Rattie Faith

In response to my post about the BRats, here is evidence that just maybe my devotion to the terriers may last a little longer.

Three Rattie litter mates, all kept their tails, all went to three friends of mine in California.

Tierney:

Yet unnamed (likely Maple):

Rafa (with Daddy Ryder):

Maybe getting to see these three grow up will help counterbalance this pull I feel towards the Border Things. Three people who are all very serious about agility NOT feeling tempted by the Border Things, or at least not giving in to that temptation (though Tierney's owner does have two BC's in her pack).

I was thinking about it after my BRat post, what benefits there are on each side of the fence. For BC people, adding in the Rat gives a more convenient size and less of the OCD-ness, maybe helps decrease chances of epilepsy (though that is still a crap shoot). But for Rattie people, what do you get? A faster agility dog with a tail? Again, a faster agility dog is not my goal, or at least I don't think it SHOULD be. Seems like the BC people get a bonus by mixing in the Rat, but the Rattie people don't really gain anything except a tail. I'm really excited by these three pups. I sure hope they might inspire a few more breeders to leave tails. Then I can choose between the BRat and Rat equally. I would never NOT take a docked puppy if it was otherwise a nice dog, but in helping to keep myself from being tempted by "the dark side", tails are nice. And as much as I am normally one that likes to do my own thing, not be a follower, it's nice to feel like there are still people in the Rattie club, that not everyone is abandoning ship and going to BC's.

Course Practice

I really wanted another crack at the Mia Grant Masters Series course that we ALMOST ran right last weekend. Here's the original version: 

Everything went great, until he came out of the tunnel under the dog walk looking at me, and I had to step in and support 9 longer than I wanted to. Then as I stepped back to clear the tunnel, it cued him to take the tunnel. We muddled along for a bit, trying to get back in rhythm, and by the weaves we got it, and 13-19 was lovely. So I really didn't want to try to run the SAME course, but I wanted to try that bit again, in the middle of A course. So here's a variation I came up with, with no teeter or A-frame:

And again, 1-7 was perfect, and I loved the ending, our progress on wraps in situations like 15 has really come a long way and I loved how a simple move, just shaping the line with a V-set at 18, made a really nice efficient line, no spinning required. But getting him to send to jump 8 while staying back enough to be able to cue the dog walk AND get to the end was the tough part. At the trial, the judge even said (after we all ran) she left that part set up for her students for a long time, working all the variations. And the key was to get the send to that jump from a distance. It was especially tough in this trial, since it was off in a corner against a wall. They didn't see it very well, light colored jump against a solid white concrete wall. Very tough and something to work on. But I love the skills he's showing on the rest of this.

With Spy and Marron I ran it more like the original, since they didn't run the masters series. Had issues in the same area, Marron I kept getting the tunnel on that discrimination, had to hold back and really push her line, then race to the end of the dog walk, which I just barely made it for the back side. That's ok, we don't do much international stuff, I'm ok with her not having that skill but it was fun to play with and figure out what she would need. I also loved the original ending with her, sending to the back side of 18, trusting her to take it and taking off for the tunnel. A tough skill for her, so I was proud she did that well. I think I'm really using my feet to handle the wraps/reverse wraps much better than I used to. Spy's problem area was actually the discrimination the first time through, 6-7. I was handling the tunnel with dog on my left, then rear crossing it. I eventually figured out how she needed me to cue it, but it's weird, I had to be facing her, completely parallel to her line coming to the tunnel, but cue the tunnel with my left hand or she pulled off it completely. Any rotation of my feet or chest back towards the right and she went up the dog walk at the very last second. But strangely, she had no problem going up the dog walk at 9, when normally she completely defaults to the obstacle closest to me. I can see how at 7 she might go up the dog walk, since once I rear crossed, the new "closest obstacle" would be the dog walk instead of the tunnel, she'd feel that pressure even in the tunnel. So not something about her that I understand. We had a little discussion about the 2o2o on the dog walk. I started mixing up stop/running a few weeks ago, and when she got it perfectly, I thought she would be done training it. Never really practiced the stop in full sequences, so I guess that will be the project going forward.

Two weeks until Regionals. Getting really excited. Practicing my "make mistakes and let them go". I think we'll be ready.

Epiphany

I've been listening to Lanny Basham's "What Every Dog Agility Competitor Should Know First About the Mental Game" CD all week. I've dug out his "With Winning In Mind" book and have breezed through it. I rustled up my Daisy Peel "Clear Mind" book from who I loaned it to and will be revamping my goals next, long and short term. I was feeling slightly more prepared mentally this weekend. At least I was ready to be aware to catch myself and recognize what I needed to change. Like with agility handling, getting mad when a handling error occurs and focusing on fixing the handling error is way too late. I need to be proactive, change the mentality BEFORE the error, not so that I don't make the error in the first place, but to not let myself get mad about it. So that was my focus, to recognize what was making me angry.

And I felt really nervous. More nervous than I've felt ever since Kraft's first ever runs. I felt like I was starting over. We made errors. I felt disappointed afterwards. But not angry. At least, not as angry. Probably because I already decided not to go to the Open. Then Spy got walked out of jumpers. She messed up her weaves, made the entry and popped out, then when I resent her she just flung herself in at pole 3. She hasn't needed more than two tries at the weaves in a long time, not since the last time her weaves "broke". So I took her out. For several reasons, and none of them have to do with punishing her. 1) I just don't want her to rehearse that, reward or no reward. 2) I didn't want to continue to make errors and get mad, I can leave after a weave error calmly with her because of our history. 3) She hasn't run in a while, is out of shape a little and I didn't want to keep running her if there might be something physically off. Bottom line, I was calm about taking her out. Then in agility, she did her classic "pop out of the tunnel and sneak up the dog walk" on the discrimination. I haven't been able to train this with her, so I was ready for it and was able to correct it and continue on. (She did her weaves with the look of absolute determination and concentration by the way.) Again, I felt calm about it. Then with Marron, for snooker I didn't get her out before the walk through and she was the first dog, so she didn't get much warm up. I think she was thirsty since she guzzled water after her run, which she rarely does (they didn't have water in their crates, they just get everything wet in there, or I forget it and drive away like that if I crate in the car). She didn't really do much "running", very much old Marron. And I'm not used to handling her like that and didn't make it through our opening. Again, we left calmly. She gave me a smoking run for my only Q of the weekend in gamblers.

I was thinking on the ride home why I felt so differently about the errors. Part of it is expectations. I feel like there are so many more people expecting Kraft and I to excel. But it's not like any one has put any actual PRESSURE on us, so that hasn't made any sense. It really seemed to come on when I made the change to OMD system, and while I knew it would take a while to get comfortable with the system, I now think that it has more to do with how the system looks at errors. While I don't think other systems "blame the dog" and it is certainly the norm for the handler to take responsibility, even if it is for training holes, the way OMD does it, it's a whole new level. There are always things that are the dog's responsibility, and that's what happened on each of the girls' runs, it was out of my control, and yes, to a point I haven't trained things as well with them. With them, we make mistakes and I can see where the training holes are. It's really easy to forgive and forget the mistakes when they are the dog's failure. The only way to fix it is to go home and train more. With Kraft, the training holes aren't as apparent. The errors are 100% mine. And it is much harder to forgive myself. And that is why I am getting so angry. I really think that is what my problem is and why I get so mad mid-run.

After the trial, I went to my parents' house. I was going to take my father out to brunch for Father's Day (which also happened to be his birthday). And my older sister was going to be coming over as it was her birthday Saturday. When I got there Saturday evening, my dad sprung on me that my sister had agreed to go golfing with him and did I want to come along? UGH! I hate golf. No interest. Not ever. I had to play in gym class when I was in high school. The high school golf coach could not even figure out why I couldn't hit the ball. But my sister had never been before either, so we would be even. I decided to go. For one, to please my dad for his big day. That was the main thing. Why not? What's a few hours walking around in the sun with your dad and sister on Father's Day having a few drinks? The other reason was more personal. I wanted to rehearse making mistakes (and I knew there would be many!) in an environment that I knew it would be easy for me to forgive and forget without getting mad. Who gets mad about making mistakes when it's your first time doing something? I wanted to rehearse what that felt like. The drinks helped with that too! LOL. Maybe that's what I need to do before agility runs for a while! And you know what? I had a good time. I don't want to go out and get my own set of clubs, I don't think I will be practicing on my own. But as something to do with my dad, sure I'll go again. And I am making it my goal going forward: to remember what it felt like to screw up and LET. IT. GO.

A Bunch of Scattered Videos

I've been remiss in posting videos of some of our recent work. Trial videos, not really even bothering to take them at this point. The UKI trials are so small it's hard to get someone to tape, and we're doing so poorly on them that it's not really something I want to relive. You don't get to retry, so you don't really learn anything. But I have had fun with training videos.

First was the Anna Eifert seminar back in mid-May. I really felt this one went much better than the Soshana one. At least as far me not feeling totally lost.

It was two days long and HOT. And the sequence with the dog walk was first thing in the morning on day two. Normally if we had to do that many dog walks, that's all I would have done for the entire day, but no, we still had the whole day to go, and he already wasn't 100% fresh from all the hard work he had done the day before. He was a really good sport. All the dogs were really floundering at the end of the day though. One BC burned her pads, but she had a back up Aussie to use. Several of the other BC people had spare dogs to sub in. The rest of us kind of sat back and watched. Even by the time everyone had worked to their satisfaction (it wasn't a full seminar the second day), there were still over two hours left to the seminar. Someone asked Anna if she wanted to work her dogs, but she said she was too tired from teaching in the heat for four days. So instead, someone asked if her dogs would run for someone else, and she said someone could run Du'. Remember Du'? The bull terrier I posted a video of a while back? I totally raised my hand with a grin, having the only terrier (and actually the only non-herding dog) in the group and said I would like to run Du'. I figured that was fair since I was one of the ones who also did not have a spare dog to work.

So here is how that went:

Important lesson- when running someone else's dog, always remember to ask what they do on their contacts. I forgot to ask, I assumed I would not get that far. When she did a running A-frame, I figured, well, lots of people teach running A-frames, but nobody really does running dog walks. WRONG! The first time through, I was kind of thrown when two bars came down. Usually with Kraft if multiple bars are coming down in a sequence, things are becoming borderline dangerous so it is best to stop before someone gets hurt. The last thing I wanted to do was break someone else's dog. But obviously, with the bully, this isn't the case. She reminds me of a bowling ball. I know that's Sarah's analogy, but in the way I see it it's like when you spin a bowling ball, it will keep spinning in place; once she starts to turn, she almost can't STOP the turn which is why I kept getting the wrong end of that tunnel. Kraft would have been over that OC jump easily, his center of gravity is so high, even when he starts to turn, it takes a while for ALL of him to turn. But Du', it also reminds me of that sit and spin toy from when I was a kid! Round and round she goes, where she stops no one knows! But she was fun. I came off that course with a huge grin.

After the Soshana seminar, I had a great idea. I recruited the rest of my class mates into everyone bringing their video cameras to class and videoing every session. My goal is to be able to document progress, actually be able to see with each session what skills we are getting better at. Here is session one:

You can definitely see his speed pick up through this session. Maybe that equals confidence on his part?

Stick to What You're Good At

I'm thinking I should just stick to 8" dogs. Maybe that's all I'm capable of.

Another UKI trial this weekend. Kraft went 1 for 5, the only Q being yet another novice jumping leg that we don't really need. The rest were E's. Two chances at novice agility, both train wrecks. Then masters series, jumping was a train wreck, and agility was actually surprisingly going really well since I thought it was harder than the jumping course. Until the closing line. I fell behind and had to handle it with two rears. After I reared the first one, I realized I was just too far behind and the jump was actually in my way of the path I would need to take at the right time to get him to turn. I had to make a split second decision to layer the jump or take one more step forward to get around it. I decided to take the step forward while giving him a verbal "turn" cue. Off he shot over the wrong jump, doing a beautiful "turn" on the wrong jump. I hate rears. They're so ambiguous. He really wasn't wrong.

There were these two women there from Canada I've never seen around here before. They had some really nice BC's (of course). After one of my runs, I think it was novice agility where I stopped dead after obstacle 3 when he darted into the wrong tunnel entrance behind me and had a silent hissy fit with myself for about 5 seconds, after which he proceeded to leap the dog walk contact (not a miss, a leap), one of them asked me what breed Kraft was and said what a nice dog he was. I'm sure she meant it in a nice way. But I've never been one to take compliments well and I just don't think it's the right time to give one when someone just came out of the ring, clearly frustrated to the point of stopping dead after 3 obstacles and considering just walking out of the ring and going home. Part of me wanted to respond with "You think he's so great, YOU run him!" and hand her the leash. I'm not sure how she didn't notice how NOT ready I was to talk about how wonderful of an agility dog he is at that moment. Maybe SHE could have gotten him through. Maybe it's just me that stinks and can't handle my dog. That's pretty much how a compliment like that feels at that moment. I know that's not really how it's meant, but I can't help but feel that in the moment.

I don't know. I'm thinking about just not going to Perry this year. Maybe we just need to stay local and work on some skills. But I feel like I'm not really getting any where doing what I'm doing. I'm stuck. I'm not getting any better, but I don't have any where to turn for help at this point.