Puppy Recalls and Tug Training

PUPPY RECALLS:  Per the video below, it's easy to train a very young puppy to do a reliable recall.  I start with 10 Cheerios, wait until the dog is away, then call "Dogs Name, Come", while holding out the Cheerio where they can see it.  When they come to my extended hand, I give the treat.  Then, no more treats until they go away again.    At first they offer other behaviors, but quickly catch on they have to "go away" before you will call them back for a treat.

After this is working well, vary it up by extending an empty hand, eventually not even extending a hand.  Just call "Winston, come".  After they come, immediately reach for the cookie and give it.  They quickly learn to hang around for the treat without seeing a treat, or a hand.  After awhile, they learn to stay at your side while you walk over to get a treat somewhere else, like on top of the TV.

Vary the locations for this training, indoors, outdoors, from across the yard, from another room.  Eventually you just keep a pocketful of treats handy, and do a single recall, several times a day.  Maxie, my 3.5 year old Papillion, now routinely runs to the far side of our yard, sits looking at me, waiting to be called.  Sometimes I call.  Sometimes I don't.  Sometimes I treat.  Sometimes I don't.  It amazes me how much mileage I can get out of just the hope of getting a plain old Cheerio. A cheap treat, low cal, and dissolves down to nothing.

DESENSITIZING PUPPIES:  Working Recalls is a good time to also be desensitizing a puppy to being petted, fondled, squeezed, grabbed in various places, etc.  Papillons especially can become a bit skittish and snappy if not accustomed to lots of varied handling.  With proper training, they can be handed off to just about anyone, lunged at by children, poked and prodded, etc., without excessive fear.

TUGGING PRACTICE:
Tugging is fun, bonding, and great conditioning exercise, especially good for developing strong neck, shoulder and back leg muscles, but it is also an important motivational tool in agility for getting the dog warmed up, revved up, focused on you, and ready to run a course with enthusiasm.  As much as possible, owners should encourage their puppies to tug. One very cheap tug toy for small dogs is a knee-high stocking.  You can buy a pack of 12 of these at Dollar General for just a few bucks, and each one lasts through several 5 minute sessions.  They tuck neatly into a pocket without any bulk, stretch far out, give good resistance, then recoil back to you when the dog lets go.  Here's Winston doing this exercise with me.  Notice how he loses interest when I let go, indicating he is really playing with ME, not with the toy, which is the case with most dogs.

NOTE:  I am partially taking these videos of Winston because I don't have any videos of Maxie at this age, and I want to track how Papillon's develop, when their feathers start filling out, how their features and markings change.  Thus the comments on Winston's tail, nose, ears, etc.  I am sorry to have missed Maxie's early development. I might have one old YouTube video of him playing with FoohFooh.  I'll look that up tomorrow.

Upwards and onward!

Mother's Day Weekend Surprises!



Michele and Winston (5.5 months old)

 As I reported at the beginning of this blog, I didn't get Maxie until he was 6 months old, so I missed out on his early puppyhood.  I've been making up for that now, thanks to my cousin Lois's gift of two 8 week old Papillon puppies to raise and/or sell back in January, and by staying in touch with their new owners I am able to learn more about Papillon puppy development, how fast they grow, how smart they are, when their feathers fill in, temperament, training, etc.

The first surprise?  Kathy called me Friday morning asking if I would keep Winston over the weekend.  Her husband offered her a Mother's Day weekend getaway but the hotel didn't take dogs.  I had told both new owners I would  puppy sit "any time", and suddenly, it was time.  I leaped at the chance provided I could take Winston with me while I managed the Crawfish Boil on Saturday (previous post).  She said yes, I made a few adjustments to manage a puppy (set up the Xpen outside, put up a baby gate at the kitchen, put newspaper in Lucky's big crate where the puppy could spend the night, and a dog crate in the car), and within a few hours, I was a puppy mom again!

Winston at 9 weeks.

Winston (previously "Roku") seemed to remember us and all our dogs, and was properly indignant when fenced off in the kitchen or Xpen.  I quickly became confident to set him free, and he just ran with the pack like he had never left our house. They seemed to remember him, too.  WOW!  This brought back so many memories of Maxie's first weeks here.  I forgot how full of "piss and vinegar" little puppies are!

Knowing he would be picked up Sunday afternoon, I spent my Mother's Day morning doing a bit of puppy training and taking videos of Winston while I had the chance.  More on that in the next post.

Second surprise?  Nathan and Allison came over around 4 p.m. with a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a tub of goose pate, and a lovely card.  I got to download Allison's ivideos of Jonathan's wrestling matches, which I uploaded to my family web album here.

Third surprise?  I called Jonathan and actually got him live, and we had a lovely chat.  He says he looks forward to seeing me this summer.  Boy, I am so looking forward to seeing him, though I have no idea what to do with a teenager.  He says "Just feed me.", but I think we'll take him to Avery Island, some plantation tours, maybe camping on a river somewhere. The phone book, I recently discovered, has a long list of tourist sites I've never even heard of.  We'll work that page over.  Sounds like a plan.

Okay, so now to post the training videos . . . . . . .



LCCOC Crawfish Boil/Mother's Day

Nedra's back yard, with ample shade.

 My dog club held its Annual Crawfish Boil/Family Picnic on Mothers Day Saturday, and this worked out perfect for me in every way.

40 people attended, the weather was awesome, I got to eat my favorite food -- boiled crawfish -- and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Thankfully, it was in Nedra's back yard, so I didn't have to spiff up my house or yard ahead of time, nor clean it up afterwards.  How did I love this day?  Let me count the ways.

John

• First, John's Mother's Day gift to me was to take Saturday off from work and help me put the event together, and to boil 100 lbs of crawfish (3 sacks) in our 60 quart pot while the rest of us ate and socialized.  It was a gift only he could give, and my favorite kind of present in this world.  What a guy!
• Second, I got to eat all the crawfish I wanted, seasoned to my own taste (not too salty nor so highly seasoned they singe your fingertips).
• Third, I got to spend some quality time with Nathan and Allison (my son and his wife) on Saturday, partaking of good food together, then freeing them up to spend time with Allison's Mom on Sunday without rushing around. This worked out perfect for us all.
• Fourth, I got to spend some quality time with Audrey (my sister-in-law) so we could celebrate our Mothers Day together (she works on Sundays), and we got to eat crawfish together (our favorite food).
• Fifth, the weather was gorgeous and I prefer being outdoors whenever possible.




Allison, Nathan and Winston


• Sixth, I was dog sitting for the weekend with Winston, one of the Papillon pups I recently sold, and got to show him off to everyone.  He was passed around, kissed often, kissed back, and seemed to have a blast.
• Seventh, I invited Laura to serve as our DJ with her iTunes playlist all worked out for parties, and her daughter Portia to watch over the puppy.  Portia is a natural with dogs and I wanted to introduce both of them to our club. Another mission accomplished.

Everyone seemed to have a grand time, and I've posted the party pix  here.

Winston and Portia

Next, I'll blog about Winston's surprise Mother's Day weekend visit and the videos I took of him.  What a joy!  I spent Mother's Day, while John was at work, fiddling with Winston and my new video editing program.  Another spoonful of joy!

Upwards and onward!

Weave Relays

Weave Relays are a great way to build a dog's muscle memory for running the weaves at top speed, and I try and put both of my dogs thru this exercise at least once a week.  It's a lot of fun and gets them all revved up.

So, here's 2 videos, one of Maxie doing Weave Relays With 2 Trainers, then another of Lucky doing Weave Relays With 1 Trainer.  Maxie's 2 step is perfect for his small size.  Lucky, a larger dog, has also chosen to be a 2-stepper, which is fine by me. In the interests of time and file size, I cut out about half of the repetitions from these videos, but they do not tire from 10 to 20 reps.  They are actually disappointed and fuss at me when I say "Game Over".  My dogs stay interested because there is food involved.  I don't give a treat every single pass, but most of the time I do.

Trainers at both ends should stand back several feet from the opening, and change their position along a left/right line, so their "send" is given from different spots and the dog has to enter from a variety of angles.  If the dog messes up, don't give a treat, just send them back through for another chance to earn a cookie.  After they catch on, you don't even need to send them.  They just go.  And go.  And go.

2 TRAINERS

ONE TRAINER:

 

Not shown in the video, this exercise should be handled from both sides of the weaves, and as the dog's love of weaving increases, introduce a jump before and after, etc.

Speed It Up
This same relay game can be played with 1 or 2 trainers over the dog walk, the A-frame, a tunnel, a jump-tunnel-jump configuration in a straight or curved line.  Even puppies catch on quickly to this game.  I call it "Speed It Up".  One day, I'll create videos of these:
Dog Walk Relays
A-Frame Relays
Tunnel Relays

Upwards and onward!

Jump Wraps

There are many ways to perform a sequence, as evidenced by this "Jump Wraps" video put together by Steve Schwarz.  The video also demonstrates how it's always important to "have the dog's head", holding onto that "psychic leash" I blogged about last fall, which became the basis for my Handling Fundamentals class. You can almost see the leash in this video.

Steve can back wave his dog over a jump while facing the other direction, and he's not afraid of the blind cross either.  Furthermore, he shows that even a border collie can be made to collect, to run at a measured pace rather than full out, using closely placed obstacles and short sequences.

Check this out:



Exercise 1.  I set the first sequence up at my Wednesday night Intermediate Beginners class, thinking to further train all the various maneuvers, but it never got traction.  Not sure why.  We moved on to running segments of an Excellent jumpers course, because it seems students at the lower levels want to run and have fun with their dogs more than they want to train specific handling skills, do their flatwork, etc.  My fear is that bad habits develop this way which can wreck havoc later on if they decide to compete.  It's hard to strike a proper balance in a 1 hour class.

So, I've decided to share this video and blog post with my students, maybe inspire and encourage them to set up these sequences in their own yards and practice on their own time. Most of them have some jumps and weave poles at home, and they can substitute another jump for the tunnel.  There are 7 different handling maneuvers in Exercise 1.  If they did 10 minutes a day without a dog, then 10 minutes with a dog, in no time they would be experts and having more fun pursuing titles than they can even imagine right now.

Upwards and onward!

Brandon Trial - Sat Sun

Maxie, 4 runs, 3 Q's (XJ 2nd place, XS 1st place, XJ 2nd place), 1 QQ, 42 MACH Points
Lucky, 4 runs, 1 Q (XS 2nd place)
Videos are posted (see links right column).

Maxie, Lucky, Willow and I attended my 5th trial for 2011, in Brandon, MS this past Easter weekend. The mood was festive and several ladies wore Easter garb between their runs and told stories of previous Easter trials and how they've decorated their bonnets over the years.

Pulling out of BR around noon Friday, I heard a thunk under the left front wheel about half a mile down the road and the car began pulling hard to the right. I turned around and went home, called Sherwood Car Care and they said bring it in. I offloaded the dogs, went, they put her on the rack and said "don't drive her out of town". So I went home and unpacked my Grand Marquis with its clean windshields and ashtray, dusted floormats, filled tires, and full gastank into John's Grand Marquis, with its dirty windshields, un-checked tires, littered floor, and half a tank of gas, and made it to Brandon 2.5 hours later than I expected. I refused to interpret this as a bad omen. I had a second chariot, after all, and had built in a 4 hour cushion for unseen circumstances.  I do that these days because I can't take rushing any more, and because at my age there should be "no surprise to surprises".  It all worked out.


Lucky's crate left, Willow and Maxie's right,
With cooler, duffle bag, a tray for my table, and chairs arranged
on my 5x7' brown carpet, that's our little weekend home, tightly
squeezed in amidst a sea of others.

I set up my crate space on Friday, then went to the hotel to offload, then Nedra and I went to an early dinner at a fried Catfish shack a few blocks away. $8  Delicious! Mark Ostrich joined us so we learned more about his training and dog club activities in New Orleans. It made me appreciate our club having a field of its own, regular classes, a core of willing instructors, and 24/7 field privileges for qualified students.

Fewer of our club members (Nedra, Kay, Loralie, Tracey, Sandy and me) showed up at the trial due to it being Easter weekend, not the usual gang that hangs together.  With various personalities missing the dynamic was different, which I found interesting. 

Also, the trial was smaller, the days ended by 3 p.m., so everyone was willing to hang around for the last runs of our Open and Novice dogs (Lucky, Trea and Toozie). Since Toozie was the last dog to run on Sunday, Kay kept telling me I didn't have to stay, she understood we wanted to get on the road, etc.  Which gave me the opportunity to explain to her I really truly don't want to miss any of our "doggie debuts".  I find them thrilling, even more so when I contemplate comparing them to videos of these teams 3 years from now.  As in "from this tiny acorn a giant oak grew". Or, "from this wild unrully unfocused dog a highly coordinated champion emerged."  And equally, "from this gangly, eratic, confused student a competent, graceful, sure-footed handler metamorphosized!"  It doesn't happen overnight.  Newbies need to know that.  I need to keep reminding myself, so I don't get discouraged.
Gas prices, $3.65/gallon, make these agility trials more expensive! It took $55 to fill up my tank and I heard many people talking about laying off of trialing for awhile.

Trial Site Summary: (see Trial Site Summaries link, right column)

Our Runs:
The runs all weekend were Small to Tall, so Maxie was the 4th dog to run each morning. I had to be there by 7:15 a.m. to settle in, which was not a problem -- for the first time I felt totally alert. I was able to memorize the courses quickly, without maps, and didn't feel nervous on my turn. Maybe I've finally got the "early morning" issue resolved: Lights out by 10:30. Take half a sleeping pill. Get up at 5:30, plenty of time to do my morning rituals without rushing.

Maxie: When I'm sure of where I'm going on course, Maxie follows pretty well.  There were no great challenges.  He made good time, as evidenced by his 42 MACH points, i.e. 42 seconds under SCTs (Standard Course Times), an average of 10 seconds under SCT per run.

Lucky: Can't say the same for Lucky.  On Saturday she was running fast, jumping low, and I was sometimes handling at a distance!  She hopped thru the weaves, too, never popped out.  Even at that, she was from 1 second under SCT to 5 seconds under SCT.  On Sunday she ran some, loped some, and walked some, resulting in running 2 seconds over and 9 seconds over SCT.  This is way too close, even at her best.  She HAS TO RUN FASTER and MAKE TIGHTER TURNS. PERIOD!

Both dogs' weaves were faster with the daily practice I've been putting them through at home, tossing treats ahead as Maxie exits the last pole, throwing a tug toy for Lucky, building drive and muscle memory.  I followed through with my plan not to "dread" the weaves, to just put them in and trust them to take every pole, kept my distance. But this needs improvement and broke down once as Lucky came to a stop at pole 10 and almost lost her Q.  I reached in psychically and pulled her nose through to the finish.  It was by a thread that she Q'd.  By a thread.  The audience sighed relief when she made it through. And Maxie popped out at weave 10 on his first Sunday run, then ran the first 6 and walked the rest on another run. The videos will show me what I was doing wrong.  My dogs can weave fast.

Lucky's jump chute training is paying off already, after just a few reps. She jumped lower and broader and ran faster, though not consistently. Still, I was pummelled rather brutally (just after her Q on Saturday - odd damn time to pummell someone) for not cheering her on, that she looks tired and uninspired in the ring. I raced back to the hotel, even skipped dinner, to check the videos of how uninspired my dog is, and found the observations were exaggerated. Other than still yelling "over" at every jump (i.e., I still don't trust my dogs to automatically take what's next in the sequence), I cheer them on no more or less than most people including my critic (excepting Tracey, the cheerleadingest person at every trial). Good lord, I'm so busy concentrating on finding the next obstacle, picking up my feet, not falling on my face, etc., it's all I can do to say "here", "over", "come on".  Lucky isn't unhappy, she just has that hang-dog look, and running agility for her mamma is NOT her greatest thrill in life.  It's mine!  But then, playing fetch and tugging with her for hours is NOT my greatest thrill in life.  It's hers! So we trade favors.  She runs like a maniac if she isn't hot or tired, and if I have a tug toy in my hand.

Lessons Learned:

• People's observations aren't necessarily accurate. They don't know all the factors being dealt with.   A woman who seems to run like a clutz might well be a polio victim who was told she could never walk!  Then "look at that clutz" becomes "wow, look at her run."
• The "butt push".  One lady's dog took the wrong end of the tunnel when she pointed to the correct end with her arm, but bent over in such a way that her butt was pushing to the path of the other end.  Dog ran behind her behind and took the other entrance.  I couldn't believe it when, discussing this with Nedra, she called it "the butt push" and said she had been warned against this at a seminar!

Goals:

• I'm tired of "barely got that Q" runs.  I want flawless Q's.
• Lucky didn't get her Open Jumpers Title. No problem. Next time.
• Lucky needs to run faster -- keep up the jump chutes and weave pole practice. Get her involved in Lure Coursing.
• More practice on rear crosses.  Too many push offs and near push offs witnessed and experienced.
• 3 more XJ Q's for Maxie's MXJ title
• 5 more XS Q's for Maxie's MX title
• 3 more 2Q's (at least) for Maxie by October, making a total of 6, qualifying us for an invitation to AKC Nationals, leaving 14 for next year.
• Sign up for the next trial.  Monroe?  Birmingham?  Definitely not Galveston, which is unairconditioned and will be hot.
• More practice on front crosses.  I don't do them, but need to.
• Get the LCCOC crawfish boil organized for Mother's Day weekend.
• Plan next session of classes for Intermediate Beginners.  Nice group of novice competitors developing there.

With all the videos I'm taking, last week I conceived the idea of putting together an e-book called "What Can Go Wrong In The Ring", with hundreds of snippets.  I ran the idea by a few people, who liked it. All I need is a good video editing program.  Still haven't found it.

Upwards and onward!

Jump Chutes (Continued)

Lucky takes the 5th jump in the chute.

I first discovered and blogged about Jump Chutes last year, tried to measure my dogs to see what "body type" they are, and of course, mine don't remotely fit the 4 types described in The Clothier Natural Jumping Method, so all the charts Susan Clothier gives about calculating your dog's stride and how far apart to set the jumps to train proper jumping style were pretty much down the toilet. I played with it awhile then got discouraged.

Lately I've set up a few jump chutes for my students, including Lucky, and today I am revisiting the book, setting up my video camera and trying to determine how Lucky really jumps. She jumps so high, I would like to teach her to jump lower, which should improve her course time on competitive runs.

Stride is briefly defined as the distance between one takeoff point and the next takeoff point, and is ideally, according to Clothier, Body Length x 3.

Bounce is briefly defined as taking no strides between jumps, dog just lands between jumps and immediately bounces over the next jump, supposed to be Body Length x 2.

I took Lucky's measurements again: 22" long, 20" high, 11" ground to elbow.
If I take the closest ratios Susan gives for those dimensions, Lucky is:
a rectangular dog, elbow at 11" from ground, which is greater than 1/2 her height at withers.
Lucky's Stride is supposed to be, more or less, 22"x3, or 66", or 5.5 feet.
Lucky's Bounce is supposed to be, more or less, 22" x 2, or 44", or 3.6 feet.
(with different body styles, you might have to add + 1/3 to body length to get the right footage).

With this intel, I should set 5 jumps in a straight line, 2 strides apart, or 11' for Lucky.
Lucky bounces over 5 20" high jumps set at 8' apart, and has to work to slow down and collect between jumps. So did all my students' dogs. Same at 9' apart. At 11' apart, Lucky easily bounces over each jump but still holds power in reserve. Trying to determine when she would begin taking a stride between jumps, I moved them to 12' apart. She still clears them in a single bounce, but she jumps with much less clearance than the foot or so she usually clears her jumps, which I caught on video today. The first time, she knocked 2 bars, the rest of the runs she nailed them all perfectly, which indicates she learns as she goes, and has at least a 12' extended bounce stride, which is 6.5 x her body length. WOW! This video was her 3rd pass, with a little tugging reward at the end. In it, she shows just the right amount of clearance for efficiency and speed without knocking bars, and jumps very rhythmically. She covered 60 foot of ground in about 4 seconds/about 5 YPS.  In her 6 competition Jumpers runs to date, she is averaging about 3.4 YPS.

Aside: How stupid of me to be training in my wooden clogs. I can barely walk!  Could easily twist an ankle! Yet I was too lazy to go put on my tennies for just 10 minutes of training. Shame on me.




After a few weeks of this, I am to add "oxers" (double bar jumps), which is supposed to cause her to put a stride in between, improving her "impulsion".  I still don't know her capacity and probably, neither does she.  (NOTE: Susan recommends training jump chutes no more than 3 days a week, 3 reps, 2 times, with a 10 minute break in between, so this will take awhile to find out.

Upwards and onward,

Excel Spreadsheet for Agility Competition Records

Maxie clears the 8" tripple
on a beautiful QQ day.
Photo by Michael Loftis

Finding myself far behind in hand copying Maxie's records into his Agility Competition Recordbook, and realizing I need a second book for Lucky, and I'm doing more trials this year than last, I decided to scratch that inefficient, labor-intensive plan.  Besides which, it doesn't calculate.   Instead, I've been working on an Excel Spreadsheet to more easily keep track of all their runs, including all the stats.  It's taken me 3 days to scrounge up all the ribbons with their sticky tags on the back, find all the emails reporting my Trial Results and the photos I've taken at the trials of my "unofficial results" (which contain important fault data), etc., get them in chronological order and compile all this info into one place, plus devise formulas to let the program calculate things like Yards Per Second, Seconds over/under Course Time, etc.

Is my dog running faster now than last year?  Faster in cold weather? Does the score reported to AKC tally with the info given (it doesn't always, I've notice!  Those who tally the data make mistakes.) There's a place for such comments in the right column of each run.

Here's a tiny pic below of Page 1 so you can see the layout.  It prints on an 8.5 x 11 sheet.  Blogger doesn't allow me to upload a .pdf file at this point, in full size. I wrote them about that.

If anyone wants this form, let me know and I can customize a spreadsheet for your dog (Dog's name, typical # of runs per trial, etc.).  It would take me a few hours, so about $30 to work it out and email it to you.  All you need is Excel 2007 or higher on your computer to open and use the file, but you may have to further customize for each additional dog, so some familiarity with Excel is probably necessary. 

Or, for free, I can send you a blank page, headings only, and you can fill it in by hand, which is still labor intensive but far less so than flipping pages in the Agility Competition Recordbood.  And, you get to see your dog's career, Q's and Titles spread out on one page.  It's neat.  Just email me your request.

Upwards and onward!

Port Allen Agility Trial

Maxie: 6 XB runs, 3 Q's, 1QQ, 1 1st place, 1 2nd place, 1 3rd place, 38 MACH points
Lucky: 6 Open runs, 5 Q's, 4 1st places, 1 2nd place, Earned her OA Title

John drills the weave nails into place, while Anna, his
assistant, reads the Course Builder's map.

The Port Allen trial was put on by our local dog club, so there was a lot of work involved in addition to running my 2 dogs.  John took 2 days vacation, initially to help me video our dogs, plus he volunteered to drive the U-Haul on Thursday morning and Sunday night to and from the arena to our field, and be an Assistant Course Builder. But he ended up having to step in as Course Builder some of the time, with almost no experience, because our scheduled Course Builder had his dog die over the weekend and could not attend all the sessions. John worked his butt off the whole 4 days, I mean worked, sweated, figured his way through 9 course changes per day, and worked, which earned him lots of kudos He came home dog tired every night, bathed, ate a bite, and went straight to bed with the alarm set at 5:00 so he could be at the arena for 6:30 each morning.  He toughed it through and learned a lot, and maybe has found his niche in the club and in the sport. I'm sure he will be called on again.  When asked if he would volunteer for next year, he said "I know better than to ever volunteer. But my wife volunteers me anyway." He may say that, but he is usually happy to help and proud of his volunteer efforts.

Only 6 helpers showed up to unload, with John
deep in the truck, handing stuff out,
sweating like a pig.

Preparing for the Thursday match and Fri/Sat/Sun trial included securing the location, washing and re-labeling all the equipment, repairing 4 sets of number cones (my job), loading and unloading the U-Haul, organizing people to help with all this, etc.  Of course the job of Trial Secretary and Gate Steward were enormous and continuous and how Nedra and Georgie also run their dogs I have no idea. There was also the job of organizing food and icing down beverages for the workers all 4 days, which Sheryl did very well.  I'm not sure what the Trial Chairman did.

My self appointed job of videoing as many of our club's teams as possible for our club's web album, was all shot to hell with me running 2 dogs, in 2 classes.  Seems I was always missing someone because I was prepping my own dog to run, or Gate Keeping.  I barely managed to get my own dogs filmed (letting John know when to video us), and catch all the newbies as they are the ones who seem most anxious to see how they did.  When Lucky moves up to Excellent Class (and I'm only 1 Q away in Jumpers), I'll only have 2 courses to walk and memorize, then I should have an easier time of it.

Two nice surprises:  Nathan and Allison came to see Maxie run on Saturday morning, and Audrey showed up Saturday afternoon and caught a Lucky run, and one of Maxie's too, and all 3 of those runs were Q's.  They brought me luck!

Milestones:

• For the first time, I didn't need the course maps!  I walked the courses early, found them easy to memorize within about 5 passes, recognized the patterns more quickly than ever before.  It's true what Susan Garrett says, course memorization skills do improve!  I did the visualizations she taught me, and they were very effective.  More than ever, my dogs seemed confident I knew where I was going, and they followed along, resulting in a lot more Q's.  I also benefitted from the Handling Fundamentals course I've been teaching, doing my own flatwork homework, so my handling was a bit smoother.  Not perfect, but improving.  And, there was so little difference between the Excellent and Open courses, by the time I had memorized one, the other one was easy.

Lessons Learned:

• Move Up Deadlines: If your dog titles at a trial, be sure and get your Move Up request into the next Trial Secretary as soon as possible.  We titled on Sunday in Amite, I unpacked on Monday, and I waited until Tuesday to move Lucky up to Open for our club's trial the next weekend. Alas, Tuesday was one day past the Move Up deadline.  Nedra, bless her, did me a favor and moved her up, because I didn't know there was a deadline.  She said "Read The Fine Print"!  Of course, I hadn't.
• Never curse in the ring.  I didn't realize it, but on Lucky's last run I said "SHIT" when she ran right up to a jump then stopped and I almost tripped over her trying to rear cross.  The judge called me over afterwards to advise she could have taken my Q away, but would be lenient this time.  We NQ'd anyway, because while Lucky had only 1 refusal fault, she exceeded course time by 13 seconds, strolling through those weaves. 100 - 5 - 13 = 82 (takes 85 points to qualify) in Open.
• Time to focus on speed and weaves.  Both Maxie and Lucky can race through the weaves, but at trials they barely walk through.  Why?  Don't know.  Gotta fix that.  They each lose precious seconds in the weaves, and with the loss of rhythm Maxie often pops out.  Could this be because I anticipate a problem with weaves, slow down and babysit them through it?
• Pick up your ribbons, stickers and toys as soon as possible after the last dog runs.  The trial crew packs up and goes home as soon as they can, so if you shilly shally, you may not get these items.

TRIAL SITE SUMMARY:
The Port Allen arena is wonderful.  Much better than the Parker Collisium!  I posted a short video tour and description on the Trial Sites Summary page.

GOALS:

• Lucky's OAJ title in Brandon.  Only 1 more leg needed.
• Lucky's Excellent Titles, only 6 Q's needed, 3 each in AX and AXJ.  We can concievably do this within 2 more trials.
• Another QQ for Maxie, in Brandon, and more than 50% Q'ing average.
• Perfect the weaves with both Maxie and Lucky.  Work on speed.
• Keep practicing how to run.
• Keep building my stamina
• Keep reducing my packing.  I still bring too much.

THINGS TO DO:

• Move Lucky up to Excellent Standard for the Brandon trial.
• Fix my red wagon (new cotter pin on wheel, weld the cross bar back on).
• Upload videos.
• Toss around the idea of a blog post on "Things That Can Go Wrong In The Ring".  Ask Michael Loftis to photograph the 'oops' moments: refusals, wrong courses, sniffing, stalling, stopping, cross behinds, etc.
• Interview Nedra on what the Trial Secretary does, start to finish.  Sit with her and make a list, which she has agreed to do. Post in our club docs, in case anyone else wants to learn the job.

MAXIE'S SCORES:
Friday:
JWW EXC B  Not Qualified   Yards: 133   SCT: 44   Time: 41.5   Score: 0
STD EXC B  Qualified   Place: 1   Yards: 165   SCT: 71   Time: 59.79   Score: 100
Saturday:
JWW EXC B  Qualified   Place: 3  Yards: 148   SCT: 49  Time: 42.54   Score: 100
STD EXC B Qualified   Place: 2   Yards: 168   SCT: 72   Time: 64.22   Score: 100
Sunday:
STD EXC B  Not Qualified  Yards: 163  SCT: 70  Time: 70.29   Score: 0
JWW EXC B  Not Qualified  Yards: 146   SCT: 48  Time: 48.01  Score: 0 

LUCKY'S SCORES:
Friday:
JWW OPEN Qualified Place: 1 Yards: 129 SCT: 37 Time: 39.34 Score: 96
STD OPEN Qualified Place: 2 Yards: 156 SCT: 64 Time: 63.56 Score: 100
Saturday:
JWW OPEN Qualified Place: 1 Yards: 124 SCT: 35 Time: 42.26 Score: 86
STD OPEN Qualified Place: 1 Yards: 156 SCT: 64 Time: 69.95 Score: 90
Sunday:
STD OPEN Qualified Place: 1 Yards: 143 SCT: 59 Time: 56.55 Score: 100
JWW OPEN Not Qualified Yards: 125 SCT: 36 Time: 48.71 1 Refusal Score: 0 (actually 82)

Home on Sunday, long hot soak in the tub, dinner, fall into bed.  Next day, John off to work at 5:45 a.m., me play catch up on house work, emails, wash and groom the dogs, then out to the field to help set up courses for practice all this week.

Upwards and onward!

Tight Turns and Collection

I teach the Post Turn and the Pull Through in my Handling Fundamentals For Beginners class, basically how to get your dog to go over, then wrap around, a jump, either on your same side (Post Turn, or ending up on your opposite side (Pull Through).  After watching videos of many dogs' trialing runs, their wide turns and wasted time on both of these techniques, I became intensely interested in learning to teach Tighter Turns and better Collection.  I found this video, by Steve Schwarz, The Agility Nerd, on YouTube, and I offer it to all my agility friends and students.

This video shows several more variations on that theme, Blind Cross Pull Through, Scoop, etc. -- plus how a seasoned dog trainer uses a tug toy to inspire their dog.  Steve always inspires me because I am also very interested in looking less like an elephant on course.  Steve is incredibly smooth, with minimalist movements.  Watch, and learn.



Roundways and sideways, upwards and onward!