Goal Setting for 2012

TEAMWORK: I'm finally on a real team!  In a real sport!  And I'm the coach.  Here's my assessment of my team's strengths and weaknesses and goals I'm setting around them:

MAXIE:  Most of Maxies NQ's were only one error short of Q's on his part, or totally my error panicking at the slightest bobble, missing the walkthrough, or getting lost on course. That's not so much of a gap to close next year, so I think with consistent weekly practice and better focus on my part, I can reasonably expect to double the number of QQs next year. This year was 5, so 10 next year seems not too outlandish a goal. 10 trials, 1 QQ per trial. At that rate it will take us 18 months for MACH.

"THINK SNOW": In Lake Charles I was talking with Chip G., a competitor who put a MACH3 on his Papillon, Snow, before retiring her.  He said they did that by trialing every other weekend for a few years, which put them into "a rhythm with a very strong connection" and they hardly ever missed.  Chip noticed that by trialing fewer times a year, the perfect rhythm was lost and QQ'ing was much more difficult.  I seriously doubt I'll EVER go to more than one trial a month, but perhaps as long as we're out on the field practicing twice a week between trials, and short sequences in my yard, I don't see why the team bond won't grow.  But that's me.  I question everything.  Sometimes it pays off, sometimes not.

But this Christmas decoration I've put on my entry table for many years has taken on a whole new meaning this year.  I added 2 Papillon pins, and all next year I'm going to THINK SNOW.

LUCKY LUCY:  My agility goals for Lucky are the same as I had for Maxie last year, her MX and MXJ, and as many QQ's as we can rack up.  She's fairly accurate, but unless a miracle happens and I break the "go slow" code, she won't rack up many MACH points even when she Q's.  But I believe in miracles, especially considering her stride is 4 times longer than Maxie's, she runs like a maniac every day when she feels like it, it's just a question of motivation.  So my underlying goal is to learn how to "transfer value" to agility for her.  (I've never had to do that with Maxie--he's always anxious to take his turn).  Susan Garrett's Puppy Peaks and Recallers courses teach that as a fundamental, and I'm enrolled in both of those, so I should be able to do it.

My other goals for Lucky include finding ways to tap into and exercise her inate "cur" talents -- hunting, herding, chasing stuff, maybe tracking.  I don't want to spread myself too thin.

MICHELE: I'll be NUMBER 1 in my own estimation if I continue taking charge of my health and performance - keep building up my knowledge, skill, stamina, muscle strength, speed, and focus, not expecting it to be given to me effortlessly. A few days ago I took a backward fall and landed hard on my back on our asphalt driveway trying to help John install our new mailbox. 2 years ago I would have been bruised and sore for days, but this time I instinctively rolled like a ball, got up immediately and kept on going. I never got sore.  That's one way I know I'm making progress. I keep running the tape in my mind of the LSU football players whose bodies take such beatings over and over, and they just bounce back uninjured.  I now know this can be trained for.

I know now I can shift from a night owl to an early morning person.  I've made a lot of progress in the latter department over the past 2 years, so much so that I often awaken around 5:30 and am up by 6, and can actually think by around 6:30.  I still don't get dressed until 10:30 or 11.  I do so love paddling around in my PJ's.  But I've proved I CAN make it to the arena by 7:15.  In one case, I was the first competitor there, not counting the course builders who got there around 6 a.m.!

I have a long ways to go, so I can look forward to another year of progress, addressing lots more challenges:

• improve my physical game and handling skills
• improve my mental game
• avoid negatives
• accentuate the positives
• seek out more and wider learning opportunities
• improve my teaching skills, helping other students "get there quicker" than I did
• support the AKC
• learn the ins and outs of running a trial
• Rebuild my dog walk and A-frame
• find a way to afford a motor home
• master my video taking and editing skills
• build an "agility armoire" to house all my dog training/trialing paraphranalia and still look good in the den
• make some more agility friends, and be a better friend
• I plan to be less involved with dog club politics in 2012, more focused on my own training/competing.  Still, I can't help but hope the Red Stick Agility arm of our dog club whips itself into some sort of team spirit.  I've heard we had that when we first pulled the field together. We each train/compete individually but still have a lot in common, sharing a jewel of a field, fully equipped, similar goals, and showing up at many of the same trials. It's another lesson I'm learning from LSU football -- the players do much better when they pull together, which I'm also learning depends on having a great leader (coach).

The ball is rolling. On top of all that, I have to be thinking of my Mom and Dad's health and living situations (he's recently diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and is in rehab with a broken hip).  Both in their 90's and living far away, we'll see where 2012 takes us on that.

Upwards and onward!

Now I Like Football. WHY???

LSU/Alabama Game

Everyone knows I have NEVER liked football. Mostly because my Dad made our whole family miserable as he simultaneously watched on TV and listened on the radio to EVERY football game he could get near.  Sometimes he had 2 TV's stacked on top of each other watching 2 different games, then listening to another one on the radio, while his guests went unnoticed.  When you picked him up at the airport for a rare family visit, or he met you at the airport, all he wanted was to get to a TV screen.  Couldn't even say Hello first.  And, he'd get irate and grumble if anyone talked or blocked the screen so he missed a play, or, if he appeared to be sleeping and Mom turned the volume down.  It never ended.  There was always another game.  If not football, then baseball, as though he were playing the games himself.  All of which scared me silly as a girl, and disgusted me as an adult. While his 3 boys were in college over a 10 year span, Dad had season tickets to all the home Tulane and LSU football games.  We would drive the 200 miles round trip from Slidell nearly every weekend to attend the games.  I sat with him and Mom in the stands, often surrounded by drunken, screaming louts, and Dad yelling at them to "si-down".  By the time I went to LSU, he and Mom had mercifully moved to Florida.

It was not a festive atmosphere, so as soon as I could get away from that oppression, I did.  My student ticket went un-used. I never tailgated, never married nor ever dated, nor ever even hung out with any friends or acquaintances who were football fanatics.  To this day, I steer clear of sports fanatics.

HOWEVER, now that I'm trying to develop a few piddlin' skills as a dog agility handler - like running for a minute without panting, executing front crosses without twisting an ankle, trying to commit handling moves to muscle memory, not lose my focus at every distraction, pick up my feet when I sprint, put a little speed on when I run, I've come to notice, to appreciate how the players can twist and turn and stay in an explosive game for 2 hours without collapsing, how they seem to know where the ball is and which direction to run in amidst the blur of human flesh, how they fling themselves through space with 100% resolve, arms and legs flailing, land with a horrific thud, and get right back up like an inflated punching doll.  How 6 giants can pile on top of a 7th one, and he doesn't come out flat as a pancake with 12 broken bones.

How do they do that?  It's begun to intrigue me.  Besides innate talent, testosterone, macho, and team pride, it's clear to me now that there's a whole, whole, whole bunch of training going on, as in this video of the daily training schedule posted in the LSU Atheletic Department's website.  Agility students will recognize the laddar.  Yes, our novice dogs do laddar training for "rear leg awareness", but our handlers don't!  We barely address the moves required of our "handling skills", certainly never by rote like football players do, much less "handler fitness".  We don't even warm up before our runs.

It's inspires me to contemplate that football players can't play at all, much less win, without constant training.  I have begun to marvel at their dedication. And then, there's the development of their mental game, learning to adjust instantaneously to constantly changing scenarios, rude jeers and taunting, without getting disoriented or shook up.  I take heart that these skills can all be learned.  It's marvelous, really.

LSU intersepts Alabama's
ball on the 1 yard line.

With my new-found perspective, I'm beginning to enjoy watching football, especially with friends, especially the "great plays" like this one at last weekend's LSU/Alabama game.  Whew, that was something!  I'm not to the point of insanity.  I don't stoop to rudeness (though I might choose not to attend a party at a home without a large HD TV).  I don't care that much who wins (except for LSU), so long as the uniforms are attractive, the cameras catch great video and show lots of instant replays.  I won't be bringing my wireless to an agility trial and listen to a game in between all my runs, nor cruize the arena looking for anybody who knows the current score, like some agility competitors do.  But I've begun to appreciate a good game once in awhile, and especially a spectacular play, even if the people around me are gasping and screeching, cussing the coaches, referree's or players, and in some cases, all blotch faced and crying.

I've also come to realize that football fanatacism is a prevelant disease -- so I've more or less forgiven my Dad for his addiction.  Why, Naylors Hardware practically threw me out last Saturday at 4 p.m. as I was choosing my lettuce plants.  They were closing 2 hours early for the game.

Yes, I've come a long way. And that's another Upwards and Onward for me.

GEAUX TIGERS!