Budding Confidence

Confident. Clear. Connected. 

Connect. Commit. Cue. 

The first set of words is what's written on the yellow bracelet a fellow northeast competitor gave out to all the others from the area the year I went to Nationals pretty much by myself in Tulsa and wound up making finals. I've treasured that little gift ever since, and befriended that person. Not sure if she realizes how special that bracelet was to me, for making me feel included in a group (I mean, she gave them to everyone, but it meant a lot to me that I wasn't forgotten) and also for the point of focus that contributed to our finals trip.

The second set of words is the OneMind mantra. How fitting that it's so similar to the three words I have worn on my wrist at almost every trial for the past two years. 

Whichever it is, it's coming back. I can feel it. I think we've worked out our start line issues and even when we aren't perfect, I at least feel like we're running as a team. Mistakes are still being made on both sides of the equation, but we're out there together, laughing at our bobbles, rejoicing in our triumphs. This sport as it should be. Two team trials the next two weeks (this weekend I'm running all three dogs on teams at a small one ring trial, what was I thinking? It's spread over two days though) and next weekend just Kraft at a larger two ring trial (all five runs on one day). I really can't wait. I haven't been this excited to run in a long time. Then after the next two weekends of trials, there's the masters level Soshana seminar middle of the month, two UKI trials on the same weekend at the end of April, then my big splurge on two days of international work with Anna Eifert middle of May. No trials for May in order to afford that so I hope it's worth it. Since all the J&J seminars were pretty much only open to certain people, I'm just trying to take advantage of as many of their coaches doing stuff locally as possible. Going to Canada to work with Kayl is just out of the question. We'll get by, we will make progress even if it does take time. 

This was the course from class last night. We moved to a new location with a lot more space, there's actually a ton of room between the obstacles and the walls, but I zoomed the shot in so you could see everything better. The white numbers we had a little blip where he went from 4 up the dog walk, but the second time through he was just perfect. I think he's still just so excited to have his dog walk out in class that he's looking for it. His wrap out of the #5 tunnel up the dog walk was awesome, I didn't have to go down there at all but just started moving down the dog walk as soon as he was committed to the tunnel. Love that move. The black numbers he was just perfect. I even did this combo lap turn with a reverse spin from 9 to 10, since I wanted the lap turn to create the line to the jump and the spin to cue him going up the dogwalk instead of the tunnel. Worked like a charm. Then I layered that straight tunnel as he came down the dog walk. Perfect contact, both times, knew exactly where he was going. <3 him. 

I also ran Mary's Puck for her since she's still restricted to just walking. It's funny, he's so much bigger than Kraft, but he's so much bendier that he turns much tighter. Didn't have to shape 3-4 on that first course AT ALL and his turn to the tunnel was way tighter than Kraft's even with the shaping! And it's kind of thrilling to have a dog with a stopped contact, never would have thought. I just can't do it though, I know I would train it poorly and wind up with a creeper which drives me nuts. He did break on his first one, but held it nicely after that. He gets oh just a wee bit frantic and squeaky running for me though! Chattering on the start line and everything. Gawd he's fun, but LOUD! Can't really hear anything else, can't think of anything else. He kept popping out of the weaves on the second course when I was peeling away for a front, and Mary was trying to stop me to tell me the trick to getting him to stay in, but I couldn't hear and kept sending him back in. I always kinda wanted a dog who barked on course, but I think borrowing one will do. 

 

Health and Well Being

A little late to the party, and I probably won't bother submitting this to DABAD but something happened to a fellow agility competitor's dog earlier this week, and with it being such a hot topic in the news right now, I'm going to come out and say it.

Don't be an anti-vax'er. Vaccinate appropriately, vaccinate cautiously, take it very seriously. But there's a reason these vaccines became so popular in the first place: they save lives! These things CAN kill your dog. Some of them can even kill YOU. The head veterinarian of the ER department where I work likes to tell the story of the abandoned 6 week old kitten she brought home to her kids. A few weeks later, it started having seizures. They eventually euthanized the kitten, and decided to submit it for rabies testing because of the strange neurologic signs it was having when it became ill. The veterinarian, every staff member who had handled it, both her kids, her husband, and a bunch of her kids' friends even had to go through post exposure prophylaxis protocols.

And then there's what happened this week. It happened at my hospital, so I have at least part of the story of what happened, but obviously cannot share any details. And the story isn't done yet, it isn't final. But if it ends the way I think it will, it could have been so easily prevented. Yes, the dog is DEAD. That part of the story is complete. Nothing will bring him back. It is so sad.

It's a given that our dogs travel a lot. Are exposed to far more than even average pets. Every weekend they are jostled into crating areas that are only slightly cleaner and less of a germ factory than your average day care, only because our "kids" don't have hands and opposable thumbs to grime up every available surface. Thus, your dog has a HIGHER chance of coming into contact with nastiness and of passing on that nastiness. Why do you think it's ok not to take precautions? And the most basic of which is vaccinating for those things that can kill your or another dog?

Your veterinarian is not trying to just make money off of you. Talk to him or her. Be reasonable. Listen. We paid a very large amount of money to become educated about the various diseases out there we're facing. Sure, the drug companies are the ones supplying us the vaccines and feeding us the glories of their products. But we were trained to be skeptical, observant, scientists; if the vaccines were completely bogus, don't you think we'd be able to see through that? And do you really think the drug companies WANT to sell junk? All of them started out with the same goal we all have: to keep our pets healthy. Yes, I see plenty of health issues come up that may or may not be in part due to vaccines. The immune system is such a funny thing, and when things go awry with it, it is rarely ever due to a single event. I do know that distemper, parvo, rabies, even Lyme disease... they KILL pets. No question. Unlike auto-immune issues that are so multifactorial, these disease agents single handedly can KILL. I'm not saying vaccinate for every thing every year. Just, be reasonable and be constantly ready to re-evaluate your pet's vaccination program. Heck, maybe take the same approach for your own vaccines.

So that's my soap box on health and well being.

Weight Off My Shoulders

Video from December-January, as promised.

Today we went back to Hamden again for what I was afraid might be one of our last AKC trials for a very long time. With the "budget cuts" and all, I have some UKI and USDAA along with a few seminars planned through April, but that was going to be it. Mary's officially moving out this Friday. Yesterday I heard from one of the incoming interns who seems very interested in the house, and today I heard from a second one, so if the first backs out soon, I have a back up. When I got those two emails I really felt a huge weight lifted, I can still do agility and all the things I had planned for this year.

Don't know if I was preoccupied with all of that, but today was a terrible day at the trial. Might have also been on my first run of the day, Marron skidded onto the table on her side. You probably wouldn't have been able to tell watching, since once she stopped skidding, she wound up in a down and while I stared at her, checking to see if she was hurt, she just gazed back at me as if saying, "What? Nothing wrong here, the judge is counting, why don't you scurry off so you're ready to release me when he's done!" If you didn't know that she DOESN'T auto down, it would have looked pretty cool. I saw which way her legs were pointing and it was not normal. I spent both of Spy and Kraft's runs worried that she would come gimping out of her crate for JWW. I don't want to break her again :( Turns out she was fine, and she wound up my only dog to QQ. I was not on my game handling wise all day either. None of my dogs looked confident about what I was doing, which was probably a reflection of my lack of confidence. What the heck? AKC courses aren't that hard, why am I finding them so difficult lately? It's not like they are particularly hard in and of themselves, *I* just feel like I don't have the tools to cue them properly. I can obviously get through them "clean", but not with the dog driving confidently exactly where I want them to go, which is really my definition of a good run. Spy had a bar in both runs, one of which was totally my fault now that I watch the video as I cued a little deceleration going into the chute, then had to push her back out to a jump. Kraft I over handled a discrimination off the dog walk, just to save a Q, then at the next point I was unsure on, I totally sent him in the wrong end of a tunnel. JWW I got through clean, but only by luck, he had no clue where he was going and didn't even place, and this is a one ring trial. Both our Masters JWW Q's have been like that, ones where I didn't feel like I did a good job showing him the course. He and Marron got the same number of MACH points on that run, 13, and Marron was slower than normal since the course started out jump-weave which isn't her favorite. I did manage to get all the runs on video, and pieced together the good bits. I'll add that to this post once it's finished uploading.

And yesterday's video: