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:

Skillz Checklist

I went out to Paws N Effect for run throughs today. Mostly I wanted to rescue my video camera, which I left there a month and a half ago at a trial. Mission accomplished. There is video uploading as I type this, material for which has been floating around in my brain for months.

And I made good on my goal to work on the skills on my checklist. I praised all of his start lines, and since I was mostly working short sequences, we got to do several. He broke one, but not in they way he has been doing at trials. I think of "breaking" as in they just start the course without the release. Then there's the little get up and sniff something behind them. I think they do these behaviors for very different reasons, I just can't put my finger on what each one really means. Both are stress and a lack of a clear understanding of the criteria, but which choice they make is very different. Kraft can do both, but it was the start the course without me that was causing problems in trials. I think it's easier to fix the get up and sniff one, since they haven't really been able to self reward, and likely was just because they got distracted for a second, which is what he did today. And it was after we had just run a sequence and I was going back to the start to repeat it so he may not have been completely clear about what we were doing since mostly in run throughs I just keep going, reward where we are and go one from there, not go back to the start. But skill 1: check!

Also worked on lateral distance from the weaves. Poor guy, he was having a hard time with it at first. The first time he popped out, I said "whoops" and jollied him up, playing with him, but not giving him the toy I had. But he totally deflated. Would not go near the weaves. So I moved on to something else for a bit, then did the weaves the other way with lateral distance and rewarded to end that run. The second session I did it the same way and he kept popping, but I didn't mark it and just swung him back around to try again. He tried it three times before he finally got it right and I rewarded, and he didn't deflate. So yeah, he's still being very sensitive about corrections. Sorry buddy. But once I did reward it and then repeated it, he dove into the weaves and never hesitated about finishing them at all. So I think it was just something he needed to work through, needed time to think about the mistake and how to fix it. But will have to be very careful about how I verbally mark any mistakes.

Did work a little bit of commitment to a jump, just off of a table with me leading out far lateral from the jump I wanted him to take.

Did a flip. It was in a pretty easy place to do one, and I was late with the side change the first time, but the second time was a bit better.

There were no places to do a backside jump off the dog walk, but he did several gentle turns off the dog walk that were all lovely, no misses at all.

No speedy approach to the weaves off my right, but the weave sequence I was working on was dog walk, jump, weaves, with a tough approach angle that I pretty much just had to trust him to do on his own, and he did.

Very pleased with his work today. Hopefully will make it to the trial on Sunday. Weather is looking a bit iffy. It's our last AKC for probably most of the year.

Skillz

Just needed to write this down in a safe place. Our mistakes/faults/missing skills that occurred multiple times for January/February trials:
-Jump commitment with lateral distance (mostly it was me failing to cue the jump or not trusting it and being limited with options down the line because of it)
-Start line stays
-Lateral distance off weaves
-Speedy/blind weave approaches on my right side
-Backside jump off of dog walk (going around it and missing it completely)
-Flip (would have liked to use it twice, but chickened out both times)

Hoping to do this at the end of each month, check what skills we were missing the month or two before that and make that our homework. Since I won't be doing class, and the only training I might get is at run throughs once a week, where I don't get to choose the set up or see it beforehand, I need to be able to have several things I want to work on readily at hand that I can apply to almost any course set up. I figure one time through I will run the course set, the other time work on whatever skill set I have for the month.

Made Me Wish I Had My Video Camera

I'm kind of behind on posting, and I wish I could make up for that by saying I have a truly awesome video to accompany the story, but alas, after my last trial in Hamden, I must have forgotten my camera there with all the puppy excitement. So two absolutely AWESOME trials later, no video. We got snowed out of a UKI show the first weekend in February, which had me really bummed, but the following week I did get to go to one. Other than foundation behaviors, which barely resemble agility, just toy play, sending to cones or jump standards, we've barely done any agility. No class, no run throughs, and playing outside is out of the question. And I don't know if it was all the foundations stuff I've been working on, the break we basically have taken from agility, the PUPPY, or if he finally is just back to normal, but I finally feel connected to Kraft out on course again. It really is coming down to the start line, if he breaks, the whole run is going to be discombobulated, if he stays, even if we don't Q, it feels smooth and like we are a team at least. At that last UKI trial that I did get to go to, I was signed up for Masters Series, but when I saw who else was entered at 16", I knew we wouldn't have a shot at getting first or second for the Open. A World team dog, his killer two year old nephew, a super reliable BC and a young, crazy fast Border Jack both run by a really great handler and USDAA judge. No way were we going to break into the top of the ranks against that. The 16" Masters class was HUGE, bigger than the 20" and 22" combined. But I was very happy with how well he did. Tiny little mistakes in both agility and jumping. He did E on both courses, but they were honest mistakes, not due to disconnects. Still failed to get a novice agility Q. It was his first run and the turf was a little slick, and he just didn't collect enough for a weave entry. He looked surprised to see the weave pole going past him LOL. He has his games and jumping points to move up to senior level, but 0 points in agility, so we'll be stuck in Novice for a while. Marron was a good girl, didn't Q much, but as long as she's happy these days, I'm happy. Spy won Masters agility, thereby qualifying for the Masters series at the Open, if we go.
Then last weekend I was signed up for DAM and PVP with Spy and Kraft. Spent a nice weekend away at my parents' house while they were in Florida for a wedding. Again, Kraft was a solid partner, staying connected on every run, only lost him during snooker trying to go from my last color to start the close. He really should have seen my turning cues and not shot off over the end jump, but he didn't run to his leash, just wrapped the jump and came back, so I think it was an honest mistake. He also ran steeplechase. I'm kind of bummed because as well as he ran all weekend, he was the only 18" dog, so he gets 0 year end points. Not that top ten is necessarily my goal, but it stinks that in USDAA you're at the mercy of how popular or unpopular your height division is in any part of the country. In AKC, number of dogs is completely irrelevant to your overall standings, and in UKI, you still get a minimum points for just running clean. Another check mark in the pro-UKI column. Kraft's team managed a Q, with a truly spectacular third place relay run. Spy's team also Q'd and Spy was top 8" dog (out of 4, but 2 left and did not stay for relay because they were teamed together and both dogs not running their best all day). It's notable that she managed to do as well as she did, considering she earned us a big fat 0 in gamblers, leaving the ring as soon as I released her. Bad freaking dog! Lunch was being served and apparently it was calling her name. I *did* make the mistake of walking her right by the lunch table right before the run, I had forgotten to bring water with me and was getting dehydrated running both dogs, and I couldn't find any put out, so I went up to whoever was putting out the lunch and asked if they had water. They had to go find it, so I was stuck standing by the food table with a bored dog so I'm sure she had just too much time to plan her escape route to the table whenever she saw the opportunity. But every other run she did all weekend was absolutely perfect, so I can't complain really.
So all in all, some really great runs. Makes me so bummed my camera was in a completely different state. I had wanted to go to Tuesday run throughs at Paws to get it, but every Tuesday morning, the run throughs were cancelled because of snow on Monday. Stupid weather. So ready for winter to be done.
One thing I'm dreading despite the coming warmer weather, I think agility is going to have to go on hold for a while. When Mary moved in last year, I was really struggling financially. Got into some debt after moving in to my house a few years ago that I just haven't been able to clear. Then when she moved in, it should have been an opportunity to clear all that up. Instead, I just trialed more and didn't make as much of a dent as I should have into it. Then I went to California for Cynosports, and pretty much undid all the progress I had made. Put myself on a tight budget when we got back, determined not to put agility ahead of paying off the debt. Then there was Christmas, and my car needed new head gaskets. Which was fine, I was planning on both of those things. But now Mary's moving out. Despite the fact that I think it's a bad idea on her part, it also leaves me in only slightly better of a situation than I was in a year ago. But that budget needed to be revamped, and the most logical thing to get cut is agility. I estimate that if I take about 6 months off, I can get rid of the debt. That's as long as nothing major on my house or car needs replacing. And the exhaust system on my car and the water tank in my basement are both getting ready to need replacing, so that 6 months might be even longer. Sigh. I really wish I didn't have to do this. It's really depressing, but I figure I will be in a much better place to do MORE agility once I don't have to worry about the debt any more. I'm still signing up for things, until the day she moves out. I have trials through the end of March, and seminars in April and May already paid for. I might also enter a few UKI in April, but very up in the air which ones. I had started setting money aside every month since we got back, which was my agility budget, intending to have enough set aside for local trials, and enough extra so that by the fall I'd have enough for a trip to the Open and/or Cynosports. So if I use that up with a little bit more trialing, I'll be stuck in the fall without any money to go. So I don't know really what to do. Ideally, I'd find another doggie room mate, but I just don't think I could get lucky a second time and find someone who I could live with as easily. I've offered it to the incoming interns at work, which could still go badly, but I haven't even heard anything from them, so I'm not hopeful I'll get any one. Worrying about what the heck I'm going to do and how much I'm going to miss agility has made me really grumpy and moody lately. Having Treble has helped, just takes my mind off of everything. I don't have to worry about puppy foundations classes or seminars, or having money whenever he's ready to trial. We just get to play. Don't want to have to give that up.

Feeling Unlucky, aka Winter Blues

It was a tough weekend to be on Facebook. Saturday I was signed up to go to a UKI trial in the morning, then come home in the afternoon to go to work. They were predicting snow overnight Friday night. So when I got up and there was already 3" on the ground and it was still coming down, and the weather people were saying stay home if you can, I just couldn't risk it. Didn't want to get all the way there (an hour away without the snow) and then not be able to get home in a timely manner for work. And really, agility isn't worth sliding across the highway. So I'm glad I wasn't 100% committed to both retiring Marron this spring, or getting her UKI championship, since we just lost a whole trial. She'll get to keep trialing for as long as she wants, and if we can do enough UKI to get that championship, so be it. If not, it's only agility and she really doesn't HAVE to get it to prove to me she was the best damn first agility dog EVER.
So yeah, not getting to go was hard enough. But then seeing the videos from people who did go. Of course I'm happy for them, but it just kills me, kind of a "that was supposed to be ME running that course!" feeling. Yeah, jealous of people who have full weekends off, of people who live nearby locations that are putting on lots of UKI. It was held at Clean Run. That space is awfully small, but it looks like the judge did a great job of utilizing the space to make some really fun courses. I'm entered again this weekend at a trial twice as far away. A full day this time, since I'm off this weekend. We'll see if the weather can cooperate.
On top of that, people announced their status for the Jaako and Janita seminar in NH. Again, wah! Pity party for me! The NH seminar is too far for me to travel to, I'd have to get a hotel and that just isn't in the budget this year. But someone on one of their threads announced that they got into the CT on, which means it opened and probably filled already. Which I expected, I figured it would fill with the instructor's students. But that tiny shred of hope that I might get lucky was shot down. Then with Mary away at a seminar at Kayl's in Canada, training field likely covered in snow until April... definitely feeling like where we are is where we will be for a while. And I don't like where we are.
This is helping:

He loves the TV. I don't know if it was strategic, if she was hinting anything, or if it was just coincidence and she happened across it, but Mary left MEB's Foundation Fundamentals DVD set out and told me to feel free to watch it if I wanted. So that's what I've been doing quite a bit of. Now that training outside is out of the question, if I want to train anything, I have to come up with things that can be done in my tiny basement. I see quite a few things that I can do even with Kraft. Trying to turn all this into a positive, though it's clearly not as much fun as running. Not on the DVD, but the dogs got to play 4 way Crate Games last night. It's still amazing how long one cup of kibble can last even when I'm doling out the treats as rapid fire as I was! A cookie for staying in your crate while I gave another dog a cookie! Dogs were happy though, it was a lot of cookies. A lot of brain work even for ME! Who do I owe a cookie to now again? Whose turn is it to be released? I hope I still see it as this much fun two months from now when it's all we've done.