show right now (which has overtaken the sublime House possibly due to House not being aired at the moment). SCRUBS!! In one word this show is 'quirky'. In my recent holiday period (drawing to a close tomorrow and just one of three reasons for my moderately melancholic attitude) I have finished watching for the 2nd time Seasons 1 through to 5 average 24 eps per season. I have come to the decision that should any medical treatment in a hospital be required by me that I shall only be treated by Dr "JD" Dorian or a cantankerous soft-centred worthy House opponent Dr Perry Cox. I have come to three conclusions about doctors after watching this (so you can see my conclusions are based on absolute fact and research into the matter). One is that they work in shifts that would make a Burswood croupier weep and that the hours they work should be looked into as it could be the cause of any medical errors made by Drs, two is that it's scary to know that at any point if you check into a teaching hospital you could be being treated by an Intern who could be failing out of Med School, and three is that the amount of time dedicated to patient/doctor relationships in hospitals is sadly lacking in any hospital I've ever been in.
Ahh Scrubs! How I do laugh at thee and thy silly physical humour and clever dialogue. I shall practice escaping inside my head like JD does throughout my workday. The 2nd and 3rd reasons for my somewhat melancholic state you might wonder? #2 - Didn't win 21 million dollars in the Lottery and #3 - Absolutely no agility fix this weekend.

Weekend trials and tribulations Part 2

Well after posting a couple of pictures below I guess I should elaborate on the weekend that *wasn't*. Long story short - Raven: 12 runs and 1 Clear (and no a First place does not make up for it!) Cypher: 10 runs and 4 clears (a 2nd and a 4th and 6th and something else). We had a bar knocking revival in Raven's camp and in Cypher's we had two very nice runs and two extremely painful tooth pulling experiences that were clear but were so much work I actually wondered if we'd made the standard course time. Quite shameful really when it is a Border Collie on the other end of the leash and you have to wonder if you made the time! So no more lingering on that - Cypher's bug bear at the moment in trials is not being able to focus enough to finish 12 weavers. And Raven has been working on her jumping this week - though I am resting her up since last Wednesday, felt she could do with a break from jumping and we'll just work her Obedience for a bit.

It's the Little things in Life...

This weekend was an interesting one to say the least - the life of an agility competitor is seldom dull and often a bit like taking a chance on a new ride at the Royal Show. I cherish the anticipation (you can tell I'm feeling whimsical and...what is that word, it's like 'philosophical' but not so stuck up...nevermind I shall think of it) that I get when looking forward to an agility filled weekend. The anticipation consists of the key element in any psychological preparation for a sporting performance - visualisation. You picture yourself running with confidence and complete clarity on the course, giving directions on time, being absolutely crystal clear in communication with your team mate (what other sport relies so heavily on a clear understanding between two very different species?) and you visualise your team mate flying over jumps, turning on the spot, responsive to every signal you give, weaving like a dog possessed, and nailing the contacts without a doubt. Every skill and every nuance of your dance on course with your dog is clearly trained with great commitment and skill as is clearly observed and noted by ringside spectators. I like to visualise these types of runs. So you see a new ride at the Royal Show - you see it in action and you wonder exactly just how thrilling that new ride will be for you. So you start to anticpate how good this ride will be. Some ride will indeed live up to your expectation - there will be thrills and heart stopping moments and a great rush of adrenaline will pump through your body accompanied by a sense of complete exhilaration. At the end you will be glad you spent your 10 dollars on such an awesome experience. But some rides don't work out that way, you climb into the seat and find that some nice youth has left a moist looking, grey coloured, entirely chewed far beyond any molecules of flavour remaining piece of gum which promptly adheres to your clothes. Great now your clothes are messed up. Next the ride starts to move - however it's not moving in the direction you visualised it would and now you're starting to be concerned. There is a lurch and you find yourself questioning your sanity in choosing this ride. Before you know it (and while you are still waiting for the fun exciting part) the ride grinds to a halt and you are left there in your gum infested seat wondering what the hell your ten bucks got you, why you feel maligned and that you deserve a refund (or in agility-speak rerun). Yes Agility is like that sometimes - however at times the ride is so good that you end up living, breathing and working towards your next possible chance to try another ride.

Weekend Trials and Tribulations

Above are two photos of some rare moments from this weekend's runs. Raven clearing a bar and waiting on the seesaw. Let's see....12 runs for Raven this weekend and ONE clean run. Ok so that one clean run was a first place but seriously it does not make up for the rest of my pain this weekend LOL!! More on that later though...

Cloverdale Trial

Today was our first trial for at least four weeks – it feels like it’s been months since the last one!! When it was in fact the Nationals in Sydney. Today we had a mixed bag of results. We were at Cloverdale Canine Companions club trial. Raven and I just couldn’t get in sync with each other today – we had the first two runs where my handling was fine and she was feral and then the last two runs when she had finally settled down and was listening/responding very well and I stuffed up. *sigh*. Oh well, least Cypher didn’t disgrace himself *vbg* Out of two runs he ended up with a 3rd place clear round in JDX – the Excellent Agility run we had a bit of bad handling by me (gave him no warning that the jump he was about to take was a spread rather than just a single) a bit of bad handling by him (he hit the weavers so fast his back end got caught up and he missed one). All in all I was pretty happy with him – he was keen and focused and ran on well. Raven’s first run was Masters Agility (which only had 1 qualifier) and we stopped at jump #8 as she took the bar down. Next was Open Agility and she was completely feral this time – she hit a bar (only the 2nd obstacle in!) and was half way up the dogwalk before I could stop her and she blew me off on her contact, I made her come back and do it properly – she got the seesaw nicely after that and then we had real issues with her layering out to a tyre. In the end I ran round the dogwalk and helped her out. Once we got to the distance line we were fine and she finished off nicely but she really wasn’t connected at all during that run. Then it was Masters Jumping and this was going really well until I moved too far down into a pocket that I should have held back on more and she took an off course jump. But other than that she listened really well and kept her bars up nicely. Then Open Jumping and idiot me completely forgot about the distance line ARGH!!! She did everything perfect and I of course stuffed it for her…never mind she still got lots of yummy treats afterwards. So today wasn’t a complete write off – we got a leg we needed and out of 6 runs we had four good ones.
Can’t wait till next weekend – three trials YAY!!

Addy - The Australian Sea Lion

I went to AQWA yesterday (Perth's only underground Aquarium housing many different species from the sea). At 1.30 there was a "Seal Show". AQWA has had some dramas in the past with keeping animals in activity - there was a mystery illness that killed a number of dolphins and there are other issues I believe that they are trying to overcome for the future containment of the animals. There is now currently only one seal there - a 9 year old Australian Sea Lion by the name of Adelaide who arrived there 9 months ago from the wild. Expecting the usual parlour tricks and cute little behaviours I was pleasantly surprised and quite pleased when I sat back and listened to the female presenter/trainer/carer of Adelaide explain exactly why "Addy will NOT be balancing a ball on her nose". She touched on that generally the public have these expectations when they come to a marine show of any sort of seeing the animals doing all sort of tricks. As far as this woman was concerned anyone can teach a seal to do that in five minutes but do you ever see them doing these "tricks" out in the wild? It was as she put it, silly human desires to see the cute animal do something funny that spurs that expectation and it left no room for the animal to retain it's dignity and learm something that may help save it's life. Addy, as you can imagine coming straight out of the wild, was no very predisposed to her handlers or carers and she chose to bite people many times so her trainer decided she needed to work on getting her more used to accepting the care she needed to have to ensure her health and physical well being. SO after explaining how we wouldn't be seeing tricks of any kind the trainer tolds us that she would be asking Addy to move around onto a rock where she could be examined, to open her mouth so that she could touch her teeth, to lie down so she could check her body for any lumps or bumps, holding her hind flippers etc etc. Through all this Addy would be complying due to the reinforcment of food, Addy had been taught that if she allowed or demonstrated a behaviour that she would be fed. There was a high pitched whistle, dog whistle of some sort that the trainer used like a clicker really to mark the correct behaviour. I was absolutely enthralled and whilst those around me found that getting a sea lion to lie down was quite ho hum I clapped enthsuiastically wondering if many of the audience had any sort of inkling about how challenging and unnatural it was for a wild animal to lie down in such a submissive position. I doubted that such progress could be made if we were for example trying to care for a completely wild dingo or fox or wolf for that matter (not that there are wolves in Australia of course, apart from the Zoos). The handlers/carers of Addy had observed that she liked to jump and that she was very agile and had a very high jump (this was after a few patrons had their cameras taken off them) and so extra netting and wire fencing was employed. So one of the things Addy had to do was to jump out of the water to take the fish from the trainer's hand and this she did twice with extreme accurate jumps. So after showing all the animal husbandry techniques to be used on Addy the trainer got her to hold a flipper up and out to bid us goodbye. It was the first time such a show had not had the "wild" animals doing entertaining tricks for all the crowd to wow at and it was a refreshing change and certainly gave Addy alot more respect and dignity. They hope to get her a male mate soon. Can you imagine if this was the approach of all such animal shows around the world? What a much more pleasant world it would be for those animals.

Raven and Cypher Pics from the Nats

Cypher in his first Novice Agility run at the Nats

Cypher in his Novice Agility final at the Nats

Cypher in his first Novice Agility run at the Nats

Raven - the teams jumping event

Raven - Masters Agility Sunday AM

Raven in Masters Jumping Final

Raven - teams agility Sat AM

Sydney ANKC Agility Nationals 2006

So here I sit finally with some time up my sleeve to get this blog updated. It has been on my TO DO list for some time now but today is the first chance I’ve had to do it some justice and write it up properly. Anyway where does one start with such a huge event as this one? At the beginning I suppose…we arrived late Thursday night and had Vicki Priestley kindly offer to pick us up (this is a very kind and generous offer when you consider what the Sydney traffic is like on a Thursday night!) and she took us to Erskine Park where our caravan was waiting for us. We were situated fairly close to the grounds where the rings were set up and were on the whole quite pleased with how smoothly everything went. It was great to see we were camped next to some South Australians and some Queenslanders who had attended last year’s Nationals and remembered me well (not sure if that is a good thing or not *g*). So Friday was settling in and getting some practice in on the equipment set up in the practice ring, taking the dogs on long strolls around the grounds, sussing out where to set up our much needed and greatly appreciated cabana (thanks Ronnie!!) and getting hold of our numbers.

Thursday night was cold but Friday dawned quite mild and was not too cold most of the day despite patches of drizzly rain throughout the day.
We attended the BBQ Friday night with Danni and her mum Margaret from SA and also Lisa Kaddatz and the crew from Queensland – Annette and Sue. So after a good feed we hit the sack around 10ish in the vain hope of getting a decent nights sleep in. Now I don’t know about anyone else but I got about 4 hours sleep Friday night – I awoke at 12 and just could not get back to sleep till about 3am! So much for a good nights rest! Anyway we were up at 6am and organising the dogs, toileting them properly and then getting their crates set up at the grounds and being ready to go and walk the first teams agility course by 7.20am. Bill Almond from NSW was the judge and he was very nice and with a lovely open flowing course. There were a lot of clear rounds in and NSW started us off with 5 nice runs (3 of them clear 1 with 1 fault). WA was up next and our first dog up Bailey had a couple of bars and then unfortunately a refusal as a dog ran at him from the sidelines which caused him to go around a jump. Kriszty and Jess had a DQ when Jess did the wrong side of the tunnel and then it was Sue and Nifty’s turn. They had a fault at the seesaw but other than that a very smooth run. I was next with Raven and she took a bar and got called on the seesaw. Brodie and Di ran last with 1 fault on the A Frame, so no clear rounds for WA, unfortunate but we knew with some of our dogs that we would be struggling with control issues at 8am on a very cold morning especially since for many of the dogs the last trials were well over a month ago for them. The event saw WA in 6th place with VIC in 7th. ACT was leading by 0.19 of a second over NSW, TAS was in 3rd spot, followed by SA and then QLD and then us. Next it was onto the courses for the day.

First up I was in the ring in Novice Agility with Cypher. He did a really smooth clear round without me pushing him and he ended up in 5th spot overall out of 120 dogs and a berth in the final. It was a great course for the WA dogs actually – Kriszty’s Terra and Andrea’s Smudge took 1st and 2nd respectively and Nic Ford’s Sheltie Jasper also got in the top 10. Next up was Open Agility for Raven and Cypher – I ran Cypher first and we did really well up until the distance challenge there was just a few too many obstacles for him to look at and his momentum wasn’t forward enough to make the challenge. I ran across the line to help him out. Raven was doing a blitzing run until she popped the last weaver (her bad!) and then I worked her contacts for the rest of the course – she flew around to finish the course very nicely. Next up Raven was in a very tough Masters Agility course – I thought it was do-able and it was in the end cleared by quite a few dogs, we got through around half the course when I just reacted a fraction too slow and she took an off course jump – her time was blitzing and her contacts were awesome it was a real shame that my handling just let her down – not that she cared!! We then went and had a go at the Open Jumping course – Raven did a nice round on this one and went clear despite a few wobbles on the course when I found myself giving her really crap angles onto jumps. There was no final for this one (which is a real shame but next year it will be offered in Adelaide which is GREAT!). Cypher was going great guns on this one easily managing the distance challenge and then for some reason had a completely novice boy dog moment where he just went straight past the tunnel entry to run behind the tunnel – it was completely bizarre and unexpected thing – but you know it was a total 20 month old boy dog thing as well! It was a shame because the rest of the course was lovely.

Next up was the games – first up I went in the Gamblers with Raven and we quallied over there whilst working our contacts and our weaves many times…she took a while to do the gamble because she headed off to do a tunnel instead of the gamble which wasted time but never the less we gained our first pass card for our GD title. Along with 130 other dogs as well apparently – so Novice Gamblers is not so hard! Then I went over to the Snooker ring – which I didn’t even walk I just had Amanda with Marty tell me my best course of action to get a card and so we duly followed her instructions and there we go – first card of Snooker Dog our SD title!

Then Sue and I had a go at Strategic Pairs – initially Sue was not going to do it as Nifty had been pushing her a bit on his contacts and she didn’t want him anymore excited and “up” than he was but when she saw the course and saw how spread out we were she decided to give it a go. Me, I found it extremely calm and excellent for reminding Raven about her careful jumping and solid contacts. We got through with a pass card each even though Raven had to go and do a jump Sue had forgotten to do with Nifty. It wasn’t hard at all and good fun to achieve something in partnership with someone. They’re both such fun dogs to run too that any chance we get to run them is great!

Then the jumping courses were up soon after, I still had Cypher to run in his first ever Excellent Jumping and Raven to run in Masters Jumping and Cypher and Nicola’s Sage still had to go into Strategic Pairs together. Plus Cy still had to go into Gamblers. To cut a long story short Cy got a quallie in both Gamblers and in Strategic Pairs with Sage and in Excellent Jumping I really pushed him as I saw a lot of clear rounds going up on the board and I knew that if we were to make top 10 I’d need to get all the speed I could out of his inexperienced little body. So in pushing him I just did one rear cross a bit too sharply on him and out of 31 trials runs so far he took his FIRST EVER bar down. I didn’t hear it till we were over the next bar and it was a real shame as it turned out he would have made top ten. And looking at the calibre of dogs competing I was absolutely thrilled with my young boy’s efforts at his first ever Ex Jumping trial. By the time Raven was in Masters Jumping they had the one set of generator lights running on the ring. I was not sure what to do with the lead out and the handling from jump three to four which had a very inviting u shaped tunnel in between. I of course botched up by saying “Go” instead of “Come” thus she went straight into the tunnel. My fault so we kept going and then she took an off course jump – not only did she do it without my cue or signal but then she took it down! So we stopped and I replaced the bar and left the ring. It worked because she didn’t drop another single bar that weekend – not bad for a girl with chronic bar issues – 2 bars in 10 runs. So at the end of the day we had 4 quallie cards for Raven out of 7 runs and 3 quallie cards for Cypher out of 6 runs. (I didn’t do Snooker with Cy as I was feeling cheap and didn’t think that I’d be doing it too well and I don’t want to be slowing down anywhere on course to stop and think about stuff with him).

We went to the Official Dinner that night and it was a very nice meal and listened to a lovely speech by Henk Plancke one of the foremost promoters of Agility in Australia when it first started to be played here in the mid to late 80s. By 9.30pm my head was on the pillow and I didn’t awake again until 5.30am the next morning – I must have been exhausted! But it was up early again this time for the Teams Jumping event and lordy that Jumping course Judge Lisa from QLD put up was a tough one! I think there was only one team that didn’t have any DQs in their top 4 score and that was Victoria! The thing was I felt it was a very doable course and I had a beautiful plan, and it was being executed really well I might add up until the last 4 or 5 jumps! Raven was absolutely flying as usual, keeping all her bars up listening really well, me I just found myself running to the end of a tunnel that I shouldn’t of and she ended up taking about 3 or 4 wrong jumps to receive the max score of 200. I was kicking myself about it because I just *knew* we could do that course if I’d kept my head together! Other people did come up to me afterwards and commented that her speed did not give me time to blink let alone think in situations like that one on a twisty tight course. I had walked it so well though I thought that I had imprinted it firmly into my muscle memory so I didn’t have to think I could just “do”. So much for that plan!!! I will set this one up at training though as I really want to do it successfully – it was a small consolation that hardly any Raven type speed dogs got through it without a DQ. Ash Poli and our veteran Bailey were the only ones on the WA team NOT to DQ.

Anyway onto the 2nd chance at qualifying for a final! Cypher was first up again in Novice Agility and we ran a blitzing course with only microseconds held on the contacts for a 3rd place and clear out of 120 dogs – he was a good boy! Then next up was Raven in Masters Jumping which again looked like a challenging course but was certainly getting a number of fast clear rounds on it so no time for wobbles or you wouldn’t make top ten. Raven and I ran it smoothly and without a fuss and came in with clear round 2nd place. I was absolutely over the moon with her (and pretty chuffed that I’d handled it exactly the way I wanted to handle it) and was very proud of my little girl to beat out nearly 160 other dogs. She was in a final YAY!!! Then we had Cypher in Excellent Jumping – again this was a nice challenging smooth flowing course and unfortunately Cypher had another novice 20 month old boy moment when I said “Out” clearly indicating with my right hand (which was near his head I have to say!) and he decided out meant cut across the front of Mum’s path and do the jump on the other side – Doofus!!! Apart from that little “Out” glitch we did a lovely course I thought *g*!

Masters Agility with Raven and she was like the second last dog to run out of 160 again. I had plenty of time to memorise my plan and run it like clockwork and I did. This is the first time however her running contact stride took her paw’s width over the colour on the dogwalk….D’oh!!!! Dammit! So I put her back on the contact and then we carried on to finish what would have been a super fast run….it was such a shame but I was happy anyway I had made the Masters Jumping final (a final we didn’t make last years Nats). Although I will always consider Jumping Raven’s lesser event (since her bars are an issue and her contacts are usually the quickest).

A brief lunch break and then it was onto the finals – first up Novice Agility finals. I warmed Cy up reinforcing his contacts and doing three sets of super fast 12 weaves in the practice ring. As I watched the first few dogs go through I saw dog after dog after dog pop out the weavers ARGH!!!! When both Terra and Smudge popped them with both handlers on the right I decided I’d do them left just to be sure. I knew at the startline though – I didn’t have “Cy the focused ball of energy ready to blast onto the course and do everything really well and really fast” – I had the “baby dog Cy wowed by all the people round the ring and completely not focused on what he should be doing” – oh well our time was now and we had to go – so go we did. He nearly veered off after the broad jump the 2nd obstacle and I knew right then that this was gonna be hard work! Did the a frame, released him with an ok into the tyre and then oh my god how long was he taking to get into that tunnel – he seriously looked like he was checking the audience out! I heard myself yell “C’mon get your butt in this tunnel!!” and then it was out and into the weavers – he got the entry (thankfully) and then I just kept my same firm encouraging tone “Weave Weave Weave Weave Weave” about the 4th weaver from the end he just simply stepped out and headed towards the table ARGH!!!!! So that was it – I called him back and we did the whole set again (just fine I might add) and we finished the course, not altogether smoothly I might add! I did a front cross that he did very badly I have to say!!! We shall be working on those!

My next final and the last final to run was Masters Jumping. I again walked and walked this course till I had it firmly imprinted on my muscle memory. Unfortunately I walked it wrong. Not wrong as in the wrong course but wrong as in I placed myself in the wrong spot for the first challenge (a straight line call off from a tunnel). I thought if I led past the entry to the tunnel and off to the side that I would be able to pull her to me, off the tunnel and over the jumps where she had to go. Instead I saw on the playback that she virtually had her eyes transfixed on that tunnel as she did the first obstacle – I think I could have stood on my head or blown an airhorn and she would have still taken that off course tunnel *sigh*. Oh well – I certainly learnt a lesson it’s just a pity I had to learn it on a finals course! She blitzed everything else on that course and we ran like we owned the course and she kept every bar up – she was a good girl and I was still as proud of her as I’ve ever been. I set that course up in training led up to the tunnel entry and did a strong RFP which pulled her off the tunnel no problem. That’s agility for you….it’s those sweet runs you do with just the one tiny mistake that keep you wanting to do more and to do better each time. Then there’s those runs (like the MJ run we did in the morning) that just make you feel a complete satisfaction that you’re working as a true team with your canine partner. Those runs also keep you coming back for more!

So that’s it – the Raven and the Cypher’s Sydney Agility Nationals – it was great experience and awesome fun. The best parts were meeting up with people I met last year and meeting new people. Seeing some awesome runs from some awesome dogs – I really like Shanna Brough’s Catch and Sophie, Greg Collin’s Kellie, Vickie’s Trim, Allan Schmidt’s Jack was just completely in the zone most of the weekend – he is an excellent dog to watch. On the same note though I have to say WA did pretty damn good for such a small population – we had dogs in every final and Kriszty’s Jess was a star gaining a 2nd place in Masters Agility final. Our Novice dogs did really well and our excellent level dogs like Domino and Sage did really well both of them coming home with placings. Overall I think we have a lot to look forward to and I am already counting the days till next year’s Nationals in Adelaide!

BC National Pics

Yay! The pics are up from the BC Nationals held back in April. There were a few there of Raven which were pretty cool. This pics are on order for me and come from Sue Town's website http://www.pinnicle.com.au There was a lone picture of Cypher but he was being a dweeb at the time and the photo is not the most flattering one of him! Thus I have not ordered that one!

What was that Sport I do?

Finally...
Today is the first day since May 19th the dogs have had some training. Being a lovely Sunday morning here I took them over to a fortunate friend's place (I say fortunate because the lucky person has her own agility equipment - full set and training ground) and trained until the dogs were slightly tired (ie still wanted to do more and more) and I was knackered. Cypher worked on his A Frame contacts and his weaving - which he was a star at by the end even with me throwing his favourite frisbee along side the weave poles as he was doing them. We still need to work him going forward to a high value reward (his frisbee on the ground at the end of the poles) and reminding him that he cannot pop out the last two poles. His A Frame is coming along nicely now that I have settled for placing his target one body length away from the bottom of the frame. He runs straight down through the colour to get his chin touching the target. He was still doing it consistently after I covered the target up so that was good although it will need alot more repetitions. And I am happy with his speed and the fact that he is not folding his front legs under him anymore - I wonder if when we first did this he wasn't quite as controlled over his body as he is now - either that or my placing the target in that spot has helped.

Raven was a wild child to start with - barking all over the place and knocking the one bar in an 18 obstacle course that was set up. However after a couple of time outs with me training Cypher instead she soon resumed some self control and was heavily rewarded for her bars up. I also went back to her contact work basics as well - target on the ground kind of stuff, lots of repetitive rewarding for the "touch" position. We did some single bar work which she has completely under control now as we did about 20 on a double oxer and 20 on a single and she didn't touch the bar once. That's alot of sausage treats! To finish the session I went to the three bar chute work Jon showed me and it didn't seem to make any difference to her no matter what distances I gave her for the bars apart or the varied heights I did, she kept them all up! This was kind of making it hard for me to teach her (because if she doesn't drop a single bar then she doesn't see the difference in the lack of rewards). So instead of leading out to just past the third bar I stood near the first bar, released her and took off running. This brought bars down a couple of times so that worked well for her to realise that there was no reward coming for the knocked bars. She quickly figured that out though and on the third try put a huge effort into going as fast as she could and still kept the bars up. We finished there with a jackpot and called it a day. I will do some more tomorrow morning (hooray for public holiday Mondays!) and then again Tuesday afternoon after work. I won't have time to do any Wednesday as I will get home from work quite late and the dirty state these two are in they will take me all Wednesday night to bath. Then we leave Thursday around 10.30am. After today's session I am starting to look forward to seeing everyone over there and to have some fun with the dogs - given our inauspicious preparation I am not expecting anything great but I do plan on having a really good time. It's going to be a laugh in the Strategic Pairs over there - Sue and I had big plans on practicing with Nifty and Raven as did Nicola and I for Sage and Cypher - we have not had a single practice together!! We shall be going into the Strat Pairs comp over there complete and utter Novices. Definitely a recipe for much laughter and chaos and mayhem on course!

Illness begets Evolutionary theories

Today I write of many things for several reasons. Today is Wednesday and it has been 14 days since I took the dogs out to do agility anywhere – training or trialling. We leave Thursday the 8th of June for the Nationals in Sydney. I will get some training in on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Who knows if this is enough or not – I mean seriously can one ever get enough training in whilst holding down a full time job? I think not. My head hurts, my nose is running a marathon and my throat and voice have decided that the husky gravely sound with the daggers in the back is the best state to be in. The dogs are fine – fully recovered from their bout of Infectious Tracheobronchitis and bouncing out of their skin to get out and do some training. I’m keeping them away for several reasons 1. Cy is probably still infectious although he stopped coughing 5 days ago. 2. I am paranoid that some mutant strain shall reinfect them before we go. 3. I feel sick and would not be a good trainer right now anyway. So the dogs are ok (she says touching every piece of wood in arm’s length)…I am half way through reading “The Other End of the Leash” by Dr Patricia McConnell. Whilst it does not contain anything surprising and new to me it certainly refreshes my “dog’s mind” perspective. I forget sometimes that these furry creatures are indeed not of the bi-pedal human variety. The expressions they convey sometimes are so subtle yet so clear in their meaning that it is hard to remember they are a completely different species to us. It is a good read though I thoroughly recommend it. The chapter on puppy farmers/mills certainly outraged me suitably and refreshed my determination to see that none of my friends and colleagues patronise these establishments – pet shops have a great deal to answer for with this equation as well.

I was asked today if I had any kids. I gave my reply and the next question was a surprised “How come?” I said “Well I’ve got dogs.” The next question was “So are dogs better than kids?” My answer simply was “Yeah they’re easier to train”. I work with teenagers five days a week – it is enough “nuture” time for me. I do not find myself yearning for that baby at all. Maybe I’m missing a gene but maybe that’s evolution…humans are starting to realise that the planet we live on is not endless in its resources. Someday this planet will no longer be able to sustain life and yet in terms of evolution every single species on this planet comes born with the instinct to reproduce life. To me it seems an obvious paradox. “But” I hear those good Catholics protest, “how will you be able to leave your imprint on the world if not through your children? It is God’s will that you have children.” I’m quite sure that it was God’s will that we don’t go around destroying other species, their habitats and generally exploiting every resource on this planet either. Human beings procreate out of pure selfish motives and there is no hiding that, indeed there is no other reason for procreation and thank goodness for these selfish tendencies of our species or else we would not be the advanced species we are today (and I most certainly would not be here.) Somewhere along the line though if theories of evolution are to be trusted then we will evolve to not have an instinct to produce offspring as that instinct will be our own self destruct button. Species who like to live and thrive will, in a restricted space, will produce only single offspring or not produce any offspring at all. But I digress – this train of thought is kind of getting a little weird.

Jon Watts in Perth

Jon with Gina and Indie

Jodie and Caspar

Lisa and Emmy with Jon

Jodie and Caspar

Jon promoting Coke and enjoying the view

Raven doing the "balancing on one hock" act

Jon "train *through* the problem!"

Jody and Nichol set to go!

Jon with Valeta and Misty

The group learning more!

Lisa and Emmy

Valeta and Misty - ready to go!

Jon watching every move we make!

The peanut gallery - always ready for a shocked collective
intake of breath when the banned blind cross was witnessed!

Valeta and Misty - showing the weaves GSD style!

The Good, the Bad and the Infected

Well here we are with less than three weeks to go till the Nationals. We’ve had two trials since I last wrote and Cypher has done very well winning both Novice Agility and Novice Jumping at both trials! Meaning he finished off his Novice Agility title in fine style on the 14th of May in Bunbury. So his fancy name is now Nahrof Quick Change AD JD. On the bad side I suppose (if there ever is one when it comes to the fun of this addictive sport) is that Raven has had only very valuable (yet financially expensive) practice runs!

We’ve had a ripper time with Jon Watts – a youthful UK agility instructor who has been like a much needed kick in the pants and breath of fresh air injected into what was a “starting to smell stagnant view of how agility should be conducted.” He didn’t muck around, didn’t sugar coat anything and made it his personal mission to ensure that absolutely everyone got something out of the sessions. Jon is an up front guy when it comes to being in this sport – he believes that everyone, no matter how new they are to the sport or what kind of dog they have, likes to win and so he focuses on you personally – what do you do in your handling that you can do better. He’d watch us run through a course or a sequence – ask us what we thought of it and then give detailed and individualised suggestions about where we could improve. There were no blanket statements like “You all need to push into that turn” it was specific ie I had to work the turn to get it a bit tighter coming out the tunnel another person needed to be more certain, firm and loud with their weave commands. He also got across and brought home the importance on not training/handling around our problems but rather training through your problems (ie if your dog doesn’t like you working in close to them you train to overcome this, if your dog needs you right next to them to hit their contact then train them to nail contacts with you at a distance, if your dog can’t keep their bars up if you are making a noise train them to understand that they keep their bars up regardless of the noise you are making) There are some pictures from the weekend seminar that I have posted.

Next trial after that was the Bunbury one and Cypher finished of his AD title with a first place. That makes all three of his legs first places – so I am pretty pleased with his progress so far.

For the last 4 or 5 weeks the WA agility community and no doubt the dog showing/trialling scene at large has been hit by a round of kennel cough or rather Canine Cough technical term Tracheobronchitis. Dogs have been coming down with it and have been taking out of circulation/training and isolated at home whilst it has been happening. Unfortunately dogs can incubate this infection for between 3 to 7 days before showing any signs of it – thus unwittingly exposing any dogs they come near to the infection as well.

People here in Perth who are frequent agility trainers and competitors are getting more than a little concerned about it due to the fact that it is now less than three weeks for most of them to fly out to Sydney for the 2006 ANKC Nationals. People seem to be under the misapprehension that if their dogs do not show any symptoms they are fine. This is a perfectly logical and common sense conclusion ONLY if your dogs have not been anywhere near dogs who have had it. If you have multiple dogs living at the same address and only one of them has the actual infection then to be on the safe side you must assume that all the other dogs either are incubating it (and will eventually show symptoms) or carrying it. It can be a real pain in the butt infection to have especially for the youngster puppies – however if people just do the right thing take the right precautions and do not bring their dogs back out to trialling or training until they are absolutely 100% sure their dog is clear of it then it will stop the cycle of the infection. Raven started to cough around 1am Friday morning – therefore I am not in Geraldton this weekend. Cypher has not shown ANY signs of this infection but if I was to still go to Geraldton and take just him, as far as I am concerned I would be absolutely negligent in my responsibility as a dog owner – it would be the equivalent as if I had taken Raven to Geraldton. JUST BECAUSE YOUR DOG DOES NOT SHOW SIGNS OF CANINE COUGH IT DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE NOT INCUBATING OR CARRYING THE INFECTION. Thusly the seemingly “unaffected” dog can be responsible for perpetuating the cycle of infection.

I am keeping both mine home for at least two weeks. Cypher is on the same treatment as Raven despite not showing any signs because I truly believe even if he doesn’t show symptoms he is still harbouring the infection. If I treat them directly now – targeting the infection with antibiotics then I know we shall be clear for the Nationals. Trust me people risking your dogs and other peoples dogs’ health is not worth it for the sake of chasing that 1st place or clear round. Ok here the sermon has endeth. Look after your dogs, because you know better.