One Little Thing and A Bigger Thing

Just a little thing that I just need to vent somewhere. It's irking me when people are saying "I got a bye in the masters series for the U.S. open!" Ok, have you not read the rules? Did you not read your fancy certificate? There is nothing on there that says "bye". For the masters series, you either qualify or you don't, there is no "bye" (hey I could do a spoof on Yoda with that!) A bye implies that you get to skip the first round. That's how Grand Prix and Steeplechase work in USDAA so I know people are familiar with the concept. But DAM and biathlon do not work like that, so I know people should also be familiar with that format. It's just bugging me and it did even before I was trying to qualify so I'm not just feeling sour grapes. If you're going to work towards winning something, why not figure out what it means before bragging about it? Off soap box. 

And now for the more discussion worthy thing. I've been trying to justify something in my head. Call it BC envy, herding dog in general envy or whatever. But the question I pose is (and I know we've all thought about it): do you HAVE to get a BC (or Sheltie if you want to compete as a small or medium dog) to succeed in agility? The discussion has certainly gone round and round before and I will probably not manage to say anything new. But name me one person who does agility on a professional level who doesn't have a BC or a Sheltie. The select few I can think of have Paps but since that's not a breed I would ever consider, I will ignore them. The point being is that with all of my struggles with Kraft and the girls, would it be wrong to give up on a breed/breeds whose personality, looks, and attitude I adore in favor of something who will be more adapted to the sport I love? Am I asking my dogs to be something they are not and would it be more fair to get a dog who will be as into the game as I am? Marron plays the game for me. Spy plays the game for the cookies. Kraft I think I did a good job fostering a love of the game, but he struggles physically and with his soundness issues *sigh*. Sometimes I wonder if what I'm asking him to do is fair. If I've molded his desire to play so much that it's not even his choice any more. I feel like maybe I'm that parent who has pushed their kid to excel and by the time they've become good at it, they love it but can no longer tell which came first. What I'm saying is that while I have always held that a BC isn't for me, and a Sheltie has too much hair, would I be doing better by my dog if I chose one of those? I could probably love a BC. I don't think I would take it herding. I just don't get that sport. But to get a BC just for agility doesn't seem right either. In a different way, I'd be afraid it would be like my relationship with Spy, outside of agility we really don't have one. A Sheltie, well I've always loved them, always will. They're what I grew up with and aren't we all a little attached to the breed we had when we were kids? But the hair! Can't do it. 

So then there are what I like to call the Border Things, the dogs that people thought would make a cool cross with a BC. Usually just their favorite breed crossed with a BC to make something better at agility or flyball or whatever their sport of choice is. Clearly, the concept works. Those Border-Jacks, Border-Staffies, Border-Whippets, and now B-Rats are some really incredible sport dogs. I'm not about to use the derogatory "designer" dogs label since I'm not really against any intentional mix so long as there is a specific purpose behind the cross, and so long as that purpose is functional (as opposed to making something with a funny name, like Chiweenie). But is this the same as choosing a dog just for agility, but makes us feel better because it has a little bit of our favorite breed in there too? I've started to be tempted by the B-Rats. They are some really awesome dogs. But am I tempted just because I think they would be a better agility dog than what I have now or because I truly like them? Is it wrong to be tempted by a dog that you think will be a good agility dog, even if you *think* you like them too? Shouldn't that be what it's about any way, choosing a dog you like who will also suit your life style? So why does it feel wrong? I don't want to pick it because it "has my favorite breed mixed with a breed that will make it better at agility", know what I mean? I want to pick it because it's right for me, that individual set of characteristics (and yes, I think mixes DO get a certain amount of common, predictable characteristics), not because it's a little bit Rattie and a little bit BC. I want to get it because it's ALL BRat if that makes sense. 

I'm several years away still from choosing another dog. But it's been plaguing me lately. Along with the idea in general that it seems like you HAVE to have a BC to be considered seriously in this sport. 

BAM

Months of barely any posts, and here's my fourth in 3 days.

Nothing dog related. There's exactly one TV show I watch: Grey's Anatomy. It started when I was in vet school and at the beginning of the series, the characters were at the beginning of their surgical internships and very much mirrored what my class mates and I were going through during school. Now, the characters have aged and matured, marrying, divorcing, having babies. Also mirroring what doctors my age are doing (well, except me, but they have a new character this season who's just like me, so HA!) So I've always felt a parallel with the characters on the show, despite how bad the medical accuracy is.

Any way, a tree took out my power lines last week, and long story short, I had three hours to catch up on between last night and tonight since last night's episode was two hours long. And all three hours were some of the most emotional on that show in a long time. At least for me. When they unplugged Derrick, yeah, brought me right back to my sister. And the first thing I thought: "Why isn't his sister there? Why didn't they tell her before they unplugged him?" Made me angry. It's just a tv show. They needed her out of it for the story line, no other reason. She stifled her feelings, had things she had to work through, but never once did she mention not being told or allowed to be there. Being on that end, yeah, one big loop hole they missed. And then, the following episode with the burn victims, the one in the hospital bed that was cracking jokes and making fun of herself and others just to make the newbie feel better, yeah, reminded me of Barbara.

Hardest two episodes of a tv show for me watch. EVER.

Nailed It

When Mary moved out, most of the yard full of equipment left too. I am down to four jumps with one set of extensions to make a triple, two tunnels (one very short one and one tattered old one that might not last the whole summer), a homemade set of PVC base weaves, a table and a dog walk that Mary left behind. Course work is going to be difficult to set up, but will make it easier to focus on dog walk exits. I picked this one to work on today, and set up 8-17.

With my modifications and a lead in and lead out sequence:

The view from the dog walk:

Surprisingly, this wasn't the hardest part of the course. Since I moved the dog walk for the first time since August, and had to set this one up for the first time on my own, I didn't quite know how he would feel about it being in a new location. I mean, he's fine on new dog walks, but HIS dog walk, that's been in the same place for 8 months? I pretty much expected him to fail and leap the contact on the first time through and I pretty much just stood there near the weaves, not cuing anything in particular with my jaw on the floor at his absolutely gorgeous contact behavior and then watched him fly by me into the tunnel. Whoops. Not how that was supposed to go. Second time, BAM! nailed it! And the third and fourth, etc as we tried to get the whole thing right. The dog walk looked great with a variety of hits, so very pleased with that. I did it the way that I thought was most difficult but fastest which was to keep him on my right the entire time. He really had to find the weave entry on his own, bend away from me to make it to the second gap, continue weaving as I passed behind him to get to the left side of the weaves, and then weave all the way into nothing while I held back so I could get up for 12. Lots of really tough weaving skills wrapped up with a hard dog walk exit. Weaves: never been a problem for him. At least I trained something right. 

What was harder was 1-3, getting him to come between the triple and 3, then doing it again 16-17-18. Did the lead out with a forced front and had to get really low to convince him to come in for the FF and not take the triple. 17 I did with a whiskey turn (a really sharp rear cross), which he did no problem once I got him to turn and not take the triple again by really holding lots of eye contact. I wanted to do 14 as a reverse wrap and have him turn to the left over it, but he kept wanting to turn right no matter how well I thought I cued the turn. Probably need to do a better job of making my whiskey cross and reverse wrap look different. So strange that in trials I'm having such a problem with standard and not as much of an issue with jumpers, but in training its these jump sequences that give me the most to work on.

Masters Jumpers Q

His Masters Series jumpers run, the one he came in second place by 7 seconds. He sure doesn't look slow to me, and only one place where he went wide, after that yellow jump behind the tunnels the first time.

So hard to know what is a reasonable outcome goal to set when our best performances are still deemed not good enough. Not just this run, but that Novice agility run where we had that one off course.

Du'

If Anna can believe in Du', then maybe I can believe in Kraft. I chose this video mostly for the title, not because of Du's antics. This is a person who knows what it takes to get to this level, has had her share of struggles with this dog, and keeps persevering. I think they're about the same age too since I think the first of her seminars I went to with Spy when Kraft was a puppy, she had Du' out during some of the breaks.
Now I'm extra excited to work with her in 2 weeks.

Compliments Are Hard to Bear

When you don't feel worthy of receiving them. 

I'm at a funny place right now with Kraft. All winter we struggled with staying connected on course. I figured once we got over that hump, we'd hit our stride again. Unfortunately, even with staying pretty connected, we still can't seem to get through courses. We did two days of UKI this weekend, two different clubs, two different locations, same judge. Kraft did a total of 6 runs. He already has all the points he needs in novice in the games and jumping to move up, but 0 agility clears. I entered him the first day in gamblers, agility and jumping to try to take advantage of easier courses to get his Q's for the U.S. open while we work on those agility legs to move up. He had a smokin gamblers run to start the weekend, felt really in sync. But then agility we made a complete mess of a fairly simple course and I started wondering if we were losing our connection again. It wasn't a terribly hard course, but he did break his start line again. I shook it off, disappointed that we didn't get the run we need, but there was always the next day. He held his stay in jumping, which was good because I really needed an almost 3 jump lead out but then mysteriously missed his weave entry. I tried to brush that off, it was just a warm up for the next day right? The next day started with Masters series agility. Considering the previous day he had done all novice, and this particular judge likes WIDE open lines for the lower levels, yikes, I knew I was going to have to hold on tight. The course looked very doable, well within our skill range. Didn't matter though. We made a complete mess of it. E'd in three places. I tried not to get too down, I knew that class first thing in the morning  would be tough for him. Next was novice agility. Here's the course:

8-9 was our problem area. He curled toward me and took 16. I had squatted down at the tunnel exit in the walk through. They could see the chute straight ahead, but not the jump. I was hoping that a verbal "go on tunnel" would be enough to get him to commit to the chute before he exited the tunnel, so he wouldn't even consider the jump, but since I had to slow down and read cross the tunnel he felt that and curled toward me. In hindsight, perhaps my rear cross should have been done further back away from the tunnel, closer to 7 so that I could be accelerating when he entered the tunnel. Would have been easier to believe my go on cue that way. Ideally would have liked to already have him on my left for 7 so I wouldn't have had to wait around to rear at all. I wrapped 5 to the right, then had to stay up there and support 6 since those jumps were pretty close together. I considered wrapping 5 to the left by rear crossing it which then would have given him a really good line to 6-7 and I could have taken off immediately and blind crossed between 6-7. But that corner was really dark and I didn't think he would believe me that I wanted him to turn that way. Any other suggestions, I'm all ears. This course was a total heart breaker because he was so perfect on the whole rest of it. I just about wanted to cry. 

Then was masters jumping. It looked tougher than the agility course. But I still thought that, at home at least, we could do it. But I didn't expect much. To my surprise though, he kept his head together and Q'd. I was stoked! Finally, a course where he showed his true potential. I thought he had gone pretty fast. We were a little wide in one spot. I knew the other dog that went clean would be faster. It's a dog from the local Sheltie clique who all are pretty much WTT contenders from the day the puppies hit the ground. I stuck around to check scores, hoping for maybe 3-4 seconds behind that dog. But no, 7 seconds! So despite a really great run, feeling super connected and like we did our very best, there's still no way we can shave 7 seconds off our times to be competitive. 

So it leaves me wondering if maybe he just isn't cut out for the level I want to be at. It's so hard to admit it. I don't want to sell out, stop believing that the terrier can compete with the Sheties. Hell, there are several terriers that ARE competing with the Shelties. Turns out, Kraft just isn't one of them. It's just getting hard not to feel disappointed, like we are a total let down with all the potential he has shown. People were complimenting his runs all day and I wanted to scream at them "did you even see that run?" Each one I received I just felt like we were an even bigger let down, so much potential that we just aren't living up to. 

Sigh. Taking a bit of a trialing break in May. Couldn't afford any with the seminar I signed up for in the middle of the month. Maybe we'll learn something useful. Then again, all the seminars we've gone to thus far haven't really done squat do us. Feeling frustrated and kind of like I want to give up, not agility, but the hopes and dreams and goals I've set. Maybe they're too lofty. I wouldn't feel like crying over failure to meet performance goals if I wasn't hoping to qualify for the Open or tryouts next year or all the other outcome goals I have.  

Quit Being Afraid

On Friday I did a Masters handling seminar with Soshana Dos. I find it crazy I had to drive almost 3 hours to take a seminar from her when she lives probably about an hour away from me but hey. The unofficial theme of the day seemed to be quit being afraid of forward motion. Sure, deceleration works to cue a turn, but it has its drawbacks. That seems to be what the Finns have going for them: they use very little deceleration to cue things, which keeps their dogs going full speed at all times, but use their other cues so effectively that the dogs are still turning appropriately. I think using deceleration slows the handler down, and while the dog reads the cue well, the handler is then stuck trying to get back up to speed, so the dog likewise does not accelerate as well as he could out of the turn. The biggest difference I see between the Mecklenburg system and OMD is this. OMD recognizes handler motion as the strongest cue but manages to use all the others without diluting the dog's responsiveness to that motion. Soshana mentioned that Mecklenburg followers probably have the easiest time transitioning to OMD because the cues and cue combinations are so similar. That said, I am still struggling, still clinging to using deceleration as a primary turning cue when I don't need to. I think this is where a lot of my frustration in trials is coming from, I'm still learning this handling system, and my execution is still leaving much to be desired.

I look at this video, and while there are some nice bits, I have a long ways to go. You can see it took me 4-5 tries at each of the hard places to get it right, and I'm still not sure I would be able to get it on my own at all without someone tweaking my efforts with each repetition. And even one of the easy places (1-3 on the first course) took me 6 (!) tries.

I love that I was pushed as hard as I was, I just wish I wasn't harming Kraft's body in the process. His knees are not going to last. He's only 3 and while I've been quiet about it, the past few months I've really struggled with how to keep him sound. He came up dead lame one night. The surgeon says his knee is still not bad enough to require surgery, the patella still isn't actually luxating, but just riding on the inner groove so the pain is him developing arthritis from that. His thighs are starting to look asymmetric so he's clearly off loading onto his good leg. I've started him on Adequan, and doing more fitness work and less frequent agility. Sigh. At this point, I don't know which dreams are still realistic for us and which ones I need to let go of.