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.

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.